Bad PR from SWTOR, why?

[Pr0]

Games that don't have photo-realistic graphics suck. Games that I used to like, but are no longer graphically awe-inspiring suck. If a game isn't photo-realistic, it has no redeeming qualities. Boycott ugly games, because graphics is the only thing that's important!

/sarcasm off

To counter your sarcasm if it was just the graphics, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I know I sure do. Unfortunately, Jedi's in TOR play pretty much like Jedi's in KoTOR minus the spacebar tactical delays.

Its not just the bad graphics, its the relatively uninspiring game dynamics as well. Had they at least taken the graphics up a notch to make up for the game dynamics, that might have been another plus point in its favor.

I'm still going to buy it cause I have a small angry mob of friends that will hang me by my toes if I don't at least "give it a try" with them. But I'm extremely unsure how long it will keep my interest.

 

[LobsterFeng]

It ~is~ KotOR 3, and 4 through 11. =p Each class has its own full story mode that lasts longer than the original KotOR.

But... can I have a game that isn't Multiplayer? Don't get me wrong that sounds cool, I just don't like MMOs because I hate multiplayer.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I can actually tell you that I don't care how my Jedi plays. 'Cause I won't be playing a Jedi. More likely a Trooper or Smuggler. But that's actually not the real reason.

It's really because I have reasonable expectations of games. I've been playing PC games since 5.25" floppy disks on my Apple IIE. Since the dawn of video game cinematics, they've always been used to show off cool stuff that you can't actually do in-game. This is absolutely nothing new.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Really, It like Comparing the wooden sword to the Ultima Keyblade.

You have to work with the wooden sword before you get the Ultima Keyblade Don't give up.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

When you're releasing a game in 2011 that looks like most games released in 2003, you've done something wrong. That has nothing to do with graphics whoring, it just is what it is. Even the Source engine looks far better than TOR.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

 

[Pr0]

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I can actually tell you that I don't care how my Jedi plays. 'Cause I won't be playing a Jedi. More likely a Trooper or Smuggler. But that's actually not the real reason.

It's really because I have reasonable expectations of games. I've been playing PC games since 5.25" floppy disks on my Apple IIE. Since the dawn of video game cinematics, they've always been used to show off cool stuff that you can't actually do in-game. This is absolutely nothing new.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

Yanno I think almost anyone around here has some claim to long term video game "lineage" and what not so the whole "look at me I played video games since 5.25 disks" is stupid. I played video games off tape casettes that hardly makes me a better person than you.

Developing to the lowest common denominator is whats holding the MMO industry back and turning out title after title of games that are 60 bucks at release, 30 bucks within 90 days with a free trial and soon enough after, within 180 days or a year at most, free to play. And why is that? Cause WoW is JUST THAT DAMN GOOD, or because these developers are developing to the lowest common denominator and not attempting to make new strides in the industry and people pretty much put their hands up and say...why am I going to pay these other people to do what WoW already does?

Also the whole "An MMO is an MMO" thing, MxO was well beyond any MMO ever made in its cinematic stylized action combat system. The MMO element was still there but it damn sure looked a lot better. Had that game not been abandoned by Monolith/Sega and dropped on SOE who pretty much treated it like a redheaded step child and then shut it down cause it wasn't worth paying the licensing rights for it when SOE's Online division already operates in the red in SOE's budget pretty much since 2005. Simple facts are cinematic stylization of combat that made you feel like you were really pretty goddamn awesome has already been done in an MMO dynamic and done fairly well. I'm not being unreasonable to ask MMO's to evolve, and use the technology available in the industry right now to start stepping out of the WoW box and start adding things that truly do allow their titles to stand out.

In this case its like WoW and TOR are both bus stops and the only thing that makes one bus stop different than the other is the street its on and the advertisements each one is covered in. And that nearly it, when it comes to overall dynamics.

BioWare can do better than that, but someone in all the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent getting this game made decided they didn't have to do better than that they just had to do it as good. And by virtue of the Star Wars IP and the story based quest model, they would be the one game to survive the WoW monster.

 

[Pr0]

Removed double post. CAPTCHA system being a bit lame.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Because MMOs tend to have lower end graphics to keep the barrier to entry low so they can have as wide a target market as possible. The reason WoW does so good is that the amount of people with PCs(although not AAA gaming PCs) completely dwarfs the console market.

 

[Fake Nicker]

So for a game with so large a budget, why do the troopers on the ground have the exact same death pose? They are all laying in the same manner....

 

[Buizel91]

Most of the money is going towards the voice acting.

And besides, if the game is as expensive as rumored, you'd want to keep the graphics on the low end so you can sell to as many people as possible.

Just like WoW, the reason it's so popular is a person with an old computer can still play it, why make the graphics stupidly good when many people can't run them, bad business sense

OT: Yeh, that's an old image, people can tell me that "the game sucks" , but until i see a review, i'm saying it's looking fine at the moment. The Graphics are fun and cartoony (which is how i like them) sure the combat looks a bit etchy, but meh, me is hoping that will get sorted.

 

[The Madman]

Don't mind the visual style at all actually. Trying to go for realism has the drawback that while it looks good now chances are it'll look terrible within a few years whereas going for a cartoony artstyle does not have that drawback so long as it's done well. Okami, Psychonauts, and yes World of Warcraft all still look excellent today. The environments displayed in WOW are breathtaking in places despite the relatively ancient engine running the game.

If the Kotor MMO can capture that sort of artistic essence it could be interesting. With a budget as big as theirs is supposed to be I'd hope to have numerous worlds to explore as well, plentiful unique landscapes to see and something new always just on the horizon. The ability to explore these vast open worlds has always been one of the key strengths of MMO's and SWTOR has a vast setting with which to work. Could be good!

It's other things that have me concerned with the direction of this game. The gameplay from what I've seen looks so bog-standard that I'm honestly not the least bit curious to play it myself after having seen it. Plus from the same gameplay I saw some time back the environments look to be instanced, aka self-contained locations rather than the vast open worlds of other MMO.

Still, it's far too early to be passing judgment now. People tend to forget how fractured almost every MMO ever has been on release and in the early stages. Even WOW was nearly unplayable on first release, it's only over time it became the juggernaut it is today. We'll see if Bioware can do the same!

 

[Pr0]

Because MMOs tend to have lower end graphics to keep the barrier to entry low so they can have as wide a target market as possible. The reason WoW does so good is that the amount of people with PCs(although not AAA gaming PCs) completely dwarfs the console market.

And I don't disagree with you. This is a completely true statement but, it doesn't take a triple A gaming PC to actually embrace some of the technologies available.

I'm hardly asking TOR to be Crytek level gorgeous, all I wanted out of it, really, was a new experience, in regards to MMO's. Its not delivering a new experience really.

So I simply said, well they could have at least made a few advances on character creation elements, I mean they have the stuff on hand, the Mass Effect or even DA facial design systems are more advanced than the TOR character creation system. And the DA2 character models blow the doors off TOR's and you can play DA2 on a laptop.

Character is an important thing, in an R-P-G, its something WoW pretty much ignored and I guess everyone else has decided that people don't care about their characters all that much as long as they have the ultimate gear. But then there are anomolies that stand out in the industry.

If people didn't care so much about the individuality of their characters, why is City of Heroes still standing fairly strong today even having had to face down its original developers moving on and making Champions Online (Free to Play), and SOE making DCUO (Soon to be free to download/F2P with a costume cash shop). If character isn't that important, why is NCSoft still hanging on fairly well with a game that was made back in 2004? Even in the face of competitive titles with newer technology?

There are so many elements in regards to what makes an MMO a long term contender in the market. CoX has held on despite competition because it does it the best in regards to the niche it serves and people are attached to their characters there and the level of individuality they've been able to create within the technology on hand.

TOR doesn't really allow for anywhere near that level of individuality, I won't go into the details of exactly how limited the character creation system is but I will say I can change my head/hairstyle to one of 11 different options in WoW and TOR's not trying much harder than that.

So we have the lowest common denominator for technology, because they want the most subscribers they can possibly get, but you also have a game that other than the story based quest models isn't bringing much new to the table either.

Low tech and slim innovation combines to create yet another disappointing title in an industry thats been full of disappointing titles for half a decade now and unlike every title thats fallen on its face since WoW's release, TOR has two things distinguishing it that are going to make it have to justify itself somehow.

1) Its BioWare and we don't accept crap from BioWare.

2) The games had a budget something in the range of the GDP of a small developing nation over the years and doesn't have anything innovative to show for it.

And I don't just say this as a player with bitter expectations I say this as a worker in the industry who has seen the MMO industry go from being a big creative industry where there was plenty of venture capital to fund new ideas, to what it is today, a risk market where anything taking too many risks doesn't get any money behind it and thus everything starts to look the same.

 

[kane.malakos]

Pretty much everything I've seen of TOR has made me less excited for it. The cutscenes they made are awesome, but honestly at this point I'd rather see them make a full movie with the money rather than release what I fear will be a mediocre WOW clone.

 

[mcattack92]

They would keep the graphics relatively low to reach the maximum total target audiance to be able to maximise their profit they could possibly earn from the game. They can only make it as beautiful as average hardware can let it be.

 

[rabidmidget]

Meh, I'm more excited about The Secret World, a heavily Lovecraftian inspired mmo? Sign me up!

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

snip

Ok I just want to say that RPG for video games is different to RPG in the table top sense and I am sick of talking about this so I am not even going to argue that point but just mention that it is different.

On TOR I think every knew that this would end up being just a WoW clone with the extra bits of dialogue. I did not have high hopes for this game what so ever. Now yes personal characters can be important especially in a game like this and Hero based MMOs this is an early shot and we will have to wait and see what happens in this area.

Personally the only MMO that seems to be going for any innovation is Guild Wars 2. Although it still remains to be seen how that innovation will work or it will just be a cheap tacked on mechanic.

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

Ive seen it....its KotOR with a massively MMO by WoW stamped right on it

all the characters look like clunky robots the sidekick AI looks "special"

Also the first raid trailer looks like Ulduar

Will I try it? via peer pressure sure

Also I salute whomever brought up the topic of

Not all games need to look like RIFT/TERA to sell

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

It doesn't need to be photo realistic to be fun (i.e. baldur's gate), but yes, i agree, the combat looks sticky, awkward and just plain boring. They aren't trying to revolutionize the combat (they even said so somewhere), but to quote yahtzee "It can at least set off a measly firework".

 

[shasjas]

Because, as i keep saying, a new MMO does not have the 7 years of patching that monoliths like WoW have. It's going to come out ugly, buggy and like every other MMO launch. SWTOR won't be anything special until a year from now, and that's if it hasn't tanked already. Given the risky nature of the MMO niche market - i'd say that's highly likely. Especially with EA handling it.

exactly. why cant they just make KOTOR 3 instead of an MMO thats most likely going to fail unless its extraordinarily lucky.

It ~is~ KotOR 3, and 4 through 11. =p Each class has its own full story mode that lasts longer than the original KotOR.

really? i did not though that. although because of the monthly fee and because its an mmo i know for a fact that i will not buy or play the game.

in terms of aesthetics, i have nothing against cartoonish, as long as it suits the game. and IMO it does not suit star wars. star wars is a science fantasy, and IMO most fantasy games should try to look realistic because it makes the fantasy more real, which is usually what your aiming for.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I myself never made a problem out of paying ?10 a month for a good MMO, it helps them maintain the servesr, and really, in some places you can barely get lunch for ?10, a good MMO will give me more enjoyment than that lunch and it'll last me longer.

And well, I don't mind the artstyle of The Old Republic, it is a good deal more realistic than the Clone Wars CGI show, or even Team Fortress 2, while still having some stylised proportions. And well, when you invest as much cash in a project as in TOR you do want as many people as possible to be capable of playing the game, and let's not forget that this game has been in development in secret since 2006, the engine is almost antiquated by default by now.
So the choice to go for stylised art was probably made for a variety of reasons, but hey, after following the game for two years... perhaps even three, I can safely say that I've grown to like the art style, I can understand that it's not for everyone, but hey, nothing is. I'll take stylised characters over uncanny valley "realistic" characters any day, though.