How SW:TOR is a major step BACKWARDS for MMOs

[Deathfyre]

I'm fairly sure you can choose your companion, and I'm also pretty sure that the ships they're advertising are just starters for that class, you can probably get another one further down the line. Like in most games that feature some form of transportation, you usually get a starter, then work your way toward the one you want ever so badly. As for not being able to pick professions... Did you read up on the advanced classes? You do get a choice. Though, on a negative note, they do force you to eventually pick an advanced class, so boo more choices! But seriously, there's gonna be a trial, play it, then make your ridiculously long complaint list once you know what you're talking about. Because until it comes out, nobody knows what the game will be like. The beta is the closest thing, and it's a beta. Things will change, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse... As long as it's not like WOW where you have to buy everything in the game, so you're spending most of your time just grinding so you can buy a skill that in any other RPG, you would get just for reaching a certain level... And I like the idea of being able to play on your own for awhile, but I doubt it's gonna be a "small group forever" game. there will be more difficult quests, and you'll need bigger groups to achieve them. Almost, a massive amount. (pun'd)

 

[Criquefreak]

Having played quite a lot of MMOs, I can say with a decent amount of assurance that the classic four classes are everywhere. Expecting one to break away from it seems a feat greater than world peace. What I?d actually be amazed with at this point is one that gets rid of the overabundant grind (months and months of tasks better left to software than a real player), cookie cutter quests (genocide in the name of profit with occasional work as a postal employee), or the asinine arms races (why any world keeps a supply of ?starter? gear around when they have +20 arms of class-specific badassness practically lying around on every mercenary/adventurer is beyond ridiculous).

If you want a game where your character?s actions make ANY difference in the game world, you will be given a definitive storyline. The more freedom a player has with their character?s decisions, the less those decisions matter to the world around them, it is basic game programming. If you want real freedom in a game, you?ll never find it in software without a dedicated employee per player customizing that world every time they played.

Seeing how many players ignore text, fully voice-acted might actually get someone to not skip every single instance of someone?s hard work. World lore, quest information, even those minor dialogue exchanges that try to help immersion, these things are effectively lost on the majority of players. Kind of why almost no one?s willing to hire a competent writer for games.
You?ve probably never played most games, let alone most MMOs if you honestly think that there?s much of an escape from playing the exact same strategies as the current dominant metagame, the benefit of it being based on how it was done in the films is that people already thought it was cool and wanted to emulate it.

A few weeks in, the complaint will not be that everyone has the exact same companion character, it?ll be why do we have to carry around this wanna-be Leeroy Jenkins AI character that has a glaring tendency to make gameplay worse.

You?re expecting a game to just let people invent vehicles as opposed to just using one of the plentiful variety of space craft already made. No game developer in the world has that huge an art budget. And to have free reign flight in a universal expanse? try playing Eve Online some day and traveling halfway through ?civilized? space, you?ll be so incredibly bored out of your skull that you?ll be worshipping the rail style space travel of Starfox (afk is almost synonymous with space travel, there?s a reason why science fiction skips completely past the time it takes to do this, even with faster than light speeds).

Open-ended skill systems are much, MUCH harder for novice players to acclimate to, yes they allow for a lot more character-building freedom, but they often take more time and planning out of game to effectively keep at a competing power level than most players will ever spend playing the game itself. It?s a very risky choice to do it in most games and in an MMO it can be suicidal, especially as the bread and butter are the influx of newer players.

Sadly a lot of the non-combat activities in MMOs simply aren?t all that fun for a lot of players. Very little has been done in the way of innovation for these systems, they?re often an additional resource sink beyond the already mind-destroying grind and money farm that already plagues these games, and seeing as they contribute nothing to most designed end-game (or the high-end eternal dungeon-raiding for gear that substitutes itself) they?re rarely a focal element for developers.

The Star Wars series is an epic-tier space opera, the high blown drama is the point of the appeal. Playing a character who?s just another shmuck twiddling their thumbs while war and adventure go on all around them is rather unappealing and wouldn?t be an effective idea to pitch to a publisher.

It's really not a step back, it's mostly a step to the side, which is how most games get funding from a publisher these days. So, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if it turns out to play like nearly everything else out there. From all I can tell, you're not expecting an RPG so much as a sandbox exploration game with loose, optional plots.

For what it's worth, you have a decent point on the lack of roleplaying in the digital medium. But character customization and specialization that you're referring to is borne of tactical simulation and simplification of combat resolution, not roleplaying. The only way to get true roleplaying in a game is to have living people determining the actions and reactions of characters on the spot. As for MMOGs, their origins are far more likely based on the marketability of a continuous income rather than the stand-alone game's one time sale, play enough and you will see that their gameplay architecture is strongly rooted in making things take obscenely longer times than the comparable (true) content of other games. Even the ones that don't charge monthly subscription fees pad down the time it takes to do anything, mostly as there is a reasoning that players are far more likely to buy the optional frills the longer they play.

 

[BigUpsMendelson]

Joined Channel: [1138. Tatooine - Sarlacc]
[BindoStarkillr]: ok. all smugglers take out Bewchacca and have him set to passive for the start of the fight.
[LuckyLuke69]: Sarlacc attack!!! lol
[BindoStarkillr]: jedi knights should all have their C3PPs specced for human/cyborg buffing. luke, put away your D5-R7 and take out your C3PP.
[LuckyLuke501]: Sorry.
[LukeSkydancer]: sorry
[LukeStartrekker9]: he said PP lol
[BindoStarkillr]: troopers have republic shout ready and watch out for tendrils

 

[Cazza]

Thoses aren't a step back. MMO's like WOW do the same. Yeah I helped a farmer OH WAIT EVERYONES DONE THAT.

Your "iconic professions" I plan on turnung on their head. I want a really nice morally good bounty hunter. Who's not about money but's about making the galaxy a better place. Thats really different from the Boba Fett character.

 

[Dastardly]

Wait, isn't that ALWAYS the case in MMO's? Say that I want to play a priest in World of Warcraft. Say that I chose this class not because I wanted to sit back with Holy spec and heal the guys who get to do all the fighting, but because I wanted to be a Shadow spec priest that joins the fray and just use my healing magic from time to time to keep myself going.

I would never be allowed to do that! Because it is EXPECTED of me to heal all the other dipshits, both by the game designers AND the community! SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM!!!

Though being facetious, you're actually correct. That's one of the reasons I quit playing WoW--there was nothing to do at endgame for a Shadow Priest, because the demand was for Holy Priests. Back in those days at least, raid leaders felt they had complete say over how you spec and play your character. If not, they'd just replace you. I offered to let one of them pay my subscription for me (they refused), and then cancelled.

The underlying point, though, is that games didn't USED to be exclusively class-based. Keeping with the SWG comparison, it started out SKILL based. You could go up any of the trees you wanted--specializing to get the super-cool skills, or branching out to be your own custom combination of ranger-chef-armoursmith. You weren't locked into having to "be Luke" or "be Han" or "be Lando." And if you wanted to, you still COULD, by constructing your own personal concept of what it meant to be that character.

Then SWG fell prey to the "everyone must be the archetypal hero, choosing from one of these iconic professions." It stopped being "create a character in the SW universe," and it started being "play the movie tie-ins!"

The skill-based system allowed for class-oriented people to go that way, while others wanting more variety could ALSO have it their way. That's more freedom.

 

[Dastardly]

Well in the days of Diablo and Everquest, there is not much going on to engage the player to do much other than explore the world. Granted, Diablo was more of a dungeon crawler that had a minor story, and my time with Everquest was limited. They do however share many of the elements that modern MMO's use, such as leveling up systems with skill trees and team or guild based gameplay. Now I never got far enough into Everquest to actually join a guild, but from what I heard from a friend who was in one, they were much like warrior guilds, where people must defend themselves from attacking PvP players and congregate for missions. In this sense, you are right that there is a community aspect that helps makes the world feel a little more real. However, this is still driven more by the community than the game design, and there is no indication that TOR won't have some form of this kind of gameplay, so we'll just have to wait and see.

As for the business aspect of the MMO, simplifying mechanics so that they are more accessible to the public isn't a problem for me. It costs a ton of money to develop these massive games and even more money to keep the servers running. Anything to get more traffic through the game is the smartest way to approach this game financially. The Bioware guys are extremely talented, so I am sure they will figure out a way to make the game appealing to the hardcore crowd, even though they will be dwarfed by the casual players, which I hate to break it to you, are the target audience.

I recommend you check out this video.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1906-The-Future-of-MMOs

Simplifying mechanics is one thing. Removing them entirely is another. Doing both in such liberal amounts is a "lowest common denominator" move, where quality is lost to increase revenue. The businessmen are right to do it, and the customer is right to complain. Thus (should) begin the negotiations that lead to a balanced product. We've just stopped demanding these things, because a lot of us have forgotten we used to have them... or we weren't part of the "generation" that did.

Also, Everquest was pretty empty, agreed. I'm not saying there haven't been drastic improvements to content since then. It's just a shame that it seems that content comes at the expense of the few things that MADE games like EQ worth of a subscription fee--you weren't just banding together with buddies against another group. You can do that in TF2. You were banding together with buddies against another group to defend a spot of this virtual world that belonged to you.

 

[Dastardly]

snipped for post length

Again, the point that I think you're overlooking is that the more character freedom you have, the more character options you have, and therefore thats more and more potential combinations that the developer then has to spend resources to try and balance, if its even possible. In the eyes of most developers, it seems, the focus is "game first". Make sure the game play works and is compelling and interesting and balanced. THEN you go in and add whatever customization options you can without breaking the game.

Quick Aside: Recently a major franchise (Mario) did revert to releasing a 2D platformer on a home console after years of 3D, and no one seemed to bothered by it.

"Two Choices is better than none" is a valid approach if you recognize that its virtually impossible for a developer to account for EVERY possible choice. Sure it would be cool if we could speak into a microphone and say exactly what we would say in a given situation and have a character respond, but the technology doesn't exist to create such intelligent AI. I would argue that given a choice between "nice, neutral, and mean" is limited, yes, but not quite as limited as basically playing a silent character in which you just click through NPC scripts with no response at all.

I can't really name a single MMO that "was about" leaving a footprint. Every MMO I've played has been roughly the same mechanically and there was no footprints. Player housing is cool, but doesn't really constitute leaving a footprint because the footprint is absolutely pointless if there's no one interacting with it. Sure your house is "there" but it doesn't DO anything with any other player really. And most of the other ideas you mentioned about leaving a footprint like custom ships, companions, etc...those certainly don't count as footprints because they vanish from the world when your character does.

You also seem to define your multiplayer experience solely on the notion of what impact you leave on the other players. By that logic, Halo would not qualify as multiplayer because there is no footprint left for the other players when you leave the game. But I won't harp too much on that because I think its really a semantic argument and I know what it is you actually mean.

Again, as far as development is concerned, it comes down to a decision of "Total player freedom at the expense of balanced combat and content" or "sacrifice some of the freedom in order to make a game that functions well and can sustain itself." As I said in my previous post, in addition to that choice, you have to take into account that customization options take up development time that could be spent making the game balanced.

So what it comes down to is whether you value the atmosphere most, or value the functionality most. It seems you value atmosphere most, which is a perfectly valid stance, but that doesn't make it the only stance. Other people may have different priorities. The developers it seems are willing to make that sacrifice in order to ensure that the game is balanceable and sustainable. If you don't agree with that or don't like it, then show your opposition by not paying for it. But don't assume that your view is going to be shared by everyone else and try to convince them that they shouldn't play the game either because its "bad".

The problem as I'm seeing it isn't that I disagree on the difference of priorities. It's that ten, fifteen years ago, a company couldn't get away with charging a continuous subscription for a story-driven game--you HAD to have a sense of permanence and persistence in the environment, or people would scoff at you as a money-grubbing lunatic. It would be like paying a subscription to play Halo (which, by the way, is multiplayer, but is not MASSIVELY multiplayer).

Now, companies are simply taking advantage of the fact that folks are softened to the idea of sub fees. It's like how the price of gas jumps around--you're charge $1 a gallon, and you want to raise it. You hike it up to $3, and people panic, but you hold strong... and then you "lower" it to $1.75. People then REJOICE that they are paying 75% more for their gas.

 

[Dastardly]

Also (sorry, hit send too early)

I can't really name a single MMO that "was about" leaving a footprint. Every MMO I've played has been roughly the same mechanically and there was no footprints. Player housing is cool, but doesn't really constitute leaving a footprint because the footprint is absolutely pointless if there's no one interacting with it. Sure your house is "there" but it doesn't DO anything with any other player really. And most of the other ideas you mentioned about leaving a footprint like custom ships, companions, etc...those certainly don't count as footprints because they vanish from the world when your character does.

There were people interacting with it. In order to purchase things, you travelled to player vendors, which were in their finely-decorated houses, which were in their (sometimes) meticulously-planned and well-built cities. There was a clear footprint, and reasons for people to cross it.

Again, as far as development is concerned, it comes down to a decision of "Total player freedom at the expense of balanced combat and content" or "sacrifice some of the freedom in order to make a game that functions well and can sustain itself." As I said in my previous post, in addition to that choice, you have to take into account that customization options take up development time that could be spent making the game balanced.

SWG, even despite the big downfall, has STILL sustained itelf and STILL turns a profit. It's just not a "WoW profit," which is what led to the changes to begin with--which were precipitated by LucasArts, not SOE. These games sell well and stay healthy, even past the point that mainstream-aimed games have failed. That persistence appeals to players with a slightly longer attention span, and it gives them a reason to stay in that world.

But because it's not a blockbuster profit, the idea was largely abandoned in favor of the WoW-model.

 

[pdgeorge]

One thing to say your an idiot.

MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online (which they get right full on! unless only 3-5 people buy and play the game) Role Playing Game.
Lets say this game wasn't an MMO. If it was just offline. Then it would be called a "Role playing game" instead, this is a "Role playing game" which is also "Massive multiplayer online"

Not all MMO's have to deal with 100% full customization of who you are. If you focus too much on allowing people to customize little details you have to sacrifice somewhere.

For example, not only would the developers need to build the system which allows people to build and create their own ship, they also have to design and create each and every possible piece that can be used, and methods to make each of those parts different from one another otherwise it's a huge waste of time (lets be honest, if you could paint flame decals on your mount in WoW it would be interesting for a few minutes, then you just end up looking like 'that tosser') Plus if they are all different in any way (IE: each part give you a bonus) then we all know that players will just build hodge-podge shops which are just made up of the post possible pieces with the highest stats, turning it from 'self customization' to 'wank job'
There is all that extra work, which means sacrifice somewhere. Will they put less work into refining each part so they all look worse? Will another area receive budget cuts? Or will they just charge more.

This sort of talk is the sort of crap that causes stagnation. "OMG! CHANGE! They are trying something different!" This is just a different method of running an MMO, it may be more successful, it may be less successful. Even if it is less successful what does it REALLY matter? An experiment was attempted, some people liked it even if a lot of people hated it. It might break even if they are lucky, and they have more information to know what worked and what didn't to make ANOTHER MMO which has the successful elements in it. And unless your stupid enough to buy a game which you are publicly decrying will be a major step backwards, you won't lose out because you didn't spend any money on it.

Edit:
This was said while I was writing my post and I agree with it 100%

Welcome to 2010! Im guessing you have missed every MMO since 2000! I should point you towards several other MMO's, namely World of Warcraft where you play a faceless hero who is the only hope for Azaroth! just like everyone else.

 

[Shrifes]

So I read a few pages of this but one point kept bothering me. Why does it matter if you can name your companions or not? How many times in your life have you given a friend his name? Sure you can give them a nickname but they always have a name before they meet you.

 

[ecoho]

You know what? You don't have to play it! Amazing, isn't it?

If any of those reasons limits your Roleplaying (i can do bold statements too![sorry, i'll go get my coat]) then frankly you are a crappy roleplayer so go nitpick on something else like actual game mechanics, graphics, or whatever you kids find fancy this days.

I never liked the SWG, even pre-TheThingThatApparentlyRuinedIt, only fun part was having your own house.

Now for your 'points'.

1) "The game will be story-driven, and your choices will affect your destiny!" - Great, so that means each situation will boil down to one of three choices (aggressive, defensive, or passive, basically). You can either be a dick, a saint, or a gray blob in the middle. But what's more, it means your character is not YOUR character. It is one of a select handful of pre-made characters that you will rent. And when in these games has it ever really been the BEST idea to "mix and match," rather than go all one way or the other? SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

In other MMOs you don't usually even have that much freedom. All your dialogue options are limited to "Accept" and "Cancel". Yeah, that shows em your real character! Woo-hoo! Surely that is better, because no evil man in suits tell you what and how to say.... because you can't say anything!.

2) "The game will be fully voice-acted." - So you can't even decide what your character says or how he/she says it. The game will be giving you a script and voice. And, due to the expense of such projects, expect the selection of voices (if there are any) to be extremely limited. It might be that your character gets no voice at all (silent protagonist syndrome) which, to me, is better than being forced into a pre-made voice. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

To arms my brethren for our freedom has been on these very day threatened by the voice box! Seriously, it hurts you so much ? Mute it. You won't hear it. I for one enjoy that, i like hearing my character's voice, i loved listening to Shepard's talking in each of my countless ME playthroughs. It didn't took my freedom, it actually added to character.

3) "You can choose from one of these iconic professions!" - So all smugglers will be expected to behave in X way with personality Y, because that's how Han did it. All Bounty Hunters will be X, Y, and Z, because that's how Fett did it. This is exactly what the NGE did to RUIN SWG. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

That's a players choice. Could also say that every warrior is a dumb meatshield, every mage is pretentious ***** and every rogue is sneaky backstabber. Roleplaying is about person to person interaction in MMOs. You choose what you represent.

4) "You'll get companion characters to will add spice and variety to your gameplay!" - This one actually sounded GREAT... until we found out that EVERYONE gets the same companion based on his/her class. Yes, ALL smugglers will not just have A wookiee companion (like Han!), they'll have the SAME wookiee companion. You don't even get to pick the name. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Brilliant feature for those that need a quick NPC help if all friends are offline. And no, the companion is not based on your class. Each class get's a selection of companions, depending on what type of supporting character you might find fancy. Wookie however is limited to Smugglers.

5) "You'll get your own ship, which you can use to travel or complete missions!" - Again, sounded great... until we found out that you get the same ship as everyone else in your class AND that all space missions play out like Starfox as rail- or arena-style episodes. You can't choose your ship, and you can't choose where it goes. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Want various ships and unlimited space? Go play EVE, you have plenty to choose from there. It's not a space sim game. Space ship functions as your character's hub and way of travel between planets. It's a fancy prop the game could do without but they decided to implement it anyway. As for the combat-on-rail, i'm perfectly happy about it. Ever considered that plenty of players, especially MMO players, don't give a damn about your love for flight simulators? I want my MMO be a MMO, means i click around, i run around i bash my 12345 to use skills.

I'm really sorry AAA titles aren't created to fulfil wet dreams of single fan, but that's how market works. You are minority, face it and live with it or start making games yourself. There's been plenty of 'indie' titles over last years catering to 'hardcore' players. Guess what? They barely managed to get enough subscriptions to operate and plenty of them dies within first months.

omg your my hero

OT: man have you ever played a MMO besides SWG? if you had you would probily never of posted any of this BS. Go play ANY other MMO and youll find the story is on rails hell i know half the crap in WOW contradicts its self and im pretty sure everquest is the same way. Broden your herizens then come back and ***** im pretty sure your argument will have no ground to stand on

 

[Kanlic]

Simplifying mechanics is one thing. Removing them entirely is another. Doing both in such liberal amounts is a "lowest common denominator" move, where quality is lost to increase revenue. The businessmen are right to do it, and the customer is right to complain. Thus (should) begin the negotiations that lead to a balanced product. We've just stopped demanding these things, because a lot of us have forgotten we used to have them... or we weren't part of the "generation" that did.

Also, Everquest was pretty empty, agreed. I'm not saying there haven't been drastic improvements to content since then. It's just a shame that it seems that content comes at the expense of the few things that MADE games like EQ worth of a subscription fee--you weren't just banding together with buddies against another group. You can do that in TF2. You were banding together with buddies against another group to defend a spot of this virtual world that belonged to you.

You hear these kinds of complaints all the time, but since when has removing complicated mechanics a bad thing? Simplifying a game so that everyone can play doesn't reduce the complexity of such a game, just look at the difference between SC and SCII. Making things user friendly and removing stuff that barely anyone cared for isn't bad in any sense of the word, it is just business smart and good for the customer. You can go on complaining, but if a majority of people like the changes, then your view doesn't really matter.

As for the whole "defend your territory" aspect, that exists in shooters, RTS', RPG's, etc. That was just a mechanic that existed in one MMO that you liked, it isn't present in any other place that comes to mind.

 

[Ghostkai]

Can I ask you a very simple question?

Are you Beta testing it?

 

[Radoh]

Alright, here's my two cents on your rather longwinded argument:

You've got it almost completely wrong.
You see I've been keeping up to date on this for quite some time now and though I don't know how other MMOs function in comparison, most of your argument is based off of logical fallicies or misinformation.

1. Your issue with story driven-ness doesn't make sense. I just got off of a Dragon age binge and I got quite a few more then "Nice, Mean, Neutral" I got "Greedy, Power-hungry, Kind, Altruistic, Idealist, Nice, Mean, Selfish, Self-less, Monstrously Evil, and Neutral" And based off the videos I saw involving in-game interactions it will lead more towards Dragon Age then what you are describing here. After all, both are Bioware games.

2. As previously mentioned you do choose what he says, sure if you decide you want your character to have communication defects where he says nice things incredibly angrily then you are right, you don't choose how he says it.

3. This is extremely wrong, they tell us you can have a sithish Jedi, a nice guy sith, and any kind of smuggler you please. They've taken an incredible amount of time to make sure you have free rein over how your character acts and why they act that way.

4. As previously mentioned amongst others, they are place holders for other players and since they are life-long friends and comrades it should be expected by now that you two are still around each other because you agree with each others morality. This could stretch it a bit too far if mid-game your character changes their ideology but whatever, no game is perfect.

5. Well what had you expected? In Star Wars the ships they got were based on connections they had/what they were given. Jedi flew Jedi ships, Sith flew Sith Ships, etc. Besides, they only are to act as a forward base when off-world and a place to put your feet up. Would it really matter so much what color paint you had on it?

Simply because a game did not properly explain everything it had to offer to everyone does not give you any right to start tearing away at it without properly looking into the issue. That is true for all walks of life and in all discussions, you would do well to learn this before formulating any more arguments against things you know little to nothing about as most people won't be terribly civil about it.

 

[luckshot]

The underlying point, though, is that games didn't USED to be exclusively class-based. Keeping with the SWG comparison, it started out SKILL based. You could go up any of the trees you wanted--specializing to get the super-cool skills, or branching out to be your own custom combination of ranger-chef-armoursmith. You weren't locked into having to "be Luke" or "be Han" or "be Lando." And if you wanted to, you still COULD, by constructing your own personal concept of what it meant to be that character.

Then SWG fell prey to the "everyone must be the archetypal hero, choosing from one of these iconic professions." It stopped being "create a character in the SW universe," and it started being "play the movie tie-ins!"

The skill-based system allowed for class-oriented people to go that way, while others wanting more variety could ALSO have it their way. That's more freedom.

this is exactly why i found swg pre-nge/cu fun, it was different and it didnt feel like i was playing luke skywalker 3159. Couple that with the skill based level system made my character build SEEM unique and useful...especially on guild fishing trips when my survival scrounging provided bait and a camp

edit: another potential problem is that bioware is making this game as cinematic as possible without selling popcorn, how this will translate into a multiplayer format without getting in the way is a mystery

 

[cerebus23]

well all moos by some of these standards have been fail since the mud days of full role played rpg worlds and pnp games.

no mmo has given you the ultimate freedom to do what you want, not wow not eq not eve none of them your locked into a certain set of parameters. in a mud or pnp game i could roll out any scenario that popped into my head, if i wanted to try and climb a tree, and jump down on that dragones head and stab it in the eye i could try it. if i wanted to get out of my ship and go strolling around the maintenance decks of my ship i could do it and go climb thru the air ducts.

most mmos have limited your choices into what you could do with yes no or just f the quests and grind. any sense of hero you got was small scale weither you saved your 40 man raid from a wipe single handedly or took down some very hard mob solo. you were never the hero outside your own mind and maybe your small circle of geek friends.

can we really call it a step backwards to have branching dialogue in a computer mmo beyond accept quest, drop quest. or call it a step backwards in a mmo to have voice acting when in the other mmos again accept quest, reject quest was the extent of your dialogue.

if you want true freedom your going to be left cold and empty by any mmo, go back to pnp games or get on a rp enforced mud with good players and cool gms that let you try stuff even if it is stupid as hell.

eve online probably the most free of sandbox mmos still your working within a system that is designed to do a few things, i cannot get out of my ship go down to the local bar and smack someone over the head with a chair and the pve part of eve o is about as thin as you can get since that game is not about pve.

every mmo that has come out is limited to a system of things you can do no matter how immersive the world and the systems are.

asherons call had the probably the ultimate skill tree since you could train untrain skills put xp in all your skills above the level cap trying to max all your skills in that game would take to level 260 something and several years of your life but if you wanted to have a jump that was 300 base and jump over small buildings you could, if you wanted to run faster than a horse and pump xp into your run you could, if you wanted to train bow and magic and wear plate armor you could there was very little skill wise you could not try in that game no matter how wasteful or stupid the build was.

far as tor trying to make you feel like a hero, i have often heard that that is impossible in am mmo because there are 1000s or millions of other players doing the exact same thing. well there were 1000s of other players doing the exact same thing in your premade revenloft d&d adventures. there were millions of other players using commander shepherd to save the galaxy in me1 and me2, if your that cynic to say no mmo can do than any game ever made can do it since you can argue more people played mass effect than played most mmos. or cod4 you could apply the same straw man argements to any games really. there is no singular experience in anything you do game wise if you want to be really cynical about it.

so is star wars tor fail already cause it is lifting some tenants of single player rpgs and trying to put them in an mmo? no. could st tor be fail because it is a bad game? sure that possibility exists. but since noone has played the actual game or really knows all there is to know about it it is a bit premature to be saying the game is doomed especially faulting it for things that other mmos are worse about.

 

[Sneaklemming]

Freedom < Storytelling < Environmental/Atmospheric Storytelling

In other words.

Minecraft < KoToR < Half-Life 2/Fallout 3

Just my preference - I know others feel different.

 

[Sephychu]

You mention that the character will be one of several pre-made ones, but that's how games work. People have to code those possible choices for them to be played.
There's no such thing as total character freedom short of writing the story yourself.

 

[Dastardly]

You hear these kinds of complaints all the time, but since when has removing complicated mechanics a bad thing? Simplifying a game so that everyone can play doesn't reduce the complexity of such a game, just look at the difference between SC and SCII. Making things user friendly and removing stuff that barely anyone cared for isn't bad in any sense of the word, it is just business smart and good for the customer. You can go on complaining, but if a majority of people like the changes, then your view doesn't really matter.

As for the whole "defend your territory" aspect, that exists in shooters, RTS', RPG's, etc. That was just a mechanic that existed in one MMO that you liked, it isn't present in any other place that comes to mind.

No, the same aspect doesn't exist in those games. Because when you log off, there is nothing there that indicates anything was "yours." Not like a city, a house, or even a stick in the ground with your name on it. You have absolutely no persistence in the world, you're just a savefile on a server somewhere, leaving not even a shadow when you log off. And that's why they aren't charging subscription fees to play those games.

Seriously, you've allowed the burden of proof to be shifted (underhandedly) away from the developers. Why should they be charging a subscription fee? Server space? Other games have millions of players log on without having to keep massive server farms or charge a sub. I mean, what are you STORING there? Just your character data. Everything else is the same for everyone.

Bandwidth? Sure you have "thousands" logged onto the server at a time, but how many are you really interacting with at any point? Maybe a dozen. Having folks set up dedicated servers with 11 friends solves that right there, like other games do. No need for a massive workload.

The myth of "continuously updated content?" Yeah, lots of games have patches and DLC without charging you BETWEEN these sparse offerings. You pay for the add-ons, and then you play them. You don't have to "mark time" in between waiting for the next big content update... while still paying for this "continuous" content.

The only reason, at the beginning, the charge a regular subscription fee was because your character could own a persistent portion of a virtual world. A plot of land, a house, a city, stocked with decorations and vendors and whatever else your guild/group/etc. decided. And other players would interact with it while you were gone. YOU were creating a continuous stream of content for others, just as they were for you. You weren't just paying for content, you were paying for CONSEQUENCE. You had meaning to the game world, even after your toon logged off.

Games like SW:TOR just charge sub fees because they can get away with it, now that ground has been long broken on that. It's up to them to prove otherwise.

Alright, here's my two cents on your rather longwinded argument:

You've got it almost completely wrong.
You see I've been keeping up to date on this for quite some time now and though I don't know how other MMOs function in comparison, most of your argument is based off of logical fallicies or misinformation.

If you don't know how other MMOs function, you're hardly qualified to judge "logical fallacies" and misinformation.

1. Your issue with story driven-ness doesn't make sense. I just got off of a Dragon age binge and I got quite a few more then "Nice, Mean, Neutral" I got "Greedy, Power-hungry, Kind, Altruistic, Idealist, Nice, Mean, Selfish, Self-less, Monstrously Evil, and Neutral" And based off the videos I saw involving in-game interactions it will lead more towards Dragon Age then what you are describing here. After all, both are Bioware games.

So you might think... if you understood very little about MMOs vs. single-serving games. Yeah, when you have a closed system (ie, a game with an ending point), you can cram a ton of paths in there. But when you're supposedly going to keep the story running indefinitely, that workload will swell exponentially with each chapter you add to the story. This means either many paths that, while different in name, lead to the same place with very thin differences... or limiting things to 2 or 3 choices, to keep the sustainability of all those branches.

2. As previously mentioned you do choose what he says, sure if you decide you want your character to have communication defects where he says nice things incredibly angrily then you are right, you don't choose how he says it.

You choose dialog from a list... for a character you chose form a tiny list of classes... all of which are based on a very narrow view of each of those classes... It's just one more step away from character CREATION and toward character RENTAL.

3. This is extremely wrong, they tell us you can have a sithish Jedi, a nice guy sith, and any kind of smuggler you please. They've taken an incredible amount of time to make sure you have free rein over how your character acts and why they act that way.

I'm certainly not seeing it. It's marketing speak. "You can have a sithish Jedi," just means that you can choose Jedi as your class, but choose all the "dickhead" dialogue responses... but when it comes to playing your character, you'll still be defending and healing.

4. As previously mentioned amongst others, they are place holders for other players and since they are life-long friends and comrades it should be expected by now that you two are still around each other because you agree with each others morality. This could stretch it a bit too far if mid-game your character changes their ideology but whatever, no game is perfect.

Pets and companions are great things. What's NOT so great is for everyone to have the SAME companion (depending on class). Why not take the STO route, where you can create and customize your companions the way STO did bridge officers (the one very right thing they did with that game)? Why does every smuggler have to be accompanied by "Bowdaar, the Wookiee?"

5. Well what had you expected? In Star Wars the ships they got were based on connections they had/what they were given. Jedi flew Jedi ships, Sith flew Sith Ships, etc. Besides, they only are to act as a forward base when off-world and a place to put your feet up. Would it really matter so much what color paint you had on it?

It's called STAR Wars. Ships, by right, ought to be a pretty major part of that. After all, not EVERYONE is in love with lightsabers (as evidenced by the inclusion of other classes). Why not have two or three "class appropriate" vessels you could choose from? Why not have the same missions, but allow you to direct your ship as you please? What if you want to just fly around and explore the beautiful and expansive scenery in space? These are things that countless other games have already given folks... so there should be compelling reasons to remove those features.

Simply because a game did not properly explain everything it had to offer to everyone does not give you any right to start tearing away at it without properly looking into the issue. That is true for all walks of life and in all discussions, you would do well to learn this before formulating any more arguments against things you know little to nothing about as most people won't be terribly civil about it.

You aren't good at understanding points or arguing. You haven't pointed out a single "logical fallacy" in any of this, though you have committed a few--one of which seems believing "logical fallcy" means "reasoning with which I don't agree." Your last paragraph could be considered a form of ad hominem, which is a logical fallacy in which the speaker tries to defeat a point by focusing his counterpoint "at the man," instead of at the issue. It's possible that you've heard the phrase "logical fallacy" somewhere, and thought it would lend a certain weighty quality to your post, but you've demonstrated very little grasp on what it means.

And, in case you're wondering, THIS is not an ad hominem, as your choice to engage in a discussion (or rather a poorly-formed reprimand) of my posting style has altered the terms of the discussion such that it's perfectly acceptable for me to follow this line of discussion for as long as you do. It's also not a tu quoque, in case you were thinking...