How The Old Republic Didn't Change MMOs

[Dennis Scimeca]

How The Old Republic Didn't Change MMOs

The Old Republic is great but not groundbreaking.

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[Voltano]

One problem with multi-player games is narrative tends to be ignored or easily shattered due to the social aspect. Yahtzee pointed this out in his "Fear 3" review where the game tries telling a story to the *players*, but they would rather joke or develop strategies for the next level. Also, when you look at narrative in social media like movies, people get *very* annoyed when there is a group in the theater that is either laughing too loud, has crying children, or has their cell phone ringing while watching a great moment in the film (As Moviebob pointed out).

I have no doubts The Old Republic is a great game (I haven't and don't intend to play it), but I suspected the issues brought up here were going to be pretty visible in the game. In WoW, before Cataclysm, I was given a quest to eliminate X panthers and Y boars in the Night Elves newbie area to thin their herd. Yet my immersion to the game was instantly shattered when seeing other night elves killing off the creatures all around me, and some NPC telling me that they still have a breeding issue.

 

[Sixcess]

The companions are what killed the game for me. It looks ridiculous when there's ten of a supposed individual wandering around in any of the main hubs, and I' found I was quite umcomfortable (for want of a better word) with the idea that an MMO appeared to be designed to encourage me to interact with the NPCs more than with my fellow players.

It's not a bad game, but what it does new is either slick presentation (the voice acting, the cutscenes) or single player mechanics awkwardly bolted onto the MMO framework with no attempt to hide the joins (the companions) and the much vaunted moral choice system is less impressive than that implemented over a year ago by City of Heroes, where the choices you make can actually result in your character switching sides altogether.

I do wonder how many people stick with it once they've completed a couple of the class stories - given that the same levelling content is shared outwith the class specific stories I can't see that many people doing all 8 without it feeling grindy. As with all new MMOs, only time will tell.

 

[Bostur]

Good review, thanks.

I think it's interesting to note that many reviewers mention that the standard BioWare dialogue system gets a life on it's own in an MMO. This is something I didn't think of myself, but it makes sense.

I have sometimes thought that traditional cRPG mechanics would clash with mechanics in an MMO, reviewers seems to agree that the dialogue system actually works well. Your experience with followers seems to be one case where there is a clash.

Single player and multi-player games have very different dynamics, so trying to combine them is probably a bit of a gamble.

One problem with multi-player games is narrative tends to be ignored or easily shattered due to the social aspect. Yahtzee pointed this out in his "Fear 3" review where the game tries telling a story to the *players*, but they would rather joke or develop strategies for the next level. Also, when you look at narrative in social media like movies, people get *very* annoyed when there is a group in the theater that is either laughing too loud, has crying children, or has their cell phone ringing while watching a great moment in the film (As Moviebob pointed out).

This is something I've often experienced in multiplayer games. Even in traditional MMOs like WoW this can be an issue if one player wants to read quest text and the rest don't care for them. In Guild Wars I remember players often asked the rest to skip the cutscenes, making it hard to immerse oneself in the story. I wonder how SW:TOR handles this, it probably becomes more of an issue when the game is older and some of the players know the storylines.

 

[Dastardly]

How The Old Republic Didn't Change MMOs

The Old Republic is great but not groundbreaking.

Read Full Article

BioWare makes fantastic single-player games.
Multiplayer RPGs are fantastic for small groups of people who already know each other.
These two facts are humongous obstacles to a BioWare-made, story-driven MMORPG.

First, on the BioWare story angle -- a good story has structure and direction. A great story leads to such an ending that, while still shocking and surprising, still feels as if it's the only true ending that could have been reached (That is to say, hindsight makes the ending feel even more authentic, because it's clear it didn't happen by accident). Offering choice is not a death-sentence for good stories, but it does require that the possibilities be limited.

Voice-acting every cutscene further limits choices, because now each option requires additional resources. (Side effect: You are now telling the player what his/her character sounds like. This isn't Mass Effect, where we're borrowing "a Shepard." This is supposed to be our character.)

The inclusion of story-heavy, voice-acted companion characters introduces still more limitation. When you see the same three guys everywhere you go, the world feels smaller. And your companion, to whom you're supposed to be attached, feels less special. You're supposed to feel like Han Solo, smuggling around with your Wookiee companion... but so is every smuggler.

As a quick aside, space combat being "on the rails" may make each encounter more cinematic... but it adds additional limitation to a player's self-determination.

All of these elements can make for a fantastic story, because the "author" remains in control of all the parts and pieces. Unfortunately, it causes the game to feel much less like a living, breathing world and more like a museum -- you can look, but you can't touch, and you have to stay with the guide. You're not creating a character, you're renting one someone already made.

All of these are natural fixtures of many good story-focused RPGs. Single-player RPGs, that is. For which you pay once. And that is BioWare's biggest problem -- they've created a fantastic single-player RPG, as they often do... but they're asking people to pay for it more than once.


______


The justification? Massively multiplayer. So we're back to that point. A story, full of choices and consequences, can work in a group setting. A small, fixed group in which the participants know each other and have, at least in part, agreed on a common playstyle.

In an MMO, not everyone has that small, fixed group. And even within a guild/faction/etc., you might not always have the same game time as your preferred groupmates. That means constantly tossing in random (or at least untested) people. Different people, different styles. This one strives for immersion, this one adores the meta-game, this one just wants to level so he can go PvP...

Every time a choice comes up, or a dramatic moment, everyone has to stop a moment and reconcile their views with those of the others before play can continue. Players have to stop playing, and instead talk out and agree upon how they're going to play. It becomes like watching a movie with the Director's Commentary on -- it can be incredibly enjoyable for some, but for many it interrupts the story.

The answer? Stick with one small group of players, with whom you game consistently. Well... now it's not very "massive," is it? It's yet another limitation in player freedom, as a result of the story being paramount. It's no longer a massive, living world full of characters, but an interactive lobby in which thousands of players happen to be reading the same story out of separate books.

_________

In my opinion, MMOs were never supposed to be the place for developers to tell a story. They were supposed to be worlds. Toolkits. A way for players to tell their own stories. And when you have thousands of these characters interacting, larger stories will emerge.

That's how a world works, including the real one. No one is writing a central narrative, except perhaps in hindsight. Day to day, it's just billions of individual stories interacting in unpredictable ways. And in the real world, we tend to measure our own "success" by the amount of power we have to change the direction of our narrative.

Why, then, would any MMO create a world in which the player has even less of that power?

 

[GaltarDude1138]

Hmm, I don't really fault BioWare for those faults, since you have to sacrifice some in order to make something that walks the line of single-player, multi-player genre conventions.

But I like it, so far. And hey, if people leave, and I'm the only one left on my server, then hey, problems solved

EDIT: And I seem to recall Daniel Erickson saying something about if you're playing a bad guy, the results of your actions are clearly displayed and are supposed to egg at your conscience. However if your being a goody-two-shoes, you get bigger and bigger rewards dangled in front of you, but getting those rewards requires you to stray from being a good guy.

So that mission you were playing was probably one of them .

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Fortunately, the "kill X mobs" quests are usually bonus ones that are coupled with a mission to get objects (comm units, cargo, stealth field generators, etc.). Usually, you can get 90% of the required kills in the process of completing the main mission and just requires a extra push of effort to get that last kill.

The narrative scenes, contrary to the article, are repeatable if you make a mistake, but the margin of error is very small. If you hit ESC before the conversation ends (solo missions only), you will leave the conversation as if it never happened. This is particularly useful since the conversation selections aren't always fully representative of the narrative (at least one of the conversations gave you an choice that felt like the Dark/Light Side choice was reversed) and companion loyalty options aren't always clear.

Combat is definitely the weakest point of the game, although the nature of the Imperial Agent may have something to do with that. If your article is an indicator of how far you were at the time of writing (which would be within the first few hours of the IA story), I agree that the gameplay for the IA (and presumably the smuggler) is a tad clunky. The biggest problem is that many of the powers require taking cover, which adds one more step in combat that the force classes (Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Knight, Jedi Concilor) don't require. The warrior and knight play very similar to your standard melee DPS/Tank, with jump-to-target, aggro-heavy AoE, and high-DPS targeted attacks. Players who played warriors in WoW will immediately get comfortable with these classes. The Inquisitor and Concilor play similar to mages and/or rogues, depending on your advanced class, with ranged DPS and CC. (I haven't made a Trooper or Bounty Hunter, so I'm not familiar with their combat routine.) The biggest problem, however is the lack of an auto attack, especially since it is clear that there is a "base attack" that could be converted into an auto attack without any real problems. The flip side of this is that combat is a tad more active than other MMOs, as every action requires player input, although the execution of this is not ideal. The IA is probably the most-significant departure from standard MMORPG combat gameplay, and the take-cover mechanic is necessary for way too many of their early powers (who needs cover to snipe?). For those looking to jump into a familiar gameplay setting, try the Jedi/Sith classes first

 

[Atmos Duality]

In my opinion, MMOs were never supposed to be the place for developers to tell a story. They were supposed to be worlds. Toolkits. A way for players to tell their own stories. And when you have thousands of these characters interacting, larger stories will emerge.

That's how a world works, including the real one. No one is writing a central narrative, except perhaps in hindsight.

I'm going to disagree here a bit on the grounds of "Looks good on paper, doesn't actually happen much in practice."

Not to rain on your parade here, but an overwhelming majority of the "stories" of the everyday world are either intensely boring or unpleasant. Sadly, that's how the real world works.

In terms of MMORPGs: Outside of sparsely populated RP-servers, NOBODY is telling stories of "character"; instead, they're bitching about gameplay balance/PvP, bragging about their gear, or talking about their latest "raid".
Those aren't stories of character, but stories of mechanical interaction. They're quite different.

In terms of gameplay, my limited experience with TOR suggests that it's "KOTOR-Online", but with needless grind tacked on. It's surprisingly single-player-centric for an MMO, though that could just be limited to the early levels; I'm guessing here.

 

[Merlark]

Because this is bioware's first MMO they really had no choice but to play it safe, which meant choosing a style everyone recognizes and can relate too. This is another example of the market we live in today, its not about impressing a small group of people like in the old days its about introducing more people into the market and that means using basics and using them better than anyone else.

Its a break up of setting at least, I much prefer my sci-fi to lord of the rings style fantasy setting.

Still as a long time MMO player I have to admit, other than the story's which are good it doesn't 'feel' like starwars, oh sure the memorable planets are there but as i'm jumping around throwing buffs on people and looking womp rats before doing a group instance to hopefully find an orange armor piece...i get pulled out of the star wars world and into the generic 'MMO' world i've inhabited before.

It's lacking that magic, the 'style' that certain MMO's have. It's like the matrix, you login and you can see and breath the 'system' at work. I'm not feeling that the old republic has a unique way of doing anything. the combat is stale bread and the classes are not special in the slightest.

But hey, the floor plan is here. there is high quality in this game that big budgets can only deliver. Best of all the developers are listening to the community.

I am torn though, I want to be frustrated with tired tried and true elements just for the sake of profit...but then again, i can't say I'm not having fun with it thus far.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I played it, I've voiced concerns on many different posts on why I dislike it. I don't think its a bad game, but as a Star Wars and KotOR fan, I just don't feel a connection to the world or the events.
And it feels like World of Star Wars (now with voice acting!). Not a new MMO.

 

[Dastardly]

Not to rain on your parade here, but an overwhelming majority of the "stories" of the everyday world are either intensely boring or unpleasant. Sadly, that's how the real world works.

Yes. And, as I said, we tend to measure our "success" by how much power we have to change the boring/unpleasant stuff. A game should offer us tons of that power. This game does not.

In terms of MMORPGs: Outside of sparsely populated RP-servers, NOBODY is telling stories of "character"; instead, they're bitching about gameplay balance/PvP, bragging about their gear, or talking about their latest "raid".
Those aren't stories of character, but stories of mechanical interaction. They're quite different.

Yes, they are different. They are also valid. Some players prefer that kind of "story," while others prefer in-character interaction. An MMO should be a toolkit that allows either to thrive. This one offers neither -- the mechanics don't support steady in-character experience, and the out-of-character experience is very limited.

Rather than "best of both worlds," this game is just the center sliver of that Venn diagram.

In terms of gameplay, my limited experience with TOR suggests that it's "KOTOR-Online", but with needless grind tacked on. It's surprisingly single-player-centric for an MMO, though that could just be limited to the early levels; I'm guessing here.

It stays like this pretty much throughout. The only places that make other players feel 'necessary' are because of difficulty -- you need more lightsabers or blasters on this target to make its health go down. Multiplayer consistently shoves you out of the story and into the meta-game.

This is a single-player game. And a good one, mind you. But I pay for single player games once, personally.

 

[Dennis Scimeca]

I totally disagree with you. I find there to be a lot less tedious fetching work, and the combat feels really organic to me. I haven't had to number crunch, but I have had to prioritize, and I appreciate that. Further, which quests are you doing that don't have cut scenes??

 

[Scars Unseen]

First, on the BioWare story angle -- a good story has structure and direction. A great story leads to such an ending that, while still shocking and surprising, still feels as if it's the only true ending that could have been reached (That is to say, hindsight makes the ending feel even more authentic, because it's clear it didn't happen by accident). Offering choice is not a death-sentence for good stories, but it does require that the possibilities be limited.

Voice-acting every cutscene further limits choices, because now each option requires additional resources. (Side effect: You are now telling the player what his/her character sounds like. This isn't Mass Effect, where we're borrowing "a Shepard." This is supposed to be our character.)

The inclusion of story-heavy, voice-acted companion characters introduces still more limitation. When you see the same three guys everywhere you go, the world feels smaller. And your companion, to whom you're supposed to be attached, feels less special. You're supposed to feel like Han Solo, smuggling around with your Wookiee companion... but so is every smuggler.

As a quick aside, space combat being "on the rails" may make each encounter more cinematic... but it adds additional limitation to a player's self-determination.

All of these elements can make for a fantastic story, because the "author" remains in control of all the parts and pieces. Unfortunately, it causes the game to feel much less like a living, breathing world and more like a museum -- you can look, but you can't touch, and you have to stay with the guide. You're not creating a character, you're renting one someone already made.

Most of my guildmates have pretty much agreed that in SWTOR, you are playing two characters: the one that follows Bioware's story, and the one that you actually RP with other people. There really isn't any other way to look at it if you actually role play. Not everyone can be playing the new recruit of an elite republic military unit after all. So it's pretty simple for me. I solo my story content and then save the RP for open world and flashpoints.

The justification? Massively multiplayer. So we're back to that point. A story, full of choices and consequences, can work in a group setting. A small, fixed group in which the participants know each other and have, at least in part, agreed on a common playstyle.

In an MMO, not everyone has that small, fixed group. And even within a guild/faction/etc., you might not always have the same game time as your preferred groupmates. That means constantly tossing in random (or at least untested) people. Different people, different styles. This one strives for immersion, this one adores the meta-game, this one just wants to level so he can go PvP...

You could argue the same thing for most MMOs for reasons unrelated to story. To get the most out of an MMO, it is important to play with people you know(even if only online) and are comfortable with. Try habitually grouping with people you don't know or trust in Eve Online and see how long it takes you to get scammed, ambushed, or otherwise betrayed.

Every time a choice comes up, or a dramatic moment, everyone has to stop a moment and reconcile their views with those of the others before play can continue. Players have to stop playing, and instead talk out and agree upon how they're going to play. It becomes like watching a movie with the Director's Commentary on -- it can be incredibly enjoyable for some, but for many it interrupts the story.

That doesn't seem like a good way to approach those situations for two reason. First, because if you are actually role playing, you don't need to consult with others to know what your character would do/say. That's why there is a random roll instead of a popular vote. Second, the game gives you a limited amount of time to respond, so discussion about what choice to make would quickly become moot.

The answer? Stick with one small group of players, with whom you game consistently. Well... now it's not very "massive," is it? It's yet another limitation in player freedom, as a result of the story being paramount. It's no longer a massive, living world full of characters, but an interactive lobby in which thousands of players happen to be reading the same story out of separate books.

And at that point, you are pointedly ignoring the rest of the game. Of course you are in a small group when engaging in content designed for small groups. Was that not obvious? Other MMOs have such content too. How did RP communities ever get by when some of the content requires you to group together and shut out the rest of the world? By doing other stuff too. Having a narrative for limited content does not prevent people from acting beyond that limited content.

In my opinion, MMOs were never supposed to be the place for developers to tell a story. They were supposed to be worlds. Toolkits. A way for players to tell their own stories. And when you have thousands of these characters interacting, larger stories will emerge.

That's how a world works, including the real one. No one is writing a central narrative, except perhaps in hindsight. Day to day, it's just billions of individual stories interacting in unpredictable ways. And in the real world, we tend to measure our own "success" by the amount of power we have to change the direction of our narrative.

Why, then, would any MMO create a world in which the player has even less of that power?

I'll not comment on your views as to what the nature of an MMO should be, since that's all subjective anyway, but if you think you have less player agency in SWTOR than in the majority of mainstream MMOs(with some exceptions like Eve), then I think you may need to reevaluate. When is the last time in WoW that anyone has actually gotten to decide whether or not a quest related NPC lived? For that matter, when is the last time that you got to make any decisions at all within a WoW quest?

And if you're referring to player agency in world RP, that rant makes even less sense. How on earth does a game having a narrative affect how players interact with each other at all? My guild already has events planned with our own storyline completely unrelated to our class content. And we are far from the only ones. RP can only be strengthened by the game having an easily recognizable narrative, as that gives a stronger center for RP guilds to gravitate towards, meaning that most guilds will likely be compatible for interguild RP.

 

[Jarlaxl]

If one views an MMO (and, indeed, RPGs in general) as offering an experience in:

1. Mechanics (game play)
2. World (a space with an internal logic for a player to express himself or herself - think of making your Pokemon team as a unique expression of you given the tools in the game environment as a correct usage of world. In an MMO, this will also include the player-driven social environment/marketplace/etc.)
3. Story (narrative, or the why you are going from point A to B accomplishing tasks X, Y, and Z)

...then both SWTOR and, its most obvious competitor, WoW, are quite tight in the mechanics department. Quite simply, everything works like it should and like it feels it should.

The difference lies in world and story. WoW has historically played to the greatest strength of the MMO - world - while being admittedly weak in the story department. SWTOR decided to capitalize on the story department, while unintentionally de-emphasizing the factor of world.

Both are games with dramatically different styles supporting strong game play. Shockingly, at the end of the day, they're two different, but both very good, game experiences.

 

[UkuleleSlayer]

Now that I think about it, why are the ceilings so high?

 

[Dascylus]

I never played MMOs before. They never interested me. I remember getting interested in them back hen a friend showed me the beta of WOW. But one thing was lacking, the RPG element. It never caught me up.
Despite not playing them I was still interested. I would swap comparisons of deathmatches on Halo and Battlefield as I saw similar behaviour but with different mechanics being played out in PvP battles on WOW and War as my friends played.
I played KOTOR and KOTOR2 and loved them, I lapped up The Elder Scrolls games and I've enjoyed roleplaying since I first discovered D&D.

So I was pleasantly surprised when another friend let me play around with his SWTOR beta while he took a much needed power nap during that all too brief weekend.
By the time he came back I was convinced, I pre-ordered right there and then and I have been enjoying all aspects of the game since then.
Bioware made the RPG aspects more enaging and I am thankful for it.
If you had asked a few weeks ago what my favorite game of 2011 was I would have been umming and erring over BF3 and Skyrim... Now it looks like we have a 3-way tie with SWTOR coming out just ahead because it drew me into something new.
Mythic may have been instrumental in getting the game off the ground as an MMO but Bioware are the ones to put something fresh into the genre.

Thankyou all of the top developers of 2011. These last few months have been an outstanding season for gaming.

 

[oldtaku]

In my opinion, MMOs were never supposed to be the place for developers to tell a story. They were supposed to be worlds. Toolkits. A way for players to tell their own stories. And when you have thousands of these characters interacting, larger stories will emerge.

This was Star Wars Galaxies. And I know there's a bunch of hardcore types who loved roleplaying a total schlub who was just some random powerless dude in the Star Wars universe. But most of the 'stories' were /dance -> /tip, because when you rely on other players to make your content when they can't even generate real in-game content they usually disappoint. I far prefer Old Republic's approach even if it's an awkward fit.

Now you might find the EQII dungeon creation system interesting, though that has severe limits right now.

 

[Dastardly]

In my opinion, MMOs were never supposed to be the place for developers to tell a story. They were supposed to be worlds. Toolkits. A way for players to tell their own stories. And when you have thousands of these characters interacting, larger stories will emerge.

This was Star Wars Galaxies. And I know there's a bunch of hardcore types who loved roleplaying a total schlub who was just some random powerless dude in the Star Wars universe. But most of the 'stories' were /dance -> /tip, because when you rely on other players to make your content when they can't even generate real in-game content they usually disappoint. I far prefer Old Republic's approach even if it's an awkward fit.

Now you might find the EQII dungeon creation system interesting, though that has severe limits right now.

Star Wars Galaxies was, at first, a big step in the right direction for MMOs. You could choose who you wanted to be. You could be a salesman or a bounty hunter or a dancer or a ranger. You could be a starfighter pilot, or just an asteroid miner. You could decorate your house however you saw fit with any in-game item, even using them to create other items (like curtains made out of skirts, etc.). The game supported your choices.

And it made a world of it. If someone bought something from you, they traveled to your house to do it. They saw all your hard work. Your house wasn't just some instance that you used for personal storage (unless you wanted it to be). It existed in the world, and it was there even when you weren't.

SWG had many failings, of course, like providing little guidance for new players. A bit of a quest thread could have helped there (rather than forcing a "HERO OF THE GALAXY" storyline on you). It's just that they threw the baby out with the bathwater. They abandoned all the good things and amplified the wrong ones.

SWG had problems in the gameplay mechanics department. But it had a fantastic sense of world. That's the thing that originally made it okay for games to charge monthly access fees... but we've forgotten that, and learned to expect singleplayer games for multiplayer prices.

 

[LJJ1991]

Bioware, indeed, stated that they weren't going to change the core experience of an MMORPG. I think they even said "If you're not doing it like WoW, you're doing something wrong." On a gameplay sense, I agree with this. WoW's gameplay is good, that's all there is to it. Yes, sometimes bosses are rehashed, yes the gear system seems simple and repetitive, but frankly WoW is a fun game to play. I even like how TOR changed the combat system (removing auto attack). It adds a bit more focus and strategy to the game, in my opinion.

The companions, however, I completely agree are kinda weird. It's so strange to see another Qyzen or another Cedrac walking around. It blows me out of the immersion I appreciate so much. They need to do something about that. Even if they just took away the names, under the companion, it would help.

Aside from all of that, I absolutely love the game. The story is so encompassing (and it's a shame that a lot of people are ignoring it). That's where the game REALLY shines, but the side quests have their own story lines of their own (the Taris side quests, for example, lead to a huge plot twist that could someday be an Operation, in my opinion).

 

[Giftmacher]

This! This is exactly what I've been saying to anyone who'll listen. It was a huge disappointment to see how little attention Bioware paid to game mechanics. Having seen the smuggler's cover mechanic I had assumed gameplay got something of a re-think. So it was something of a let down to find a WoW re-skin... I should have known better really.

Gift