Star Wars: The Old Republic
KungFuDiscoMonkey
Creator of ns_altair日本福岡県 Join Date: 2003-03-15 Member: 14555Members, NS1 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos
Creator of ns_altair日本福岡県 Join Date: 2003-03-15 Member: 14555Members, NS1 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">We pretty much guessed this was coming</div><a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/6199726.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=topstory&tag=topstory;title" target="_blank">http://www.gamespot.com/news/6199726.html?...=topstory;title</a>
I really enjoyed the old SWG before all the rule changes. Perhaps I should remain cautiously optimistic about this one.
I really enjoyed the old SWG before all the rule changes. Perhaps I should remain cautiously optimistic about this one.
Comments
But then again it's more a matter of differing expectations.. what makes MMOs so successful is what I hate most in games.
Carrot-on-a-stick gameplay? Combat and competition and gameplay for the masses?
Ugh<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can't speak for everyone else, but what made the old SWG so appealing to me was that there was so much non-combat and non-grinding stuff you could do.
"Mayor" was a class, for god's sake. You could level up "mayor" and run a player town. Or you could literally make an in-game living moisture farming, or being a tailor etc...
I spent an inordinate amount of time hanging around a house I'd put in the middle of the desert and yelling at the "damn kids" to "git the hell offa mah property", because I have a juvenile sense of humour.
But then again it's more a matter of differing expectations.. what makes MMOs so successful is what I hate most in games.
Carrot-on-a-stick gameplay? Combat and competition and gameplay for the masses?
Ugh
what would get me excited, however, is planetside done right with an ultima-style consequence. no 'fight back and forth, just with more players' (although that sounds awesome) --- actual consequences. Sure, you may have to entirely reset the game world and design a plot-based development when one side wins utterly, catering to specific deciding battles, but that's why I'm paying $20 a month you jerks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have to agree.
<!--quoteo(post=1691057:date=Oct 22 2008, 04:32 AM:name=X_Stickman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(X_Stickman @ Oct 22 2008, 04:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1691057"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I can't speak for everyone else, but what made the old SWG so appealing to me was that there was so much non-combat and non-grinding stuff you could do.
"Mayor" was a class, for god's sake. You could level up "mayor" and run a player town. Or you could literally make an in-game living moisture farming, or being a tailor etc...
I spent an inordinate amount of time hanging around a house I'd put in the middle of the desert and yelling at the "damn kids" to "git the hell offa mah property", because I have a juvenile sense of humour.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Were you the one with "Dance Commander" or am I thinking of someone else?
And take away the Jedi's awesomeness in Star Wars and you're left with classic good guy vs classic bad guys in space.
Also those screenshots look naff. The lightsabers look as large as the PC's thighs.
Dance Command<b>o</b>. He danced his way up from the mean streets of tattooine to become the man he is today, and once danced a rancor to death with his silky smooth moves.
But if the gameplay is anything remotely resembling "good" I'm sure I will be addicted.
These kind of things lead me to believe the game is going to be a much more solo / small group based game with a focus on doing instances and/or NPC missions. That disappoints me. Hopefully I can become more excited for this game as more information is released.
Am I the only one who doesn't want to be a "hero?" Being a nobody and trying to survive in a star wars universe sounds far more fun than being one of countless Jedi running around trying to progress their personal story, or whatever.
Too bad they destroyed SWG.
Let's run this through the Lucasartslator, shall we?
Oooh, it comes out with several things!
1. Everyone gets to be the one who brings balance to the force, yay!
2. Hey, you'll still grind for us like the ######es you are, but we'll put in some plot text boxes for you to read!
3. We'll make sure each <Quest> (Placeholder for whatever we end up calling them just to differentiate ourselves from the other MMO's) links into 3 more. They will all involve going to X and killing Y of Z.
I'm totally with eediot here. Surely the reason I'm being asked to pay every month for the rest of my gaming time, as opposed to a one off is to fund two primary things: One, ongoing maintenance of the platform. Yeah, I work with networks, I know how much that costs, it's not £10 per client per month. Two, ongoing development of the game & human management where players can feel 'GM' does not translate to 'Customer Services'.
Weirdly, the last time I think anyone did that actively was back in UO days, and even then it was pretty scarce.
Oooh, it comes out with several things!
1. Everyone gets to be the one who brings balance to the force, yay!
2. Hey, you'll still grind for us like the ######es you are, but we'll put in some plot text boxes for you to read!
3. We'll make sure each <Quest> (Placeholder for whatever we end up calling them just to differentiate ourselves from the other MMO's) links into 3 more. They will all involve going to X and killing Y of Z.
I'm totally with eediot here. Surely the reason I'm being asked to pay every month for the rest of my gaming time, as opposed to a one off is to fund two primary things: One, ongoing maintenance of the platform. Yeah, I work with networks, I know how much that costs, it's not £10 per client per month. Two, ongoing development of the game & human management where players can feel 'GM' does not translate to 'Customer Services'.
Weirdly, the last time I think anyone did that actively was back in UO days, and even then it was pretty scarce.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The business model must work or they wouldn't be making more MMO's. They're not for everyone, anyway. They're for people with an addictive personality and/or people who value being able to lose themselves in a virtual world with a bunch of friends. Sure, maybe Blizzard, for example, could still make money with a Guild Wars business model, but why in God's name would they, when they can make 10 times more money charging for subscriptions?
Well, correction, bad MMOs trying to rip off WoW need to die.
Let's face it, WoW has a pretty darn good setup. And they have a couple extra years of tweaks to get it right. You gotta really do something special to out WoW, not to mention manage to get critical mass of players to make a real community feel.
The trouble is there are too many other MMOs coming out, and too many WoW copy-cats. The only major contender is FFXI, maybe Guild Wars in 3rd, but they've older, established, and have a decent fan base. FFXI from the FF fanboys, and Guild Wars from the balanced PvP + don't want to pay monthly people.
The only unique MMO I know of is EVE, but that's from the space system and the giant player driven economy and such. Having a giant corporation is insane. Unfortunately, it suffers if you want to go solo since it's main appeal is PvP and that's all its got.
Ah, but there lies the fault. The FPS has actually developed. New features, even new sub-genres have emerged. Tactical FPS games are a divergent move from the tradition run-and-gun games. New features in the HUD, storytelling skills, etc. have made the FPS stay interesting. And the lame ripoffs? I hate them just as much. A few exceptions of course, but I expect my FPS games to have a kind of flair, something that they add to the game or tweaked to make it awesome. The RTS genre has evolved even further, ranging from massive SupComm wars to micro heavy CoH games.
MMOs don't seem to have gotten to that point yet. Also, most improvements tend to not help. Many times the UI tweaks don't allow the versatility people want. It's often a rehash of the classic classes. There's way too many go collect X of some item quests. I'm not saying these are bad, they're what have made WoW huge. I'm just saying there's too many trying to simply re-create the WoW phenomenon by ripping it off. There needs to be some more creativity.
MMOs don't seem to have gotten to that point yet. Also, most improvements tend to not help. Many times the UI tweaks don't allow the versatility people want. It's often a rehash of the classic classes. There's way too many go collect X of some item quests. I'm not saying these are bad, they're what have made WoW huge. I'm just saying there's too many trying to simply re-create the WoW phenomenon by ripping it off. There needs to be some more creativity.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To say the MMO genre hasn't evolved that much is ludicrous. Its one of the oldest genres on PCs, and has dozens of kinds of incarnations today, let alone the innovation many of them provide.
Meridian 59 and 2 decades of MUDs say hi
If you're talking UI, thats UI. But to say that MMOs are not direct descendents of MUDs is just plain stupid. And the difference between a MUD/MMO and Neopets can be pointed to rather easily. Neopets is about the metagame- its a social network, with a loose game with rules that don't always apply around it. There are MMO-ish features, but the difference is, is that what you did in old MUDs, you do similarly in most modern MMOs. Whereas with Neopets, its a completely different gameplay style, top to bottom.
There may have been elements transferred or taken as inspiration, but you can't translate a MUDs combat system to a graphical game. MMOs certainly have evolved and developed, but not from MUDs. They're just both examples of a certain genre -- not related in practice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How many MUDs have you even played? So many staples of MMO combat come from MUDs. Auto-attack being the most instantly recognizable. Mixing specific moves and abilities in during auto-attack is traditional. Casting, and waiting to get feedback to cast your next spell, all were in MUDs from a long, long time ago. They originally did things that way for the same reason they do now- to conserve bandwidth.
There are a lot more similarities than you think.
/still wish that random guard of some rural mafia boss didn't parry my lightsaber with a piece of metal in KOTOR I and II.