The Old Republic Script Is the Size of 10 KOTORs, 40 Novels

[Devil's Due]

Amusing that just saying you have a fully voiced MMO causes so many people to instantly say they're going to buy it just because of that. So far these days saying something brand new to an MMO makes people go crazy just to buy it for that. Topless women in Age of Conan, Unique voices for TOR, etc.

I wish they would focus more on gameplay, balancing, etc, than making up all these "sweet" new ideas that make people jump with joy.

I'm not going to buy it, partly because all MMOs these days have been a disappointment to me so far, another because the Star Wars series needs to stop being milked, and because it will have Jedis. We all remember how SW:G was so well balanced with Jedis as a class, and how many of the entire game population picked that class over every other class...

 

[M3707ik]

We dont know about payment yet. Heress hoping for guild wars single payment, because the eastern style is annoying and im not made of money, so no monthely payment.

Also i think the words are more importent than who's speaking them, or if they are being spoken at all. But, bioware has a long streak of developing characters well.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Yeap, this will be my next MMO I'll probably pay a subscription fee for. Except for the next WoW expansion, but I'll only play that untill it runs out of content anyway, wich is...2-3 months for a WoW expansion (not counting raids, I don't raid). I doubt that will happen soon with SWTOR.

 

[Yassen]

That's an impressive feat and all but it's all for naught if the story sucks, the quests aren't well designed and the classes are boring. I'm going to give this a try but to be honest I'm not convinced from what I've seen this will live up to the hype.

Wow, my time on the Escapist has deffinately allowed my cynical side to fester and grow.

 

[Kiefer13]

I'm really looking forward to TOR, I really am. I rarely get excited about games prior to their release and me actually getting a chance to play them, but in this case I'm finding it difficult not to. I just hope it lives up to expectations, they've certainly set the bar high for themselves.

 

[DazZ.]

Im looking forward to it, but im going to see how the first few months of its release pan out. I was happy I didn't buy AoE when it first came out, still waiting to try that, might get a trial for it soon.

Thats another thing, im waiting for a trial for this before I perchase, I like knowing what im buying.

 

[BakaSmurf]

Bioware can go fuck themselves. I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a month so those greedy bastards can profit from fucking over an awesome storyline in favour of an MMO cash cow.

And no amount of voiceovers or text is ever going to win me over. Fuck you Bioware, Fuck you.

 

[mhitman]

This game is gonna take forever to install

 

[PhoenixFlame]

Bioware can go fuck themselves. I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a month so those greedy bastards can profit from fucking over an awesome storyline in favour of an MMO cash cow.

And no amount of voiceovers or text is ever going to win me over. Fuck you Bioware, Fuck you.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and apparently, years into the future, when MMOs are 50 dollars a month! What MMOs have you been playing?

Story is good, but we'll see if the mechanics are decent enough. People need to stop raising their expectations for MMOs to the stratosphere. By their very nature, they will have problems and issues and will require months to stabalize properly. If you don't realize this, prepare to be disappointed by every MMO release out there.

 

[skcseth]

I hope I have a rig that can run this game by the time it comes out. It's going to be an epic game (I hope).

 

[Red Albatross]

Bioware can go fuck themselves. I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a month so those greedy bastards can profit from fucking over an awesome storyline in favour of an MMO cash cow.

And no amount of voiceovers or text is ever going to win me over. Fuck you Bioware, Fuck you.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and apparently, years into the future, when MMOs are 50 dollars a month! What MMOs have you been playing?

Story is good, but we'll see if the mechanics are decent enough. People need to stop raising their expectations for MMOs to the stratosphere. By their very nature, they will have problems and issues and will require months to stabalize properly. If you don't realize this, prepare to be disappointed by every MMO release out there.

Yeah, even WoW was a pile of crap and bugs at release. This release will basically be a test of faith. Do we have faith in BioWare to release another good game? They have a hell of a track record of RPGs. Do we have faith in BioWare to pay very close attention to the game and expediently deal with bugs and issues that pop up when hundreds of thousands of people log on? I have faith in BioWare, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Unrelated to my reply to the poster I quoted, I've seen some people mention insane computer specs and unbalanced Jedi/Sith...if you'll look at the art style of the game, it's not quite what I'd call photorealistic. It's colorful and flashy and a bit over-the-top, which, well, fits in with Star Wars. But it looks like a wide range of computers will be able to run it. And if you'll look at the classes, it looks like they'll all be fun. Personally I'm more excited for Smuggler and Bounty Hunter than running around waving a penis extension made of energy at people. Remember, these are run-of-the-mill mass-produced Jedi and Sith, not the prophecy-fulfilling heroes ( or total badasses like Mace Windu ).

Edited for clarity.

 

[toliman]

Bioware can go fuck themselves. I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a month

This seems so unlikely, since the current motif/standard is the $15/month that NCsoft/Blizzard/turbine, etc. are making into the defacto standard.

As for the second part, it's a star wars game. Of course it's a cash cow. but it's a bioware cash cow, they do have some standards. some. I could be wrong, it's an MMO. Things change, see the current failed star wars MMO.

As for the higher cost, you probably get a free month, and you can get timecards or something. Retailers love timecards, especially when PC gaming is switching to MMO and online purchasing, retailers get to feel important and relevant again. Like newspapers.

As for 4000 hours of recorded dialogue , 4000 hours is somewhere 'bout 80gb compressed, depending on quality, you could cut that down to 4gb-8gb or so.

It might be 10 KOTOR's of dialogue, but it's going to be the same story 20 times in 10 different accents and 10 different styles, so it's not that hard to imagine it's just misinformation. There sure isn't going to be 800 hours of actual dialogue, that would become problematic in a very short time, i.e. Repetition on one hand, non-optional 3 minute exposition about 'This one time at space-band-camp ...' that plagued AoC.

Now, some of it's going to fill the need to do the staple RPGy 'fetch the magical key', 'find the next guy', alongside the multi-fedex quests, recurring quests, etc. and the farming of random numbers of testicles/hearts/eyes from the surprisingly fertile and increasingly pillaged wilderness. That's OK.

Perhaps you only need 8-10 random 'you have failed me for the last time ... urk' recordings to make it a star wars game, but this is ye olde star wars, so of course it's "Space" villain dialogue of 'Space-curses, foiled again', 'i'll have my revenge on you (shakes Space-fist)', 'if it wasn't for you nozy Space-kids, i'd have gotten away with it' , etc.

Or the thrilling dialogue choices when you fulfill some quest objective, i.e., 'oh, the bantha poodoo's hitting the Space-fan', 'stop asking for the pain', ' someone else can clean that up', from your companions/NPC's schtick. Ad nausem...

But, if you realise, 500 hours is only going to be 'hail traveller'/'you again' - i need you to 'kill 30 rats' 'catch 50 fish' 'collect all the pokemon' 'collect some space dollars while dancing on this table' , etc.

Then 5gb of audio seems realistic.

 

[Perwer]

When I look at Mass Effect and KOTOR I realize how very overrated voiced characters are. In fact I prefer the PC not to have a voice as it allows you to imagine the voice of the character you are trying to step into the shoes of. I do however admit that voiced NPCs add to the immersion.

Secondly, more is almost always less in my experience. When you say: "contains the same amount of story as 10 KOTOR games" I hear: "They are trying to sell more by marketing a huge and epic experience full of not very compelling and unimportant 'jibba-jabba' scripting."

A long and drawn out story isn't any more compelling than a very short one. While I fully trust Bioware as one of the few who could pull this off I don't hold very high hopes for it.
Besides, multiplayer and story do not work since there will be other people in the game. And no I don't believe RP servers will change that.

 

[The Medic Who Ubered The World]

If the dialogue is as cheesy as it was in kotor 1, I'll pass.
Kotor2-like dialogues and a story without that terrible pathos...just a dream :C

 

[toliman]

my only lingering doubt is in the mechanics of the game itself, which is probably important given that you usually can't patch those after the game has been released.

as a game, its already fantastic, but an an MMO, it's very quiet on details, and that's troubling.

the dialogue/plot/artwork's usually quite brilliant, but it's not the entire game, the mechanics of any game usually destroy a possibly great game and make it mediocre, as seen by every JRPG, etc. sic.

for example, if you're on the sith side, and you've got a group of 3 smugglers and a sith 'whatever' in the group, is the sith the tank/melee/dps/healer ? and, what advantage does a smuggler have vs. a mercenary vs. a bounty hunter vs a sith adept, etc. in a fight.

 

[johnman]

The first KOTOR was awsome for the fact almost everyone had vioces no matter how unimportant. Even if if they spoke some random lanuage it was sill all there.

 

[Red Albatross]

my only lingering doubt is in the mechanics of the game itself, which is probably important given that you usually can't patch those after the game has been released.

as a game, its already fantastic, but an an MMO, it's very quiet on details, and that's troubling.

the dialogue/plot/artwork's usually quite brilliant, but it's not the entire game, the mechanics of any game usually destroy a possibly great game and make it mediocre, as seen by every JRPG, etc. sic.

for example, if you're on the sith side, and you've got a group of 3 smugglers and a sith 'whatever' in the group, is the sith the tank/melee/dps/healer ? and, what advantage does a smuggler have vs. a mercenary vs. a bounty hunter vs a sith adept, etc. in a fight.

From the class information revealed so far, I don't think we can really fit our fantasy MMO tank/healer/DPS mold on the top of this game. It's something I'm both worried and excited about, because on one hand, the usual archetypes are getting a little old. On the other, it could be a massive disaster without some role definition. Again, based on the information revealed so far, which isn't exactly detailed or encompassing, it looks like players will be using more of a first aid sort of system for healing ( which sort of makes sense, since everyone should know first aid ). Some classes will probably be able to withstand more damage than most of the others, like the Republic's Trooper. But I think we're going to be seeing something different than "tank runs up, insults the enemies' mother, healer heals tank, DPS kills enemy" sort of thing.

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

.......................

And i thought that the art of scripwriting was completely ignored.

Imagine how much coffe the writers drank to stay up writing that stuff.