Star Wars: The Old Republic [Releasing Date: Dec 20 NA/EU - NDA Lifted]
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It takes one guy an hour or two to write out quest text and it takes up kilobytes of storage space/bandwidth. Recording quest audio dialogue takes forever by comparison, especially if it's going to be different voices for every possible combination of class/gender character. Bandwidth for mandatory content updates is not really free either.gatti-man said:
Voice acting won't limit the quality of content, it will limit the quantity of quality content.
The people who are interested in story are going to abandon the game as they complete the content and new stuff is being churned out at a snail's pace. I guess this is more a problem with their business model than the game design though. Appealing to people more interested in story than character progression will result in pretty sharp spikes in subscriptions. It's easy to dangle a carrot for raiders, harder to do so for people interested in narrative -- at some point they're just going to experience a fatigue with this particular setting and universe.
BattleMonkey
Member
border said:
I would rather have more quality than alot of generic quantity.
But also think that is not true, of all things what is going to take the longest to produce is the actual game content, not the audio/writing portion as most of that is handled by other people than those actually working on the game itself. The audio/writing stuff only adds really to production costs, but shouldn't really affect time.
With TOR we are likely going to see content updates more similar to WoW's with several months before any new content is released, unlike other MMOs coming out lately that try to push out lot of little content on regular monthly basis and such. For such a high profile and expensive game, it shouldn't be a burden for them to be able to add new content on a timely basis. The real factor is if the game is successful enough that it will bring in the revenue to support big content updates.
What they have in mind is great, but it depends on the game being successful, but once again, this is no different from any other MMO really as continued support is dependent on success generally.
border said:
Never really stopped other people from playing other MMOs who churn out new content on 3-6 month basis only. How is the fatigue going to be any different from those who have spent 6 years or so playing the same game that had no story? Again the key here is that this game does well enough that they can continue to provide both traditional MMO experience for those "hardcore" and those wanting story.
But also remember a key thing they are also going for with TOR is that they hope players want to play other classes to experience all the different stories. Unlike any other MMO, each class has unique stories, quests, dialogues, as well as the assortment of exclusive companion characters who also have their own unique stories and quests attached to them as well, along with two different game factions to experience. They are trying to make the game more unique for each play with different classes instead of it being the exact same experience just with an alt character.
Giolon
Member
It's been 20 years, and I still haven't experienced Star Wars fatigue. But that is the real question - how do you keep the people who came into Old Republic to get their next KOTOR or Mass Effect-like story fix? They'll stick around to see probably 2 or 3 characters through to max level to see the different stories, realize that 90% of the content between them is the same filler (as it is for all MMOs), have no interest in raiding - and then what?border said:
Edit:
XD You got me.Kettch said:
Baller. PhD
Banned
Yeah, for as much shit as I'll probably talk about this game, none of it really matters. It's Star Wars.Kettch said:
I guess what had me doubting that balance of MMO/story-based RPG was the revelation in this thread that the shipped product will have 4 dungeons per faction (or some other relatively small number). It sounds like they really are making a singleplayer KOTOR with some online features. Most of the interaction you do in online RPGs is questing and dungeon runs. If every class has their own quests and NPCs wouldn't it be rather pointless to group with anyone that's not your class? If there's only a handful of dungeons, it kinda restricts your grouping as well.BattleMonkey said:
The people interested in the raiding/leveling treadmill are there for the treadmill -- not the universe. The emphasis on voice acting slows the treadmill and diverts resources towards content that they aren't interested in.
Those sort people aren't enough for this to be a serious WoW competitor.Kettch said:
BattleMonkey
Member
border said:
Well depends again on what they actually put out and how successful it is I think. Many people have said it seems like a single player game set in a MMO setting with all the typical trappings. I'm sure it's not going to appease many of the hardcore MMO freaks, as it seems like few games do.... any MMO that comes out lately has been zerg to the endgame and then bitch about how a new MMO has lack of content compared to games that have been on the market for 7+ years. Even games that come out strong with amazing polish like RIFT had this happen. And of course you also got the PVP game for those into that, but I think lot of that has been kind of under wraps.
The bioware dude in the thread a few posts back seems to indicate that the final product is also likely going to have more flashpoints than what has been revealed in beta so far.
border said:
Why does it have to be a WoW competitor? Why does it always come down to this nonsense? They aren't even shooting for anywhere close to WoW numbers of subcribers.
This is more what I meant by "fatigue". The people who are in it for the story will do a few runthroughs but eventually move on to some other game that just has a fresh universe and setting. I think the number of people who want to play through 8 KOTORs in a row is somewhat limited....especially when they're paying by the month. And even those people will flame out once they've seen all the classes.Giolon said:
It's a bit early to make the assumption that 90% of the content will be shared between classes, but I'm also a little doubtful of the claim that every class is going to have a really unique experience.
BattleMonkey
Member
border said:
But this is also making assumptions that there is not going to be any new content. Really the same complaints once again apply to every single MMO out there, why think of TOR in a different light? As usual with MMO's it's about how well polished the game is, how well received it is, and how well supported it is after launch. Same applies to any MMO
FieryBalrog
Member
Ha. Have you any idea how much money (ballpark figure) EA has poured into this game? If it doesn't break at least 1 million NA/EU subs they are fucked. By comparison WoW has somewhere between 5.5 and 4.5 million depending on how many of the lost subs are NA/EU. And no other game has even 1/10 of that (paid subs ofc).BattleMonkey said:
WoW's budget was $100 million, you have to imagine with the extensive voice acting and higher graphics, plus the Star Wars license, you're looking at $150 million minimum.
Baller. PhD
Banned
FieryBalrog said:
Star Wars will be enough for that.
I think you guys are really underestimating Star Wars.
BattleMonkey said:
To produce all this fully-voiced, class-specific content that is supposed to be the game's hallmark, I think they'd have to have a ton of subscribers. Blizzard's content production is pretty slow, and that's taking into account that they use quest text and make class-neutral content.
My point is that the focus on story-content and the story-oriented players leaves them more vulnerable than any other MMO. Singleplayer RPG content can be burned through pretty damned quickly, especially in relation to how difficult and time-consuming it is to produce. You can keep people in a new raid dungeon for months, whereas adding 20-30 new story-quests per class is only going to keep people busy for a few evenings at best.BattleMonkey said:
FieryBalrog
Member
Giolon
Member
BattleMonkey said:
The pacing of new content in MMOs has almost never been enough to keep up with the pace players can consume it - even with WoW's incredible grind shitfest. The closest I can recall was Turbine's original monthly content updates (free! innovative at the time against EQ's semi-annual expansion packs), and even then they backed off to every other month after about a year and a half so they could do bigger things.
I can't imagine that Bioware's going to be able to produce the same quality content for updates as the base game on a consistent and timely basis. I'm not saying that they can't, just that I can't see it happening. I'd be ecstatic to be proven wrong.
SWG launched in a terrible unfinished state, and yet it still did quite well for the time. It's still my personal favorite MMORPG of all time, and only partially for being Star Wars. The Jump to Lightspeed era was its Golden Age.FieryBalrog said:
Early on it was very successful. Mishandling drove people away though. Frankly I think they have more danger in losing people from reports of everything being set peices and unusable like chairs etc then anything else.FieryBalrog said:
Star Wars Galaxies had a very fierce RP community and you can bet they will be migrating to TOR. If they see so little interactable material they will abandon ship faster than you can say Star Wars.
FieryBalrog
Member
Warhammer's budget was somewhere between 75-100 million for EA and that bombed spectacularly. I don't think they can take much more of those, you have to think EA is really betting the farm on this one.
FieryBalrog
Member
antonz said:
We're talking "pre-WoW" successful, I hope you realize.
That RP community was barely a fraction of the people playing the actual game, though. I think Bioware's diehard RP fans will be satisfied with the cybering opportunities and not give a shit about the benches.antonz said:
MaddenNFL64
Member
There is shared content in leveling on the same faction, I mean thats how group content works. But your class story is completely different, from Trooper to Jedi Knight. If you play a Sith Marauder, then Play a Jedi Sage, about ALL the content will be different.
Raiding usually has enough of a barrier to entry that the majority of players never go raiding. I'm thinking with 8 man (or 16 man) raiding, no crazy pre-raid hoops to jump through (they said, once you hit 50, you're ready to go), or needing pre-raid gear (they said you will go into raids with your story gear), the barrier is much lower. Oh, everyone gets a loot bag after a boss. No one goes home empty handed.
Not to mention endgame flashpoints/dungeons (all the older dungeons will have lvl 50 variants, with I presume nice rewards inside), that don't need a full party to be run. Just a friend, and your best companions, though they have said that will be stupid hard. And last but not least, the Planet Ilum. It's the "endgame planet", with content just for max level players. Not sure what goes on there, but at Comic-Con they said there would tons of stuff for solo endgame.
Raiding usually has enough of a barrier to entry that the majority of players never go raiding. I'm thinking with 8 man (or 16 man) raiding, no crazy pre-raid hoops to jump through (they said, once you hit 50, you're ready to go), or needing pre-raid gear (they said you will go into raids with your story gear), the barrier is much lower. Oh, everyone gets a loot bag after a boss. No one goes home empty handed.
Not to mention endgame flashpoints/dungeons (all the older dungeons will have lvl 50 variants, with I presume nice rewards inside), that don't need a full party to be run. Just a friend, and your best companions, though they have said that will be stupid hard. And last but not least, the Planet Ilum. It's the "endgame planet", with content just for max level players. Not sure what goes on there, but at Comic-Con they said there would tons of stuff for solo endgame.
I gotta imagine someone at Sony Online Entertainment saying the same thing before Star Wars Galaxies launched. If I were at BioWare (or any other MMORPG company) I'd be really nervous -- with these types of games it seems like you have to hit the ball out of the park from the get go and never falter. Once the buzz turns even slightly negative you've peaked and there's almost no way to turn it around.Baller said:
BattleMonkey
Member
FieryBalrog said:
WoW didn't change anything to determine if a game is a success. No MMO at this point is going to reach WoW levels of success, and once again they are not even aiming for the level of success that WoW has with their target subscriber numbers.
Warhammer was another failure for many reasons, and even with such a lesser known IP as Warhammer, it still did over 1.5 mil in sales. In this generation where MMO's are more popular, TOR should do far better, and once again we have the unknown of how well received the game will be in the end and it's impossible to predict till after the game is out.
Giolon
Member
The difference here being that 1) EA/Bioware has the sub-par launch-state of SWG to look at as an example of what happens when you try to ride on the license alone for the release of your MMO 2) SWG performed quite well compared to its competition up until the point of WoW's release and really didn't take a nosedive until the NGE hit. 3) SWG flourished in the Jump to Lightspeed era, despite having earlier slightly negative buzz due to the rushed and buggy launch.border said:
Bioware has a good track record that EAs tendrils have only begun to really tarnish lately (DA2...what happened to you). Hopefully, the wiser heads will prevail and truly not release this thing until it's ready.
MaddenNFL64
Member
No one knows the future of TOR, but we can already tell by the preorders that at launch, and in the near future, this hyped ass game will sell bucketloads. nay, truckloads.
Retention is the question, but fuck. That's a pretty boring question, since no one has a fucking clue.
Retention is the question, but fuck. That's a pretty boring question, since no one has a fucking clue.
FieryBalrog
Member
I have no idea why you keep going on about pull when a franchise known by maybe a dozen million (Warcraft) managed to vastly outperform franchises known by hundreds of millions (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek).Giolon said:
Hell, games made up of COMPLETE UNKNOWN franchises (e.g. Eve) have managed to outdo these supposed big boys over the long haul.
So, I'm asking you: are you serious?
It did, because it changed the budgets.BattleMonkey said:
MaddenNFL64
Member
jogarrr said:
Not much info was said, but I do remember them saying that all the older flashpoints would have lvl 50 versions at endgame. Pretty sure they're gonna have to tweak mechanics in them, since the ones run at lvl 10 might be way too easy, with just a scaling bump.
BattleMonkey
Member
Stuart444 said:
Which has been stated countless times already here. Problem is people are making judgments on things that they wont know about till after the game launches. Many MMO's have looked great before release and sold very well but ended up "failing" to an extent because of issues post launch.
Giolon
Member
You should. What's the worst that could happen?Stuart444 said:I am pretty tempted to pre-order the standard edition just to try it... at the very least, I'd get early access and 30 days free. and if I don't like it, I just don't subscribe...
Still wish we got KOTOR3 instead of this but I got over that a while agosomewhat anyway
You get totally hooked and love it
SUPARSTARX
Member
It doesn't matter. This is Star Wars. Star. Wars. Initial sales will blow through the roof. Just hoping the game has great content to sustain itself.
BattleMonkey
Member
FieryBalrog said:
EVE is successful purely because of it being so low budget. For any current game or other IP, it would be considered a failure with the numbers it gets. It has around 300k subs, which just isn't enough for todays games, and even lower budget MMOs it would not be enough on a P2P model, hence freemium games or cash shops... which even EVE has now toying with.
So you believe franchise has zero pull on game success? Because that is really all that is being said. Heck without the IP, Galaxies wouldn't have lasted as long as it did with how horrible it performed and all its countless problems, but it was the hardcore SW fans that kept the game going for so long as it did generate money.
FieryBalrog said:
And? Again has nothing to do with WoW really, every game has it's own measure of what is considered successful. Even after quite some time from release and low player numbers, Warhammer was still making good money for EA despite everyone calling it a failure at the time. The level of success for TOR has already been stated, and the bar is far far lower than what WoW has achieved, and no MMO needs to reach the level of success that WoW did to make lots of money.
MaddenNFL64
Member
Man I want some new leaks. Jonesing for some info.
Now just to wait for early access/release... wonder when that will be. I'm going to assume Octoberish since the beta is throughout september.
Half of me thinks I'm going to regret pre-ordering SWTOR and half of me thinks at least if I don't like it, I can say I tried it...
ah well, too late to worry about it now XD
Half of me thinks I'm going to regret pre-ordering SWTOR and half of me thinks at least if I don't like it, I can say I tried it...
ah well, too late to worry about it now XD
I don't think it will end up like Star Wars Galaxies -- but to say that it doesn't have to remain current and compelling just because it's Star Wars is a little ridiculous. Yes there are people that will never fatigue of the universe and yes there are people that will play anything with Star Wars on the box, but there's not enough of them to gamble hundreds of millions of dollars on.
BattleMonkey
Member
border said:
No one said that
The_Squirrel_Menace
Member
The recent Imperial Agent leaked video floating around is awesome. Doing it, Sam Fisher style, no use of lethal forces. Like a ghost, literally.
Not only that, the stealth fx has been apparently improved from previous videos.
Not only that, the stealth fx has been apparently improved from previous videos.
flyinpiranha
Member
eosos said:
I think it's because all most can do IS sit on the benches (and not get beta invites).
flyinpiranha
Member
eosos said:
Yeah, seems like that's standard fair for MMO's
I mean, what exactly did you do in the inn in WoW or something? Or are there no social interactions like /dance /taunt /cheer and such? All you could do is emote or sit in a chair (and talk to the innkeeper - but I assume you can do the same in TOR).
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