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Star Wars: The Old Republic [Releasing Date: Dec 20 NA/EU - NDA Lifted]

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C

CzarTim

Member
That presentation was lame. Just a bunch of tease and then we had to watch them fight a battle twice when we've seen it already in a video... at least mix that part up.
 
F

falastini

Member
Those videos were.... underwhelming. I still look forward to see what Bioware can put out, but damn if everything doesn't look too similar to WoW.

I dunno if I'll ever like the character design. If I ever play this game, I'm choosing a class with a helm.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
falastini said:
Those videos were.... underwhelming. I still look forward to see what Bioware can put out, but damn if everything doesn't look too similar to WoW.
Click to expand...

What exactly are you looking for that is going to tell you it's not WoW? I'm intrigued as it's such a common complaint tossed at pretty much every single mmo that comes out even when it's not true.

What is it that you want then if this seems to be WoW to you?
 
A

antonz

Member
The Old Republic needs more Star Wars Galaxies and less World of Warcraft. Their excuse for Starfox style space is weak as hell too even though I dont mind the idea. Galaxies Handled space well and it was not Eve level simulation stuff yet Biowares arguement is basically it was Starfox or Eve.

Old Republic fair or not is going to be approached with far more scrutiny than most MMOs due to the prior Star Wars MMO and just the nature of the genre today. It has a chance to really shine or go down as the biggest flop in history.
 
A

antonz

Member
czartim said:
Yay, another 20 pages of the same argument then...
Click to expand...

Its frankly the only arguement that can exist. Going WoW style is what killed Galaxies. Galaxies flaw was that it was too sandbox. The developers never bothered making content and left it solely to the players.

I played Galaxies from day one til they went wow style. I played WoW from that moment until Jan this year simply because the Galaxies playerbase abandoned the game and my guild of 300 people shrank to like 4 people. Im tired of the WoW formula and want something new
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
antonz said:
The Old Republic needs more Star Wars Galaxies and less World of Warcraft. Their excuse for Starfox style space is weak as hell too even though I dont mind the idea. Galaxies Handled space well and it was not Eve level simulation stuff yet Biowares arguement is basically it was Starfox or Eve.

Old Republic fair or not is going to be approached with far more scrutiny than most MMOs due to the prior Star Wars MMO and just the nature of the genre today. It has a chance to really shine or go down as the biggest flop in history.
Click to expand...

Problem with Galaxies space and reason it wasn't ready for a long time after launch, was that it essentially was a whole separate game. They didn't just plug in space combat into Galaxies engine, they had to completely create essentially another game, and also a main reason for years you had to pay EXTRA for the space portion of Galaxies. People expecting Galaxies style of space game in TOR had really really high hopes there. For a game that is so focused on story also, the way they are doing space combat makes sense allowing for cinematic story based missions.

While Galaxies freedom was cool, it also got highly repetitive and had very little content. The extent of it was ever increasing tough AI while you grinded up to get better ship parts to compete, but it was essentially the same thing over and over.

antonz said:
Its frankly the only arguement that can exist. Going WoW style is what killed Galaxies.
Click to expand...

This is bullshit. Game was dying way before their wow like make over. What killed Galaxies was that 3 years after release, half the shit in the game still didn't work and most of the stuff promised early on was not available for 6+ months to years later. They even just completely removed various parts of the game instead of trying to fix them. Game "died" because it was a clusterfuck from day one.

As much as I loved Galaxies, people have a faulty memory of how it went down.
 
Vlodril

Vlodril

Member
Excellent video. Feels very cinematic for an MMO. Looks quite good for a game that has another year in development. Only problem i saw was the freakishly huge hands :lol
 
X

Xiaoki

Member
falastini said:
Those videos were.... underwhelming. I still look forward to see what Bioware can put out, but damn if everything doesn't look too similar to WoW.
Click to expand...
I was playing Champions Online this week for their Anniversary event and at several times during the week people would go on a DCUO bash spree and say it was too much like WoW.

So, is every MMO that comes out from now on going to be called "too similar to WoW" as some kind of insult?
 
A

antonz

Member
BattleMonkey said:
Problem with Galaxies space and reason it wasn't ready for a long time after launch, was that it essentially was a whole separate game. They didn't just plug in space combat into Galaxies engine, they had to completely create essentially another game, and also a main reason for years you had to pay EXTRA for the space portion of Galaxies. People expecting Galaxies style of space game in TOR had really really high hopes there. For a game that is so focused on story also, the way they are doing space combat makes sense allowing for cinematic story based missions.

While Galaxies freedom was cool, it also got highly repetitive and had very little content. The extent of it was ever increasing tough AI while you grinded up to get better ship parts to compete, but it was essentially the same thing over and over.



This is bullshit. Game was dying way before their wow like make over. What killed Galaxies was that 3 years after release, half the shit in the game still didn't work and most of the stuff promised early on was not available for 6+ months to years later. They even just completely removed various parts of the game instead of trying to fix them. Game "died" because it was a clusterfuck from day one.

As much as I loved Galaxies, people have a faulty memory of how it went down.
Click to expand...

You are right about space. It was being developed along side the main game and that was a factor in its delays etc. I dunno I just feel from what they have bothered to show us now that its like 6 months out from launch that its too much hand holding and little freedom.

Galaxies was too ambitious there is no doubt about that from the 32 Classes that you could mix and match etc it was just far too much to do with a post launch team that was probably 1/3 of the size of the pre launch team since most of the members moved onto expansion duty etc.

People got by with the game until the CU happened then numbers really started to declince so lucasarts swept in with Dallas Dickerson and dropped the NGE on everyones lap right after tricking everyone with thelaunch of the Mustafar expansion and that was all she wrote for Galaxies. Dickerson ended up getting let go from SOE cause of the debacle and now he is working on this one for Bioware.
 
F

falastini

Member
It looks like I touched a nerve :lol.

That wasn't meant as an insult, just an observation from those particular vids.

It's basically the combat/encounters that they've shown off so far. I guess saying it's "wowish" is a mistake, since WoW combat is just a refinement of the old MMO staples. It's just when the main MMOs I've played over the years have been in that style, seeing something that similar doesn't really excite as much as seeing something different like... GW2 or TERA. That doesn't mean those games will be better, nor does it mean the "WoW" style should be abolished. I'm just saying that they are more refreshing to look at. I want to see something different. The only uniqueness SW has shown me so far is in it's story mechanics.

That uninspired, cartoony look doesn't help either.
 
X

Xamdou

Member
Arnie said:
Can't wait to find out Revan's fate.

Stop your bitching guys, this is a co-op sequel to KOTOR to me.
Click to expand...

The fact that Revan is in the game, or perhaps you can play the role of Revan since it only shows his helmet waiting for the player to wear has my anticipation levels at max levels.

I'll skip FFXIV and wait for SWTOR just because Bioware is hyping the return (or rebirth) of Revan! :D
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
falastini said:
It's basically the combat/encounters that they've shown off so far. I guess saying it's "wowish" is a mistake, since WoW combat is just a refinement of the old MMO staples. It's just when the main MMOs I've played over the years have been in that style, seeing something that similar doesn't really excite as much as seeing something different like... GW2 or TERA. That doesn't mean those games will be better, nor does it mean the "WoW" style should be abolished. I'm just saying that they are more refreshing to look at. I want to see something different. The only uniqueness SW has shown me so far is in it's story mechanics.
Click to expand...

Basic rpg gameplay is very limited in how it's handled, even GW2 is not much departure from your standard MMO gameplay when it comes to the core combat. MMO's limit what the can do generally since they don't have the luxury of being able to pause or turn based mechanics, so you always have a real time system with variations of clicking buttons. Even before WoW came out people were comparing it to Everquest for example till that came out and destroyed its player numbers and now everything is compared to WoW. There are already some differences in the game and we still have lot of the game not revealed yet so it's hard to make fair comparisons.

If visuals is what concerns you, then well I guess you won't like it, they greatly toned down the visual style from it's initial reveal to be less cartoony, but they are still obviously going for something easy to run on wider range of systems.

Xamdou said:
The fact that Revan is in the game, or perhaps you can play the role of Revan since it only shows his helmet waiting for the player to wear has my anticipation levels at max levels.

I'll skip FFXIV and wait for SWTOR just because Bioware is hyping the return (or rebirth) of Revan! :D
Click to expand...

I doubt Revan will actually appear in the game with it being set 300 years after KOTOR, though like the Hyperbeacon articles on the main site, we are going to get lot of background secrets found out about what was going on at the time. Like the past article revealed that Malak and Revan had found the Sith Emperor in the unknown regions, which had a part in leading to their turn to the dark side, this was never mentioned in KOTOR, or the secret emperor that was hidden away.

I kind of hope they don't let people loot Revans mask, going to have lot of players running around with it suddenly :lol
 
Leatherface

Leatherface

Member
antonz said:
I played Galaxies from day one til they went wow style. I played WoW from that moment until Jan this year simply because the Galaxies playerbase abandoned the game and my guild of 300 people shrank to like 4 people. Im tired of the WoW formula and want something new
Click to expand...


I'm with you bud. As much as I loved WOW, that formula is getting stale. Guild Wars 2 is my only hope in the foreseeable future.
 
B

BigAT

Member
I'm feeling real tempted to go back and play some KOTOR now. I have to imagine I'll give it another playthrough sometime between now and when TOR comes out.
 
D

Darklord

Banned
Leatherface said:
I'm with you bud. As much as I loved WOW, that formula is getting stale. Guild Wars 2 is my only hope in the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

It's still should be different enough. With the space battles, AI companions that can fight in instances, full dialog trees, a unique story for each class, each player getting a starship, ect. It can't be just another clone even if they do borrow from the formula. Yeah the combat looks like WoW but you know what else it looks like? Kotor and Dragon Ages combat. They're all similar.
 
Leatherface

Leatherface

Member
Don't get me wrong. This is Bioware so I'm still interested. It's just that I'm a little burnt on the current MMO formula. I've played Everquest, Asheron's Call, Everquest 2, WOW, AOC, Aion, Warhammer Online, LOTRO, SWG and many more I'm probably not even thinking of. I've been doing this for awhile now lol. I'm obviously drawn to the MMO experience so I'll be there day one when this releases. Will it have enough freshness to hold my attention longer than most of these games? I really want it to! heh.

I'm pretty pumped about GW2 right now I must say. Let's just hope it lives up to the hype the developers are feeding us with their testionial videos. :lol

Never heard of Tera though. I'll have to go check this out. :)
 
Vigilant Walrus

Vigilant Walrus

Member
antonz said:
The Old Republic needs more Star Wars Galaxies and less World of Warcraft. Their excuse for Starfox style space is weak as hell too even though I dont mind the idea. Galaxies Handled space well and it was not Eve level simulation stuff yet Biowares arguement is basically it was Starfox or Eve.

Old Republic fair or not is going to be approached with far more scrutiny than most MMOs due to the prior Star Wars MMO and just the nature of the genre today. It has a chance to really shine or go down as the biggest flop in history.
Click to expand...

What it boils down to is:

Nobody has ever succesfully made a sandbox MMO.

WoW got the themepark(go fuck around in a zone, and advance to the next area like in a normal game) and its the standard.

MMORPG.com is not a good editorial source of information, but see this last bit from their PAX interview:


"Lastly we asked Dan about the recently revealed space combat and why the developers decided to make it more like Star Fox and less like EVE. The main reasoning, while some folks might not like to hear it, is that it doesn’t fit the type of game BioWare is striving to make. That is, the sort of tunnel-esque battles they’re injecting into TOR are about the story. They’re not about exploration and discovery. They’re about driving a narrative and giving you bursts of action… little concentrated bits of awesome. Sure you can still customize your ship, but don’t go into TOR expecting a world/universe/space simulator. Rather BioWare is bent on giving you the most cinematic and story-driven MMO out there. And it looks like they’re well on their way."
Click to expand...

This pretty much sets it right there.
This game might be going into a even more on-rails approach than WoW. It's hand holding to the maximum, but so what?
I mean this is the design of the game. They want to tell the story. They want to merge single player and multiplayer, and if they can pull it, off then fine.

I think 99% of us would prefer the sandbox - I think most of us who have tried it. Who really had those amazing experiences that was due to non-static content, but consequences and the breathe of a "living world" prefer it. But just look at how hard it is to make. Even something like PvP, they cant balance and predict the popularity of factions and classes, across basically all games. 6 years on and its still a big problem for WoW.

Yeah, Bioware went the easy route. It's defintely more easy to do it like this because they are not leaving the success to chance. SWG lived and died by the community.

By being the dictator, Bioware can shape a narrative, and make an experience more like regular game, and less like the MMORPGs of the past that was about doing anything.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
Darklord said:
It's still should be different enough. With the space battles, AI companions that can fight in instances, full dialog trees, a unique story for each class, each player getting a starship, ect. It can't be just another clone even if they do borrow from the formula. Yeah the combat looks like WoW but you know what else it looks like? Kotor and Dragon Ages combat. They're all similar.
Click to expand...

Pretty much, and WoW's gameplay was essentially the same as many other MMO's before it and other RPG's. Biggest change to come out of the style was removing the ability to pause for commands.

Another nice thing is that cause of all the range combat, terrain will be important in the game as your characters can take cover, and some abilities require the use of cover to be used for example. This will be different from everyone always just running around in the open standing around, and also will make for proper defensive play situations.

Social interactions also seem to play into group experience with players rolling off to take on the role of speaker in quest dialoge choices, with characters being able to potentially specialize for speaking. Gives it a more pen and paper feel.

And we got lot of stuff not really disclosed yet such as the PVP set ups, crafting system, etc.

And glad that player ships will be basically player housing yay!
 
S

Speculator

BioWare Austin
Friday Update:

2ic4mxu.jpg


Developer Dispatch: Designing the Light Side

http://swtor.com/media/trailers/designing-light-side




2ijlqb5.jpg


Smuggler Class Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZHu_iEPkNY
 
A

AzureNightmare

Banned
Vigilant Walrus said:
Nobody has ever succesfully made a sandbox MMO.
Click to expand...
Oh how wrong you are son. Eve Online is very, very successful. You know a sandbox MMO is successful when you have the possibility of 700 vs 700 battles in the game world itself.
 
S

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
I love the basic concept and look of the smuggler but I don't like the idea of having to be behind cover while my teammates (even the healer) can all be in plain sight.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
Outdoor Miner said:
Everything looks good up until combat. Animations are terrible and it all looks about as fun as watching paint dry. .
Click to expand...

The animations are consistently looking better and better, the only issue so far has been the melee combat synching which is something being worked on for lightsabers as bioware did with the original KOTOR where lightsaber combat actually synched up for good looking duels.

As for fun factor of the game, again this is fairly ridiculous from couple second clips of abilities being given out.

sykoex said:
I love the basic concept and look of the smuggler but I don't like the idea of having to be behind cover while my teammates (even the healer) can all be in plain sight.
Click to expand...

Many classes are to have cover based gameplay, and many abilities are designed to be used only when in cover. The Jedi classes are the ones that apparently won't be seeing much need for cover.
 
H

Hixx

Member
Outdoor Miner said:
Everything looks good up until combat. Animations are terrible and it all looks about as fun as watching paint dry. .
Click to expand...

Animations don't exactly seem to be high priority when it comes to MMO beta's. Plenty of mobs in Cata's beta don't even have a walking animation and it releases in 2 months!
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
Darklord said:
They are still way too big.
Click to expand...

Yea smugglers with giant weapons especially don't look exactly right, almost look more like bounty hunters and such. The cad bane like outfit doesn't help. Smuggler in this seems much more ass kicking oriented than true smuggling, which in a way was a bit of a problem with SWG smugglers so they gave them drug dealing abilities :lol
 
S

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
BattleMonkey said:
Many classes are to have cover based gameplay, and many abilities are designed to be used only when in cover. The Jedi classes are the ones that apparently won't be seeing much need for cover.
Click to expand...
Ah I see. If I get more abilities and maybe even some sort of buff by using cover then it actually sounds cool. Thanks for pointing that out.


Also I want it to be easily noticeable when I get a cool new weapon so I like them being big.
 
B

BigAT

Member
funkmastergeneral said:
Does the game have a release date yet? Didn't see anything in the OP about it.
Click to expand...
There's nothing specific yet, but I believe they're shooting for the first half of 2011.
 
A

Arnie

Member
Visuals look brilliant, I just wish there was a native Mac release so I don't have to run the game through Bootcamp.

REVAN!!!!
 
T

ToddG15

Member
Any word on possible large influx of beta testers or open beta? I'm super psyched for the game and would love the chance to test it out.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
ToddG15 said:
Any word on possible large influx of beta testers or open beta? I'm super psyched for the game and would love the chance to test it out.
Click to expand...

I don't think they have done anything but the limited closed beta they had while back, haven't heard of anymore beta invites going out. Assume in coming months we will see a bigger beta roll out.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Vigilant Walrus said:
What it boils down to is:

Nobody has ever succesfully made a sandbox MMO.
Click to expand...

What's your definition of sandbox?

Of the MMOs that I have played, Ultima Online and Everquest (for the first few expansions at least) certainly got it right.

WoW and all of the instanced bullshit (especially Cryptic's garbage) that has come after it got it all wrong, and deserve to have the "massively" part of their names removed in my opinion.

I've never played Eve, but everything I have heard about it screams sandbox.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
Zefah said:
What's your definition of sandbox?

Of the MMOs that I have played, Ultima Online and Everquest (for the first few expansions at least) certainly got it right.

WoW and all of the instanced bullshit (especially Cryptic's garbage) that has come after it got it all wrong, and deserve to have the "massively" part of their names removed in my opinion.

I've never played Eve, but everything I have heard about it screams sandbox.
Click to expand...

Eve is sandbox, and works good for what it's supposed to be. But in many cases it doesn't work well for other games. Everquest though successful, is not the kind of game I would ever want to see again, it's main problems were because it was purely open sandbox design. Ultima Online had lot of similarities to Star Wars Galaxies, but you always have the problem with retaining player bases.

In terms of success, Everquest is the only one that's really ever hit it big, all the other ones have retained or had mediocre sized player bases, and most studios going into the business are no doubt wanting to achieve something higher. Right now EVE is the currently most successful open sandbox design by amount of players still playing it.

Star Wars is too mass market appeal of a product to be turned into a sandbox MMO. The SW franchise has huge casual fan base and name recognition, it only makes sense for them to adopt a somewhat safe approach to the game design to what is trendy.

But hey guys, Star Wars Galaxies is still running, and you can create your own adventures.
 
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