KotOR MMO epic fail?

[Purkake]

Truth... bitter pill... etc...

Go on, tell us how you really feel...

[Guest Slinky]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the fountain of happiness, the man who brings joy everywhere he goes, the one and only.... TheHarlequin!!!

 

So I am not spunking in my pants over this MMO and simply posting somewhat bitter pill news from a *gasp* news site makes me a big meanie? I'd suggest its you with the vested interest in the game that clearly has the issue with only wanting sunshine and roses to be discussed. Sorry to disappoint. *shrugs* its only a game.

 

Didn't mean that, I'm not interested in the game.

 

I meant your magical talent to take offence from the strangest things and reply slightly too aggressively to them. You have been doing that for a while if you haven't noticed that.

[Thorton_AP]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the fountain of happiness, the man who brings joy everywhere he goes, the one and only.... TheHarlequin!!!

 

So I am not spunking in my pants over this MMO and simply posting somewhat bitter pill news from a *gasp* news site makes me a big meanie? I'd suggest its you with the vested interest in the game that clearly has the issue with only wanting sunshine and roses to be discussed. Sorry to disappoint. *shrugs* its only a game.

 

 

One that you claimed to not care at all about. But just doing your civic duty and letting the rest of us know, right?

 

 

DeathDealer = Win. You're a very sensitive person Mr. Harlequin.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Thorton_AP

[Hurlshort]

So you're dismissing this person, who has been confirmed works/worked within EA, and everything he states, and instead opt to rely on your own opinions on how you think it is instead? Uh OK.

 

No one has dismissed him. He worked on the Mythic side though, so I'm not going to take his word on a completely different project as gospel.

 

The other day I was playing an MMO and I helped the Fellowship of the Ring prepare to leave Rivendell. Then I went through Moria and cleaned up the giant mess the Fellowship had made when they ran through there. Then I killed the Watcher in the swamp. All of these things opened up new areas for me to adventure in, it felt epic, it felt like an advancing storyline, and it all happened in an MMORPG.

 

LotR Online is one of the best story driven RPG's I have ever played, and it is simply an added bonus that I get to play it with a bunch of other people.

[Malcador]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the fountain of happiness, the man who brings joy everywhere he goes, the one and only.... TheHarlequin!!!

 

So I am not spunking in my pants over this MMO and simply posting somewhat bitter pill news from a *gasp* news site makes me a big meanie? I'd suggest its you with the vested interest in the game that clearly has the issue with only wanting sunshine and roses to be discussed. Sorry to disappoint. *shrugs* its only a game.

 

 

One that you claimed to not care at all about. But just doing your civic duty and letting the rest of us know, right?

 

 

DeathDealer = Win. You're a very sensitive person Mr. Harlequin.

 

It's still somewhat "news" worthy material to post. The reactions you guys have against him are pretty funny, heh.

[Guest Slinky]

It's still somewhat "news" worthy material to post. The reactions you guys have against him are pretty funny, heh.

Eh? I not sure where you saw us criticising the news itself? But glad to provide some entertainment

[Malcador]

The "not caring" dig Thorton made. It would be funny to see TOR flop, and then watch the effect on Bioware and EA afterwards, however unlikely that will be.

[Thorton_AP]

It's still somewhat "news" worthy material to post. The reactions you guys have against him are pretty funny, heh.

 

That's fine. But Harlequin's posting style doesn't belie his intentions. If this wasn't BioWare's MMO I'm skeptical he'd have ever bothered. For someone that doesn't seem to care, he has a funny way of showing it.

 

But the, I always enjoy the people that say they couldn't care less about something

[Tigranes]

Lay off the personal attacks, I believe none of us are certified psychiatrists and have no business secondguessing what other people's deep secret desires are. Actually, if you are a certified psychiatrist, yargh!

 

Never been a slightest bit interested in TOR and thought it was weird to try it in the first place, just hope Bio don't go bankrupt over this or somethign.

[Oblarg]

Adding to this is the fact that everyone in an mmo has to be "equal," to some extent. The player cannot be a big hero, because then you'd have a million big heroes running around, which dilutes the importance of your character's actions. The best you can hope for in MMO narrative is for each player to feel like they're playing a small part in a large event (which is how it was done in WoW, with a few exceptions made for hardcore raiders who did get to be the big hero at times).

Utter bs.

 

Yes, you can have a million heroes running around. It's your personal context. It's called instances and phasing. They've been around for a while now. You can single handedly save the world/galaxy/whatever. Then they go into their instance and they do it, too. This isn't new. Even WoW had countless instances and quests that aren't raids. All important events were not exclusively in raids.

 

 

You can handle a narrative outside of raids in an MMO. In fact, it's been done. The conflict you think exists is an imagined one.

 

 

Maybe this revolves around your idea that MMOs are about being a part of a large universe of other players. Increasingly, many of them treat the universe as just the meeting ground. The other players influence on your narrative is unnecessary.

 

The logical extreme of phasing is, if you think about it, a single player game. Player importance and number of players in a given game world are inversely related - the more important any given player is, the fewer players you can logically have in the same game world.

 

Once again, BioWare wants to make a single player RPG that they can charge a monthly fee for. This has been clear to anyone who listened to the original dev interviews. When the universe is "just a meeting ground," the universe is just a lame excuse to charge a monthly fee.

 

So suddenly an employee mentions that it's going to be awful, and then everyone notices it looks awful?

 

Not to gloat, but it doesn't take a genius to predict this game is going to fail. Beating WoW when it already has roughly 6 years of extra content added to it? Voicing every NPC in the game while ignoring the fact that all they'll say "Go kill 10 space rats"? Not to mention the game looks like a technical mess, with awful graphics and art direction everywhere.

 

Most of us noticed that it would be awful long before then. You're right about the art direction, although art direction was never one BioWare's strengths (ME1 was a nice exception, but they decided to **** all over ME1's fantastic art direction in ME2 anyway).

Edited October 13, 2010 by Oblarg

[Zoraptor]

LotR Online is one of the best story driven RPG's I have ever played, and it is simply an added bonus that I get to play it with a bunch of other people.

It's also made by people with a great deal of experience in and intimate knowledge of what works and what doesn't, MMO wise. LOTRO was designed specifically to be somewhat "limited"* as compared to other offerings but to make sure that what it did it did very well. It's been successful precisely because it did not promise the world on a platter but delivered what it claimed, unlike the other roughly contemporaneous examples like Conan and WH which had far more grandiose claims but far less actual achievement and capacity to deliver.

 

Frankly, everything we've seen about TOR suggests they aren't going for the rather more limited but very well executed approach but for the blunderbuss/ shotgun try to hit every target at once and promise the stars approach, ie comparisons to AoC/ WH seem far more apropos.

 

*To clarify, I'm certainly not saying that LOTRO is bad or limited mechanics/ gameplay wise, just that their approach- given the sort of thing which might have been expected in an 'epic' setting like Middle Earth- was rather more circumspect and scaled than might have been expected from other MMO companies. And more successful because of it.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Zoraptor

[kirottu]

The logical extreme of phasing is, if you think about it, a single player game. Player importance and number of players in a given game world are inversely related - the more important any given player is, the fewer players you can logically have in the same game world.

 

Most people don

[Raithe]

They have been pushing the whole "each class has it's own story, plus their own perception of the grand galactic story" and one of the issues for a lot of the hard-core mmo fans is that Bio keep talking about the rerolling new characters of different classes to explore the stories from different angles..rather then talk about endgame playing....

[Oblarg]

The logical extreme of phasing is, if you think about it, a single player game. Player importance and number of players in a given game world are inversely related - the more important any given player is, the fewer players you can logically have in the same game world.

 

Most people don

[meomao]

And I corrected myself on that point. Wow.. not allowed to be wrong? So you have never spoken in honest error before? Must be nice. At least I post links so ppl can look for themselves...

 

That aside your speaking to me as if trying to convince me... I couldn't care less if it crushes wow or fails completely or anything in between. But others do.

 

Yes, sure, I made many mistakes off course. But "Errare humanum est sed perseverare est diabolicum". I would not even replied to you if you at least presented the news with some kind of doubts about the source. Instead it sounded to me like you were presenting that anonymous blog entry as a fact, just like the third company thing, happy for the imminent Bioware end. Sorry in advance if I'm wrong. I do not want to convince you: I never played MMOs and will never play a monthly fee based game. TOR lies in the same category sadly. I could try LOTRO when it goes F2P in Europe but that's all.

 

Btw, my opinion is that TOR won't come even close to WoW success (just like DA2 will never reach Diablo III success) but it will build a pretty solid player base and become profitable over reasonable time because it does not try to be just another WoW, but something different that appeals to different kind of players. To all the people who dismiss the game simply because you do not believe that people are willing to pay for a single player game with a monthly fee only for its social aspects: imho, you are understimating the allure of vanity and the need of a "friendly" community for the very people TOR is made for. Some people will love facebook in a Star Wars universe/movie where you are the Luke Skywalker of the situation. Not many as the Wow player base off course, but enough to pay the bills.

[TheHarlequin]

Adding to this is the fact that everyone in an mmo has to be "equal," to some extent. The player cannot be a big hero, because then you'd have a million big heroes running around, which dilutes the importance of your character's actions. The best you can hope for in MMO narrative is for each player to feel like they're playing a small part in a large event (which is how it was done in WoW, with a few exceptions made for hardcore raiders who did get to be the big hero at times).

Utter bs.

 

Yes, you can have a million heroes running around. It's your personal context.

 

Yes you can and it is, I agree. Thats AFAIK not in dispute. AoC, WoW and many others do that as you eluded too. However it really takes away from the strength of a CRPG when your not 'special'. You just one of a mass of world-saving-hero's running around. And until the magic pill is found to change that gameplay mechanic it's always going to seem like a world full of hero's and your lost as one of a mass of such. Now from a strictly MMO point of view that fine. non-RPers are ok with that clearly as its just about level gaining, OOC socializing and l33t l00t. But RPGers/CRPGers as is biowares main audience may be quite disappointed with that type of game.

[Malcador]

Never been a slightest bit interested in TOR and thought it was weird to try it in the first place, just hope Bio don't go bankrupt over this or somethign.

 

ME3 and DA2 will easily recoup any losses

[sorophx]

Though I will say I'm morbidly curious to see how BioWare goes about trying to pull off story driven content with an MMO.

 

like Square did in FFXI? they basically added a single-player campaign to their MMO, but with tasks designed for a full party. the bosses, the player interaction - overall it was the best MMO experience I ever had. too bad they had to ruin it.

 

point is: it can be done if done right, but of course you can't build a whole game around it

[Maria Caliban]

What a friendly thread!

 

I plan on picking up the game and playing it to see if I like it or not. I suspect that like many MMOs, you get a free trial period.

[Hurlshort]

LotR Online is one of the best story driven RPG's I have ever played, and it is simply an added bonus that I get to play it with a bunch of other people.

It's also made by people with a great deal of experience in and intimate knowledge of what works and what doesn't, MMO wise. LOTRO was designed specifically to be somewhat "limited"* as compared to other offerings but to make sure that what it did it did very well. It's been successful precisely because it did not promise the world on a platter but delivered what it claimed, unlike the other roughly contemporaneous examples like Conan and WH which had far more grandiose claims but far less actual achievement and capacity to deliver.

 

Frankly, everything we've seen about TOR suggests they aren't going for the rather more limited but very well executed approach but for the blunderbuss/ shotgun try to hit every target at once and promise the stars approach, ie comparisons to AoC/ WH seem far more apropos.

 

*To clarify, I'm certainly not saying that LOTRO is bad or limited mechanics/ gameplay wise, just that their approach- given the sort of thing which might have been expected in an 'epic' setting like Middle Earth- was rather more circumspect and scaled than might have been expected from other MMO companies. And more successful because of it.

 

I agree with everything you said. I am going to give Bioware a chance to pull it off though, because they've never really done me wrong with a game.

[Wrath of Dagon]

What a friendly thread!

The Bioware defense squad is out in force! Well, OK, mostly one guy.

 

Nothing wrong with paying subscription for a single player game, so long as enough new content is being provided in return. The quality of that content is in doubt though.

[Oblarg]

What a friendly thread!

The Bioware defense squad is out in force! Well, OK, mostly one guy.

 

Nothing wrong with paying subscription for a single player game, so long as enough new content is being provided in return. The quality of that content is in doubt though.

 

Your monthly subscription fee in an MMO does not mainly go towards new content.

[Slowtrain]

The Bioware defense squad is out in force!

 

 

Ah yes, the notorious and frightening BDS.

 

Be afraid.

[Volourn]

"But RPGers/CRPGers as is biowares main audience may be quite disappointed with that type of game. "

 

But.. but.. i thoguht BIO doesn't cater to RPGers anymore? Right? So.. how are they BIO's 'main audience' again? You can't have it both ways.

 

Besides, KOTOR OL is likely more focused on drawinjg in SW fans thatw ere dissapointed in the last SW MMO than BIO fans. Heck, it's not even being made by then 'real' BIO. *shrug*

[Hurlshort]

What a friendly thread!

The Bioware defense squad is out in force! Well, OK, mostly one guy.

 

Nothing wrong with paying subscription for a single player game, so long as enough new content is being provided in return. The quality of that content is in doubt though.

 

Your monthly subscription fee in an MMO does not mainly go towards new content.

 

Yeah, it goes towards creating a giant swimming pool filled with money for John Riccitiello to wade in.