Saying this game will fail is like assuming a nuclear bomb will be a dud when it lands. You don't know for sure, but if it does go off, you are going to look pretty foolish.
Personally, I could care less if it changes anything- I will be playing the shit out of it, so what it actually does to gaming is completely irrelevant to me.
An important point is that the "theme park" game is what sells the most, and these guys are in this for the money, because for the really big games (we're not talking Kingdom of Loathing here) being a labor of love that you can make a living at has no appeal to the greedy investors out there who want some of that sweet sweet WoW profit .
Sandbox games just do not have the mass appeal, the huge audience, that the theme park games do. This is a sad reality of the basic economic underpinning of the MMO industry. WoW found the sweet spot...so everyone seeks to join Blizzard in that space.
Hmm... all AAA themepark games from WoW onward have flopped to a degree. So the statement "themepark game is what sells the most" is patently untrue. It is an ancient dogma which grew up from I really don't know where or how. It is just one of those "truisms" that if you look at close enough you find patently untrue.
Empirically, making an AAA mmo a "themepark" has been so far (past 7+ years) a PROVEN 100% recipe for fail.
As for sandbox games somehow inherently "not having a mass audience", that's a load of crap. The biggest IP in computer game history is the Sims which is nothing more than a sandbox. Civilization is "sandbox". The much maligned but massively profitable Farmville is "sandbox" - literaly! And now you have Minecraft, raking in the kills with its 8-bit graphics and it is... what? A "sandbox."
Imo the main problem why mmo industry is in such a rut compared to the rest of the gaming industry is precisely this "self-evident" fact that "sandboxes don't have a mass appeal". The first company that manages to create a AAA sandbox SUFFICIENTLY EVOLVED from the UO model as WoW was from EQ will be the one to make a real splash, comparable to what Bliz did with WoW. All the rest is just riding on the coattails of The Beast (you all know who I'm talking about.)
I agree with your last paragraph, completely.
The thing is, the moneymen are only interested in money. The theme park game (WoW) has what, 12 million subscribers? Which is like 11 million plus more than anyone else?
So the theme park RULES. Not on the basis of the superiority of gameplay, but on sheer weight of numbers, as in simoleons. The spreadsheet numbers are all that the investors care about.
Never mind that much of WoW"s success has to do with presentation, with accessability, and with just plain WORKING right out of the box. Just being a theme park game is not enough, but you can't convince most of the MBA asshats who steer the ships of MMO development along. The Raph Kosters do not call the shots. The John Smedleys do. All the John Smedleys see is the theme park.
This is the secret that no one has been willing to commit to replicating...instead they're still following the standard practice of the software industry to push a half baked product out the door and then patch it later with revenue derived from the original sale. If you do that, compared to WoW, you will fail. But they don't get that at all. It's really quite simple, but the industry just can't grasp it. Heck, even Blizz is falling into the trap nowadays.
I also do believe that the theme park, being very easy to keep mostly passive consumers engaged, has an edge on the theme park, which requires more imagination than a lot of players are willing, or capable, of investing in the game. Thus we're seeing a lot more scripted storys being told in which you are basically a character in a movie, moving along a predetermined path, experiencing the movie world as you do so. That's the entertainment value. You're not really allowed to venture too far off the path, or start improvising. Which for a lot of players is just fine with them.
Imo the problem is that moneymen actually have no idea what they're throwing their money at. That's the problem. Of course it's all about the money, it's an industry. I totally salute the drive of game companies to pursue maximum profit. However the probem is that the people calling the shots actually have no idea where the money IS and how to make a profit as is evident from all the big name failures in the past 7+ years.
The said suits initially looked at WoW, analyzed its success and came to all the wrong conclusions about what makes a mmo game profitable. And now this dogma, this "WoW recipe" is being repeated ad nauseum. And each time there is a new failure of the concept, the suits decide that it is not the concept itself that is flawed but that all they need to do is to sink even MORE money into the next project based on the very same concepts..
(Let me step back a bit.. I'm not saying that the concept of themepark is "bad" in itself. What I'm saying is that WoW is really not a even a good themepark. Its main reasons for success are many, and fixing some obvious concept flaws from the previous generation of mmos was definitely a part of its success. However being a themepark is not THE reason for WoW becoming what it is. Being a first really polished mmo with excellent UI (lets face it, all the mmos before that were crap in that regard, I couldn't bring myself to play DAoC after trying WoW) and all at the moment broadband became widespread was all waay more important for its success than it being "sandbox" (you know, game area graded by levels, gear rush, quests and all that crap)
It all reminds me of the Hollywood crisis of the musicals back in the 50's and 60's. Rather than admit that the time for "ginger and fred" musicals has passed the producers kept sinking more and more money into ludicrously expensive productions no one wanted to watch anymore... and then came gritty, realistic films that no one believed in (because it was't "common sense" that mass public would want to wach real people, just like it's "common sense" today that no one wants to play a sandbox) such as Bonnie and Clyde which actually saved Hollywood from drowning in it's own glitzy dogma.
The idea that "sandboxes" somehow require too much imagination from players is imo one of those "trusims" that turn on their heads once you look at them. Why should they require "too much imagination"? Does farmville require "too much imagination" or the sims? Man, it takes more imagination from me to believe some NPCs sob story than to actually deal with acutual "real" problems of my fellow players in EvE for example. Farmer Bob is not going to "make me cry" (as Trip Hawkins once famously proclaimed), but my guildmates will. It is just one of the throwbacks from the primitive days of sandboxes that we still hold on to simply because no one made a revolutionary step with AAA sandbox genre comparable to the what, again, Blizzard did to themeparks with WoW. It's like saying Themeparks will never be popular because you can't have players queuing for boss figths for hours (hello instancing!) or that the very mmorpg concept is doomed to failure because mass of players won't stand harsh XP penalties for dying.
I personaly cant stand WOW, many of us cant. Yet they have the most incredible Massive following that no one can even touch.
You will have to wait and see if Star Wars can change the industry. I think they can change the aspect of questing. I can see people getting bored fast with all the text quest MMOs out there, after playing SWTOR.
Thanks for the laugh. On topic, SWTOR might not be revolutionayr but it is bringing some innovative features to MMO genre. All you have to do is go through the sticky on front page and you will find it.
An important point is that the "theme park" game is what sells the most, and these guys are in this for the money, because for the really big games (we're not talking Kingdom of Loathing here) being a labor of love that you can make a living at has no appeal to the greedy investors out there who want some of that sweet sweet WoW profit .
Sandbox games just do not have the mass appeal, the huge audience, that the theme park games do. This is a sad reality of the basic economic underpinning of the MMO industry. WoW found the sweet spot...so everyone seeks to join Blizzard in that space.
Hmm... all AAA themepark games from WoW onward have flopped to a degree. So the statement "themepark game is what sells the most" is patently untrue. It is an ancient dogma which grew up from I really don't know where or how. It is just one of those "truisms" that if you look at close enough you find patently untrue.
Empirically, making an AAA mmo a "themepark" has been so far (past 7+ years) a PROVEN 100% recipe for fail.
As for sandbox games somehow inherently "not having a mass audience", that's a load of crap. The biggest IP in computer game history is the Sims which is nothing more than a sandbox. Civilization is "sandbox". The much maligned but massively profitable Farmville is "sandbox" - literaly! And now you have Minecraft, raking in the kills with its 8-bit graphics and it is... what? A "sandbox."
Imo the main problem why mmo industry is in such a rut compared to the rest of the gaming industry is precisely this "self-evident" fact that "sandboxes don't have a mass appeal". The first company that manages to create a AAA sandbox SUFFICIENTLY EVOLVED from the UO model as WoW was from EQ will be the one to make a real splash, comparable to what Bliz did with WoW. All the rest is just riding on the coattails of The Beast (you all know who I'm talking about.)
I agree with your last paragraph, completely.
The thing is, the moneymen are only interested in money. The theme park game (WoW) has what, 12 million subscribers? Which is like 11 million plus more than anyone else?
So the theme park RULES. Not on the basis of the superiority of gameplay, but on sheer weight of numbers, as in simoleons. The spreadsheet numbers are all that the investors care about.
Never mind that much of WoW"s success has to do with presentation, with accessability, and with just plain WORKING right out of the box. Just being a theme park game is not enough, but you can't convince most of the MBA asshats who steer the ships of MMO development along. The Raph Kosters do not call the shots. The John Smedleys do. All the John Smedleys see is the theme park.
This is the secret that no one has been willing to commit to replicating...instead they're still following the standard practice of the software industry to push a half baked product out the door and then patch it later with revenue derived from the original sale. If you do that, compared to WoW, you will fail. But they don't get that at all. It's really quite simple, but the industry just can't grasp it. Heck, even Blizz is falling into the trap nowadays.
I also do believe that the theme park, being very easy to keep mostly passive consumers engaged, has an edge on the theme park, which requires more imagination than a lot of players are willing, or capable, of investing in the game. Thus we're seeing a lot more scripted storys being told in which you are basically a character in a movie, moving along a predetermined path, experiencing the movie world as you do so. That's the entertainment value. You're not really allowed to venture too far off the path, or start improvising. Which for a lot of players is just fine with them.
Imo the problem is that moneymen actually have no idea what they're throwing their money at. That's the problem. Of course it's all about the money, it's an industry. I totally salute the drive of game companies to pursue maximum profit. However the probem is that the people calling the shots actually have no idea where the money IS and how to make a profit as is evident from all the big name failures in the past 7+ years.
The said suits initially looked at WoW, analyzed its success and came to all the wrong conclusions about what makes a mmo game profitable. And now this dogma, this "WoW recipe" is being repeated ad nauseum. And each time there is a new failure of the concept, the suits decide that it is not the concept itself that is flawed but that all they need to do is to sink even MORE money into the next project based on the very same concepts..
(Let me step back a bit.. I'm not saying that the concept of themepark is "bad" in itself. What I'm saying is that WoW is really not a even a good themepark. Its main reasons for success are many, and fixing some obvious concept flaws from the previous generation of mmos was definitely a part of its success. However being a themepark is not THE reason for WoW becoming what it is. Being a first really polished mmo with excellent UI (lets face it, all the mmos before that were crap in that regard, I couldn't bring myself to play DAoC after trying WoW) and all at the moment broadband became widespread was all waay more important for its success than it being "sandbox" (you know, game area graded by levels, gear rush, quests and all that crap)
It all reminds me of the Hollywood crisis of the musicals back in the 50's and 60's. Rather than admit that the time for "ginger and fred" musicals has passed the producers kept sinking more and more money into ludicrously expensive productions no one wanted to watch anymore... and then came gritty, realistic films that no one believed in (because it was't "common sense" that mass public would want to wach real people, just like it's "common sense" today that no one wants to play a sandbox) such as Bonnie and Clyde which actually saved Hollywood from drowning in it's own glitzy dogma.
The idea that "sandboxes" somehow require too much imagination from players is imo one of those "trusims" that turn on their heads once you look at them. Why should they require "too much imagination"? Does farmville require "too much imagination" or the sims? It is just one of the throwbacks from the primitive days of sandboxes that we still hold on to simply because no one made a revolutionary step with AAA sandbox genre comparable to the what, again, Blizzard did to themeparks with WoW. It's like saying Themeparks will never be popular because you can't have players queuing for boss figths for hours (hello instancing!) or that the very mmorpg concept is doomed to failure because mass of players won't stand harsh XP penalties for dying.
The easy path is the one that the developers are going to take. At least what they perceive is the easy path.
The thing is the sandbox is, at the current time, a niche product, as far as MMOs are concerned. If an updated UO comes out that captures the public's imagination as WoW has, that will change. But given how formula driven the MMO industry has become, much like Hollywood has always been, it will take someone brave to present a breakout product that will, in turn, create a new formula that the others will slavishly follow. Because original thinking is risky, and these guys are all about avoiding risk. They want the sure thing.
Frankly, I think the sandbox concept can work if the presentation is right, but the problem is getting someone out there to dare to break out of the formula. I do believe, strongly, that most of the public can't handle the sandbox. I saw this in SWG, where people were screaming for "content" which meant for someone to present them something to do...they couldn't manage to create their own content, which was what Koster had planned for...and the directed content that was obviously in the original design never got presented for the most part, or was presented (remember Cries of Alderaan?) and then forgotten about.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Originally posted by Tardcore Originally posted by matf91 Lets start by having you watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8CPNUEfcoc In this video you see.. typical UI, typical mmorpg quests/ideas. The combat looks extremely boring.... I see an mmo like rift and like wow and like all the rest that uses the same ui and ideas. What makes this game different? The fact that its the star wars universe? I mean common the graphics arent even good... have you seen guild wars 2 and battlefield 3.... get with the future... Someone point out why they think this is good or revolutionary because the things that people havent see is what they tend to say is the good aspects. Its all a bunch of BS, this game looks worse then rift did and that game wasnt even that bad.
Sorry but I personally think you are making a mistake in thinking that most people looking forward to this game give a rats ass about if the game is revolutionary or not. Nor does Bioware have any requirement to live up to your own exacting expectations. Starting a brand new thread demanding people justify the direction the developers of this game took because it doesn't meet with your approval of what an MMO should be is not only a waste of everyones time but arrogant whining to boot. Most people want to have a good time. Then there are others looking to play the game because it's the cool thing to do. Very few play a game because of the OP's reason.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
The easy path is the one that the developers are going to take. At least what they perceive is the easy path.
The thing is the sandbox is, at the current time, a niche product, as far as MMOs are concerned. If an updated UO comes out that captures the public's imagination as WoW has, that will change. But given how formula driven the MMO industry has become, much like Hollywood has always been, it will take someone brave to present a breakout product that will, in turn, create a new formula that the others will slavishly follow. Because original thinking is risky, and these guys are all about avoiding risk. They want the sure thing.
Frankly, I think the sandbox concept can work if the presentation is right, but the problem is getting someone out there to dare to break out of the formula. I do believe, strongly, that most of the public can't handle the sandbox. I saw this in SWG, where people were screaming for "content" which meant for someone to present them something to do...they couldn't manage to create their own content, which was what Koster had planned for...and the directed content that was obviously in the original design never got presented for the most part, or was presented (remember Cries of Alderaan?) and then forgotten about.
Well I agree with the SWG gripe there. And imo that is the no1 failure of all the would-be sandbox game designers out there who equate sandbox with "lack of content" .. or even with "ffa PvP" and "harsh death penalties" (/rolleyes). These are the designer-side preconceptions that are holding back the sandbox mmo sub-genre.
Imo the dynamic events and similar mechanics is one of the ways to way to go with sandbox evolution. You can have content AND sandbox. GW2 is making tremendous strides in that direction and I really don't see the open-world part of their game as being truly themepark. It's more like a themepark/sandbox hybrid. You have a real power to make persistant changes in the world which is largely moving on its own (no, you're not "the One") but the changes themselves are pre-made and carefully crafted by the designers (aka "content"). Imo this is one route of creating a "sandbox 2.0" concept. The second would be to make content-creation procedural (imagine living as one character in a vast AI-driven game of fantasy civilization) but imo that would be quite difficult (to say the least) to pull off. Another way of redeeming sandboxes is to remove the stigma of grind and dullness from crafting ("who'd want to be a dew-farmer?") which can be done by introducing autonomous and hireable NPCs to perform chores for player characters thus leaving them free to go about being heroes and have fun. Ironically, it is SW:TOR making this step in AAA mmos by introducing crafting crewmembers and permanent companions.
So... being realistic I suspect we might never see a self-proclaimed western AAA "sandbox" mmo, mainly because of the unfair prejudice attached to that term. However, in a few years time if these new concepts prove viable and popular, the next "next" generation of mmos might turn out to have more sandbox elements than traditional themepark ones... and no one will probably even notice.
I play MMOs... I am a connoisseur... I will play this game in beta but from everything I see its not anywhere near what the hype and talk of it is. I hate people who are ignorant and misinformed... I have watched videos and studied the game mechanics.... its typical... i will not claim it a great or revolutionary game... its just wow with Star Wars... cool stuff
When you say this site called it revolutionary, please say you're not referring to the article claiming such? If so you obviously didn't read the disclaimer for that article.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The easy path is the one that the developers are going to take. At least what they perceive is the easy path.
The thing is the sandbox is, at the current time, a niche product, as far as MMOs are concerned. If an updated UO comes out that captures the public's imagination as WoW has, that will change. But given how formula driven the MMO industry has become, much like Hollywood has always been, it will take someone brave to present a breakout product that will, in turn, create a new formula that the others will slavishly follow. Because original thinking is risky, and these guys are all about avoiding risk. They want the sure thing.
Frankly, I think the sandbox concept can work if the presentation is right, but the problem is getting someone out there to dare to break out of the formula. I do believe, strongly, that most of the public can't handle the sandbox. I saw this in SWG, where people were screaming for "content" which meant for someone to present them something to do...they couldn't manage to create their own content, which was what Koster had planned for...and the directed content that was obviously in the original design never got presented for the most part, or was presented (remember Cries of Alderaan?) and then forgotten about.
Well I agree with the SWG gripe there. And imo that is the no1 failure of all the would-be sandbox game designers out there who equate sandbox with "lack of content" .. or even with "ffa PvP" and "harsh death penalties" (/rolleyes). These are the designer-side preconceptions that are holding back the sandbox mmo sub-genre.
Imo the dynamic events and similar mechanics is one of the ways to way to go with sandbox evolution. You can have content AND sandbox. GW2 is making tremendous strides in that direction and I really don't see the open-world part of their game as being truly themepark. It's more like a themepark/sandbox hybrid. You have a real power to make persistant changes in the world which is largely moving on its own (no, you're not "the One") but the changes themselves are pre-made and carefully crafted by the designers (aka "content"). Imo this is one route of creating a "sandbox 2.0" concept. The second would be to make content-creation procedural (imagine living as one character in a vast AI-driven game of fantasy civilization) but imo that would be quite difficult (to say the least) to pull off. Another way of redeeming sandboxes is to remove the stigma of grind and dullness from crafting ("who'd want to be a dew-farmer?") which can be done by introducing autonomous and hireable NPCs to perform chores for player characters thus leaving them free to go about being heroes and have fun. Ironically, it is SW:TOR making this step in AAA mmos by introducing crafting crewmembers and permanent companions.
So... being realistic I suspect we might never see a self-proclaimed western AAA "sandbox" mmo, mainly because of the unfair prejudice attached to that term. However, in a few years time if these new concepts prove viable and popular, the next "next" generation of mmos might turn out to have more sandbox elements than traditional themepark ones... and no one will probably even notice.
Well there is another route for a would-be "sandbox" developer to go...which is outside of the traditional "hard core" gaming audience that many "sandbox" games have been targeted at so far.
The fact is that there is a HUGE, HUGE existing audience out there for "social" games. Things like Farmville and other Facebook style games draw very large audiences. Those audiences are interested primarily in the social aspect of games. Most have them have never played or even thought of playing an MMO.... and are not "gamers" as we would typicaly classify them.... yet at the same time they are willing to spend hours & dollars in products like Farmville.
As the current MMO market is pretty saturated with offerings, developers have often paid alot of lip service about trying to reach out to new audiences to draw them into the market....yet very few offerings have actualy made any serious attempt in terms of design features at offering things non-traditional MMO audiences might be interested in. It's an absolute no brainer to me that the "social gaming" audience is a market ripe to be tapped if someone can pull it off successfully.
In the past MMO's and Gaming in general have had a stygma attached to them with these sort of audiences as a "kid/nerd thing", but that stygma is fast dissappearing and such people are more and more willing to dip thier toes into other sorts of games.
From first hand experience, my wife, who is anything but a gamer had a surprisingly good time when she tried out LOTRO. She had absolutely no interest in combat, questing, progression or any of the typical "game play" aspects....but she was absolutely enthralled by designing and creating a character (particulary the physical appearance customizations), outfitting that character with cosmetic equipment, chatting/socializing with people in my guild.....and going out exploring different areas in the game to see what they looked like. She didn't get to try housing or fishing or musical instruments...but I'm pretty sure she would have been very excited about those aspects as well.
Okay im going to stop having fun guys, he told me too. So time to cancel my pre-order because this guy said its not going to be good. Glad with have this Seer here to tell us the future of the game.
I didn't know pre-ordering was so enjoyable. I guess i'm missing out on all the fun.
You're darn right it is, you just pretend all these ships are trying to blow you up as you enter your credit card info, and than when you're entering your pre-order code at the main site, you starting playing Duel of Fates and pretend a Sith is trying to kill you to prevent you from entering it, good god its exciting. Regardless, both posts are sarcastic if you didn't already notice.
The things people choose to care about....I could care less if the game is "revolutionary." It looks like fun and I'm going to play it. The fact that its pissed off the elitists on this site is a nice bonus and only makes me want to play it more.;)
IMO demanding 80$ for a digital download is quite revolutionary.
I mean I often play F2P games and throw some money after them, but I never threw 20$ into the cash shop yet, before I even played the game.
Did I read all this right?
Well...that made the final decision for ME. I had decided long ago that I wasn't buying the game, but had begun to reconsider just because, well....it would be a new MMO to play. The price is about 20 to 30 more than what I intend to pay for a game with a monthly sub and oh....a cash shop too. Not payin' 80 bucks. That is highway robbery regardless of how many people WILL pay it.
IMO demanding 80$ for a digital download is quite revolutionary.
I mean I often play F2P games and throw some money after them, but I never threw 20$ into the cash shop yet, before I even played the game.
Did I read all this right?
Well...that made the final decision for ME. I had decided long ago that I wasn't buying the game, but had begun to reconsider just because, well....it would be a new MMO to play. The price is about 20 to 30 more than what I intend to pay for a game with a monthly sub and oh....a cash shop too. Not payin' 80 bucks. That is highway robbery regardless of how many people WILL pay it.
The digital downloads is the CE minus the physical items like the statue and 2 in-game items. it is the equivalent of the WOW/WAR/RIFT CE's.
And cash shop? I have seen nothing to confirm one will be in game.
Oh so that's the CE price? Well that does make some difference. Thank you for clarifying that.
I've said it once, and I've said it 10,000 times. I don't mind if a game clones WoW, but if it's gonna do so, it better darn well do it better than WoW. I hated Rift mostly because it was exactly like WoW, but it did nothing actually better than WoW, and in the end, I felt like I was playing some generic Wal-Mart brand MMO.
thank god you won't be playing this game when it goes live. I for one will be enjoying the epic storylines that i can actually make choices in... unlike any MMO... Glad to see you and your e-peen will be off playing some different games and staying the hell away from my servers and forums.
Those are the exact thoughts that run through my head whenever I read a new thread designed purely to be inflammatory.
Choices doesn't mean a thing, unless the choice you make actually influence the WORLD you play in, and not just your own little storyline.
As someone pointed out in a post I read, which nailed it just right:
You beat this leader of the local Sith force, and feel proud about it. A little later, you realize that everyone are doing the same thing, in the same world.
It makes a bad storyline to do it this way. I know it takes a lot of effort to avoid this, but I honestly expected BioWare to pick up that same challenge, but they just rode along the old band wagon of horrible storylines, which has no logic to it whatsoever.
No... It doesn't make a bad storyline. It may affect your immersion to know that my Sith were defeated too, but that doesn't mean the tale actually being spun was poorly constructed. That just means you're in an MMO. It's not feasible in any massive online environment to have everything you do make a permanent, static change for all who come after you. Oh you killed the Sith Emperor already? Shoot, guess I'll never get to do that now.
No MMO is ever going to have what you just described. Ever.
So basically you are saying: It can't be done because it's an MMO.
My problem is, that it has no MMO feel to it, when EXACTLY the same story I am presented with, is presented to everyone else. The choice I make in my storyline, means zip zero to their storyline. Don't you really understand the flat feeling you get when you understand that your storyline are just a copy of the guy who were here 5 mins before yourself?
Ignoring the mention of EVE below, a majority of MMOs have aspects of story sharing. In WoW, you save a forest and so does the guy next to you. In Rift you go back in time as the sole paragon of your race, and so does every other person. In SWTOR it's likely you'll encounter similar overlap... however the devs have said that depending on how you finish the quests, different other quests may open up to you.
Example: You do a quest to eliminate a sith menace, but instead of killing him you convince him to stay his hand and embrace the light side. Now you have a series of quests you can do through him that not everyone else will do. There's a branching in your story.
Of course not everyone in the world is going to see your living Sith NPC, because some will have chosen to kill him, but like I said you can't have static changes affect everyone elses gameplay on their storylines.
EVE Online, if we disregard the abysmal mission system, is awesome at making storylines. The PLAYERS make the storylines, not by scripts or anything like that, but by actions. What I do, has an impact on other players. Market is 99% player driven, universe is 75% player owned, etc.
So if you ignore major game mechanics, you're free to use your imagination? Cool! Do the same thing in any other MMO you play. Just ignore the storyline and do your own thing. I know plenty of RP guilds out there are gearing up to oppose each other (or ally, depending on faction), and create their own stories independent of the written path.
You mention the market being player driven, and the massive ownership of the 'universe', but that really has nothing to do with personal story. It's totally cool, don't get me wrong, but in terms of the argument you're making it really has no bearing. All you're really getting at is that a majority of the conflict in EVE is player created, and while that's great fun, it's not an arching storyline.
When I wake up and log on to a game like EVE, I am excited to find out what changed since I went to bed, do you get that feeling in SWTOR?
I haven't played it yet. So I don't know. Have you?
You don't have to make a game as "hardcore" as EVE to achieve this, you just need to step of the bloody bandwagon of repeating storylines, and TRY to create something new. At least....TRY, but they did not, I am very dissapointed. Nothing EPIC about a static world.
There's nothing inherently epic about a changing world either. Just look at the real world. Always changing, but very, very mundane in most cases, right?
And what about really awesome movies or books? Ones with incredible tales of heroes and villains, science gone awry or God's playing evil with their creations. Those are static stories, they'll never change, but on your second time through do you say they've lost everything that made them epic because it's the same as before? Or because someone else read the same book, or watched the same movie?
In this video you see.. typical UI, typical mmorpg quests/ideas. The combat looks extremely boring.... What moves did he use... oh yah explosions and shoot a laser gun....
I see an mmo like rift and like wow and like all the rest that uses the same ui and ideas.
What makes this game different? The fact that its the star wars universe?
I mean come on... the graphics arent even good... have you seen guild wars 2 and battlefield 3.... get with the future...
Someone point out why they think this is good or revolutionary because the things that people havent see is what they tend to say is the good aspects. Its all a bunch of BS, this game looks worse then rift did and that game wasnt even that bad.
*I should probably input that dynamic events are the future of games.... so i guess questing makes SWTOR downgrade?
Get off the Star Wars band wagon and stop fan boying, this game analzyed from an MMO point is so typical and fail.... remember this when it launches.
BIG Edit* The main idea is... from what i have read and seen the general mmo industry wants to see different and better games... have you seen why people ripped apart RIFT... thats a unique storyline... not some ripped off book or movie. Bioware doesnt have to use as much creativity and the game looks typical. This site MMORPG also claims that the game is revolutionary... so I am helping people to not be misinformed.
you can play it all day if you want... have all the Star Wars you can possibly have! Im just sheddling light on what this game isnt because people tend to be very fan boy.
*added poll for whoever cares... im just making a point.
*http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/5424/page/1 this is the article that I feel is wrong... theres no information to back up any points while looking at this video it answers itself. This is not industry changing and I feel his ideas were biased because its Star Wars....
I don't know what you saw but what I've seen was epic.
I guess we'll have to wait and see, but you're no more right than people saying that it will change the industry, unless if coarse you have checked with your crystal ball.
you can have all your fun and play what you would like.... but BS reviews and people talking this game up with hype.... that is the most misinformed thing ever.... its the least thing from revolutionary in the mmo industry
In regards to the title of your thread TOR in fact may not have a drastic change on the mmorpg industry, it may not revolutionize things. I'm just not too sure that the droves of people looking forward to this game care all that much though.
I notice a certain type of jaded gamer screaming out for something revolutionary when it comes to gaming but that is a very vocal minority evidenced by the fact that more and more people seem to be gaming as the years go on, the industry is still growing until that changes I think revolution is going to continue to take a backseat to providing the gamer with a fun gaming experience familiar or not.
From what I've read and seen this is how a vocal minority wants gaming to be an endless cycle of games trying to be different but this does not represent gamers as a whole and let's not kid ourselves into thinking the devs care what type of gamer plays their games they don't as a general rule.
Originally posted by Elidien Originally posted by just1opinion
Originally posted by Elidien
Originally posted by just1opinion
Originally posted by Herodes
IMO demanding 80$ for a digital download is quite revolutionary. I mean I often play F2P games and throw some money after them, but I never threw 20$ into the cash shop yet, before I even played the game.
Did I read all this right? Well...that made the final decision for ME. I had decided long ago that I wasn't buying the game, but had begun to reconsider just because, well....it would be a new MMO to play. The price is about 20 to 30 more than what I intend to pay for a game with a monthly sub and oh....a cash shop too. Not payin' 80 bucks. That is highway robbery regardless of how many people WILL pay it. The digital downloads is the CE minus the physical items like the statue and 2 in-game items. it is the equivalent of the WOW/WAR/RIFT CE's. And cash shop? I have seen nothing to confirm one will be in game. Oh so that's the CE price? Well that does make some difference. Thank you for clarifying that. No worries and you're welcome. Bioware did a 3 tier launch. The super $150 CE that has the statue and all kinds of stuff not worth the money. The digital deluxe which has the majority of the in-game items which is $80 and then the regular edition which is $60. All have early access and an item to change your lightsaber color though. I got the regular edition b/c I don't think in-game items that I use the first day and then forget are worth $20. I might miss something, but to me this IS a cash shop - you pay (much) more for virtual items. And do not forget the 150$ CE also got some integrated virtual VIP shop whatever inside. "Pre-order and get a shiny" is quite common, but "Digital Deluxe"? More virtual items for 20$? If WoW/WAR/RIFT did this, then I must have overlooked it.
I think the game is seriously taking the current trends of the MMOG market to heart. I don't believe the game itself will change the face of MMOG's, as I think the publishers have already seen the change and are seeking to capitalize on it. The game may very well be the epitome of the modern MMOG genre.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
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Personally, I could care less if it changes anything- I will be playing the shit out of it, so what it actually does to gaming is completely irrelevant to me.
well said!
Imo the problem is that moneymen actually have no idea what they're throwing their money at. That's the problem. Of course it's all about the money, it's an industry. I totally salute the drive of game companies to pursue maximum profit. However the probem is that the people calling the shots actually have no idea where the money IS and how to make a profit as is evident from all the big name failures in the past 7+ years.
The said suits initially looked at WoW, analyzed its success and came to all the wrong conclusions about what makes a mmo game profitable. And now this dogma, this "WoW recipe" is being repeated ad nauseum. And each time there is a new failure of the concept, the suits decide that it is not the concept itself that is flawed but that all they need to do is to sink even MORE money into the next project based on the very same concepts..
(Let me step back a bit.. I'm not saying that the concept of themepark is "bad" in itself. What I'm saying is that WoW is really not a even a good themepark. Its main reasons for success are many, and fixing some obvious concept flaws from the previous generation of mmos was definitely a part of its success. However being a themepark is not THE reason for WoW becoming what it is. Being a first really polished mmo with excellent UI (lets face it, all the mmos before that were crap in that regard, I couldn't bring myself to play DAoC after trying WoW) and all at the moment broadband became widespread was all waay more important for its success than it being "sandbox" (you know, game area graded by levels, gear rush, quests and all that crap)
It all reminds me of the Hollywood crisis of the musicals back in the 50's and 60's. Rather than admit that the time for "ginger and fred" musicals has passed the producers kept sinking more and more money into ludicrously expensive productions no one wanted to watch anymore... and then came gritty, realistic films that no one believed in (because it was't "common sense" that mass public would want to wach real people, just like it's "common sense" today that no one wants to play a sandbox) such as Bonnie and Clyde which actually saved Hollywood from drowning in it's own glitzy dogma.
The idea that "sandboxes" somehow require too much imagination from players is imo one of those "trusims" that turn on their heads once you look at them. Why should they require "too much imagination"? Does farmville require "too much imagination" or the sims? Man, it takes more imagination from me to believe some NPCs sob story than to actually deal with acutual "real" problems of my fellow players in EvE for example. Farmer Bob is not going to "make me cry" (as Trip Hawkins once famously proclaimed), but my guildmates will. It is just one of the throwbacks from the primitive days of sandboxes that we still hold on to simply because no one made a revolutionary step with AAA sandbox genre comparable to the what, again, Blizzard did to themeparks with WoW. It's like saying Themeparks will never be popular because you can't have players queuing for boss figths for hours (hello instancing!) or that the very mmorpg concept is doomed to failure because mass of players won't stand harsh XP penalties for dying.
This is a non-winnable argument.
I personaly cant stand WOW, many of us cant. Yet they have the most incredible Massive following that no one can even touch.
You will have to wait and see if Star Wars can change the industry. I think they can change the aspect of questing. I can see people getting bored fast with all the text quest MMOs out there, after playing SWTOR.
Thanks for the laugh. On topic, SWTOR might not be revolutionayr but it is bringing some innovative features to MMO genre. All you have to do is go through the sticky on front page and you will find it.
The easy path is the one that the developers are going to take. At least what they perceive is the easy path.
The thing is the sandbox is, at the current time, a niche product, as far as MMOs are concerned. If an updated UO comes out that captures the public's imagination as WoW has, that will change. But given how formula driven the MMO industry has become, much like Hollywood has always been, it will take someone brave to present a breakout product that will, in turn, create a new formula that the others will slavishly follow. Because original thinking is risky, and these guys are all about avoiding risk. They want the sure thing.
Frankly, I think the sandbox concept can work if the presentation is right, but the problem is getting someone out there to dare to break out of the formula. I do believe, strongly, that most of the public can't handle the sandbox. I saw this in SWG, where people were screaming for "content" which meant for someone to present them something to do...they couldn't manage to create their own content, which was what Koster had planned for...and the directed content that was obviously in the original design never got presented for the most part, or was presented (remember Cries of Alderaan?) and then forgotten about.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Most people want to have a good time. Then there are others looking to play the game because it's the cool thing to do. Very few play a game because of the OP's reason.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Well I agree with the SWG gripe there. And imo that is the no1 failure of all the would-be sandbox game designers out there who equate sandbox with "lack of content" .. or even with "ffa PvP" and "harsh death penalties" (/rolleyes). These are the designer-side preconceptions that are holding back the sandbox mmo sub-genre.
Imo the dynamic events and similar mechanics is one of the ways to way to go with sandbox evolution. You can have content AND sandbox. GW2 is making tremendous strides in that direction and I really don't see the open-world part of their game as being truly themepark. It's more like a themepark/sandbox hybrid. You have a real power to make persistant changes in the world which is largely moving on its own (no, you're not "the One") but the changes themselves are pre-made and carefully crafted by the designers (aka "content"). Imo this is one route of creating a "sandbox 2.0" concept. The second would be to make content-creation procedural (imagine living as one character in a vast AI-driven game of fantasy civilization) but imo that would be quite difficult (to say the least) to pull off. Another way of redeeming sandboxes is to remove the stigma of grind and dullness from crafting ("who'd want to be a dew-farmer?") which can be done by introducing autonomous and hireable NPCs to perform chores for player characters thus leaving them free to go about being heroes and have fun. Ironically, it is SW:TOR making this step in AAA mmos by introducing crafting crewmembers and permanent companions.
So... being realistic I suspect we might never see a self-proclaimed western AAA "sandbox" mmo, mainly because of the unfair prejudice attached to that term. However, in a few years time if these new concepts prove viable and popular, the next "next" generation of mmos might turn out to have more sandbox elements than traditional themepark ones... and no one will probably even notice.
IMO demanding 80$ for a digital download is quite revolutionary.
I mean I often play F2P games and throw some money after them, but I never threw 20$ into the cash shop yet, before I even played the game.
When you say this site called it revolutionary, please say you're not referring to the article claiming such? If so you obviously didn't read the disclaimer for that article.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well there is another route for a would-be "sandbox" developer to go...which is outside of the traditional "hard core" gaming audience that many "sandbox" games have been targeted at so far.
The fact is that there is a HUGE, HUGE existing audience out there for "social" games. Things like Farmville and other Facebook style games draw very large audiences. Those audiences are interested primarily in the social aspect of games. Most have them have never played or even thought of playing an MMO.... and are not "gamers" as we would typicaly classify them.... yet at the same time they are willing to spend hours & dollars in products like Farmville.
As the current MMO market is pretty saturated with offerings, developers have often paid alot of lip service about trying to reach out to new audiences to draw them into the market....yet very few offerings have actualy made any serious attempt in terms of design features at offering things non-traditional MMO audiences might be interested in. It's an absolute no brainer to me that the "social gaming" audience is a market ripe to be tapped if someone can pull it off successfully.
In the past MMO's and Gaming in general have had a stygma attached to them with these sort of audiences as a "kid/nerd thing", but that stygma is fast dissappearing and such people are more and more willing to dip thier toes into other sorts of games.
From first hand experience, my wife, who is anything but a gamer had a surprisingly good time when she tried out LOTRO. She had absolutely no interest in combat, questing, progression or any of the typical "game play" aspects....but she was absolutely enthralled by designing and creating a character (particulary the physical appearance customizations), outfitting that character with cosmetic equipment, chatting/socializing with people in my guild.....and going out exploring different areas in the game to see what they looked like. She didn't get to try housing or fishing or musical instruments...but I'm pretty sure she would have been very excited about those aspects as well.
You're darn right it is, you just pretend all these ships are trying to blow you up as you enter your credit card info, and than when you're entering your pre-order code at the main site, you starting playing Duel of Fates and pretend a Sith is trying to kill you to prevent you from entering it, good god its exciting. Regardless, both posts are sarcastic if you didn't already notice.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Did I read all this right?
Well...that made the final decision for ME. I had decided long ago that I wasn't buying the game, but had begun to reconsider just because, well....it would be a new MMO to play. The price is about 20 to 30 more than what I intend to pay for a game with a monthly sub and oh....a cash shop too. Not payin' 80 bucks. That is highway robbery regardless of how many people WILL pay it.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Oh so that's the CE price? Well that does make some difference. Thank you for clarifying that.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I've said it once, and I've said it 10,000 times. I don't mind if a game clones WoW, but if it's gonna do so, it better darn well do it better than WoW. I hated Rift mostly because it was exactly like WoW, but it did nothing actually better than WoW, and in the end, I felt like I was playing some generic Wal-Mart brand MMO.
I don't know what you saw but what I've seen was epic.
I guess we'll have to wait and see, but you're no more right than people saying that it will change the industry, unless if coarse you have checked with your crystal ball.
Let me guess...you are a GW2 fan?
Welcome to how 1 persons opinion doesnt matter in the video game industry.
Ie its people like this is why most developers dont attempt to put as much money into games as ea/bioware has done with SWTOR.
So get over yourself.
In regards to the title of your thread TOR in fact may not have a drastic change on the mmorpg industry, it may not revolutionize things. I'm just not too sure that the droves of people looking forward to this game care all that much though.
I notice a certain type of jaded gamer screaming out for something revolutionary when it comes to gaming but that is a very vocal minority evidenced by the fact that more and more people seem to be gaming as the years go on, the industry is still growing until that changes I think revolution is going to continue to take a backseat to providing the gamer with a fun gaming experience familiar or not.
From what I've read and seen this is how a vocal minority wants gaming to be an endless cycle of games trying to be different but this does not represent gamers as a whole and let's not kid ourselves into thinking the devs care what type of gamer plays their games they don't as a general rule.
Did I read all this right?
Well...that made the final decision for ME. I had decided long ago that I wasn't buying the game, but had begun to reconsider just because, well....it would be a new MMO to play. The price is about 20 to 30 more than what I intend to pay for a game with a monthly sub and oh....a cash shop too. Not payin' 80 bucks. That is highway robbery regardless of how many people WILL pay it.
The digital downloads is the CE minus the physical items like the statue and 2 in-game items. it is the equivalent of the WOW/WAR/RIFT CE's.
And cash shop? I have seen nothing to confirm one will be in game.
Oh so that's the CE price? Well that does make some difference. Thank you for clarifying that.
No worries and you're welcome. Bioware did a 3 tier launch. The super $150 CE that has the statue and all kinds of stuff not worth the money.
I might miss something, but to me this IS a cash shop - you pay (much) more for virtual items. And do not forget the 150$ CE also got some integrated virtual VIP shop whatever inside.
"Pre-order and get a shiny" is quite common, but "Digital Deluxe"? More virtual items for 20$? If WoW/WAR/RIFT did this, then I must have overlooked it.
I think the game is seriously taking the current trends of the MMOG market to heart. I don't believe the game itself will change the face of MMOG's, as I think the publishers have already seen the change and are seeking to capitalize on it. The game may very well be the epitome of the modern MMOG genre.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I trust Bioware to craft a great game for me.
Now,
When is the first expansion gonna ship !
**Rabble Rabble Rabble**
Have a sense of humor, no need to get ALL MODDY !
A Simpson's quote shouldn't be worth a warning. You are lucky anyone is bothering to read this rag.