SWTOR

[Simond]

Mass Effect MMO

Can we kill TOR and get this instead? 

[Ratman_tf]

Strangely enough, this is pretty much mandatory for any new Star Wars production, ever since the first sequel (EP V) film.  

Nothing strange about it - it's a business.

Exactly. Every action movie since SW has had merchandising tie ins.





It's not even a really new idea.



Though Lucasfilm and Kenner gave us the modern fine tuning of the idea.

[DraconianOne]

Exactly. Every action movie since SW has had merchandising tie ins.

Even if SW did refine the technique for "summer event" movies, it's not like it was the the first film to have related toys. Star Trek was pretty big on the whole spin-off merchandising thing too: novels, games, toys.

[eldaec]

I can see lots of reasons SWTOR probably won't work - but I really don't understand what is so terrible about voice overs.

Absolute worst case is that they do what EQ2 did and give up on it shortly after launch. In which case, meh, they tried something, it didn't work out, everybody lived.

And it doesn't seem likely to impact mechanical design in any way whatsoever.

[Kageru]

Voice acting costs more money up front, increases the cost to make changes and places a number of constraints on the design regardless of whether you turn it on in game or not. The degree to which you can customise class / race, the number of races and the degree of customisation in your companions being the most obvious examples where flexibility is limited by the cost of having to do original, and expensive, voice over work for all of them.

Meanwhile the gain is.... pretty minimal since people will turn it off. Blizzard has already learnt people won't even really take the time to read quest text. Having an extended chat session, where you can only pick from the pre-scripted responses anyway, is unlikely to be much more popular. And unlike a single player RPG they'll quickly work out that a lot of the jabber is just a thin cover over the top of "Kill 20 Gungans" and won't lead to persistent changes in the world making it largely irrelevant.

[Rendakor]

I dunno about that being true for Bioware games. It's not universal for their games, anyway.


EDIT: Of course, I say this because I agree with you on the subject of Mass Effect (it's also why I never even tried Planescape: Torment  ). It's also why I'm a little nose wrinkly over full voice in Dragon Age 2.

Kotor and NWN both had that "sandboxy" feel to them, imo. Multiple alignment possibilities, multiple outcomes to each questline, relative freedom of what order you experience the content, etc.

[Koyasha]

And it doesn't seem likely to impact mechanical design in any way whatsoever.

Did you miss the part where it's likely that the reason that it seems as though we will only be allowed Human +1 race for each class is because of voice tracks?  That's the most recent example of it (probably) affecting mechanical design.

[Count Nerfedalot]

There is a huge difference between exploiting incidental merchandising tie-ins to a well-crafted movie (see Avatar for an example) and the having the entire production turned into an illogical and poorly-paced farce due to it being designed for the merchandising and licensing rather than the other way around (eg the Star Wars Episodes 1-3 and everything Star Wars since).

[Velorath]

And it doesn't seem likely to impact mechanical design in any way whatsoever.

Did you miss the part where it's likely that the reason that it seems as though we will only be allowed Human +1 race for each class is because of voice tracks?  That's the most recent example of it (probably) affecting mechanical design.

That last article stated that they still have more options (plural) to announce, while only one class (Trooper) doesn't have an optional race mentioned yet.  Stands to reason that it might not be just Human + 1 race per class.

Also that's more a cosmetic thing than a mechanical one.  Race doesn't usually affect much mechanics-wise.  Racial bonuses can be done by selecting a character's background from a list of options.  Starting area in this case is determined by character class.  I'm sure if they really wanted to, they could find or create enough human sounding races that work with the voices they have.  The main issue is that some of the iconic Star Wars races (Wookie, Rodian, Jawa, Tuskan Raider, and... whatever the hell Yoda is) don't have human voices or in Yoda's case speech patterns.  Sucks, because I'd love to play a Jawa smuggler, but it's not really mechanical design issue.

[Lantyssa]

As I said, I'm fine running around saying nothing but "Ootini!".  They could always put in filters for some races to give an accent.  That would actually be kind of innovative, so I know we won't see it.

[DraconianOne]

There is a huge difference between exploiting incidental merchandising tie-ins to a well-crafted movie (see Avatar for an example) and the having the entire production turned into an illogical and poorly-paced farce due to it being designed for the merchandising and licensing rather than the other way around (eg the Star Wars Episodes 1-3 and everything Star Wars since).

I could write a lengthy post on exactly why using Avatar - a film made and sold purely on the grounds of showing off 3D and CGFX technology - is entirely the wrong example to use in support of your argument because I think it's fairly self-evident and also because it would probably bore more people than it would interest.

[Ratman_tf]

There is a huge difference between exploiting incidental merchandising tie-ins to a well-crafted movie (see Avatar for an example) and the having the entire production turned into an illogical and poorly-paced farce due to it being designed for the merchandising and licensing rather than the other way around (eg the Star Wars Episodes 1-3 and everything Star Wars since).

Dude. Star Wars didnt' suck because Lucas wanted to sell toys. It sucked because he was and is a shitty moviemaker. The only thing that saved the first trilogy is that he managed to get some decent advice from his buddy FF Coppola, and some talented people on his team when starting out.

[Shatter]

Jawa Jedi, all im saying

[Lantyssa]

Hell yeah!

[Paelos]

That sure would have made those stormtroopers think twice about taking their droids.

[Typhon]

Can a Sith force-choke a bitch yet?  That's what I want to know!

[Fordel]

Can a Sith force-choke a bitch yet?  That's what I want to know!

You can!

[UnSub]

Also that's more a cosmetic thing than a mechanical one.  Race doesn't usually affect much mechanics-wise. 

The likely greatest impact race will have on SWOR will be in the dialogue you get back from characters. You'll still be a humanoid, albeit with a funny haircut and / or face markings.

[Sky]

Blizzard has already learnt people won't even really take the time to read quest text.

Blizzard has made a fortune tailoring their game to the LCD. Maybe some companies want to shoot a bit higher than the knuckle dragging clicktards.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Blizzard has already learnt people won't even really take the time to read quest text.

Blizzard has made a fortune tailoring their game to the LCD. Maybe some companies want to shoot a bit higher than the knuckle dragging clicktards.

It's exactly this attitude that is going to keep any games from ever coming close to wow's success.  Not because they are willing to pander but because the continually compare blizzard to mcdonalds or walmart.  Saying their games are so popular because they cater to "the great unwashed masses" is missing so many lessons. 

I'm waiting for game companies to instead of trying to copy wow or go in a completely different direction, use wow as a base and see what works and then doing their own game.  So far all I've seen are games trying their hardest to not be wow and repeating mistakes of eqdays(conan) or to be wow and just not getting it(WAR)

[Sky]

What is keeping companies from getting WoW success is the same thing keeping companies from Farmville success, or indeed Facebook success. You can't divine the next big thing, people just latch onto something and that's the thing. If you try to be that, you probably won't be.

If you adjust your budget and try for a traditional mmo marketshare, you have better chances at success. Nobody will succeed thinking they will get more than 100k subs or whatever the current bar is. Plan for the niche, budget for the niche, embrace the niche. Because the LCD will go back to WoW, for all their bitching that they're tired of it. It's got a critical mass that won't go away for a long time (EQ and UO are still around, ffs). Rule #1 of mmo design: you will not win WoW's audience, and there's not another 11 million players out there for you.

Then surprise, some game might catch the right buzz at the right time and catch everyone by surprise and be a massive success. In fact, that will most likely happen at some point. But nobody will know where or when or who, and it will catch them by complete surprise and only if they can keep up with the demands of success will we see another WoW.

But really, just focus on making a fun game that's not WoW. If AoC had launched with more Tortuga-style content, it would've been considered a success. But nobody here would be playing it, you'd all still be playing WoW. Because that's what people do, and it colors what you say and think. It's kind of humorous being one of the vast minority of non-WoW players seeing the bias from the outside.

[LK]

I wanna be The Guy!

[Stabs]

Seems to me that the unique selling point of SWTOR is essentially cut-scenes and they're gambling that players will enjoy watching really well crafted interactive cut-scenes.

There's a world of difference between the kind of scene we've already been shown, such as where you discuss why the Captain disobeyed orders and have the option to shoot him and the WoW quest text model. Blah blah, rats eating my grain, blah blah, kill ten and I give you exp and 20 silver, blah blah.

The differences are the scene is interesting to look at where the quest text box is not and you need to analyse and understand the scene to make a decision where the decision on a quest text box is almost always Accept.

It's actually a pretty brave and innovative gamble. They're gambling that, while there is a tradition of clicking through story in MMOs, that behaviour can be reversed by putting enough effort into making the delivery of story more watchable. It is likely it will not appear to many of the current MMOs gear-whores but may appeal to people who don't like MMOs because they're all basically number crunching. Frankly I'd be astonished if they win this bet but I'm certainly going along for the ride.

[Goreschach]

There's a reason mmo quests are typically just clickbox. It's because even then an mmo requires an ungodly amount of content to keep the players busy. I don't see any way they could make that amount of content with the kind of detail they've shown. This game will be a prime example of the typical 'big launch, dead in 6 months' pattern.

[Lucas]

Just in case you didn't visit the official website, here's a little summary of the latest news (not much to report, anyway):

Jedi Knight section updated:
http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/classes/jedi-knight

Advanced specializations are Guardian (a tank, basically) and Sentinel (dual wielding, jack of all trades jedi knight, it seems). There are also a couple new screenshots, I think.

New "associate" (companion) unveiled, Droid T7-O1, for the Jedi Knight class:
http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/biographies/t7-o1

From the description, it might be the same droid we can see in the "Deceived" trailer.
-----

Over the weekend, there was an event called "Star Wars Celebration V", with a couple panels dedicated to TOR, with developers attending and talking a bit about the game.

Day 1 Panel: http://darthhater.com/2010/08/13/swcv-live-blogging-from-the-art-and-writing-of-swtor/

...With a new piece of nice concept art (realized by Clint Young) unveiled. People speculate the (explorable?) planet represented might be Malachor V (KOTOR II).

Day 2 Panel: http://darthhater.com/2010/08/14/swcv-day-2-panel-live-blogging/

Apparently, judging from what those in the audience reported, during the panel Clint Young (senior concept artist for the environments) "accidentally" mentioned the name of  two more explorable planets, Endor  and Felucia (Clone Wars).  But no real confirmation about this.

In-depth interview with Drew Karpyshyn about the Jedi Knight class (he's the main writer for the entire story arc of that particular class. He also talks about the game in general):

http://darthhater.com/2010/08/15/interview-drew-karpyshyn-jedi-knight/

That's it.

[Soln]

Most annoying zone in Force Unleashed is Felucia.  I'm sure Felucia will be the Dathomir of SWTOR for PvE levelling.

[LK]

Drew's last name sounds like a Star Wars planet.

[Ratman_tf]

Seems to me that the unique selling point of SWTOR is essentially cut-scenes and they're gambling that players will enjoy watching really well crafted interactive cut-scenes.

There's a world of difference between the kind of scene we've already been shown, such as where you discuss why the Captain disobeyed orders and have the option to shoot him and the WoW quest text model. Blah blah, rats eating my grain, blah blah, kill ten and I give you exp and 20 silver, blah blah.

The differences are the scene is interesting to look at where the quest text box is not and you need to analyse and understand the scene to make a decision where the decision on a quest text box is almost always Accept.

It's actually a pretty brave and innovative gamble. They're gambling that, while there is a tradition of clicking through story in MMOs, that behaviour can be reversed by putting enough effort into making the delivery of story more watchable. It is likely it will not appear to many of the current MMOs gear-whores but may appeal to people who don't like MMOs because they're all basically number crunching. Frankly I'd be astonished if they win this bet but I'm certainly going along for the ride.

I GOTTA WADE THROUGH THIS SHIT TO KILL MY 10 WOMP RATS?!?!?!

[Soln]

no shit.  They will have to add some toggle to skip voice overs.  Remember when WoW launched we had to sit and wait for the quest log to write itself in?  I think one of the earliest mods was a quick quest writer.  Then Blizzard later just added insta quests to their mainline.  Making players wait without an option to skip is not "fun".

[Paelos]

These people have already failed at understanding their playerbase, and the game isn't even out yet.

[Surlyboi]

Or maybe they've decided to say, "fuck the min-maxers, we're going for atmosphere here."

If they did that, I applaud them, even if it is shooting yourself in the foot. Only time will tell.

[Paelos]

You can only succeed at creating atmosphere if the quests are actual wartime objectives rather than just collecting rat tails. If people know they are doing a glorified fedex quest, no amount of bullshit conversation is going to help that.

[Stabs]

Or maybe they've decided to say, "fuck the min-maxers, we're going for atmosphere here."

If they did that, I applaud them, even if it is shooting yourself in the foot. Only time will tell.

Either this or, more likely, they will get halfway towards doing this, get whined at by beta testers, make cut-scenes skippable and then wonder why the game failed when they made the only thing that the devs seemed to have crafted with care skippable for faster levelling.

I really hope they stick to their guns. Screw the guys who just want to kill 10 womp rats. Play the other 99% of MMOs.

[Ratman_tf]

You can only succeed at creating atmosphere if the quests are actual wartime objectives rather than just collecting rat tails. If people know they are doing a glorified fedex quest, no amount of bullshit conversation is going to help that.

Exactly. Fucking exactly. The reason people skip quest text is because the lore behind it is irrelevant to the gameplay. I did not read a single word of quest text in Wrath, and it didn't matter one whittle.
 I have far more hope that GW2's content is going to be immersive and atomospheric. Beta will tell, but that's my feeling.

[Malakili]

If people know they are doing a glorified fedex quest, no amount of bullshit conversation is going to help that.

No man, if you don't bring this item to that other NPC WORLDS WITH END.