BioWare: MMORPGs Have "No Point"
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
I, for one, am very much looking forward to The Old Republic. It will take a lot of hard work to live up to its promises, but I have every faith in Biowares' ability to make a good game. They have never let me down before, and i don't expect they will start now.
I get most of the point of MMOs when I play with my friends, some of which I have known and gamed with for many years. It is an activity that we can share and whether or not you are bothered by collecting ten rat tails depends on how well the story is told.
I would argue to Bioware that the basic concept of MMO games is fine, it is the psychology of the gamer that has changed radically over the years. When I began WoW 5 years ago we would pick up a party and go run a dungeon and if it took a long time that was OK and if you died you picked yourself up, dusted down and had another go and the odds are that the loot you wanted to drop wouldn't. Modern WoW has changed to accommodate the average player who wants instant gratification - short dungeons, guaranteed loot, no particular challenge or chance of failure. Those players don't care why you are collecting rat tails and will not read or engage in narrative.
If a game is played to reach the reward rather than as an enjoyable pastime in its own right then yes, it can seem pointless.
I would argue to Bioware that the basic concept of MMO games is fine, it is the psychology of the gamer that has changed radically over the years. When I began WoW 5 years ago we would pick up a party and go run a dungeon and if it took a long time that was OK and if you died you picked yourself up, dusted down and had another go and the odds are that the loot you wanted to drop wouldn't. Modern WoW has changed to accommodate the average player who wants instant gratification - short dungeons, guaranteed loot, no particular challenge or chance of failure. Those players don't care why you are collecting rat tails and will not read or engage in narrative.
If a game is played to reach the reward rather than as an enjoyable pastime in its own right then yes, it can seem pointless.
New announcement from Bioware, "world cup has no point." They have a plan to fix this by dividing the game into ten minute slices and having the players perform a play in the breaks.
This is kind of my feeling. But, there's another issue on top of that.Tenmar said:
There's a distinction between a "macro" story, and a "micro" story. The macro story is "the big deal in the world, the big bads and the good guys doing battle on a galactic scale"; the micro story is "why does this individual character give a damn.
Maybe Bioware will surprise the hell out of me, but it doesn't seem possible to do much to give the macro story to the players, nor to make the micro story any more engaging than WoW's paltry attempt.
Let me explain. If the macro story is in the hands of the players (big world events are actually being decided by player actions, our actions can impact the universe permanently), then it's either (a) a constant shift (a la Tabula Rasa) where the "story" is just about "who owns planet x at time y", or (b) is going to be a first-to-the-finish type of thing, where only the first players to accomplish some goal get to have the "story" and everyone else gets dragged along for it. Imagine if the first raid to beat the Lich King permanently killed him, and set the next plotline in motion. Would you be pissed if you missed out on content because of that?
It seems to me that either they have to have the storyline be static (essentially, nothing gets permanently changed, everything gets reset after you leave so the next person can have a go), or they have to really stick it to anyone who isn't one of the first to do something. What'd be really cool, of course, is if they were on-top of it enough to make it that you can permanently change things, which alters without removing content for everyone else. So, a Sith sneaks into a Republic ship to kill the crew and set it to blow. The next Republic person's quest is to disarm the bomb.
But, even that isn't "story", it's just slight alterations. I have no idea how they intend to have story, especially if they want to give any kind of player control to what happens.
They could essentially do phasing (which is what Blizzard did a lot in Icecrown), but that's unmitigated crap, so I'll assume they're not that stupid. If they are that stupid (and they could be), it'll end up as a single-player game you pay a subscription to. But that wouldn't make sense given what I've seen.
Mr. Erickson ahs hit the nail right on the head here, I only hope he can practise what he preaches.
I'm not entirely sure from this comment if you agree with my assessment or not.manythings said:
Needless to say I do not agree with a large degree of the assessments made from people on this forum; many of whom just seem to assume such a subjective point is correct because it comes from someone that works at Bioware...
After Dragon Age I trusted them...after Mass Effect 2 I was shocked - the main plot in that game is absolutely abysmal; it actually ruins the canon from the previous game, leaves a ton of plot holes / stupid decisions and really made it look they they didn't plan for a sequel. It was, by all accounts, one of the worst sequels I remember playing - as a game it's not that bad - it could've been far worse - but as a sequel to the original it's terrible.brunothepig said:
I don't trust Bioware based on that game (that they touted as the best they had produced) alone.
A story is nice, but yahtzee made the same point in Age of Conan;
"The story goes on about you being the chosen one, or some shit. But this is somewhat undermined by the niggling feeling that there are about a hundred thousand other chosen ones, some higher level, some lower level, but all dickheads plotting your murder."
A story usually has a main character as the playable character. How are you going to bring a compelling story to the players if they're just a side character. I mean, we can't ALL be the great mighty hero the legends spoke of.
"The story goes on about you being the chosen one, or some shit. But this is somewhat undermined by the niggling feeling that there are about a hundred thousand other chosen ones, some higher level, some lower level, but all dickheads plotting your murder."
A story usually has a main character as the playable character. How are you going to bring a compelling story to the players if they're just a side character. I mean, we can't ALL be the great mighty hero the legends spoke of.
Exactly!Mr.Squishy said:
Bioware has "No Point"
They sold out to EA for starters. Then they made DA which is the biggest piece of shit, alot of voice acting, definately no story!
If Bioware had stuck with the Neverwinter Nights series, they could have pulled off a great series. Hell they could have made D&D Online instead of that crap.
Mass Effect and their all their games are becoming nothing more than hype and click your choice;
1) Spin some bullshit
2) Over hype your Ego
3) Make everything DRM
4) Sell out even more and switch to Console
5) Make the fans think they're getting a good game
6) Give up and give Bioware the finger
I've made my choice on several fronts, I guess I don't need to point out that my choice goes down number sixes' storypath....
Bioware really need to stop going on about stuff that they don't really seem to know what they are talking about. They are going like it is fact and this is the way it should be. Fair enough if they want to do their take on MMORPGs but they seem to be forgetting about the MMO part. MMOs aren't really that much about a story yes a decent story if nice but it is about playing with a larger group of people real people and interacting with a larger world. As I said there does need to be a decent story but it is not crucial to MMOs.
Eeeexactly. The Old Republic's story arcs will be finite, and using them as a major part of the gimmick for your game means that all the Sith Lords will notice that they have the same story instead of being the slightest bit unique...FinalHeart95 said:
But meh, BioWare dropped the ball on The Old Republic a long time ago. Should have kept quiet until they had an idea when they were going to release it...
I'm not quite going to disagree with you because I know what you said is your opinion, but the problem is that you're stating your opinion as fact.Shealladh said:
The majority of gamers and 99% of reviewers disagree with about everything you said.
I agree that many theme park mmo's like WoW have no point and thats something I hope bioware is going to fix with TOR but the fact that sandbox games like EVE, Mortal Online and Roma Victor have no point is a good thing. The players make their own goals, form communities and factions and in some cases give a game it's story.
Well MMOs have to water things down more because its done a much larger scale alot of the fun and balance of what makes up a SP game is gone out the window leaving a husk of a game.oppp7 said:
What developers should focus on is the single player experience the fun of exploring and fighting and tweaking with your character, then make PVP balacned and fun remove or lower some of the normal things in PVP mode to make it more challenging or "balanced" but for christ sake stop watering down the content because of PVP or the overall game, if its fun and you can max out your class in a couple months thats fine you got nearly a years worth of classes to keep people busy then new content will help as well. THis is better than what we call MMOs today....... I can not stand most MMOs to many rules to much of a chore..... but guild wars and champions online are kinda getting it..kinda
I agree with Bioware, the only point in a MMORPG is to get new stuff, all the time!
There is no sense of accomplishment (since you just have wait a day after getting the best stuff in the game and there will be better stuff out there), no atmosphere, no story (yeah i know there is usually a story, but you dont feel like you have anything to do with the story) and no characterization (you are all blank slates with 3 foot tall shoulder pads)
So lets see what Bioware can do about it.
There is no sense of accomplishment (since you just have wait a day after getting the best stuff in the game and there will be better stuff out there), no atmosphere, no story (yeah i know there is usually a story, but you dont feel like you have anything to do with the story) and no characterization (you are all blank slates with 3 foot tall shoulder pads)
So lets see what Bioware can do about it.
