SWTOR

[01101010]

So Open Beta this weekend!?!?

Just to break up the tennis match...

?!?

[Ingmar]

You know, they could be clicking accept because once you do one MMO quest...well.... Whats to read?

I have to say, I think that you just won our debate.  I can't argue with you at all on that one.

Now we are back to including cinematic and VO presentations. 

I know the Book quests in LOTRO were my fave, I stopped reading the boar quests.

Same, and I am an inveterate quest reader.

[Paelos]

I'm just hoping the choices don't boil down to:

Quest Target: So, we meet at last. The famed Jedi, Soandso. Why have you dared to come here?

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock.
2 - Not sure, this guy down the road told me to.
3 - KITTENS! <3

[Malakili]

You know, they could be clicking accept because once you do one MMO quest...well.... Whats to read?

I have to say, I think that you just won our debate.  I can't argue with you at all on that one.

Now we are back to including cinematic and VO presentations. 

I know the Book quests in LOTRO were my fave, I stopped reading the boar quests.

Same, and I am an inveterate quest reader.

I'm all for the VO and cinematics for epic story lines hypothetically.  I'm more worried that they will try to trump up every little fed ex and kill 10 boars quest into something vital and important and heroic and so forth.  If you ask me to do something clearly trivial, no amount of VO is going to make it seem like and important story, and in fact when the objectives don't seem to line up with the actual story I'm supposed to be doing (SAVE THE FACILITY FROM DESTRUCTION (Kill 10 troopers)), it would bug me more than if the guy just gave me some generic hey, go kill guys for money quest.

[Sobelius]

I know the Book quests in LOTRO were my fave, I stopped reading the boar quests.

LOTRO went even one step better with their daily Task boards -- just collect a bunch of formerly-trash loot and get bonus xp (and possibly faction xp) without having to read quest text. It's kind of admitting a grind is a grind.

Ideally, reading quest text would give you important information about making a decision -- a decision about something that mattered.

There is *so* much that could be done with tracking player choices from level 1 - [levelcap] in MMOs and tailoring the "quest" based on previous responses and actions. Yes, tracking all of that means more data to store for each character, and mapping how the choices would interact, but it could at least give the semblance that what you did on a quest mattered, or which choice you made mattered enough that you'd want to read the quest text.

Lastly, these things are a form of entertainment. If you aren't entertained by reading quest text, or hearing a quest VO, then you aren't. I like what the devs of GW2 have said about quests -- you see it happening rather than someone telling you about it. You choose whether to get involved based on what you see/hear. Sounds interesting to me...

[luckton]

You know, they could be clicking accept because once you do one MMO quest...well.... Whats to read?

I have to say, I think that you just won our debate.  I can't argue with you at all on that one.

Now we are back to including cinematic and VO presentations. 

I know the Book quests in LOTRO were my fave, I stopped reading the boar quests.

Same, and I am an inveterate quest reader.

I'm all for the VO and cinematics for epic story lines hypothetically.  I'm more worried that they will try to trump up every little fed ex and kill 10 boars quest into something vital and important and heroic and so forth.  If you ask me to do something clearly trivial, no amount of VO is going to make it seem like and important story, and in fact when the objectives don't seem to line up with the actual story I'm supposed to be doing (SAVE THE FACILITY FROM DESTRUCTION (Kill 10 troopers)), it would bug me more than if the guy just gave me some generic hey, go kill guys for money quest.

Based on the videos I've seen, the "Kill 10 rats" model of play is alive and well, but its been baked into the game as "bonus quests."  Many of the walkthrough videos demonstrate this.  If you're taking the time to randomly kill the monsters, the game gives to the task automatically to kill X more for cash and prizes. 

As far as the rest of the stuff, what's been demonstrated so far is, yeah, every quest interaction has voice and drama, a la FFXI.  Which, honestly, I'm cool with.

[Simond]

I'm just hoping the choices don't boil down to:

Quest Target: So, we meet at last. The famed Jedi, Soandso. Why have you dared to come here?

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock.
2 - Not sure, this guy down the road told me to.
3 - KITTENS! <3

How long have you been working for Bioware?

[Sjofn]

Although mostly everyone skipped past quest text in WoW, I don't think people will do it as much in SWTOR because it's voice acted and it'll actually be fun to listen to whereas NPC #132 giving me some slightly reworded spiel about collecting gizzards is about as fun as watching paint dry.

Plus Metzen and his buddies are terrible fucking writers. It's hard to give a shit about the story when even the guy writing it doesn't seem to give much of a shit beyond "IS IT METAL ENOUGH?!"

[rk47]

I'm just hoping the choices don't boil down to:

Quest Target: So, we meet at last. The famed Jedi, Soandso. Why have you dared to come here?

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock.
2 - Not sure, this guy down the road told me to.
3 - KITTENS! <3

How long have you been working for Bioware?

There won't even be a line to choose from, you just pick an olive branch, a sarcastic mask, or a muscular arm as your dialogue stance. 

[Malakili]

Based on the videos I've seen, the "Kill 10 rats" model of play is alive and well, but its been baked into the game as "bonus quests."  Many of the walkthrough videos demonstrate this.  If you're taking the time to randomly kill the monsters, the game gives to the task automatically to kill X more for cash and prizes. 

As far as the rest of the stuff, what's been demonstrated so far is, yeah, every quest interaction has voice and drama, a la FFXI.  Which, honestly, I'm cool with.

Thats not too bad then.  I'm just wary of it devolving into "kill 15 guys to unlock the next bit of story dialog."   If "story" quests seem to have more unique or interesting gameplay, but I can take a break and go bash heads just for the hell of it every so often, its a decent happy medium.  Still doesn't solve the crappy looking gameplay, but at the very least I can wait and  see if they spruce those combat mechanics up a bit.

[caladein]

There won't even be a line to choose from, you just pick an olive branch, a sarcastic mask, or a muscular arm as your dialogue stance. 

Dialogue obfuscation is a good thing.

[Sky]

It's how I hold conversations irl.

[sam, an eggplant]

I'm really looking forward to the NDA dropping.

I'm actually not.  We pretty much already know this is going to be WoW in space.  We've already perceived the combat mechanics and gameplay based on the run-through videos and cake made available.  The only thing the NDA dropping would do is legally unbind testers from ranting about how BW isn't doing Star Wars the "way they would do Star Wars."

Nope. I've been reading the leaks, and I've got shit to say.

[UnSub]

There won't even be a line to choose from, you just pick an olive branch, a sarcastic mask, or a muscular arm as your dialogue stance. 

Dialogue obfuscation is a good thing.

Since when? I hate it in BioWare titles where you choose an option and the character goes off in a completely unexpected direction.

I don't want to be able to predict the conversation, but when I select "No" meaning "I'm not interested" I don't want the character to start a firefight.

[Sjofn]

Eh, that still happens when they spell it out sometimes. I can think of a time or two in DA:O the person I was talking to took what I said the worst way possible. DA2's method worked best for me if I have to have a voiced protagonist, personally. The Shepards go off on weird, unrelated tangents when I pick their dialogue, at least my Hawkes, I know that picking the trollface mask means s/he's going to say something completely inappropriate for the situation. 

Really the problem I have with that personally is, without the lines sitting there for you, there are lines I will never know about because I would never pick it. I am terrible at being a renegade, for example, so most of those lines are wasted. At least the douchebag asshole lines in DA:O, I read, even if I never picked them. If that makes sense.

[Draegan]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

[Ghambit]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Nice interview 'cept for the people walking in front of the camera.  Next time maybe put some flags or cones in the way.
Loved the questions you asked and it looked like Ohlen appreciated them too.  A nice respite from the usual gamereview rhetoric.

[caladein]

Dialogue obfuscation is a good thing.

Since when? I hate it in BioWare titles where you choose an option and the character goes off in a completely unexpected direction.

I don't want to be able to predict the conversation, but when I select "No" meaning "I'm not interested" I don't want the character to start a firefight.

Going off in an unexpected (and unwanted) direction is a risk, but that's worth it to avoid getting a set of lines that are all really off.  That's pretty much the most annoying thing an RPG can do if it hasn't earned it in my opinion.

The most extreme example of this working well is Alpha Protocol.  Its dialogue scenes really should be a massive pain what with their timers and limited, mostly broad-strokes-only, information about what your character's about to say (even compared to ME or DXHR's pheromones) but they're tons of fun.  One's still making informed choices that have an impact on the story but the pacing is worlds better and every dialogue selection doesn't involve reading wildly divergent lines before picking "yours".

I know this has come up before, just tonight in fact in the DXHR thread, but ME2 was such a watershed that games without similar dialogue systems need to be almost pitch-perfect just not to frustrate me.

[Shatter]

I'm just hoping the choices don't boil down to:

Quest Target: So, we meet at last. The famed Jedi, Soandso. Why have you dared to come here?

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock.
2 - Not sure, this guy down the road told me to.
3 - KITTENS! <3

Sith shouldnt even have choices, cmon they are Sith:

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
2 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
3 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock

[Paelos]

Sith choices would be:

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
2 - I came here to gut you and rape your daughter
3 - I came here to gut you and have a sandwich

[Lantyssa]

I'm disappointed the last option wasn't to rape their sandwich.

[Kirth]

I'm disappointed the last option wasn't to rape their sandwich.

That will be in a post release DLC 

[luckton]

I'm disappointed the last option wasn't to rape their sandwich.

That will be in a post release paid-DLC 

 

[01101010]

Sith shouldnt even have choices, cmon they are Sith:

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
2 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
3 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock

You forgot to add ...and ride off on your women.

[Shatter]

Sith shouldnt even have choices, cmon they are Sith:

1 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
2 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock
3 - I came here to gut you and rape your livestock

You forgot to add ...and ride off on your women.

I would happily wear a 3 Amigos outfit and wield a lightsaber in this game

[Draegan]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Nice interview 'cept for the people walking in front of the camera.  Next time maybe put some flags or cones in the way.
Loved the questions you asked and it looked like Ohlen appreciated them too.  A nice respite from the usual gamereview rhetoric.

I had both my partner and david bass (cm) blocking and people still barrelled through.

[Nebu]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Some great information.  Thanks for sharing this!  I like your interview style.

[Sky]

Wish more interviews could be like that, Drae. We may differ on some philosophies, but you definitely have your act together. Audible, concise, you didn't talk over him, you kept on track and had what seemed to be good notes. Only criticism I'll add is that I kept getting distracted by the fighting game behind you guys and the lighting was the wrong way. :)

On the beta weekends, going to be all new tester invites for each weekend (Bass @ PAX).

[Mosesandstick]

Tell me he's saying there's a Tower of Hanoi in the game 

[Evildrider]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Some great information.  Thanks for sharing this!  I like your interview style.

Aye nice interview.  Wish some of the other fan sites would take some lessons from you. 

[Viin]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Was a good interview, I learned some stuff and didn't get bored. Just work on the number of 'ums' a little and they'd be real sharp. 

[Lantyssa]

Tell me he's saying there's a Tower of Hanoi in the game 

He's saying there's a Tower of Hanoi in the game.

[Sheepherder]

Plus Metzen and his buddies are terrible fucking writers. It's hard to give a shit about the story when even the guy writing it doesn't seem to give much of a shit beyond "IS IT METAL ENOUGH?!"

To be fair to the guys, at least they have their priorities straight.

[luckton]

Invites are apparently already going out for this weekend.  Apparently I am not one of them.  Maybe next weekend.

[Bunk]

Here's my interview with James Ohlen from PAX on my new site.  I thought it came out pretty well.  Some good tidbits in there.

My interview from PAX

Nice interview 'cept for the people walking in front of the camera.  Next time maybe put some flags or cones in the way.
Loved the questions you asked and it looked like Ohlen appreciated them too.  A nice respite from the usual gamereview rhetoric.

You clearly have not been to a game convention like PAX.