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Reply #1260 on: June 04, 2009, 09:38:55 AM

Players will skip the story. Too much blah blah and things will be skipped.

Honestly, it all sounds like a a multiplayer version of Mass Effect or Jade Empire. Traditional MMO players are going to hate it. HATE IT. Plus I'm interested to see if BioWare can actually create enough unique content for 10 or so classes.

I don't expect abilities / skills to be balanced. BioWare don't do too badly, but balance isn't really their strong point.

Lantyssa
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Reply #1261 on: June 04, 2009, 09:40:36 AM

Y'all are crazy.  A game where the game is the point?  No, no, no.  We need something which lets us zip to the end more quickly so we can have nothing to do.

Honestly, it all sounds like a a multiplayer version of Mass Effect or Jade Empire. Traditional MMO players are going to hate it. HATE IT. Plus I'm interested to see if BioWare can actually create enough unique content for 10 or so classes.
I'm fine with that.  "Traditional MMO players" have shitty taste when it comes to fun.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
SnakeCharmer
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Reply #1262 on: June 04, 2009, 09:41:14 AM

There's only 8 classes, IIRC....4 per side.
Montague
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Reply #1263 on: June 04, 2009, 09:48:59 AM

I'm fine with that.  "Traditional MMO players" have shitty taste when it comes to fun.

Amen, sistah.


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Reply #1264 on: June 04, 2009, 09:57:27 AM

Maybe developers should stop spending millions trying to cram scripted narrative into a genre who's strengths lie elsewhere, and realize that MMOs Are Not a Storytelling Medium

Anthony Umfer
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Triforcer
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Reply #1265 on: June 04, 2009, 10:00:54 AM

Y'all are crazy.  A game where the game is the point?  No, no, no.  We need something which lets us zip to the end more quickly so we can have nothing to do.

Honestly, it all sounds like a a multiplayer version of Mass Effect or Jade Empire. Traditional MMO players are going to hate it. HATE IT. Plus I'm interested to see if BioWare can actually create enough unique content for 10 or so classes.
I'm fine with that.  "Traditional MMO players" have shitty taste when it comes to fun.

Traditional MMO players will also pay monthly sub fees.  How are you going to keep that box buyer for the next 12 months if all your game is relying on is a 40 or 50 hour story arc?  They can't build a game big enough to keep people subscribing for 1, 2, 3, 4, years like WoW on "story" alone.. 

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Reply #1266 on: June 04, 2009, 10:05:23 AM

There's only 8 classes, IIRC....4 per side.

Which is rather confusing.

Go to the site, they have 8 slots for classes.  Bounty Hunter and Trooper are already up.  Smuggler will join the Republic side soon.

But they're already told us about Jedi and Sith, and the Sith was playable in the hands-on.  So are there 8 classes outside of Jedi & Sith?  Or have they just omitted the two because they aren't really to show it?
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Reply #1267 on: June 04, 2009, 10:07:45 AM

They've admitted Jedi and Sith will be in the game, but for some reason haven't "officially" announced the classes.  My theory is that they are doing this to surprise us by announcing each side has TWO force classes, with "Jedi" and "Sith" both split up somehow.

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Reply #1268 on: June 04, 2009, 10:20:56 AM

Players will skip the story. Too much blah blah and things will be skipped.

Players will skip it if their not playing the game for the story. Plan and simple.
Ghambit
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Reply #1269 on: June 04, 2009, 10:24:32 AM

Has it even been confirmed that Jedi and Sith are even CLASSES?  I'd always assumed your class is independent of if you're force sensitive, hence the reason they dont seem to be lumping classes with jedi/sith.
Obviously, they'd run into the typical problem where everyone wants to be a Jedi/Sith if they're given as flat-out class choices.   Then again, this is a KOTOR game... so that'd kinda be the point eh?  Perhaps the other classes are just "filler."   Ohhhhh, I see.

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Reply #1270 on: June 04, 2009, 10:27:56 AM

Which is rather confusing.

Not really.

Quote
Go to the site, they have 8 slots for classes.  Bounty Hunter and Trooper are already up.  Smuggler will join the Republic side soon.

But they're already told us about Jedi and Sith, and the Sith was playable in the hands-on.  So are there 8 classes outside of Jedi & Sith?  Or have they just omitted the two because they aren't really to show it?

They've officially announced two classes, BH and Trooper.  Smuggler has been mentioned in articles and such, but the 'official' Friday feature thing for smuggler hasn't been done yet; same for Jedi and Sith.  We know those three are going to be in the game (along with BH and Trooper), but there hasn't been the grand release they did for the other two.  You can basically fill in Jedi, Sith, and Smuggler in three of the 6 remaining boxes, leaving 3 classes unknown.  You could speculate that some sort of medic, a scout/fast mover type for the Sith Empire side, and possibly an engineer type will be the remaining three.  

They've got tons of info left to release:  17 more timeline holo things, 6 more classes to officially reveal, 12ish more planets to show off, 4 or so more comics, miscellaneous Fan Friday/new avatar fill ins.  Some of that will be bundled together, of course.  But I suppose that just shows how far out the game actually is.
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Reply #1271 on: June 04, 2009, 10:40:10 AM


They are if the story is about the players -- how they develop their characters, and the choices they make that affect the world at large. Imagine if, instead of picking a class right at the beginning, you follow a chain of quests that sets you up with your initial skills. Imagine if your guild plays through an instance that unlocks a town for them -- or for the whole damn server.

Alas, many still think storytelling can only be NPCs explaining why they need ten rat tails, or reciting the history of UltimateBadGuy01. Fuck that. That's lore. That's a noun. Story is a verb. What you experience.

As for the SWTOR classes... I don't have more knowledge than you (hey, there is a Smuggler -- win!), but when you mentioned multiple Jedi/Sith classes a thought occured. In KotOR, there were actually three Jedi classes you could choose. The Councilor was your Qui Gon subtle manipulator/diplomat, and the Guardian was your Obi-Wan lightsaber duellist. The last was the Sentinel, which was the [Column A + Column B / 2] class.

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AutomaticZen
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Reply #1272 on: June 04, 2009, 10:46:30 AM

Thought about that, but I'm hoping those were more abilities and traits you could pick up in the class, instead seperate classes.

I figured the long range specialist (read: ranger/hunter), the medic (read: priest), and the engineer (pet class) would round things out.  Split between the two sides with corresponding flavor.
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Reply #1273 on: June 04, 2009, 11:12:16 AM

I think its really a matter of tying in the whole story process to the progression of the game. Again when something plays like an mmo even good things like a story becomes retarded. Story =! excuse to grind.

Yeah. The gameplay itself should tell the story, not a block of text or a short movie. At least, I think that's a more interesting direction for games to take.



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Reply #1274 on: June 04, 2009, 11:13:51 AM

True that.

Mimes make awesome storytellers.
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Reply #1275 on: June 04, 2009, 11:28:11 AM

True that.

Mimes make awesome storytellers.

Take the Zelda series, for example. There's some text, and some cutscenes, but for the most part, you're out there with Link doing stuff.
Or the Sims games. The events and activities in the game are the story.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2009, 11:31:38 AM by Ratman_tf »



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Reply #1276 on: June 04, 2009, 11:30:16 AM

Zelda has one of the most paper-thin stories in gaming.

I don't know why you'd choose that as an example.
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Reply #1277 on: June 04, 2009, 11:31:52 AM

They are if the story is about the players -- how they develop their characters, and the choices they make that affect the world at large.

Where does narrative come into play here?
"How they develop their characters" == XP/loot/skills.  What quest narrative involves that?
"the choices they make that affect the world" == You killed all the floozies infesting my farm! Now I can farm again, yay!  How does this involve me?

This screams "show not tell" to me.  I can already see the effects on my character.  If I were meaningfully affecting the world, you could show that too.


Every MMO has 2 stories.  The "game", that I'm playing and care about, and the "lore", that you force me to skim to know how to continue my "game" story.  Let's bring them together!
« Last Edit: June 04, 2009, 11:41:57 AM by CadetUmfer »

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Reply #1278 on: June 04, 2009, 11:33:00 AM

Zelda has one of the most paper-thin stories in gaming.

I don't know why you'd choose that as an example.

My choices are rather limited, unless you want to call something like Pac-Man a story...  swamp poop



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Reply #1279 on: June 04, 2009, 11:49:47 AM

Zelda has one of the most paper-thin stories in gaming.

I don't know why you'd choose that as an example.

It's interesting as an example, IMO, because while you are correct that it's paper-thin...it works.  Because you are acting out most of the story.  Or something.  Maybe it's because the Zelda games always do a good job of OMG I GOT THE SHINEY THING I NEEDED, even when you don't know/care what the shiney is for.  I still get chills everytime I open one of the big chests, even when I know what's in it. 

Fuck it, ignore me.  I've been playing too much Zelda lately.

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Reply #1280 on: June 04, 2009, 12:22:28 PM

So far they haven't announced any "medic" or "healer" classes, and I really hope it stays that way, because the whole 'healer' mechanic in MMOG's is one that's really starting to feel pretty old and pointless.  It doesn't really seem that hard to design a game where there's no 'healer' - single player games and a number of multiplayer game types manage it regularly, but it's alien in the MMOG context.

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Reply #1281 on: June 04, 2009, 12:24:01 PM

Jedi's will be the healers.  awesome, for real

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
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Reply #1282 on: June 04, 2009, 12:37:40 PM

I have a good feeling that every class will be fairly self-contained as far as "we're all dps" goes. Hell, they said that we all have a partner already, didn't they? NPC Dialog is likely to be in the vein of AoC or Mass Effect, as opposed to WoW block o' text since that's the only way that voice overs would work. Whoever brought out the Massively Singleplayer Online RPG term in this thread should probably get a cookie.
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Reply #1283 on: June 04, 2009, 12:41:26 PM

I have a good feeling that every class will be fairly self-contained as far as "we're all dps" goes

Pretty much.  Every class will have dps, every class will have healing ability, etc.  The only real difference is how they go about it.
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Reply #1284 on: June 04, 2009, 12:46:21 PM

An mmo should always give you the option of playing through a story and playing as a character, though ironically you can build a story based game anyway. Story should not be treated as an excuse to grind, if you have a story that exist to justify killing 10 rats to get the next ding then you have a fundamental problems. IE people stop giving shit about the story. So what you do is have the game be played as a game and have a story which people actually want to actually read and know if they choose, and if they don't want to deal with it, who should make it as fun as possible to bash monsters in the head repeatedly. Allow for everything to be repayable, allow for AI to be used as party members and keep the level cap low.
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Reply #1285 on: June 04, 2009, 12:58:10 PM

wat
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Reply #1286 on: June 04, 2009, 01:46:06 PM

Or the Sims games. The events and activities in the game are the story.
Sims have shitload of text which puts events and activities in context. Without that text, the job --any job-- of your sim is just +money/day e.g., with promotions becoming bonus to that +money/day. If you refuse to read the text you will miss out on large chunks of the story.
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Reply #1287 on: June 04, 2009, 02:31:48 PM

An mmo should always give you the option of playing through a story and playing as a character, though ironically you can build a story based game anyway. Story should not be treated as an excuse to grind, if you have a story that exist to justify killing 10 rats to get the next ding then you have a fundamental problems. IE people stop giving shit about the story. So what you do is have the game be played as a game and have a story which people actually want to actually read and know if they choose, and if they don't want to deal with it, who should make it as fun as possible to bash monsters in the head repeatedly. Allow for everything to be repayable, allow for AI to be used as party members and keep the level cap low.

Crack. You should stop smoking it.
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Reply #1288 on: June 04, 2009, 03:18:28 PM

Or the Sims games. The events and activities in the game are the story.
Sims have shitload of text which puts events and activities in context. Without that text, the job --any job-- of your sim is just +money/day e.g., with promotions becoming bonus to that +money/day. If you refuse to read the text you will miss out on large chunks of the story.

I'm talking about trying to tell a story through the gameplay, not removing all text from a game.

And yes, without the text popups, every sim's job is fundamentally the same. Think about that for a moment.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2009, 03:20:54 PM by Ratman_tf »



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Reply #1289 on: June 04, 2009, 03:32:52 PM

I'm talking about trying to tell a story through the gameplay, not removing all text from a game.
And i'm saying the gameplay itself is likely to fall short when it comes to that.

Quote
And yes, without the text popups, every sim's job is fundamentally the same.
What story does it tell you?

edit: i guess i just don't get the whole "zomg, block of text and/or cutscene, do not want" thing given these blocks of text/cutscenes are generally used to handle interaction with other characters in the game world, that goes beyond just punching them in the nads. The "show, don't tell" thing is fine but there's need for some "tell" in the storytelling too, otherwise it's likely the viewer/player is left with very limited idea about what is driving various characters, their own included.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2009, 04:02:06 PM by tmp »
Venkman
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Reply #1290 on: June 04, 2009, 03:51:46 PM

[/quote]
As long as the players are satisfied with that. Which they aren't. Because every single MMO is already about the players and their own personal hero journies, but nobody seems to notice that. So they are unsatisfied.


Quote
Imagine if, instead of picking a class right at the beginning, you follow a chain of quests that sets you up with your initial skills. Imagine if your guild plays through an instance that unlocks a town for them -- or for the whole damn server.
EQ2 had the right track, they just forced players to make niave unrecoverable decisions. It was a good idea to give quest stories so players could "figure out" their first and second sub-class choices. It just didn't work because those quests in no way told the player anything they actually needed to hear (role in group, playstyles, what it meant for raids, etc). So sub-classing went bye bye.

EQ2 also has the various instantiated progression zones (lead to many interesting early problems). A one-time unlock for an entire server though has the usual Gates of Ahn'Qiraj problem: it's either a grindy mess that bores everyone away, or the collective rage gets focused on the 24/7ers who did it before the other few thousand people.

I completely agree that story is not just some scripted event players claim to want then bitch that they can't skip past. But the mechanics of story telling need to change first. If it's canned, that's a huge resource drain for what most people assume will disinterest character optimizers. If it's procedurally-generated branching-storytelling like modern text adventures, you sorta need a different development process with a producer probably operating outside their comfort zone. And that requires a lot of testing, preferably in a smaller title with less attention and development budget and a more dedicated fanbase willing to look past the warts.  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?
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Reply #1291 on: June 04, 2009, 04:30:45 PM

One thing I'm thinking here is that actually writing story isn't really that time-consuming a process if you have a large staff of good writers, which they certainly seem to have covered.  The question is how easy it is for them to go from 'hey I have an idea for something cool the players can do' to having it in-game and fully implemented.  If their backend tools are good enough that the implementation is the easy part then they've got a formula for continuing to add in more story content constantly at a pace that can keep up with the majority of players, especially if those players are playing 2-4 characters regularly.

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Reply #1292 on: June 04, 2009, 07:14:29 PM


They are if the story is about the players -- how they develop their characters, and the choices they make that affect the world at large. Imagine if, instead of picking a class right at the beginning, you follow a chain of quests that sets you up with your initial skills.
Yeah that worked out very well for EQ2... until they removed it because it was universally hated.

Imagine if your guild plays through an instance that unlocks a town for them -- or for the whole damn server.
Oh yay, Frogloks in EQ2 again.
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Reply #1293 on: June 04, 2009, 07:18:41 PM

People should distinguish between densely plotted stories and well-told stories with good atmosphere and characters.

I'd say that the vast majority of game stories that stick with people fall into the latter category rather than the former. I can't think of too many examples of densely plotted stories in games that have worked.

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Reply #1294 on: June 04, 2009, 08:38:44 PM

i guess i just don't get the whole "zomg, block of text and/or cutscene, do not want" thing given these blocks of text/cutscenes are generally used to handle interaction with other characters in the game world, that goes beyond just punching them in the nads. The "show, don't tell" thing is fine but there's need for some "tell" in the storytelling too, otherwise it's likely the viewer/player is left with very limited idea about what is driving various characters, their own included.

MMOs offer a huge range of storytelling techniques, and too often developers have hung their story on just one of them. Just having great writing isn't the answer, nor is just having great cinematics. It's about crafting an experience that drenches the player in a consistent and thoughtful storyline, in which literally everything from the setting to the game features to the world population reinforces the core principles of that story.

Some players read text, some don't. What you need to do is make sure that players can't help but experience the story as they perform the basic act of playing the game.

It's something MMOs haven't traditionally been very good at, but I think developers are learning and things will improve. To imply that MMOs are incapable of telling good stories is short sighted.

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