The Elder Scrolls Online

[Stormwaltz]

My only request would be that they mark those somehow so you don't have to sit through a conversation before you find out it's a quest you don't want to do.

God, yes. A different symbol over the NPC or something.

They do leave me wondering if the companion affection change from those conversations is lost when I abandon the quests, or if you just can't get affection on the second or subsequent runs through. So far I've been too lazy or inattentive to check.

[Fordel]

You don't get the companion affection until you turn in the quest, its part of the quest reward along side the XP and money and etc.

If a quest is repeatable you'll get the affection every time you do it, based on your dialogues choices each time you do the quest. There are people that just re-run the first dungeon over and over just for the Rep/Alignment gain.

[ezrast]

I don't get the SWTOR hate either.  It's a thoroughly mediocre MMO but not a bad one.  Just bland like Rift.   

I think, ultimately, the issue is that a mediocre MMO *is* a shit MMO. Mediocrity in fundamentals like a combat system or overworld traversal or pvp compound their frustrations and cannot be forgiven in a way they would be forgiven in a relatively quick singleplayer game experience. Instead, as the hours pile on in an MMO, mediocrity eventually abrades your patience too much to continue. It burns you out and you quit because you now hate the game and it tested your patience and was found lacking.

And with SWTOR, a lot of the hate has to do with wasted potential and squander. Or, to put it on a basic front: SWTOR represented a really potentially huge pinnacle of potential that people don't like to see squandered. Bioware spending a $lots on a Star Wars MMO. Plenty of force user classes. Lightsabers, blasters, jedi, sith, bounty hunters, smugglers, the whole nine yards.

I was certainly excited as all fuck about it, YEAH WOO STAR WARS, and I didn't make it too long. Too many grindingly poor fundamentals. Too much in the way of frustration oblivating potential immersion. Futzy spongy combat, horrific pvp where I am desperately swapping hotkeys to be able to throw huttballs because as a Jedi Blend-Tec I have 1.66 x 10²⁷ skills, really poorly designed planets that you begin to dread having to travel through and will never again visit if you have any choice in the matter. It eventually quashed my interest and I mustered out, as usual.

SWTOR was a game in the most played-out genre using the most overrated IP by the most washed-up developer under the most oppressive publisher. It never had potential. But I agree that if it had flown in under the radar from a spunky startup, it would be treated as basically the same as RIFT: generally decent, but still nobody plays it.

[Falconeer]

On top of being a mediocre MMORPG (which I played too much just because of friends and because it turned out to have a pretty nice level 50 PvP arena combat) especially once the novelty of the storytelling ran out, what didn't help it with me is that it always felt like a bad imitation of Star Wars, like the new movies. I am one of those snobs who don't consider Star Wars anything that isn't The Trilogy, so while I could have appreciated SWTOR more as an semi-original IP sci-fi diku, it ended up feeling like a world that was just plagiarizing the only real Star Wars universe without having its charisma.

I am surprised how many people who consider the Episodes 1 - 3 movies utter shit then happen to be OK with games that take place in the bullshitty timelines.

[rk47]

Most of the time I don't even know what game we're talking about in here anymore.  For some reason, I can't follow this thread at all. 

I still want to play this because I'm sure I'll be bored with everything by that time.  I no longer believe there will ever be a totally awesome game that I can play forever.

With that kind of thinking I dunno how you justify spending the box price on 1 MMO when you can buy 3-4 games from steam on sale for less.
I enjoyed MMO back then, now I realized I can't enjoy doing the same moves over and over for weeks just to get 2% power increment and repeated raid boss with 4 strangers just equip cool things. The first thing MMO can do to attract me back is no subs.

[Teleku]

I am surprised how many people who consider the Episodes 1 - 3 movies utter shit then happen to be OK with games that take place in the bullshitty timelines.

Err, its set in the early republic timeline, thousands of years before the prequils, which was created by Bioware for Knights of the Old Republic, a game most everybody I know loved.  The setting and story were great.

People didn't like the prequils because they were in fact bad movies.

[Falconeer]

I know it's not the same timeline of the shitty movies, I was just saying I don't give a single fuck about Star Wars outside of the Trilogy. Take Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, Darth Vader, the Stormtroopers, the Tie Fighters out of the equation and you are left with a very bad sci-fi setting. I am surprised people care (well those who care, I know a lot who don't).

EDIT to add: As bad as the Mass Effect universe. My point is that good games stand on their legs, as does good narrative, but when a game like SWTOR was announced, I saw no connection between it and "Star Wars". My personal expectations were towards KOTOR, as you pointed out, not to Star Wars cause neither of them was a Star Wars game anyway. SWG was, and that's a different story, and different problems.

[Tannhauser]

At this point SWTOR is what it is.  It certainly didn't live up to its potential, and judging by the expansions, it never will.  But I approach it and play it here and there, wringing a little enjoyment for awhile.  Sometimes you just gotta swing a lightsaber.

Slow XP: You can buy xp boost tokens and there are some as quest rewards.  Double weekends.
Group Quests:  You can easily do Heroic 4 on Coruscant and Dromond Kas.  After that, yes problematic.  But you can solo Heroic 2's and are a fun challenge.
Travel:  Like others said; fleet passes, shuttles on planets directly to the fleet etc.  Get a sweet landspeeder and admire yourself zipping along the desert.
Non-Star Warsy?  What could Bioware do?  If you set the game in either of the movie eras, you can create a lot of problems.  Empire era won't have any Jedi.  Republic era is disliked, so Bioware went back to their KOTOR timeline.  

What bothers me still is there isn't ENOUGH story.  It sucked to see my companions go offscreen and 'complete' their stories after they've bitched about it for twenty levels.  I understand they had to cut stuff for release, but it's been what two years now?  I have other problems with the game, but I'm resigned that the 1-50 pve path won't be worked on.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Miracle patch any day now 

[Signe]

Most of the time I don't even know what game we're talking about in here anymore.  For some reason, I can't follow this thread at all. 

I still want to play this because I'm sure I'll be bored with everything by that time.  I no longer believe there will ever be a totally awesome game that I can play forever.

With that kind of thinking I dunno how you justify spending the box price on 1 MMO when you can buy 3-4 games from steam on sale for less.
I enjoyed MMO back then, now I realized I can't enjoy doing the same moves over and over for weeks just to get 2% power increment and repeated raid boss with 4 strangers just equip cool things. The first thing MMO can do to attract me back is no subs.

I was kind of talking just about MMOs.  I actually prefer single player rpgs and single/multi player shooters these days and I don't get bored as quickly with them as I do with MMOs for the most part, especially if it's a console game.  Most games I buy for the PC, I buy through Steam now.  I find that subbing to xbox live is a good deal because they give me two freebies a month.  I nearly always have something to play and a big back log of stuff downloaded that I haven't got to yet.  I like to have an MMORPG around if it's something my sister or a friend might be playing.  And just because I want to play something doesn't mean I will, or that I won't wait until it's cheaper.  At least not anymore.  That's why the new f2p models work for me to a large degree.  Even if I sub for a month or so with those, I think it's a good value.

[Senses]

I picked up the enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate 1 from steam for 4.99 a couple days ago and I just can't believe how well it holds up as an amazing rpg.

[Daeven]

SWTOR had the best leveling experience of any MMO i've played so far, and about the worst end game.  Going through the story at least once is something i would not hesitate to recommend to anyone, usually i find leveling to be a chore i have to do before i get to the real meat of the game.  But once that ran out there was absolutely nothing else worth a damn in the entire game.

Which story? The individual class stories were the best part of the game. Unfortunately all of this grindy MMO crap gameplay kept getting in the way of the interesting bits. What's the difference between Alderaan and Hutta? In one you do grindquests in temprate forests, in the other you do grindquests in a swamp.

meh.

[Paelos]

Jail planet almost made me quit the game. I should have right then, but I stuck it out for a month of dungeons and bad tanking mechanics.

[Ingmar]

Jail planet almost made me quit the game. I should have right then, but I stuck it out for a month of dungeons and bad tanking mechanics.

You don't like the tanking mechanics? Interesting, because I think we both played warrior tanks in WoW and the way the JK plays for me is like a better version of the Wrath-era warrior. A few flashpoints WERE buggy for quite a while at the start though, so I can see that being part of the issue.

[Sjofn]

On top of being a mediocre MMORPG (which I played too much just because of friends and because it turned out to have a pretty nice level 50 PvP arena combat) especially once the novelty of the storytelling ran out, what didn't help it with me is that it always felt like a bad imitation of Star Wars, like the new movies. I am one of those snobs who don't consider Star Wars anything that isn't The Trilogy, so while I could have appreciated SWTOR more as an semi-original IP sci-fi diku, it ended up feeling like a world that was just plagiarizing the only real Star Wars universe without having its charisma.

I am surprised how many people who consider the Episodes 1 - 3 movies utter shit then happen to be OK with games that take place in the bullshitty timelines.

Because KotOR, KotOR 2 and SWTOR's stories are at least interesting. Episodes 1-3 were an unfocused mess that failed at even the most basic storytelling. It sounds like your fondness for Star Wars comes mostly from the characters over the setting. That's fine, that's the main appeal for me too. But the Old Republic games also have characters I like and/or give a shit about. The Prequels barely had characters at all.

[Paelos]

Jail planet almost made me quit the game. I should have right then, but I stuck it out for a month of dungeons and bad tanking mechanics.

You don't like the tanking mechanics? Interesting, because I think we both played warrior tanks in WoW and the way the JK plays for me is like a better version of the Wrath-era warrior. A few flashpoints WERE buggy for quite a while at the start though, so I can see that being part of the issue.

That and I didn't really understand that taunt spamming was needed. Or something like that. I remember the JK getting retooled quite a bit after I quit because it wasn't working right at all.

[Simond]

On top of being a mediocre MMORPG (which I played too much just because of friends and because it turned out to have a pretty nice level 50 PvP arena combat) especially once the novelty of the storytelling ran out, what didn't help it with me is that it always felt like a bad imitation of Star Wars, like the new movies. I am one of those snobs who don't consider Star Wars anything that isn't The Trilogy, so while I could have appreciated SWTOR more as an semi-original IP sci-fi diku, it ended up feeling like a world that was just plagiarizing the only real Star Wars universe without having its charisma.

I am surprised how many people who consider the Episodes 1 - 3 movies utter shit then happen to be OK with games that take place in the bullshitty timelines.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: STO is better at being a Star Trek game than SWTOR is at being a Star Wars game.

[Wizgar]

I don't know how to tell you this but you're talking about video games

MMOs are the pet rocks of the 00s: an inexplicably popular tapping of some really weird part of the Western zeitgeist. WoW was an aberration, coming at the exact right time with the exact right features. They're a spent force and anyone breaking ground on one today is fucking crazy.

[Sir T]

And Blizzard made it, which boosted everyone's ratings on it by 40%. I tried it for 2 weeks and didn't see what all the fuss was about. It was just big muscly men, even elves and undead, running about harvesting bear ears to me.

[Teleku]

And Blizzard made it, which boosted everyone's ratings on it by 40%. I tried it for 2 weeks and didn't see what all the fuss was about. It was just big muscly men, even elves and undead, running about harvesting bear ears to me.

I really hate it when people attribute WoW's success to having the Blizzard name attached to it.  Up until that point, I'd played just about every single MMO that had been created.  And I loved it.  Blew all the competition out of the water.  Their innovation was removing the bullshit and just letting you have fun and do all sorts of shit without grindy cock blocks (Basically, they let you solo and quest your way up).  The graphics, artwork, lore, ect, also destroyed all competition for the time.  It made it a much more enjoyable experience than any other MMO created to that date, for me at least.  And THATS why it went on to get millions of subs.

[Velorath]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

I seem to recall that being a bit of a problem with you.

[Venkman]

And Blizzard made it, which boosted everyone's ratings on it by 40%. I tried it for 2 weeks and didn't see what all the fuss was about. It was just big muscly men, even elves and undead, running about harvesting bear ears to me.

i
I really hate it when people attribute WoW's success to having the Blizzard name attached to it.  Up until that point, I'd played just about every single MMO that had been created.  And I loved it.  Blew all the competition out of the water.  Their innovation was removing the bullshit and just letting you have fun and do all sorts of shit without grindy cock blocks (Basically, they let you solo and quest your way up).  The graphics, artwork, lore, ect, also destroyed all competition for the time.  It made it a much more enjoyable experience than any other MMO created to that date, for me at least.  And THATS why it went on to get millions of subs.

This conversation is almost as old as F13 itself. Nobody's really saying Blizzard = automatic-success. But by then they were known to make fun games and they had the Battle.net audience. So that plus all the other factors (IP, budget, etc) drew people in, and the quality they produced retained them. This particular Blizzard was different from the other Blizzard(s) people were familiar with, but the output made that point moot.

I will argue you on the graphics, because they caught a lot of shot for that early on. Until people started playing and learned (even if they didn't realize it) that self-consistency of art style was far more important than "good graphics" (which was EQ2s schtick when it launched a month prior).

MMOs are the pet rocks of the 00s: an inexplicably popular tapping of some really weird part of the Western zeitgeist. WoW was an aberration, coming at the exact right time with the exact right features. They're a spent force and anyone breaking ground on one today is fucking crazy.

Let's not get crazy. WoW was an outlier in the Western markets. But when you look globally, and account for the other kinds of MMO business models popularized in China and South Korea and the reach those games attained, WoW is one among many. Lineage was the one game that ever got thrown around in comparison to EQ1, AC1 and UO. But there are hundreds of MMOs over there that never made it here. The used to churn there faster than CoD did here.

[Teleku]

This conversation is almost as old as F13 itself. Nobody's really saying Blizzard = automatic-success. But by then they were known to make fun games and they had the Battle.net audience. So that plus all the other factors (IP, budget, etc) drew people in, and the quality they produced retained them. This particular Blizzard was different from the other Blizzard(s) people were familiar with, but the output made that point moot.

I will argue you on the graphics, because they caught a lot of shot for that early on. Until people started playing and learned (even if they didn't realize it) that self-consistency of art style was far more important than "good graphics" (which was EQ2s schtick when it launched a month prior).

But that is exactly what he, and many others over the years, said.  That people gave it a pass because of the blizzard logo, even though it was a shitty game, blah blah.  Of course the name brought more people in.  Just as the name Bioware and Starwars brought lots of people to TOR.  And people to SWG and EQ2 (being the sequel to the most successful MMO ever at the time).  They all failed because nobody liked the actual game they offered, but did enjoy what blizzard offered.

For the graphics, I never understood any of the complaints.  IMO, the game looked LIGHT YEARS ahead of anything that came before it, and came after it for a good long while.  I know technically polygons or whatever were lower, but I didn't see that.  I just saw amazing looking environments, for the time.  Thats another strength, actually.  WoW was the first game that I was really in awe of walking around (beyond my initial EQ 'holy shit an actual 3D world look at this' days).  I actually spent hours and hours of the game just walking around and exploring, seeing the cool looking areas and trying to find historical locations from previous warcraft games.  Never leveling up or anything, just exploring.  Nothing has managed to have that big of a leap forward for me since.

[Malakili]

Thats another strength, actually.  WoW was the first game that I was really in awe of walking around (beyond my initial EQ 'holy shit an actual 3D world look at this' days).  I actually spent hours and hours of the game just walking around and exploring, seeing the cool looking areas and trying to find historical locations from previous warcraft games.  Never leveling up or anything, just exploring.  Nothing has managed to have that big of a leap forward for me since.

I was this way with WoW at first too, but a big part of it is certainly actually having played the Warcraft games before it and knowing the lore to some degree.  I don't think it would have had quite the same effect without it.  I'm sure big huge castle X in every MMO has some sort of interesting backstory, but I don't know it, and there is no reason for my to go out of my way to find out.

[Teleku]

That's certainly true enough, but I still found the environments in the world cool by themselves.  I loved exploring the forest in the Night Elves zones, finding the crazy monuments around the dwarf areas, following the rivers to see where they went and find what was at the top of water falls, what was hidden below the waves in coastal areas, ect.  Hell, I loved the shit out of Stranglethorn for this reason and it had nothing to do with established lore, heh.

[Venkman]

But that is exactly what he, and many others over the years, said.  That people gave it a pass because of the blizzard logo, even though it was a shitty game, blah blah.  Of course the name brought more people in.  Just as the name Bioware and Starwars brought lots of people to TOR.  And people to SWG and EQ2 (being the sequel to the most successful MMO ever at the time).  They all failed because nobody liked the actual game they offered, but did enjoy what blizzard offered.

I don't think we disagree.

"Warcraft" and "Star Wars" can attract attention, like any consumer-friendly brand with high awareness backed by strong marketing efforts.

But the experience has to hold up its end of the bargain. No amount of "but it's called Warcraft" is going to retain a player if the game play itself isn't fun. You'll still get those diehard hopefuls who will stick around hoping things get better. But either they actually like the game they publicly claim they don't, they're playing a game they don't like for reasons unrelated to the game play itself (trading, socializing, music, whatever), or they're delusion Regardless, that's not a market you spend tens of millions of dollars on. They're only part of a market you end up with if you make bad design or development decisions.

So players gave WoW a look because it was "Warcraft" from "Blizzard". But they didn't stick around for years because of the name.

[Nebu]

So players gave WoW a look because it was "Warcraft" from "Blizzard". But they didn't stick around for years because of the name.

This. 

Players also gave LOTRO, WAR, and SWTOR a look in large numbers... not the same result.  Blizzard really captured a gaming audience with their level of polish.  It's pretty undeniable.

[Merusk]

Polish AND removal of bullshit.  So many people have forgotten the bullshit that was MMO leveling and questing 10 years ago. 

Yeah we complain about WoW's methods now, but because it's become the standard and we always want the new and shiny.  (It also doesn't help that they've moved in to a much more direcrted experience than the vanilla and BC nodes you could jump around to.)

[Sjofn]

I did not give WoW a look because of Blizzard or Warcraft. In fact, the Warcraft thing had me NOT looking at it, because it was a setting I gave absolutely no fucks about. But a bunch of my guildies in DAoC were kinda excited about it, and I started hearing about the actual game part, and it sounded ... fun. So I did the stress test like every other nerd I know, and even though it was laggy as shit and everything ... it WAS fun.

In all honestly, I think one of the biggest things that helped it was the lack of NDA.

[Ghambit]

WoW's methods to me aren't the standard because the reality is, not a single studio has completely been able to re-produce what Blizz did.   Every design (even EQ2) has been ever-so-slightly different, which in the end becomes the studio's undoing.  Carbine has the best design so far imo, the caveat being they used a brand new IP.  Blizz had an already rich and successful IP to draw from.  The question "why am I here?" can easily be answered.

Though, like Sjofn, I really gave didnt give two fucks about the theme aside from having played a lot of Warcraft in my day.

[Sjofn]

I think you mean "unlike Sjofn." I had no fucks available for that setting.

edit: There you go!

[Paelos]

In all honestly, I think one of the biggest things that helped it was the lack of NDA.

Good games don't need them.

[Merusk]

WoW's methods to me aren't the standard because the reality is, not a single studio has completely been able to re-produce what Blizz did.   Every design (even EQ2) has been ever-so-slightly different,

Point of order: EQ2 released months prior to WoW, so there was no way they were stealing the changes that far in to their own development.  Retool existing systems to try and match?  Sure, but that's a different animal.

No MMO tried to steal a lot of what Blizz did for years, continuing to do old stupid shit. Mandatory groups, hunt for quests and content, shitty crafting, unintelligible, nonexistent or useless in-game maps, decrease of player:mob power ratio as you progressed.  All because they clung to the narrative of, "Blizzard is only successful because they have that huge b.net fan base."   You saw it EVERYWHERE among established Devs and those whose games crashed and burned in the 3-4 years after WoW's release.  (Hell, we're seeing it here in this thread STILL.  "WoW was only successful because of b.net."   )

But games did start making a lot of those features standard.  When's the last time you ground mobs or couldn't find shit on your map?  Blizzard didn't create every standard feature we expect these days but they laid a groundwork for many of them.  Which is what makes their current head-up-their-own-ass direction that much more frustrating.

[Goreschach]

WoW's methods to me aren't the standard because the reality is, not a single studio has completely been able to re-produce what Blizz did.   Every design (even EQ2) has been ever-so-slightly different,

But games did start making a lot of those features standard. 

And yet they continued to crash and burn.

[Malakili]

And yet they continued to crash and burn.

WoW does have something I can't think of in any other similar MMO - it's just pleasurable to be logged in and doing stuff most of the time.  I can't really explain it.  I think most people have been referring to this as "polish" but it isn't just that.  The game is very crisp, things "just work," etc.  I used to log into WoW when I was playing just to idle in a city even if I didn't really want to "play" because it was just nice to be there.  I think I had that feeling more in WoW than any other MMO before or after - even the ones I played for comparable amounts of time like EVE.

I haven't played WoW in about three years, but just typing this out actually makes me feel slightly compelled to resub just to run around Ironforge again.  I'm not going to, but there sure as hell isn't any other MMO that makes me feel that way.