SWTOR

[eldaec]

Bit of character progression going on here....



(one of the) differences being that a playthrough of r-type doesn't 100 hours or whatever.

[Stabs]

Where the fuck is this "Everything has character progression!" noise coming from?

It's coming from this being a SWTOR thread on the MMO boards. SWTOR is very unlikely to not have character progression and will also want to be newbie-friendly.

Character progression that is newbie-friendly is a class/level system.

It's already explicit that SWTOR has 8 classes but some people are still banging the wouldn't it be great if we did away with classes so I can play my mage-in-plate and pwn people drum.

[Velorath]

Where the fuck is this "Everything has character progression!" noise coming from? On one hand you have tabletop RPGs, computer RPGs, and a bunch of shit in the last few years that has levels tacked on. That's about it. On the other hand, you have... I dunno... a billion non-RPG video games.

Not every game does, although I can kinda see the point that a lot of games make use of it that you don't necessarily think about at first. 

- God of War/Devil May Cry action games where you can upgrade weapons, health bars, etc...

- Racing games where you can get better cars, or upgrade the cars you already have.

- In some sports games, player stats can increase over time.

- Even going back as far as something like Double Dragon, you had an arcade beat-em-up where you gained new attacks throughout the game.

It's not every game, but it's not just RPG's and stuff in the last couple years that's had it tacked on either.

[Lantyssa]

Chess has character progression if a pawn makes it to the other side of the board. 

I considered that.  Mentioning it would go against my point, also to get a pawn across the board, you've probably lost far more than you're gaining overall.

[UnSub]

Chess has character progression if a pawn makes it to the other side of the board. 

I considered that.  Mentioning it would go against my point, also to get a pawn across the board, you've probably lost far more than you're gaining overall.

The MMO analogy remains in tact then.

- Even going back as far as something like Double Dragon, you had an arcade beat-em-up where you gained new attacks throughout the game.

My memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I don't think this is true. In DD, you had all attacks from the first level. I think you had to buy / unlock attacks by DD3, but not the first one.

[Margalis]

It's not true.

[Velorath]

My memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I don't think this is true. In DD, you had all attacks from the first level. I think you had to buy / unlock attacks by DD3, but not the first one.

Could be that the NES port (which I played a lot more of) differed from the arcade in that respect then.  The NES version of Double Dragon 1 definitely had experience though.

In fact, you can see the details of it here.

[Margalis]

99% sure that the arcade game had nothing of the sort.

The NES game also had the goofy 1 on 1 fighting mode. I actually played a lot of that. Linda and her whip for the win.

[Sky]

The only rpgish thing in the arcade was loot, trying to keep a knife or bat for as long as possible. God I loved that game, part of our pre-show ritual was to hit up the better of the two machines in town and try for a single-quarter playthrough. 99% of the time the reason it was more than 1 quarter each was one of us hitting the other by mistake which turned into a throwdown. Griefing in multiplayer is a great tradition.

[Threash]

My memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I don't think this is true. In DD, you had all attacks from the first level. I think you had to buy / unlock attacks by DD3, but not the first one.

Could be that the NES port (which I played a lot more of) differed from the arcade in that respect then.  The NES version of Double Dragon 1 definitely had experience though.

In fact, you can see the details of it here.

I don't remember anything like that, i didn't have a NES though i had the international version.

[Koyasha]

A lot of old games had advancement mechanics.  Mega Man sticks out very easily, as with each boss defeat you gain a new power.  All those flying shooters, as mentioned above, have upgrades you gain, then lose if you get shot or whatever.  Even Mario's Mushroom > Fire Flower constitutes an advancement path.  There are probably plenty more examples that could be listed if one took the time to go through and look at a long list of early games.

Regardless, character advancement was not unique to RPG's even in the earliest days.  Plenty of games didn't have it, but plenty of them did.  Even boardgames likely have a decent number of examples, although I've never been much of a board gamer so I can't really list them.  But as noted above, Chess has a condition where your pieces grow more powerful, and so does Checkers, for the most obvious.  I'll wager that the wargames that came before Arneson and Gygax also had character advancement, in that units likely gained experience and rank in at least some cases.

[Ingmar]

I would hesitate to call a mechanic by which you temporarily gain access to a different button to push (e.g. the fire flower) the same thing as character advancement, where I'd only count things that were permanent changes.

[eldaec]

A pawn is not a character, and queening is resource development, not character development.

Similarly, Mario and mushrooms isn't character development, it is interaction with an environment.

[Velorath]

I would hesitate to call a mechanic by which you temporarily gain access to a different button to push (e.g. the fire flower) the same thing as character advancement, where I'd only count things that were permanent changes.

Yeah, I'd kind of disagree with the Mario example because the power-ups are so temporary.  That said, I could list a shit-ton of NES games that weren't RPG's (or at most could be possibly be considered action RPG's like Strider or Rygar) that had some form of character progression.

[Malakili]

Perhaps this conversation has just turned into a nintendo discussion, in which case, ok, but I think we are kinda missing the boat here with the character progression discussion, at least in regards to SWTOR.   In fact, I'd go as far as to say that its going to be extremely standard.

[Velorath]

Perhaps this conversation has just turned into a nintendo discussion, in which case, ok, but I think we are kinda missing the boat here with the character progression discussion, at least in regards to SWTOR.   In fact, I'd go as far as to say that its going to be extremely standard.

I think this thread has had only a marginal at best connection to SWTOR for several pages now which is probably for the best because I don't think anybody wants to go through another conversation about whether story can work in MMO's, or another debate on the virtues of voice acting.

[Sheepherder]

Or creative use of animation and semantics to create a believable combat system where people can't take several laser blasts to the face, yet combat lasts longer than said laser blast.

[El Gallo]

So, what did you guys think about SWG?  Will this game be better?

[Malakili]

So, what did you guys think about SWG?  Will this game be better?

Oh no he di'nt.

Truthfully, this game will probably be better than Galaxies, but I'll probably like it less than Galaxies, if that makes any sense at all.

[Lantyssa]

No Creature Handler.  It'll suck.

[Riggswolfe]

So, what did you guys think about SWG?  Will this game be better?

As long as it:

1) Doesn't have HAM
2) Has some spaceships and vehicles
3) Is not SIM-Beru but is instead action and adventure

It'll be better than SWG. Now...whether or not that makes it a good MMO I don't know. There's plenty of room between SWG and good.

[Typhon]

So, what did you guys think about SWG?  Will this game be better?

As long as it:

1) Doesn't have HAM
2) Has some spaceships and vehicles
3) Is not SIM-Beru but is instead action and adventure that let you play as a force-wielding bad ass
4) Has no dancing Wookies

It'll be better than SWG. Now...whether or not that makes it a good MMO I don't know. There's plenty of room between SWG and good.

added some of my own conditions in-line

[AmericanMcGeesBambi]

I guess this is the closest thing to a thread to ask on...  Have any emulated servers for the old-style SWG sprung up yet?  I'd give it a whirl.

[taolurker]

I guess this is the closest thing to a thread to ask on...  Have any emulated servers for the old-style SWG sprung up yet?  I'd give it a whirl.

Lets see, obviously you're new here (5 posts!) so I'll explain about the Graveyard (where dead MMO games go to die) , and link you to the Emulator thread, although if you did some lurking before posting you'd know this already.

[Grimwell]

I think comparing this game to SWG at all is a bad idea.

[Muzadi]

I have no inside info, of course, but everything I have seen or heard suggests that the two games could not have a more different philosophy of design if they tried.  Comparing them seems likely to be less like comparing apples and oranges than comparing apples and green-footed marmosets.

[eldaec]

I think comparing this game to SWG at all is a bad idea.

Lies. Comparing things with SWG is never a bad idea, comparing things with SWG and posting humorous pictures of Darth Vader is the entire point of this website.

[WindupAtheist]

let you play as a force-wielding bad ass

YES. Everytime we have one of these discussions, some wiseass has to come along and be like "Oh you know, I don't care about Jedi and their silly glowsticks, what I'd really like to see is some unmarketable pile of shit about mining asteroids or being a Stormtrooper or whatever!"

But you know what? Fuck those people! GIEV ME MY GLOSTICK!!!1!

No Creature Handler.  It'll suck.

I still can't believe Raph thought Star Wars needed UO-style animal tamers. Especially given that if you want pet combat to be viable, there are fucking ROBOTS. I seriously wonder if he ever even saw Star Wars.

[Stabs]

I still can't believe Raph thought Star Wars needed UO-style animal tamers. Especially given that if you want pet combat to be viable, there are fucking ROBOTS. I seriously wonder if he ever even saw Star Wars.

The rancor tamer in Jabba's Palace in part 6 who cries when Luke kills his rancor is the inspiration I would guess.


Regarding SWG and SWTOR there are a lot of SWG fans posting on the SWTOR boards about stuff like crafting and player housing which has probably rather bewildered the game makers. Even though they've clearly set out to make a storyline game in the footsteps of KOTOR a vocal minority are agitating on their boards for SWG style MMO features.

This may influence design.

Meanwhile Eve's new planetary interaction seems very like the old SWG harvester game mechanic. Set your drills pumping and come back in a few days to take stuff out of the hopper.

This may also influence design as it's a rather easy game mechanic to toss into the mix and players really like it.

[WindupAtheist]

This may influence design.

Man, developers don't actually care about forum bullshit.

[Merusk]

I still can't believe Raph thought Star Wars needed UO-style animal tamers. Especially given that if you want pet combat to be viable, there are fucking ROBOTS. I seriously wonder if he ever even saw Star Wars.

The rancor tamer in Jabba's Palace in part 6 who cries when Luke kills his rancor is the inspiration I would guess.

This reminds me of "The Apprentice" episode where the teams were supposed to come up with a marketing strategy for Episode 3.  One team did a whole strategy that focused on Vader, the other focused their entire campaign around This guy* because he was 'the most visually interesting and dynamic.'  

Guess which team failed and got actual "wtf" comments from the Lucasfilm team that judged them.

Nobody gives a fuck about background characters. Building a franchise game around them would be like building a Spider Man game where you run a newspaper as J.J. Jameson.  It screams, "I don't get it!"

*Whose name is apparently Tion Medon, which isn't mentioned once in the movie.

[Stabs]

This may influence design.

Man, developers don't actually care about forum bullshit.

You're probably right.

Nobody gives a fuck about background characters. Building a franchise game around them would be like building a Spider Man game where you run a newspaper as J.J. Jameson.  It screams, "I don't get it!"

A lot of the IP was built on even flimsier stuff such as throwaway lines. Bothans exist because Mon Mothma says "many bothan spies died to bring us this information" and krayt dragons exist because Obi Won imitates one to scare off Tusken Raiders in Episode 4.

[Merusk]

Again, nobody gives a shit.  Be it Bothans or Kryat dragons, only those with their heads firmly in the EU or way into SW geekery know what the hell you're talking about.  I.e. not the majority or mass-market which one assumes you're going for if making a game using a recognizable, expensive license.

Oh look, it's 2001 all over again.  I wonder who'll be proven right in the end. If only we had a time machine.

[Sheepherder]

let you play as a force-wielding bad ass

YES. Everytime we have one of these discussions, some wiseass has to come along and be like "Oh you know, I don't care about Jedi and their silly glowsticks, what I'd really like to see is some unmarketable pile of shit about mining asteroids or being a Stormtrooper or whatever!"

I never understood the apparent problem in balancing blaster / detonator users against Jedi lore-wise.  One is a soldier with an automatic PPC, the other is a fucking monk with a sword.

[Typhon]

[...]
A lot of the IP was built on even flimsier stuff such as throwaway lines. Bothans exist because Mon Mothma says "many bothan spies died to bring us this information" and krayt dragons exist because Obi Won imitates one to scare off Tusken Raiders in Episode 4.

I'm not sure if you are speaking English or not.  I just want my Glostick so that I can dispense some ass kicking.

Also, seeing as I can also mind-melt you, throw lightening from my fingers, and catch blaster bolts on my hand I fail to see how some tool with a blaster is, in any way, a threat to my ass kicking self.

Can a brother force-choke a bitch now?  Please?! ... OK! WHEN?!