Pre-release thread discussion

[Evildrider]

The way people abuse SR on twitter makes me ashamed to be a part of the gaming community as a whole.

[Ghambit]

My theory is that the pre-release bioware mindfuckery was simply to weed out lazy folk who cant keep up with such drama.  This way, they have a built in mechanism of slowly ramping up server loads and separating the playerbases.  Between the release changes, early-access contest, and patch/client issues it'll be a miracle if anyone even gets to play with their friends the 1st week.

So, the only viable excuse for this sophomoric pre-release performance is some deep seeded conspiratorial reason bioware came up with.  Like, "our servers really arent built for this shit."  Or, "the engine cant really handle more than 20 PC assets onscreen at a time."  Or, whatever.  There has to be a reason.  Right?   

[Furiously]

Never mistake anything for encompetence.

[Evildrider]

From Twitter:

The Old Republic @SWTOR

Eager to find out what server your #SWTOR Guild will be placed on? Your Guild HQ update is coming on Monday!

[Simond]

The way people abuse SR on twitter makes me ashamed to be a part of the gaming community as a whole.

[tmp]

sith inquisitor character progression

[Ghambit]

That's probably the best character progression trailer out of them all.

[Merusk]

The bit where Korm died was quite amusing, based on those of you complaining how squishy he was.

[tmp]

That's probably the best character progression trailer out of them all.

Yeah, got impression they had gotten quite better at how to show off the class skills and whatnot.

Those outfits aren't bad either. I'm toying with the idea of Darth Liberace now.

[Surlyboi]

Never mistake anything for encompetence.

[Simond]

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/121/1214438p1.html

No more beta tests and no more character wipes. Starting on December 13, 2011 those who preordered BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic will be rolled into in the live game before the official launch date of December 20. We'll be playing as soon as we get in, and posting plenty of impressions and video leading up to the official review, which will likely appear several weeks after launch after we've had a chance to adequately explore.

In the meantime, check out what BioWare's game director James Ohlen had to say about the beta, the launch, and how The Old Republic will develop in the near future. For more on the game plays, you'll find plenty of info in our recent beta coverage.

IGN: During beta, which are some of the elements that changed the most and in ways you didn't expect? I mean I saw a post recently about how much the item modding has changed.

James Ohlen: Item modding is a really good one. What happened there was we had this really cool item modding system that had a lot of fans but was incomprehensible to the majority of our players. We wanted to make it more understandable so that more players could get into it because it's a major part of our itemization. It needed to be something that everyone in the game could wrap their heads around but we didn't want to take away all the depth and the coolness that you know the fans of the system saw in it, so we went back to the drawing board, made some changes but it was a little bit controversial because our changes didn't all come in right away. Now that the whole system's in there we've been getting really good, like the last round of feedback on it was really positive so that's good.

IGN: Were there any unexpected things in there in terms of systems that went really well that you didn't think would make much of an impact? Or systems that people reacted to negatively that you thought were okay otherwise?

James Ohlen: Recently there haven't been too many big surprises. It's because we've been testing the game for many, many months now, for more than a year and we've been making adjustments as we've been going along. In this last stage of the game development we've been trying to make sure not to rock the boat too much because if we make too many widespread changes that could result in a whole bunch of bad bugs which we don't want to ship with.

The Old Republic Space Combat

One recent change we did was with Flashpoints. We made it easier for people to get to Flashpoints [The Old Republic's dungeons]. In order to group up to do a Flashpoint were waiting around in the fleet, but that wasn't really a behavior that was conducive to people finding groups because you only want to wait around for so long before you get bored and want to do other stuff. So we introduced breadcrumb quests on the actual worlds and a shuttle on the world could take you to the fleets, so that while you were adventuring say on Alderaan and you came across one of the Flashpoint quests you could start looking for groups right on Alderaan where there's tons of people adventuring. Then when you finally got that group together you could go to the shuttle and go straight to the fleet and get into that Flashpoint. We're doing things that are going to improve the playability of our existing systems and make it easier for players to group, make it easier for players to understand a certain system.

IGN: Moving forward might there be something like a group finder or something like that? An auto-finder implemented into the game?

James Ohlen Some people ask for a dungeon finder system but the thing about those systems is they're really for more of a mature online game. If you put a system in early on it really takes away from the exploration of the level up game. If you have people all just basically waiting around their dungeon finder and all being grouped up together, they're going to actually take the time to explore all the worlds that are available in the Old Republic galaxy. So it's definitely a feature that we want to put in, we just want to put it in at the right time. However, the looking for group feature is something that we continue to work on, we want to make that more robust and more powerful.

IGN: What's the plan for maybe three, six months outside of launch?

James Ohlen: We're careful not to promise a date for any of the features, but I can tell you what we're working on. Guild functionality is something that we're working on right now. The first piece of guild functionality that we want in the game is guild banks. We have a team that's essentially just going to be pumping out new guild functionality on a regular basis. The other thing we're working on, obviously we have multiple teams on Flashpoints and Operations so that's the high level content, some of our best content, the hardest content in the game where you have an epic story. We're continuing to work on those so we have multiple teams working on flashpoints and operations, we have new [player versus player] War Zones planned, we have new open world PvP planned, and we have a team on that as well.

IGN: I was also curious about space combat and how that might evolve. How are the later game missions different from the early game ones and will they ever become sort of a multiplayer experience?

James Ohlen: We're going to continue to add missions. That's another thing that actually surprised us. While we knew that because we weren't doing a freeform X-wing versus Tie Fighter-style space game that we were going to get backlash, that didn't surprise us and obviously we got that feedback a long time ago. We've been working really hard to continue to improve the space game that we have and it's definitely become more popular with our fans with each [beta] iteration. The very last test we had it scored higher than it's ever scored before. I don't think it's going to win over people who want X-wing versus Tie Fighter but I do think people are going to find that it's very evocative of Star Wars and it's a fun activity when you want to take a break from questing. You can go to your own starship and involve yourself in some very awesome Rogue Squadron-y space combat. I can say that we do have a special project going on right now in regards to the space game that will expand the space game in a significant way, but that's not something that's coming right away.

IGN: Can you explain what the Legacy system is meant to be?

James Ohlen: What we're giving at ship is basically just a taste of the Legacy System. It's allowing you to essentially choose your legacy name, essentially your family name. You're creating a family, and you can populate that family with children or siblings, but you can also populate it with friends and henchmen. Even though it's part of a family you can still have aliens or people that aren't actually related to your other characters. This is one of the features that we have a lot of people focused on right now. All the characters in that family tree are going to share the benefits that come from being part of that family and those benefits are going to include new powers, new items, there's going to be a whole bunch of different things that you're able to unlock through the Legacy system.

The inspiration for it is that Star Wars is very much about family, you have the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker so that was what started it off. We also wanted another reason to reward players for playing more than one character. If you decide to be the player who plays the Bounty Hunter and an Imperial Agent and a Jedi Knight, you're actually rewarded for doing that because you know they can all be part of the same family tree.

IGN: In terms of how much content is actually going to be in the game at launch, I assume the majority of what's been mentioned is actually going to make it into the final product. You'll have full story content for every class all the way to the cap as well as the sort of endgame Operations and all the Flashpoints in between that have been talked about?

James Ohlen: We've been working on the project for a long time, but the benefit to that is we've actually been able to polish all of the content from level one to fifty. Every single online game that's come out so far has always had a drop off in quality in terms of the content at a certain level. That drop off doesn't happen in Star Wars the Old Republic. Each of the planets has the same cinematic quality, the amount of effort we put on making the encounters interesting and fun.

IGN: What opportunities are there for each class' storylines to go in different directions? So if I'm playing an Inquisitor, could another Inquisitor storyline not be exactly the same thing as mine? I noticed a few decision points but I didn't really get a sense of what that was actually doing to my overall questing arc.

James Ohlen: One of the things, something we do in every single Bioware game, from originally in Baldur's Gate and then in Dragon Age and Mass Effect in recent times, we always show the player the impact of his actions along the way. The biggest impacts are usually reserved for when a story coming to its close, so you're going to see the big impacts at the end of chapter one for your character and then at the end of chapter two and three. We've also added a system that was very late so players only got to see it in the last testing weekend. The quest givers that you come across and you make decisions with will actually communicate with you afterwards. They can send messages to your starship and if you helped them out they might give you a reward or they might have a funny story about what happened afterwards or they might be cursing you for destroying their lives.

IGN: For graphics options, will there be any additional tweak options you can make just in the menu aside from what we've seen in beta when the game goes live?

James Ohlen: We have some. Some of the textures we had were messed up a little, we've fixed that up. Anti-aliasing is something that we're going to have in either right after launch or for launch. It's just something that we had on very late so that's another graphical option that you're going to be able to have access to.

IGN: How confident are you that you can handle the rush of players on launch day and in the early access leading up to the official launch day?

James Ohlen: We had more people coming in faster [during the latest beta phase] than what our limits are for launch so launch should be easier than that weekend. I like to knock on wood when I say that because I don't want to curse it but that weekend went very well so we're pretty confident.

IGN: In terms of the actual strategy for bringing content out, I mean I know you can't discuss specific schedules but will fairly major content will be patched into the game for paying subscribers or might that be locked behind some sort of pricing wall? Are you holding most major content for some larger content release further down the line?

James Ohlen: No, we're going to be releasing major content to subscribers. They're not going to have to pay anything extra for the major content. We're going to be doing that regularly. It's going to be significant, you're going to be able to travel to entirely new worlds in the galaxy and you're not going to have to pay to have to do that. Now obviously we also have an expansion pack planned but that's, you know, much farther into the future.

I know there's been some talk about [user interface customization] amongst our fans and is something that they're very passionate about. That's another thing that we have a team working on, to players a lot more power to essentially adjust their UI so they can move UI elements around, they can change the size or the alignment of it, and essentially customize how they get to play the game.

So, to sum up:
No dungeon finder yet because it's against their Vision (tm) at the present time.
Guild Banks and new content Soon (tm).
And Bioware thinks UI customisation means "resizing windows" instead of "fixing their broken-arse default one via mods".

[Paelos]

I'm ok with resizing windows if I can move them around.

Seriously, the way some of you talk about the UI it sounds like it raped your eyeballs.

[Tyrnan]

Yeah, I really don't get all the hate on their UI. Aesthetically I really like it and it feels quite Star Wars-y. Just let me move it, resize it, add target-of-target and skill forwarding and I'll be like a pig in bantha poodoo.

Edit: and do something with the companion bar, current implementation is a complete pita to use.

[Nevermore]

Yeah, moving and resizing all the UI elements is all I really want.

[Merusk]

I have 2 gripes with it.

1) The inability to scale it up or down.  Maybe I have a big fucking screen and play at 1640x1050 and would like the icons smaller than my goddamn thumb, yeah?
2) The inability to move pieces.  Chat on top and button bar on the left and right? No thanks.

It doesn't make it unplayable but it is damn annoying.  

[Sky]

Moving and resizing is all I wanted. I agree with Jimmy O about the dungeon finder, it's not a huge deal for the early days.

But by now I think we all know who falls on which side of those issues and why 

[Mattemeo]

Hell, I'll be satisfied with just being able to move things around. At 1080p res the UI isn't too badly scaled, but placements piss me off. Whoever thought putting the chat window in the top left corner was a good idea needs a slap. Doing something different for the sake of difference alone is stupid, especially when it comes to something pretty much every MMO I've ever known has agreed on being the ideal position for something as critical.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I really don't get all the hate on their UI. Aesthetically I really like it and it feels quite Star Wars-y. Just let me move it, resize it, add target-of-target and skill forwarding and I'll be like a pig in bantha poodoo.

Edit: and do something with the companion bar, current implementation is a complete pita to use.

Those cover all my complaints too, really.

[Fabricated]

Argh, if you're going to take away anything from WoW, take away that Addons are fucking great and as long as you sandbox them properly you essentially get the PLAYERS to do the hardwork of unfucking your interface.

[Nevermore]

The only mods I was using in WoW at the end had nothing to do with the UI: Recount, Auctioneer, Bad Kitty, Spellstealer and Altoholic iirc.  So I can't say I'd really miss mods as long as I could set the layout of the stock UI as I pleased.

[Maledict]

No dungeon finder because it stops the sense of exploration?

How the fuck is standing outside a dungeon entrance spamming 'lfg' exploring? Seriously? Just admit you haven't had time to put one in and it's coming ASAP because 99% of the player base won't touch an instance without it.

[Simond]

TOR does not have:
Threat metres.
Target of target.
Reliable tab targetting.
A combat log.
Proc/powerauras tracking.

All of the above except the combat log were added to the stock WoW UI after being in add-ons. You're going to miss them more than you think, especially if you have any plans on tanking in dungeons/raids.

[Sjofn]

While I don't buy the "the EXPLORATION" thing, early on in a game's career you'll run into a lot of people looking to do the same flashpoints as you easily enough. It's once that initial rush is over that the lack of dungeon finder is going to be annoying.

[tmp]

TOR does not have:
Threat metres.
Target of target.
Reliable tab targetting.
A combat log.
Proc/powerauras tracking.

All of the above except the combat log were added to the stock WoW UI after being in add-ons. You're going to miss them more than you think, especially if you have any plans on tanking in dungeons/raids.

LoTRO has only target of target (and i suppose the 'reliable tab targetting' since dunno what defines it, so i'll presume it's reliable) Oh, and combat log which i never look at. Could do 12 people raids in it fine, so doubt going to miss the others listed, really...

[Evildrider]

TOR does not have:
Threat metres.
Target of target.
Reliable tab targetting.
A combat log.
Proc/powerauras tracking.

All of the above except the combat log were added to the stock WoW UI after being in add-ons. You're going to miss them more than you think, especially if you have any plans on tanking in dungeons/raids.

Other than Target of Target and a decent Tab Targeting those other things aren't necessary.

[caladein]

The only mods I was using in WoW at the end had nothing to do with the UI: Recount, Auctioneer, Bad Kitty, Spellstealer and Altoholic iirc.  So I can't say I'd really miss mods as long as I could set the layout of the stock UI as I pleased.

That's because over the years Blizzard has taken the more popular mods and incorporated them into the base interface or designed the game to emulate their functions in more useful ways.

As an example, before Wrath of the Lich King, threat was completely invisible to a player not running mods to calculate it.

Edit: And the need for threat meters is dependent on game design.  You only need them in WoW now in cases with an extreme difference in gear levels for the most part.  In SWTOR, especially with the large amount of ranged attackers, there's no real sense of how much a tank has under control at a glance.  I'd like to have them or something along the lines of useful nameplates.

I'd also like a buff display I can filter and customize.  Having to go by a tiny icon and fading effect for a relatively essential class mechanic like Tactical Advantage is a massive pain in the ass.  Compared to the energy pip display which is quite well done (even if it doesn't factor in buffs).

[Nevermore]

TOR does not have:
Threat metres.
Target of target.
Reliable tab targetting.
A combat log.
Proc/powerauras tracking.

All of the above except the combat log were added to the stock WoW UI after being in add-ons. You're going to miss them more than you think, especially if you have any plans on tanking in dungeons/raids.

That's a nice list of things I don't need.  Well, except for the tab targeting but that should always be part of the core design anyway.

Yeah, I used Bad Kitty which was a sort of power aura thing I suppose, but that was more out of laziness than need.  Threat meters only creep up to 'necessary' if the stuff you're fighting wrecks non-tanks in 3 seconds, which is more a case of bad design than bad UI in my opinion.

[calapine]

TOR does not have:
Threat metres.
Target of target.
Reliable tab targetting.
A combat log.
Proc/powerauras tracking.

Who needs that crap? And yes, I used all those...but really these tools should be reminders of a time to be ashamed off.
I mean threat meters, analyzing combat logs, proc tracking...really. I used to be a proud warrior leader of the 2nd best raid group on Argent Dawn-EU and Field Marshall during the pre-Arathi Basin days, when it still meant something. But I have grown up since.

Poopsocking is not a badge of honor.

[Velorath]

No dungeon finder because it stops the sense of exploration?

How the fuck is standing outside a dungeon entrance spamming 'lfg' exploring? Seriously? Just admit you haven't had time to put one in and it's coming ASAP because 99% of the player base won't touch an instance without it.

It's not that standing outside a dungeon is exploring, I think it's the fact that being able to queue up for dungeons, and getting auto-grouped and teleported there then becomes the quickest way to get xp and typically the best loot which discourages people from doing any of the other content.

[Sjofn]

No good target of target and skill forwarding is annoying, that's not a poopsocking issue, that's a "I want to group with more than just me" issue.

[Nebu]

Target of target makes pvp trivial as does tab targetting.  Combat log allows for 3rd party parsers. 

Not that pvp is the focus or anything... Just saying. 

[Sjofn]

Target of target and tab targetting in PvP is a good thing. There, I said it.

[kildorn]

Power Auras and it's cousins are game mechanics based. If you have a system where there are a bunch of "if X procs, do Y", it becomes a required system. Because the alternative is to stare at the far corner of your screen waiting for icons to appear. The point of it is not "make me a better player", it's "let me look at the action, not *random UI element*"

It's very much related to the movable UI complaint: right now in TOR if you want to use your character/group to it's full extent there is FAR too much eye movement across the screen and away from the pretty game to try and get all the information you need. You are basically sweeping from Health Bars to Energy/Force/Ammo to ability cooldowns to buffs in a rotation, assuming you never need the chat window and are using voice.

UI mods try to drag most of that required information into a central location so you can focus more on the game and less on trying to find the data you need to play it.

[Fordel]

Target of target makes pvp trivial as does tab targetting.  Combat log allows for 3rd party parsers. 

Not that pvp is the focus or anything... Just saying. 

No it doesn't?

[caladein]

A combat log is essential to have in the game.  It may not be essential to the vast majority of players, but it's an important tool to have in a game that's even slightly complicated.

Just this past week, the only thing I could add to a bug report if I didn't have a combat log was "my pet died when it went to attack this mob", if I was less attentive about it, I might not even be able to say that it actually died.  With a combat log, I could see that nothing is credited with killing it and that it did get an attack or two off before it mysteriously died.  This is useful information for the developers so they can fix issues and make a better game.

More broadly, this isn't a game that's designed to tell you at every moment why or how something happened through animations or explicit cues.  Without a combat log, there is no combat memory, all the player has are the bars as they are now and some numbers flying around.

Also, parsers are a red herring.  A developer can simply not expose the combat log through an API or by dumping to an external file.  Moreover, what is actually exposed to the player, at all, can be customized.  LotRO for example only shows the player's information, no one else's.