How SW:TOR is a major step BACKWARDS for MMOs

[TheDrunkNinja]

You speak like you had all those choices in current MMOs. Unfortunately for you, the common MMO character comes down to an avatar that has no character distinctions beyond what his armor looks like and the role he plays in dungeon crawling. Everything's been simplified into tank, DPS, and healer, yet you speak like everyone has made a backstory for all of their characters as if they actually give a shit about them like they each have an identity. The truth of the matter is that, despite having a massive world to run around in, no body in MMOs these days ever cares enough to act like they're a part of it.

True, you could PRETEND that your character responds to quest givers in your own manner, but the truth is that any MMO player never reads the actual quest information beyond what they need to kill, get, explore. Even then you don't even need to regard your logbook since the objectives are a part of your HUD.

You say SW:TOR will limit the freedom of having your own character, but what you don't realize is that every other MMO does that times a thousand by not even treating your avatar like an actual character in their world. The only way it's even possible would be to do so outside the rules and bounds of the game (i.e., pretending), which means that you really don't have anything to be complaining against Bioware since your working outside the bounds of the programming anyway. Don't try to fool us into thinking this rant was anywhere near genuine, we all know this was just yet another poorly conceived hate-thread against Bioware for doing what they do best.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Huh, sounds a lot like WoW. Now who would want to copy a hugely successful game like THAT?

 

[juraigamer]

So if you think every mmo should be like wow, then yes TOR is a step backwards. Otherwise it's going to be a massive improvement on the genre.

 

[KSarty]

1. Mass Effect sacrificed character freedom for this sense of story as well, and it worked out awesomely. In most MMOs you aren't even hero #4010037, you are citizen #4010037. I would much rather have my character be, to me, an actual character that is trying to save/destroy/rule the galaxy.

2. You can choose what your character says and how they say it moreso than in any MMO I've seen. I've tried WoW and CoH and the only responses available to the NPCs were 'yes' and 'no'. Adding Bioware's dialogue trees allows variations to be added to the "mission success" and "mission failure" outcomes.

3. This is solely based on your own preconception. What is stopping you from having your smuggler behave however you want him to? Again the dialogue trees allow you to make your character more personal, while at the same time allowing your character to stray from the norm.

4. This simply isn't true, to a point. You are acting as if the Wookie companion is the only companion available to the smuggler in the entire game. In fact, Bioware has mentioned several times that each class has a number of possible companions that you will meet throughout the game. Depending on what you do and where you go, you may never even encounter the Wookie, and if you do you still have the option of not recruiting him. This game is also utilizing a similar system to Dragon Age's friendship meter. Many of the possible companions for each class will have different personalities. The companions whose personalities conflict with your own characters' will either not join you or will leave after a time. It is a far more robust system than you are making it seem.

5. This system is strictly a bonus if you ask me, something to make travel a little more interesting. Do you really think the game would be better served using the WoW transport system that sees everyone using the same vessel regardless of race? A system that boils down to public transportation with schedules and rigid destinations? Your ship allows you fly wherever you want from wherever you are, and the rail-shooter aspect is there to make it more interesting than an auto-travel load screen.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

You know what? You don't have to play it! Amazing, isn't it?

If any of those reasons limits your Roleplaying (i can do bold statements too![sorry, i'll go get my coat]) then frankly you are a crappy roleplayer so go nitpick on something else like actual game mechanics, graphics, or whatever you kids find fancy this days.

I never liked the SWG, even pre-TheThingThatApparentlyRuinedIt, only fun part was having your own house.

Now for your 'points'.

1) "The game will be story-driven, and your choices will affect your destiny!" - Great, so that means each situation will boil down to one of three choices (aggressive, defensive, or passive, basically). You can either be a dick, a saint, or a gray blob in the middle. But what's more, it means your character is not YOUR character. It is one of a select handful of pre-made characters that you will rent. And when in these games has it ever really been the BEST idea to "mix and match," rather than go all one way or the other? SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

In other MMOs you don't usually even have that much freedom. All your dialogue options are limited to "Accept" and "Cancel". Yeah, that shows em your real character! Woo-hoo! Surely that is better, because no evil man in suits tell you what and how to say.... because you can't say anything!.

2) "The game will be fully voice-acted." - So you can't even decide what your character says or how he/she says it. The game will be giving you a script and voice. And, due to the expense of such projects, expect the selection of voices (if there are any) to be extremely limited. It might be that your character gets no voice at all (silent protagonist syndrome) which, to me, is better than being forced into a pre-made voice. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

To arms my brethren for our freedom has been on these very day threatened by the voice box! Seriously, it hurts you so much ? Mute it. You won't hear it. I for one enjoy that, i like hearing my character's voice, i loved listening to Shepard's talking in each of my countless ME playthroughs. It didn't took my freedom, it actually added to character.

3) "You can choose from one of these iconic professions!" - So all smugglers will be expected to behave in X way with personality Y, because that's how Han did it. All Bounty Hunters will be X, Y, and Z, because that's how Fett did it. This is exactly what the NGE did to RUIN SWG. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

That's a players choice. Could also say that every warrior is a dumb meatshield, every mage is pretentious ***** and every rogue is sneaky backstabber. Roleplaying is about person to person interaction in MMOs. You choose what you represent.

4) "You'll get companion characters to will add spice and variety to your gameplay!" - This one actually sounded GREAT... until we found out that EVERYONE gets the same companion based on his/her class. Yes, ALL smugglers will not just have A wookiee companion (like Han!), they'll have the SAME wookiee companion. You don't even get to pick the name. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Brilliant feature for those that need a quick NPC help if all friends are offline. And no, the companion is not based on your class. Each class get's a selection of companions, depending on what type of supporting character you might find fancy. Wookie however is limited to Smugglers.

5) "You'll get your own ship, which you can use to travel or complete missions!" - Again, sounded great... until we found out that you get the same ship as everyone else in your class AND that all space missions play out like Starfox as rail- or arena-style episodes. You can't choose your ship, and you can't choose where it goes. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Want various ships and unlimited space? Go play EVE, you have plenty to choose from there. It's not a space sim game. Space ship functions as your character's hub and way of travel between planets. It's a fancy prop the game could do without but they decided to implement it anyway. As for the combat-on-rail, i'm perfectly happy about it. Ever considered that plenty of players, especially MMO players, don't give a damn about your love for flight simulators? I want my MMO be a MMO, means i click around, i run around i bash my 12345 to use skills.

I'm really sorry AAA titles aren't created to fulfil wet dreams of single fan, but that's how market works. You are minority, face it and live with it or start making games yourself. There's been plenty of 'indie' titles over last years catering to 'hardcore' players. Guess what? They barely managed to get enough subscriptions to operate and plenty of them dies within first months.

Basically, this. So quit yer whining and don't play/mute it if all that bothers you so much. Just don't whine about a game you haven't played.

 

[Shycte]

Since when did you get to decide what was the right direction?

The Old Republic is the only MMO I so far ever consider playing.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Your argument was made invalid the second you said that the "pre-defined classes" is a problem. Why?

What's that number one MMORPG out there again? War of Worldcraft or something? I'm preeeeetty sure it has predetermined classes... with MUCH less customization options than what we'll get in SWTOR.

Sarcasm aside, World of Warcraft may be hated by a lot of the more "hardcore" MMOers, but its the most balanced and popular one, so any step up from that is considered good.

Plus, I mean, seriously, I doubt you've even done your research. They've shown multiple gameplay videos of A) a fully voiced playable character and B) multiple choices for your own dialogue in a similar fasion to Mass Effect, albeit with what seem to be GREATER consequences. I mean, for god's sake, every damn class (and every branch of every damn class) has it's own unique story! How is it, in ANY sense, a step backwards? I think it's a huge step forward.

 

[mechanixis]

Point by point:

1) "The game will be story-driven, and your choices will affect your destiny!" - Great, so that means each situation will boil down to one of three choices (aggressive, defensive, or passive, basically). You can either be a dick, a saint, or a gray blob in the middle. But what's more, it means your character is not YOUR character. It is one of a select handful of pre-made characters that you will rent. And when in these games has it ever really been the BEST idea to "mix and match," rather than go all one way or the other? SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

But before now, it's not like there's any character freedom to sacrifice in the first place. Do you get branching quests in Galaxies or WoW? There's no self-expression there beyond "I'll kill seven rats" or "I won't kill seven rats," with maybe the occasional exception. Bioware also has a solid record of putting players in morally-gray situations, so while sometimes your choice will no doubt come down to a clean-cut "Selfishness vs. Altruism", it's reasonable to expect quests with a lot more nuance.

If you've ever played the Mass Effect games, you'll know how easy it is to turn a pre-made character (Shepard) into something that's very personally your own, simply by mixing and matching your choices to suit your personality. It might be 'best' statistically to choose one path and go all-out (though Bioware hasn't announced anything about a Paragon-Renegade reward system of any kind), but again, TOR is for people who want a story-driven game, not a stat-crunching one.

2) "The game will be fully voice-acted." - So you can't even decide what your character says or how he/she says it. The game will be giving you a script and voice. And, due to the expense of such projects, expect the selection of voices (if there are any) to be extremely limited. It might be that your character gets no voice at all (silent protagonist syndrome) which, to me, is better than being forced into a pre-made voice. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Again, before now, you were a mute who only ever said "Quest Accepted." While it does impinge on the imagination somewhat, it's still a very functional system for developing your character in-game that adds a huge amount of polish to character interactions.

Incidentally - having played the game myself at PAX - there's a fair spread of available voices for your character. This may be a character creation decision or based on class.

3) "You can choose from one of these iconic professions!" - So all smugglers will be expected to behave in X way with personality Y, because that's how Han did it. All Bounty Hunters will be X, Y, and Z, because that's how Fett did it. This is exactly what the NGE did to RUIN SWG. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

I admit, I'd prefer more skill-choice based character building, too; it's an ideal MMO format. But the class system is hardly a relic of a bygone age. And considering the game Bioware is trying to make, some rails do need to be in place so they know what kind of context to put your character in.

However, you have to consider this: no MMO I've seen has this much gameplay contrast between its classes. Playing as a smuggler is drastically different from playing as a Jedi. Later you talk about combat variety: this game has a lot of combat variety. Essentially, Bioware has designed six almost-unique and highly polished RPGs and packaged them together with the promise of practically infinite content.

4) "You'll get companion characters to will add spice and variety to your gameplay!" - This one actually sounded GREAT... until we found out that EVERYONE gets the same companion based on his/her class. Yes, ALL smugglers will not just have A wookiee companion (like Han!), they'll have the SAME wookiee companion. You don't even get to pick the name. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

I hadn't heard of that. Actually...that does sound pretty dumb.

5) "You'll get your own ship, which you can use to travel or complete missions!" - Again, sounded great... until we found out that you get the same ship as everyone else in your class AND that all space missions play out like Starfox as rail- or arena-style episodes. You can't choose your ship, and you can't choose where it goes. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Well, considering you'd just be using your ship to get from Planet A to Planet B anyway, this is forgivable. It's comparable to public transit in any other game, except with more shooting. Everyone would prefer a spaceflight simulator, but Bioware's focus is elsewhere.



Finally, it bears mention that Bioware never set out to create a traditional MMO. Your arguments really come down to "It's not Galaxies II," and in point of fact, no, it isn't. They don't want to be the next WoW: they know that market's taken and want to be something else entirely. So saying it's bad at being a traditional MMO is absolutely correct, because it isn't one.

I think your money would be better spent Final Fantasy XIV. It's got a very flexible character customization system.

 

[Warachia]

Awesome, I have a great idea for a game that you will love,
no voice acting, we don't want to put all that hard work in there do we? text screens all the way!
No character classes, picking between the ones available is always a chore and can't let you do what you want to, therefore everyone can be their own unique soldier, and can choose whatever type of melee weapon they want.
No story, following any semblance of plot or character development is stupid because you ave to choose how the story goes in a certain direction, so lets remove that!
No companions at all, having anybody to help you out in a scenario is completely ruined when I can't choose who helps me.
No vehicles to get to new areas, we just have the one area because it isn't fair if your method of travel looks the same as anyone else's.

now you should be happy, you poor deluded man.

 

[Nixzilla]

I think its funny that you have all these complaints yet you will probaly still be buying it. I for one think that this mmo is a great step foward although I also think its a big rpg dressed up as a mmo.

 

[mechanixis]

Meh game looks generic anyways.

Looking forward to some TERA.

This strikes me as very, very ironic.

 

[LitleWaffle]

To OP: If you have ever played Aion, they have voices for your character, but there are many choices. You don't have enough information from your quote to prove that it sucks.

What many people have disliked about MMO's is their Lack of story. The fact that this one is story based is not a step backwards. It can even be a step forward. Once you finish the story even, you still have your own freedom to dick around with(or at least that seems most likely).

Also, a game that gives you too much freedom can get pretty boring, as they lack a story most of the time. Sure you can "make your own story" in games with freedom. But you can't change gameplay mechanics to adjust to your own story, and if you just want to use your imagination, you can also do that on a more story based game, as I have done before.

With the iconic professions, that's a pretty good idea since it's a game based off of Star Wars which has its own story and features. Nuff said.

The ship thing is a pretty good minigame type thing that can break up in between the story. And the fact that they don't all have their own ships, even if it is true doesn't matter that much. You won't be able to get a fully customizable ship where you can adjust every last detail and such. That's a while away.

You can't really do all of the expecting that you have done without all of the information you need. You just can't make legitimate assumptions with such little information. You can make your rants of how bad a game is when the game is complete and you have played enough of it.

I do believe this sums up my counter rant.

 

[Thick]

I personally hope the game doesn't do well, to take everyone down a peg. None shall approach the WOW throne!!

I kid.

But a thought I just had was about the payment model for this game. Stay with me for a second, I'll get to it.

From the news I've heard, it sounds very much like a single player game that other people are playing at the same time. To be story driven in any meaningful way (ie, the saint/asshole/inaffective choices you make have an impact), you would have to restrict some player interaction. You couldn't have two people make two choices that have two largely different impacts inhabiting the same world. You'd either have to water down the impacts, weakening your story driven selling point, or phase or instance the people away from each other, reducing that second M in MMO to a lower case. And I don't know if they will, but if those story choices have gameplay implications, they would have to balance a LOT of different possibilities.

So if you were to go for a heavily story driven game, once a person reaches the end, what do they do? Play that holo-chess with their wookie? They'd have to let him win. Do they level an alt where they explore the different story paths? PVP? The people who can sustain themselves on PVP alone and the people who enjoy story driven content do not very well overlap.

What I'm getting around to is that I don't think the game could maintain a subscription based payment structure. You would have to have 100 metric fuck-tons of content, more than can reasonably be created, to keep the playerbase from getting bored with story driven gameplay where they can't interact with many other people, ultimately deciding it's not worth another month's bill. That's assuming they can stay interested in going through the same factions and events over and over with alts long enough to sift through that 100 metric fuck-tons without getting exhausted.

For all the complaining people do about grinding, grinding has a certain hold on people, the sort of people inclined to play MMOs. To them, it's just not a big deal. If it were a deal breaker, they'd stop playing, and they do, and there are still people playing. Perhaps they are completionists who can't stop. Maybe they find the mindless repetition a sort of stress reliever. Maybe they don't even bother with grinding once they get to max level (which you can do, btw), and just casually play with friends to go punch dragons in the face.

 

[LitleWaffle]

Side note: How was Ghostwise put on probation for that?

"Your TLDR section is too long to read lol"

Really? How does that deserve a probation?

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

I think its funny that you have all these complaints yet you will probaly still be buying it. I for one think that this mmo is a great step foward although I also think its a big rpg dressed up as a mmo.

i agree in that vision of The Old Republic.

personally i won't buy it cause I hate MMO's. If it wasn't i would definitly buy it for being a Starwars Kotor related universe !

ps: i can't imagine how many players will call themselves Zayne Carrick...

 

[mechanixis]

Side note: How was Ghostwise put on probation for that?

"Your TLDR section is too long to read lol"

Really? How does that deserve a probation?

That's easy, he said 'lol'.

 

[LogicNProportion]

While you do raise some points, I do not believe you have researched everything as fully as you could have. I'm not going to nit-pick the Hell out of this, but I will address one thing.

There ARE going to be non-combat side-professions. But, it is a game focused on combat because while SWG (My fave MMO ever) was more about SURVIVING in the rebellion era, TOR is about acting in the war.

Besides, it's also been said that while your character is creme de la creme, you aren't going to be a 'chosen one'.

As far as naming your companions, I actually thought about this a couple days ago and reasoned that it might turn out a bit lame, but you do collect more than that one throughout your journeys, and you CAN customize them. Think the pets from WoW, only they actually do stuff.

 

[Snotnarok]

It's not a step backwards it's a step in a different direction is all. It's not like this is the popular trend for MMO's, and if you don't want to play SW then play something else, it's that easy.

 

[PureChaos]

i don't know what half the acronyms mean

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I don't enjoy MMOs. I do enjoy singleplayer RPGs, because of story, characters and choice (choice can be limited for characters and story). The fact that I'm actually interested in TOR means that it's either a step forward, getting other people than MMO people interested. Or it's a step back, if MMO people don't like it at all. Depends on the point of view.

this. bioware isn't trying to compete with blizzard for the "best mmo", or making it a wow clone, for me personally, and tons of other people i have seen and talked to, this is going to be their first step into paid mmo's, in which they are sucking up lots of people who hate subscription fees to actually play this game because its NOT like other mmo's

you heard me right, its NOT like other mmo's, thats slightly what attracts me to the game itself.

also

1) its bioware
2)its star wars, and a continuation from kotor 1 and 2
3) its more story and character based, fucking awesome me thinks!
4) not a pointless endless grind with unlimited freedom, there is the point where freedom becomes useless as a game you literally can only kill so many boring uninventive and un conflicting pixel baddies so many times...
5) i really do like text games, especially stuff like ff games, but biowares voice acting...HELL YES!!

so overall, i am very skeptical, but i am very excited for this game, around half the mmo people i know, are getting this game, the other half dont care for star wars but might try it eventually, while a good 9/10 of every non mmo goer i know is gonna give TOR a try as it brings something different to the table.