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You can use space bar to skip any dialog section, just like in all other BioWare games.

If I just want to read the dialogue in its entirety, is that possible? Or will spacebar simply push you to the end of a conversation?

I don't mind a story, but the cinematic pretenses just grow dull quickly. Games are for playin', not listenin'. Let me read so I can get to the gameplay faster.

 

[Gvaz]

If I just want to read the dialogue in its entirety, is that possible? Or will spacebar simply push you to the end of a conversation?

I don't mind a story, but the cinematic pretenses just grow dull quickly. Games are for playin', not listenin'. Let me read so I can get to the gameplay faster.

It would seem it skips the current person talking or skips right to the dialogue choice from what I hear. So to answer your question, No.

 

[Morn]

If I just want to read the dialogue in its entirety, is that possible? Or will spacebar simply push you to the end of a conversation?

I don't mind a story, but the cinematic pretenses just grow dull quickly. Games are for playin', not listenin'. Let me read so I can get to the gameplay faster.

If you skip the dialog you miss it all, unless it's something you have to make a conversation choice on. If that's the case, it's displayed as text above the wheel.

 

[BattleMonkey]

If I just want to read the dialogue in its entirety, is that possible? Or will spacebar simply push you to the end of a conversation?

I don't mind a story, but the cinematic pretenses just grow dull quickly. Games are for playin', not listenin'. Let me read so I can get to the gameplay faster.

Eh it's supposed to be one of the main attractions for the game, so skipping that stuff seems like it will be skipping a major part of the game despite how you see it.

 

[Gvaz]

The cutscenes are literally just the quest logs before you hit accept/decline, and they're the big draw of the game so IDK why you'd want to skip them.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Well, I could say the same thing of you.

Haha what, do you want screenshots of my achievements?

I think you've backed yourself into a corner with your comments and won't let go, but whatever, carry on.

 

[Morn]

The cutscenes are literally just the quest logs before you hit accept/decline, and they're the big draw of the game so IDK why you'd want to skip them.

Most people don't read the quest log in most MMOs. As long as it gives them a quest objective on their quest tracker and it marks the map; that's all they need.

 

[Harry Dresden]

What were the two launching 40-mans with WoW?

I thought for a while it was just Molten Core.

And the only ten mans I remember at launch were LBRS and UBRS.

 

[border]

What you refer to as mini-raids (lol) were relatively challenging instances that quickly got patched into easy farm status.

Startholme, Scholomance, and UBRS were not altered until WoW 1.3.0, which was months after launch. If you're going to count an 8-player TOR dungeon as a raid content, I don't see why you can't count those three (especially UBRS, which had an attunement of sorts and some raid-ish boss mechanics).

 

[Morn]

You are not going to drop it, are you?

At launch WoW had two raid instances - one with a single raid boss and a pretty large one with 10 encounters. Together they form WoW's first raid tier which is one tier compared to SWTOR's one tier consisting of a raid instance with an unknown number of encounters.

What you refer to as mini-raids (lol) were relatively challenging instances that quickly got patched into easy farm status.

So you are saying 11 (10+1) encounters equal six times an unknown number of encounters? OK. I just hope you don't have a lot of math to do in your daily routine.

The best part is, even if Eternity Vault only had the two encounters to fit your x*6 = 11 equation (yeah, that's not likely, is it?), that would still be only about quantity and not about quality.

It has nothing to do with the number of encounters. It's the amount of endgame group content.

Right now, all we know is that TOR has one raid instance (Eternity Vault) that's tooled for either 8 players or 16 players (two or four groups).

Vanilla WoW launched with six end-game instances. Four were tooled for ten to fifteen players (two or three groups) and two were tooled for forty players.

 

[Gvaz]

Most people don't read the quest log in most MMOs. As long as it gives them a quest objective on their quest tracker and it marks the map; that's all they need.

Yes, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you skip the cutscenes in TOR you might as well play WoW or Rift or something.

 

[Morn]

Startholme, Scholomance, and UBRS were not altered until WoW 1.3.0, which was months after launch. If you're going to count an 8-player TOR dungeon as a raid content, I don't see why you can't count those three (especially UBRS, which had an attunement of sorts and some raid-ish boss mechanics).

Exactly my point.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Mini Raids

Upper BlackRock
Lower BlackRock
Scholomance
Stratholme

Raids

Molten Core


What am I missing? I honestly can't remember that far back.

 

[Morn]

What were the two launching 40-mans with WoW?

I thought for a while it was just Molten Core.

And the only ten mans I remember at launch were LBRS and UBRS.

Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair. Both of which had attunements.

The ten/fifteen mans were Stratholme, Scholomance, Lower Blackrock Spire, and Upper Blackrock Spire. As border said, they changed those four in 1.3 as UBRS had the attunement needed to enter BWL and they wanted to get more players at the cap ready for that raid.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Mini Raids

Upper BlackRock
Lower BlackRock
Scholomance
Stratholme

Raids

Molten Core


What am I missing? I honestly can't remember that far back.

That's it, really. I think people forget that WoW wasn't as awesome and content filled upon release. We had to wait for a patch for Blackrock Mountain to be opened, which fair enough was a month or so after release.

 

[Morn]

That's it, really. I think people forget that WoW wasn't as awesome and content filled upon release. We had to wait for a patch for Blackrock Mountain to be opened, which fair enough was a month or so after release.

What are you talking about? Blackrock Mountain was open at launch. There was Blackrock Depths and both Lower and Upper Spire, and Molten Core. The only thing in Blackrock Mountain that came after launch was Blackwing Lair, which was in 1.6

 

[Mr. Luchador]

What are you talking about? Blackrock Mountain was open at launch. There was Blackrock Depths and both Lower and Upper Spire, and Molten Core. The only thing in Blackrock Mountain that came after launch was Blackwing Lair, which was in 1.6

Nope. The doors to Blackrock were closed upon launch

 

[Desaan]

At launch WoW had four 10-15 man mini-raids and two 40 man raids. That's six times the endgame content, not counting PVP.

World of Warcraft had Upper Black Rock Spire, Onyxia and Molten Core. Stratholme and Scholomance where quickly patched to be 5 players only and PvP was non existent outside of world pvp, usually located around Tarren Mill and the Crossroads. There was no PvP system/rewards or Battlegrounds either until several months after launch.


That being said, I am concerned about the lack of dungeons/instances. They are the lifeblood of any MMO and when the content runs out, dungeon running for items is a big plus for most people. Story driven narrative is all well and good until the content runs out, not being negative just being relaistic!

 

[border]

The cutscenes are literally just the quest logs before you hit accept/decline, and they're the big draw of the game so IDK why you'd want to skip them.

Because I find them to be kinda dull?

Like I said, just watching preview videos now -- seeing the cutscenes for the first time, I get bored halfway through and I start wishing that the person showing the game would just skip the dialogue and get to it. Maybe I'll be a little more patient when I actually have the game in hand and I'm not dying to see gameplay, but in general I'm not very patient with games that have lots and lots of fully voiced dialogue or lengthy cutscenes.

 

[Morn]

World of Warcraft had Upper Black Rock Spire, Onyxia and Molten Core. Stratholme and Scholomance where quickly patched to be 5 players only and PvP was non existent outside of world pvp, usually located around Tarren Mill and the Crossroads. There was no PvP system/rewards or Battlegrounds either until several months after launch.


That being said, I am concerned about the lack of dungeons/instances. They are the lifeblood of any MMO and when the content runs out, dungeon running for items is a big plus for most people. Story driven narrative is all well and good until the content runs out, not being negative just being relaistic!

Strath and Scholo weren't patched until 1.3, which was a couple months after launch.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Because I find them to be kinda dull?

Like I said, just watching preview videos now -- seeing the cutscenes for the first time, I get bored halfway through and I start wishing that the person showing the game would just skip the dialogue and get to it. Maybe I'll be a little more patient when I actually have the game in hand and I'm not dying to see gameplay, but in general I'm not very patient with games that have lots and lots of fully voiced dialogue or lengthy cutscenes.

The point is that you might not be happy with the game as it's really one of it's major selling points. Majority of the game is not dialogue but if you just want to skip through it all it kind of defeats a big point of the game which is it's presentation and star warsness

 

[border]

Stratholme and Scholomance where quickly patched to be 5 players only

http://www.wowwiki.com/Stratholme
http://www.wowwiki.com/Scholomance

Scholo and Strat started as 15-player dungeons, and were capped at 10 players 4 or 5 months after launch (March 2005).

They did not become 5-man dungeons until a year after that (March 2006). However by that time most people were running them with a party of five anyway.

 

[Dinosaur Tamer]

Anyone who says a Cata Heroic could be done by 2 people hasn't played Cataclysm.

Yea, I ignored that part as either over-the-top hyperbole or complete ignorance.

That was actually a mistake. I meant to say Wrath instances could be done with two people on heroic mode and Cata instances were hardly any more challenging. They are above Wrath for sure and in fact cannot be done with two players without overgearing the content, but they are still nowhere near TBC.

Haha what, do you want screenshots of my achievements?

I think you've backed yourself into a corner with your comments and won't let go, but whatever, carry on.

What? Do you want screenshots? You were the one starting to question if the other played the game.

World of Warcraft had Upper Black Rock Spire, Onyxia and Molten Core. Stratholme and Scholomance where quickly patched to be 5 players only and PvP was non existent outside of world pvp, usually located around Tarren Mill and the Crossroads. There was no PvP system/rewards or Battlegrounds either until several months after launch.

And let's not forget Stratholme and Scholomance could be done by 5 players even prior to the patch. I know I did it. It was not the cakewalk they turned WoW into, but I always though they actually intended good players to do it with a group instead of two.

Also, people did UBRS with 10 players before it was nerfed. I never did it, but it was definitely possible.

So much for mini-raids.

 

[border]

And let's not forget Stratholme and Scholomance could be done by 5 players even prior to the patch. I know I did it. It was not the cakewalk they turned WoW into, but I always though they actually intended good players to do it with a group instead of two.

Out of the gates (as in, November 2004) you would have needed a large group for those dungeons because there weren't any other sources of gear. You'd be going into them with green items from quests, stuff that possibly was level 55 or lower. As level 60 blue gear was made more readily available from crafting, world drops, BoE stuff from other dungeons, etc then it became more viable to take smaller pug groups into those dungeons.

Even before they were hard-capped at 5, most people eventually started taking just five players so that they could do quests and not have to split loot between 10 people.

Also, people did UBRS with 10 players before it was nerfed. I never did it, but it was definitely possible.

So much for mini-raids.

I guess I don't understand how it is that a 10-15 player dungeon in WoW somehow doesn't count as a raid, but an 8-player one in ToR does? If somebody somewhere manages to finish the Eternity Vault with 5 players months after launch, will it cease to count then?

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

The only way to run Scholo was back before BC with 3 lvl 60 mages. Most fun I ever had in that game.

I stand by my earlier estimate that hardcores will be gone from TOR in a couple of months.

The real question I think is whether the inevitable massive outpouring of negative impressions that will emerge in the week before release will have an effect on initial sales.

 

[Morn]

I guess I don't understand how it is that a 10-15 player dungeon in WoW somehow doesn't count as a raid, but an 8-player one in ToR does? If somebody somewhere manages to finish the Eternity Vault with 5 players months after launch, will it cease to count then?

By the logic in this thread, in WoW they don't count as raids with 10-15 players. But in TOR 8 players is enough to call it a raid.

 

[BattleMonkey]

*circus music playing*

 

[border]

The point is that you might not be happy with the game as it's really one of it's major selling points. Majority of the game is not dialogue but if you just want to skip through it all it kind of defeats a big point of the game which is it's presentation and star warsness

I'd argue that the draw of this game is that it is a Star Wars MMO. I don't really want to sit around and listen to a farmer explain why I have to kill 10 Scorpolisks....just let me get the gist of it.

The only thing that bothers me is that it sounds like it is all-or-nothing with the voice acting, and you can't just scroll through text. So you either skip it completely or you have to listen to every line.

 

[Ariexv]

Wow the amount of misinformation about wows release dungeons is amazing... stratum/school were always 5 man dungeons... just when wow released there was no cap on players in a dungeon you could do 40man deadmines if you wanted.. molten core was released but unbeatable at launch.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I'd argue that the draw of this game is that it is a Star Wars MMO. I don't really want to sit around and listen to a farmer explain why I have to kill 10 Scorpolisks....just let me get the gist of it.

Well it's a MMO of course, but they have put most of the eggs in the game's basket seems to be focused on it's presentation aspects as to try and draw in a new crowd of gamers. It's obvious they are trying to reach out to those who often shun MMO's for it's sterile presentation so it's big draw factor is the story/dialogue interaction system. Know lot of my non mmo liking friends are mainly excited about the story/dialogue stuff and they tend to hate MMOs, which seems to be what Bioware wants. As I said before I can see the game not being all that favorable with the more hardcore and common MMO players.

 

[Dakota47]

I wish Bioware would just give out info on what they are going to do after release. I am quite sure that at the moment the game doesn't contain enough content to keep playing for the next two or three years, but then again this is an MMO so I am quite sure they will add stuff. But information about what exactly and what the time frame will be for releasing that content would be very welcome. I also think it is about time BW comes clean about costs.

 

[Emitan]

Well I'm off to the official forums so I can have a saner discussion of SWTOR.

 

[Morn]

Well I'm off to the official forums so I can have a saner discussion of SWTOR.

Ah so you're going to forums where NO negativity towards the game is allowed. I see.

 

[Dinosaur Tamer]

I guess I don't understand how it is that a 10-15 player dungeon in WoW somehow doesn't count as a raid, but an 8-player one in ToR does? If somebody somewhere manages to finish the Eternity Vault with 5 players months after launch, will it cease to count then?

No, it won't, because if something is an instance or a raid has nothing to do with size at all. It's about mechanics. Stratholme, Scholo and UBRS were never designed as raids. They were designed to be instanced - that's why Blizzard always called them instances and not raids.

By the logic of some posters here Stratholme, Scholomance and UBRS would count as raids, 10 player raids in current WoW would not. That does not make any sense at all. If something is designed as a raid, has nothing to do with player caps.

Wow the amount of misinformation about wows release dungeons is amazing... stratum/school were always 5 man dungeons... just when wow released there was no cap on players in a dungeon you could do 40man deadmines if you wanted.. molten core was released but unbeatable at launch.

Right. I remember that as well. So every instance in vanilla WoW was a raid, right? Counting every single sub-instance WoW must have had around 20 raid instances at launch. Try to match that SWTOR!

See how ridiculous that is?

 

[BattleMonkey]

Ah so you're going to forums where NO negativity towards the game is allowed. I see.

What negativity? All I see is semantic squabbling about the definition of raids in other games.

Fuck this place, I'm going to go play DC Universe and hate myself for doing so.

 

[Einbroch]

Anyone have any stats on which side is/will be more heavily played?

I want to be the least played side. Instant BG queues, yo.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Its silly trying to use a WoW basis for something as the basis for something in TOR... they're their own games.

 

[Morn]

No, it won't, because if something is an instance or a raid has nothing to do with size at all. It's about mechanics. Stratholme, Scholo and UBRS were never designed as raids. They were designed to be instanced - that's why Blizzard always called them instances and not raids.

By the logic of some posters here Stratholme, Scholomance and UBRS would count as raids, 10 player raids in current WoW would not. That does not make any sense at all. If something is designed as a raid, has nothing to do with player caps.

What are you talking about? It has everything to do with player caps. The 10-15 man instances in WoW were 10-15 man BECAUSE THEY NEEDED THAT MANY PLAYERS TO CLEAR IT.

 

[Dinosaur Tamer]

Anyone have any stats on which side is/will be more heavily played?

I want to be the least played side. Instant BG queues, yo.

Empire by far. Though it's somewhat closer on PvE realms. Will provide link in a minute.

*Edit*: Here you go: http://www.swtorprogress.com/members.php

They track the guilds and members registered on Bioware's official site. So this is a pretty handy tool to actually predict faction balance at launch. As far as I know, everyone that joined a guild on swtor.com and picked a class (or undecided) gets counted.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Yeah, can imagine most of the kiddies will want to be Siths.

 

[Meicyn]

I like to imagine Morn's posts read aloud in Eeyore's voice. It is comedy.

Anyone have any stats on which side is/will be more heavily played?

I want to be the least played side. Instant BG queues, yo.

Empire is generally the more heavily played side in beta. I'm curious to see if this extends to retail.

 

[CzarTim]

What negativity? All I see is semantic squabbling about the definition of raids in other games.

Fuck this place, I'm going to go play DC Universe and hate myself for doing so.

I've gotten to the point where I skip skim over large chunks of the thread.

 

[Dakota47]

Anyone have any stats on which side is/will be more heavily played?

I want to be the least played side. Instant BG queues, yo.

This poll suggests that Republic will be the least played side. Also be advised that Huttball allows teams of the same faction to play against each other, so it doesn't always matter.

 

[Dinosaur Tamer]

What are you talking about? It has everything to do with player caps. The 10-15 man instances in WoW were 10-15 man BECAUSE THEY NEEDED THAT MANY PLAYERS TO CLEAR IT.

There was only one that needed at least 10 players (UBRS). And yes, that does make it a 10-15 man instance. Why shouldn't it? That still does not make it a raid.

Again, it's not about player caps, it's about mechanics. If Blizzard implemented another version of raids with a 5 player cap, would you still argue it can't be a raid, because there are less than 10 players present? If so, that's pretty interesting. But as long as Blizzards designer label it a raid and implement endgame rewards,(story) progression and endgame difficulty and mechanics it would still be a raid.

Anyway, this is not going to lead anywhere, I hope you realize that. Let's just drop this and let everyone carry on. People are getting uncomfortable and that is a pity.

 

[border]

No, it won't, because if something is an instance or a raid has nothing to do with size at all. It's about mechanics. Stratholme, Scholo and UBRS were never designed as raids.

So then explain how it is that Strat, Scholo, UBRS do not have "raid mechanics". And how does Eternity Vault have raid mechanics?

 

[Rookje]

What were the two launching 40-mans with WoW?

I thought for a while it was just Molten Core.

And the only ten mans I remember at launch were LBRS and UBRS.

Onyxia

 

[Emitan]

I've gotten to the point where I skip skim over large chunks of the thread.

If I see the words "raid" or "WoW" I keep scrolling until someone is talking about TOR again.

 

[Einbroch]

If I see the words "raid" or "WoW" I keep scrolling until someone is talking about TOR again.

You can't raid in TOR?

 

[Vlodril]

Yea the conversation certainly has gotten out of bounds. How about that TOR? looks great or what?

They probably have more dungeons/raids whatever that they haven't shared with the beta testers anyway.

 

[Emitan]

You can't raid in TOR?

Ops, dood. We're gonna go oping tonight