Pre-release thread discussion

[Mosesandstick]

I really wish there was a way to have different configurations. I don't use the same skills when grouping, soloing and pvping.

[El Gallo]

I'm almost certain that exact thing would have been said about WoW when it came out and EQ was the standard.


I have been unbelievably bored at work today so.... from pre-release WoW threads that are 7 years old:

Thanks for that trip down memory lane.  I think my old vitriol stands the test of time.  I really love that I went out of my way to take a gratuitous potshot at SWG's HAM system.  Damn, I've been pretty awesome for a long time.  


As for SWTOR, the scripted individual stories are a very nice addition (I love Bioware stories, sue me).  The problem is that virtually every other aspect of the game is worse than WoW.  The UI is beyond terrible.  Control feels sluggish, I'm looking at the same mob model for hours on end, constant running back-and-forth during quest chains.  The "you slowly grow into your class role" ability distribution system is frustrating and the decision not to include something like dual-spec hard to comprehend.  And the overall production values just aren't up to snuff.

I preordered the collector's edition like a good nerd and will play though at least a couple classes.  But I was nothing but disappointed about the basic gameplay in the preview weekend.  The thing about WoW when it came out was that it did everything EQ did at least as well if not better, plus it offered something EQ didn't have: quest-based solo levelling.  TOR offers something WoW doesn't have (the scripted character stories) but doesn't match, much less exceed, WoW in other respects.

Take away the single-player story and the vroom-vroom lightsaber sound, and this game is much, much worse than Rift.  That's really unfortunate.  "WoW with Star Wars IP and Bioware stories" would be incredible, and I had some hope that we'd actually get it.  Instead, we get "WoW wannabe with Star Wars IP and Bioware stories."   This time next year, I'll almost certainly be spending most of my time in pandaman land rather than a galaxy far, far away.   But, hey, Bioware will have taken me for at least $300 at that point, so who am I to complain about its choices.  

[Margalis]

According to previous F13 discussion on this topic apparently that just means you use customization as a crutch and aren't good enough at the game to handle it.    "Back in the day" people had to play with bad UIs and they liked it so we should too.

Customization and mods are two different things.

I think it's reasonable to say that a game should be playable without mods and should be designed to be played without mods, balanced at a difficulty level where mods are not considered, etc. However it's also reasonable to say that if a game has X abilities and you are supposed to use them all the UI should make it efficient to use all X of them.

In many games balancing what is available is part of the game design. Maybe you can only have Y weapons or Z abilities active at once and you have to decide what to make available based on your strategy. (For example in Guild Wars and FFXIV you have more abilities than slots for them, but that's not a UI limitation it's an intentional part of the game) But if they are all available and just a pain in the ass to use because of the UI that's bad UI. Customization could fix that but so could better UI design.

[Paelos]

Well I for one am exactly on the same page with you on these points, these are all demonstrable and valid criticisms and not just "personal preferences."

For those wondering, my response was to this. I don't believe personal preferences are valid criticisms of a game in beta. I believe they are certainly valid in a game that is released and qualified by the fact that you understand they will be subjective and may only apply to yourself and/or a small group.

For me I when I think of a criticism, I think of something that is WRONG. And no, I don't believe in art or movie critiques.

[Ingmar]

Perhaps a better choice of words would be "useful" instead of "valid".

EDIT: Or maybe "meaningful".

[Paelos]

Probably but the word used was valid in the post I was referencing. Looking back, not the best choice of words, but it's a forum for games. We're not drafting a constitution.

[Margalis]

The game is coming out in a month, for the most part this is the release game. Fixing the items on Falconeer's list would take months or years in some cases.

[Merusk]

Textures and AA won't, though.   Word in the beta was they were just left turned off for beta.

Hating the style, though? That's so 2004 and - as Sofjn points out - ENTIRELY subjective.

The UI has issues, I don't think anyone's given them kudos for animations (I certainly haven't - and I hate rag doll physics, too, while we're on that topic.)



Hell, I missed Drag's dredging of quotes. That's fantastic. Numtini's is just.. eerie.

[Paelos]

The game is coming out in a month, for the most part this is the release game. Fixing the items on Falconeer's list would take months or years in some cases.

I'll go with Ingmar's choice of words then. Exactly how is "I don't like the graphics," helpful? I mean unless you have some benchmark of what you are looking for exactly?

[Fordel]

You can turn AA and other things back on by fiddling with .ini or whatever. It's turned off because it isn't stable on like half the systems playing the game though. Specifically the ATI half from what the forums tell me.

ATI and SWTOR Devs have both been working the midnight oil on this apparently though. So maybe they'll fix it in time.

[Modern Angel]

Wait, you're bitching about subjective arguments when your entire catalogue of posts for the past six months is subjective bitching about raiding culture and WoW's difficulty?

[Kageru]

I think you could construct an objective view that the graphics are pretty ordinary. Neither detailed and rich like a Skyrim character model nor highly stylised and criminally low-poly like the WoW models. These just look like plastic action figures with accessory packs. In this, but even more so for gameplay, SWTOR deserves criticism because this is a monstrous budget, big-name, AAA title that should be moving the genre forward and charting the next step after wow. Instead it focuses on extending the mechanisms of levelling without adding anything much that is useful within the MMO genre.

And WoW was a huge step up from EQ in its time. The idea of levelling by quests, the richness of the world (which even WoW somewhat lost as everything now is on rails) and the way raid content told a story and had mechanics of amazing depth. There was pretty much nothing in EQ that wasn't done dramatically better in WoW. And the competition was pretty much EQ2 anyway which was like EQ with all the fun taken out.

SWTOR might well be an entertaining game, but it's really a missed opportunity considering the immense amount of energy that has gone into its creation.

Other than that the interesting thing to watch is retention. That will be the measure of the MMO minus the story and hype.

[Shatter]

You can turn AA and other things back on by fiddling with .ini or whatever. It's turned off because it isn't stable on like half the systems playing the game though. Specifically the ATI half from what the forums tell me.

ATI and SWTOR Devs have both been working the midnight oil on this apparently though. So maybe they'll fix it in time.

Ive been playing with AA on for some time now and no problems with my NVidia GPU's.  ATI can DIAF :P

[Fordel]

I can't even turn on Shadows without my frame rate cratering this last build. The build before I was doing fine though, so fuck knows what changed. I don't pretend to understand the technical details of programming and graphics, just if I like the end result or not.

[kildorn]

I leave for a few hours and this thread turns into a debate over the word valid.

This is why you shouldn't make us wait two weeks between the beta and the head start, bioware!

[Tannhauser]

We're playing a meta-game where we are shaping the narrative that SWTOR is a good/terribad game.

[lamaros]

I think most of the people here who are excited for the game are perfectly ok with others not liking it.  The problem is that guys like Falc, AcidCat, and lamaros (who hasn't even played the game) seem to keep posting in utter disbelief that some people like what they don't.  That not everybody agrees with Falc that that the storyline is masking a crappy game underneath, or lamaros not understanding how people can possibly enjoy the story when there are other people around playing through the exact same story as well.

I've said it's not for me, I won't be playing it, and I'm fine with that. I've just asked some questions to try and understand the appeal to others. I haven't said that those people are wrong, or broken, or any such useless shit. Just different to me. That you throw criticisms at the people who ask questions about a game is absurd and offensive.

I haven't posted in any SWTOR thread much at all apart from yesterday and back when it was first announced, I have left all you who enjoy it to enjoying it. Don't be a dick.

(Also you are misrepresenting my questions).

[Sand]

Why are we doing this?

To get to 500  pages and unlock the new raid zone of course.

[Fabricated]

I dunno, I'd describe SWTOR as "stylized" really. Sort of like less cartoony versions of the CG movie characters.



Scenery is decent IMO, armor looks alright when not clownsuited.



And for a bonus here's my gag fat, goony Jedi.

[tmp]

Why are we doing this?

To get to 500  pages and unlock the new raid zone of course.

On that note, the recently released SWTOR tie-in novel apparently sets up ground for appearance of Arthas Revan, and kinda screws the Exile in the process.

[Merusk]

Heh.. fat Jedi reminds me of Hurley. He needs a scruff beard.

[Reg]

Yeah I just read Revan last week. It wasn't very good.  But I guess I at least know how he gets tied back in to current events in SWTOR.

[Margalis]

IMO what makes it look plastic-like is that everything has the same consistency. The skin on the face, the metal bits and the cloth all look to be made of the same material. It's almost as if the game doesn't support spec maps and/or the same shader is used for every poly on the character.

[Fabricated]

Heh.. fat Jedi reminds me of Hurley. He needs a scruff beard.

I tried to make him as neckbeardy as possible.

I'm going to remake him, but I can't decide on a name. Either Lunchmeat or "Pizza". Pizza the Jedi sounds good.

IMO what makes it look plastic-like is that everything has the same consistency. The skin on the face, the metal bits and the cloth all look to be made of the same material. It's almost as if the game doesn't support spec maps and/or the same shader is used for every poly on the character.

Yeah. My guess is that it was done to make characters look like they fit in the environment regardless of graphic settings or the locales they design. Well, I hope there's some design principle behind it at least.

[Numtini]

I like the graphic style. But I think the implementation is kind of bad. The animations just look "off." And there's some glaring horrors--I mentioned it earlier but the entirely static view of the pseudo-"blockade runner" out the viewport in BT was just awful. It reminded me of the pretty awful original intro section of AO. Nothing moves. Until the cavalry comes and then nothing moves other than some laser bursts. It's like some kind of really bad Ed Wood movie or something.

[Paelos]

Wait, you're bitching about subjective arguments when your entire catalogue of posts for the past six months is subjective bitching about raiding culture and WoW's difficulty?

Different game, but the bitching is about them changing their game from something wildly successful with an expansion that's generally agreed upon as a bad step backward/B-team effort. The reasoning is up for debate as usual and I have my theories.

[lamaros]

Wait, you're bitching about subjective arguments when your entire catalogue of posts for the past six months is subjective bitching about raiding culture and WoW's difficulty?

Different game, but the bitching is about them changing their game from something wildly successful with an expansion that's generally agreed upon as a bad step backward/B-team effort. The reasoning is up for debate as usual and I have my theories.

Looks like your glass house is actually a one way mirror; everyone can see in but you can't see out.

[Sand]

Heh.. fat Jedi reminds me of Hurley. He needs a scruff beard.

I tried to make him as neckbeardy as possible.

I'm going to remake him, but I can't decide on a name. Either Lunchmeat or "Pizza". Pizza the Jedi sounds good.

IMO what makes it look plastic-like is that everything has the same consistency. The skin on the face, the metal bits and the cloth all look to be made of the same material. It's almost as if the game doesn't support spec maps and/or the same shader is used for every poly on the character.

Yeah. My guess is that it was done to make characters look like they fit in the environment regardless of graphic settings or the locales they design. Well, I hope there's some design principle behind it at least.

Have you considered Chumlee the Jedi?

[ajax34i]

Looking at Fabricated's pics and thinking about WoW architecture, there are almost too many straight lines in the SWTOR architecture.  Don't know how to explain it, but it's like WoW buildings are trying to avoid having a straight edge.  SWTOR architecture is big and full of straight lines, but the atmospheric haze one would expect at such sizes is missing or wrong.  WoW buildings don't have to deal with that.  SWTOR buildings are in the uncanny valley.

Don't know how to explain it.

[SnakeCharmer]

Having been in the beta and a different test group (Revanites) since January/February, if anyone has any questions about Sentinel / Marauder gameplay, I'll be happy to help.  It was pretty much what I played 70 percent of the time (the other 30 percent was DPS Guardian/Juggernut (totally stealing this 0101010101)).   The general perception is the class is terrible, but it's really far from the truth.  It's a difficult class to play well, but by no means impossible.  Think 'speed chess'.  Or if somebody wants to do class threads, have at it?

[Fordel]

Make a new Thread, we an entire sub-forum to fill now!

[SnakeCharmer]

One big class discussion hodge podge or class specific?2

[Paelos]

Looks like your glass house is actually a one way mirror; everyone can see in but you can't see out.

I still wonder why you are in a forum for a game you have declared you won't even try.

[Fordel]

One big class discussion hodge podge or class specific?2

I'd Break it down by the pairings Bioware use themselves.


Knight/Warrior
BH/Trooper
Smuggler/IA
Consular/Inquisitor


Then we can all play the "I know what my ability is called, but damned if I can remember what my mirrors ability is named!" game.

[Rokal]

And WoW was a huge step up from EQ in its time. The idea of levelling by quests, the richness of the world (which even WoW somewhat lost as everything now is on rails) and the way raid content told a story and had mechanics of amazing depth. There was pretty much nothing in EQ that wasn't done dramatically better in WoW. And the competition was pretty much EQ2 anyway which was like EQ with all the fun taken out.

Remember when EQ2 launched and had graphics designed 'for the future', hardware that didn't exist in the consumer market yet. I'm not a huge fan of SWTOR's graphics, but at least they aren't going for the same awesome tech strategy that EQ2 went for :p