Why all the hate for TOR?

[Savagezion]

How do you know what the story will be for the different classes? You don't have anything to support these claims except what other MMOs have done in the past but is not at all a requirement for the genre. As for "everyone playing the same story" you obviously haven't even went so far as to read the mission statement behind the development of TOR. It is being developed with that in mind and intentionally offering multiple stories. As in playing a different class isn't just a different wall of text but a different quest line.

The story for each member of a class will be the same. They will have the selection of identical companions with preset names (as opposed to randomly generated). And I'm expecting that something like 90% of the game's content will be shared by all the classes. A jedi knight and a smuggler will probably have different questgivers and could even have different objectives and rewards, while the darksiders will likely view the quest from an entirely different angle, but in the end, the location and the situation will be the same for them all. The presentation might differ, but content will not.

That makes a lot more sense than what I got from the guy I had quoted. I agree with a lot of it and can definitely see that as a possible outcome in all of this. I too have seen stuff like this toted and then something like you describe surfaces. The ONLY reason I think this may end up being different is the fact that it is BioWare who are known for allowing player choice to add weight to their character. I am not saying that MUST be a factor but it is something I am interested in seeing the actual outcome to it. It is also only speculation but I feel it holds enough validity. Bioware has stressed how much they want each character to have a unique feel to them. That is sort of a vague answer in this regard but more info will be released soon probably about it.

Some unique class-specific quests here and there, of course, but the majority of the content has to be shared. You can't make an MMO without Multiplayer and that requires sharing. You can't play with your friends if they spend all their time doing their class-specific quests and the only place you can see other players is Coruscant's Marketplace. The game already looks enough like a single-player game (with some other people getting in your way and ruining the experience/immersion/whatever) without making it 8 isolated mini-games.

And hey, making content for one class means only 12.5% of the players will see it. Making it available to everyone makes that 100% for pretty much the same cost. It's in the players' and the developers' best interest to make as fewer class-specific areas and dungeons as possible.

That is definitely a concern when making a single player game but in an MMO this doesn't keep as much weight. Most people make multiple characters to explore the classes in a game rather than just play through once. There is a lot of merit to that in designing one in my opinion and I like to think Bioware is aware of this. I am not saying this is definitely the case but based off of what has been said so far that is the impression I get personally from them. At this point though both sides are speculating based on perception. The idea I think being presented here is an MMO doesn't need to share content in the same way a multiplayer online campaign system does. MMOs actually have the room and the player incentive already there to take a game and expand it outwards rather than inwards through most of the content. It would ultimately have to come together towards the end but that is a great place to have PvP step over the priority of PvE in content. Where PvP result actually effect server status, not some ridiculous "battlegrounds" for points system but rather a "battlegrounds" for your particular side's (empire vs. republic) benefit.

 

[Woodsey]

There's only one personnal thing that bothers me: Bioware not making KOTOR 3. Not only that, but They said that TOR is KOTOR 3, 4 , 5 and 6...

I'm going to say "dick move guys".

And how does that make TOR bad? I'd say Bioware has been planning this for a while. Probably why they didn't make KOTOR2 themselves (for all that that means). I think what they are trying to say there is that this game is the size of 5 or 6 or more KOTOR games. Besides it does continue the story of KOTOR and you can play solo from what I've heard. Where's the problem?

I believe they didn't KotOR 2 because they had Mass Effect in the pipeline (and they must have been beginning to create the Dragon Age lore back then too).

OT: It's going to fix the thing I hate about MMOs, by putting a single player game into that space, and having it fully-voiced.

BioWare + Star Wars + Money = fuck yes.

So what if they haven't made an MMO before? I do believe the makers of a certain most-popular-MMO-ever hadn't made one before that.

 

[northeast rower]

Honestly, I just want KOTOR 3.

 

[Buizel91]

So what if they haven't made an MMO before? I do believe the makers of a certain most-popular-MMO-ever hadn't made one before that.

Thank thy lord in heaven i aint the only one who thought that!

OT: I have seen hate for it, but they are mostly pissed because it isn't Kotor 3 or it's just simply "another MMO"

I would love that in 3 years TOR was sitting up there with WoW...might shut a few people up.

 

[Buizel91]

Bioware game with beautifully scripted storyline Score 10.
Tedious leveling that comes with MMORPGs -2
The fact that every character really follows the same story, so its a bunch of clones running around with different names and stats, but really accomplishing the same goals and quests. -3
Less of a 'play like your a person in the starwars universe' more 'YOU ARE THE HERO, YOU ARE LEGENDARY, BUT OH WAIT, SO IS EVERYONE!!! Garbage they are preaching almost every dev interview. -3

Game gets a score of 2 out of 10 = FAIL

Yeah, that's good. This way I'll laugh even more at you when you notice that you're wrong in pretty much everything you said. The storyline is not scripted, you make your own decisions in many of the quests for an instance.

You can't have "non scripted" and "voice acted" in the same category, even if you have like 10 different branches for a story, its still scripted events. Only a self thinking AI can generate a non scripted event.

Tell Bioware that...

 

[quiet_samurai]

Bioware game with beautifully scripted storyline Score 10.
Tedious leveling that comes with MMORPGs -2
The fact that every character really follows the same story, so its a bunch of clones running around with different names and stats, but really accomplishing the same goals and quests. -3
Less of a 'play like your a person in the starwars universe' more 'YOU ARE THE HERO, YOU ARE LEGENDARY, BUT OH WAIT, SO IS EVERYONE!!! Garbage they are preaching almost every dev interview. -3

Game gets a score of 2 out of 10 = FAIL

A-fucking-men brother.

Only you forgot one thing; Not Knights of the Old Republic 3, -10

So the actual score? -8 out of 10. Not to mention that they blatantly screwed over the original storyline by just saying in the TOR website a while ago that Revan 'failed' in his quest.

...That's it? Two fucking brilliant games worth of story and THAT'S what you give us for closure? Fuck you Bioware, Fuck you.


If it weren't for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I would absolutely dispise them at this point.

because the world revolves around our needs right I mean your engaging in self pity over a video game you win the pathedic person of the day award.

you condemn the game before it even comes otu and are not even going to give it a chance despite bio ware excellent recond because you want to have a i hate mmorpgs cring fest

Bioware's record gives it a 10, added crappy mmorpg elements diminishes that. You can't just say a dev house that has made outstanding singleplayer RPG games will make a MMORPG game that will be of the same quality.

That is like saying just because someone is good at making novels, they could automatically direct movies just as well. Sure both jobs are telling a story, but talent doesn't transfer that way.

It also doesn't mean that it's going to automatically suck either, why dont you wait until it comes out before getting all premature everywhere.

OT: I am looking forward to this game, I have my reservations, but I am most likely going to give it a try. And the hate I see is either super fan boys that hate anything SW that has come out after 1983, MMO haters, or people that can't get over the fact that there is no KOTOR 3 coming ut in the forseeable future. So.... pretty much crybabies not getting exactly what they want.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

bioware is taking a new spin on mmo's making it more single player based and continuing on the kotor backstory for a more story based approach to things, in which, this is drawing from a new market and different from wow.

Surely the whole point of an MMO is the multiplayer, otherwise they could just make a single player game and release DLC. Without a good endgame this game will not do to well because people will complete the story and be done with it. MMO's make most of their money off of long paying subscriptions.

As for TOR, i wish it all the best, i'm not fussed either which way. I don't think that because Bioware made it that means it'll be the best thing since sliced bread, but there we go.

Just have to wait and see.

i get what your saying, but why can't they just have the people who want to, run around by themselves doing all the quests either alone or with computer based partners? there are tons of people i know besides myself that are really looking forward to just doing it by ourselves (if needed be, ill find people to do stuff as a party with) but why not have both? you'd still end up doing most of the same stuff just at your own pace and as you see fit

 

[RollForInitiative]

Logical thought of the day: the only way to lay down an opinion of legitimate foundation is to be informed, educated, and, when possible, to have experience with the relevant subject matter in some fashion.

This applies equally to both fans and haters.

That is all.

 

[Xanthious]

I don't hate it exactly. I simply think that it's getting a whole load of hype for a game that will most likely end up in the same spot as every other MMO released in the last five years not named World of Warcraft like Warhammer, Conan, Final Fantasy 14, Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, and so on and so on. The potential MMO audience is only so big and WoW has a deathgrip on 13 million of those people. How many scraps does that leave for the rest of the MMO market to fight over like starving dogs? The MMO market in it's current state simply isn't big enough to sustain two MMOs the caliber of WoW and TOR.

With as much money as Bioware is pumping into TOR they are setting it up to be a failure of unfathomable proportions. It will be that failure that years from now that will have other smaller failures building statues in it's likeness and then praying at the base of. Of course I could be wrong about all this . . . .but I'm not.

 

[Ossian]

Bioware game with beautifully scripted storyline Score 10.
Tedious leveling that comes with MMORPGs -2
The fact that every character really follows the same story, so its a bunch of clones running around with different names and stats, but really accomplishing the same goals and quests. -3
Less of a 'play like your a person in the starwars universe' more 'YOU ARE THE HERO, YOU ARE LEGENDARY, BUT OH WAIT, SO IS EVERYONE!!! Garbage they are preaching almost every dev interview. -3

Game gets a score of 2 out of 10 = FAIL

Yeah, that's good. This way I'll laugh even more at you when you notice that you're wrong in pretty much everything you said. The storyline is not scripted, you make your own decisions in many of the quests for an instance.

You can't have "non scripted" and "voice acted" in the same category, even if you have like 10 different branches for a story, its still scripted events. Only a self thinking AI can generate a non scripted event.

Tell Bioware that...

Devs lie, no matter what godly stuff they tell about their game, devs lie. I fell for this too many times to count (recently, spore, Civ 5 etc)
Bioware can't make unique stories for everyone. At least half the online population will have played the same story that another player has.

 

[Afterglow-]

Bioware game with beautifully scripted storyline Score 10.
Tedious leveling that comes with MMORPGs -2
The fact that every character really follows the same story, so its a bunch of clones running around with different names and stats, but really accomplishing the same goals and quests. -3
Less of a 'play like your a person in the starwars universe' more 'YOU ARE THE HERO, YOU ARE LEGENDARY, BUT OH WAIT, SO IS EVERYONE!!! Garbage they are preaching almost every dev interview. -3

Game gets a score of 2 out of 10 = FAIL

A-fucking-men brother.

Only you forgot one thing; Not Knights of the Old Republic 3, -10

So the actual score? -8 out of 10. Not to mention that they blatantly screwed over the original storyline by just saying in the TOR website a while ago that Revan 'failed' in his quest.

...That's it? Two fucking brilliant games worth of story and THAT'S what you give us for closure? Fuck you Bioware, Fuck you.

If it weren't for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I would absolutely dispise them at this point.

C'mon you guys are being harsh. It hasn't even been releaesd. Judge it only after you've played it.

 

[mattttherman3]

You guys don't get it, there's not much else to do but to clone wow. Point and click and use a mouse, ooooh a wow clone, big deal. The story will be different and THATS what counts.

 

[Ascarus]

... cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. I fall into the latter category. I'd love to see it succeed, but I don't want to get too invested.

i am in the same position. the cinematics are unbelievable but the actual game play videos are pretty cartoonish. and i still don't see how they are going to prevent everyone from playing a jedi or sith. the bounty hunter could be interesting, but a world that is dominated by three classes won't be terribly exciting.

seriously though, why play a gun toting republic soldier or smuggler when you can be a jedi?

 

[InevitableFate]

I should have mentioned this in my last post, but I'll add it now.

If someone has a negative opinion they are more likely to broadcast it than someone with a positive one.

A person who likes, or is neutral towards, something doesn't really have anything to point out. They could say "That's so awesome" but there's no real content in such a post. A negative opinion is usually accompanied with the reason for the disappointment, therefore giving the post some extra purpose and critisism.

For example, the TF2 server I play on has a randomised map rotation and a system by which you can rate the maps. The only time I, and probably everyone else for that matter, ever use this voting system is when I don't like a map.

 

[RollForInitiative]

seriously though, why play a gun toting republic soldier or smuggler when you can be a jedi?

Honestly? Different stories and different gameplay experiences. I quite like both of those classes, actually, and use them frequently during testing.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

I don't know. I'm looking forward to it. Each class has its own full-length KOTOR story. You'd be getting 8 KOTOR's in one, so yeah, I'm psyched as hell for it.

It does seem a bit too much like WoW though, which is probably where quite a bit of the hate stems from. Which is understandable I guess.

Well it's hard to make any kind of MMO without the inevitable comparison to WoW as that's the MMO to beat and every MMO is out to try to dethrone it so whenever there's the slightest similarity between WoW and say TOR or Aion everyone's gonna blow it out of proportion til it explodes in a burst of 1000 colors. It's best to just ignore these people and like (or dislike) the game for your reasons.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

A negative opinion is usually accompanied with the reason for the disappointment, therefore giving the post some extra purpose and critisism.

I'm sorry but when I read this I laughed, clearly you haven't been to many other gaming sites because aorund 95% of negative opinion posts I've seen have no reasoning, or purpose beyond "I don't like it, so it sucks and my opinion is the one that's always right HERP DERP."
(Sorry, double post.)

 

[Ascarus]

seriously though, why play a gun toting republic soldier or smuggler when you can be a jedi?

Honestly? Different stories and different gameplay experiences. I quite like both of those classes, actually, and use them frequently during testing.

don't get me wrong, if Bioware manages to get all the classes equally interesting in terms of story, game play and the like that would be a dramatic achievement.

i freely admit that it's my own personal biases that i am wrestling with after having lived with SW my entire life and knowing that the most interesting stories in every medium surrounded the jedi and the sith. it just seems like an overwhelmingly complex problem of having the classes being equally interesting simply based on the fact that the force adds a whole new layer of complexity and depth to any character who can wield it.

but it seems you are in the beta (my guess, based on your post) so i will yield to your experience and remain cautiously optimistic about the game.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Bioware have never let me down, so I'm in the "psyched" category. I'm sure they have a surprise or two up their sleeve, who knows...

 

[InevitableFate]

A negative opinion is usually accompanied with the reason for the disappointment, therefore giving the post some extra purpose and critisism.

I'm sorry but when I read this I laughed, clearly you haven't been to many other gaming sites because aorund 95% of negative opinion posts I've seen have no reasoning, or purpose beyond "I don't like it, so it sucks and my opinion is the one that's always right HERP DERP."
(Sorry, double post.)

Ok, yeah, but there's got to be a reason they don't like it, even if they don't post that reason. It motivates them to want to complain in order to change the subject, or advise people to stay away from it, or something like that. A positive opinion, however, is perceived to change nothing, so why bother mentioning it?