SWTOR

[Evildrider]

3:10: Question: Is there a dungeon finder? Answer: James Ohlen: Works for established games, not in yet.

http://darthhater.com/2011/10/14/nycc-2011-main-panel-live-blog/

Is that good enough?  Can we carry on now?

You know you are on f13 right?   

[Rokal]

Is that good enough?  Can we carry on now?

You'll never get to 400 pages with that attitude.

[stray]

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place. You can't even have an enjoyable world in a coop experience. Let alone an mmo. Even your own friends will fuck up your immersion.

You're doing it wrong if playing with friends screws things up for you.  Mine only enhance it.

They might enhance it as players, I'll give you that. But it contributes nothing to immersion or a character-oriented experience. And I like those kind of experiences btw. No different than, say, being 9 yrs old and playing Contra with a friend. It just depends on the type of game.

You're better off with scripted party members.

OTOH, I recall Alistair in Dragon Age being an impatient asshole too. "The sitting and waiting around part is..... AWESOME."

[Kageru]

To be fair, I also remember the initial WoW looking-for-group/member tool (if there was one?) being complete ass. I never had any issues finding a group to do whatever in games with a decent lfg tool (DAoC, CoH, EQ2 all spring to mind).

The LFG system wow launched with was the best. You could tick a box to indicate you wanted to group. Other people could do a /who and see name, class and level of those looking for group (physical location too I think). All the group building was thus under the players control. Of course the problem is that some people or classes didn't get groups so the meeting stones were about taking control out of the players hands. And the players pretty much universally rejected that.

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place.

I actually agree that the idea of story-telling based MMO is an inherently dumb and wasteful idea. That doesn't change the fact that this is precisely what they are trying to do.

[Fordel]

Taking control out of the players hand for forming random groups was not why people hated Meeting Stones.


Meetings stones required you to haul ass to the dungeon, wait by the stone and hope anyone else who wanted that dungeon also hauled ass to the dungeon entrance too. It was actually dumber then spamming general AND less efficient. Hell it was less effective then standing outside the dungeon entrance and spamming /yell or /say 

[Kageru]

Oh, yeah, had forgotten that was the first stage of meeting stones, that was pretty dumb. Though it looks like three months later they extended it so you could use any inn-keeper.

[Cyrrex]

If they really wanted to create a world, complete with storytelling, then they wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place.

I actually agree that the idea of story-telling based MMO is an inherently dumb and wasteful idea. That doesn't change the fact that this is precisely what they are trying to do.

This is basically what I thought when they originally announced this game.  I still sort of see the point, but I'm fairly confident now that this game will succeed in spite of the illogical combination.  The best possible outcome for this game would have been a newer, shinier KOTOR 3 through 8 that you could play with your friends....and that looks to be exactly what they are going to pull off. 

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

[Stabs]

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

Explain what you mean by critical success.

I mean obviously there will be some acclaim simply because of the money spent. Best Box Art or Best Voice-Acting from a Welsh-accented Actor are categories it may well win. Or more seriously best Voice Acting, Best Art etc.

But as a game what critical acclaim can it win? It's a choose-my-own adventure laid over a WoW clone. It's not actually doing anything to make a critic sit up, is it?

Maybe it is, I haven't been following this one. Is my impression about its lack of originality off-base? Or do you consider LFD in a different font worthy of winning game design awards if it's a really nice font?

[stray]

The best possible outcome for this game would have been a newer, shinier KOTOR 3 through 8 that you could play with your friends....and that looks to be exactly what they are going to pull off.  

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

It's not KoToR if it's multiplayer. If there's one thing that makes a Bioware game what it is, it's that your party are all NPCs with side stories/quests/friendship requirements/etc. Having a Carth or Viconia in your team is a completely different idea than multiplayer. That's where all fun and good writing has ever been with their games.

That isn't to say it's necessarily going to be a bad game for what it is, but why call it KoToR? The only relation between the two is that it's Star Wars.

[Furiously]

The best possible outcome for this game would have been a newer, shinier KOTOR 3 through 8 that you could play with your friends....and that looks to be exactly what they are going to pull off.  

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

It's not KoToR if it's multiplayer. If there's one thing that makes a Bioware game what it is, it's that your party are all NPCs with side stories/quests/friendship requirements/etc. Having a Carth or Viconia in your team is a completely different idea than multiplayer. That's where all fun and good writing has ever been with their games.

That isn't to say it's necessarily going to be a bad game for what it is, but why call it KoToR? The only relation between the two is that it's Star Wars.

Because you have 5 npc companions???

[stray]

*closes ears* blah blah i didn't hear that.

Must keep the faith. Wtf is wrong with you people?!

[Cyrrex]

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

Explain what you mean by critical success.

I mean obviously there will be some acclaim simply because of the money spent. Best Box Art or Best Voice-Acting from a Welsh-accented Actor are categories it may well win. Or more seriously best Voice Acting, Best Art etc.

But as a game what critical acclaim can it win? It's a choose-my-own adventure laid over a WoW clone. It's not actually doing anything to make a critic sit up, is it?

Maybe it is, I haven't been following this one. Is my impression about its lack of originality off-base? Or do you consider LFD in a different font worthy of winning game design awards if it's a really nice font?

Heh, perhaps I shouldn't have used such loaded phrasing.  All I meant is that the general population of gaming "journalists" will give it the typical 9 out of 10 stars (that's my guess), and the rest of the foozles are going to buy the shit out of it.  I didn't mean to imply Academy Awards or anything.

If it really does have all the content that it claims to have, and if that content is anything like , well, I think they will easily hook a lot of people beyond the first free month.

[Sheepherder]

Stray, you can play Baldur's Gate over LAN.

[stray]

That's a lame as playing Diablo single player.

[Stabs]

I think this game is going to be a BIG success, both critically and commercially.

Explain what you mean by critical success.

I mean obviously there will be some acclaim simply because of the money spent. Best Box Art or Best Voice-Acting from a Welsh-accented Actor are categories it may well win. Or more seriously best Voice Acting, Best Art etc.

But as a game what critical acclaim can it win? It's a choose-my-own adventure laid over a WoW clone. It's not actually doing anything to make a critic sit up, is it?

Maybe it is, I haven't been following this one. Is my impression about its lack of originality off-base? Or do you consider LFD in a different font worthy of winning game design awards if it's a really nice font?

Heh, perhaps I shouldn't have used such loaded phrasing.  All I meant is that the general population of gaming "journalists" will give it the typical 9 out of 10 stars (that's my guess), and the rest of the foozles are going to buy the shit out of it.  I didn't mean to imply Academy Awards or anything.

If it really does have all the content that it claims to have, and if that content is anything like , well, I think they will easily hook a lot of people beyond the first free month.

Oh I agree with that. I'm sure it will be worth playing for a while - long enough to see at least 2 or 3 storylines plus to play Lightsabre Warsong Gulch a bit.

And of course there are gaming sites that have categories like MMO of the year so obviously SWTOR is a strong contender for best MMO of 2011.

Is it a "9.0"? Possibly because of the way these sites work. Audio 9.5 Art 9.5 Animations 9.5 Voice Acting 9.5 Gameplay 7.5 aggregate score = 9.0. A game can get 9.0 without having much long lasting appeal just by being very polished, very expensively crafted.

[Chimpy]

Is it a "9.0"? Possibly because of the way these sites work. Audio 9.5 Art 9.5 Animations 9.5 Voice Acting 9.5 Gameplay 7.5 aggregate score = 9.0. A game can get 9.0 without having much long lasting appeal just by being very polished, very expensively crafted.

Or by paying the game reviewer to give them a good review.

[Lantyssa]

It's not KoToR if it's multiplayer. If there's one thing that makes a Bioware game what it is, it's that your party are all NPCs with side stories/quests/friendship requirements/etc. Having a Carth or Viconia in your team is a completely different idea than multiplayer. That's where all fun and good writing has ever been with their games.

You do know Balder's Gate had multi-player, right?

[Sky]

Is it a "9.0"? Possibly because of the way these sites work. Audio 9.5 Art 9.5 Animations 9.5 Voice Acting 9.5 Gameplay 7.5 aggregate score = 9.0. A game can get 9.0 without having much long lasting appeal just by being very polished, very expensively crafted.

Or by paying the game reviewer to give them a good review.

Or by being an awesome game.

[eldaec]

It's not KoToR if it's multiplayer. If there's one thing that makes a Bioware game what it is, it's that your party are all NPCs with side stories/quests/friendship requirements/etc. Having a Carth or Viconia in your team is a completely different idea than multiplayer. That's where all fun and good writing has ever been with their games.

You do know Balder's Gate had multi-player, right?

This was covered earlier, apparently if you activated that feature you were doing it wrong.

Is it a "9.0"? Possibly because of the way these sites work. Audio 9.5 Art 9.5 Animations 9.5 Voice Acting 9.5 Gameplay 7.5 aggregate score = 9.0. A game can get 9.0 without having much long lasting appeal just by being very polished, very expensively crafted.

Or by paying the game reviewer to give them a good review.

Or by being an awesome game.

Stop responding to a ridiculous straw man argument.

[stray]

It's not KoToR if it's multiplayer. If there's one thing that makes a Bioware game what it is, it's that your party are all NPCs with side stories/quests/friendship requirements/etc. Having a Carth or Viconia in your team is a completely different idea than multiplayer. That's where all fun and good writing has ever been with their games.

You do know Balder's Gate had multi-player, right?

Someone already used that one on me. And I said it was lame. The only reason it was probably there was to offer something that was being popularized by Diablo. Yet it wasn't made to be a game like that. It was partly turn based, exceeds even most single player games in length, and much of the content, or at least charm, was from npc interactions. I'm not going to tell anyone else how to play it or anything like that, but nonetheless, multiplayer was not a selling point.. I'll say that.

[Sky]

Stop responding to a ridiculous straw man argument.

If I only had a brain!

[01101010]

Stop responding to a ridiculous straw man argument.

If I only had a brain!

 

[eldaec]

I suppose I shouldn't really complain, thanks to Stray we're picking up speed again - getting back toward a page a day.

64 days till launch and still 71 pages to reach 400.

[Nevermore]

I don't know, nor really care why.  I'm in it partly because an old friend wanted me to join, and partly for other reasons.  Totally self-serving reasons.

So how hot is she? 

[Ingmar]

The multiplayer in BG2 really was pretty lame, but it enabled you to make your own entire party if you wanted or hated using NPCs for some reason or something (see: WUA's thing) so it wasn't completely worthless.

[Amaron]

You know with all the comments about community I'm curious how many of you actually want to go back to EQ style dungeons?   I'm sure there are a few of you who are instance haters.   

Let's aim for 500.

[Sky]

Honestly, I used to have a ton of fun camping lower guk with my rl buddy and his "girlfriend" (creepy online thing). I was a necro, he was a wizard and she was a druid. We rocked that place pretty hard.

But there's no way I'd want to do that now, unless I quit my job and set up another LAN with him and a bong. Half-hour spawn time + camps = zzzzZZzzZ

[kildorn]

Millions of players. One 6 hour respawn mob with the key to the next zone.  Epic combination!

Seriously, new MMOs have time grinds and such that are annoying as shit. But compared to EQ's era? Keying? Corpse runs? Trains? Camp checks? Who the fuck would play that game on anything but the most unpopulated 50 person server? Walking into a cave and running into someone else clearing it is fun, it's neat. It feels like a living world. It's also completely unworkable once you walk into a cave and find that 60 people have every single monster spawn camped and the list can fit you in sometime around next month.

A lot of the things we find compelling that pulled us in to our old MMOs were either new gimmicks that we remember far too fondly (pretty much everything DAOC did, imo), or things that simply don't scale in a game with thousands of people playing in the same level range simultaneously.

edit: in the overworld player housing is a good example of failure to scale: it was neat in UO, due to player density. I cannot imagine what it would have to look like in WoW. There is a lot of land mass in WoW, and there still wouldn't be enough for housing to look like anything but urban sprawl across every zone in the game.

[Amaron]

I wasn't arguing for it.  I see people say they don't like instances though so I'm curious what the hell the solution would be.

[kildorn]

I know, that's just my take on why things like instancing and such have taken hold. Yes, they're less world-y than seeing other players as you explore. But I can't think of any way to scale an MMO without either hard capping server populations at something stupidly low, eliminating levels and skills and gear entirely so the entire world is non linear and you can do anything at any time to prevent player concentration, or instancing the fuck out of things.

[Sjofn]

my rl buddy and his "girlfriend" (creepy online thing)

Don't hate, man.

[Shatter]

I wasn't arguing for it.  I see people say they don't like instances though so I'm curious what the hell the solution would be.

EQ1 was like sleeping with your buddies wife, it feels wrong and you know its all kinds of bad but you did it anyhow cause you want the happy ending.  Instances are like hookers, its faster and easy and come with less B*llshit, just get er done and move on.  

[Numtini]

I didn't terribly mind camping outdoors, but in a dungeon it felt absolutely ludicrous. You're supposed to crawl a dungeon. So I'm pro-instance. I wouldn't mind more games adding multi-group instances though. There were a couple in AO where there was enough room for two or three groups to run around and it was a nice mix of being able to bump into other people without having a waiting list like EQ.

EQ2 and WoW before the random dungeon finder thing was about perfect. In WoW, their prior-to-random tool was fantastic. I rarely took more than 5 minutes to find a group. I'd fill out the dungeons I wanted, watch the chat, and it was easy. In EQ2 it was the same, only there it was entirely by the level based chats. And I met people and grouped with them or others in their guild again and again if we got along. And there were some guilds I'd never group with because I'd had multiple bad experiences with them. And all that wasn't so much about success or failure, but just about who was fun to game with.

[palmer_eldritch]

Forgive me for ruining the theorycrafting by constantly bringing up an actual game but EQ2 has a load of non-instanced dungeons and no camp checks, corpse runs, finding that other people have every single monster spawn camped or anything like that. You don't camp, you run around killing things.

Non-instanced dungeons doesn't mean a game is a clone of EQ1. You had non-instanced dungeons before EQ1 too, in Ultima Online, and no camps there either (except maybe for the PKs camping the entrance to Covetous)

[Amaron]

I don't remember any non instanced dungeons with good gear drops.  I couldn't stand EQ2 very long though so how the hell does that work?   They just clone the same boss everywhere?