SWTOR

[HaemishM]

Warzones sounds cool. The video looked great right up until the two sides started fighting and then I remembered why this title keeps turning me off. Combat looks terribad.

[Cyrrex]

I'm just going to have to go ahead and admit that I must be a broken sumbitch.  Because I thought that looked sweet.  I'm okay with updated KOTOR animations.  I may be finally getting my fan-boner for this game.

[Paelos]

Warzones sounds cool. The video looked great right up until the two sides started fighting and then I remembered why this title keeps turning me off. Combat looks terribad.

I'll forgive looking stupid for playing well. There's nothing in Puzzle Quest except sprites and a 2D board, and I played those games for probably a combined 150 hours.

[Malakili]

Warzones sounds cool. The video looked great right up until the two sides started fighting and then I remembered why this title keeps turning me off. Combat looks terribad.

I'll forgive looking stupid for playing well. There's nothing in Puzzle Quest except sprites and a 2D board, and I played those games for probably a combined 150 hours.

The animations just sort of emphasize the point as far as I'm concerned.  In the end I just really can't get too excited about this kind of standard action bar MMO combat in any form.  I suspect that a lot of people here are in the same boat, the only problem is that while normally you can just suck it up and deal with it if you want to play an MMO for other reasons, we all have so many memories from the movies of amazing moments in Star Wars (combat and otherwise), that the perceived deficiencies seem even worse in TOR.

[Shatter]

I like the warzones but that video is convincing me more that this might be another game where ranged classes will rule.  I mean the distance some of those BH's, troopers, etc are shooting from is pretty far and unless melee/jedi classes have some means to close that gap or block the fuck out of that continual fire I can see melee getting kited/facerolled. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Possible classes

Jedi-Enchanter
Sith-Warlock
Jedi-Mage
Jedi-Werewolf
Sith-Vampire

[Paelos]

Jedi Plumber
Sith Electrician
Wookiee Daylaborer

[Lantyssa]

Wookiee slave labor

Fixed that for you.

[Paelos]

Mine's more PC.

[Fordel]

I have yet to see a Jedi/Sith attack and move at the same time. It's always run run run stop swing swing swing, run run run etc.

[kildorn]

"stop and melee" didn't bother that much in the video, what bugged me was "all blaster shots are pinpoint accurate and the shooter never misses"

Seriously, put some scatter into the visuals at least. One does not fire off ten rounds at a moving target and have all ten land. That just breaks all suspension of disbelief for me apparently.

[snowwy]

I think i will pick the class Sith Down. That vid was just sad. Battlefield: Heroes looked better that that piece of sith. ...I need a better joke-writer, don't I? 

[tmp]

Sith-Vampire

The important question is, do they sparkle.

[caladein]

None of these are worse than Sith Sorceress, which I am incapable of saying without faking a lisp.

[Spiff]

That is some very static looking combat I must say.
Didn't bother me half as much for PvE, but for PvP it looks incredibly 'unreactive'.

Also; was someone off-screen saying: "Ok, everyone choose a dance partner. No switching now!" or something?
They need to learn to showcase it better, 'cause even with a slow-paced static combat system you can have battles slightly more interesting than that.

[LC]

"stop and melee" didn't bother that much in the video, what bugged me was "all blaster shots are pinpoint accurate and the shooter never misses"

It's a well known part of mmo sorcery called Tab Magic. I'm sure there are some dice rolls there to decide if the victim dodged some of the shots. It's going to feel just like star wars when you run up to that storm trooper and queue [1] Whirling Slash, [2] Stunning Back Flip, and [3] Jedi Stab.

[Murgos]

I'd rather have had Jedi Wizard.  It's at least somewhat canonical, in the movies Obi-Wan is referred to as a wizard on at least one occasion.

[Margalis]

This is much better than trying to do some elaborate world based PvP and royally fucking it up. 

It's the whole sum is less than the parts effects. SWTOR seems to be made out of entirely generic parts. It's safe in some ways but it sure as hell isn't exciting or interesting.

Quick name an interesting mechanic in SWTOR. Got ya.

[HaemishM]

I'd rather have had Jedi Wizard.  It's at least somewhat canonical, in the movies Obi-Wan is referred to as a wizard on at least one occasion.

Yeah, I agree. Why NOT use Wizard? Afraid it's too close the derivative DIKU shit the game appears to be based on?

[Reg]

It's the whole sum is less than the parts effects. SWTOR seems to be made out of entirely generic parts. It's safe in some ways but it sure as hell isn't exciting or interesting.

Quick name an interesting mechanic in SWTOR. Got ya.

Wow. I can hardly wait until the NDA is finished and you can share all the rest of your secret insider knowledge.

[Samprimary]

This is much better than trying to do some elaborate world based PvP and royally fucking it up. 

It's the whole sum is less than the parts effects. SWTOR seems to be made out of entirely generic parts. It's safe in some ways but it sure as hell isn't exciting or interesting.

Quick name an interesting mechanic in SWTOR. Got ya.

Even though the game is probably shit, this is kind of unfair. There are a lot of POTENTIALLY very interesting or at least passable mechanics in swtor; its just that mmo history dictates that all potentially interesting features of mmos are shit until proven tolerable in the court of lawl.

[UnSub]

The crafting system sounds like what you'd develop when you didn't really want to have crafting in game. I'm not sure how players can 'deeply' get into such crafting unless they are micromanaging which companion they log-off with.

Prediction: players will put the character with the highest whatever stat on the Treasure Hunter 24/7 for the chance of getting that uber item roll.

[Margalis]

Even though the game is probably shit, this is kind of unfair. There are a lot of POTENTIALLY very interesting or at least passable mechanics in swtor; its just that mmo history dictates that all potentially interesting features of mmos are shit until proven tolerable in the court of lawl.

Yet neither you nor anyone else can name a single one. Curious.

I'm not talking about features that are even well-executed, I'm merely talking about a single feature that isn't a tired retread. Is SWTOR bringing anything new to the table at all? You can pick pretty much any MMO on the market, from the best to the worst, and find *some* mechanic that at least sounds interesting on paper. The entire ambition of SWTOR is to be as generic as possible.

Yeah, maybe the game is chock full of amazing new mechanics that they just aren't talking about at all for some mysterious reason. If so I'll eat my words, but that's right up there with miracle patch talk in likelihood.

[Riggswolfe]

I'm not talking about features that are even well-executed, I'm merely talking about a single feature that isn't a tired retread. Is SWTOR bringing anything new to the table at all? You can pick pretty much any MMO on the market, from the best to the worst, and find *some* mechanic that at least sounds interesting on paper. The entire ambition of SWTOR is to be as generic as possible.

I'll list three that for most MMO players will be new(ish).

1) Companions. Yes, Guild Wars had it first and LOTRO has a limited form in the skirmishes but some of what they are going to do with it seems new. Particularly as they sound integral to the game rather than being part of a subsystem (Lotro) or only in some "campaigns" (Guild Wars)
2) Companion crafting instead of player crafting. To my knowledge this is a legitimately new idea. Now, mechanically it could turn out to be the same thing as doing it yourself depending on how much you have to micromanage but if I can just go "ok, gather metal and build armor until I tell you to stop" and it's smart enough to keep moving up the recipe "tree" then it'll be a nice twist IMO. It is a nice compromise with having crafting without, as they said, having Darth Vader gathering flowers on the side of the road.
3) The quest/voice system. As much scorn as it's gotten here it's not something that's been tried before. The closest I can think of is Tortuga in Conan but that was basically just the old quest text spoken aloud. This appears to have decision trees and Light/Dark responses in a Mass Effect style conversation system.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think companions is just a fancy word for "every class in swtor has a pet"

[Velorath]

Even though the game is probably shit, this is kind of unfair. There are a lot of POTENTIALLY very interesting or at least passable mechanics in swtor; its just that mmo history dictates that all potentially interesting features of mmos are shit until proven tolerable in the court of lawl.

Yet neither you nor anyone else can name a single one. Curious.

I'm not talking about features that are even well-executed, I'm merely talking about a single feature that isn't a tired retread. Is SWTOR bringing anything new to the table at all? You can pick pretty much any MMO on the market, from the best to the worst, and find *some* mechanic that at least sounds interesting on paper. The entire ambition of SWTOR is to be as generic as possible.

Yeah, maybe the game is chock full of amazing new mechanics that they just aren't talking about at all for some mysterious reason. If so I'll eat my words, but that's right up there with miracle patch talk in likelihood.

I guess they should have gone the FFXIV route and found shitty new ways to reinvent the wheel, even with stuff previous MMO's got right (or that they even got right in FFXI), just for the sake of trying something different.

[Ashamanchill]

Oh this game is treading new territory alright. I don't believe any title previously has managed to piss off both MMO and Star Wars fans before.



Oh wait........

[Samprimary]

Even though the game is probably shit, this is kind of unfair. There are a lot of POTENTIALLY very interesting or at least passable mechanics in swtor; its just that mmo history dictates that all potentially interesting features of mmos are shit until proven tolerable in the court of lawl.

Yet neither you nor anyone else can name a single one. Curious.

No, you can. You can name plenty of mechanics which sound very interesting and fresh in concept. It's just a pointless exercise, because these claims have no merit until they are vetted. The MMO developers love to spit out Molyneauxian levels of hype about all these cool new things you can find in their games. By now, you know you have to wait to see whether these interesting sounding mechanics pan out in execution. But for the question about whether SWTOR is bringing new stuff to the table, I would say that they are certainly making the claim. The quality of the game doesn't necessarily hinge on that, though, since I'm perfectly fine when mostly old stuff is used in new arrangements to create an entertaining experience within the same genre.

[Shatter]

Jedi Sage is winning their poll.   

[WindupAtheist]

Isn't the whole "NPCs craft for you!" thing as old as Shadowbane at least?

[Simond]

Frankly, "Not being an unfun piece of grindy shit" would be ample innovation in the mmo market for a game not created by Blizzard.

[tmp]

I think companions is just a fancy word for "every class in swtor has a pet"

Sort of, but it seems to extend into offline activity and given it's BioWare game there's likely going to be some dialogue/quests based on them/their backstory and potentially a romance.

... if you romanced your pet in another MMO, i don't want to know about it.

[Fordel]

Frankly, "Not being an unfun piece of grindy shit" would be ample innovation in the mmo market for a game not created by Blizzard.

Seriously, if this game ends up being nothing more then a honest to goodness "WoW in Spaaaaace", then I'm sold.


It'll probably be something like WAR in Space though, or something worse.

[Nebu]

The whole idea of "story-driven content" has me wanting to avoid this title.  Sounds like a ride on rails.  I guess that will make it worth the box cost as an entertainment value, but I'm doubtful about playing it as a subscription. 

[DLRiley]

I like the warzones but that video is convincing me more that this might be another game where ranged classes will rule.  I mean the distance some of those BH's, troopers, etc are shooting from is pretty far and unless melee/jedi classes have some means to close that gap or block the fuck out of that continual fire I can see melee getting kited/facerolled. 

Wait so the guy with the gun that puts heated holes through body armor is not suppose to shoot down "swords in a tank fight man" every time?

 

Frankly, "Not being an unfun piece of grindy shit" would be ample innovation in the mmo market for a game not created by Blizzard.