SWTOR

[Sheepherder]

Or free respecs.

[Sky]

Koreth = Reg?

Please pm me if your SWTOR handle is not recognizable :) Koreth turned up as Reg in an SWG post. I don't want to have to search for every applicant!

[Mnemon]

I don't think even WoW was balanced when it was first released was it?  Balance seems more of an ongoing process than an achievable state from what I can see.  They've got respecs available right off the bat so it's not like people are going to be permanently gimping themselves - though this will inevitably lead to a plague of flavour of the month builds every time they change something.

Has WoW ever been balanced?

[Mnemon]

The biggest thing they're at risk of is multiple instances of the Paladin/Shaman problem.  Ignoring that, it's a reasonably simple set-up: eight Advanced Classes per side each with a shared tree with their classmate, a damage tree, and either a tanking/healing/(second) damage tree.

They're not going to get loads more healers and tanks because they opened the roles up to people who don't also want to be Jedi/Sith, but locking people into one role at character select in a holy trinity-based game at this stage is pretty dumb.

My biggest concern is that the classes end up fleshing out like Warhammer's did.

In Warhammer you had so called mirror classes that weren't mirrors of each other. They'd have the same combat mechanic, but almost everything else varied from kind of different, to very different. You could have one class getting a skill before its mirror - impacting play in that tier. You could have one class spending fewer points in the talent tree to get a skill than its counter part. And you could also have one side with a skill the other couldn't match.

those issues were then compounded by bugs that would impact one side and not the other. i.e. PvP was unplayable for a few weeks as Order because the Destruction version of an AoE stun was bugged, had a great expanded radius, wasn't breaking and wasn't operating properly - while the Order equivalent was working as intended.

[Outlawedprod]

200 hours to level cap baby!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=300274

[Malakili]

200 hours to level cap baby!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=300274

When someone maxes out in 2 days and complains there is no end game content I wonder what they'll say.

[Rasix]

200 hours to level cap baby!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=300274

Pretty consistent with most modern MMOs.

200 hours to level cap baby!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=300274

When someone maxes out in 2 days and complains there is no end game content I wonder what they'll say.

 

 

[Malakili]

 

 

Seriously though, we've seen this before.

Step 1) Someone maxes out immediately and starts shouting on the forums - there is nothing to do.
Step 2) Everyone says "lol, you play too much get a life, its your own fault for playing too fast"
Step 3) One month later: Everyone else hits level cap - starts complaining there is nothing to do. 

[Shatter]

 

 

Seriously though, we've seen this before.

Step 1) Someone maxes out immediately and starts shouting on the forums - there is nothing to do.
Step 2) Everyone says "lol, you play too much get a life, its your own fault for playing too fast"
Step 3) One month later: Everyone else hits level cap - starts complaining there is nothing to do. 
Step 4) Everyone goes back to WOW

FIxed

[Lantyssa]

Y'all left out the "Devs triple the xp-to-level after one person does it in two days" bit.

[kildorn]

Y'all left out the "Devs triple the xp-to-level after one person does it in two days" bit.

I thought that happened during the magical period between end of beta and release.

They jack up all the XP required to level, don't adjust mob or quest xp, and then wonder why their leveling curve suddenly has four hour mob grinds breaking up their epic story line.

Usually the post release change is "major mob dies within two months of release, devs duct tape shitty gear grinding system into game to keep players from doing that"

[Sky]

If you skip all the dialog in a game built around the dialog...there's your sign.

Not to mention...200 hours is a pretty awesome level curve if there's content to support the entire arc.

[Ingmar]

That's probably about 2 months for me, if the game is fun enough to keep me logging in all the time. I'm pretty happy with that number, assuming it is real.

[Merusk]

I'm going to assume 100-125 hours of actual combat/ questing and the rest is listening to 'epic dialog' v/o.

[Mosesandstick]

200 hours of playtime is at least a couple of months to me, I'm down with that.

[Velorath]

200 hours to level cap baby!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=300274

I think I'll wait for a source that isn't a forum poster who is posting up somebody else's translated outline of a German magazine article before commenting.

[Kail]

I'm going to assume 100-125 hours of actual combat/ questing and the rest is listening to 'epic dialog' v/o.

There is no way I'm going to buy the idea that Bioware has over a hundred hours of cinematic content for this game.  For multiple classes across two separate factions?  No chance.  The entire run of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series, from 1987 to 1996, only had something like seventy hours.

[Merusk]

Who said cinematic? I mean sitting there while they spit quest text at you instead of just giving you a window to read (or not as the case usually is).

[Paelos]

Can I fish? Give me fishing and I'll be entertained between patches!

[Reg]

Perhaps there's a mandatory fishing minigame that you have to play during the 120 uninterruptible hours of cinematics and voice-overs.

[Draegan]

So how many days before people hack the client to play custom voice overs and everyone downloads it thus making the 10000's of hours of v/o work void?

I'm picturing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCSwzHL22ZE

[Rasix]

Has that really ever happened in any MMO featuring VO work?  Most complaints surrounding voice overs in MMOs stem from when they abruptly halt.

It's a Bioware game (theoretically), there will likely be a button to skip past any spoken line, if you so choose.

[Ingmar]

Has that really ever happened in any MMO featuring VO work?  Most complaints surrounding voice overs in MMOs stem from when they abruptly halt.

It's a Bioware game (theoretically), there will likely be a button to skip past any spoken line, if you so choose.

That won't help the people in my group as they stare at the "...waiting for Ingmar to press skip" button. 

[Paelos]

Has that really ever happened in any MMO featuring VO work?  Most complaints surrounding voice overs in MMOs stem from when they abruptly halt.

It's a Bioware game (theoretically), there will likely be a button to skip past any spoken line, if you so choose.

A skip button sounds like a disaster in a group personally, especially if you are playing on Ventrillo.

"Dude WTF skip this thing and choose KILL HIM!"
"WTF Spoilerz I've not done this. STFU.
"OMG NOOOOOOOOOOBZ!"
"Fuck yall, this is going to take forever." <tank drops group>

[SnakeCharmer]

And that's why you never play PUGs.

[UnSub]

It's 200 hours of play experience including key driving sections, elevator riding as the main form of in-mission transport and a vitally important scanning mini-game if you wish to craft. 

Most BioWare titles I've played are 30 - 40 hours from start to finish. Someone may have taken the 200 hours as the total combined storyline across all 8 classes (including variations in the storyline). So it is still big, but only if you are totally OCD on it.

[Samprimary]

Can I fish? Give me fishing and I'll be entertained between patches!

It will be called "Aquahooking" and is a secondary profession you can take alongside hackislicing

[Samprimary]

elevator riding as the main form of in-mission transport

"Yeah, so ... uh .... Tali,"
"Shut up, Garrus."

[Tearofsoul]

Jeff Hickman Joins BioWare Austin As Executive Producer for SWTOR

[Draegan]

[Surlyboi]

[Lantyssa]

[Falwell]

Was good trip!

[Paelos]

Well folks, that'll do it for me. I want to thank Bioware for letting us all know where they want this game to well before it even released. Don't forget to turn off the lights on the way out. Tip your waitress!

[Rasix]

They've made a lot worse hires than him.