SWTOR

[Bzalthek]

What if they call it an MMORPG?

[Triforcer]

Then all is forgiven, obviously.

I do wonder if these guys have done ANY market research on whether people will listen to the VO stuff.  if there isn't a "skip cutscene" button, at least half the people on this site would be in danger of initiating shooting sprees. 

[eldaec]

I always enjoyed the GW approach, cutscenes which you could only skip if everyone agreed, but it didn't tell you who had voted to skip, or who the holdouts were.


Causing nerdrage-by-cutscene in PUGs was practically a minigame in itself.

[Ingmar]

I ain't skipping no cut scenes.

[Cadaverine]

Skippable, with the option to watch them offline, would be just dandy.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

I always enjoyed the GW approach, cutscenes which you could only skip if everyone agreed, but it didn't tell you who had voted to skip, or who the holdouts were.


Causing nerdrage-by-cutscene in PUGs was practically a minigame in itself.

So far they have shown a max group size of 2 players, so not hard to figure out who did it.

[Fordel]

I always enjoyed the GW approach, cutscenes which you could only skip if everyone agreed, but it didn't tell you who had voted to skip, or who the holdouts were.


Causing nerdrage-by-cutscene in PUGs was practically a minigame in itself.

So far they have shown a max group size of 2 players, so not hard to figure out who did it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPIdfdByS7E 

[Mattemeo]

Having now seen the big Bioware reveal of SWtoR's fully voice-acted gameplay/enormous cutscenes, I can say I am no longer cautiously optimistic but disappointed and kind of bewildered. For gameplay reasons alone that everyone else here has already mentioned, the whole voice idea seems frankly ludicrous - and impossible, when it comes down to their ambition. You accept repeated phrases from NPCs when they're just text on a screen, but anyone who's played Oblivion/Fallout 3 or similar for 10 minutes is more than aware of how grating spoken repetition can be. I am deeply worried.

What's really bothered me though is the aesthetic of the game. Bioware state that the art style is something along the lines of 'stylised realism', but the overall effect at this particular stage in development is pretty much completely devoid of charm. It's sterile and empty. Big rooms made out of rhomboids with nothing of interest in them except a few meagre crates and barrels for this ridiculous console duck and cover bullshit. The player models (of which we've only seen Humans thus far) are creepy faced and impractically animated.

But this is all unfair critisism right now, I admit. The cake's not baked yet, but I'm having doubts about the quality of the ingredients I've seen so far.

[UnSub]

I'm going to crib from the Massively notes on the interview because dev video interviews are usually pretty boring.

According to SWOR's lead writer, Daniel Erikson:

"We think we've got the biggest voice over project in entertainment history."

"We now have over a dozen writers that are working on it. But each writer owns a particular piece of it. Some writers own just one class and they really are the voice of that piece."

"The ability to write things specifically for a class means that it's actually a more personal story than we've ever got to tell in any of the BioWare games."

Again, unless SWOR really is the mega-smash hit of the WoW size, it won't be able to keep up the production values. And if they are going to be developing content separately for each class and go the microtrans route of making class-specific content purchasable, you better like playing the popular classes or you are going to be left behind.

[Velorath]

I find it funny that some people keep worrying about how they'll be able to keep making new content when most of us here struggle to get to max level on one character in an MMO let alone eight.

[UnSub]

I find it funny that some people keep worrying about how they'll be able to keep making new content when most of us here struggle to get to max level on one character in an MMO let alone eight.

I was thinking about MxO and how it looked when storyline content went from full in-game engine productions to someone drawing on the back of a napkin and waving it in front of a camera.

It doesn't matter if I'll never play it, but the content needs to keep coming and at a high level of quality.

[sidereal]

MxO sucked = MxO no $$$ = Low production values = MxO sucked. . etc...


SWTOR ? = SWTOR ? $$$$ = ? production values = SWTOR ?..etc

[Velorath]

It doesn't matter if I'll never play it, but the content needs to keep coming

And it's that mentality that I find funny.  Most of us probably won't even see all the content the game launches with, but we're gonna raise hell if we don't get more.

Anyway, MMO content patches seem to fall largely into two catagories for me.  There's stuff like WAR or AoC where it's "here are some classes or content we weren't able to finish before our game got pushed out the door".  Then there's the WoW content patches that largely seem to be "here's a new raid dungeon for people who have already farmed the last one hundreds of times over".  These patches are designed to keep hardcore raiding guilds subscribed to the game by constantly giving them new stuff to do.

Now I might be a bit biased because I don't give a shit about raiding and never will.  If they do in fact go with a business model more geared towards microtransactions though, the real money is going to be in creating simple shit that people will pay money for rather than generating content to keep the catasses happy.  If they can get people to pay $5 for a purple lightsaber that somebody threw together in a couple hours, that's a much more viable way of making money than trying to keep cranking out content for Grindy McCatass.

[Koyasha]

Depends on what kind of content you're going for.  Remember it looks like they're aiming for the RPG crowd, which is great, but it's hard to say what the desire is going to be if they even get that audience hooked (if they just get standard mmog players then they have a problem right off the bat, I think).

The trouble is that with all this focus on voice acting, nothing is going to be easy if it involves any sort of interaction at all.  Nothing!  You can't slap together a quest and throw it in, it has to be written, translated into two dozen languages (apparently), voiced in each and every one of them, and then put in the game.  And gods help you if you want to make a change to an existing quest, cause to rewrite a single line, you have to go through that entire process.  The funny thing is that having the player be fully voiced even makes it impossible to use the 'alien language' coverup to throw in new dialogue without having to go through the entire process.  Not that that would be a particularly good way to implement it either, cause you'd either have bland, emotionless voice lines attached to everything, or you'd have five different 'tones' of "miki grabble moko" - normal, angry, sad, happy, excited (and maybe a couple others).  But there'd be no subtlety to it, so their 'high quality' voice acting would be gone.

So the only thing left you can add in often and fast is doodads and graphical enhancements.  Purple lightsabers and fucking horse armor.  That's basically the extent of what they can add quickly, because everything else will require interaction, which will require lines, and so on.

Every damn time I hear about their amazing fully voiced MMO, my expectations drop a little lower for SWTOR.

[Sheepherder]

If they can get people to pay $5 for a purple lightsaber that somebody threw together in a couple hours, that's a much more viable way of making money than trying to keep cranking out content for Grindy McCatass.

But it doesn't retain or entertain.  Which means they still have to expand the game world unless they want to exist solely on player turnover and micro.

Really, the answer with these games is to fucking stop it with DIKU already and try for a world simulator that isn't crazy grindcore.  Or do something really fucking freaky like have the entire world in a public quest arc that loops back to the start once it draws to a conclusion, like a MMO Groundhog Day.  Incidentally, this would be a fucking awesome concept for a The Wheel of Time, or The Matrix MMO, maybe a World of Darkness apocalypse scenario.

[Velorath]

The trouble is that with all this focus on voice acting, nothing is going to be easy if it involves any sort of interaction at all.  Nothing!  You can't slap together a quest and throw it in, it has to be written, translated into two dozen languages (apparently), voiced in each and every one of them, and then put in the game.

That's the reality for most games outside of MMO's, voice acting or not.  When a game goes gold, that's pretty much it.  Sure these days even console games can be patched, but I can't think of RPG where developers bothered to change a line of dialog or add a quest in here or there.  The only reason MMO's are any different is because the bar has been set so low, we expect them to be released unfinished with content needing to be tweaked or patched in later.

But it doesn't retain or entertain.  Which means they still have to expand the game world unless they want to exist solely on player turnover and micro.

Like I said, I don't know their business model, but I think it would make more sense to go totally with micro-transactions, or at most supplement them with a very small sub fee (like around $5).  I don't have any sort of data or statistics on the matter, but I'm just of the opinion that they'd make more money in the long term, and would encourage a more casual "I can just play this game every once in a while because I don't need to worry about getting my $15 worth this month" attitude.  Without sub fees, you don't need to worry about retention.  You just need to get players to come back every now and then drop a few bucks on a Tuskan Raider costume or something.

[Margalis]

The only reason MMO's are any different is because the bar has been set so low, we expect them to be released unfinished with content needing to be tweaked or patched in later.

Or it could be that when people pay $180 a year for 5 years they expect something for their money beyond a $60 game in a box.

[Velorath]

The only reason MMO's are any different is because the bar has been set so low, we expect them to be released unfinished with content needing to be tweaked or patched in later.

Or it could be that when people pay $180 a year for 5 years they expect something for their money beyond a $60 game in a box.

Yeah, they're typically getting the rest of the game that was supposed to ship in that box.

[Count Nerfedalot]

So the only thing left you can add in often and fast is doodads and graphical enhancements.  Purple lightsabers and fucking horse armor.  That's basically the extent of what they can add quickly, because everything else will require interaction, which will require lines, and so on.

hey, don't forget the unicorn helmets! 

[DLRiley]

The only way I see this game not tanking is if they sell over one million boxes + cash shop. That way when the playerbase drops to 300k you can count on 70% of them to spend at least 10 dollars on the cash shop.

[fuser]

The only way I see this game not tanking is if they sell over one million boxes + cash shop. That way when the playerbase drops to 300k you can count on 70% of them to spend at least 10 dollars on the cash shop.

You know with those numbers it still won't break even right?

[DLRiley]

Probably not. We are talking a 30% retention rate at best if this game sucks as much as I think it will.

[Cyrrex]

Um.  Do we even know what the budget is for this game?  If not, it seems a tad weird to be talking about breaking even or making money, one way or the other.

But!  I personally think a million boxes is a certainty with this title, regardless of quality. 

[Murgos]

God I hate this thread.

[Brogarn]

God I hate this thread.

I click on it wondering if there's any updates, but ya... I hate it too. I'd love a wipe and do-over, personally.

[Yegolev]

I suppose that is how I feel about the Diablo III and Torchlight threads.

[sidereal]

Don't you ever think of the thread's feelings when you say things like that?

[Surlyboi]

God I hate this thread.

I click on it wondering if there's any updates, but ya... I hate it too. I'd love a wipe and do-over, personally.

Wait 'til they roll the CU and NGE versions of this thread, then you'll long for the old days.

[ghost]

Well, one thing is for certain-  I'm going to be buying this in all likelihood.  Only putrid reviews will keep me away because of the KOTOR series.  Probably will lead to  .

[eldaec]

God I hate this thread.

Pimp Vader is disturbed by your lack of faith.


Also, this thread is getting to about that time

[Lucas]

Dunno why, but when I read about the potential amount of copies this title might sell, I remember the infamous discussion about WoW during pre-release (yes, different context, that's for sure). IMO, we are looking at a title that will sky rocket to 3-3.5 million copies in a very short span.

[Murgos]

It's like you can't stop the stupid.  It just keeps re-asserting itself.

[Sheepherder]

Dunno why, but when I read about the potential amount of copies this title might sell, I remember the infamous discussion about WoW during pre-release (yes, different context, that's for sure). IMO, we are looking at a title that will sky rocket to 3-3.5 million copies in a very short span.

Blizzard was, and still remains, the single most consistently skilled developer of computer games.  They have delivered a few flawed or dated gameplay mechanics since WoW released, however they have consistently managed an exceedingly exact level of polish even when the underlying principle was fucking flawed.  They nearly drove themselves bankrupt during development, and they still didn't quite manage to get everything right, even though every fucking tech support dude they got working for them is now wearing a money hat.

A "Bioware" studio made of recycled failed MMO development studios has a snowball's chance in Hell.

[gryeyes]

Blizzard almost bankrupted themselves during WoW's development?

[Brogarn]

Blizzard almost bankrupted themselves during WoW's development?

Ya, I don't think that's something you say without citing some kind of source...