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Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Story Problem
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his latest Star Wars: The Old Republic column, MMORPG.com Community Manager Michael Bitton expresses some concerns about the game's story. Bioware is known as THE storytelling game maker and Mike wonders whether the ambitious story for SWTOR will diminish the overall player experience. Read Mike's thoughts and then add your own on our forums!
When rumblings of a new Star Wars MMO by the renowned RPG makers at Bioware were still in their earliest days I couldn’t help but find myself excited as the prospect of an MMORPG made by Bioware, especially one based on the Star Wars IP. However, I wasn’t really ever expecting them to take a literal approach with the KOTOR formula to the game. Instead, I expected a new MMO based on the MMO designs of the past with a few new twists and that Bioware touch that’s made their games stand-out against other non-MMO RPGs for over a decade.
Read more SWTOR: The Story Problem.
Comments
even though I didn't bother to read all this. I did skim through it,
Story is the driving force behind this game, and probably one of the best parts about it. If you don't like story than maybe reconsider playing it?
I don't care about a single player sequal. This is a MMO game with an engaging story line. The difference in single player Kotor and MMO kotor is just the fact I cannot play with thousands of other people.
This is the perfect setting for this game and could be a risky experiment at trying to bring a quality MMO to the market.
Time to stop whining about it and start thanking bioware for taking these kinds of risks to bring you an enjoyable game, instead of half assed throwing something together and forgetting about story.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
In my personal opinion and preference...
Story is important in an MMO, but moreso from a meta perspective. The world should be rich with lore. It should have a thorough history, intriguing faction interaction, the 'good guys', the 'bad guys', all with believable motivations for their actions... and of course believable actions.
The story in an MMO should not dictate what a player's character must and must not do along a linear story. They should be given options to 'play along' with small 'stories' in the game (aka quests), but they should not be towed along a chain where they basically have to jump through the hoops (even if there are "options") in order to advance. This kills character development from the player's perspective by putting their character's development on rails.
It sounds more and more to me like Bioware should have just made SWTOR a single player game, with multiplayer capabilities...
Besides, we all know how much players would love a decent RPG engine and toolkit from Bioware since NWN.
I don't see how this is a issue. There are many MMOs who limit races/classes. There is only so many races they can add to a game and I don't think they have announced all the playable races.
In Bioware we trust!
I agree with your post. And yes, it is too early to tell. I will not be paying a subscription to play KotoR 3,4,5,and 6.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
What you describe though is every other MMO out there on the market. A straight story with no options and your character is steamrolled though a specific story written for you by the game designers. Even random quests add to the overall feel of the games story which is true even in WoW.
There are numerous choices you can make when completing quests in SWTOR. This means the players have a direct input on how they progress with their characters. You can't say its on rails since every other MMO that is quest driven only gives you a single option to complete a quest. By your definition all MMOs are on rails as far as quests and character growth are concerned and therefore are flawed and should be single player games with "multiplayer options".
I read through that entire article, looking for a clear indicator of what makes their completely groupable cinematic experience detrimental to an MMO and came up extremely short on answers and very thin on reasons for these opinions. In the end the major gripe was about race restrictions, which really has nothing to do with how the MMO plays, or feels.
The personal story is a major part of the progression system, but it isn't just a singular driving factor in the way the game plays. As also stated by JO and DE, you are never forced to play the personal story, and there are plenty of other MMO activities you can do. On the other hand you also have people who will be playing this game JUST for the personal story, going through it, and most likely grouping to complete many of the missions, which will all be in an open, player filled world.
If its just a feeling, then thats fine, but there is so much going on with the game thats easy to bypass, that doesn't just rely on the cinematic experience, some of which has to still do with the personal story such as using communicators and holograms to pick up and turn in some missions while you are still out in the world, which means you may help keep players out in the world and playing together instead of running back to wait for the next cinematic to finish.
I think someone who's in the position to travel and test the game such as the OP, would have more chances to play and test the game, such as the most recent test at PAX where they were using the actual build of TOR. The same build that a lot of players ended up playing and grouping in to complete quests. My expectations for this article good or bad, would have been less supposition and more detailed information.
That's basically the way it is right now, in my opinion.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Perhaps, but in current MMOs you have the option to not participate in any quests or story, and still advance. The only portion that's somewhat mandatory is 'end game' content that you have to do in order to advance. But prior to that, you can advance perfectly fine, if not a little slowly, by avoidign quests entirely.
SWTOR on the other hand, now I don't know this as a fact and am simply going by Bioware games and how it sounds like they will be doing things, players will have to progress in their character storyline in order to advance, and there will be no avoiding this.
Couldn't the same complaint be made about GW2 and their personal story system *hides*
In Bioware we trust!
You have the same option in SWTOR. Darth Hater did a breakdown of the Revan video they released and it showed you can skip quests.
In Bioware we trust!
Not true. There have been numerous reports of people playing the game and leveling fine without doing any quests and just running around grinding mobs.
I dont think story removes from the game as much as creates a better way for us to experiance a game and actually feel atached to characters and quests. I hate reading text for quests and normally just spam them out. So this will be a new experiance for me and I cant wait play it!
This is correct, you don't have to play your personal story at all, you can grind mobs, play only world quests (with groups) or gain experience through exploration. You can also gain experience through playing the space combat. There has been no talk about experience through PvP as far as I can see, but theres a good chance we'll see it, as Mythic is doing much of the PvP work..
It really seems to me as though there is a disproportionate amount of negativity and doubt surrounding this game when others like GW2 are given a free pass for trying many of the same things...
I really don't get why so many of your are so negative on Bioware trying something new on their first MMO. Is it really so much to ask to give them the benefit of the doubt at this point? The only reason I can see why this game garners such criticism is the fact that it is a Star Wars MMO and so it is endlessly compared against the more sandbox features of that other Star Wars MMO... which I think is entirely unfair. They are completely different games. Why does it really matter if you can't play some hideous alien? I think people are placing too much importance on features that are really meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
The bottom line is this: Voice-driven MMO is great. However, STORY driven MMO, where one must go through the story to advance in the game, offers way too many restrictions. EXAMPLE: Something as simple as just allowing the Zabrak race to be Smuggler cannot be done. Why? It's not in their story.
Their story locks them.
Ok can someone say Delusions of Grandeur . Seriously is the best you guys can come up with to write about?
I'm starting to seriously doubt the competence
of some of the writers here at MMORPG.
It's getting easier to steer away from this site from day to day because of sub-par articles like this.
If it can even be classified as an article.
See first Sentence...
Almost every MMO i've played or tried over the past few years i've either not liked them within a day or two or have gotten bored after a few months. Story driven will be a different experience for me and one different than all the ones that have failed to keep my attention, so i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
If the story ruins the feel then it's no biggy, it'll be uninstalled and i'll wait for something else to come along. On the other hand though it may turn the game into something i could play for years. It's a video game so either way it's no loss.
There has been extensive threads about this topic in the TOR forum section.
From what I gather the problem that most people have is the gut feeling that story is a replacement of other MMO gameplay aspects in SW:TOR. It is not. It is an add-on.
It isn't even a replacement of the quest mechanics, the MMO feature that Bioware's story mechanics has the most impact on: because if you want you can skip story all you like, and quest as you've always done in other MMO's by skipping any quest text on your road to level cap.
And story isn't a replacement of other MMO gameplay features, because they're all there, the crafting, exploration, raids, world PvP, warzones (battlegrounds), you can even totally ignore your Class Storylines by gaining experience and leveling via other ways like exploration, PvP, crafting and doing regular quests (World Quests) all you like.
It isn't even a replacement of your meta story, the OOC 'story' experiences of your adventures ingame: it wasn't a problem for players in story quest-heavy MMO's as LotrO and AoC, and it won't be in SW:TOR.
To me, the story component is what drew me in: I agree with designer teams like for SW:TOR, GW2 and TSW, that story has become a neglected part, almost an afterthought in current MMO's, RPG and world immersion has suffered from it, and no wonder a lot of players nowadays just skip quest text in MMO's, it has become almost irrelevant.
Without the story aspect, SWTOR would have been like most of those other MMO's, granted with some different features, but in essence not much different from other current MMO's, just another MMO in a SW skin.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Not really...
You see, the whole issue is pretty much up-front in GW2 and quite obvious to players.. You have the big shared "main" world which is filled with dynamic events and stuff and not everyone can be a "hero" - that's your basic old-school MMO trip right there. Your personal story plays more like a single-player/co-op game where you can do your stuff and invite friends to tag along (like Diablo, say). I suspect the instanced dungeons which are limited to 5 will also fall more into this co-op category. These 2 modes of PvE play are pretty separate and while they might have connections (like tasks pointing you from your personal instance into the open world) these 2 are very clearly differentiated and you can freely switch between the two according to your preference.
The 2 PvP modes, competetive and World vs World follow the same logic. One is for the solo/small group players who prefer online FPS / arena style combat while the other caters to the World PvP crowd.
SWTOR also tries to reconcile those two types of players, the solo/small group ones and those who prefer open worlds but it does so in a way that I find gimicky and... dunno, cheating? It is my personal opinion/feeling mind you so don't get flamey, personal opinion I say. An example from a recent demo review explains clearly what I had in mind: 2 characters went off to kill some sand people (i think) in a tent. They both entered the said tent and found themselves (seamlessly!) each in a different instance of the same tent where they had to "heroically" confront those sand people alone. Dunno.. It's like black-magic to me, creepy.. not to mention condescending somehow. I don't like it and I find it definitely unimmersive. It's like taking the hand-holding and pre-programmed experience to a whole new level.
Dunno I much more prefer the GW2 approach. It's very open and simple. There is no cunningly hidden BS like the above example. You're either in your own instance doing your own thing or you're out in the big world playing with whoever comes along. Personally I prefer the big world play but I won't mind doing some occasional personal story for a break or laugh with friends like in Diablo days. SWTOR's concept on the other hand is just.. meh. Like am I in the main world right now or is it my own movie now, like what's going on? Make up your mind cause you can't have it both ways and explain it away with some woodoo. (Like where is my friend now when I need his help, where did he go? What if I kill those sp's and he doesn't - how's that for story and immersion?) Basically the whole gaping flaw in mmo quest design where everyone gets to kill the dragon and save the farmer's daughter (like how many daughters does this guy have?!?) is just being painted over with new flashy technology instead of being properly adressed at its core - and the core issue is and ever was "single-player RPG quests DO NOT WORK in mmo environments".
GW2 addresses this by very deliberately separating single-player and mmo parts of the game while SWTOR seems to be trying to preserve this conundrum with said mumbo-jumbo. Dunno, it's just gimmicky and not really convincing to me.
TOR is actually extremely similar to GW2 in the very same aspects. Eventhough you'll have "dynamic events" as pretty much the entirety of PvE gameplay (in gw2), you still have world quests, exploration and flashpoints, (with all except the flashpoints being in a completely open area) in tor. I can see that you can't differentiate between when you go into an instanced portion of a mission and when you are in the open areas, but others that have been following the game would easily know what to expect when you pass through that light blue doorway.
Also, if those players were grouped, they would have ended up in the same "instance". TOR still has "big world" play, just some people can't see it. From the way the size and openness of the game sounds, I'd dare say it has one of the biggest gameworlds (or should I say universes) we've ever seen in a game, ever. Lots of open world exploration and fun to be had.
Bioware is attempting to make the storyline more engaging and more interactive which is a good thing. The dialogue choices and shuch are a good addition to the mix of things. But frankly storyline is secondary. You can have the best writers and the mose deep engaging stories in the world, but if the combat is not to my liking or the classes not fleshed out in skills. Or even the mobs just a rehash of MMO 101 then I wont play it. Not gonna torture myself playing lame combat just for an awesome story.
My opinons on SW:ToR combat is still forming, but Storyline does not make an MMO, part of it yes but not the entirety there are other factors.
Well I hope so. I'm more of a "MMO" than an "RPG" player myself, meaning that I rarely follow pre-scripted stories and am much more into interaction with other players and the world stories they spin. Maybe it's just the PR but frankly Bioware's presentation so far is leaving me pretty cold with all the emphasis on "story story story". It is almost like they would much rather make a co-op KOTOR than a MMO but the pull of the monthly sub is too strong... I might be wrong and I hope I am because I would play a proper open-world MMO set in a SW universe, like you need to ask lol.
The bottom line is if you are the kind of player who skips though quest dialog as quickly as possible and doesn’t care why you have to kill 10 of x then you are probably going to find SW:TOR a bland and basic MMO. If you like the story elements and understanding what is driving you to have to go kill 10 of X then no one beats Bioware in weaving a good story into a game.
Personally if they give me 8 stories of Mass Effect 2 scale and quality to do either alone or with friends (20-30 hours each), a decent combat system on par with past Bioware games, and the ability to group up with others to do instances, mini content arcs, and raids I’ll be a happy camper and gladly pay for the game for a long time to come as long as they are constantly adding new content.
I’m not thinking of this game like a traditional MMO. I’m thinking of it like a multiplayer KOTOR that I am purchasing DLC for on a monthly fee.
Ahh...an MMMO with strong story-telling elements`? Sounds damn good to me! (IF* They can pull it off).
Mr Bitton made an article about his concerns, regarding Biowares story approach potentially hurting other aspects of an MMO game. Yet, the only thing he brought up is race restriction. He and others have clearly an issue with race selection. I can understand this, myself i think that yes, Bioware could have added a couple more races. Rodians, Mon Calamaris and Sullustans, all of them humanoid like, would be nice to have.
But why just not make an article about race options? Why must everything good or bad be related to the story approach? Devs stated more than once that TOR beside the story will have ALL the elements of a traditional MMO.