SWTOR is another mediocre mmorpg...

[Nalano]

But you forget: it's just a company. The people that make it up can and will continue on, as did Obsidian & Bioware when Black Isle imploded. Companies dont learn, people do.

Unless those people are Peter Molyneux and Will Wright.

[QuantaCat]

Unless those people are Peter Molyneux and Will Wright.

Exactly. So there is hope enough.
Also, Im always positively surprised to see a typical obsidian game. I just wish they kept that Alien franchise, they would have made it fucking AWESOME.

[TixyLixx]

All I want is SWG Pre CU mixed with the polish of Blizzard and I'm happy.

That or Planetside 2 to be good, it's made by SOE so even if it is good and has potential, they'll find a way to ruin it.

[TillEulenspiegel]

"Daily quests" like WoW or "retake the town from the NPCs" like Tabula Rasa or Rift are not particularly fun ways for me to become invested in my world. Drama - for all its ills - is. But PvE-oriented games like WoW and, therefore, like TOR, limit drama where-ever possible.

I don't think random free-for-all PKing is necessary for that, though - which is the direction all recent "sandbox" MMOs have taken with respect to PvP.

I think cooperation and construction and consensual Guild vs. Guild wars are more interesting social interactions. There were coalitions of RP guilds in Ultima Online that did exactly that, and it was by far the best experience I've had in any MMO. You still had the random PKs lurking around in the world, but they were mostly irrelevant.

[Nalano]

Exactly. So there is hope enough.

I dunno if you 're being sarcastic.

I don't think random free-for-all PKing is necessary for that, though - which is the direction all recent "sandbox" MMOs have taken with respect to PvP.

I think cooperation and construction and consensual Guild vs. Guild wars are more interesting social interactions. There were coalitions of RP guilds in Ultima Online that did exactly that, and it was by far the best experience I've had in any MMO.

AoC was fantastic fun - guild wars, mercenary guilds, epic sieges - until they nerfed PvP. And then I quit, because the only way to progress was basically WoW-style raiding.

Rift and WAR were great fun - RvR, world raids where you needed a backup crew present just to defend your crew from PvPers - until they made raiding more important than world battles. Then they were WoW with different skins.

My most cherished memories in WoW - aside from RP sessions that were almost completely divorced from standard gameplay - were PvP-centered.

All raiding to me was a loose band of passive-aggressive incompetents poorly masking their self-interest. PvP had much the same asshats, but camaraderie from succeeding (or losing with dignity) and bare sink-or-swim system made for the strongest connections I had with my fellow player.

And if your problem with the game is in your contempt/fear of your fellow player, such that you can't abide open gameplay with them, why the hell are you playing an MMO?

[QuantaCat]

I dunno if you 're being sarcastic.

Well, you chose two people that couldnt be more eccentric. I doubt a molyneux or a wright is going to come out of Bioware. And if they do, what happens to the other thousand people that do, which happened to be designers as well?

Also, btw, molyneux seems like someone that has good ideas, but a horrid designer. Wright just likes to experiment, and everyone likes what he does. So if he gets out of his facebook phase again, and trust me, he will, he'll do some amazing shit again, something that is not the sims.

[Mihkel]

I doubt a molyneux or a wright is going to come out of Bioware.

What? They're working for Bioware? Since when?

edit: Sorry I get it now.

[Nalano]

Well, you chose two people that couldnt be more eccentric.

And haven't yet come out with something that matches their first forays in originality and design.

[Drake Sigar]

I really hope this isn't BioWare's albatross. At $135 mil in development, they'd need over a million subs just to break even. The fact that it looks and plays exactly like a game that has burned out many people to its whole genre brings concern to me as to whether BioWare will survive this venture.

I'm going to tell you what a Bioware dev told me on their own forums - "There is no Bioware."

It was like he punched me in the gut.

[Nalano]

I'm going to tell you what a Bioware dev told me on their own forums - "There is no Bioware."

That's kinda what I expected when they were bought by EA.

[DarthBenedict]

You wouldn't have an epic world-changing storyline where you are The Chosen One, but I wonder how many people actually care about that. If you can just be a soldier and kill evil monsters and help rebuild a village GW2 style, isn't that good too? You're making a unique impact on a living world rather than retreading the same content a million other people have already seen.

A bajillion people bought Follow Captain Price Around As He Saves The World XVII, so I think people are quite happy playing games in which they are not the centre of the universe.

[Wulf]

"if [an MMORPG] breaks any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb." -- Zeschuk

Everyone was surprised but me. Totally saw this coming. Called it from the alpha when I saw someone playing with a UI that looked strike for strike just like the WoW raid UI. That is not the sort of thing I want to see in a modern RPG. I'm currently still playing Champions Online because it's about as detached from that as any MMORPG has been, thus far. And I'm holding out hope that Guild Wars 2 will be even much more so risky and strange.

But yeah, I knew many would waste their money on this, I knew many would come to the conclusion that it's just a WoW reskin like I was saying from the start, like I was saying back when I was being hated on for seeing something no one else saw. Sometimes it kind of sucks being right all the time, but having a low and overly cynical opinion of the games industry will usually see you through, it means that you'll never be crushingly disappointed unless they really scrape the barrel to do so.

So yeah, I predicted this. Another instance of fairly standard clairvoyance.

[Nalano]

So yeah, I predicted this. Another instance of fairly standard clairvoyance.

Pfft. Got you beat by five months.

[QuantaCat]

..and again two MMOs get mentioned for their innovations, and theyre both by the same company. COINCIDENCE?! I THINK NOT!

(STO & CO)

[Althea]

But you forget: it's just a company. The people that make it up can and will continue on, as did Obsidian & Bioware when Black Isle imploded. Companies dont learn, people do.

But BioWare were never part of Interplay. Yes, Black Isle did some co-development/publishing for Baldur's Gate 1+2, and BioWare did some engine stuff for BI for IWD and PS:T, but what happened to Interplay would have had no bearing on BioWare beyond them taking on some of the staff that left. Most of the rest probably went to Obsidian, and I don't doubt that some went to Brian Fargo's inXile.

[QuantaCat]

Details, details. My point was just that people move on, even when companies die off. Especially game companies.

[Althea]

Yeah, but EA are not stupid enough to kill off the BioWare brand. It's too big. You've got Edmonton, arguably the premier story-based RPG studio, you've got Montreal who - I believe - provide support for Edmonton, there's Mythic with UO, DAoC, WAR and that upcoming WAR spin-off (Wrath of Heroes?), there's BioWare Austin for TOR, BioWare Ireland who I think will provide localised support for TOR and finally there's BioWare San Francisco, who most of us will know better as EA2D.

That's a lot of staff, a lot of technical knowledge and - more importantly - a lot of brand power. Slap the BioWare logo on any old piece of crap and it'll do well, even if it's not an EA product (The Witcher, for example, which surely gained some sales from the BioWare logo plastered on the box).

EA didn't close DICE after Mirror's Edge and Medal of Honor, they didn't close Danger Close after MoH either. Yeah, they made some bad decisions in the past (Westwood being a big one), but now? I don't think they'll close BioWare if TOR flops. It'd be stupid.

[Bristoff]

I've managed to completely not care about SWTOR at all.

There was a time where I was looking forward to The Next Big MMO with hyped-up fanaticism because this might be the next awesome MMO. Coming from EVE I was desperately looking for a free-PvP MMO where stuff I did mattered, preferably in a fantasy setting and guild focused (as my guild jumped from new mmo to new mmo).

Last one we thought was supposed to be the big one was Rift. Turns out it was just more of the same, and although prettier, most of us got bored within the first two months. Now people just play LoL, TF2 or other multiplayer games while waiting for GW2 (which crucially is neither F2P or subscription-based), which we/I hope will be a decent multiplayer-pvp game.

It's funny how the mmo-industry has managed to kill any sort of enthusiasm I had about the genre. So much promise, yet so much inane drivel that gets boring within the first month and then either has to merge their 25 servers into 4, go F2P or close down. Still nobody in the industry seems to understand that this is not what players want any more. It's completely baffling.

[Vexing Vision]

I remain tremendously excited about the Secret World.

I've never been excited about SWTOR but interested enough to see what they would pull off. But the more I hear about it - and I don't mind the combat -, the less interested I am.

[Althea]

Still nobody in the industry seems to understand that this is not what players want any more. It's completely baffling.

When it comes to announcing new MMOs, I agree, but ones just coming up to release? I don't think any company is particularly willing to throw years of work down the drain, they're going to at least try and get some money back, even if it means going F2P within months/a year of launch.