SWTOR

[Draegan]

Are races considered gameplay features? They still haven't announced the last race, though it's not exactly a reveal at this point. Also, they haven't formally announced the companion AI system.

It's a cyborg isn't it?  It was confirmed denied confirmed denied back and forth.  It's probably Cyborg.

[Paelos]

I've been watching more and more of the videos they release. The force "tear shit out of the ground and toss it" ability is fucking obnoxious when I see it happen 10 times in a sample video. It looks way too out of place and ridiculous. They need to rethink how stupid it looks when you see it over and over and over and over and over.

[Fordel]

It probably sucks as an ability and you just won't use it that often. 

[luckton]

Are races considered gameplay features? They still haven't announced the last race, though it's not exactly a reveal at this point. Also, they haven't formally announced the companion AI system.

It's a cyborg isn't it?  It was confirmed denied confirmed denied back and forth.  It's probably Cyborg.

At some point we'll stop beating around the bush that the Cake exists and we'll just talk about things openly...at some point...

[Sky]

No, we won't. You don't want to taunt the happy fun Trippy.

[Surlyboi]

Negative, Ghostrider, the pattern is full.

[Sobelius]

I've been watching more and more of the videos they release. The force "tear shit out of the ground and toss it" ability is fucking obnoxious when I see it happen 10 times in a sample video. It looks way too out of place and ridiculous. They need to rethink how stupid it looks when you see it over and over and over and over and over.

You've got a point. This kind of visual tedium existed in CoX's telekinesis powers. It might have been more interesting in SWTOR to have environment objects made movable by such powers, so that the objects could come from anywhere within a specific random distance/direciton relative to the toon. There may be non-trivial issues with implementing such a system of course, but it would keep the visual aspect, if not fresh, at least relevant to the environment. Nothing more immersion-breaking than seeing someone pull a piece of engine junk out of the floor of a starship.

[luckton]

Such theatrics would require them to position destructible crap on almost every inch of the game.  As if this things won't already have enough bloat...I'll settle for just being able to rip stuff at random out of the ground and then having that ground from whence something large just came up from magically heal itself and disappear than have people cry that their power doesn't work since there's nothing destructible nearby or that there's so much crap it bogs down the client/server.   

[Mrbloodworth]

Not sure why it wasn't just part of the level design. Everything is instanced right?

[Rasix]

"Hey, Joe why don't we design the levels so this one spell isn't so immersion breaking? I mean shit, all it would be is a handful of destructible objects as well as the accompanying code to fling them around.  For one spell, please, the nerds are saying things. "

"Get the fuck out of here, Phil. Don't ever bring that up again or you'll be in QA by the end of the week."

[eldaec]

Just have a dozen different objects being pulled out of the ground instead of an endless supply of oil tanks and it would be fine. Like CoH.

[Rasix]

I just don't see it as something they're going to try to implement during crunch time, which they probably most certainly are in.  But yes, that would be a more ideal implementation. 

[tazelbain]

Couldn't you say that about most polish? 

[Ingmar]

Couldn't you say that about most polish? 

Not at all. Not all polish takes the same amount of time or has the same total benefit in the end. Polishing is about identifying the things you can do most easily that will be the biggest improvement.

[Mrbloodworth]

"Hey, Joe why don't we design the levels so this one spell isn't so immersion breaking? I mean shit, all it would be is a handful of destructible objects as well as the accompanying code to fling them around.  For one spell, please, the nerds are saying things. "

"Get the fuck out of here, Phil. Don't ever bring that up again or you'll be in QA by the end of the week."

Uh, just a handful of dynamically placed objects per level. Not destructible objects.

[Sky]

Nothing more immersion-breaking than seeing someone pull a piece of engine junk out of the floor of a starship.

How about just changing to some kind of force energy ball or something? Oil tanks, heh.

[Margalis]

They should just make it a generic slab of material, like the thing Juggernaut would pull out of the ground in the Capcom fighting games.

[Paelos]

Or, and I know this is a totally revolutionary concept...

How about not having the Jedi toss random shit at all? From anywhere. Ever.

SHOCK AND AWE!

 

[luckton]

Or, and I know this is a totally revolutionary concept...

How about not having the Jedi toss random shit at all? From anywhere. Ever.

SHOCK AND AWE!

 

Don't make me destroy you...

...with an onslaught of YouTube videos from the six movies showing numerous occasions where random shit got force chucked.

[Fordel]

Pfft, Trooper armor is capable of exposure to vacuum. 

[tmp]

It seems fairly obvious the way to make everyone happy is to turn the controversial ability into Ewok Toss.

[Sky]

It seems fairly obvious the way to make everyone happy is to turn the controversial ability into Ewok Toss.

Change we can believe in.

[UnSub]

I've been watching more and more of the videos they release. The force "tear shit out of the ground and toss it" ability is fucking obnoxious when I see it happen 10 times in a sample video. It looks way too out of place and ridiculous. They need to rethink how stupid it looks when you see it over and over and over and over and over.

You've got a point. This kind of visual tedium existed in CoX's telekinesis powers. It might have been more interesting in SWTOR to have environment objects made movable by such powers, so that the objects could come from anywhere within a specific random distance/direciton relative to the toon. There may be non-trivial issues with implementing such a system of course, but it would keep the visual aspect, if not fresh, at least relevant to the environment. Nothing more immersion-breaking than seeing someone pull a piece of engine junk out of the floor of a starship.

DCUO's telekinesis powers had the player able to pull destructible objects from the environment (e.g. cars, machinery) and throw it at people. What wasn't fun was seeing those items get stuck in other objects, or see that thrown object bounce off something else and miss your target completely.

Great idea, but 'real' TK is a pain in the arse to use (also thinking of BioShock's TK plasmid, which had similar issues and was really just a way to grab objects out of reach). Magic items from out of a pocket dimension is a much better mechanic since it works 100% of the time, not just when the area you enter just happens to have 8 loosely bolted down objects spaced the right distance apart to use TK on them.

As for immersion: it's the Force giving you those objects from nowhere, because that's how the Force rolls.

[WindupAtheist]

Or just have shit fly in from off-camera when Force Chuck Shit is cast. Not like it needs to look the same on everyone's screen. Anyway throwing things with the Force is less cool when you know you're gonna be going Throw Throw Lightning Slash Throw like a robot for an hour at a time while some retard running a mod screams at you for not going Throw Slash Lightning Throw Throw thus slowing down the run by 0.003%.

[Rasix]

It seems fairly obvious the way to make everyone happy is to turn the controversial ability into Ewok Toss.

That's going to break my immersion when I'm in an urban or desert environment.  Then it needs to change into Jawa Toss.

[Malakili]

Or just have shit fly in from off-camera when Force Chuck Shit is cast. Not like it needs to look the same on everyone's screen. Anyway throwing things with the Force is less cool when you know you're gonna be going Throw Throw Lightning Slash Throw like a robot for an hour at a time while some retard running a mod screams at you for not going Throw Slash Lightning Throw Throw thus slowing down the run by 0.003%.

GOD DAMN IT YOU'RE AN IDIOT HOW DID YOU EVEN GET INTO THE JEDI ACADEMY IN THE FIRST PLACE WITH THAT SHIT ROTATION?!?!?!?!

[Lakov_Sanite]

To me, polish has always been about little things I never would have expected to see but did, like the zombie fish they added to undead zones in cataclysm.  It could be easy to code or hard but it's moments where I go "wow, that was pretty cool" that really make me love a game.

[Fordel]

Isn't that Fluff?

[Lakov_Sanite]

They are very nearly the same thing but I think polish is the little details that take what are mechanically good, smooth running games and make them great.  Making a game that runs excellent is not unheard of, you can polish game mechanics until they shine and the game can still feel soulless and bland.  So when I see the term polish in games I don't think of it as just making one facet like combat great, I think of all theorems touches and details that make it stand out.

When you polish a car you aren't touching the engine, you're just making the body sparkle.

[Amaron]

Polish isn't about gameplay very often.   Usually it's about fixing extraneous problems like important UI details being green or making sure you're fucking Worgen race doesn't drive everyone nuts with it's shitty snuffling noise.

[Paelos]

I just know I'm going to be sitting in a group, tanking something on a Sith Warrior by hacking at it a million times with my lightsaber while watching 3 oil tanks fly by my head every 15 seconds.

In raids it will be 5 oil tanks. It'll create a new form of aggro management. Oil tanking.

[Reg]

Oil tanking sounds dirty.

[Paelos]

Oil tanking sounds dirty.

Do you have any grease?

[Lantyssa]

I did not want to see your slick willy.

[Malakili]

I did not want to see your slick willy.

Is it bad that I only clicked the spoiler AFTER reading this post?