How SW:TOR is a major step BACKWARDS for MMOs

[Starke]

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

Which is amazing, because I fuckin' like Star Wars. But clearly I have no right to complain that this franchise I like is being taken out behind the woodshed because I can choose not to play 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.

Because, as teh holy Bioware has taught us. Lack of Freedom = Roleplaying!

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

I never played Star Wars Galaxies.

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!.

Because being given a choice between being an utter dick and being a brick is true role playing.

Okay, it's true, aside from a handful of user focused games the role-playing in most MMOs hasn't really advanced beyond the MUDs of 20 - 30 years ago.

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.

Congrats. You enjoyed Shepard. I found mShep to have all the charisma of a dead cat, and fShep to sound increasingly bored and annoyed as the games ran on.

That said, you don't role-play as Shepard. No, really you don't. You play one of three specific (mentally challenged) characters devised by the wordsmiths at Bioware. ME isn't an RPG even in the way that Fallout 3 is. You have no personal agency, you are strictly at the mercy of the alleged plot, you point and shoot at what you're told to and forty hours later you're done. Along the way you can decide to be an asshole a failed attempt at a hero or a brick. Mass Effect 2 makes this worse because if you ever deviate from that you'll end up behind the curve on the paragon/renegade points.

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.

Except you don't. As he's already pointed out, Bioware has kindly decided to explain to you exactly who your character is, and will do so every time the twit opens his mouth. Just in case some of their players are a little slow.

Now, what's funny is, you're right, you do choose what you represent in an MMO... except, you pointed out a minute ago that Bioware making the decisions for you (VO) isn't an abbreviation of character freedom, so which is it? Either the voice over work is irrelevant or the class roles are, it can't be both.

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.

What's funny is, there's a shitload of these NPCs kicking around. It would make sense if you collected them as drops and chose between them, but, if we're really limited to a specific one per class, then where is the RPG elements in that? Hell even KOTOR let you pick between nine different characters. Here there will be nine different characters but you'll only be able to pick your NPC companion from a list of one?

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.

The funny thing with saying go play EVE is how much of a shithole that game is. That's a bit like saying, "oh, you don't like having hair in your soup? Then go jab this needle in your eye, stumble out into the gutter and rot."

Now, funny thing, the Star Trek Online forums used to be loaded to the gills with annoying little trolls who'd blither about how STO was doomed when TOR came out and beat it's space and ground combat soundly. Funny thing about those trolls. I haven't seen one since the on rails shooter mechanics were announced.

In other words there IS room for an arcade style space shooter that's off rails in the current market and still isn't a sim.

I'm really sorry AAA titles aren't created to fulfil wet dreams of single fan, but that's how market works.

And we all understand you know "how the market works because..." you have nice teeth?

You are minority, face it and live with it or start making games yourself.

Because as we all know the strongest trait of a democracy is the ability to squelch the minority... no, wait... what?

To be (almost) fair to you, Keava, dastardly is in the minority. Though, I seriously suspect this has more to do with shitty implementation in MMOs than that the market isn't there.

There's been plenty of 'indie' titles over last years catering to 'hardcore' players.

EVE and Fallen Earth are the only two that immediatly jump to mind. Maybe Dawntide, if that IS in fact the game I think it is.

Guess what? They barely managed to get enough subscriptions to operate and plenty of them dies within first months.

Funny thing about that. The current record holder for shortest lifespan of an MMO is only a few months. But that's almost unique. Even Hellgate London kept going for nearly a year before having its teeth taken out. (Over a year, if you count from release to when the servers went off line, instead of from release until the subscription services were shut down.) In the future it would profit your argument style to avoid making grandiose claims with no basis in reality.

 

[MimeticLie]

edit: Whoops, I confused myself. Never mind.

 

[TheLefty]

As much as I hate it when people do this to me, I'm going to pick out some things that don't really add up.

(For TL;DR, skip to the bolded section)

Single-player RPGs evolved (or de-volved) long ago into more of a character "rental" than creation. Your job is to take an extant character through a strictly laid-out story. It's much more playing with action figures than being an action hero. You don't really own anything in the story.

So, single-player RPGs were a combination of early roleplaying ideas (improving your character over time, specialization of characters, etc) and standard single-player action games. I'd argue, in fact, that that's what they are--action games, no more "roleplaying" than Mario.

Maybe it's just me, but some story sure kicks no story in the ass. And if you're playing a GOOD RPG (character customization, winding story, that kind of stuff) then it may be an "action figure" but it's a custom action figure that you made, and without someone waltzing by with a bigger better action figure to make you feel bad about yourself. I'm the biggest badass in my game, not that level 75 Paladin riding the polar bear.

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.

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, some form of dialogue is better than reading the mission description and going to do it, coming back, and repeated for 70 some-odd levels.

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 how every MMO i've ever played works. Maybe we've been playing different games (I'm not exactly an MMO connoisseur) but there's no point in specifying this one game (which hasn't even come out yet) is doing something wrong, when it's the entire genre.

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.

See the above, most games that have a companion system work in this way. You can't specifically blame this one game.

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.

The exact opposite of the last few, no other MMO, that I can think of, even tries this system. Flyff has their hoverboards and (from watching a friend) World of Warcraft seems to have some kind of flying system, but neither were particularly fun, or at the scale of an entire Galaxy.

At the center though, your argument is destroyed by the fact that you seem to be trying to review a game that's not out yet. I don't even know if the beta test is out. Basically, wait for the game then play it, then come here, then give it another try. We'll all probably have feel a lot better about your opinions then.

 

[ZehGeek]

My God, I get it that you might be a little annoyed with what you've seen of the Old Republic, and it's fine for you be prepared to be disappointed (lord knows I already complained about the Videodrome remake enough on this forum) but you know, you should actually PLAY the game before you pass complete judgement on it. Doing so before you've played it, based off of released information just makes you look somewhat uninformed and whiny. Once again, the Big Lebowski's "Well, that's just your opinion, man" applies.

The thing though, you couldn't even count the number of people that consider there opinion fact. My opinion, this is just typical hype. New game comes along, "ohaeynewgamenewgamenewgameforgetwowiquit", they play it, it's successful for a bit, but then ultamitly next thing you know it's being played on Private Servers, and everyone's back to the one that's been there the longest. There's a reason why WoW's been around for 5 or 6 years I think, and the Warcraft franchise itself for for atleast 10+.

 

[Warachia]

snip, because there is no way I am reposting that iron wall of text

there is no reason to start a flame war like this, organize your arguments so that you can summarize them cleanly and to the point, rather than murder another thread.

 

[luckshot]

the op has pretty much outlined what i liked about the pre-nge/cu SWG and what puts TOR on thin ice for me.


you can role play your characters in other mmo's, and for the most part they can be YOUR characters. In TOR you are constantly roleplaying BIOWARE'S character. now whether you roleplay your characters in game or primarily in your head (like me) this makes a difference.

as others have said this limits both roleplaying and player interaction, how exactly are you going to have 2 players that make completely different choices during key events play in the same galaxy when those choices shape the galaxy...and hopefully future choices (if the choice has no effect then it is meaningless)

 

[Free Thinker]

even though it isn't a true RPG, don't demonize it. I know we sacrifice creating our own truly unique characters, but to allow us with programming would be a developer's nightmare. It just isn't possible right now unless it was a D&D table-top clone.

 

[luckshot]

even though it isn't a true RPG, don't demonize it. I know we sacrifice creating our own truly unique characters, but to allow us with programming would be a developer's nightmare. It just isn't possible right now unless it was a D&D table-top clone.

just like programing what it is would be a nightmare, and aren't all mmo's basically computerized dice running everything?

did you mean in addition to TOR as is adding the freedom that is behind the 'R' in RPG would be a nightmare? if so then i agree, which leads to the question of why they have made the choices in development that they have. the only answer to that is "because they're bioware."

 

[Keava]

<snip because it get's unreadable after a while>

Valid complaints are perfectly fine, as far as you complain about actual issues with the game itself. Complaining about a dream you had is pretty silly. We all have our own 'perfect games' in our imagination, but we also know none of those games will be released any time soon if ever.

As far as roleplaying in videogames goes, i guess it depends what you consider roleplaying? I'll start since neither you nor OP actually bothered to explain this little detail. So for me, roleplaying is impossible within current videogames core and will remain so until we discover how to implement VR properly.
I played MMOs since about UO times and RP was always based not on what your character could do within the game bounds but on those fancy lines of text you type yourself, either by using /me, :, or just by typing it in between the stars *like this*.
Even the BioWares NWN, which offered amazing possibilities for setting up near pen and paper campaigns depended mainly on typing the actions rather than performing them within the game mechanics.

I fail to see how lines of text being spoken in presumably realistic manner are immersion breaking, finally it will not be just nodding like a muppet at an NPC that spews out a book at you describing how his family got abused by big fat monsters. There will be semi-interactive dialogue between your character and the quest giver. If anything it actually adds to experience. You choose how the character reacts.
Sure it would be more awesome if you had unlimited voice over resource and ability to type in response by your own and then that being processed by the game engine into something that the NPC on the other side could understand, but we are far from that in terms of technology and i'll happily take a small improvement over none.

When it comes to NPc companions, as far as i understand it works on the basic that there is a companion NPC for each of the classes, which means that there is Soldier NPC, Smuggler NPC, Consular NPC, etc. You can pick whatever you consider useful at given moment. Let's say you lack a healer for a group quest then you pick a consular NPC that will follow you and heal you, or whatever the crap they do. You need a tank you pick up the bulky Soldier NPC. If you ever played DDO you should have vague idea of how such system works.

The indie MMOs i had in mind were Fallen Earth, Mortal Online, Darkfall. They all cater to more 'engaged' players, and all barely manage to keep floating on the surface without much hope for expanding their userbase. EVE is the only one that managed to find a niche for itself but it has to do a lot with how CCP directed the game. In it's core it's very simplistic contrary to the popular belief. Also when talking about death of a MMO i mean it stops being relevant to the scene. You can keep things going on life support, but apart from the most devout fans no one cares.

The market is free, you as customer make choices. You don't like what MMO A offers you go play MMO B or MMO C or just don't play any and go out have fun. Since i stopped playing WoW 2 years ago i haven't bothered with MMOs much because none interests me, it's that simple.
The market is very simple thing, it operates on basics of supply and demand. There apparently is very low demand for what many of so called 'hardcore' players want. When you are a big company you want to make big money. Big money means having as broad target as possible so you pick the features that will appeal to majority of people, especially if they worked fine for you till now.

I'll give you a simple example from the 'most popular' MMO on the market - WoW. At some point they realized that only about 5-10% of player base is 'hardcore' enough to get to the last tiers, and majority doesn't even finish the entry tier raid instances.
So they changed things, removed attunements, allowed buying epics for tokens that you can obtain through 5man content, added 10man mode to raid instances, eventually added LFG tool for raids that automatically teamed you with people and teleported to the instance. All this so more than just 5%-10% would see what the whole deal is about. They gladly risked the moaning of those 5% so that the remaining 90% would be grateful. See how it works?

 

[Nazulu]

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.

Jeez Keava, I know your a lot better than that. You don't have to attack him like he's attacking everyone else. He's just sharing some info while criticising it, which is perfectly acceptable on any forum. And saying "you don't have to play it" is just silly.

Please read this - http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html#better

 

[Quazimofo]

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.

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.

Ok, i will agree to these two. when i heard i got my own ship i was hoping for the ability to pick from a Smorgasbord of companions and starships. i could accept only having X companion for y class in single player Rpg's where as he said the premade character had no reason for any others. however, in an rpg say im a jedi/sith who doesent want to broadcast my class just by my starship. maybe i picked up some smuggler traits along my travels and wanted that ship instead because it fit me better. or maybe instead of having a wookie buddy i prefered the robot as a smuggler because it is less conspicuous and can open doors/steal info/ or siphon credits from some assholes account i was trying to rob.

however space combat as a starfox style minigame is over rated yes. but fun all the same. fucking loved that game as a kid

 

[cheese_wizington]

Anyone else notice that the TLDR is actually around half as long as the original thing? I never knew a TLDR could be too long to read.

 

[MetroidNut]

I despise MMOs. I love Mass Effect. Therefore, I fully approve of the Mass Effect-ification of TOR. I don't see voice acting as limiting freedom, and I would definitely argue that a Mass Effect-like system for interacting with NPCs serves to increase freedom, not the other way around. As for most of the OP's other points, it seems to me (though I'm admittedly not too qualified to say this) that they're mostly specific features that aren't being carried over from Star Wars: Galaxies. But, of course, all this has been said before in this thread.

So my summarized point? I think TOR is going to be a good MMO, suffering from most of the same flaws as other games in the genre but improving upon storytelling and characters, as is Bioware's style.

 

[GeoPB]

Can anybody tell me where I can get a copy of this game, I want to see for myself and compare my opinion with the OP...

...Oh no wait...

Seriously, what can you expect from Bioware Star Wars game,the whole premise of the films were evil versus good. That's what Role-playing is about, playing a role of someone else, you just get to choose how that someone else deals with things.

 

[Denamic]

Being a part of the storyline sacrifices freedom?
As opposed to just witnessing events from afar and then kinda just partaking in it?
And having voiced lines sacrifices freedom?
As opposed to having an 'accept' and 'deny/cancel' button?
Everyone having the same companions affects YOUR character's freedom how?

I was going to address all your 'points' more in-depth, but it dawned on you that you're just another anti-fanboy, so I'm not going to bother.
Suffice to say that the basis of your arguments is incredibly stupid, because other MMO's character 'freedom' are actually just them treating you like an unimportant grunt by not actually giving you a role in the storyline.

 

[Danzaivar]

I love how you are basically moaning that it's a step backwards because it's not Star Wars Galaxies, a game which is freaking ancient for by MMO standards.

I totally agree with you btw, if they redid SWG with todays graphics and made it a bit more accessible it'd make for a great game. Just the irony of your statement was brilliant.

 

[Keava]

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.

Jeez Keava, I know your a lot better than that. You don't have to attack him like he's attacking everyone else. He's just sharing some info while criticising it, which is perfectly acceptable on any forum. And saying "you don't have to play it" is just silly.

Please read this - http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html#better

Maybe. But overtime one get's really sick about people complaining about roleplaying in MMOs when they don't even bother to try and do it. Had my share of it while playing WoW and other MMOs. Someone would always moan how the game limits them, how they can never get into any roleplay while all they actually did was bunny-hopping around people and spamming "LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!"

And i will always stand firm by the "Don't like it - don't buy it/look at it/listen to it" philosophy. If people would just consider that option we would get much less moaning on the forums and less topics about random celebrities being pathetic for whatever reason. Too often people go out full rage just because they bought something they don't like and try to blame the whole world for it, while in the end it's their, as a customers, responsibility to avoid things they might be disappointed with.

 

[Colonel Alzheimer's]

Any ONE of these could put a game on shaky ground... but to do all of them at once? This puts SW:TOR firmly in the realm of an action/adventure game that happens to have online co-op.

So, all the strengths of single player with the benefits of co-op? Sounds great! Sign me up.
[sub][sub]Yeah, I read the rest of the post. This just happened to be the first thing I thought.[/sub][/sub]

 

[Quad08]

Meh, I'm going to try the game out regardless. Heck, I'll probably have fun with it too

And isn't that what really matters?

 

[Karlaxx]

Hey, good one. The long text nearly got me.

Ooh, ooh, next tell everyone how COD:Black Ops is a step backwards for FPSs because you liked GoldenEye more.

Oh, and how Fallout:New Vegas is a step backwards because Oblivion was totally better.

Yes, and how Minecraft is a step backwards because it's just singleplayer Dwarf Fortress.

Oh man, you should do a weekly editorial on this.

I heartily approve.

On Topic, my opinion: Fanboy whining is fanboy whining. Different explosions for different kinds of people (or however that saying goes), and if you liekd KOTOR it'll probably be worth the good old college try.

I'll still drop it the second I get my Dark Millenium or a Planetside 2. Bioware is good devs, but not that good.