for anyone who has seen what is being proposed for star wars: the old republic (aka star wars online) that will be released some time later this year, what are your thoughts as to how that game will compare with this one? if you haven't heard about it, you can google it or find preview videos on 1up.com.
my thoughts, after reading their forums, watching their videos, and after playing this game through ob and launch, are that sw:tor is what this game should be. those people are proud of what they are doing, and what they are doing is trying to bring new aspects to mmorpgs. they have looked at what works, and are trying to expand upon that.
this is 2010. wow has set the standard for what mmorpgs should be. bioware is trying to raise that standard. and in my opinion, this game brings nothing new to the table at all. with a name like star trek, shouldn't this game exceed what already exists? shouldn't this game impress people so much that the fanboys don't feel like they need to come out of the woodwork to defend a game that either simply was not ready to be released or will never be more than it is right now?
has cryptic been spending the past five years in deep space? have they not seen what other games have been doing? sure, wow has been in development the entire five years it has been out. but isn't that five years of research and development that crypic doesn't have to do? here is a working model for them of a successful game. they took some of the ui features and left the game out.
The key problem with this discussion is that they are two different types of games. SW will be more of a single player, RPG experience where as STO is a truer MMO, albeit lacking initial content like most MMO launches. I wish people would stop comparing X game to X game. STO isnt trying to be SW and vice versca, so stop trying to put them on the same level.
not another one of theses, you know I think most of the people DON'T CARE. WOW forums are here. and TOR forums are there. go there is you like those games.
This is kind of a dumb thread. Your compare 3 games that are very different from each other, and one of them hasn't even been released yet. As far as TOR goes it looks great and I think Bioware has an edge with the choices and full VO but until you see it in action you can't really say thats its better than anything.
As far as comparing STO to WoW, the latter had at least a 3 yr (correct the exact time if you wish) development cycle plus 5 yrs of post release updates. STO had a 2 yr development cycle (not counting the work the previous company did on it) and has just been released. Why don't we wait and see how TOR looks at release at least before trying to compare these games.
The key problem with this discussion is that they are two different types of games. SW will be more of a single player, RPG experience where as STO is a truer MMO, albeit lacking initial content like most MMO launches. I wish people would stop comparing X game to X game. STO isnt trying to be SW and vice versca, so stop trying to put them on the same level.
Saying that ST:O is more of a TRUE MMO than SW:TOR is going to be is laughable at best.
ST:O is about as much an MMO as Michael Jordan is a football player.
The key problem with this discussion is that they are two different types of games. SW will be more of a single player, RPG experience where as STO is a truer MMO, albeit lacking initial content like most MMO launches. I wish people would stop comparing X game to X game. STO isnt trying to be SW and vice versca, so stop trying to put them on the same level.
you're seeing me comparing apples to oranges instead of what i'm doing is comparing fruits. in other words, you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
i'm not talking about the individual aspects. i'm talking about the overall projects. sw:tor is trying to set a new standard in mmorpgs, st:o has done nothing new at all. in fact, it seems to be lacking a lot of the established parts of a successful game.
that is just my opinion though. i'm curious how others feel about what sw:tor is saying a game in 2010 should be and what st:o is giving us as a game in 2010.
sorry for the faces. i don't know how to disable them. i think you can still manage to read what i'm saying though.
The key problem with this discussion is that they are two different types of games. SW will be more of a single player, RPG experience where as STO is a truer MMO, albeit lacking initial content like most MMO launches. I wish people would stop comparing X game to X game. STO isnt trying to be SW and vice versca, so stop trying to put them on the same level.
QFT. OP's lack of faith is as disturbing as kitharen troll post. SWTOR has all of looks of a single player RPG with a co-op option. As Xbox has that market down pat, should I ever have an interest in such games I would buy an Xbox. It is true STO is lack luster is some areas BUT Cryptic has excelled so far in listening to the community and trying to get constructive ideas worked in to the game in a reasonable amount of time. While I will be at least trying ToR whenever it is released I will still continue to enjoy STO as long as It is up and Cryptic stays true to their word about listening to the community.
wow: 5 years of dev with the biggest budget ever, one of the shakiest launches in the history of mmo's, record setting sub growth in all regions, 5 years and two paid expansions worth of content.
STO released about a week ago, better, more stable launch then wow, 2 years of dev time.
SWTOR: unknown amount of dev time with a budget rumoured to blow wow's out of the water. yet to be released.
not another one of theses, you know I think most of the people DON'T CARE. WOW forums are here. and TOR forums are there. go there is you like those games.
how do you form opinions then if not by making comparisons?
Other people around. In STO you realize there's other people around in sector space only; the moment you enter some episode even chat is gone.
Or in other words: STO is instanced hell. Refer to countless other forums why instancing is not fun.
in wow for instance when you reach endgame you spend most of your time in instanced dungeons of one sort or another. you talk in vent only and don't chat in text in game. most people don't group at all while leveling.
zone chat is obviously limited to each zone which may only have at most a few dozen players in it. players if they want to chat go into cities and use trade chat which is the most global chat channel.
older mmos were even more limited in socialization.
lineage 2 for instance only had global chat for a select few years after release. most of the time you could only shout chat to other player within a certain distance, and gave away to your enemies that you were in a certain area. most clans had their own vents again.
SWG had forced socialization in various hubs, due to teh enormous downtime. and i'm sure many players mitigated this by going afk and reading forums or browsing the net.
in wow for instance when you reach endgame you spend most of your time in instanced dungeons of one sort or another. you talk in vent only and don't chat in text in game. most people don't group at all while leveling.
zone chat is obviously limited to each zone which may only have at most a few dozen players in it. players if they want to chat go into cities and use trade chat which is the most global chat channel.
older mmos were even more limited in socialization.
lineage 2 for instance only had global chat for a select few years after release. most of the time you could only shout chat to other player within a certain distance, and gave away to your enemies that you were in a certain area. most clans had their own vents again.
SWG had forced socialization in various hubs, due to teh enormous downtime. and i'm sure many players mitigated this by going afk and reading forums or browsing the net.
Sorry but SWG, prior to the changes they made, was the best MMO produced. It was a great social air about it, the crafting was/is the best of any MMO and the content was generated by the players. If more MMOs were of the "sandbox" design like SWG was, the market would be in much better shape for these types of games.
Sorry but SWG, prior to the changes they made, was the best MMO produced. It was a great social air about it, the crafting was/is the best of any MMO and the content was generated by the players. If more MMOs were of the "sandbox" design like SWG was, the market would be in much better shape for these types of games.
SWG was terrible it suffered from rubberbanding and other server stability and lag issues after a year after launch.
it had forced socializing due the extreme downtime.
it had extremely OP class specs, such as the godly TK who could easily solo jedi over and over again.
it was extremely content poor, even compared to other player driven games of the day. content updates were more content poor grind around a thempark design.
and it's launch? half the features on teh box weren't in game for several months.
SWG was terrible it suffered from rubberbanding and other server stability and lag issues after a year after launch.
it had forced socializing due the extreme downtime.
it had extremely OP class specs, such as the godly TK who could easily solo jedi over and over again.
it was extremely content poor, even compared to other player driven games of the day. content updates were more content poor grind around a thempark design.
and it's launch? half the features on teh box weren't in game for several months.
Yes, the rubberbanding was a bit much but it was largely due to the sandbox design of the game.... gotta take the good with the bad.
How can u have forced socializing if the servers are down???? Your comment makes no sense. There was tons of socializing in the taverns/bars... my wife was a dancer and trust me, i always saw people in there talking.
A lot of classes were OP... need I remind your of the Rifleman headshot abilities?
Yes, content was poor from mission terminals but at least there was diversity in the mission terminals.... crafting or combat missions. And the true content of the game was what the players made. Attacking factional bases and seizing control of enemy bunkers was amazingly fun content
Yes, the rubberbanding was a bit much but it was largely due to the sandbox design of the game.... gotta take the good with the bad.
How can u have forced socializing if the servers are down???? Your comment makes no sense. There was tons of socializing in the taverns/bars... my wife was a dancer and trust me, i always saw people in there talking.
A lot of classes were OP... need I remind your of the Rifleman headshot abilities?
Yes, content was poor from mission terminals but at least there was diversity in the mission terminals.... crafting or combat missions. And the true content of the game was what the players made. Attacking factional bases and seizing control of enemy bunkers was amazingly fun content
funny sandbox games don't necessarily have rubberbanding.
my second mmo after swg was lineage 2, very player driven game. huge single world that was packed with hundreds of different mob types to kill. took hours to walk across the world, only time you saw a loading screen was for a few brief seconds when you teleported across the map. and i had absolutely no rubberbanding even during 400vs 400 man sieges, which admittedly were laggy, though not as laggy as later efforts in other other games to do epic siege warfare.
and by downtime i mean the time when you are forced not to do things like combat due to game mechanics. in wow for example the downtime is minimal as you have food and water which regen hp and mana within a few seconds.
diversity in missions? killing camps of mobs in random locations is what you call diversity?
and player driven play is no excuse for lack of dev made content.
and iirc nothing was more OP than TKs who had the ability to dodge or mitigate damage far above other class specs as well as dish out tonnes more damage per hit and at a faster rate than even jedi.
I wouldn't say that STO hasn't brought anything new to the table. I have to admit the BOs and their management does bring something new to MMOs. I mean while pets have existed in other MMOs STO has brought them to a whole different lvl within gameplay. I don't consider myself a fanboi of Cryptic and they have plenty of work to do still. I simply think writing them off as simply being greedy is a bad take.
I keep hearing that STO is not an mmo, but no one seems to define it. According to wikipediia:
A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO) is a video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world.
Where does it say PvP or even PvE is required. Last I heard, STO has thousands of players logged in simultaneously. I do not believe that the thousands of players are even required to interact on the basic definition of MMO. STO does have a persistent world.
Everyone is quick to say what STO has or has not compared to another MMO. However, very few are similar and when they are, they still have major differences. There is a game called Test Drive Unlimited which is classified as an MMO, but it is nothing like WOW, EQ, UO, or STO. It is not even a RPG.
STO is a MMO. It may be heavily instanced like Champions or DDO, but that does not strip it form MMO status. The only thing that could strip it from MMO status would be if it was more like a LAN game or one that can only support less than a thousand players. neither of which are true.
I do not think that STO should be compared to other MMOs of different types, for it is like comparing apples and oranges, but that is more my opinion. Others are free to do so all they want.
I do not mind hearing how STO does not do this as well as WOW (btw I hate WOW. I am an EQ2 player) or this feature was not developed well, for these are all peoples opinion and everyone has the right to state their opinions, but the definition of MMO is fairly established by the gaming industry and STO does match that definition.
I wouldn't say that STO hasn't brought anything new to the table. I have to admit the BOs and their management does bring something new to MMOs. I mean while pets have existed in other MMOs STO has brought them to a whole different lvl within gameplay. I don't consider myself a fanboi of Cryptic and they have plenty of work to do still. I simply think writing them off as simply being greedy is a bad take.
okay, so they allowed you to have more than one pet at a time and give your pets gear. i see this as expanding upon one feature wow already has and one that sw:tor says they will have (pets i mean, not more than one or whatever else.) bridge officers are customizable to an extent, and this game does bring a lot of customization. but that's not new. really.
Flyff, Aion, World of WarCraft, Star Trek Online, Test Drive Unlimited, Albatross, EverQuest (amazing this game is still around). Yes... even Anarchy Online. They are all MMOs. They all even have a little RPG in them as well, some more than others.
Comparing STO to WOW to TOR to SWG to EVE to ETC will always be done. From now until the end of gaming time. Or until people just plain forget about it. (Yeah... how many of you thought about Anarchy Online lately?!?) It's in the nature of what we do.
I really don't care either way. Just making a point to those that feel the need to say something about the topic.
""this is 2010. wow has set the standard for what mmorpgs should be""
It bored the TRIBBLE out of me.
okay, well it has more subscriptions than any other, or rather every other combined. i'd say that qualifies it as being a measuring stick. if you prefer hack and slash, then it's not really going to excite you. if you pay attention to what's going on then i don't believe it's boring.
Other people around. In STO you realize there's other people around in sector space only; the moment you enter some episode even chat is gone.
Or in other words: STO is instanced hell. Refer to countless other forums why instancing is not fun.
Wow, my chat is always going in STO... oh wait, that's because I am a member of a fleet that is born from a robust online community so I never have to listen to Zone chat.
I would love to see cryptic response to all these allegations people are making for them only being here for the money and not caring about the IP.. I mean seriously I want to see a response.. becasue bioware and even Soe (used to anyway) care about the IP as does blizzard. Just some kind of response is all i am asking I wanan see a timetable for the year and Id love to see what they think of everyones ideas for the future( and none of the yes no bullcrap they do in chats REAL ANSWERS). I think we deserve it.. we all paid for this...
Comments
Cryptic cares about proft only, milking a good IP with the least effort.
Because CBS and Atari are saints right? :rolleyes:
As far as comparing STO to WoW, the latter had at least a 3 yr (correct the exact time if you wish) development cycle plus 5 yrs of post release updates. STO had a 2 yr development cycle (not counting the work the previous company did on it) and has just been released. Why don't we wait and see how TOR looks at release at least before trying to compare these games.
Saying that ST:O is more of a TRUE MMO than SW:TOR is going to be is laughable at best.
ST:O is about as much an MMO as Michael Jordan is a football player.
you're seeing me comparing apples to oranges instead of what i'm doing is comparing fruits. in other words, you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
i'm not talking about the individual aspects. i'm talking about the overall projects. sw:tor is trying to set a new standard in mmorpgs, st:o has done nothing new at all. in fact, it seems to be lacking a lot of the established parts of a successful game.
that is just my opinion though. i'm curious how others feel about what sw:tor is saying a game in 2010 should be and what st:o is giving us as a game in 2010.
sorry for the
QFT. OP's lack of faith is as disturbing as kitharen troll post. SWTOR has all of looks of a single player RPG with a co-op option. As Xbox has that market down pat, should I ever have an interest in such games I would buy an Xbox. It is true STO is lack luster is some areas BUT Cryptic has excelled so far in listening to the community and trying to get constructive ideas worked in to the game in a reasonable amount of time. While I will be at least trying ToR whenever it is released I will still continue to enjoy STO as long as It is up and Cryptic stays true to their word about listening to the community.
STO released about a week ago, better, more stable launch then wow, 2 years of dev time.
SWTOR: unknown amount of dev time with a budget rumoured to blow wow's out of the water. yet to be released.
how do you form opinions then if not by making comparisons?
Who cares about server stability if the game is lacking enjoyability?
the members of my fleet and i to name a few, are quite enjoying our time playing STO.
what are you expecting from an mmo?
Other people around. In STO you realize there's other people around in sector space only; the moment you enter some episode even chat is gone.
Or in other words: STO is instanced hell. Refer to countless other forums why instancing is not fun.
in wow for instance when you reach endgame you spend most of your time in instanced dungeons of one sort or another. you talk in vent only and don't chat in text in game. most people don't group at all while leveling.
zone chat is obviously limited to each zone which may only have at most a few dozen players in it. players if they want to chat go into cities and use trade chat which is the most global chat channel.
older mmos were even more limited in socialization.
lineage 2 for instance only had global chat for a select few years after release. most of the time you could only shout chat to other player within a certain distance, and gave away to your enemies that you were in a certain area. most clans had their own vents again.
SWG had forced socialization in various hubs, due to teh enormous downtime. and i'm sure many players mitigated this by going afk and reading forums or browsing the net.
Sorry but SWG, prior to the changes they made, was the best MMO produced. It was a great social air about it, the crafting was/is the best of any MMO and the content was generated by the players. If more MMOs were of the "sandbox" design like SWG was, the market would be in much better shape for these types of games.
SWG was terrible it suffered from rubberbanding and other server stability and lag issues after a year after launch.
it had forced socializing due the extreme downtime.
it had extremely OP class specs, such as the godly TK who could easily solo jedi over and over again.
it was extremely content poor, even compared to other player driven games of the day. content updates were more content poor grind around a thempark design.
and it's launch? half the features on teh box weren't in game for several months.
I'm sure TOR will be good but it will just be Mass Effect online. More a single player driven story then a multi-player enviroment.
From the looks of the pre-views it's mostly the player and their side kick doing the quests.
ST:O has multi player elements if people choose to try it.
Yes, the rubberbanding was a bit much but it was largely due to the sandbox design of the game.... gotta take the good with the bad.
How can u have forced socializing if the servers are down???? Your comment makes no sense. There was tons of socializing in the taverns/bars... my wife was a dancer and trust me, i always saw people in there talking.
A lot of classes were OP... need I remind your of the Rifleman headshot abilities?
Yes, content was poor from mission terminals but at least there was diversity in the mission terminals.... crafting or combat missions. And the true content of the game was what the players made. Attacking factional bases and seizing control of enemy bunkers was amazingly fun content
funny sandbox games don't necessarily have rubberbanding.
my second mmo after swg was lineage 2, very player driven game. huge single world that was packed with hundreds of different mob types to kill. took hours to walk across the world, only time you saw a loading screen was for a few brief seconds when you teleported across the map. and i had absolutely no rubberbanding even during 400vs 400 man sieges, which admittedly were laggy, though not as laggy as later efforts in other other games to do epic siege warfare.
and by downtime i mean the time when you are forced not to do things like combat due to game mechanics. in wow for example the downtime is minimal as you have food and water which regen hp and mana within a few seconds.
diversity in missions? killing camps of mobs in random locations is what you call diversity?
and player driven play is no excuse for lack of dev made content.
and iirc nothing was more OP than TKs who had the ability to dodge or mitigate damage far above other class specs as well as dish out tonnes more damage per hit and at a faster rate than even jedi.
It bored the TRIBBLE out of me.
A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO) is a video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world.
Where does it say PvP or even PvE is required. Last I heard, STO has thousands of players logged in simultaneously. I do not believe that the thousands of players are even required to interact on the basic definition of MMO. STO does have a persistent world.
Everyone is quick to say what STO has or has not compared to another MMO. However, very few are similar and when they are, they still have major differences. There is a game called Test Drive Unlimited which is classified as an MMO, but it is nothing like WOW, EQ, UO, or STO. It is not even a RPG.
STO is a MMO. It may be heavily instanced like Champions or DDO, but that does not strip it form MMO status. The only thing that could strip it from MMO status would be if it was more like a LAN game or one that can only support less than a thousand players. neither of which are true.
I do not think that STO should be compared to other MMOs of different types, for it is like comparing apples and oranges, but that is more my opinion. Others are free to do so all they want.
I do not mind hearing how STO does not do this as well as WOW (btw I hate WOW. I am an EQ2 player) or this feature was not developed well, for these are all peoples opinion and everyone has the right to state their opinions, but the definition of MMO is fairly established by the gaming industry and STO does match that definition.
-Keppoch
okay, so they allowed you to have more than one pet at a time and give your pets gear. i see this as expanding upon one feature wow already has and one that sw:tor says they will have (pets i mean, not more than one or whatever else.) bridge officers are customizable to an extent, and this game does bring a lot of customization. but that's not new. really.
Comparing STO to WOW to TOR to SWG to EVE to ETC will always be done. From now until the end of gaming time. Or until people just plain forget about it. (Yeah... how many of you thought about Anarchy Online lately?!?) It's in the nature of what we do.
I really don't care either way. Just making a point to those that feel the need to say something about the topic.
okay, well it has more subscriptions than any other, or rather every other combined. i'd say that qualifies it as being a measuring stick. if you prefer hack and slash, then it's not really going to excite you. if you pay attention to what's going on then i don't believe it's boring.
Wow, my chat is always going in STO... oh wait, that's because I am a member of a fleet that is born from a robust online community so I never have to listen to Zone chat.