Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
'200 hours unique gameplay per class'... what does this even mean?
MMO.Maverick
Member CommonPosts: 7,619
A few days ago a forum visitor had seen my thread about worldsizes of the various MMO's and in a PM he made the suggestion that I should try to add content density and amount to it. To which I replied that it was a nice idea, but however, amount of content is hardly measurable.
But it got me thinking, also about the leveling content of SWTOR that came up in another thread. Some (very) rough guesses could maybe be made, so here's my attempt to it.
First, let's specify it: I'm purely talking about the quest leveling content, the questing and related gameplay that you'll do while leveling, not pvp, dungeon runs, crafting or that stuff. Also I'm purely looking at the amount of content in proportion to the leveling done up to level cap.
A look at current MMO's:
if you look at Aion and Rift, I think both offer enough content to provide 2 fully distinctive leveling experiences, 1 for each faction. When you'd level another character in the same faction, you'll probably encounter over 90% of the (quest) leveling content that you encountered with your first character in that faction.
If you look at LotrO, you'll notice that the leveling in the starter areas of each race is unique, so that would mean 4 distincitve leveling paths from L1 to L15. After that they collide, and leveling follows the same zones for all the races. It's hard to guess how much content there is for each level range past L15, but I make a guess that there's enough to provide a distinctive leveling experience for 2 characters from L15 to level cap.
AoC, with the Gateway to Khitai and other content updates added to it, I'd guess that its amount of leveling content equals about 1.5 times a leveling path: meaning that when you level a 2nd character, you'll find that there are level ranges that you can't avoid doing the same quests that you did with your 1st character. GW, 1-1.25 times a leveling path qua content per campaign. EQ2, rough guessing, 1.75 times the equivalent of a leveling path at its launch.
Now to SWTOR: from statements it's said that 'each class story is fully unique'. However, even if the Class Quest content plays a considerable part of the leveling process in SWTOR, the 200 hours leveling in SWTOR isn't completely Class Quest content. You'll do other quests as well, namely the World Quests. The amount of time that you'll be occupied with Class Quest related gameplay is more likely to be only a third or a half of all the (quest) leveling that you do.
Let's stay on the safe side and say that CQ content contributes a third of your leveling path to level cap. It's fully unique for 8 classes, that's 8/3. The devs also stated that if you choose fully Lightside or fully Darkside, that the experience would be completely different, as unique as if you'd chosen a different class. There are supposed to be more than 2 choices for each Class Quest, but let's adhere to their statements, this would make the Class Quest (class story) content the equivalent of 16/3 times a leveling path.
Also, each faction provided their own, fully distinctive quests. I'd guess that with 17 planets there are more areas per level range to level in, but let's say for now that the other quest leveling content - that is not class story related - is at least equal to 2 full leveling journeys to level cap.
To summarise this (very, very rough) guessing, the total of quest leveling content is equal to:
Aion and Rift: 2 leveling journeys to level cap
GW: 1 (1.25) leveling journey per campaign
LotrO: ca 2.5 leveling journeys (incl 4 starter areas)
AoC: 1.5 leveling journey
EQ2: 1.75 leveling journeys at its launch (I've no idea how much now)
SWTOR: 8 (classes) * 2 (Lightside + Darkside) * 1/3 = 16/3 + 2 (for each faction) = 7.3 leveling journeys to level cap
Translated, '2 leveling journeys' means that an MMORPG has enough (quest) leveling content that it can provide a unique, distinctive leveling experience for 2 characters.
Ok, here ends my content amount speculations 
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."
Comments
Hmm you know i knew about the 200 hours of play but never thought about it really but when you lay it out like that it seems like it will take a lot of play to hit cap witch can be good or bad.
Leveling has always been the fun part in mmo's for me so if what they means is it will take something like 200 hours to hit cap that will be nice long as it don't turn into a boring grind now on the other hand it may just mean there is 200 hours worth but wont take you anywhere close to that long to. All and all you bring up some good points and can't wait to find out
You know, I haven't even tried to translate it into gameplay hours, but while we're at it let's do that.
We know that the leveling journey to level cap is stated to be '200 hours of gameplay', 'hundreds of hours' and 'plural hundreds' in dev statements. Let's work with the 200 hours.
This would lead to the amount of leveling content to be equal to 7.3 * 200 hours = 1470 hours.
However, I think that I've been on the cautious side, too safe, completely ignoring quest content categories that also offer unique (non-repeated) questing content.
With 17 planets to explore, together a hell of a lot larger than even LotrO and WoW were, I'm going to assume that the quest leveling content is enough to provide at least 2 different paths to quest and level, just as you have the choice to level up in more than 1 area in WoW and LotrO at any level you're at.
So that's 2 leveling paths per faction, purely regarding World Quests.
This is excluding the Group Quest (Heroic Quest) content: you don't have to do the Group Quests when you're leveling, but if you do, there was enough for players to level up on several levels. Let's go from there and assume that the Group Quest content, that is apart from Class Quests or World Quests, is enough for 0.75 of a leveling journey: a lot to be able to quest level on, but not enough to reach level cap purely on doing group quest content.
Interestingly enough, about the Heroic Quest content the following was said (here):
Though we struggled along the way -- limping almost the entire time to the finish line -- we eventually did complete the heroic quests on Hutta. We managed to outpace everyone else on levels, even while being grouped up doing group-based content.
Upon completion of Hutta, which we did about the same time the solo players did, the three of us that stuck together had at least three, maybe four blue items each - plus one or two more levels than the solo players.
According to Mr. Erickson, Hutta is just the tip of the iceberg. Dromund Kaas has much more heroic content, and it's really hard, but also very rewarding. Some of the content will be a single, challenging 'boss' NPC. Others will be entire sections of the map set aside with nothing but elites and bosses. On Dromund Kaas we managed to conquer the first heroic area prior to the end of the immersion day, and it once again rewarded a blue quality item and a lot of experience. We barely beat it though, even with all four of us working together this time around.
Then we have the World Arcs, long quest campaigns that are tied to a planet, each planet has one for each faction. Of those it's said that each World Arc takes 'tens of hours' of gameplay, which would mean 20+ hours. For the sake of calculation, let's say 25 hours per World Arc. This means 13 (number of normal planets) * 2 (factions) * 25 = 650 hours, the amount of gameplay hours World Arcs offer in total.
This leads to the new estimation:
Class Quest content = 16/3 leveling journeys (see OP) = 5.3 * 200 = 1060 hours
World Quest content = 2 (factions) * 2 (alternate leveling paths) = 4 leveling paths * 200 hours = 800 hours
Group Quest (Heroic Quest) content = 0.75 * 2 (factions) = 1.5 leveling journey = 1.5 * 200 hrs = 300 hours
World Arcs = 13 (planets) * 2 (factions) * 25 hours = 650 hours
In total, the amount of (quest) leveling content that SWTOR offers is enough for an estimated 2750 hours of unique (non-repeated) questing gameplay while leveling to level cap.
Interesting to note, that you'll only experience about 200 hours of that vast amount of content with your first character on your route to level cap.
To compare, Rift is stated to take 125-150 hours to reach level cap, in which you'll have done most if not as good as all of the questing content if that's what you used to level. This applies to both factions, which would lead to an estimated 2 * 150 hours = 300 gameplay hours of quest leveling content up to level cap.
Aion, which is considered to take the longest time to reach level cap among the current AAA themepark MMO's, is said to take 400-450 hours of gameplay to get to level cap. However, in quite some time of that leveling you'll find yourself doing repeatable quests or grind mobs or dungeons, not purely unique (non-repeated) quest content. So let's say that only 300-350 hours (averaged 325) is unique, non-repeated questing content that you can do in each faction while leveling.
This would lead to an estimated amount of unique, non-repeated questing content for Aion of 2 * 325 hours = 650 gameplay hours.
NB: in these estimations I ignored the factor that bc of the VO, cinematic cutscenes, choices and longer term impact of decisions on future quests, SWTOR questing will have a higher entertainment value than the regular textbased and no-choice questing seen in MMORPG's. But for the estimation of the leveling journeys and gameplay hours the immersion factor wasn't required.
Conclusion:
these of course are estimations of possible available (questing) content. If you only play 1 character up to level cap, most of that content you'll not experience, it's when playing more than 1 character that things'll get interesting: how different a (quest) leveling experience will it be for a 2nd or 3d character?
In SWTOR, when you'll play another class or the same class but fully different choices, you'll already have for 1/3 or 70 hours a different leveling experience than with your 1st character. If you choose to do World Quests in areas you didn't before, it'll be for almost 100% a different experience, roughly speaking. When you choose another faction for your 2nd character, it'll be a fully different experience as well. If you choose a different class for your 3rd and 4th character, it'll again be at least 1/3 of your leveling that'll be different from your 1st 2 characters. Choosing different factions and different classes or different Lightside/Darkside paths, will offer you a fully different leveling experience for at least 4 characters, and after that for at least 1/3 per additional character that's from a different class or Darkside/Lightside path than you played before.
In Rift and Aion, only when you choose the other faction for your 2nd character will your (quest) leveling journey be different, else it'll be for the very most part of those 125-150 hours (Rift) or 400 hours (Aion) be the same.
In LotrO, if you choose different areas to level in, your quest leveling experience will be different for your 2nd character, but after that, even if you choose another race, you'll have seen and done as good as all of the quest leveling content from Level 15 to level cap.
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."
I don't consider leveling as content. Leveling is just a consequence of doing a real content.
Guild Wars 2 Youtube Croatian Maniacs
My Guild Wars titles
I was referring to the questing you'll do while leveling to level cap, which in themepark based MMO's is the core part of the leveling experience
So, all the figures and amount of hours you'll read are estimated gameplay hours linked to doing quests.
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."
when i played WOW:cata, i really enjoyed questing with almost all of it story base. Rift in my opinion, had little story and alot of questing that mad me bored of it. now i just got done with ME/ME2 and enjoyed every bit of those 2 games and cant wait for ME3 on which will conflict with SWTOR and i hate that. But with a story 100% or even 80% will make me happy and enjoy the game to be.
by the way, thanks for that break down MMO.MAV
I believe that Bioware is trying to change that mentality. Where as in most MMO's people just push through levels to get to endgame, I believe that the main focus of SWTOR will be the leveling through the story. If it is nearly as engaging as ME and ME2 then they will have me hooked. One of my main concerns is how this will work with thousands of other people running around the world at the same time without seeming a little hokey.
This is sadly true for most of todays themepark mmo's. However, the leveling process and it's content should matter and be important, Bioware will change this with TOR. People interested only in leveling one toon and in rushing to the level cap will miss a lot off stuff in TOR.
Nice breakdown Mav...
What's really interesting to me is the class stories, the fact that they're guaranteed unique and if that's 1/3 of the content it's a lot more than any other game I can think of - you may have had epic class quests in other games, but I doubt you could say of any of them that they took up 1/3 of the game.
Given this (posted by Damiel Ericskson:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
(source:http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6297786#post6297786)
I think your math is probably spot on....which when you think about it is awe-inspiring.
Now I wish I could remember how long my first playthrough of KOTOR took me...
Maverick, you can´t say this. "200 hours of unique gameplay" is a bit misleading.
I myself would like the shooter thing, maybe playing the Trooper.
But then again...
I agree on this front. This is the main reason i get bored of MMOs so quickly, the real content in those games doesn't start till i get to end-game of which i never get to because i become bored out of my mind and never get to the real game, so end-game being the real content seems like a dumb idea in my mind. I never ever play games to enjoy the final boss. The end-game in my mind is where you dilly about, twiddling your thumbs while you wait for more conent to be released, somehow that doesn't paint a fun picture in my mind, rather be pulling grass out of the ground, which is basically what your doing at end-game. Therefore end-game IMO should not be the entire point of the game, it should be entertaining enough to keep you interested in the world until the devs can create new content and a new end-game that is entertaining enough to keep you until the next expansion, so on and so forth. Gamers now a days think the games are about leveling up so you can get to end-game where they (the devs) spent most of their time, hopefully Bioware will attempt to change this idea for gamers not reinforce it. I can only hope.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Indeed it's that innane notion when people ask: 'Whats the endgame like?', for a game thats not even out yet or they've never tried. I mean why exactly? Your seriously more interested in getting through something you've never played before as quickly as possible for a good. 'endgame'?
I honestly don't understand that idea, having a character that's gone through trials and tribulations with the scars to prove it is one of the joys of RPGs in general. Then again that could just be the old PnP player in me talking :P
Eh? That's what several devs have stated several times, and from what they said it was based on playtester metrics, data collected from their beta testers.
If it's about the use of the word 'unique', I think my OP is pretty clear about that and how I think of it
I think it's a different approach and mindset that different MMO gamers can have, to some the destination is all that matters, while to others it's also about the journey, and for some it's even all about the journey.
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."
It is just about the "unique" and the "gameplay" combo.
Quests are quests, and you know this.
This is all well and dandy .... but tell me what is there to do endgame in ToR?
Are we just to chase the carrot on the stick and look for better gear?
I'm sorry but WoW done beat this horse to death pve/pvp bg/arena so I'm not wanting to play another game that's only endgame is chasing that damn carrot again
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
What " 200hours of unique gameplay per class" means to me is that, at 4 hours per session, you'll be done in 50 days play time. Which means that forums will light up with 'too little content'/'levelling is too fast' posts within the second month of release.
Even if other aspects of the game double this play time, you will still see the boards light up with how robbed they were, how lame it is, how as customers we have a right to unlimited content upon release, etc. etc.
They are penning this like 'look how much content we have' and it seems that is how it is being received. However, after doing the very simple math, I see that 200 hours is not much at all. So is promoting it as 'tons of content' wise to do, when people will quickly learn that it is not that much? I say this is going to turn into the major critique of TOR; 'they promised us lots of content and only gave us 2 months worth'.
Anyway, that's what it means to me.
Heh. Well, you know what I mean, it's unique in the sense that it's not repeatable quests (eg dailies) that I'm talking about and that the quests only count one time towards the total.
200 hours to level cap is a fair amount of time to level cap in AAA MMORPG's. It ranks around 150-250 hours of gameplay, WoW vanilla was measured to be like 200-250 hours on average, AoC about 175 hours and Rift something like 125-150 hours. Aion measured 350-400 hours, but Aion was considered too grindy.
The difference between SWTOR and other current MMO's will at first be in the quality of questing that will be perceived differently and an improvement with the VO, cinematics and choices that matter and that have longlasting impact. But the difference with current MMO's will become larger when people start playing with a 2nd and 3rd character and discover that there's far less repetition of content than in other MMO's.
How much remains to be seen, after all it's all speculation at this point. But I did my speculating based upon the things we know so far.
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."
Imagine the poor people who play the game 8hrs or longer per day.... and yes many people do play mmo's this way.
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
By the way: you´ll read mostly "negative" things, but for me I like reading your posts. Thanks for writing.
Someone had to say this.^^
Comparing this to the typical CRPGs (or most games actually) which is les than 20 hours total and wih this being 200 hrs X classes + world arcs, PVP stuff, crafting, Raids it is a TON of content.
For instance, Alice: Madness returns 12-18 hrs content, Dungeon Siege 3 is 18 hrs of content total (got it from PC Gamer).
I agree, people with little to no life playing 8+ hrs a day will complain though.
I tell you even better: for every MMO that has been released the past few years there have been people that played a newly released MMORPG nonstop 24/7 with maybe only 4 hours a day to sleep. There were records of people who 'finished' Aion in 10-12 days after launch, with finished meaning 'reached level cap', Rift was 3-4 days, I believe someone used a game flaw to reach L50 that quick, and so on.
The average number of hours however are according to surveys 20-25 hours per week on average for the normal player and 40 hours per week on average for the hardcore gamer. Casual players are of course 20 hours and less a week on average.
Heh, thanks mate. And I don't let the negative things that are said towards me or my posts bother me, I like the debate and discussions in themselves already
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."
This. They said there would be 200 hours of unqiue gameplay per class. First thing that stands out to me is that if the class story is whats unique class to class, then their is not 200 hours of unqie gameplay, which is why you compensated by dividing by 1/3. Which is all well and dandy. But lets say dividing that 200 hours gives ~66 hours of unique storyplay during each class leveling proccess(and all of this won't be neccessarily unique either, because the story would be different, but you would be doing a lot of the same activities), and the other 134 hours is, well, not unique, than that 7.5 journies to endgame becomes a misleading number.
Not to say that this game won't have an astounding amount of leveling content at launch, because it's pretty obvious that it will, I just think its fair to be a little skeptical of these numbers that keep get thrown around. Especially when someone who as been mmoing for years will likely burn thro this stuff at a higher rate or maybe someone only likes a class or two.
well I look at it this way, Mass Effects story line took about 35-40 hours to complete, Mass Effect 2 took around 30-35 hours to complete. If they reall do have and are claiming to having enough content to fill almost 6 mass effect story archs per class then bravo.
However, though and more likely I call PR/Marketing Bullshit and number magic and makes me wonder what they are counting.
Agreed!
Bioware has stated that SWTOR has enough cunique contet to equal more than all of the Bioware RPGs combined. They are using ME2 style dialogue and questing methods coupled with MMO standards so this should be PLENTY of content at launch for the average if those statements are accurate.
hopscotch already posted it but here it is again, daniel erickson talking about what they factor when talking about it:
First: the whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you'd have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together. Sneaking through the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers was just as much of Luke's story as talking about going and saving the princess. So all the content you're expected to do goes in there. What doesn't go in? Warzones, crafting, socializing, auction house, space game, etc (yes, you could skip world quests and do Warzone or space game quests or Heroics for XP instead but swaps like that tend to more or less even out). Anything not required to level up is outside the estimate.
Second: Your mileage may vary. When we talk about the length of the game at all, we keep it vague for the important reason that people burn through content at different rates. The numbers we're using today are based on best case estimates from hundreds of people playing through Chapter 1. Some people were faster, some people were much, much, much slower as they apparently not just stopped to smell the flowers but had their CCs pick some, studied them, made adrenals out of them and then decided to sit by the roadside and consider what they'd done.
Third: This may change somewhat before ship. Difficulty has been going up in the mid and late leveling game to create real, RPG-style combat challenges. This makes the game longer. Death penalties have been going down. This makes the game shorter. But we have a general idea where we want it to end up and I think it's safe now to make some broad statements.
Okay, with all that out of the way, let me clarify. I was speaking of the a single average first time playthrough of a single class's Chapter 1 being more than twice the length of a single average first time playthrough of the entirety of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Chapter 2 and 3 are each somewhat shorter than Chapter 1 (which are extended by the Origin and Capitol worlds experience) but still pretty darn big.
If we are talking about playthroughs of all the classes we're well into four digit hours but even one class is in the plural hundreds. Anything more specific is going to get me into trouble and honestly will just make me look silly when one guild makes it their all encompassing mission to beat the leveling game in a single marathon session then Photoshop their completion time onto a shocked looking picture of my face and spread it all over the interwebs.
(source:http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6297786#post6297786)
As much as I love your writings and the estimations you made in you starter post, I do not think that it is possible for an mmorpg to contain such high ammounts of content, nor do I think that there are exactly 7.3 distictive ways to get to the maximum level. In my opinion you make the mistake by thinking that Class related quests contain half or 1/3 of the total amount of content in the game.
The next assumption of "2750 hours of unique (non-repeated) questing gameplay" sounds a bit weird doesnt it. Even a single player game does not contain more then 40 hours of unique content. Thinking that SWTOR contains as much unique content as 68.75 ordinary singleplayer games does not sound real.
But heck, we will not know, nor can we say for sure, untill the game releases. A moment on which we are all waiting for. Thank you for your amazing post and a lot of reading pleasure.