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

[vrumpt]

Your a fool if you think Bioware is actually planning around anything else at this point, let alone something not a lot of people even know about.

[Foxer]

I think again, you misunderstood my post, and are ready to argue for the sake of arguing. All that was said was that it's not a terrible strategy if a company releases a game at the right time, so long as they provide sufficient enough content to satisfy people, and convert them to loyal customers.

Timing is a very important part of video game launching. I don't know why this is being argued.

[Dantrag]

TERA's still in the Sept-Nov bullshit phase. Of course TOR is going to try and release it by Sept. Y'all just better hope it doesn't get rushed any more than it needs to, just to snatch them initial numbers.

It really does surprise me people are even interested in TERA. Game really looks like AION 2.0, from the graphics to the abilities to the slow style of game play.

[Foxer]

It really does surprise me people are even interested in TERA. Game really looks like AION 2.0, from the graphics to the abilities to the slow style of game play.

It really does surprise me people make statements like this, without knowing what they're talking about.

Anyway, not the right thread. I know this thread is lacking, but the game you're referring to has its own thread.

Thx for the sig tho.

[Foxer]

Deus.

[Dantrag]

It really does surprise me people make statements like this, without knowing what they're talking about.

Anyway, not the right thread. I know this thread is lacking, but the game you're referring to has its own thread.

Thx for the sig tho.

Yes, because I AM the one that even brought it up in the first place. Anyways. I'm signed up for the beta so hopefully I'll be able to jump on and test this sucker out for myself. Maybe the story line and story telling will be enough for me to want to play it and get past the game style.

[Bartylby]

dunno if this has been posted but jesus christ...

the comments are dead on, this is what the first three movies should have been

[Foxer]

E3? CG after CG aside, I can't help but to love SW musica.

[Cephius]

They just need to ditch the MMO and make a CGI movie or TV series, the trailers are already better than anything Lucas has shit out recently

[Alderaan]

Recently? He's been in a drought for a while. The last thing the franchise needs is MORE CGI. Technical limitations is what made the original trilogy so fantastic.

Last good movie he directed was Episode IV, 34 years ago.

Last good movie he produced was The Last Crusade, 22 years ago.

[Dantrag]

I agree, they CGI'd the shit out of everything which made it less about the story and more about the flash.

[Man0warr]

I think Blur did that video which is why it's so awesome.

[vrumpt]

Yeah Blur made all 3, they do great cinematics.

I think again, you misunderstood my post, and are ready to argue for the sake of arguing. All that was said was that it's not a terrible strategy if a company releases a game at the right time, so long as they provide sufficient enough content to satisfy people, and convert them to loyal customers.

Timing is a very important part of video game launching. I don't know why this is being argued.

Yeah i was out of line, sorry. Timing is important yes, there is no doubt about it, but i think with TOR since its first projected launch quarter was for earlier this spring, the subsequent delays have kind of eliminated any kind of strategy that may have existed with launch timing. Over this year, at all the press conferences and demonstrations they have held, noticeable improvements to the game have been noted each time. Throughout the year, it was pretty much all the addition of final textures, better graphical elements, the UI etc. and all of them have shown up at a relatively steady pace over the year so far. Timing the launch of single player games is done all the time, but those are much smaller projects that are easier to control. TOR has a ton of money invested into it, the people who put in that money do want to see the results of their investment, so its for this reason that they aren't gonna sit on a finished game until they think the time is right to launch it strategically. I really don't think any MMO can be controlled in this nature. since the development of them are so vulnerable to delays.

Now, at the same time though, EA and Bioware both know that Blizzard likes to time content releases in conjunction with other MMO releases/patches. I have seen Blizzard sit on a finished patch for weeks to time it with the launch of other MMOs to steal their thunder, which is why Bioware isn't announcing a refined release date, or at least i think so. Hell, WoW 4.2 is coming out the day before Rift 1.3. Not a coincidence. So with that respect they are taking caution to not give the competition a lead in, which i *think* they have openly stated. Don't quote me on that though.

[Ohemgee]

Not to rehash an old argument. Taking a look at TERA's graphics vs SWTOR.

Tera is too fucking j-pop bubble gum anime in the character design (i know its korean) whereas swtor looks like a reskinned version of rift characters.

The gameplay (as far as I can see) in Tera looks a lot more fun than anything, but i hate anime.


Oh well.

[Lucavi]

Trying to think of a game that cuts right down the middle, but I can only think of Aion in that regard, and even that isn't entirely accurate.

[niwaar]

na, i think the recent wave of beta invites over the weekend is proof that they are starting to move into the final stages of testing. Also did you ever get a chance to play the game? i'm interested to hear what your opinions are.

The release date is still up in the air. I really do not know what they could be doing to the game to make it any better than it already is. There are a ton of bugs (mostly with companions and flightpaths) right now. With this "testing" phase being the first real phase since the "alpha" last December, it really has been a good one. But there hasn't been much of a chance for the testers to give feedback on anything but bugs quite yet.

Not everything is in the game. This includes, the full complement of crafting recipes, items as well as some dialogue. It is is disturbing when you get to a cutscene (and there are a LOT of them) and the scene zooms through an interaction because there is no audio to play. There is still a lot of production work to do and this may be at least 6+ weeks of work in itself. I am not a good judge of where a game is, I mean, I still didn't think XIV would ship on time, so its all subjective.

Now, at the same time though, EA and Bioware both know that Blizzard likes to time content releases in conjunction with other MMO releases/patches. I have seen Blizzard sit on a finished patch for weeks to time it with the launch of other MMOs to steal their thunder, which is why Bioware isn't announcing a refined release date, or at least i think so. Hell, WoW 4.2 is coming out the day before Rift 1.3. Not a coincidence. So with that respect they are taking caution to not give the competition a lead in, which i *think* they have openly stated. Don't quote me on that though.

A September release would not be out of bounds, but with the amount of polish people expect from their MMO releases these days, I would guess at least October. If they do not ship before November, they will be taking a big chance with some of the heavy hitting non-MMOs being released in that month. I surely do not think that EA wants SWTOR to compete with Skyrim or MW3 for initial box sales in its first month.

The other thing they need to worry about is Blizzard (as you said). With the concrete knowledge that 4.2 is coming out next week, EA/BW now have a window as to when Blizzard is going to be forced into down time. If they can hit a September ship date, the odds of Blizzard "retaliating" with 4.3 is very minimal. If they let it slide til November they will hitting a date where 4.3 is a real probability. That being said, [conspiracy theory] Blizzard could have seen this a mile a way and its the real reason 4.2 was delayed in the first place. And/Or that the "disappearing" Abyssal Maw content couldn't mysteriously hit the net on whatever date that EA/BW decide to ship SWTOR.[/conspiracy theory]

beta runs fairly smooth, im sure once they take out all of their info collecting crap it would run nicely, only time i get lag is in pvp warzones. I think they could pull it off by october, however i still think the character gen could use some work, honestly so many star wars alien races to choose from and theres like 7 total in this game? come on bioware....

Thats the biggest thing is lag. Lag is HUGE. They are attempting to alleviate lag via the old "Korean" MMO fallback of doing instances at this point. It works but not as well as they need it to. As you say, Warzones (BGs) can get extremely bad, but they are getting better.

Warzones themselves are just based on the same stuff as any other PvP is. Capture the Flag, Attack&Defend and Resource Control, all of which have been done before. Although you can definitely tell that BioWare is trying to make the entire PvP/BG model better with some of their additions to the scoring. (No more AFK=Mass Honor).

The number of races is quite pathetic. You give them credit for 7, but I am going to say 6. With each side getting humans and 1 faction getting Cyborgs which are basically humans. Even then, EVERY race is a humanoid. The most non human you get is the Twwilek and they are still 90% human, they just have headtails instead of hair. There are many non human (yet humanoid) NPC models. A good number of which you interact with, but alas you can not roll your own Greedo-esque Bounty Hunter or Smuggler. You can not pretend you are Ackbar and make a Calimari trooper named "ItsATrap". Knowing EA these races will be added to the game soon after launch. They will more than likely be Cash Shop only races though. Just remember that at least up until E3, races are PURELY cosmetic. Starting out as Sith or Human or Twilek or Cyborg does not change ANYTHING in the game. You do not get a racial ability, you do not get stat boosts, you simply are that visual.

Not to rehash an old argument. Taking a look at TERA's graphics vs SWTOR.

Tera is too fucking j-pop bubble gum anime in the character design (i know its korean) whereas swtor looks like a reskinned version of rift characters.

Reskinned version of rift? Probably the worst analogy I have heard. They are meant to look more akin to the Clone Wars cartoon, and they mimic that fairly well. It may not be as good as the simply "paint" style of WoW, or even the retro fantasy that is FFXI, but its far better than the pseudo realism that was Rift, Warhammer and AoC. I am not going to say I like the graphics, because I think they are pretty meh. They are obviously keeping things simple for hardware reasons, but still they are pretty uninteresting.

[Ohemgee]

I still feel that the character design is something that I've seen before.

[Grey Jorildyn]

It could also just be that Blizzard patches on Tuesday a lot...

[Katlan]

DL'ing the game atm... been overnight... this game's patcher makes XIV's look good.

#You DL batches of files together.. it never tells you how far into the DL you are. It just says your DLing "movies" 1.8gb and it tells you how far into that DL you have gotten. When you finish that it then DL's a different group of items. It never tells me how much of the 31gb DL I have less. TERRABLE

#Patcher locks up, stalls, forces you to pause > restart over and over again. So unless you can babysit the patcher its gonna take you significantly longer to DL. And who is gonna babysit a 31gb DL?

#It's slow like XIV.. not as bad, but still very slow. I cap out at around 500kb/sec.

#Game better be better then the patching process

[DeathbySnoosnoo]

DL'ing the game atm... been overnight... this game's patcher makes XIV's look good.

#You DL batches of files together.. it never tells you how far into the DL you are. It just says your DLing "movies" 1.8gb and it tells you how far into that DL you have gotten. When you finish that it then DL's a different group of items. It never tells me how much of the 31gb DL I have less. TERRABLE

#Patcher locks up, stalls, forces you to pause > restart over and over again. So unless you can babysit the patcher its gonna take you significantly longer to DL. And who is gonna babysit a 31gb DL?

#It's slow like XIV.. not as bad, but still very slow. I cap out at around 500kb/sec.

#Game better be better then the patching process

I capped out at about 1.6 mb/s
but yea still took like 8 hours lol
i never had it freeze on me though
game is only slightly better than the patching cuz at least then you get to sit thru the talking and occasionally run somewhere to sit thru more talking and maybe swing a lightsaber or use a blaster... maybe