Star Wars: The Old Republic Random Question/Discussion thread - F2P

[Kipling]

I know many people who are excited for this game, myself included. I think some of it has to do with Bioware, and their good reputation among gamers from their past work. Not to mention they made KOTOR, which has already shown they can take the Star Wars franchise and make good with it. However, a lot of it (at least for me and my nerdy friends) has to do with the fact that we absolutely love the epic that is Star Wars regardless of who is producing it.

[Katlan]

Oh yeah, nothing about SW makes it seem different then any of the generic mmo's on the market. I think thats a big factor in ppl not caring about the game. They aren't trying anything new aside the version of story telling which I think will be a bore. I mean, look at AoC, after like an hr into the game, who listened to all the dialogue in the starting zone? I know I got bored of it and just wanted to lv. I would read some of it since it was 10x faster then waiting for them to vocally re-iterate it.

I'm just waiting for them to release info about each dungeon having a heroic mode /facepalm

[Grey Jorildyn]

Would you blame them if they played it safe with a familiar gameplay model? Can't say I would. Just look at how polished and well-received Rift was, and then examine FFXIV which is the flip-side. Being new and innovative is unfortunately not what the average gamer wants. Those people want to be able to slip into a game easily and not relearn a lot of stuff or understand new things. It's the downfall of this genre and the human race in general.

I absolutely want them to try something new and make it stand out of the crowd but chances are they won't. It'll have 4-man flashpoints and 8-man operations and that's just how it's gonna be. Classes will have their ideal setups and that's how it's gonna be. It'll have wow gameplay with a kotor interface and that's how it's gonna be. All imo, of course, albeit very likely.

[Foxer]

Being new and innovative is unfortunately not what the average gamer wants.

It'll have 4-man flashpoints and 8-man operations and that's just how it's gonna be. Classes will have their ideal setups and that's how it's gonna be. It'll have wow gameplay with a kotor interface and that's how it's gonna be. All imo, of course, albeit very likely.

Making a successful, great, innovative MMO and making a terrible one, to the point where the standard is better, are two completely different things. You're assuming people have witnessed a revolution in gaming worth playing. It hasn't happened yet, so people are settling for re-runs.

Also, you just described one boring as shit MMO in a nutshell.

[vrumpt]

Bioware being super NDA secure is exactly why people aren't super pumped for this game right now. Hard to get excited for something you don't know a lot about. Also a lot of the accusations here are based off of entirely false information or shaky rumors at best. You base an argument off these you look like an ass. Game isn't out yet, when it is feel free to rip it to shreds on its faults (every game has them). Theres more to a game than just controls, otherwise every CoD would have never been.

Bioware is making an exciting environment using controls and standards that everybody is already used to. Its also very friendly to new people who have never even played MMOs before. You don't want it then don't play it, you can wait for TERA.

EDIT: Also i should mention Bioware is teasing big things after the EA conf. I have spare pants prepared.

[volcanicweather]

Like it or not, I still think there may be some stigma for this game from gamers because it isn't in the "fantasy" genre. There has never really been an MMO which was a "hit" that's not a fantasy MMO to my knowledge.

The big ones to me, and I could be missing some...

- Ultima Online
- Dark Age of Camelot
- Everquest I/II
- Final Fantasy XI
- WoW

...and WoW hasn't really been supplanted by any MMO in the past 5 years. Many have tried, but let's be real, nothing really compares when looking at the data. All are "fanasty" MMOs.

People have seen the failures of Star Wars Galaxies, the Star Trek MMO, EVE Online (although there's still some who play) and so on. Even though the game is being developed by Bioware and the Star Wars IP is great I think there will still be people who will not be drawn to the game due to the lack of the "fantasy" environment, especially if GW2 and/or TERA is released before TOR.

TOR needs to set a date and get this game out before GW2 and TERA so people who are used to the normal "sword and board fight dragons" MMO will give it a legit chance. Not trying to derail too much or make this into a TOR vs GW2 vs TERA topic but if this game is released after GW2 (which also has the F2P advantage) or even TERA you're not going to see the subscription numbers you would have seen if the game would have been the first to market. I obviously don't have any competitive intel on the game or what's holding it up (sounds like it was almost unplayable in alpha) but if the story / voice acting is the main thing they need to understand that gamers who play MMOs usually don't care about the story. Most people play MMOs to get that sense of accomplishment (via gear, missions, etc) and/or play with their friends. This isn't KOTOR where you can cover up bugs with cool interactive dialog, this is a MMO where said bugs will be exploited by players and will cause Bioware to lose subscriptions / money as frustrated gamers leave.

So while there is still a lot of buzz around this game the lack of online experience from Bioware is concerning. Blizzard at least had some good experience to fall back on with Diablo and Starcraft before WoW was released and even then WoW had its own set of issues. I hope Bioware can pull it off, I'm just concerned if they understand that the stakes are much higher to deliver a flawless product when online play is involved given how many bugs there have been lately in games for their Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.

[Weltall]

None of you guys seriously have the alpha for this? Its been IP for months. Play that, and you won't have to waste your $.

[vrumpt]

why on earth would we want to play a buggy alpha version.

[vrumpt]

And the inevitable letdown arrives

'Choose' was always going to be shown at the E3 press conference. Unfortunately for us, we had a timing issue which put it live on Origin.com before the conference started.

'Return' we saved for our fans worldwide, debuting it on The Old Republic website at the same time the press conference started. If you haven't watched it yet, see it here. 'Return' is also the intro cinematic to The Old Republic - you'll see it when you start the game.

There will be no release date announced during E3 2011, and no pre-order details either. Our release date window has not changed. We are still aiming to release Star Wars: The Old Republic in the second half of 2011.

While I know many of you believed a release date announcement was going to happen - which is understandable - as I've said before, an announcement of that size will effectively be 'pre-announced', and we will not 'bait and switch' you. We aren't going to lay a trail of subtle clues that lead to a release date announcement. We'll be obvious. We're just not there yet.

E3's not over yet, though. This week we'll be allowing the world's media and fan sites to get hands-on with The Old Republic at the EA booth, and they'll be reporting back on their experiences on Tatooine as well as seeing gameplay on Alderaan. Last but not least, they'll get a glimpse at Operation: Eternity Vault, some of the high-end content in The Old Republic.

We're bringing much of this to you on The Old Republic web site this week, so keep checking back - although I will pre-warn you, our Alderaan coverage will be slightly delayed (look for it in a few weeks).

I know many of you are disappointed. I know you want a release date - believe me, all of us know that. It is coming, I promise, and you'll hear about it before it arrives - not through subtle clues, but through obvious signs.

Was hoping for at least beta plans revealed. bawwww.

Oh well, heres the new cinematic.
NOT THE ONE PLAYED DURING EAs CONFERENCE!



yes this is the intro cinematic for the game you'll see when you fire it up.

[Weltall]

why on earth would we want to play a buggy alpha version.

Because the alpha gets updates all the time and it still sucks?

[Grey Jorildyn]

Making a successful, great, innovative MMO and making a terrible one, to the point where the standard is better, are two completely different things. You're assuming people have witnessed a revolution in gaming worth playing. It hasn't happened yet, so people are settling for re-runs.

Also, you just described one boring as shit MMO in a nutshell.

Actually I haven't assumed that at all. Where did I say that? I stated the exact opposite actually--that they are more likely to play it safe and shoot for familiar gameplay in the mmo world. Instances, raids, that kinda stuff. The genre has yet to see a huge deviation from that.

I pretty much described every western mmo. If those are boring to you, that's your opinion, but some do have staying power. I know you're all gung-ho about Tera, so enjoy that and avoid the western mmos.

[vrumpt]

stream and Q&A starting nowish for those interested

http://live-event.ea.com/e3/chat/star-wars

[Katlan]

Q: "Why is it that the game has been shown at 3 E3's and the only thing you can show off to a full audience is CG's?"

A: "Because our game is terrible and it has been in production for so long in hopes to make it less terrible"

[Greedouw]

the animations look much better... but nothing really stands out as "Ooooo, Awwwwweee" to me

[vrumpt]

Liked that format of Q&A, wish it was longer tho and hope they do it again. Companions actually remind me a lot of fellowship NPCs from FFXI, smarter tho. Enjoyed that 50 minutes of gameplay tho, everything looks pretty solid.

[Dantrag]

That dude gay that's doing the live demo? "He's cute, It's cute..."

[Vagrant]

Q: "Why is it that the game has been shown at 3 E3's and the only thing you can show off to a full audience is CG's?"

A: "Because our game is terrible and it has been in production for so long in hopes to make it less terrible"

Why are you still in this topic? We get it you're not interested in TOR because you're busy jacking off to TERA. That game has its own thread. Go there.

I'm still not a fan of the UI they are using which they said is the regular one now so hopefully they can be customized so we can change them to something else. Tatooine looked pretty good though considering it was being run on low settings. Blizz seemed to have some cool skills there also.

[Foxer]

I know you're all gung-ho about Tera, so enjoy that and avoid the western mmos.

Why are you still in this topic? We get it you're not interested in TOR because you're busy jacking off to TERA. That game has its own thread. Go there.

POP, SON. POP.

[Foxer]

why on earth would we want to play a buggy alpha version.

So you can get ready for the buggy retail.

[vrumpt]

Why are you still in this topic? We get it you're not interested in TOR because you're busy jacking off to TERA. That game has its own thread. Go there.

I'm still not a fan of the UI they are using which they said is the regular one now so hopefully they can be customized so we can change them to something else. Tatooine looked pretty good though considering it was being run on low settings. Blizz seemed to have some cool skills there also.

Well said.

I think the UI looks pretty nice, there are parts of it that are icons only which has me interested as to what those parts are, but i like the layout and seems a lot less cluttered than other UIs out there. I wouldn't mind if its customizable tho, at least the color scheme. I didn't watch Blizz too much, i was too busy trying to listen to the questions lol, only a few good ones. BTW Blizz is a Jawa companion they were showing off for those who don't know.