SWTOR

[Surlyboi]

^This.

I want to play this game and whack a few foozles with my glowstick. Hopefully have a fall-from-grace/redemption story arc and enjoy myself.

If I happen to not whack those foozles as efficiently as the min/maxers, then good. I'm enjoying the game a lot more than they are.

[AutomaticZen]

We had this exact same conversation in that KOTOR BIIF thread Margalis made last year. The bottom line is that he hates story choices even in a single-player game because he's there to powergame everything to the greatest extent possible, and doesn't want anything in any game that isn't clearly labeled by how optimal it is for combat.

The appropriate solution is to let him read spoiler sites and torture himself playing the game wrong so he can be 5% more powerful at level 37, while everyone else just picks whatever sounds cool because they know leveling doesn't mean shit and the endgame will be equalized by raid/faction/pvp gear anyway. Questions like "What if raids are segregated by karma meter?" are just a silly case of looking to invent an excuse for why having a karma meter is bad.

And SWTORHead will be up within 30 days of launch, so it's really not a problem anyways.  Min/Maxers will be fine because they generally don't care about what they're choosing anyways.

[SnakeCharmer]

SWTORHead will be up just after beta goes open.  Hell, the domain is already owned (and for sale).  I *do* give it 3 months before every single branch from every single action with every single reward will be; which is really going to show how shallow the story pillar BioWare Austin is pushing / banking on really is.

[Hindenburg]

And SWTORwiki  will have all of the lolre for anyone interested. It's win-win.

[tmp]

I *do* give it 3 months before every single branch from every single action with every single reward will be; which is really going to show how shallow the story pillar BioWare Austin is pushing / banking on really is.

Any story-oriented game gets a walkthrough on the intrawebs within few weeks of launch. So i don't see why SWtOR should be any different, but i also don't see how it takes away from the story itself. These who aren't interested in the story read the walkthroughs, these who are interested don't.

[Goumindong]

I *do* give it 3 months before every single branch from every single action with every single reward will be; which is really going to show how shallow the story pillar BioWare Austin is pushing / banking on really is.

Any story-oriented game gets a walkthrough on the intrawebs within few weeks of launch. So i don't see why SWtOR should be any different, but i also don't see how it takes away from the story itself. These who aren't interested in the story read the walkthroughs, these who are interested don't.

In a single player game you can passively ignore it. You simply don't go and read the guides.

In a multiplayer game you have to avoid anyone else who has done content you have not, and realistically, avoid people who have played with people who have done content you have[since otherwise you're going to be absorbing general information about quest lines and such.

Case in point, how many lower level WoW players, even new ones, don't know about the high end content, items, etc? Did all of them use guides? Unlikely, but i'll bet most of them played with someone who knew what was up at some point.

[Lantyssa]

Case in point, how many lower level WoW players, even new ones, don't know about the high end content, items, etc? Did all of them use guides? Unlikely, but i'll bet most of them played with someone who knew what was up at some point.

I don't and most of my guild is 80.

I don't give a crap about it unless it looks good, so I ignore most any conversation talking about items beyond ctrl-click.  Most content I don't know much about either since it's all gibberish until I've actually seen it enough to clue in to what they're talking about.

[tmp]

Case in point, how many lower level WoW players, even new ones, don't know about the high end content, items, etc? Did all of them use guides? Unlikely, but i'll bet most of them played with someone who knew what was up at some point.

Well, i actually have played WoW trial up to l.20 just recently. There was literally zero discussion of questlines or instance details or whatever in game chat (which is not very surprising) so with this perspective i'd say it is in fact very easy to remain uninformed about game content until one experiences it themselves. It's even easier when one bothers to close the chat, i'd figure. It's not like people go and yammer about quests they did to complete strangers they don't give two shits about.

[Senses]

Who talks about quests in chat?  That's for Chuck Norris jokes.  Wowhead was always for quest information.  Seriously though, you're only a newb once..ever, and for many people that was 4 years ago in WoW.  If you don't know how to figure out a cryptically worded quest on Day 1 you are quickly informed before Day 2.   But ultimately, that is always up to the player themselves and im sure there are far more people who know where to find the information and choose not to, than people who don't know where to find it, but would go in a heartbeat if they did.

Somewhat related, and because I just reread my own paragraph and wondered, how often have you been forced to check an interenet site simply because the quest was so poorly explained in game?  I have run into this time and again and been mystified by how someone ever even figured out the quest the first time so that they could post the information.

[Sheepherder]

Somewhat related, and because I just reread my own paragraph and wondered, how often have you been forced to check an interenet site simply because the quest was so poorly explained in game?  I have run into this time and again and been mystified by how someone ever even figured out the quest the first time so that they could post the information.

This is how misshapen creatures like Grunk come to be.

[Surlyboi]

Seriously though, you're only a newb once..ever, and for many people that was 4 years ago in WoW. 

This statement makes me sad.

[Senses]

Well I started to say 12 years ago in UO but then remembered we never had UOHead.

[Surlyboi]

Exactly.

There really were explorers back then. Now all that shit is hand-fed to the ritalin-addled shitheels that are today's MMO mainstream.

[Ashamanchill]

Seriously though, you're only a newb once..ever, and for many people that was 4 years ago in WoW.

This statement makes me sad.

If this were a movie there would be a pause in dialogue after this for the gravity of that statement to sink in.

[Margalis]

Edit: Meh. Star Wars.

[Velorath]

Edit: Meh. Star Wars.

Part of me is tempted to go to the FFXIV thread once they start revealing more and nitpick every bit of info, but out of respect for schild and the mods I'll restrain myself.

[Trippy]

We don't care.

[Velorath]

It's a PS3 exclusive so schild might get a little defensive about it.

[Trippy]

He won't. He hasn't really liked anything Square has done for a long long time.

[Hindenburg]

There really were explorers back then. Now all that shit is hand-fed to the ritalin-addled shitheels that are today's MMO mainstream.

Oh man, Grumpy McOldGuy! I hadn't seen you since... yesterday.

Fallout, market for explorers is still there, just remove all the shitty mmo design surrounding exploration and backtracking, etc.

[Surlyboi]

Fuck you in the goatass.

I play fallout and love it. It still isn't Star Wars and it still isn't a totally persistent world. Also, I can't play it occasionally
with other people. All shit I like to do. So yeah, if you want to read some spoiler site because you couldn't find your ass
with two hands and a map, hey cool. But pardon me if I call you for the asshat nooblar you are.

[Bzalthek]

He won't. He hasn't really liked anything Square has done for a long long time.

[Koyasha]

Actually, exploration is still alive and well, you just have to go to a less-popular MMOG to find it.  It's sheer numbers really.  Back in the days of EQ even with Allakhazam's, there were corners of the world we never knew about and hundreds or thousands of mobs and quests we'd never seen or heard of, and weren't listed.  But EQ peaked at about half a million players, it didn't have millions of people scouring for information.  Further, it didn't have automatic collection tools that hundreds of thousands of people ran in order to feed the information to databases, it was all manual.  In order for a mob or quest to be listed, someone had to gather information on it and email it to Allakhazam, and he (or later, one of his staff) had to put it into the database.  Lucy came along eventually but that was after a long time.

In EQ there were always places with a sense of 'only a handful of people have stood where I now stand', but you don't get that in WoW because you can feel the proverbial 'Kilroy was here' scrawled on every inch of the landscape by millions of hands.  Such places still exist in less-popular MMOG's; play something with half a million or less players and you'll probably find the same feelings of exploration.

I don't give a crap about it unless it looks good,

This reminds me of my decisionmaking process for getting gear - and indeed, in some cases, even choosing my class.  In WoW I have often checked the classes tier sets to see what cool looking armor may be available to me, in FFXI, what the artifact armor of that class looks like plays a major part of my decisionmaking process on which class to play, and in Lineage II I pick whichever class gets to wear the best looking thong.

[WayAbvPar]

He won't. He hasn't really liked anything Square has done for a long long time.

  well played, sir.

[Hindenburg]

Fuck you in the goatass.

I play fallout and love it. It still isn't Star Wars and it still isn't a totally persistent world. Also, I can't play it occasionally
with other people. All shit I like to do. So yeah, if you want to read some spoiler site because you couldn't find your ass
with two hands and a map, hey cool. But pardon me if I call you for the asshat nooblar you are.

You seem to have naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles in your fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the exterior of the body to the the uterus.

[Surlyboi]

I see what you tried and failed to do there.

[gryeyes]

Wiki wit!

[Lantyssa]

Somewhat new IGN interview.  Not a whole lot new, but it does reinforce the tidbits we've been given.

Basically story trumps everything else and if you didn't like KotOR or Mass Effect, it probably isn't for you given what we know at this time.  There may be activities for others, but it's questionable whether they'll be enough for those who like MMO mechanics as the core of their game.  Once solid information is released we can revise that position though.

[Velorath]

Somewhat new IGN interview.  Not a whole lot new, but it does reinforce the tidbits we've been given.

Basically story trumps everything else and if you didn't like KotOR or Mass Effect, it probably isn't for you given what we know at this time.  There may be activities for others, but it's questionable whether they'll be enough for those who like MMO mechanics as the core of their game.  Once solid information is released we can revise that position though.

Saw that interview a few days ago and it's probably one of the worst I've ever seen.  It's four pages of "sorry, we can't answer that yet".  About the only thing I learned from it is that a few classes have healing abilities available in some of their skill trees.

[Lantyssa]

I'd have to agree.  It really does reinforce why many of us feel they've started the publicity blitz way too early.  (Not that Curt will see this thread, but it is exactly what not to do with Copernicus and why we rag on him so much about hype before there is anything he can show.)

The main reason I even bothered to link it was for the people who don't like Story in their Game.  They can stop following this title now.

[Fordel]

Could they at least find some new screen shots to give the press or something?

[lamaros]

The main reason I even bothered to link it was for the people who don't like Story in their Game.  They can stop following this title now.

Eh? You mean the people who don't like Nothing but Story in their Game? Because I'm pretty sure everyone likes a good story, as long as it's just a part of the game and not the whole thing...

[Ratman_tf]

I got bored with Mass Effect about 1/3 in. Too much talky talky and picking random conversation cues. Not enough gameplay.

[Triforcer]

I don't mind Story in My Game.  What I mind is people using that as a shield against charges that the actual game systems (combat, etc.) are crappy.  Good story isn't a magic wand that cures those problems. 

[Bzalthek]

Story has carried Bioware in spite of shitty mechanics before.  It's practically what they're known for.  That this is their first foray into MMO territory may change things, but for all we know their brand of MMO is akin to Guild Wars, which is to say :Nelson Muntz: