Agreed. While I get tired of the overuse of spiked hair, western RPGs tend to focus on ultra-realistic looking "standard" humanoids, and they always end up looking whitewashed, dirty, and stiff.
Its a vicious cycle for me: I get tired of the flighty, cutesy, kid-like expressions and motions and characters on the Japanese side (conversely loving kids in Western games, like the Kids in Fallout 3). On the Western side, I get tired of stiff, canned animations and awkward-looking visuals (the eye-tracking in fallout when people are standing still still creeps me the fuck out) drive me insane.
Not all western visuals annoy me, though. I love the graphical style of the Gears series, and wouldn't mind someone using a modified version of that engine for a RPG. Mass Effect looks good, but (barrinig the spiked hair overload and cutesy, flighty animations) I'd rather have a FFXIII-looking game than a Mass Effect II.
http://www.neverknowtech.com/home/20...public-of.htmlhttp://www.neverknowtech.com/storage...d-republic.jpg
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a highly anticipated MMO from EA and BioWare, and with good reason. Being a once avid player of Star Wars Galaxies, I couldn't be happier to see this game being taken extremely seriously by the developers. In fact is has been announced that EA has never spent more money on any game they've ever made then the amount of dollars being poured into this one MMO. Gamasutra sat in on one of the conferences and was able to bring this to the attention of the gaming community:
So why did they choose SWTOR to put all of their eggs into this one basket? As far as EA is concerned it is a game that simply cannot fail. They are developing a different type of MMO from the usual fantasy based games that we are currently seeing released, and replacing the main aspects of those games with Star Wars related goodies. They compare swords to lightsabers and knights to Jedi. Not to mention they also realize the humongous fan base of a series that has spanned several decades. They have found themselves hard pressed to throw a conference and not feel like everyone in the room is familiar with Star Wars."It is the largest R&D project EA has ever undertaken in terms of total dollars that we expect to spend bringing the title to market," said chief financial officer Eric Brown at Janney Capital Markets' 2010 Consumer Conference, as listened in on by Gamasutra
EA also knows it has the help of one of the most credible RPG makers in the business on their side. It is hard to argue with a resume that includes the Mass Effect series, as well as Knights of the Old Republic, not even to mention their other absolute masterpieces. With BioWare on the team, should there really be any doubt about the overall quality of the immersion and gameplay experience that SWTOR will have to offer?
Unfortunately on the downside the same conference brought light to the fact that we will not be seeing this game released on 2010. Right now there is an estimated ship date of March 2011, but EA wants to make it extremely clear that they are intentionally not making any solid ship plans. EA is taking this release very seriously and as a consumer, and a future player, I couldn't be more pleased with their attitude. If there is one type of game that shouldn't be rushed it is definitely an MMO.
As for Warhammer Online? Well lets just say there wasn't quite a big of a turn out as most publishers would like to see with a game. In fact judging by a statement acquired by Gamasutra it almost feels like Warhammer has been benched, well at least taking a back seat.
With EA switching most of their emphasis solely to SWTOR in order to develop the best game experience possible, we hope EA still remembers to take care of those couple hundred thousand already playing Warhammer.As for Warhammer, it has "a couple hundred thousand subscribers to date," according to Brown. "But the Star Wars MMO does indeed represent our primary emphasis vis a vis this category."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...In_History.php
And this is precisely why I fear that's exactly what will happen...As far as EA is concerned it is a game that simply cannot fail.
EA can't risk it, so they'll come and mess it up >_>. Too much money is at stake.
They should just let BW handle it like always..
How awesome a company thinks their product is or will be isn't worth the shit on the bottom of my boot. AOC's developers thought that their product was awesome - that it was going to be the top dog. Flash forward 8 months and the CEO is turning tail and running, with upper staff admitting that they pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
Mythic and Warhammer were no different. Lots of the "we're going to CRUSH Blizzard and Wow!" and ended up churning out a clone that didn't know how to be its own stand-alone game.
Bottom line: Bugs kill games. If these companies cannot put forth a relatively stable, bug-free product, people aren't going to just stand around for 6 months waiting for a fix. Not when there are dozens of other MMOs on the market, and especially when the old creature comfort WoW is still sitting there on their top shelf, waiting to provide that smooth, familiar, almost "classic" experience for them.
The days of FFXI and WoW getting away with massive bugs because the rest of the industry wasn't doing any better are over. People simply expect a better product because they've HAD a better product for a number of years, especially once TBC dropped in WoW.
Nobody but the fanboys stood around and stood up for AOC, Warhammer, Darkfall Online and the others. The rest of the relatively interested masses rolled the fuck out when they realized that they weren't receiving what was both on the back of the box and what was hyped up and bragged about in video previews, developer comments, and on forums.
I'm not saying that Star Wars will fail. I'm simply saying that there are quite a few smoldering husks of MMOs that are twitching lifelessly; basically strapped up to a life support machine because they came out of the gate a hot, buggy mess, hoping to have the same freedom that games like EQ, FFXI, and WoW had when they launched. Star Trek Online is a recent new patient in the MMO emergency ward. Go figure that it was buggy as all hell and completely unfinished.
No longer. The community has been spoiled since then, and its a spoiling I feel the community is better off from. Stop rushing shit out of the gate to meet stockholder anxiety and demands. Put out your game when its finished, like Blizzard always says they're going to do. Its little wonder why Starcraft and Diablo II are still some of the most frequently-played games: they were released when they were ready, not at some deadline to meet stockholder demand.r
Good talk. It's not just bugs though, Aion can attest to that...
But really, when trying to make a stand-alone game and not a clone, things aren't going to be perfect. When you're implementing already polished and tested systems, you can iron out the flaws easily or it's already been done. But with 'new' systems, it's not as easy. Unpredictable things do happen, especially once the players get ahold of the systems.
Straight bugs and glitches, though, shouldn't exist anymore. IMO games should also stop trying to do everything to please everyone (= more money, amirite?). Find your niche, make a game to please THEM, and stick with it. It won't give you 12 million subs, but it's still better than the failures we have today.
I could see TOR maybe doing that, but EA wants everything and everyone so I have my doubts.
Agreed, pretty much.
I also agree wih the last couple of posts. I was going to post very similar thoughts after re-reading this thread!
WoW scapegoat is 90% bullshit. Had a good article on it too, but that's lost now. When it comes down to it they made a lot of mistakes and standard American videogame design practice is to blame people other than yourself.
^ I'm just glad to see that in some area of American society, they aren't always getting away with it.
was browsing youtube and found this under gaming
Couldn't agree more.
I very much prefer games starting out quiet and picking up momentum through the years. The problem is, who but independent companies are willing to do this?
Also, the character models look much better in that new Sith clip than they did a few months back.
http://www.justin.tv/spack_e32010/b/265324784
Skip to 54 minutes in to see gameplay footage.
Or you can just check the main website
http://swtor.com/news/news-article/20100614_001
This game looks awesome @_@
my excitement for this game has been greatly restored. Combat in this game looks much better than it did last time i watched a video for it (several months ago).
Says they are gonna be slowly revealing information. They said Spring 2011 for release. Given that timetable, i really really really hope we get beta at the end of E3, since i know Bioware likes to launch stuff when its ready.
tester apps are up if anyone hasnt done one yet
http://www.swtor.com/tester
those have been up for 8-9 months now.
but yeah, if you haven't filled one out yet <.<