Bad PR from SWTOR, why?

[Pr0]

Blur is the problem.

Blur made DCUO look incredible. Theres been an untold amount of money paid out to Blur on TOR trailers and those CGI trailers make it look incredible.

The in engine art is cartoony, sub-realistic and the overall refinement options at the character level are, well, it looks like they're trying to capitalize on the Clone Wars cartoons to be honest.

Gameplay wise, you have the generalistic MMO mechanics in place since EQ and a lot of what you'd expect from WoW, only instead of the relatively impersonal quest window that you and a million other players get, you get a slightly more personal experience in of which you have a threaded story dependent on your chosen class which you and several other hundred thousand people will experience "personally" to make the game feel more "epic".

Then you of course have the bolted in BioWare conversation wheel to make you feel like you're actually making choices that are going to alter the relatively linear storyline you're stuck in. And voila, kaching goes the cash register.

Far as the game not having been in beta "that long" I was in a beta squadron for TOR last year. They'd been testing for a good while before that. Everyone in my test squadron threw the exact same issues at them. The combat is stilted and predictable, the animations look like they were ripped almost part and parcel out of KoTOR and the art is only what I'd call minimally better.

Whats worse is the worlds of TOR suffer from the same problems all "worlds" of every MMO suffer, things just stand around in clustered areas waiting to be killed. When I was testing once I worked out the minimal agro radius of the enemies in the area I was in I could literally thread my way through the place with no consequences at all.

Not to mention the whole generic tanking/healing/control/DD aspects of MMO classes being brutally evident when I tested, literally one of the primary tanking classes having absolutely zero damage mitigation capabilities other than to stand there and outlast incoming damage by virtue of having a larger HP pool and armor factor than the things shooting/attacking it....and I was just thoroughly unimpressed with what I saw, especially for all the time and money thats gone into the game.

And the big problem is if they'd not latched on to the MMO mechanics that work for WoW and had actually worked harder to make their game play and art design more closely resemble the pure visual awesome that Blur Studios is making the game out to be in trailer after trailer....we'd have ended up with something that was new and breaking new ground in the industry.

All we really have, to be honest, is character creation system that makes people look like retarded plastic action figures, WoW style MMO combat dynamics, and the only upside is BioWare's story based approach to character progression and thats about it....but when it comes down to it, everything you see in WoW...its in TOR.

It is my belief after watching this title go from a rumor to actually beta testing it to now seeing its "game play" conditions as it nears its potential release that EA and BioWare literally decided that if its good enough for Blizzard its good enough for them, and all they really needed to do was tack on a few original bits, and it would somehow make the title competitive.

And, unfortunately, since WoW continues to dominate the market..they may be right. And I think that is not the fault of EA or BioWare but the fault of the gaming market, which has rejected every title thats hit the market with a new concept and stuck with the tedious pablum that is WoW and literally forced anyone who wishes to survive in the industry to mimic its dynamics in some way.

But Star Wars already tried to look like WoW, it was called the NGE back in 2005, in SWG. And that didn't go over to well. I guess maybe -starting- from an NGE perspective will cause TOR less damage than SWG, as they're not switching up to mimic WoW midstream, they're just coming right out of the gate to say....everyone can be a jedi and its WoW with lightsabers. Enjoy!

Seriously though the character models are as bad as seen in that photograph. They have not gotten better, and I don't expect they're going to by release either.

Knights of the Cartoon Republic, Rated E for Everyone.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Games that don't have photo-realistic graphics suck. Games that I used to like, but are no longer graphically awe-inspiring suck. If a game isn't photo-realistic, it has no redeeming qualities. Boycott ugly games, because graphics is the only thing that's important!

/sarcasm off

 

[baddude1337]

I guess most of the money went into those awesome CGI trailers. They really should just make a movie rather than an MMO, would probably be more successful.

 

[Pr0]

Games that don't have photo-realistic graphics suck. Games that I used to like, but are no longer graphically awe-inspiring suck. If a game isn't photo-realistic, it has no redeeming qualities. Boycott ugly games, because graphics is the only thing that's important!

/sarcasm off

To counter your sarcasm if it was just the graphics, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I know I sure do. Unfortunately, Jedi's in TOR play pretty much like Jedi's in KoTOR minus the spacebar tactical delays.

Its not just the bad graphics, its the relatively uninspiring game dynamics as well. Had they at least taken the graphics up a notch to make up for the game dynamics, that might have been another plus point in its favor.

I'm still going to buy it cause I have a small angry mob of friends that will hang me by my toes if I don't at least "give it a try" with them. But I'm extremely unsure how long it will keep my interest.

 

[LobsterFeng]

It ~is~ KotOR 3, and 4 through 11. =p Each class has its own full story mode that lasts longer than the original KotOR.

But... can I have a game that isn't Multiplayer? Don't get me wrong that sounds cool, I just don't like MMOs because I hate multiplayer.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I can actually tell you that I don't care how my Jedi plays. 'Cause I won't be playing a Jedi. More likely a Trooper or Smuggler. But that's actually not the real reason.

It's really because I have reasonable expectations of games. I've been playing PC games since 5.25" floppy disks on my Apple IIE. Since the dawn of video game cinematics, they've always been used to show off cool stuff that you can't actually do in-game. This is absolutely nothing new.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Really, It like Comparing the wooden sword to the Ultima Keyblade.

You have to work with the wooden sword before you get the Ultima Keyblade Don't give up.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

When you're releasing a game in 2011 that looks like most games released in 2003, you've done something wrong. That has nothing to do with graphics whoring, it just is what it is. Even the Source engine looks far better than TOR.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

 

[Pr0]

You watch the last trailer Blur did and tell me you don't want YOUR jedi to play like that.

I can actually tell you that I don't care how my Jedi plays. 'Cause I won't be playing a Jedi. More likely a Trooper or Smuggler. But that's actually not the real reason.

It's really because I have reasonable expectations of games. I've been playing PC games since 5.25" floppy disks on my Apple IIE. Since the dawn of video game cinematics, they've always been used to show off cool stuff that you can't actually do in-game. This is absolutely nothing new.

When an MMO is being developed, it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. If they develop a game that's badass, but only runs decently on the top 10% of computers out there... you're drastically cutting your potential market. And considering the cost of making an MMO, you need to actually have a fairly high subscription base in order to even sustain the game, which isn't going to happen if the game is developed for that top 10%.

An MMO is an MMO. Doesn't matter what the IP is. If you're expecting it to play like it's something more than that (especially if expecting it to be like the cinematics), you're being unreasonable, and MMOs probably aren't your scene.

Yanno I think almost anyone around here has some claim to long term video game "lineage" and what not so the whole "look at me I played video games since 5.25 disks" is stupid. I played video games off tape casettes that hardly makes me a better person than you.

Developing to the lowest common denominator is whats holding the MMO industry back and turning out title after title of games that are 60 bucks at release, 30 bucks within 90 days with a free trial and soon enough after, within 180 days or a year at most, free to play. And why is that? Cause WoW is JUST THAT DAMN GOOD, or because these developers are developing to the lowest common denominator and not attempting to make new strides in the industry and people pretty much put their hands up and say...why am I going to pay these other people to do what WoW already does?

Also the whole "An MMO is an MMO" thing, MxO was well beyond any MMO ever made in its cinematic stylized action combat system. The MMO element was still there but it damn sure looked a lot better. Had that game not been abandoned by Monolith/Sega and dropped on SOE who pretty much treated it like a redheaded step child and then shut it down cause it wasn't worth paying the licensing rights for it when SOE's Online division already operates in the red in SOE's budget pretty much since 2005. Simple facts are cinematic stylization of combat that made you feel like you were really pretty goddamn awesome has already been done in an MMO dynamic and done fairly well. I'm not being unreasonable to ask MMO's to evolve, and use the technology available in the industry right now to start stepping out of the WoW box and start adding things that truly do allow their titles to stand out.

In this case its like WoW and TOR are both bus stops and the only thing that makes one bus stop different than the other is the street its on and the advertisements each one is covered in. And that nearly it, when it comes to overall dynamics.

BioWare can do better than that, but someone in all the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent getting this game made decided they didn't have to do better than that they just had to do it as good. And by virtue of the Star Wars IP and the story based quest model, they would be the one game to survive the WoW monster.

 

[Pr0]

Removed double post. CAPTCHA system being a bit lame.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Because MMOs tend to have lower end graphics to keep the barrier to entry low so they can have as wide a target market as possible. The reason WoW does so good is that the amount of people with PCs(although not AAA gaming PCs) completely dwarfs the console market.

 

[Fake Nicker]

So for a game with so large a budget, why do the troopers on the ground have the exact same death pose? They are all laying in the same manner....

 

[Buizel91]

Most of the money is going towards the voice acting.

And besides, if the game is as expensive as rumored, you'd want to keep the graphics on the low end so you can sell to as many people as possible.

Just like WoW, the reason it's so popular is a person with an old computer can still play it, why make the graphics stupidly good when many people can't run them, bad business sense

OT: Yeh, that's an old image, people can tell me that "the game sucks" , but until i see a review, i'm saying it's looking fine at the moment. The Graphics are fun and cartoony (which is how i like them) sure the combat looks a bit etchy, but meh, me is hoping that will get sorted.

 

[The Madman]

Don't mind the visual style at all actually. Trying to go for realism has the drawback that while it looks good now chances are it'll look terrible within a few years whereas going for a cartoony artstyle does not have that drawback so long as it's done well. Okami, Psychonauts, and yes World of Warcraft all still look excellent today. The environments displayed in WOW are breathtaking in places despite the relatively ancient engine running the game.

If the Kotor MMO can capture that sort of artistic essence it could be interesting. With a budget as big as theirs is supposed to be I'd hope to have numerous worlds to explore as well, plentiful unique landscapes to see and something new always just on the horizon. The ability to explore these vast open worlds has always been one of the key strengths of MMO's and SWTOR has a vast setting with which to work. Could be good!

It's other things that have me concerned with the direction of this game. The gameplay from what I've seen looks so bog-standard that I'm honestly not the least bit curious to play it myself after having seen it. Plus from the same gameplay I saw some time back the environments look to be instanced, aka self-contained locations rather than the vast open worlds of other MMO.

Still, it's far too early to be passing judgment now. People tend to forget how fractured almost every MMO ever has been on release and in the early stages. Even WOW was nearly unplayable on first release, it's only over time it became the juggernaut it is today. We'll see if Bioware can do the same!

 

[Pr0]

Because MMOs tend to have lower end graphics to keep the barrier to entry low so they can have as wide a target market as possible. The reason WoW does so good is that the amount of people with PCs(although not AAA gaming PCs) completely dwarfs the console market.

And I don't disagree with you. This is a completely true statement but, it doesn't take a triple A gaming PC to actually embrace some of the technologies available.

I'm hardly asking TOR to be Crytek level gorgeous, all I wanted out of it, really, was a new experience, in regards to MMO's. Its not delivering a new experience really.

So I simply said, well they could have at least made a few advances on character creation elements, I mean they have the stuff on hand, the Mass Effect or even DA facial design systems are more advanced than the TOR character creation system. And the DA2 character models blow the doors off TOR's and you can play DA2 on a laptop.

Character is an important thing, in an R-P-G, its something WoW pretty much ignored and I guess everyone else has decided that people don't care about their characters all that much as long as they have the ultimate gear. But then there are anomolies that stand out in the industry.

If people didn't care so much about the individuality of their characters, why is City of Heroes still standing fairly strong today even having had to face down its original developers moving on and making Champions Online (Free to Play), and SOE making DCUO (Soon to be free to download/F2P with a costume cash shop). If character isn't that important, why is NCSoft still hanging on fairly well with a game that was made back in 2004? Even in the face of competitive titles with newer technology?

There are so many elements in regards to what makes an MMO a long term contender in the market. CoX has held on despite competition because it does it the best in regards to the niche it serves and people are attached to their characters there and the level of individuality they've been able to create within the technology on hand.

TOR doesn't really allow for anywhere near that level of individuality, I won't go into the details of exactly how limited the character creation system is but I will say I can change my head/hairstyle to one of 11 different options in WoW and TOR's not trying much harder than that.

So we have the lowest common denominator for technology, because they want the most subscribers they can possibly get, but you also have a game that other than the story based quest models isn't bringing much new to the table either.

Low tech and slim innovation combines to create yet another disappointing title in an industry thats been full of disappointing titles for half a decade now and unlike every title thats fallen on its face since WoW's release, TOR has two things distinguishing it that are going to make it have to justify itself somehow.

1) Its BioWare and we don't accept crap from BioWare.

2) The games had a budget something in the range of the GDP of a small developing nation over the years and doesn't have anything innovative to show for it.

And I don't just say this as a player with bitter expectations I say this as a worker in the industry who has seen the MMO industry go from being a big creative industry where there was plenty of venture capital to fund new ideas, to what it is today, a risk market where anything taking too many risks doesn't get any money behind it and thus everything starts to look the same.

 

[kane.malakos]

Pretty much everything I've seen of TOR has made me less excited for it. The cutscenes they made are awesome, but honestly at this point I'd rather see them make a full movie with the money rather than release what I fear will be a mediocre WOW clone.

 

[mcattack92]

They would keep the graphics relatively low to reach the maximum total target audiance to be able to maximise their profit they could possibly earn from the game. They can only make it as beautiful as average hardware can let it be.