SWTOR

[Nebu]

Right. When they release information like saying the game is "story based" the game is doomed.  When they don't release information the game is also doomed.

I can play jaded old MMO vet with the best of them but you people carry it to extremes.  It's boring.

Have we been wrong?

We're jaded because we have little to get excited about.  In the past few years, I've gotten more enjoyment discussing games than I have from the games themselves.  I think that speaks volumes.

[Paelos]

Have we been wrong?

We're jaded because we have little to get excited about.  In the past few years, I've gotten more enjoyment discussing games than I have from the games themselves.  I think that speaks volumes.

Nebu echos my point, Reg. It's about recognizing dangerous patterns. It's not that they said the game will be "story based." It's that when they released that info, nobody knows what that means, how it works, what kind of content releases they plan, their expected attrition rate of content, if they plan for you to run various alts, or really anything about it. They don't put anything on their website about how anything will work. All their press releases are about ancillary information or classes or setpieces.

It's not doomcasting. It's wanting steak instead of sizzle when we're supposedly well beyond the point of designing the core game.

[Reg]

Have we been wrong?

Who knows? Nobody. Nobody has played it yet.

We're jaded because we have little to get excited about.  In the past few years, I've gotten more enjoyment discussing games than I have from the games themselves.  I think that speaks volumes.

I don't particularly care why you're jaded and cynical. I'm pretty harsh myself when a game disappoints me.  But at least I wait until I have something to actually be disappointed by before shitting up threads over it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think it's pretty much impossible to shit up a star wars thread, it's in there by definition.

[Lantyssa]

I don't particularly care why you're jaded and cynical. I'm pretty harsh myself when a game disappoints me.  But at least I wait until I have something to actually be disappointed by before shitting up threads over it.

When a product is announced and forums opened two years before giving any significant information about said product, it seems reasonable to be asking if anything exists to be disappointed in.

The sum total of our knowledge is:  Holy Trinity stock DIKU classes, two factions, and a rail shooter.  It took what, five seconds to tell you that?

[Ingmar]

And at least 5 companion npcs per class, plus Bioware-style dialogue. Those features being the two that interest me the most, personally.

[Paelos]

And at least 5 companion npcs per class, plus Bioware-style dialogue. Those features being the two that interest me the most, personally.

They interest me the most too, but I'd like to know a little more about how it's actually supposed to work outside of a single-player environment. I mean what's the freaking tight-lip-mode about over there?

[DraconianOne]

When a product is announced and forums opened two years before giving any significant information about said product, it seems reasonable to be asking if anything exists to be disappointed in.

I think Bioware (read, any MMO developer) is caught between a rock and a hard place. Paelos is right that they're not currently making promises but look at all the games over the last couple of years that have made the promises and then failed to deliver. A couple of high profile examples: Age of Conan (where's my tavern brawling) and WAR (4 classes and capital cities cut before launch - 2 classes since added back I gather). So what should Bioware do? Make promises about features that they'll fail to deliver, or drip feed information about features and systems that they're confident will be in the game?  (Assuming that the space sections, pvp and crafting are ready) Similarly, innovation: should they take a risk on innovating brand new styles of untested and unproven gameplay (especially on a budget of US$fuckloads) or stick to a formula that has been proven to sell?  Perhaps they're following the Jason Fried route of innovation - develop the base product and then develop according to customer needs, which, when I think about it, is pretty much what WoW have done anyway over the years.

You can accuse Bioware of a lot when it comes to pre-marketing SWTOR but the one thiing I reckon they can't be accused of at the moment is making like Mark Jacobs or Brad McQuaid and letting their mouths write cheques that their game can't cash. That's a fairly refreshing change in itself.

[Lantyssa]

Certainly, but this goes back to what some of were saying on page one or two of the thread... they shouldn't have ever started releasing anything.  The extent of release should have been "KotOR will be an MMO.  We'll talk again when we're six months out and all the systems have been nailed down.  kthxbai"

If you're going to hype your game for two years before release, you better give something of substance in that time.  Better yet, don't hype your game two years out.  It's nothing more than a slightly different take of the same old mistake.  Which is fitting really, knowing what we have been given.

[Paelos]

WAR may not have delivered, but you knew from the word go what the core plan for the game was. RvR with various battleground shit. We knew the plan, we knew how it was going to be implemented, and we made our choice whether the game was for us or not. Turned out it sucked for reasons we all know, but we weren't guessing at what the gameplay was going to be like. What we were guessing at was if the human element would completely fuck it up.

We know NOTHING about this game. We can't guess because they won't tell us, and you know what the stupid part of that is? They could easily explain in a 5m video exactly what they expect players to do on a day-to-day basis while playing their game. That core absolutely will not change at this stage of the development process. Why won't they release that information? My guess is they are terrified that they lose the hype machine if they show us anything derivative that could get compared to WoW before it's in a finished state.

[Sjofn]

I don't particularly care why you're jaded and cynical. I'm pretty harsh myself when a game disappoints me.  But at least I wait until I have something to actually be disappointed by before shitting up threads over it.

When a product is announced and forums opened two years before giving any significant information about said product, it seems reasonable to be asking if anything exists to be disappointed in.

The sum total of our knowledge is:  Holy Trinity stock DIKU classes, two factions, and a rail shooter.  It took what, five seconds to tell you that?

Didn't they have Dragon Age boards for roughly half a decade before the goddamn thing came out? This is just what Bioware does, as far as I can tell.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, Dragon Age was originally announced in 2004. They had forums on the old Bioware site shortly after - I used to go there to torment myself reading Dave Gaider posts about a game that seemed like it would never come out.

[DLRiley]

WAR may not have delivered, but you knew from the word go what the core plan for the game was. RvR with various battleground shit. We knew the plan, we knew how it was going to be implemented, and we made our choice whether the game was for us or not. Turned out it sucked for reasons we all know, but we weren't guessing at what the gameplay was going to be like. What we were guessing at was if the human element would completely fuck it up.

We know NOTHING about this game. We can't guess because they won't tell us, and you know what the stupid part of that is? They could easily explain in a 5m video exactly what they expect players to do on a day-to-day basis while playing their game. That core absolutely will not change at this stage of the development process. Why won't they release that information? My guess is they are terrified that they lose the hype machine if they show us anything derivative that could get compared to WoW before it's in a finished state.

I think what they are doing is probably hurting more than helping. WAR was heavily discussed and so was AoC, but this game is getting meager amount of buzz from the mmo crowd. If their counting on the starwars/kor fans to swarm this, they have about 10 minutes to impress them before they leave in mass.

[Kageru]

And at least 5 companion npcs per class, plus Bioware-style dialogue. Those features being the two that interest me the most, personally.

Story and dialogue don't scale. That's why good single player games are 20-40 hours long which in MMO / subscription terms is nothing.

[UnSub]

You can accuse Bioware of a lot when it comes to pre-marketing SWTOR but the one thiing I reckon they can't be accused of at the moment is making like Mark Jacobs or Brad McQuaid and letting their mouths write cheques that their game can't cash. That's a fairly refreshing change in itself.

BioWare: MMOs have no point.

BioWare has "never [had] a a game rated under 90 percent" so SWOR is going to work

SWOR is avoiding the grind with story

SWOR is a BioWare fan's dream game - "It is an RPG forever."

... and so on. You can argue context, but because it is BioWare it gets more of a free pass.

All of this stuff will come back to bite them if they fail to pull it off.

[Kageru]

Good links. I hope you are holding on to those for when it does come and bite them in the ass.

Either that or what they really intend is people paying a subscription to play the single player games, episodic content to keep them subbed and some shared missions / spaces so they can show of their gear. That would probably work commercially even if it is a fairly lame-duck interpretation of an MMO.

[Velorath]

Have we been wrong?

We're jaded because we have little to get excited about.  In the past few years, I've gotten more enjoyment discussing games than I have from the games themselves.  I think that speaks volumes.

Nebu echos my point, Reg. It's about recognizing dangerous patterns. It's not that they said the game will be "story based." It's that when they released that info, nobody knows what that means, how it works, what kind of content releases they plan, their expected attrition rate of content, if they plan for you to run various alts, or really anything about it. They don't put anything on their website about how anything will work. All their press releases are about ancillary information or classes or setpieces.

It's not doomcasting. It's wanting steak instead of sizzle when we're supposedly well beyond the point of designing the core game.

You realize people have actually played this game right?  At E3 and PAX and such?  About the only thing they haven't really gone into detail about at this point is Raids.  We know the basics of the story and dialog stuff.  We know the basics about space combat.  We now know the basics of crafting and PVP.  We know all the classes and subclasses.  We know about companions.  They've released quite a bit of information about this game, so I'm not sure how you can act like we're completely in the dark about what this game is.  Maybe if people didn't crowd this thread with page after page of DOOOOOOOOOOOM!, you might have noticed some of the information you've overlooked I guess.

[DLRiley]

People are just complaining that this game isn't SWG pre-whateverthattrummellikepatchwascalled. People are tired of diku's and bioware is releasing a starwars diku.

[Velorath]

You can accuse Bioware of a lot when it comes to pre-marketing SWTOR but the one thiing I reckon they can't be accused of at the moment is making like Mark Jacobs or Brad McQuaid and letting their mouths write cheques that their game can't cash. That's a fairly refreshing change in itself.

BioWare: MMOs have no point.

BioWare has "never [had] a a game rated under 90 percent" so SWOR is going to work

SWOR is avoiding the grind with story

SWOR is a BioWare fan's dream game - "It is an RPG forever."

... and so on. You can argue context, but because it is BioWare it gets more of a free pass.

All of this stuff will come back to bite them if they fail to pull it off.

Seriously?  Context is something that needs to be argued now rather than something that people should look into by default (I guess Fox News will be happy)?  You're coming across like "sure, you could actually click on the links and see these quotes in context if you're a Bioware defending fanboy, or you can just look at these paraphrased and partial statements and naturally assume the worst".  "SWOR is avoiding the grind with story" and "BioWare: MMOs have no point." aren't even particularly bold statements.  The one about not having a game rated under 90 percent?  People might want to pay special attention to where the quotes end there (hint -  it's right before the "so SWOR is going to work" part).  That last quote is one that's already been discussed to death so I won't rehash it.

[Paelos]

You realize people have actually played this game right?  At E3 and PAX and such?  About the only thing they haven't really gone into detail about at this point is Raids.  We know the basics of the story and dialog stuff.  We know the basics about space combat.  We now know the basics of crafting and PVP.  We know all the classes and subclasses.  We know about companions.  They've released quite a bit of information about this game, so I'm not sure how you can act like we're completely in the dark about what this game is.  Maybe if people didn't crowd this thread with page after page of DOOOOOOOOOOOM!, you might have noticed some of the information you've overlooked I guess.

None of that tells me as a player the driving force of the game. Why am I paying them money? Why is this multiplayer? Is it PvP driven? Is there a structure/ladder in place for that? Is it raid driven? Is there a structure in place for gearing? Are they releasing content updates for storylines? What do you do after the storyline gets completed? What's the max level game like?

You can tell me about details of classes and show me people hitting buttons to cast spells. That's not what we need to know as players about the game.

[Nebu]

Perhaps their marketing strategy isn't aimed at the kind of discerning customer you'd find on f13.  I'm guessing that your average WoW player would watch a video of someone playing a WoW-like game with Star Wars characters and think it was a nice change from what they've been doing for the past few years.

Maybe a demo of diku combat with shiny star wars mythos really IS enough for the masses. 

[Rasix]

You guys realize just how ridiculous you sound?

edit: To be less of a dick.  Hey, I'm in a good mood.

[UnSub]

You guys realize just how ridiculous you sound?

edit: To be less of a dick.  Hey, I'm in a good mood.

We are certainly straying into Massively.com-esque slapfight territory. Onwards to page 200 before launch!

Velorath - I know you think we are being too harsh of SWOR and if BioWare pull off what they are indicating (a story-driven MMO in a popular geek setting with both individual narratives and a more free-form world that launches into 1m+ players over the long term) then no-one will care. But there are certainly issues with the assumption that you can fix all the issues of existing MMOs before you've really put your toes in the water. Or even that story is a panacea to the ills of modern MMOs.

Also, all those quotes (I think) are from lead writer Daniel Erickson, who has been publicly very vocal about how great SWOR is going to be, particularly its story. I thought I read somewhere that one of the BioWare founders gave a presentation where he said that they'd made big MMOs and small MMOs in prototypes, so now knew all about how MMOs worked, that made me scratch my head but now I can't find a link for it so could be wrong.

Regardless, anyone on this thread gets an invite to SWOR beta they are going to be logging in. There will even probably be the traditional f13 30-day honeymoon period around launch.

[Velorath]

You guys realize just how ridiculous you sound?

edit: To be less of a dick.  Hey, I'm in a good mood.

We are certainly straying into Massively.com-esque slapfight territory. Onwards to page 200 before launch!

Velorath - I know you think we are being too harsh of SWOR

No, I think you guys are being jaded and repetitive to the extent where every time a new bit of information is posted, and even sometimes when there isn't, all the usual suspects have to pop in and remind everybody that they think the game is going to suck and/or fail.  I honestly don't care if people are harsh or aren't excited about the game, but when you say this is straying into Massively.com-esque territory, I don't think you grasp just how much people have shit up this thread.  Even message boards like the Vault, Gamefaqs, or NeoGaf would be embarrassed by this.  I don't like Smallville, but I don't feel the need to pop into the thread after every episode just to say "it's still shit", and that's something I can actually experience unlike SWTOR at this point in time. 

[DraconianOne]

Perhaps their marketing strategy isn't aimed at the kind of discerning customer you'd find on f13. 

Why would they?  The F13 crowd is just a self-selecting group of statistical outliers and assorted weirdos who know what a diku is. 20 million players of WoW, EQ, LOTRO, Runescape et al probably have never heard the term before and wouldn't give a shit anyway.

[Margalis]

You realize people have actually played this game right?  At E3 and PAX and such?  About the only thing they haven't really gone into detail about at this point is Raids.  We know the basics of the story and dialog stuff.  We know the basics about space combat.  We now know the basics of crafting and PVP.  We know all the classes and subclasses.  We know about companions.  They've released quite a bit of information about this game, so I'm not sure how you can act like we're completely in the dark about what this game is.

All the information points to a completely generic game that has "voice acting" as the only bullet point of note. From what I've heard the game itself is pretty much the most white bread thing imaginable. The ambition appears to be to make something inoffensive and unremarkable. Outside of the dialog system you can pretty much just call it "generic MMO" and not be leaving anything out.

I have yet to hear a single impression of the game that makes it sound anything other than completely pedestrian. Listen to some voice acting then kill ten womprats.

The idea that there are a bunch of hidden awesome features they are waiting to reveal is as absurd as miracle patch talk. The developers themselves have been consistent in that the only feature they've been able to highlight as being at all different and interesting is the story bits. Now maybe what they'll deliver will be really well-polished and the story stuff will be awesome and it will be a great game. It's possible. But as far as interesting gameplay systems goes this is aiming extremely low. All the hands-on impressions are basically "yup, it's a game."

I don't think you grasp just how much people have shit up this thread.

Being a raging Star Wars homer also counts as shitting up the thread. Maybe if you were one of those "well let's wait for the full story and not judge things until we have plenty of personal hands on time" guys you would have a point, but you are definitely not one of those guys. You can't choose to play the voice of reason in just this thread because people are picking on something you happen to like.

[Rendakor]

Perhaps their marketing strategy isn't aimed at the kind of discerning customer you'd find on f13.  I'm guessing that your average WoW player would watch a video of someone playing a WoW-like game with Star Wars characters and think it was a nice change from what they've been doing for the past few years.

Maybe a demo of diku combat with shiny star wars mythos really IS enough for the masses. 

Honestly, if I get diku combat in the KOTOR universe in a game that isn't broken as fuck, I'll probably play it. I don't need some silly SWG crafting bullshit, nor do I have any intention of listening to the fully voiced quests or whatever. Standard Bioware dialog options would be a nice bonus, including some quest options where I can force-choke a motherfucker.

[Margalis]

I'm guessing that your average WoW player would watch a video of someone playing a WoW-like game with Star Wars characters and think it was a nice change from what they've been doing for the past few years.

At some point the idea that people are tired of WoW and looking for a change of pace will probably be right, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day, but so far it's been wrong every time. The number of people leaving WoW for other games and sticking with those other games has been small.

Actually I suspect a lot of WoW players, when they are finally done with WoW, will never play another MMO. So that idea may never be right.

[Velorath]

Being a raging Star Wars homer also counts as shitting up the thread. Maybe if you were one of those "well let's wait for the full story and not judge things until we have plenty of personal hands on time" guys you would have a point, but you are definitely not one of those guys. You can't choose to play the voice of reason in just this thread because people are picking on something you happen to like.

I can't happen to like it because I've never played it.  I'm interested in it because I like some of the people involved, and because I haven't heard anything that makes me think "oh shit, this is going to suck".  WoW with a Bioware/KOTOR flavor would be fine with me.  I've also got Guild Wars 2 to look forward to, which is the game I'm looking at to try something completely different.  Feel free to go back through the thread though and point out all the times where I said anything about any aspects of this game being awesome.  You on the other hand were never going to like this game.  You don't like the developer or the franchise and have actually said you're just trolling this thread, so seriously, fuck off.  140+ pages and 2+ years of this shit, and seriously, the worst thing you can actually come up with to say about the game is that it's generic?  That's what justifies your continued participation in this thread?

[Margalis]

You're contribution to this thread is "I LOVE STAR WARS." Yeah, we get it. Loving Star Wars doesn't make shitty animation look not shitty, outdated graphics look awesome, a hodgepodge of also ran systems developed by also ran developers look entertaining or Jedi Wizards sound not retarded. "Kill ten womprats" isn't magically much more exciting as "kill 10 boars" just because you have boner for all things Star Wars.

That's what justifies your continued participation in this thread?

What justifies your continued participation in life? (I mean besides waiting for Episodes 7, 8 and 9)

You have four posts on this page alone that are all extremely defensive and reactionary. Chill dude. Not everyone loves Star Wars or games that look shitty just because they have Star Wars in the title. Are you working on the game or secretly George Lucas?

I don't like Smallville, but I don't feel the need to pop into the thread after every episode just to say "it's still shit",

You keep posting in the FFXIV thread with drive-by slights even though you aren't playing the game. So yeah. I don't give a shit that you do, just stop being a giant fucking baby in this thread when your precious Star Wars is the thing getting scrutinized. Thread on F13 calls shitty-looking MMO shitty-looking - shocking!

[DraconianOne]

You can accuse Bioware of a lot when it comes to pre-marketing SWTOR but the one thiing I reckon they can't be accused of at the moment is making like Mark Jacobs or Brad McQuaid and letting their mouths write cheques that their game can't cash. That's a fairly refreshing change in itself.

BioWare: MMOs have no point.

BioWare has "never [had] a a game rated under 90 percent" so SWOR is going to work

SWOR is avoiding the grind with story

SWOR is a BioWare fan's dream game - "It is an RPG forever."

... and so on. You can argue context, but because it is BioWare it gets more of a free pass.

All of this stuff will come back to bite them if they fail to pull it off.

You didn't need to drag up those links. You could have simply made the point about a budget of $200m or more being hubris enough if it fails. Let's face it, EA/Bioware are putting it all on red with this.

[Velorath]

You're contribution to this thread is "I LOVE STAR WARS." Yeah, we get it. Loving Star Wars doesn't make shitty animation look not shitty, outdated graphics look awesome, a hodgepodge of also ran systems developed by also ran developers look entertaining or Jedi Wizards sound not retarded. "Kill ten womprats" isn't magically much more exciting as "kill 10 boars" just because you have boner for all things Star Wars.

And again, crying and whining in this thread while being a cynical bastard in others is pathetic. You don't see me going all "HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING MEAN ABOUT SOMETHING I LIKE" even when people are talking about projects I'm familiar with or people I know. If you want to be the optimistic, wait for the full story, let's not judge things too soon guy go right ahead, but you can't be that guy only for Star Wars because "I FUCKING LOVE STAR WARS!!!!!!!"


What justifies your continued participation in life? (I mean besides waiting for Episodes 7, 8 and 9)

You have four posts on this page alone that are all extremely defensive and reactionary. Chill dude. Not everyone loves Star Wars or games that look shitty just because they have Star Wars in the title. Are you working on the game or secretly George Lucas?

Seriously, you think I love Star Wars? I haven't watched a Star Wars movie in years unless you count that shitty animated one I had to test run at my theater.  Never watched the Clone Wars cartoon, don't give a shit about the prequels, and probably couldn't sit through any of the original trilogy movies at this point.

Yeah, we get it,   You're jaded.  Everything sucks.  I can go through the last several pages/months of your posts and not find a single positive post about anything.  It's "SWTOR sucks", "Walking Dead sucks", "the Star Trek movie sucked", "Caprica sucks", "LeBron James sucks" (not that I can fault you on those last two), etc..., and that's not even getting into the fact that you post in politics.  Maybe you can photoshop your avatar so Dirty Harry is sticking the Magnum in his mouth, because I honestly don't know how you manage to get up in the morning and face a world you obviously hate.

[Margalis]

I can go through the last several pages/months of your posts and not find a single positive post about anything.

You sure?

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=17478.msg861534#msg861534
http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19156.msg850697#msg850697

Dur dur dur. Well that took all of 5 seconds.

Actually what I meant to say in those posts above is that Shattered Galaxy sucks ass and Michelle Pfeiffer has sharp knees.

Maybe you can photoshop your avatar so Dirty Harry is sticking the Magnum in his mouth, because I honestly don't know how you manage to get up in the morning and face a world you obviously hate.

Why do I think you love Star Wars? Uh, because you are super defensive about Star Wars? Because now you're suggesting I should commit suicide because I don't share your taste in shitty genre fiction? Get a grip dude. You turn apoplectic whenever anyone dares hate on Star Wars, so yeah, I think you love Star Wars.

Take a step back. This is bizarrely personal and you're becoming unhinged. At what point did suggesting suicide strike you as a reasonable course of action in a Star Wars video game thread?

Star Wars is serious business.

[Reg]

You keep posting in the FFXIV thread with drive-by slights even though you aren't playing the game. So yeah. I don't give a shit that you do, just stop being a giant fucking baby in this thread when your precious Star Wars is the thing getting scrutinized. Thread on F13 calls shitty-looking MMO shitty-looking - shocking!

Ah, this is what it comes down to.  Being all butt hurt because your special game from your special developer is getting (well deserved) bad reviews from absolutely everyone on the planet.

FFXIV and LotRO were the two games I was thinking of when I said I was as harsh on disappointing games as anyone and with both of those games I have actual legitimate  reason for disappointment unlike the SWTOR doomsayers in this thread.  In the case of FFXIV I was lucky enough not to have to spend money on it before being warned well away.  With LOTRO I had my say and stopped posting down in the LOTRO threads because I don't want to be a jerk to people like Cheddar and Bloodworth and the gang who still enjoy the game.  I didn't have to do that with the FFXIV thread because nobody actually plays or enjoys it - not even you.

It's amusing that you're calling Velorath a Star Wars fan boy over this though. From what I've seen following this thread it doesn't have any. The closest it gets are people who are interested in the game and not willing to play doomsayer just to fit in with the bitter old vets.

[Margalis]

Yeah, I've been hating on SWTOR from the very beginning because I built a time machine, travelled into the future, saw that people disliked FFXIV and decided the get even with them by traveling back in time to bash a game that I knew in the future they were greatly enjoying.

Nice work detective!

Seriously what now? All I'm saying is this: this is F13, people bash shit, including you people. We don't need self-appointed thread police who demand that the thread be a Star Wars fan wank.

In the Rifts thread after the newest video was posted people were saying it looked bad. I didn't see a bunch of white knights show up to say that it was unfair to judge because the game isn't out. People judge based on what they know - that's life. If the developers give us boring videos and can't come up with anything that makes the game sound interesting expect negative judgement.

This is not a new phenomenon nor is it unique to this thread.