Trailers: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Eternity Vault

[Odude]

Sith forces raid a huge prison as part of the war against the Republic in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The Eternity Vault operation has nothing to do with the "war against the republic", hence the narrator saying that the threat presented by the vault is even bigger than the war. IE both sides will be raiding the vault, as it is a remnant of the Infinite Empire, without allegiance to either side.

Quoted from the SW:TOR website:

A terrible threat has been uncovered on the ice world of Belsavis; a danger so grave that it could make the conflict between the Republic and the Empire irrelevant. Groups of heroes must band together to venture into the ancient and deadly Eternity Vault-where an enemy older than both the Republic and the Empire has been contained... until now.

Just attempting to fix the info.

 

[Ranquest]

The first 5 minutes of this interview gives a good amount of more info about raids/operations.​

 

[Vrach]

I was hoping to get a reason.

Cute comic, shame neither the artist or you ever watched a gameplay video though

Mind explaining that accusation pal? because aside from the light saber not colliding the gameplay is WoW. And only lightsabers collide not monster claws and such.

Check out a bit how animations look like in the game, putting a saber forward is not even remotely the case

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

Mind explaining that accusation pal? because aside from the light saber not colliding the gameplay is WoW. And only lightsabers collide not monster claws and such.

You mean like: Rift, Conan, LOTRO, Champions Online, STO, Everquest, Guild Wars, and every manner of f2p mmo from across the globe? Can anyone show me a fantasy/scifi (Non-space) MMO that doesn't play like WoW?

Unless I read it wrong: whenever did Guild Wars ever play like WoW

 

[GrimSheeper]

Do i smell a Star Wolves refference here?????

I'm afraid that was one thing I didn't think about. There's Precursors in almost all space-related games anyways, from Homeworld to Halo, there's even a game called Precursors by a russian studio. But Star Wolves was awesome.

 

[GrimSheeper]

The Rakatans. Come one dude, haven't you played KOTOR?

Yes I infact did play Knights of the Old Republic. Do I remember the Rakatans from a game I played several years ago with tons of other games that I played in the meantime? Definitely not.
I was told three times by now, I shall edit the post.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Unless I read it wrong: whenever did Guild Wars ever play like WoW

I played Guild Wars before WoW around 2005, and I remember after switching that it was very similiar but WoW kept me longer.

After watching a lets play to refresh myself, yeah gameplay share a lot of things. Auto-attack, hotkey spells, timed cooldowns. Do you not see any similarities, if you played both games?

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

Unless I read it wrong: whenever did Guild Wars ever play like WoW

I played Guild Wars before WoW around 2005, and I remember after switching that it was very similiar but WoW kept me longer.

After watching a lets play to refresh myself, yeah gameplay share a lot of things. Auto-attack, hotkey spells, timed cooldowns. Do you not see any similarities, if you played both games?

I played WoW. Granted, it was only a trial account and I didn't come further than level 20, but to me, both games are continents apart. How long did you play Guild Wars?

I'd say that Guild Wars places very little emphasis on the quality of your gear and level, since max level, max damage weapons and highest armour are very easy to obtain. Yes, both use a system of skills/spells with cooldown timers, but the point of Guild Wars is that you can only take 8 skills with you at all times from a pool of over a hundred, with absolutely NO acces to the other ones, so you have to put some actual THOUGHT in what you did instead of grinding common vermin of unusual size.

Yeah, yeah, timing and planning is also key in WoW, but if you always have access to a large pool of abilities, you'll never have to weigh pros and cons of dismissing one ability over the other. The skills you chose (and stat distribution) could turn you in an invincible god of war, or a crippled old man.

Also: no armour/weapon degragadation, no healing consumables. Also, health/mana regenerate quickly out of combat to keep things flowing, so you don't have to sit for an hour, sipping chilled vulture milk.

If you say: This MMO works with spells and abilities that have cooldown timers, so it plays like WoW, and then mention Everquest, you need to be slapped. Everquest is 6 YEARS OLDER than WoW, and it is based on old textbased MUDs. If you really want to go that way, I'l say all MMO's are weak derivatives of D&D or some other tabletop RPG, 'cause they all use spells/abilities and some mechanic that limits their use.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

snip

I don't know how long I played Guild Wars it was 6 years ago. I did quests, I joined parties, I did pvp. Not sure how long I played though.

Emphasis on quality of gear, lvls, and item degradation arn't really gameplay issues. You mention healing consumables but in WoW you can only drink one and it's effect isn't that much. You also said that you never have to weigh pros and cons of dismissing abilities but that's the whole point of talent trees. Not to mention that even if a spell is in your particular specialization doesn't mean it's effective.

In WoW you may be able to cast all the spells, but that doesn't mean you do nor that it's ok. A healer doesn't taunt a boss, a tank doesn't heal, dps don't do either. And even when you use abilities within those respective roles doesn't mean that all spells are equal. That entire sentence is untrue.

Why wouldn't having access to all abilities require less thought? In my mind it requires more, you have more spells to cast for different situations and others where the amount of dmg going out from one isn't as much as another. Whereas managing only 8 when in WoW you're managing double that or more takes more though. Not to mention resource managing while using those spells. This is still while dismissing most of your spells because they don't fit.

Choosing skills and stats on your armor can also turn you in to a god or a crippled old man. If your job is to take hits and all of your points and stats are not in to that area of expertise you can't do your job. If you're trying to kill other players and you don't have skills or stats to counter that player you're not going to be very good. You mention fast regeneration times to keep battle flowing, but most classes in WoW have that too.

Your last paragraph is exactly my point. People were saying KOTOR gameplay is WoW gameplay, those games were ones I found equally similiar.

 

[Lawyer105]

You're disappointed that your needs aren't the only ones served?

Go read the post again, you've clearly missed the point.

BioWare have been over this. They're going to have many different kinds of content, so that both players who want an epic story and people who just want to play a Star Wars MMO can be happy with the product they get.

You don't have to participate in the raids. I sure know I don't have any desire to. There'll be plenty of other things for us to do.

Bioware is an excellent company. Up until now, I would have accepted such a statement without question.

But I've seen FAR too many MMO's over-promise and under-deliver. Anybody who says they're delivering "many different kinds of content" actually just means they're delivering the same amount of content, just spread thinner than ever. So instead of getting a full-out story driven game (which is what was originally indicated), they've now started throwing raids in. Clearly it's proving harder than expected to deliver full stories, so they're having to come up with other things to replace it.

To be honest, your statements are coming across as a little naive, or otherwise inexperienced with the MMO market.

 

[JediMB]

To be honest, your statements are coming across as a little naive, or otherwise inexperienced with the MMO market.

You could think that. Or I simply know that MMOs need repeatable content so that the "hardcore" MMO-players have things to do even when there isn't new content available.

That said, raids/dungeons/etc. do have their own stories attached to them.

 

[Lawyer105]

You could think that. Or I simply know that MMOs need repeatable content so that the "hardcore" MMO-players have things to do even when there isn't new content available.

That said, raids/dungeons/etc. do have their own stories attached to them.

But that's exactly my point. For ages Bioware were promising that TOR would be different. TOR would be about the stories. And once you finished the story (assuming the next expansion wasn't out yet) you could start another character class for a different story.

Your argument is directly counter to what was originally going to make TOR better. Make it more than WoW in space with lightsabers.

In a game like WoW, you have to have mindless repetitive content, because there's little to no incentive (for a normal person, anyways) to grind a second character (doing exactly the same content over again) when any grinding that you have to do may as well be spent improving your main character.

TOR was supposed to be about playing more than once character up through the stories experiencing them all differently (hell, even having completely separate stories to experience).

Their recent comments have made me doubt their commitment to the story, and I'm increasingly concerned that their "different" stories are going to be exactly the same stories/missions, but with slightly different flavour text perhaps.

 

[JediMB]

~snip~

Well, as much as I could speculate on whether or not BioWare are going to succeed in their endeavor to deliver both traditional MMO content and eight proper BioWare RPG stories, I don't think I have enough information.

I've always had the impression that TOR was about adding to and tweaking the existing popular MMO formula, though, and not cutting out popular content types for the sake of their own innovations. But, again, I don't think I can speculate on whether this inclusive attitude is a good thing or bad.

 

[Lawyer105]

Well, as much as I could speculate on whether or not BioWare are going to succeed in their endeavor to deliver both traditional MMO content and eight proper BioWare RPG stories, I don't think I have enough information.

I've always had the impression that TOR was about adding to and tweaking the existing popular MMO formula, though, and not cutting out popular content types for the sake of their own innovations. But, again, I don't think I can speculate on whether this inclusive attitude is a good thing or bad.

But where's the fun in not speculating, whining and typing enraged rants on internet gaming forums?!?

Methinks you may have forgotten your gaming roots... after all, gamers as a group are opinionated, self-important, entitled twatdonkeys.

Enough with the rational discourse! You're letting the team down!

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

Your last paragraph is exactly my point. People were saying KOTOR gameplay is WoW gameplay, those games were ones I found equally similiar.

Ah, hmm I see. I apologise for my hostility.
Can we still continue to discuss the diferences between WoW and GW? I find it rather informative.

Let me rephrase myself on skills and specialisation
When you have access to all abilities for your specialisation, you have an answer for every problem your specific specialisation might encounter and have every possible spell combination that might become necessary at hand. At least, That's how I see it.

I've taken a better look at the Talent trees and, yes, I see it does allow for some good specification, but I was thinking more of making sure all the "if-then-else" conditions of equipped skills work together for specific effects. For example, combining a Necromancer's Spinal Shivers (for x seconds, when target takes cold damage, target is interupted, you lose energy on hit) combined with a Dervish's Grenth's Fingers (all your attacks deal cold damage for x seconds) and some of the Dervish's energy regain skills (gain energy on strike/gain energy when enchantment ends etc) can keep spellcasters completely disabled for extended time. Another example Dervish example: A Dervish in Avatar of Grenth form spreads Disease, but is immune himself, combined with Reap Impurities (foe takes x damage and loses one condition, adjacent foes take y damage). Good in PvE, not so much in PvP. I've also seen Elementalists that were equally as good a tanker as any Warrior, if not better.

 

[Infernai]

Was that Simon Templeman (Kain/Loghain etc) I heard narrating the begining of that?

Yes, and i must say that I'm disappointed in your progress...I imagined the Escapists would have pointed that out sooner.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

I've taken a better look at the Talent trees and, yes, I see it does allow for some good specification, but I was thinking more of making sure all the "if-then-else" conditions of equipped skills work together for specific effects.

For example, combining a Necromancer's Spinal Shivers (for x seconds, when target takes cold damage, target is interupted, you lose energy on hit) combined with a Dervish's Grenth's Fingers (all your attacks deal cold damage for x seconds) and some of the Dervish's energy regain skills (gain energy on strike/gain energy when enchantment ends etc) can keep spellcasters completely disabled for extended time.

Another example Dervish example: A Dervish in Avatar of Grenth form spreads Disease, but is immune himself, combined with Reap Impurities (foe takes x damage and loses one condition, adjacent foes take y damage). Good in PvE, not so much in PvP. I've also seen Elementalists that were equally as good a tanker as any Warrior, if not better.

I have to tell you, all of that was gibberish to me. I can't form a proper debate because I don't know what was said. lol

After re-reading several times -and I could still be completely wrong on what you were trying to show me- 2 or more different classes or the guild war equivallant teamed up in spells to accomplish a single goal. From your first example I think both of them had the spellcaster interrupted or locked down. A similiar thing for WoW is that there are multiple ways for a character to not be able to do anything.

Spoiler: Wow, that list went on longer than I intended

Incapacitate: which completely removes control from the player but any dmg will break the effect giving them back control. Stun: Probably self-explanatory for you paralyzes the character even while taking dmg. Knock Down: Very similiar to stun but only one class has it that I know of I don't really pvp. Silence: Character is unable to cast spells. Immobalize: Obviously, makes them unable to move but can still attack. Blow Back: This blasts the character away from you interrupting casts and giving you chance to run from a melee class. These all share diminishing returns, which means the more you use a certain lock down spell the shorter it lasts. Which means a default 8s stun, would go 8,6,4,2 for example.

So basically in a 2v2 match one group can incapacitate one character, while locking down another. Combining stuns, incapacitates and silences you can keep a spellcaster from doing almost anything. In PvE these spells are usually only used at the start of a pull to reduce the amount of enemies hitting the tank, or if things go wrong.

I can't really see what the second example is trying to say but what you said, "Good for PvE not so much for PvP." Doesn't ring any bells for happening in WoW, although they could. Again I don't PvP as much. Actually probably area of effect spells.

I'm guessing Elementalist is not a tank character but can tank. This has happened before, I know rogues (Strictly dps, low armor class) could tank when they stacked enough of agility which increased their dodge. They could spec their character and gain enough gear to get over 100% chance of dodging or parrying and could then tank raid bosses. This has been patched out though unfortunately.

 

[2xDouble]

Are you supporting what they said? or trying to show them that they are wrong?

I'm staying out of it.

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

I have to tell you, all of that was gibberish to me. I can't form a proper debate because I don't know what was said. lol

After re-reading several times -and I could still be completely wrong on what you were trying to show me- 2 or more different classes or the guild war equivallant teamed up in spells to accomplish a single goal. From your first example I think both of them had the spellcaster interrupted or locked down. A similiar thing for WoW is that there are multiple ways for a character to not be able to do anything.

Ah sorry for being unclear. You might not remember since it's been a time, but in GW every character has a primary class and a secondary, meaning they can augment their abilities in one class by using those of another. Every class (or profession) has 4 attributes, 5 in the case of the Warrior and the Elementalist: 3 that directly affect the effectiveness of skills linked to that attribute, and one that does so indirectly. All the directly affecting attributes are available to you if you've chosen a specific profession as either primary or secondary, but the indirect one is only available to the primary one.

For example, the Necromancer gets Soulreaping as his primary attribute, which gives him an energy spike whenever something dies near him; Blood Magic, which increases the effectives of spells dealing with health stealing, health sacrifice and enchantment removal; Curses, which increases debuffs and other hexes; and Death Magic, which is mainly about corpse exploitation, like undead minions.

As for the good for PvE/not PvP exapmle: the mob AI in Guild Wars recognizes certain lasting AoE spells (like the Elementalist's Meteor Shower and Rain of Fire) and actively try not to huddle together when they are in effect. They do not however for a single AoE spike( like the Avatar of Grenth+Reap Impurities combo) making it very effective against enemies who are close to each other. In PvP, attentive players could notice that very easily and simply not gang up on you.

Spoiler: A specific example of a ridiculously effective build (edited)

A few years back, the 55 HP Monk build was very popular for solofarming in the Underworld, a high level PvE sorta-raid. A monk is similar to the Priest in WoW. The build is now defunct, due to nerfs and several mob additions to the Underworld. the build is based around the spell Protective Spirit, which reduces all incoming damage to 10% of the echanted's max health. In addition they use all kinds of items that reduce their total health, so that they are left with 55 HP and, as a result, can never take more than 5.5 damage per attack. On top of that they take a few low-cost health regeneration spells, which makes them practically invincible. To counter this build, Arenanet placed a few creatures that would remove enchantments in the starting area, rendering the build completely ineffective

To come back to the Talents Tree for the moment, the Traits system of Guild Wars 2 feels somewhat similar to the Talents Tree, in that you choose in which way you affect the effectiveness of your abilities. However, instead of investing points in certain effects, you fill out a number of slots with the Traits of your choice, sort of like equipment.