SWTOR

[schild]

I think schild is saying they should cancel SWTOR and import the models into UO.

Heh.

PRECISELY.

[Tannhauser]

I would LOVE an updated UO!

[Lucas]

Well, looks like today we should expect some "meat", finally:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=61423

Be sure to check back tomorrow (today, Friday) to see the full Producer Walkthrough Video – almost 20 minutes of actual gameplay footage – and next week when we turn our full attention to Sith Warrior!

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

You can watch all 5 parts on IGN here:

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/816/816935/vids_1.html

[Fordel]

I don't see what this has to do with the new WoW Expansion? 

[Cadaverine]

The game looks meh.  They can blather on about story till the cows come home, but the action sequences look about as fun as watching paint dry.  And for Star Wars,  action really does trump story.

Though, after re-watching the trailer done by Blur, I think I might be ok with paying them $15 a month to make more of the same.  Bioware might take note of the amount of fan wankery over the Blur trailer, vs. some lame ass Mass Effect knock-off dialog trees.  That's just me, though.

[SnakeCharmer]

Gameplay looks average.
Graphics look average.

Too far along with make substantial changes to either.

Bleh.

[Fordel]

I was hoping (naively) that the shooting combat would be more mass effect, less WoW Huntard.

[Tannhauser]

I knew it; dialog 'choices' just like Mass Effect.  You can choose a good guy answer, a neutral one or a dickhead one.

But you're still going to do whatever you need to do to advance the storyline.

[Aez]

Watching the videos right now.  I don't see the point of making this a mmorpg (except the subscription of course).

The dialogs are so good it's going to be quite silly to interact with other players through chat.  You'll miss the voice and the face emotion.


edit : Watched more videos, props for innovating. It's not the direction I'd like mmorpg to take but it's a leap forward.  Looks like a better COH mission system.

[SnakeCharmer]

I was hoping (naively) that the shooting combat would be more mass effect, less WoW Huntard.

That's really what I was hoping, too, somewhere in the nether reaches of my mind.  I was hoping combat in general wasn't essentially the same thing that's been utilized since, well, forever.

Story doesn't matter if what 85 percent of what you do in the story (combat) puts you to sleep.

[schild]

[SnakeCharmer]

 

[Venkman]

I thought the worlds looked awesome. No, no CryEngine2 awesome, but style-wise it's great. Definitely Star Warsy.

The voiceovers are going to get real old right quick. They got old just watching the videos. But like the combat, they're really very focused on making this a movie. I swear I felt like 1/2 the game we watched was just story and, well, watching. This is not going the kind of MMO people grind through to the cap. And given that the genre lives or dies by WoW, and that was just popularizing the grind of EQ1, I actually wonder just how much "story" and "cinematic experience" is going to annoy people more than retain them.

Combat looked, erh, not sure. Definitely more RPG than I was hoping for, but not KOTOR annoying either. That really isn't worth discussing until we get hands on with it.

[schild]

I thought the worlds looked awesome. No, no CryEngine2 awesome, but style-wise it's great. Definitely Star Warsy.

So did SW:G at the time, particularly the Naboo stuff.

Combat looked, erh, not sure. Definitely more RPG than I was hoping for, but not KOTOR annoying either. That really isn't worth discussing until we get hands on with it.

Combat looked like SW:G. Gun pointing randomly. Too many hotkeys. (12! why!). Biggest EXP bar ever. The hair looked like EQII launch stuff. The faces looked like they were made for Demon's Souls, only they were the ones no one wanted to use.

Edit: Now, obviously, I'll have to play it. But it was not time to show combat yet. Period.

STOP USING THAT INCORRECTLY.

[Venkman]

I agree they shouldn't yet show combat, but they're sorta trapped. This can't be just a story MMO, it has to look like it's fun too. That's either minigames, or combat.

On graphics, SW:G was trying for that-era photorealism. Easy for inanimate objects, buildings and world geometry, sucky for models and anything natural (except some of the larger creatures). And it didn't scale down to lower tech very well, augmenting the disparity between what looked good and what didn't.

This meantime seems to be more consistent, while also being lower-tech relatively speaking. I didn't like some of the character models, and some of the animations are funky, but it at least was self-consistent.

Need to experience it in action, but I'm thinking that'll be sooner than later.

[Hayduke]

Bah, nm.

[schild]

at least was self-consistent.

Too easy. Don't leave the door open that wide.

Need to experience it in action, but I'm thinking that'll be sooner than later.

Bioware better get it out as far away from Guild Wars 2's release as possible. (Edit, Also FFXIV)

I could be wrong, but given how fast they're working, I don't see much beyond Story and Combat. Star Wars is about the latter and not the former, and the latter ain't a selling point yet. I agree with everyone (and anyone in the future) that this shouldn't have been an MMOG. Who knows, maybe they're just looking to sell 10M boxes and don't care about the subs. Probably not though, which will be a problem. Four hundred writers can't work fast enough for a large mmog community to make a story-based game.

[Margalis]

Call my cynical but I suspect subscription fees are the big draw for most MMOs. Whether or not something should be an MMO is a lot less important then whether or not something can get away with calling itself one and therefore getting recurring revenue.

The facial animation is pretty bad, which is kind of strange given how voicework is the main selling point of the game.

Other than that it just looks totally inside the box. Like so inside the box that just being inside the box wasn't enough, so they built a smaller box inside that box and snuggled up inside it. It's like the design document was something like:

UI: Typical MMO UI
Combat: Typical MMO combat

Watching the second video the model and animation for the smuggler look pretty not good. Looks like they are animating the bottom half of the character independently from the top half and the end result is that the legs and upper body seem to be on different wavelengths. It makes the running to the side animation of EDF 2017 look ok by comparison. I hate the character models but I'm not sure why, something about the proportions just bug me.

[Lucas]

I really liked the art direction, both in exteriors and interiors. Lots of style, it will somewhat rage the usual, useless debate about realism vs. cartoony or whatever.

The portrayal of combat for the Smuggler and Bounty Hunter at the beginning was pretty "meh", much like it was ranged combat in the KOTORs. But a nice change came with the Sith Warrior and the Flashpoint mission immediately after.

Yeah, maybe in both KOTORs there weren't many diverse animations for melee fighting, but I really liked the sense of "collision" you got when facing another enemy with a vibro-blade or a lightsaber. From the video, it really looks the same in TOR too, so I'm very happy about it.

Also, it's good to see you are facing multiple enemies so often: the flashpoint mission and the collaboration between the Warrior and the BH looked chaotic but in a fun way to me. Still not so sold about lightsaber vs. lightsaber: it looked like a pub brawl :P

Finally, regarding dialogues and whatnot, well, I'm a  Bioware fanboy when it comes to that, so I really can't get much objective :P. They said the "group dialogue" system is still a very early work in progress and they are exploring lots of ways to implement it.

[VainEldritch]

To my surprise, and overall, this has exceeded my expectations (which were very low). I have always had issues with the art style - but I can live with it (after AoC, "Warner Bros" graphics really grate). I have always had issues with the combat animations, and I don't like the way burning people just stand there - they should be running about like MJ with his wig on fire - but I can live with it.  Thus far there has been a conspicuous lack of "RPG" and persistent world reveals... ok, we got a wave emote and a "kick in the crotch" move, but no housing, no mention of crafting, no mention of guilds, no mention of fishing... no mention of "living in the Star Wars universe" - and this makes me extremely wary of the title. So, for me not a disaster, but also not a triumph - definitely a watch and wait for me, and my expectations remain low.

[eldaec]

Looks ok to me. Still looks like a less shitty version of Hellgate.

I can imagine buying this, playing through a few classes storylines, then dropping the sub.

[SnakeCharmer]

no mention of fishing...

wat

Why the fuck would you want to go fishing in Star Wars?

[tmp]

I thought the worlds looked awesome. No, no CryEngine2 awesome, but style-wise it's great. Definitely Star Warsy.

The interiors were pretty meh to me but the exteriors were quite spectacular. It seems both interiors and exteriors form single continuous space, no instancing there. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing overall, just taking note.

Combat looked, erh, not sure. Definitely more RPG than I was hoping for, but not KOTOR annoying either. That really isn't worth discussing until we get hands on with it.

There's early bit in bounty hunter section where the player uses flame thrower on 3 clumped soldiers and two others literally 10 meters away just stand and watch it, patiently waiting for their turn to die. Regular MMO aggro stuff but boy, does it wreck that 'cinematic feel' they constantly talk about...

[Hayduke]

Eh yeah the content generation is going to be a big problem. I guess they assume people will resub everytime a big content patch is released. The game might make more sense without a subscription and run on box sales and adventure packs sold periodically.

It just feels like there's so much extraneous bullshit while they ignore the fundamentals. Like they're giving Homer Simpson 140 million to develop a car.

[Lantyssa]

While I'm sure they're still working on the details, I thought with slips it was leaning towards no subs.  So, there may not be anything to cancel.

[Lucas]

Yeah, I start leaning toward the "no subscription fee" party too.  Now, EA is not NCsoft, meaning it is not all about MMOGs: in other words, maybe there is no need for them to have a portfolio of MMOGs with diversified business model approaches. They can put in the same pot, WAR, The Sims and TOR, for example.

[schild]

Looks ok to me. Still looks like a less shitty version of Hellgate.

I can imagine buying this, playing through a few classes storylines, then dropping the sub.

A less shitty Hellgate would be uhhhh, you know, like Diablo or Something Awesome. I wish this were that. I wish ANYTHING were that.

[Merusk]

Hmm, Pardo gave a bit of an oblique diss to SWOTR in his interview this morning.  Asked about VOs, he mentioned them as being expensive, requiring tons of lead-time for the actors and forcing you down a design path early because of it and limiting any future tweaks to the quest or additions to holes in content because of the time involved.

[schild]

Hmm, Pardo gave a bit of an oblique diss to SWOTR in his interview this morning.  Asked about VOs, he mentioned them as being expensive, requiring tons of lead-time for the actors and forcing you down a design path early because of it and limiting any future tweaks to the quest or additions to holes in content because of the time involved.

That's not a diss, that's flat out true. Also, who knows what majority % of people after 10 minutes will be looking for a skip button.

[Hawkbit]

I have a feeling it will be just like Mass Effect, where you go through dialog trees and can press the answer button, causing the VO work to truncate.  Should be effective for play, but I agree, it's not money well-spent.  It defies the law of keeping it simple.

[Hindenburg]

Edit: Hey, completely wrong topic.  

[Venkman]

Hmm, Pardo gave a bit of an oblique diss to SWOTR in his interview this morning.  Asked about VOs, he mentioned them as being expensive, requiring tons of lead-time for the actors and forcing you down a design path early because of it and limiting any future tweaks to the quest or additions to holes in content because of the time involved.

That's not a diss, that's flat out true.

This. And that's just for the first language. Now multiply that howevermanylocales they plan to launch this. But again, this is not some new never-tried-before thing, no matter the pitch. EQ2 tried this and barely eked through launch. The very first thing dropped in the face of the barrage of new content needed? VOs.

I am curious now though to see if enough people show up to this having left WoW early because they were bored by it. I doubt that's a WoW-size audience unto itself, but there are a lot of gamers who've dabbled in WoW but not stuck with it. If SWTOR isn't just a typical grind10rats, and in fact can emphasize story, then it offers the first viable alternative to WoW since WoW (because really, you can play WoW, WoWAR, WoWoC, WoWquest, or some really niche title. Not a lot of actual "genre" there).

Of course, showing footage of the basement of some Sith temple that's been infested with ants rats... not inspiring

[Merusk]

I was trying to be polite and not go, "Hay, y'know why else this is stupid..."    I really have no idea WHY I didn't just say that, though. Disturbing.

 

[Malakili]

So, is it me or is it too much of a tell tale sign that he keeps referring to the Sith as "the warrior"