KotOR MMO epic fail?

[Hurlshort]

Not sure if this has been stated, but how exactly does it work?

 

There are 6 classes, right? Okay, so does my membership fee per month mean I can play 1 class for that amount, or can I make as many different, simultaneous classes as I want for the one monthly fee?

 

I've never played an MMO so I don't know how the charges and account/class structures work.

 

You typically have a near infinite amount of characters and classes you can create. There is often a limit on how many you can make on one server, but you can create more by switching servers.

[Thorton_AP]

Not sure if this has been stated, but how exactly does it work?

 

There are 6 classes, right? Okay, so does my membership fee per month mean I can play 1 class for that amount, or can I make as many different, simultaneous classes as I want for the one monthly fee?

 

I've never played an MMO so I don't know how the charges and account/class structures work.

 

Most MMO's charge a subscription to let you play the game in any capacity. You have full* access to the game and you can start over with new characters and so forth. Characters also stay around while you are not subscribed, so if you return years later (in WoW's case anyway) your characters are still there. If you can play through all the characters classes in one month, you'll not have to pay for any additional months to experience the single player game (assuming there isn't meaningful divergence which I don't think will happen too much unfortunately).

 

 

*One note is that in WoW (the one I am most familiar with), there are usually restrictions on the total number of characters you can have on any one server. This number is pretty high though (10 or so) and doesn't preclude you from playing on a different server. At least in my experiences with WoW.

 

EDIT: Hurlshotted

Edited October 15, 2010 by Thorton_AP

[Oblarg]

I never said you had a strawman, I said you had no ground to stand on. Do you really think gameplay videos make or break a game this big?

 

I think all the information released thus far makes it look pretty ****ing bad, yes.

[Malcador]

I never said you had a strawman, I said you had no ground to stand on. Do you really think gameplay videos make or break a game this big?

 

I've seen people turned off by it on other forums. BS reasoning, but, these are gamers.

[Calax]

There are several people I know in WoW who say that they'll drop it to go to ToR.

[Oblarg]

There are several people I know in WoW who say that they'll drop it to go to ToR.

 

There were a great many people in WoW who said they'd drop it to go to Vanguard, too!

[Hurlshort]

Us forumites represent an extremely small percentage of gamers. If the videos went viral and there was a ton of bad press circulating then you'd have an argument. As is, a few people whining about it is not going to make a difference in the sales.

 

What will matter is the open beta and the flood of previews and reviews right before launch, which again is still close to a year away.

[Calax]

There are several people I know in WoW who say that they'll drop it to go to ToR.

 

There were a great many people in WoW who said they'd drop it to go to Vanguard, too!

And they did, but then it turned out vanguard wasn't for them so they came back

[Oblarg]

Us forumites represent an extremely small percentage of gamers. If the videos went viral and there was a ton of bad press circulating then you'd have an argument. As is, a few people whining about it is not going to make a difference in the sales.

 

What will matter is the open beta and the flood of previews and reviews right before launch, which again is still close to a year away.

 

You don't seem to get it - it's not about initial sales, so reviews and bad press have almost no meaning in the long run. It's about the quality of the game - even if you sell two million copies, if only have two hundred thousand subscriptions a few months later because the game is crap then it's a failure and a loss.

[Hurlshort]

You don't seem to get it - it's not about initial sales, so reviews and bad press have almost no meaning in the long run. It's about the quality of the game - even if you sell two million copies, if only have two hundred thousand subscriptions a few months later because the game is crap then it's a failure and a loss.

 

That's actually what I've said the entire time, so, uh yeah. What was your point again?

[Oblarg]

You don't seem to get it - it's not about initial sales, so reviews and bad press have almost no meaning in the long run. It's about the quality of the game - even if you sell two million copies, if only have two hundred thousand subscriptions a few months later because the game is crap then it's a failure and a loss.

 

That's actually what I've said the entire time, so, uh yeah. What was your point again?

 

"What will matter is the flood of previews and reviews before launch."

 

Certainly doesn't sound like it was your point.

[Hurlshort]

I'd say that TOR's greatest obstacle is having a clean launch and a polished game. The expectations are high. If they rush it, they are probably going to fail.

[Oblarg]

I'd say that TOR's greatest obstacle is having a clean launch and a polished game. The expectations are high. If they rush it, they are probably going to fail.

 

That's a far cry from your other statement. Perhaps you'd like to clarify what you meant?

[Hurlshort]

It's been pretty obvious that SW:TOR is going to flop for a while now - it may have had potential to do well (note I say do well, not be good) early on, but what they've revealed looks like a gimmicky mess.

 

Do you want to clarify this statement then, because that is where this whole thing started.

[Oblarg]

It's been pretty obvious that SW:TOR is going to flop for a while now - it may have had potential to do well (note I say do well, not be good) early on, but what they've revealed looks like a gimmicky mess.

 

Do you want to clarify this statement then, because that is where this whole thing started.

 

No, because that didn't contradict I said earlier.

 

Your statement did.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Oblarg

[Hurlshort]

You have claimed that the game is going to flop and that this is a commonly held opinion due to game play videos. Then you said that the game will sell like crazy at release (which I had also said), but it will lack staying power (which I had said is the biggest obstacle earlier.)

 

"What will matter is the flood of previews and reviews before launch." - This was a simple response to your opinion that the game is a mess. We don't have any real idea what the game play will be like or how it will be received until we see a lot more evidence. You are making a very premature stab at it.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Hurlshot

[Maria Caliban]

What's actually known about this game.

 

What's the selling point? Unique feature?

 

"Star Wars" and "BioWare" are the selling points. "Explore the Star Wars universe as a Jedi/Sith with a BioWare story."

 

There are eight classes and each class gets its own quests, cinematics, VOs, and companions. (Yes, there are romances.)

 

Classes also have advanced classes they can enter into. By combining different advanced trees, you can come up with atypical roles such as ranged tank and stealth healer. I'll just quote the blog.

 

 

The Scoundrel

The Scoundrel is not afraid of getting his hands dirty, as the

Edited October 16, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[Oblarg]

You have claimed that the game is going to flop and that this is a commonly held opinion due to game play videos. Then you said that the game will sell like crazy at release (which I had also said), but it will lack staying power (which I had said is the biggest obstacle earlier.)

 

"What will matter is the flood of previews and reviews before launch." - This was a simple response to your opinion that the game is a mess. We don't have any real idea what the game play will be like or how it will be received until we see a lot more evidence. You are making a very premature stab at it.

 

I did not say it will sell crazily at release. I said even if it does, it won't matter, because from what has been revealed the actual content looks like crap and won't be able to hold any players.

 

So what you meant by that is that we won't know until right before release - I disagree completely, because enough of the design decisions have been revealed to see that the game is clearly trying to be a single player RPG with a monthly fee. I've stated why that's a crappy design goal that will result in a flop.

[Hurlshort]

So what is your opinion on WoW?

[Oblarg]

So what is your opinion on WoW?

 

Easy to get into, did a very good job with keeping incentive to play even alone while still maintaining an emphasis on player interaction, good narrative pacing through quest-based phasing without compromising the fact that each player is not supposed to be a superhero. The overall framework for the game is very good and probably the result of careful design.

 

That said, the implementation is lacking at times, as the raid content gets incredibly repetitive. Competitive pvp is a joke, and they've gutted their most fun battlegrounds and keep adding new ones instead of breathing new life into the old ones. PvP balance is incredibly bad as it is based largely on abilities that also must be balanced for raid content. Increasing simplification and changes to stat systems are a nuisance and of questionable benefit. Talent trees became very cluttered and same-ish in WotLK, though at least they're making an attempt to fix them in Cataclysm. Hybrid versus pure class balance is wonky as **** and Blizzard is constantly changing their vision of what it should ideally be.

 

It's clear why no game has supplanted it. It's still not the best game ever. I cancelled my account recently, and may reactivate it for cataclysm if I hear it's any good. No real point playing now - I have 18k gold on my toon, with no intentions of leveling alts before Cataclysm and no new content to tackle.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Oblarg

[Hurlshort]

Ok, well I'm glad to hear you didn't write it off for being a subscription game. We'll just have to agree to disagree on TOR. If it really does launch in spring, it won't be long before we see who is right.

 

I'm not entirely convinced myself that it won't flop, I'm just saying I'll give Bioware the benefit of the doubt since I've been happy with everything else they've done. I'm a bit surprised they want to launch in Spring, I'd like to see them run at least a year of closed beta, then a good three to six months of open beta. Given how big a launch this will probably be, they need to be fully prepared.

[RPGmasterBoo]

"Star Wars" and "BioWare" are the selling points. "Explore the Star Wars universe as a Jedi/Sith with a BioWare story."

 

...

 

From a story perspective it sounds like diet KOTOR, because it sounds too massive to focus much on anything. On the other hand the gameplay appears to be significantly expanded.

 

Crap, I have to buy anything with a Gunslinger in it. Curse you Clint Eastwood and Stephen King!

 

Overall I dunno. The proof is in eating the pudding.

 

PS The space combat looks nice but the mechanics behind it arent terribly impressive. It seems very much like an afterthought.

[Bos_hybrid]

PS The space combat looks nice but the mechanics behind it arent terribly impressive. It seems very much like an afterthought.

 

What TOR has, is not space combat.

[Oblarg]

They should have just pulled a KotOR and put that little turret minigame whenever you travel between planets. That would be a great mechanic, right guys?

[Humanoid]

Once again.

 

 

 

 

Of course, most gamers today might not recognise the old EA logo....