Star Wars: the Old Republic Launches

Today marks the official launch of Star Wars: the Old Republic, a new MMOG from BioWare, EA, and LucasArts. The game's population has been building throughout the week as players who pre-ordered were granted early access, but now the gates have been thrown open to everyone. By using the Star Wars universe and a 'story-driven' approach to MMO gameplay, BioWare hopes to draw in a new group of players who don't typically consider themselves MMO gamers. Since the game is still largely unexplored, comprehensive reviews have yet to be written, but Shack News has a write-up about the early game. An article at Eurogamer discusses whether this sort of game launch marks the end of an era for the MMOG industry — the game's budget is estimated to be as high as $100 million, and it relies on a traditional subscription model when many games are making the switch to free-to-play.

Comments

Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Kenja]

Its going to be too full of Star Wars fans. I learned my lesson from the Sony Star Wars MMO.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[elrous0]

Wow, the rare guy who wasn't completely pleased with his Star Wars Galaxies experience.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Moheeheeko]

SWG was great and I loved it....up untill the infamous "Combat Update." After that, people who spent months just to unlock thier force sensetive character slot got pissed on and shoved aside so EVERYONE could just start as jedi.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[cmv1087]

I'm bemused that you won't be playing a Star Wars game because there will be too many Star Wars fans playing it. Isn't that a bit like saying you won't eat at a restaurant because there's too many people eating there that like the food?

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[AngryDeuce]

Believe me, it wasn't the fans that ruined Galaxies, it was Sony. They drove that property into the fucking ground. The "New Game Enhancements" killed it permanently back in '05, it just took them 6 years to put that final nail in the coffin.

Sony should never be allowed to touch a fucking MMO again.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Rhacman]

Does anyone know if they separate RP and non-RP servers? But yea, I'm largely staying away based on how ravenous the fan base is. In WoW if I made some off comment about some detail in the lore I'd invariably cross paths with some red-shirt-guy who could bash me on the head with his comprehensive knowledge from past-games, books, card-games you name it. When Rift came out I felt like I had a fighting chance to discuss the story since it occured in a fresh new universe. With anything Star Wars I'd sooner shut my mouth than risk trying to discuss plot details with someone who owns every plastic figurine and counts themselves as a Jedi in real life. Perhaps the feeling is mutual...

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[idontgno]

Your analogy would work perfectly, if you include the necessary bit.

I won't eat at a restaurant because there are too many slobbering, loud, annoying food fanbois there.

If you can eat and enjoy yourself without ranting endlessly how the executive chef sold out years ago, complaining about how the lobster shot first, or otherwise being a overzealous and clueless food otaku... then you won't detract from my enjoyment of the restaurant. But if you are, I'll go someplace else. And it's just unfortunate that this particular restaurant franchise has some of the worst customers ever.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Moheeheeko]

there are RP and non RP servers, clearly listed in th pvp/ pve section of the server description.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Rhacman]

Chuck E. Cheese is apparently very popular; games, pizza, fun times. Something about the age-group of the clientele and the general ambiance put me off buying the monthly subscription though. To each his own.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Zhiroc]

SWG never to my knowledge broke 500K subs. It was declining after the initial surge after launch, and while I'd agree that the changes hastened its demise, it's hard to peg it as a extremely successful MMO even in its heyday, at least compared with the expectations of what a Star Wars property should bring.

From what I hear, SWTOR had about a million pre-orders. Only time will tell if will live up to its own expectations.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Talderas]

Baby eaters. It's my nickname for Jedi. It's frankly the one thing I loath about Star Wars.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Luckyo]

I honestly can't decide if post above is funny, insightful or informative.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Sperbels]

Of course numbers declined after launch. There's always a surge of subscriptions after launch...then the numbers die off. Some players just moved on because the got bored, some left due to problems with the game. Rather than fix the problems, SOE decided to just redesign it and surprise everyone with it. In the process they managed to destroy a lot of what made the game fun and interesting...but most importantly, they screwed over their customers.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Phrogman]

For its time, SWG was one of the most successful MMOs ever launched. It had massive subscription rates for a non-Asian MMO. You have to remember the standards were completely different then. Getting over 300k subscriptions was HUGE, few other titles could compete with those numbers.
Its WOW that has blown the stats up to the point where people feel if a title doesn't launch with 1m subscribers its a complete failure. If you were there at the time though, SWG did amazingly well.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[daath93]

Its worse than that, the restraunt franchise also would have the annoying tendency to serve the same old dishes, nomatter how many grand openings they have. My main complaint about ALL star wars games is that they can't create new content. Which is why you have people battling on FUCKING HOTH in every god damned franchise. FUCKING HOTH!!! A god damned iceberg in fucking space that was essentially not even worthy of a footnote to an Imperial Admiral searching for Rebels, yet has shown up in EVERY FUCKING ITERATION of expanded universe.

ahem.../nerdrage.

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[elrous0]

The problem with Jedi isn't that they exist, it's that everyone wants to be one (and developers oblige).

Jedi in the real SW universe are supposed to be EXTREMELY rare. Yet both post-CU Galaxies and TOR are filled with everyone running around with lightsabers. It's a whole world filled with "chosen ones."

Re:Looks like a good game, but I wont be playin'.

[Lunzo]

Why can't it be +1, all of the above?

It's a Good Game

[bazald]

However, I'd still rather have just bought KoTOR III through X.

Re:It's a Good Game

[Baloroth]

So true. Well, unless they were made by Obsidian like KOTOR II was. Might not buy that. But I wish they had just made KOTOR III: I don't have time for an MMO right now, and probably won't for a while. The market is flooded with similar games, but it is not flooded with good old-school RPGs (with modern graphics, story, and voice-acting). Meaning that no matter how good it is, I just won't be playing it. For a while anyways.

Re:It's a Good Game

[pwizard2]

I would have loved to have KOTOR3. KOTOR2 was excellent as it was, but the the The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod made it perfect. Kreia was one of the best characters ever written for a game... I swear I learned more from that old woman than I did in many philosophy classes I took.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Kenja]

Subscriptions or other revenue generating methods have been traditional since games went multi-player past the point where a server in some guys basement was sufficient. Costs money to run these games, so they cost money to play.

WoW 2.0

[aaronfaby]

Played the beta. WoW Improved with lightsabers. Same old borefest. Yes, I know there are companions and mass effect style conversations. Things are slightly different and improved. Yay. Stop pretending it's this awesome new MMO experience. It's not.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Sectoid_Dev]

Agreed. I've been playing since early access started on the 15th and although I'm enjoying it, it's basically WoW with a few improvements. Nothing jaw droppingly new.

Re:WoW 2.0

[dward90]

I don't understand who you're talking to. It's the best leveling experience I've ever experienced in an MMO. Sure, it's not a completely new genre. If you were looking for something that doesn't play like an MMO, then you were looking in the wrong place. You can downplay the effect that the conversations and story have all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that those elements make leveling feel extremely different from World of Warcraft (unless you spacebar every conversation, in which case you're missing the point of the game).

What you seem to be saying is that you don't enjoy MMOs. That's a valid opinion, but it's not a valid criticism for this game.

Re:WoW 2.0

[elrous0]

Just for that, I'm going to need to to bring me 10 wampa pelts!

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

Not WOW improved, IMNSHO. More like Vanilla WOW with lightsabers. No LFD. No dual-spec. These are two things that casual players like me enjoy. It's like they took a stock MMO, added voice acting, and a veneer of KOTOR.

Now, there are a few things other MMO's need to look at. The companion system, if stolen by another company, and perhaps matured, could really help blur the lines between single-player and co-op multi-player games in a beneficial way for us casual gamers.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Moheeheeko]

It's the best leveling experience I've ever experienced in an MMO.

This. I dont even pay attention to my level so much, I just wanna get that sonofabitch who STOLE MY GODDAMNED SHIP.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

What you seem to be saying is that you don't enjoy MMOs. That's a valid opinion, but it's not a valid criticism for this game.

Where did the GP ever say anything like that?

Re:WoW 2.0

[aaronfaby]

The quests are still the same. Kill 10 of X. Bring me this item. Put this item on an altar and kill the elite mob that appears. The only difference is now you get to choose some conversations options that have little if any effect on the outcome.

Re:WoW 2.0

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. I've leveled just about every character class in WoW. I can barely remember any of the quests. The only one that comes to mind is the Lolita-like quest between Duskwood and Westfall. Other than that, it was just a bunch of "Collect 6 Bear Pelts" quests with completely uninteresting text thrown in just to say they gave the story telling a try. Leveling was a chore that was to be endured so that you could get a class to end-game.

SW TOR is different. I literally have no desire at all to do anything at end-game. Raids and such are the last thing on my mind. I just want to quest. Any game that makes questing actually the thing I log in for rather than a penance I must pay to get to the "real" game deserves a nod.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Sectoid_Dev]

If the conversation 3 choice cut-scenes are the point of the game, then indeed I am looking in the wrong place. Perhaps the choices I make now will have an impact later, but right now at level 14, they still feel hokey. Same thing with the conversation rolls during missions. We're all going down the same predetermined track, it's all a matter of nice-neutral-mean window dressing variations.
    Perhaps that's the nature of MMOs. I'll enjoy playing for a while, but this is an incremental improvement.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Billly Gates]

You can dual spec sort of.

As you move to dark and light side points and accept dark or lightside quests you get different abilities and grea. A dark jedi can learn sith buffs for example and vice versa for lightside sith. This makes them almost like different characters or like a fire/frost mage same is true as you can meet another jedi counselor who has totally different advanced abilities as you.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

Wouldn't a KOTOR 3 have fulfilled your wishes just as well? And without the monthly sub, mind you.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Snaller]

"You can downplay the effect that the conversations and story have all you want, "

I listen to other sources of sound, I can't listen to their waffling on as well, so its skip skip skip - so they have no effect.

Re:WoW 2.0

[greymond]

Yup, it's basically KOTOR 3 but with a monthly subscription.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

This makes them almost like different characters or like a fire/frost mage same is true as you can meet another jedi counselor who has totally different advanced abilities as you.

This is not how it plays out in the game at all.

Re:WoW 2.0

[fallen1]

(Some quick background - I beta tested and played SWG until the NGE nerf. I beta tested and played World of Warcraft up until about 18 months ago. I have also played multiple other MMOs including DDO, Ultima, Tabula Rasa, A Tale in the Desert, and so on.)

It actually IS this awesome new MMO experience, and please stop WoW fanboying by playing down the impact of the fully voiced universe and the fact Bioware has done what Blizzard did - borrowed from the best of in other MMOs and refined it. As dward90 says above, if you're skipping the voiced scenes then you're missing the point.

It is definitely NOT WoW with lightsabers - I don't see any orcs, goblins, or pandas running around. Oh? You mean it PLAYS like Word of Warcraft somewhat? Yes, it does. In as much as World of Warcraft played like Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online, and Asheron's Call, and the other MMOs that came before it.

I have been in multiple betas of SWTOR and I have been playing since December 13th of early access. I can tell you now, this game has longevity and inventiveness on its side. It is fresh and new and compelling in ways that other MMOs "walls-o-text" quest/missions are not. It engages you in both your class storyline and in the world at large. It doesn't have the sandbox open worlds of an MMO like Galaxies or an RPG like The Elder Scrolls series, but there are hints that Bioware may be moving that direction as the game grows. The game is great visually and gameplay is engrossing. The mission/gather system is an amazing combination of previous MMOs like Eve and WoW. The crafting system is fairly solid, interesting, useful and will come into its own as more players inhabit the universe and expand the player economy.

As for the so-called "end game" that hard core players and game sites seem to want to focus on, well, that will be a while in coming for casual gamers like myself (although my main character is level 22 at this time). Those hard core players with no life and a caffeine drip in their veins can probably give you a review in another 5 days or less :-p My hope is that Bioware ignores their outcries when they consume the game inside of 14 days and start looking for something else. Your revenue stream is NOT the hard core players, it is the casual gamers who will play for years on end.

Re:WoW 2.0

[otis wildflower]

Wow, you just missed the whole point of the game.

I'd have thought that it being produced by Bioware would have been a clue as to how it would play..

Re:WoW 2.0

[MBGMorden]

Possibly - I played both KOTOR games and thoroughly enjoyed them, but having my friends all online for this one is a fun new twist. If the monthly fee is also able to sustain continuing content additions then that's a major plus.

Basically, this has the story of a KOTOR game combined with the comradery and social aspects of WOW. $15 per month is a pretty small price to pay for that IMHO.

Re:WoW 2.0

[chrisj_0]

They actually fix this with optional missions that require 2 or more people as well as heroic missions that need up to 4 people.

Re:WoW 2.0

[aslagle]

Granted. But KOTOR 3 (if written like KOTOR) would have just had one character, one story. Now, I've got 8. Eight full storylines, written and voiced with good voice actors, with more freedom to go places than I ever had in a KOTOR game.

I know it's 'the thing' to trash the game du jour, but this is getting ridiculous.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Whorhay]

That's funny because I actually enjoyed the leveling experience in WoW. The top level raiding was also fun but because of it's nature it wasn't as entertaining over all. At any time I could pickup and play one of my alts and go do questing and progress the character. At max level, once you finished the quests all that was left was waiting for the weekly raids or grinding out rep with whatever faction. The leveling experience was by far more versatile and fun for me. I had five max level characters of different classes when I quit during TBC and numerous lower level alts.

I know people are different but I've seen a good amount of feedback on blogs and whatnot that seemed to indicate the wholesale slaughter of the leveling game as a factor in WoW's decline. In large part because it kills replayability. For me hitting max level was often a bit of a let down because it meant I'd hit the point where progressing the character turned into a chore of a grind.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Zhiroc]

Not to mention playing on the Empire side. I doubt a KotOR 3 would have had that.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

I think this sort of thing is inevitable, though. Look at Dragon Age, and how each prologue is unique and distinct. I can see this sort of philosophy being extended for full-length single-player RPG's.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Endo13]

I, for one, prefer to have the option to play with other people. Sure there's plenty of asshats to make it worse, but I just get bored when I play single-player RPGs. All the characters seem so wooden, and I keep looking for a real person to talk to.

So KOTR meets WoW is a very good combination for me. Add in the fact that I haven't played a typical MMO for upwards of 6 months now, and I was definitely ready for this game.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

I'm not trashing TOR. I'm saying that what I really wanted, and what I'm getting out of TOR was a KOTOR3 with a co-op setting. And that perhaps the whole MMO aspect is unnecessary.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Endo13]

That brings up the one huge mistake that the devs made with Rift, which I hope Bioware didn't repeat in this game. And that's fast-tracking the leveling system. WoW had it right at release: leveling your first character to cap for an average player should probably take a few months.

With the leveling experience being this good, I hope it lasts me a while.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Kjella]

So you're tired of the genre, it's like saying you're tired of running around with guns shooting people - well then all FPS games are going to suck for you. I loved Skyrim, but you could say it's exactly the same as almost every other RPG, you got your fighter, mage and rogue skills, same old go into dungeons and beat the crap out of the usual assortment of bad guys and monsters, level up, get better gear and so on. Yay another game with a fireball spell. There's just a limited way of doing things, a lot of things have changed between I played Civilization 1 and Civilization 5 but a lot more stayed the same. It's the same discover technology, found cities, build units and buildings, deal with other nations and all that stuff. Or all the "Tycoon" games, they all more or less work the same even if you're building a roller coaster or a hospital. If you've tired from that basic game play no game is going to satisfy you.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Zhiroc]

Well, it's not that they don't have effect--your conversation choices will grant LS/DS points, as well as affect companion loyalty. It remains to be seen how much ME-style plot tracking will affect the story as the game develops.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Whorhay]

By dualspec I think he meant being able to have two completely seperate setups for your skill/talent trees. This would be so that your character could switch between rolls, having completely different abilities for each.

The dualspec you are talking about is actually 1 spec that is designed to make your character more versatile all of the time. Instead of being a specialist who can switch between specialties at a moments notice.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Luckyo]

Honestly, you should try the WoW post-Cataclysm. In many areas, it's better then TOR questing because of functional phasing. You actually feel that you're building up fortresses, and your actions are changing entire landscapes, because, well, they do. The landscape enters a different phase as you progress. One great example is the new Tirisfal Glades, where you literally conquer the warzone down to going into enemy capital for quick surgical strikes. You even get to watch one of the biggest pro/antagonists in the game die... and get resurrected. You get to watch very real conflict inside the horde, angry voice acting, and melting people with green goo.

Honestly, I agree with the statement as far as original WoW goes, but new zones, especially ones that have been fully revamped offer a very compelling leveling experience. I was planning to zerg them for loremaster achievement on my max level main character, and ended up watching every cut scene and reading every quest because they were enjoyable.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Luckyo]

Worth noting that quite a few of us skip much of voice acting in other bioware games as well. I usually read through subtitles by the time voice actor reaches about 1/3 of the dialogue and just skip to the next line.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Luckyo]

Personally I'm mostly vexed about lack of phasing. After going through post-cataclysm Tirisfal Glades and other similar zones, the static zones of TOR just don't impress me as much. There is no feeling of achievement where I personally see how entire bases get erected or destroyed based on my actions.

Re:WoW 2.0

[derfy]

Wish I had mod points.

Re:WoW 2.0

[halivar]

I think there a few more ideas like this that TOR could have (and should have) taken from Blizzard to make a better, more polished game.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Snaller]

You must only have played the original one - they've added a great deal of different quest types.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Snaller]

"Wow, you just missed the whole point of the game."

Which is? To look and listen to people talking? That's a movie. In a game you do things yourself.

"I'd have thought that it being produced by Bioware would have been a clue as to how it would play.."

Why would the words "bio" and "ware" tell you anything?

Oh, you mean if people have tried other gems from them, as everybody on the planet naturally have... oh wait, no they don't.

Re:WoW 2.0

[MBGMorden]

No, I actually played each one up through Cataclysm (and was heavy into raiding in original, TBC, and WOTLK - I never did get much into the raiding scene for Cata as I basically just came back and leveled one toon to 85 before I quit). In the end almost none of them stood out. The primary reason I can honestly say was the minimal voice acting. Some voices (and cut scenes) were added in the later expansions, but they remained a minority. The vast majority of all the quests were still a little box that popped up with uninteresting babble.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Rogerborg]

So essentially you're saying that once you've run through the story content, you've got no reason to keep subscribing?

I guess I'll wait a couple of weeks until it goes F2P then.

Re:WoW 2.0

[Rogerborg]

Your revenue stream is NOT the hard core players, it is the casual gamers who will play for years on end.

You were doing well up to there, but how did you finish that sentence without your brain imploding?

WOW makes its money from the hopelessly addicted and the gold farmers who supply them. Given the mind boggling investment just in developing SWTOR it'll take years of locked in players to break even. Do you know many casual players who'll keep dropping $15 month after month to watch the same cutscenes over and over?

The formula for commercial success isn't providing great content once, it's locking your customers into a Skinner box and conditioning them to make the same sequence of taps and clicks for years on end. SWTOR may actually be too good to survive.

Re:WoW 2.0

[khallow]

Wow, you just missed the whole point of the game.

Eh, TOR will be more playable for me now that I know I can skip through the scenes. Frankly, there will be times when I'll randomly click choices just to get that over with. I run the quests just because they're a fast way to level, which apparently is important.

For me the missing elements are 1) players making a lasting impact on the game and 2) the apparent lack of an economy. I hope part 2) gets better as I progress. But IMHO there should be almost no bind on X items (that is, you should be able to trade almost everything) in a sci fi game. It seems like most of the junk I get is just stuff to sell in a shop.

Re:WoW 2.0

[groslyunderpaid]

That brings up the one huge mistake that the devs made with Rift, which I hope Bioware didn't repeat in this game. And that's fast-tracking the leveling system.

 
I'm assuming your take on this was from before planar attunement, as since Rift implemented planar attunement, I'm pretty sure there is no one in the game who has yet achieved max level.

Irking

[Jackdaw Rookery]

You see, I'd love to be playing this, but at 60 for the game and 15 a month, that's just too rich for my tastes.

I think the game itself should be free and downloadable, then charge a monthly fee for the online access. I'm going to wait for the cost of the game to come down :(

But damn, it's so tempting to buy ...

Re:Irking

[bazald]

The first month is included, so it would be fairer to say that it's $45 for the game and then $15 per month. There are slightly cheaper 3 and 6 month plans available if you're planning on sticking around.

Re:Irking

[Jackdaw Rookery]

Thanks for the info, but 45 for a game that you then keep spending on monthly still just doesn't add up.

Why isn't the game free? Wouldn't they get more subscribers that way? After all, it is the monthly subscription that makes them the money.

They seem to be deliberatly hampering themselves by sticking to the WoW model much to closely.

Re:Irking

[Moheeheeko]

By that logic carmakers should give you a car for free, and only charge you to service it.

Re:Irking

[Clsid]

It will come down if people refuses to pay the original 60. I think they should try for something like 19.99 and then the subscription. WoW prices have been slashed, so you can get the Battle Chest for $20, the two other expansions for $30, plus if you sign for the annual pass you pay like $13 per month plus get a free copy of Diablo 3. When you think that WoW is a pretty mature and stable game at this point, and all the content you are getting, who cares about a different game that is pretty much like WoW.

Now Skyrim, that's a different story :)

Re:Irking

[Tyler Eaves]

$60 for a game, then $15 per month vs paying $60 for a game you're done with in a month, so then you're bored and go buy another one at $60. Which is cheaper?

Re:Irking

[Baloroth]

Initial investment gets people hooked (sometimes). Once you spend the $60, the $15/month doesn't look bad compared to the idea that all that money was wasted. Or that is the idea, anyways. Creates a more loyal fanbase. If free, people have much less incentive to stay (but lower barrier for entry). It all depends on the type of player you want.

Don't want it too high though: a large part of the reason I never picked up WoW again was that I'd have to buy all the expansions... and not even get any game time in the mix. Not worth it at all.

Re:Irking

[nick357]

Its an MMO which should last a long time.

You play for 2 years for example. You pay $60 + (23 * $15) = $405.

You think you should be paying 24 * $15 = $360.

Thats less than $2 per month over the life of the game, which could probably be made up with advance purchasing.

I don't see what you are complaining about.

Re:Irking

[Shados]

Why isn't it free? Because millions of people were willing to pay for it. It would have been retarded to do anything else. The There was around 1 million unit just in preorder, including selling out the collector edition at 150$ a piece.

Re:Irking

[Stormtrooper42]

Do you really have to play games as soon as they're out?

You could buy them a year (or 2 years) later, when they cost $15.

It's just a matter of preference. For the same amount of money, would you rather play 1 game all year long, or 10 different games?

Re:Irking

[AnttiV]

Despite what you want to argue with that comment - yes, yes it would. Carmakers WOULD give out cars for free if: a) it was the carmaker that got the money from the services, not the service facility itself. b) it was mandatory for the car to function to service it once per month. Really mandatory, like it wouldn't run AT ALL without it. c) the service would cost upwards from 50% of the original car price PER MONTH. yes, yes they would give out cars for free. They would give them out by pairs if they could.

Re:Irking

[gstoddart]

You see, I'd love to be playing this, but at 60 for the game and 15 a month, that's just too rich for my tastes.

I fall into the camp of someone who will simply never pay a monthly fee for a game. I'm a casual gamer at best, and I've long since been outpaced by video games and can't work most of them.

By making it on-line only, and charging for that, they've pretty much assured that people like me will never even try it. Which, they're probably fine with.

The guys who made Portal, however, can likely count on my support for future titles. Portal 2 is the first game I've played for hours on end in years. I may ponder getting the original once I've worked through this one.

Re:Irking

[gorzek]

Silliest car analogy ever.

Since you can't play the game at all without paying the subscription fee, I think it should either cost very little up front ($20 or so) or not require any initial purchase.

Paying full retail price for a game and having to pay a monthly fee for it just strikes me as greedy double-dipping.

Re:Irking

[BinarySolo]

More like if car companies also were in control of all gas stations, gave you a car for free, and charged $15/gallon for gas.

Re:Irking

[nulltransfer]

Would you pay $60 for a single player game? For me, SWTOR is the first MMO that can be played like a single player game, and can provide a similar feel/experience as a single player game, if chosen to play that way. This is due to the depth and quality of the questing and leveling experience. With other MMOs, the single player portion is pretty repetitive and grindy (questing, leveling, farming, etc.). With SWTOR, the single player portion feels like KOTOR or Mass Effect.

I feel that I can get my money's worth just by playing it for the free month and not subscribing. Other MMOs depend heavily on playing with other people and playing over an extended period of time for an enjoyable experience, so you need to pay the subscription fee to enjoy the game.

Re:Irking

[lennier]

By that logic carmakers should give you a car for free, and only charge you to service it.

Also by that logic, railroads, cruise ships and airlines should give you access to the vehicle for free and only charge you for tickets whenever you travel.

But that would be silly.

Re:Irking

[Luckyo]

You have to remember that they have set out to match WoW's profits. They want to make money, they see that market can bear a decent monthly, and they're milking it.

And of course, they have to pay licensing fees to Lucasarts. That is never cheap.

Re:Irking

[Nemesisghost]

What you miss is that to play WoW you have to pay over $100. You complain that for a new game you have to pay $60, but for an old one you pay $100+. FFXI & EQ2 had it right, sell the latest expansion with everything before it for $40 - $60. That way if a new player wants to experience it, they can without having to pay what those who've been playing since the beginning have. I wanted to play WoW when Cataclysm came out, but didn't because I didn't feel like paying 2x what I could for any other video game out there.

Re:Irking

[lennier]

Thanks for the info, but 45 for a game that you then keep spending on monthly still just doesn't add up.

This is exactly why I don't play MMOs: an ongoing "luxury" expense which I simply can't justify, compared to what I could spend the money on (DVD hires, movie tickets, meals out). Especially when I don't actually enjoy the grind of questing. The only MMO I've tried so far is LOTR (because it was free) and I just got bored very quickly. An MMO doesn't have anywhere near the immersion factor of a single-player game: lots of random spectators running around doing the same "unique" quest you're doing, quest-related boss monsters and NPCs which respawn while you're watching (Woe is me!I failed to save Weepo the Orphan Hobbit from the Maurading Orcs of Rendor and I'm now eternally guilt-ridd - wait, nope, he just popped back and is giving me the intro to his quest again. All righty, let's try that one again!), slow-moving combat which is all about just clicking on the monster, and the endless parade of loot upgrades. It's not like a role-playing adventure, it's like some kind of weird parody of a game.

As an outsider to the MMO genre, I just think WoW has been the worst thing ever for game design. Designers, please, please stop trying to imitate WoW. Turning everything into a "pelts for loot" quest is not actually that fun, and it's certainly not faithful to any kind of source material. When I read Lord of the Rings last, even Aragorn who must have been level eleventy-billion had one sword through his entire quest, and he got it upgraded once. And none of the good guys would even think about using an evil monster's weapons. Please try writing a game where you capture that kind of mechanic, where character development comes from getting more skilled, not stealing better gear from dead orcs.

Or you could just re-skin WoW and pretend it's a new game. I guess that will make money so that's what will keep happening.

Re:Irking

[Kelbear]

MMOs charging you up-front makes sense for the following reasons:

1) A Box - It's important to put games in the eye-line of casual shoppers in B&M stores. Industry practices have not yet worked out how much B&M stores should charge for stocking a free game on their valuable shelf space, i.e the publisher would need to throw even more money into a yet-unreleased game to get it to market. With box units, B&Ms have no problem stocking it because they know they are making money on each unit sold. The reason why the publisher wants box units is because not everyone follows gaming news, and even advertising doesn't always push people to go buy a product, but if you get enough "impressions" to form curiousity, and then place a box product in the path of that shopper, you end up getting sales.

2) Value perception - Free to play is too new. Right now the majority of free to play games are either too crappy to charge for or they're games that are so old that they can't be sold. In time, this perception will change and players will give free games equal respect to $50/60 full-price releases (like the upcoming free game Super Monday Night Combat for one). Even selling games at reduced prices gives people the impression that the game is a "budget" title with lower levels of polish and less value. Even crappy titles will still charge full price because they don't want to reveal themselves as crappy titles before the public consensus figures it out.

3) Price discrimination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination) - Some users are willing to pay $60, so why not ask them to pay $60? That's what you are doing with the $60 retail release. Some users aren't willing to pay $60, so you pick those people up later when the game goes free to play. But as long as most people are willing to pay full price, you want to continue charging full price to get your full return on investment. Later on when it's free, everyone under the $60 willingness-to-pay level gets in and pays their amount in microtransactions or some other revenue mechanic.

4) It's up-front money. Businesses want to have money now rather than later to improve their cash position, especially after a long long long and incredibly expensive development cycle that has bled cash flow for several years. A big release with a big cash spike up front gives decision makers the confidence that they can pay for the next project (or expansion of the MMO) from start to finish. Having stable cash flow is very desirable in such a volatile business. And hey, even if the game turns out to be crap and all the players bail, at least you got the first $60 out of them.

5) They can go free to play later - More importantly, they can make a great big hullabaloo about it. Small incremental updates/patches are not big news that will draw people in, it doesn't draw attention. Over a long enough time the MMO manages to completely transform itself through those patches, but each one is too small to draw attention. When you go free to play later, you can point to /everything/ that has happened since that first release to show a massive distinction from the first impression that didn't convince people to buy it at release. Now that it's so much improved, and free to check out, they bring in a big swath of new interest. If you start off as free to play, each of the small incremental patches isn't enough to put forward as the crux of an advertising campaign, and the free press of market gossip isn't going to help you out with such an advertising campaign.

But obviously, a crap MMO will still be a failure even if you charge up front for it. Going free to play won't hold on to free to play players either when they can go to other better free to play games.

Re:Irking

[IorDMUX]

$60 for a game, then $15 per month vs paying $60 for a game you're done with in a month, so then you're bored and go buy another one at $60.

Who do you think actually does that?

I'm not in dire economic straits or anything, but I wouldn't buy a $60 (heck, $50 or $40) game unless I was certain to get at least a good few months out of it. (i.e. Oblivion, Civilization, Mass Effect, Persona, etc.) It is a poor game that does not make me want to play it through at least twice.

Better yet, just buy it when it's on sale. I just purchased New Vegas for a few bucks from the Steam store. The game has now had the chance to mature, and will hopefully suffer from fewer of Bethesda's game-breaking bugs. I haven't played it yet, but I think it will guarantee at least a month or so of entertainment for the price of a burger and fries.

Re:Irking

[Hatta]

If you're done with a $60 game in a month, you got ripped off.

Re:Irking

[Swanktastic]

Everything I've read indicates that the console & pc gaming industry works under the 80/20 rule. So, yes there are lots of people who do not buy a $60 game each month. And, yes, most people make a lot of posts complaining that $15 a month is expensive.

However, publishers make a lot of money catering to the heavy buyers (like me) who spend more than $500 a year on games.

Re:Irking

[Ash-Fox]

I may ponder getting the original once I've worked through this one.

I can gift you a copy of Portal 1 if you'd like?

Re:Irking

[7-Vodka]

If TOR is anything like WOW, then I'm bored already before I even start playing it.

Re:Irking

[Sperbels]

Please try writing a game where you capture that kind of mechanic, where character development comes from getting more skilled, not stealing better gear from dead orcs.

Hmm... I kind of agree with everything you said. But I have to point out that Glamdring (Gandalf's sword), Sting(Bilbo/Frodo's sword), and Orcrist (Thorin's sword) all came from the troll's cave in The Hobbit.

Re:Irking

[sixsixtysix]

1. you wouldn't have had to pay all right away. get the vanilla(lvls 1-60), then the expacs(-70,-80,-85) as you get to the levels that need them.
2. currently, it is a whole $35 to get all of wow's releases (vanilla+bc is $5, wotlk is $10 and cata is $20).

Re:Irking

[Sperbels]

Yes. But it was a precedent set way back in the 70's (at least) with Dungeons and Dragons, and reenforced with the computer RPGs going back ever since RPGs were being made. It's hardly an MMO thing.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Billly Gates]

Things update and the game keeps progressing. In the past you would play the game and beat it and thats it. Wait for a sequel and buy that one. With so many millions paying monthly you have extended content that is not possible otherwise

Wrong title.....

[mseeger]

The title doesn't really fit....

My suggestions:

- Return of the Grind
- A new quest
- The sleep deprivation strikes back

Yours, Martin

Re:Wrong title.....

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

wait! you can't just leave out the prequels.

Well, okay this is slashdot, so maybe you can. But they're ripe for so many punny things.

- The Phantom Gank
- Attack of the Multiboxers
- Revenge of the Griefer.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[helix2301]

Yeah I am not a huge fan of Subscription based games but yet I spend money on an Xbox live account. I guess it all depends on how good the game is depends on if I buy a subscription. WoW was defiantly worth it and so was Everquest.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[MBGMorden]

And fully voiced quest interactions with very good writing.

I personally burned out on WoW a good while back. Several months before Cataclysm came out I quit playing. When it came out I resubed and leveled one character from 80 to 85, but then quit again shortly thereafter. I've tried many of the free-to-play games, Rift, EVE Online, and many others in the meantime. Nothing grabbed my attention.

I got early access to SWTOR 5 days ago and have already played at least 15 hours and can't wait to knock off work so I can play again.

I can honestly say that I see myself leveling at least 1 character of every class to max just to see the quest chains. Its that good.

MMO on a console

[AdamJS]

It really just would not have worked out very well.

Re:MMO on a console

[elrous0]

That's what they used to say about FPS's and RTS's too.

Re:MMO on a console

[CronoCloud]

while most xbox fans seem to be "brown shooter of the week" "dudebro gamers", is there not already an MMO on the 360 with DCUO? The PS3 actually has 4, as long as you have a CECH(A/B/E) model. FFXI, EQOA, DCUO, FreeRealms.

 

Re:MMO on a console

[Stormtrooper42]

Playing a FPS without a mouse... I still find it painful.

Re:MMO on a console

[AdamJS]

Well, particularly on the Xbox, that would be TWO subscription fees being paid, which automatically divorces so many people from the idea.
FFXI really didn't work out too well on the 360 either.

It just isn't a generally good idea, especially for a company that is only just now starting to get some experience with MMOs on any platform.

Re:MMO on a console

[AdamJS]

1) DCUO is a Sony exclusive.
2) FFXI on the 360 didn't even do as well as the PS2 version.
3) A $60 game is already a hard sell. Requiring Xbox Live for a game to be played at all is a very hard sell. Requiring Xbox Live AND a second subscription fee?

Re:MMO on a console

[Luckyo]

Playing and RTS without a mouse is even more so. There's a reason why blizzard simply will not do starcraft on a console.

Re:MMO on a console

[Nemesisghost]

Actually there's still FFXI. While the base controls are designed around the console, nothing else is. You remember how painful it is to type in your character's name with an on screen keyboard using a game pad? Well, take that and try doing real time chatting. And yes, it is that painful. If you pick up FFXI on the console, you might as well get another keyboard because you are gonna need it. I watched my buddy play FFXI on his XBox, and I won't repeat his mistake.

Re:MMO on a console

[I Read Good]

Except for that time when Blizzard did do starcraft on a console.

Re:MMO on a console

[CronoCloud]

Playing an RTS without a mouse is even more so.

Every console since the Genesis has had a mouse available for it. I can tell you from personal experience that EVERY RTS on the PSone supported the PSone mouse, though they were playable without it.

The recent consoles have USB ports for a reason.

There's a reason why blizzard simply will not do starcraft on a console.

Did you not know about Starcraft on the N64? Or Warcraft II on the PSone for that matter.? Need I remind you that Blizzard was once a console centric developer named Silicon & Synapse. Don't know why they became so PC centric and their higher ups even made anti-console comment at times which seemed strange considering how they got started.

Re:MMO on a console

[CronoCloud]

If you pick up FFXI on the console, you might as well get another keyboard because you are gonna need it. I watched my buddy play FFXI on his XBox, and I won't repeat his mistake.

Of course you're going to want a keyboard. I played EQOA before FFXI and had a keyboard attached to my PS2 from the moment I started the game. Heck, having a keyboard was handy when I setup the network settings when I got the PS2's Network Adapter in August of 2002. Anybody who buys that sort of game should realize that you will want the keyboard for chat...if they don't they're just dumb.

Re:MMO on a console

[Luckyo]

Because both of their attempts to port their RTS games to consoles ended up as complete failures. They were borderline unplayable (I had a "pleasure" of trying out starcraft for n64). You simply cannot properly control RTS without a mouse. You can fumble around, but that's pretty much it. With blizzard going even further toward "speed and accuracy of your actions matters" road with starcraft 2, the bridge to any kind of console version was burned.

Mouse controls on console are non-functional in most cases, and games generally don't even bother supporting those.

(FYI the initial post left out "2" after starcraft).

Re:MMO on a console

[Hatta]

And they were right.

$100M really?

[vlm]

the game's budget is estimated to be as high as $100 million

What in the world could they have possibly spent that on? I'm struggling to figure it out. Even if 3/4 went to marketing and executive bonuses, that would still be a rather large sum of money.

Re:$100M really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the largest single voice-acting project...EVER.

Re:$100M really?

[GameboyRMH]

Well let's assume 9/10 went to marketing and executive bonuses and go from there :-P

Re:$100M really?

[dward90]

Napkin math:

200 employees (random guess, but my gut says that's a low number)
x $75k per year (another random guess, but I don't think it's absurd)
x 5 years in development
= 75 million. Add in marketing, management, and server costs, and you might be there.

Oh, and don't forget license fees. I won't speculate on what Lucas is charging them, but I bet it's mindboggling.

Re:$100M really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The game has been in development for 5 years. That's 5 years of salaries for dozens of some of the top programmers, game designers and graphic artists in the industry. Now throw in the the most voice acting ever recorded for a single project. Top it off with a few million for the infrastructure to actually run the game. Then bring in a massive advertising campaign (although sure as shit not a $75mil advertising campaign). Considering it's not uncommon for non-MMO, AAA titles with only 2 or 3 year dev cycles to run their budgets up to the $40-$50mil range, $100 million for this game really doesn't seem that outlandish.

Re:$100M really?

[MBGMorden]

As another poster said - voice acting. LOTS of it. That and CGI - and writers, etc. It took a lot of people a lot of man hours to develop this. That said - $100 million doesn't seem all that bad. Last I heard their pre-orders alone were approaching 3 million. Some of those are collectors editions and digital deluxe, but even at $60 a pop for the regular edition x 3 million is $180 million. There's other material costs involved there, but I'd wager that the initial sales alone will makeup for the development budget. They'll make their profit off of sustained subscriptions, which I'd wager they'll maintain a lot of.

Re:$100M really?

[Nylathotep]

LA's cut is 35% off the top i believe

Re:$100M really?

[CanHasDIY]

the game's budget is estimated to be as high as $100 million

What in the world could they have possibly spent that on?

My guess: 2 Death Stars and franchise rights from Lucas.

Re:$100M really?

[Luckyo]

Not to be offensive but "in your dreams". LA will most definitely milk any such project that is trying to gain most of its initial subscriber base on the brand name, and will most certainly charge a significant fee before taking a "cut off the top".

Re:$100M really?

[Dynedain]

If a developer is $75k/yr in salary, then once you factor in their overhead, employment benefits, etc, they cost the company at least $150k/year

Re:$100M really?

[tnk1]

the game's budget is estimated to be as high as $100 million

What in the world could they have possibly spent that on?

My guess: 2 Death Stars and franchise rights from Lucas.

You mean franchise rights from Lucas and the two Death Stars with the remaining 1% of the money left over.

Re:$100M really?

[SydShamino]

If only Lucas had demanded a little less $$$ for the franchise rights, they could have put a few baffles in the air ducts of their first Death Star to block torpedoes...

"Largely Unexplored"?

[Shadow99_1]

Seriously? It's "Largely unexplored"? I was in beta for half a year and that was short compared to some. I had about half a dozen max level characters during that time and I've done quests that don't even exist in the current build (because they were removed with often unfixable bugs effecting players). Plenty of people who were in beta longer then me even have certainly explored SW:ToR pretty darn thoroughly. I think 'game reviewers' are the only ones who haven't played more than a single beta weekend and so haven't explored it much at all. Plenty of players have been there and done that repeatedly.

Re:"Largely Unexplored"?

[kassah]

The difference here, is if this is like any other beta, you signed a non-disclosure agreement when you were handed beta. While you may not care about that, reputable news sources generally don't break those kinds of things, because they will get sued for it. That's if they even agreed to it in the first place, which I doubt any did.

Re:"Largely Unexplored"?

[Snaller]

"Seriously? It's "Largely unexplored"?"

Yes, because nobody has written about it, go do that if you care so much (remember to write how the interface is unreadable)

Re:"Largely Unexplored"?

[Shadow99_1]

The NDA has been gone for quite some time now (3 weeks...? A month...? I forget exactly, it was before beta was even over). I can talk all I want about my experience in beta at this point. The NDA argument is a misnomer.

Re:"Largely Unexplored"?

[Shadow99_1]

I don't really think I need to. Plenty of wiki style sites have vast amounts of detailed information on quests, player details, equipment, etc. I could write about the process where they removed visual features over every new version for the past 6 months (color matching for clothes, anti-aliasing, etc), but that requires way to much effort when I'm not playing it now and I'm waiting a typical 3-6 months before playing so they can work out all the bugs they refused to fix in beta (you don't want to know how many times we heard "You are 3 or 4 builds behind internal testing, we've fixed these things trust us!").

WoW with lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played beta. I won't be rushing out to buy this. As a previous poster said, it's WoW with Blasters/Light Sabers.

What a waste of Bioware talent and a Star Wars License. They would've been much better off using the Mass Effect 2 combat system as a basis. Instead, it's no different than the hundreds of WoW like clones out there ... EA wanted this game to cut into WoW... The sad thing is they will succeed because there are millions of people out there willing to play WoW with a Star Wars skin on it.

I'm disappointed to say the least. I anticipated much more from Bioware. If the game mechanics were anywhere near the quality of the cut scenes, I wouldn't be posting this. There seems to be very few gaming companies ready to break any molds in the MMORPG realm. EVE Online is one of few, and that game came out in 2003.

Hopefully I'm wrong, and my beta impression was due to limited time in the game. But I fear it's what it is, and what could've been a game I would be playing for years is one I'm just going to pass over.

Re:WoW with lasers

[Sectoid_Dev]

I really enjoyed playing EVE Online because it does break the mold of MMORPGs with something unique. It's a shame that CCP is their own worst enemy. EVE will never go mainstream and that's the way the CCP wants it - which is why it will die.

Re:WoW with lasers

[tnk1]

Yes, CCP is their own worst enemy, but not because they haven't gone mainstream.

But if they did want to go mainstream, they should probably upgrade from using Microsoft Excel as their client interface. I mean, when I get home from work, I want to get away from spreadsheets, not see more of them.

Re:WoW with lasers

[Sperbels]

Some people like to be guided through a predetermined course and just shoot at stuff until they hit the level cap. Then there are others who like to go out and explore and figure out new ways to beat the system or other players.

Re:WoW with lasers

[wright_left]

I had the same experience. I actually got quite bored before I even got to level 10. I played SWG for a while and I thought it brought a lot more new ideas to the table than SWTOR does. I especially enjoyed the cities, housing, mining, non-combat professions, multiple professions, etc. I liked being an architect during the day, and kicking butt as a Sword Master by night. I missed a lot of that in WoW. I had some hope for SWTOR, but it is just WoW with lasers. But it's actually not as polished WoW. Blizzard has had years to perfect their game. Bioware needed to come to the table with something new and innovative to get my attention. And they failed.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[AdamJS]

Which is why Guild Wars will never have a sequel.
Oh, wait...

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Billly Gates]

"This is wow with light sabers"

No it is not.

Disclaimer: I have not played the game yet, and my opinion is based on reviews and people who have played the beta.

World of Warcraft is based on a fantasy world where you can participate in it as time goes by. SWTOR is a world based on YOU. You are the center of attention and the choices you make constantly change the quest tree and storyline. For example you can play single player and the game will be different than if you play in groups according to www.arstechnica.com.

Another difference is your companion system is very advanced. At level 15 you have your own personal robotic servant too kind of like 3cpo who can help you do your profession gathering, and even your companion can go to the auction house for you and sell things while you are at work. The companions can eventually leave if you have enough dark side points or if you are an ass to them. They can even fill in for a raid while you wait for more players. They are much more than actual pets.

In essence Wow has more atmosphere and story with much richer environments that seem more realistic (sun, moon, nightime, weather, weeds moving in wind etc) while STWOR is an interactive movie with you as a star where there are no saves and the story keeps changing and so the quests. You can have 2 of the same jedi or sith, and depending on lightside or darkside points you will have different quests. Add that to playing ina guild and you will have 2 more different quest, gear, and talents.

I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[sfranklin]

Lots of other "big" titles that launched recently have since gone free-to-play. Star Wars Online and DC Universe Online are recent examples. I give SWTOR a year (more than the average due to the Star Wars name) before they start letting people in free. They might not call it "F2P" but at the very least they'll have playable trial accounts that expose 75% of the game.

Re:I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

"Free to play" is a misnomer. It should accurately be "Pay to win" or "Pay to play well regardless of your skill level".

I hate it. It's a crappy way to do a game, and represents one of the more reprehensible expectations of sociopaths on this planet.

Re:I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[Desler]

If the games is a hit why would they go f2p? DCU Online went f2p because it wad losing players hence the huge server merge. Despite what the summary claims f2p is mostly being used as a last ditch effort for dying mmos or shitty Asian mmos.

Re:I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[AdamJS]

Because the statement is based off of the assumption that it will lose 99% of its playerbase after the first few months and content injections, particularly because it seems to be nothing more than KOTOR shoehorned into a WoW clone. the star wars license can only carry something oh so far.

Re:I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[Luckyo]

The model you're talking about is "pay to win". A far more interesting (and financially successful) model is "pay for content" that Guild Wars (2) uses.

Re:I give it 12 months until it's free to play

[Slider451]

Agree on F2P being done right with Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). But I'm curious why you think it couldn't compete with WoW. It's not pretty obvious to me. LOTRO came out in 2007. It's newer than WoW and the scenery is quite stunning when set to Ultra High with DX11. Since F2P launch in 2010 they have continued to update and just recently came out with the third major expansion. There's still a lot of life in Middle Earth.

The lore and content is rich and mature. If it fails to match WoW's numbers it's probably due to not catering to teenagers.

early access

[Ogive17]

I've had access since last Tuesday. I'm currently at level 24 (out of 50) and so far the story has been enjoyable. It does not feel like a grind, in fact most missions to kill x # of creatures are just bonus quests that you can easily skip.

The game is not revolutionary and they did take most of the best features from WoW. I really enjoy it.

Right now the only thing negative I have to say about the game is the artifcial cap they put on every server. Almost every server had a 20+ minute queue to log in during peak hours last week. My brother said he had to wait 10 minutes at 10am this morning to log in. If I have to wait more than a couple minutes I will be raising hell.

Re:early access

[berashith]

I would say that if you can complete half of the levels in a week, then it should not feel like a grind because it isnt. It also sounds like it isnt a challenge, and all of the content is high level. Why not just give a intro demo and turn everyone loose at level 50

Re:early access

[niado]

If GP is playing a lot, halfway to max in a week isn't too shallow of a grind. There's been a weekend in there, so we could say easily 40 hours of playtime (though that would be quite a lot of playing). Grind generally gets steeper as you approach max level so he likely wouldn't be more than 20% to max or so depending on the curve. Really bad napkin math: 40*5=200. 200 hours of someone playing casually (4 hours per day let's say?) would be close to 2 months to get to max level. If we go a little conservative and assume our intrepid friend has only played 20 hours this week that would still be something like 4-5 weeks to get to max level.

Just eyeballing it that seems somewhere in the normal range for modern MMO's.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bhcompy]

WoW is DAoC with a slightly dumbed down interface and a more vibrant and comical palette. So what was your point again?

"Story-Driven"

[GameboyRMH]

A story-driven MMO...this could be a "neverending story" that actually lives up to it's name!

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Billly Gates]

Dont forget the quest chains are always different depending on your choices and lightside vs darkside points. Infact there are lightside and darkside quests too and then they change again if you group a lot with your guild.

You can have 4 sith inquisitors and will have a completely different story line for each one with dark/light and solo and group alts. Cool stuff

.... and fails.

[gweihir]

Waiting queues on all early-access servers, up to 1:15 on the German servers at this time despite grand announcements that this will not happen to them. They are also claiming that they increased server capacities today, which, as far as I can tell was either by an insignificant amount or an outright lie.

I predict that this will either kill Bioware or at least bring them to the brink.

Re:.... and fails.

[gweihir]

P.S.: SWTOR feels like a WoW with worse animations, worse interface and too much voice-acting. Nice for a few weeks, then boring.

Re:.... and fails.

[MBGMorden]

"Nobody goes there anymore - its too crowded.".

Queues are to be expected in a popular game on launch day. Every time you hit a queue that means that there are that many paying customers in there taking up that much room. You'll never see any business "killed" for having too many customers.

Re:.... and fails.

[Moheeheeko]

They did actually add like 20 servers today, trouble is all those full servers from before are still full, as stubborn people wont go to a new one, and new players wont pick a light population server, fearing there wont be anyone to tell them how they mine for fish.

Re:.... and fails.

[Supermike68]

It is estimated that Bioware spent 135M dollars on the development of SWTOR.

Early estimates put pre-orders at ~3M.

You don't need to be a mathematician to figure figure out that they will make money off of this title. Thus your prediction is far from correct.

I for one am impressed with what Bioware has added to an increasingly bloated genre. I know they will continue to do amazing things in the future.

PS. Turn down the hate.

Re:.... and fails.

[elrous0]

Is it easy to move a character between servers on TOR? Last time I tried in WoW, it was a huge pain in the ass. A real let-down after having played Guild Wars (where you could move anywhere, anytime you wanted).

Re:.... and fails.

[Moheeheeko]

Havent tried yet, im happy with my server.

Re:.... and fails.

[Sparton]

Worst I had was peak time Friday night in PST (North American server), at about 35 minutes.

No wait times past 10m on the weekend, and nothing on Monday or Tuesday.

Might just be the European servers, or the particular one you're on. I'm on one of the most dense NA servers (wait times for mine are among the top when I check).

Re:.... and fails.

[otis wildflower]

AFAIK there is currently no way to transfer toons.

They really need to be doing this, for free, from high-pop to low-pop. As many times as is necessary until servers level out.

Re:.... and fails.

[Luckyo]

You do actually, if all those customers see the huge queue and leave. That's why businesses hire more employees and buy more infrastructure as they grow and why not growing with demand is often lethal for a business.

Re:.... and fails.

[gweihir]

There is absolutely no hate on my side, just a slight disappointment. Where do you see hate? Because my prediction is dire? That is an invalid conclusion on your part.

Re:.... and fails.

[lennier]

It is estimated that Bioware spent 135M dollars on the development of SWTOR.

Early estimates put pre-orders at ~3M.

Great, only 132 million dollars to go!

Re:.... and fails.

[Moheeheeko]

Just did a count, Stateside there are 48 servers at standard to low pop, most of which being low. EU is around the same number.

Re:.... and fails.

[Dracophile]

It's not having "too many" customers that will kill a business. It's failing to serve them that will do it.

Re:.... and fails.

[Malenx]

At 8:42 pm EST today on Iron Citadel (an East Coast server) I'm sitting at 1 hour 15 mins que to get into my server.

I hope they fix this or make switching servers free.

Re:.... and fails.

[Sparton]

Hm, I'm getting a 30 minute wait going in now.

I can't say I'm surprised, but it looks like I'm still luckier than some. I still appear to be among the longer wait times out of those on the West Coast.

Re:.... and fails.

[wright_left]

Exactly! I was starting to wonder if I was the only one that noticed that SWTOR had much less polish than WoW. I feel if they were going to spend all that money, they shouldn't have just re-invented the wheel, but made it square this time.

Re:.... and fails.

[wright_left]

Yeah--I hope Bioware doesn't tank because of this. I do think the people that were responsible for making the decision to rip off WoW should have a performance review, so to say.

Re:.... and fails.

[gweihir]

Several of my friends came to the same conclusion independently. Most of them plan to play the storyline (if the queue-problem subsides), and then quit. 3 months tops.

Re:.... and fails.

[stjobe]

Now I don't know if you were trying for funny or not, but the 3M the GP was referring to was the number of accounts sold at roughly $60 each - so that's $180M and they've already broken even and gotten a hefty $45 million in profit.

Re:.... and fails.

[Supermike68]

There is absolutely no hate on my side, just a slight disappointment. Where do you see hate? Because my prediction is dire? That is an invalid conclusion on your part.

Really?

The title of your post is .... and fails. YESTERDAY was release day.

I'm not trying to troll you here. I'm just calling a spade a spade.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bloodhawk]

What a load of crap, as someone that played in 2 of the betas for SWTOR and is in the game now as an imperial agent, "Wow with light sabers and laser guns" is actually a perfect description. The game is much richer in story with a lot more effort put into the quest dialogue and story but apart from that it is a skinned version of wow. It is a nice change but even as a star wars fan I don't think this game will last as the "just another wow clone" syndrome will hit this game hard within a few months.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[elrous0]

Guild Wars is probably the most underrated MMO in history. Way better story and graphics than WoW, it was free to play from the beginning, and moving a character between servers was as easy as a drop-down menu (allowing you to easily play with friends on different servers, something that should have been standard on all MMO's a long time ago). And yet it never got the attention it really deserved.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bmwEnthusiast]

I agree %100. I was in the last beta weekend and logged 10 hours playing to level 15. WoW with lightsabers and blasters and speeders instead of flying horses. Want to know why this game is an epic fail? There is no free space flight. It's all scripted combat on rails. DUMB. The name of the game is called STAR WARS... yet your ability to have a war amidst the stars on your own terms does not exist. I canceled my pre-order shortly after the beta weekend. Will wait for the first expansion that adds free space flight.

Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

With 20/20 vision and their nose pressed against the screen - as an adult I can apparently get lost - their interface is composed of a font so tiny that I can't read most of it which is a bit of a problem even though quests are spoken, you still need to read stuff... this is where the kids butt in and say you can adjust the chat font size - and I have to compose myself and point out, ITS THE WHOLE DAMN INTERFACE - tooltips, skill trees, subtitles, their 'codex' (and no, you can't just change resolution, they make sure to scale it so it remains at the same visual size regardless of actual resolution)

You'd think in this day and age the technology to adjust font size wouldn't be totally unheard of? Apparently Biowares programmers feel this is to abstract a concept, or perhaps they only want kids to enter their hallowed halls. The rest can bugger of back to WoW.

Well ok then.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Anonymous Coward]

Interface scaling is the one feature I miss dramatically whenever I venture into a non-WoW MMO. Playing on a TV makes all text tiny. WoW is one of the few games that i can compensate for the huge resolution and still retain readability.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[greymond]

UI Scaling and Mods are something Bioware Stated would come after launch.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Sparton]

Pretty much all of Bioware's games are like this. I couldn't play Mass Effect 2 on my PS3 with my standard definition TV because, despite it being a fairly sizable TV, the font was completely unreadable. I don't doubt that even on an HDTV I would still run into issues.

It's not just a programmer issue to add in font sizes, though. It's a QA issue. The stunning amount of text that needs to be checked once per font size is not a trivial expenditure of time.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[paleo2002]

Its not even just Bioware games. The current gen of console and PC games assume you're playing on an HD screen and so the text is scaled accordingly. I ended up having to get an HDTV shortly after purchasing a PS3 because I couldn't read the interface, instructions, or quest text at more than 2-3ft. from the screen. Strictly PC games usually have better UI scaling options than consoles.

You know you're getting old when your blurry eyes force you stop playing, rather than a family member.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Luckyo]

You don't need to "check the stunning amount of text". You just need a window for dialogue with word wrap. That's it. Windows notepad does it fairly well for any text, with both adjustable text window and adjustable text font size and font itself. Same thing for WoW and its various add-ons that customize the chat window.

UI text is a different issue, but there's several orders of magnitude less text there.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Sparton]

The vast, vast majority of the text doesn't involve a word wrapping window. Some does, and that's probably no problem to upsize/downsize, but the game would break in a bunch of other locations.

In the game, just looking at the normal UI right now, I see text used in the following places:

- Player names & guild names
- Level
- Name & Title
- Quickbar Shortcuts
- Quickbar Quantities
- Quickbar Page Numbers
- Time
- Hover-over tooltip header & description
- Quest names & summary of task & bonus reminder
- Chat header & chat text
- Chat tooltip
- Chat rollover options

For each of these _just on this screen_, you'd need to check:

- Is it readable with a smaller/larger font
- All of the above, but also on higher/lower screen resolutions
- All of the above, but also in EFIGS-J

And this is just looking at the main screen. It doesn't touch quests, codex, skill tree, preferences, guild, conversations...

Just because it's easy to say "let the player make fonts bigger" doesn't mean it's easy to ensure such changes don't harm the experience for users. Adjustable text sizes is a serious feature to consider, and has a lot of implications.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Luckyo]

You're still not seeing the forest for the trees. All above with a couple of exceptions is TRIVIAL to check for potential overflows because there's not much text options in there (and in many cases you can use a pseudo-window).

Chat on the other hand is and should be in the chat window. Not as a fixed part of UI. And that should be word wrapped. Same for quest text, dialogues and other text content that comes in large amounts. This stuff gets its own, preferably resizable window with full customization options for both font and font size.

Just copy WoW (and its very popular chat add-on prat) in this regard. It really does this part very well.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Sparton]

I'm not sure what your experience is, but I've done UI layout design for a few years in the games industry, so I am speaking from a matter of experience.

When you're designing the UI, if you only have to worry about one font size, everything is really, really easy. You don't need to worry about labels being positioned correctly so that the text works right at all sizes. You just need to place it, see that it looks right, then move on. Anyone can do this sloppy and quick.

Once fonts are modular, everything needs a great deal more attention. What looks right for one sizes might be completely wrong at another sizes unless you adjust how the text in said label is aligned. Depending on how close certain labels are, larger font sizes may not be possible to do without obscuring other important elements far more than is acceptable for easy recognition.

It's also a matter of multiplication; if it works right on one size and one language, whoop-dido. In a real environment, each font size multiplies the amount of work to be done. You can't just say "oh, size large works with this language at this resolution, so it must be fine", you have to check it at each resolution/language combination. All of the sudden, you go from three languages (English, French, German) and 11 resolutions to that multiplied by how many font sizes you want to support. If you want three font sizes (normal, larger, and real big), you go from 33 ways each of dozens of screens could screw up to 99.

Chat windows are a misnomer, as they are the least of your concern, because they're built to have word wrapping and often different size windows anyways (in the case of SW:TOR, they're resizable with specific minimum/maximum dimensions). Just fixing it in one place doesn't fix it everywhere, though.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Luckyo]

If "fixing it in one place doesn't fix it everywhere", you're either doing something wrong on design level or are forced to do something wrong because of other reasons like limits of the tools you're using, or interaction with other modules of the program/game. Again, look at WoW. It's translated into many languages and keeps getting translated into more. It's very modular, in fact there are many add-ons that literally wipe out old interface and create a totally new one. Everything you see on UI is fully customizable, either through blizzard's own UI customization window which allows resizing among other things, and an add-on called "move anything" (which does exactly what name suggests). Or you can take add-ons and add-on libraries that will let you change everything from font and font size to location or each and every piece of text on the screen, regardless of language used.

Hence, I stand by my previous statement. "Copy from WoW". The total amount of text and such outside chat windows should be manageable to QC through and make sure it doesn't overflow. You can also implement safeguards against overflows, like hiding unimportant parts of the text when overflow is detected (i.e. "random mob x casts skill y on target z" can become "x ... y ... z" using ellipses to hide things like direction of casting, or shortening long names and words). Aligning text to images like icons can be done through anchoring icon to certain part of the text by default and doing a pseudo-window treatment where anything that doesn't fit into certain length is shortened or word-wrapped to the second line where applicable.

The ways to do this are there, and if there's one thing that massively large WoW's UI mod community has done is leg work for ways you can manage tremendous amounts of information on your screen in ridiculous amounts of various layouts, fonts, languages and so on while keeping it clean and manageable. If you're actually doing this commercially for a living, I strongly recommend you take a look at their work. There's a lot to be learned there.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Sparton]

I'll certainly have to. I don't partake in large scale MMO's as part of my professional work (currently, at least), but I'm sure there's a lot that can be learned, even for the small studio I'm at. I don't get to play with the budget these guys have, but there's probably still good practices that can be learned.

That said, while your point is quite valid, it's part of the unfortunate tall order the game that was commercially released today has when compared to the juggernaut that's been going seven years strong.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

"UI Scaling and Mods are something Bioware Stated would come after launch."

Aha. Do you have a source for that? How when would that be?

After all 3 years is "after launch"

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

"The vast, vast majority of the text doesn't involve a word wrapping window. Some does, and that's probably no problem to upsize/downsize, "

Such as the Codex, the quest log, the map...

"In the game, just looking at the normal UI right now, I see text used in the following places:

"- Player names & guild names"

Could be much bigger if the player wanted it. And in tooltip which could be a lot bigger.

"- Level
- Name & Title"

I don't know what you refer to, the players own or? But in a tooltip

"- Quickbar Shortcuts
- Quickbar Quantities"

Tooltip. And also less urgent, stats on items are more important.

"- Quickbar Page Numbers
- Time"

Tool tip - and time should also be in 24 hour.

"- Hover-over tooltip header & description"

A tooltip could be HUGE and take up 80% of the screen if the user wanted.

"For each of these _just on this screen_, you'd need to check:"

No you don't, because thats just an excuse not to do it - just add it, and if something scales out of view, well the its better than not having it

"don't harm the experience for users."

Don't say users - its the USER who suffers, the rest don't.

You work for bio ware don't you? Well, by not adding this you are losing money. If you are lucky its just me, or perhaps there is a reason wow still has millions of subscribers.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

"When you're designing the UI, if you only have to worry about one font size, everything is really, really easy. You don't need to worry about labels being positioned correctly so that the text works right at all sizes. You just need to place it, see that it looks right, then move on"

Except you missed the fucking point: IT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT. IT'S FUCKING UNREADABLE.

Because lazy assholes like you can't be bothered to do anything make up excuses.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

Indeed, and if they added tooltips for the UI text as well, that would solve that.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

I don't agree on the QA - make a system which will handle that - you could increase the font size on tooltips for instance something like 5000% before it wouldn't fit on the screen, and then they could add scroll bars.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

You get it Luckyo, thanks for your contribution.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[Snaller]

"Most adults, I'd say way north of 90%, can have their vision corrected to 20/20, "

You may say that but it would be bullshit.

Second of all, its not as if i'm blind - they just have bad design, accept it kid its not smart to place a lot of stuff on the screen when it can't be read.

Re:Aimed squarely at children

[wright_left]

I mentioned this to them several times during Beta on my surveys. But I guess they didn't have time to fix it.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Snaller]

So not only didn't you try swtor, you didn't try wow either, eh?

"World of Warcraft is based on a fantasy world where you can participate in it as time goes by. SWTOR is a world based on YOU. "

So is Wow - yes, if you stay away for long enough (and we are talking real world years) yes there will be progression without but (and so presumably here will in swtor) but the whole point is that YOU the player get to meet all the leaders, all the leadersin the world get to know you and your name.
In swtor you are NOT going to meet Vader, or Skywalker, Princess Leia or hang out with Yoda.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[drb226]

Which is why Guild Wars will never have a sequel. Oh, wait...

At the rate they're developing GW2, I tend to believe your first statement.

Origin experience, horrible bugs

[assemblerex]

After my BF3 experience, with the game launched early to compete with MW3, I would never
buy another EA game again. Horrible cheating, crashing, clunky origin interface.
Time to starve the beast. Don't buy the games and make ea vanish as it should have ages ago.

Re:Origin experience, horrible bugs

[Moheeheeko]

..I havent even opened Origin since I started beta....Its listed as one ofmy games there, but its not run off of it.

Re:Origin experience, horrible bugs

[Stormtrooper42]

I thought SWTOR didn't use Origin?

I don't like EA either, but considering they own so many franchises and game studios, I don't see them dying anytime soon.

Re:Origin experience, horrible bugs

[Luckyo]

You can apparently buy it from Origin, through price is hilarious (2/3 more expensive then in local retail). I suspect you would be forced to use origin if you bought through it, but I'm not 100% certain, so if someone has indeed bought the game through origin, it would be nice if you elaborated here on the issue.

And retail version doesn't require you to use origin.

Re:Origin experience, horrible bugs

[Endo13]

It doesn't.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[greymond]

"Disclaimer: I have not played the game yet, and my opinion is based on reviews and people who have played the beta."

You should have stopped commenting right there. I was in Beta as well as started my early access on the 13th. While the voice acting is amazing and top notch graphics it is exactly like every other MMO out right now. Except they didn't put in a real LFG tool yet, though they have a PVP queue, and they don't have phasing like in WoW.

Honestly if this game didn't have STAR WARS in the name no one would care.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[otis wildflower]

I've been playing (or, rather waiting in fucking queues) since last thursday, and yes, it's quite a lot like WoW. The colors on items are the same, at least the first 10 levels of soloing are the same.

But.

The NPC interactions are a lot more fun, quite Mass Effect-like. I don't know if there's a rep system yet as you only get dark/light side interaction points, but this would play particularly nicely into a faction rep system as well. Plus, you could have light/dark faction issues, where if you're light-side and walk into a dark-side bar you are immediately gonna have issues..

This game is basically KOTOR: the MMO, which is what a lot of people (including myself) have wanted for quite awhile.

Now all they have to do is FIX THE FUCKING QUEUES and/or have free toon transfers from higher pop to lower pop, until things have calmed down and they've fully geared up.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Billly Gates]

""World of Warcraft is based on a fantasy world where you can participate in it as time goes by. SWTOR is a world based on YOU. "

So is Wow
"

No it is not. The Lich King will die whether your guild kills him or someone elses. Deathwing comes next. Wars start whether you fight in them or not. You just have the option to participate if you want. If you kick ass it wont change things.

In SWTOR the storyline is tightly integrated with your actions and in Wow you get maybe a chain of quests that unlocks if you are friendly with a certain group of people. The quests lines, gear, and story line are radically different depending on your choices in what becomes almost like a new game. The designers mentioned that was the goal if you look at their interviews.

SWTOR I am sure will have their leaders as well.

Re:No Mac Version yet

[greymond]

WoW and EVE are the ONLY two MMO's I know of that bothered to make a mac client of their game. I honestly can't think of a single other MMO that is dual platformed.

But who cares? Unless you have an old non-intel Apple system (in which case the system requirements wouldn't work for this game most likely) you just install Win 7 on a second partition or hard drive and play the game on your mac that way. Stop trying to complain about something that isn't an issue anymore.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[C0R1D4N]

I disagree. It is not WoW with lightsabers. It is Everquest 2 with lightsabers.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Ubergrendle]

GW1 sold around 7million copies and is now a major franchise. A few things it didn't bring to the table was a persistent, instanced world and large (20+) player 'raiding'. Both of these have been addressed in the sequel that just entered beta testing... and still with no monthly fee.

SW:TOR bring the RPG back to MMORPG. But I think GW2 has the chance to be truly revolutionary -- it destroys the 'holy trinity' model, no monthly fee, and the graphics and gameplay look to be a substantial improvement over the current generation of 'hotkey' MMOs.

About Origin...

[winterchapo]

I have only heard bad things about Origin compared to Steam, how is the experience with Origin?

Re:About Origin...

[bananaquackmoo]

Other than signing up and paying for the game on Origin's website, I've never had to use the Origin. The game client can be run just fine without Origin installed.

Re:About Origin...

[Luckyo]

You can download it and try for yourself. Like steam, the storefront itself is free.

But frankly, it's terrible. Something among the lines of steam on release of counter strike 1.6. Very basic, very buggy, very annoying.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Synerg1y]

Also Blizzard would be completely out of business, sc1-2, d1-3, wc1-3 have always been free online. I don't get WOW, mmorpgs are great, eq2 rocked, but I seriously think for what your getting as a game, it lacks substance and is extremely extremely repetitive.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

Guild wars is anything but "recent", undermining your argument severely.

So far, so good

[lexsird]

I just got to level 10 and am looking for the advanced class trainers. The game so far is pretty decent, the game play is good, the interface is nice, the combat system doesn't make me nuts like their last one did. It's pretty polished and worth a good look. It will keep you home for the holidays and off the streets and roads.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[AdamJS]

I do wonder how people reconcile the fact that it's an MMO with no monthly fee with their belief that such fees are required.
"It won't have any players" will probably be the party line.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Everquest - the game that spawned most MMO's (3d first person perspective) as we see them or perhaps UO. Or is it a MUD with a gui instead of command line and text which directly spawned EQ. Or is it Adventure with everything that has come after it along with lightsabers and blasters Lets take it back to the physical RPG with dice and manuals.

WOW was not 9/11 - it didn't change everything.

Re:No Mac Version yet

[chrisj_0]

EVE made a linux client for a while too. It was pretty bad and the windows version played better under WINE but at least they tried.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

I think one of the long term players from beta who is a friend of mine put it best.

"I played the entire early part with my friend. We share start point for our characters, so we can "watch" each other's plot lines. So I walk with the quest giver NPC, and he says "Now that we're finally alone..." and my friend's character is right next to me. Jarring".

The best question was "so if this truly is MY story, why are there twenty guys who look just like me talking to the same NPCs and doing the same quests?"

Fact is, you just can't make a good, immersive story about a "hero that stands above the crowd" in an MMO. You have to be one of the masses, and by extension, not really a hero that stands above others. When MMO's pretend it's not so, like TOR and some of the new/remade zones in WoW, it looks silly and breaks immersion in a very bad way.

Difference is, WoW doesn't hype it up as a major selling point. TOR does, and while it works for people who are experiences with MMOs and don't really expect anything truly new, just an improvement, those who actually do expect something new end up sorely disappointed. Which is what happens to people who believe that TOR is not WoW with lightsabers. Because in the end, under all the extra fluff, there's still going to be twenty guys who have a story largely identical to yours right next to you reminding you that you're not the "hero that stands above the crowd" that game tries to make you believe you are.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[danhaas]

So is it a wow with light sabers and Neverwinter Nights 2 quests?

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Kelbear]

MUDs preceded MMOs. They were also by and large F2P.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[tnk1]

I just think that they assume that it is crappy or lacking in some way if it is free. If it is *not* lacking in some way, my hats off to them, because if anything, a server farm is an ongoing cost that needs to be planned for. Subscription fees seem the most straightforward way of doing it.

Honestly, I have never played GW, and I only really played WoW because I had friends who did. And the only reason I am considering SW:TOR is because I know people who are playing it. I don't think cost is really a motivating factor for most MMO players, unless it is excessive.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

While TOR "will sure have their leaders", they will not have the big names. Because they don't have the permission to change the canon story.

That's the beauty of owning your own IP. You can do whatever you want with it.You want to have your heroes directly interact with the most important characters of the universe, and actually help them? No problem! You want to feel that your very actions are actually changing the course of the main story? No problem! You want to have your players relive the epic end battle of warcraft 3, where you mounted a desperate defense against endless waves of demons? No problem!

Now try to do the same with the Star Wars. Lucasarts will shoot your suggestions down as fast as you can make them, no matter how good they would be for the game. Because the real story of Star Wars will always be that of the six movies. And you'll never get to mess with those. Lucasarts will simply not let you. And that is a very real problem.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[mjr167]

I think people (management) are finally starting to realize that they can charge $1 for a stupid hat that doesn't effect game play and people will buy it...

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[tnk1]

Compared to a lot of MMOs that I've seen, WoW did have a lot of polish to it. Also, I think that a lot of things that mean a lot to a committed MMO player don't mean as much to people who have never played MMOs. And I'd say that as their player base has become more familiar with MMOs, WoW has continued to add content and some functionality.

I got bored with WoW... twice. At this point it has been years since I have played and I'll never be back. But when it was good, it was good. It just got old.

Actually...

[Moraelin]

Actually, as someone who's been there for a week or so now, I can tell you that you can hardly tell. I haven't run into much nerdiness about anything movie-related. If anything, it comes across more like a bunch of KOTOR fans, plus the occasional (and frankly expected) "OMG IT'S WOW WITH GUNS!!!111eleventeen" trolling.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[wiggles]

> There is no free space flight. I've been waiting since X-wing Alliance for a new Star Wars game that allowed that.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Fned]

There is no free space flight. It's all scripted combat on rails. DUMB.

WHAT

That was the single best thing about SWG. How could they fuck THAT up?

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Whorhay]

I never finished the original GW before the expansions and such came out. But it was a very different game at that time from WoW or most any other MMO.

For starters there was no real difference in characters, other than classes. Everyone of the same class essentially got the same equipment, there were some cosmetic differences and very minor stat differences, but you weren't going to find an upgrade to whatever you had anywhere.

The game was entirely instanced, even the hubs were instanced. This isn't entirely negative as it means that everyone is on the same server. The downside is that if you don't join a group you won't be seeing anyone else in the game world outside of hubs, which kind of ruins the idea of playing in a MMO for me.

I played as a Warrior/Monk or maybe it was Monk/Warrior. That meant that I filled two of the 3 trinity spots for much of the game but it didn't eliminate the efficacy of the trinity effect in the game.

One of the things that I did really like about the game was the companion system that meant you could make your own solo group for when you didn't want to deal with other people to progress. The dual class aspect was interesting and fun. The story telling was interesting and well done, though I would have liked to have seen more than one path to progress along. I liked that the game wold was all one big server, although I would have liked the zones to be less hallway like and allow more groups of players than just one group per instance.

Despite it's shortfalls I'm actually tempted now to go and see if I can play it still, although I wouldn't have any of the expansions.

Not really, no

[Moraelin]

Also as someone who actually plays it, I think it's inexact. It's like calling Skyrim "Fallout 3 with swords."

The only similarity to WOW is that both are games in the same genre. So, yes, certain mechanics are going to be shared between the two, by necessity. Some because frankly, they're part of the whole MMO premise, and some because we have a decade and a half of figuring out what players like and what players don't like. In a new game you want more of the former and less of the latter.

And it's not even a bad thing. We had an attempt at ignoring everything that other MMOs showed that works or doesn't work. It was called Tabula Rasa. Yeah, Lord British thought he's so great that he can simply wipe the slate of everything that had been learned in a decade of MMOs and reinvent everything his way. It wasn't much fun to play for most people who've tried it and it bombed badly.

And really, most of that stuff isn't even particularly specific to WoW. As someone who's played half a dozen MMOs before, I don't see why I should reduce a whole genre to one game. It's called MMO, not "WoW clone". You could just as accurately say it's Everquest 2 with lightsabers, or City Of Heroes with lightsabers, or, really, whatever.

The classes for example are not really clones of WoW, suprisingly enough. The companions mechanic is also not very WoW. Actually branching available quests based on what you did before (e.g., alignment) is also not very closely mirroring any WoW mechanic I can think of. Having a choice of how you want to end a quest is also not very WoW-like. Etc. The point is that it's different enough to feel different and interesting, and in the end that's all that matters.

As for what happens in a few months, meh, nothing is for ever. I bought a game, not entered a marriage and made a kid, you know? If it stops being fun to play in a few months, for whatever reason, I'll move on then. And hey, at that point I will have got a couple of months of fun. Am I right?

Re:Not really, no

[microTodd]

It's like calling Skyrim "Fallout 3 with swords."

And Fallout 3 was "Oblivion with Guns".

If a=b and b=c then a=c.

So Skyrim is...Oblivion?

You broke my brain.

Re:Not really, no

[Moraelin]

Sorta, good for you, but people doing that would make the game a dismal failure for bioware/EA.

Point duly taken, but there was an "if" there. IF it stops being fun.

I'm sure Bioware and EA are also fully aware that they need to keep people entertained over more than a couple of months and are working on new quests, instances, expansion packs, etc. So this would be their motivation to, you know, negate that "if".

And at least Bioware has proven great skill so far. So I wouldn't worry all that much about them yet.

But, be that as it may, my point was merely that I don't see a point in pessimism now over what might or might not happen in a few months. The game is great fun right now, and that's a good reason for me to play it right now. I like having fun. No point getting all worried now and ruining my enjoyment in the process. If something changes in a few months, well, I'll worry about that bridge when I cross it.

There is no reason to not have some SW fun right now over worries about what might happen later, really.

Re:Not really, no

[MuValas]

Actually,

If Skyrim is Fallout 3 with swords, and Fallout 3 is Oblivion with Guns, then Skyrim is Oblivion with guns with swords.

Which sounds like SWOR ... huh.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[somersault]

Tell that to people still playing GTA: San Andreas mods, Oblivion mods, etc.. not all content has to be generated professionally. Some game developers still seem to care more about fans enjoying the game than they do about sucking up all the money they can. Though it also has the benefit that people will definitely buy your next game simply because it's such great value for money if it has the support of an established modding community.

Standard Digital Download Edition - SOLD OUT!

[MrBandersnatch]

Deluxe version still available of course!

And to think my attitude to EA had mellowed in recent years...

Re:Standard Digital Download Edition - SOLD OUT!

[MrBandersnatch]

Actually....seems that I'm actually an idiot, its the physical version that's sold out. *sigh* I think my PC needs to come with a breathalyser!

Re:Standard Digital Download Edition - SOLD OUT!

[stjobe]

Dumbass, thats the PC boxed version. The download version can't be sold out, its a download. Sheesh.

It would help if you tried it though. The download version is indeed sold out. All versions are "temporarily out of stock"...

Which is ridiculous, of course.

Re:Standard Digital Download Edition - SOLD OUT!

[stjobe]

Actually, you were right in the first post.
All digital downloads are "temporarily out of stock" at EA's Origin store (the only way to get a digital download).

Ridiculous.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Tyler Eaves]

I actually think this a good thing though. In contrast, LoTRO did take place concurrent with the canon story and that ended up giving it a very disneyland feel, because you always knew where it was going.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Synerg1y]

I guess i got bored of eq2 cause of the repetitiveness, WOW was much more of the same when I tried it. To me a well executed elder scrolls mmorpg sounds epic.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

I think you're missing the point a bit. In WoW, you are playing out the main story. It's not over, like it is with Star Wars, where the third movie essentially ends the main story. In WoW, the main story is ongoing, progressing along with the game.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[osu-neko]

Well, yes. Guild Wars wasn't designed to be an MMORPG (the creators initially referred to it as a CORPG -- "cooperative (or competitive) online RPG"). Everyone mistook it for and insisted upon calling it an MMO anyhow, and eventually they stopped attempting to correct people. But yes, in terms of gameplay, it was all instanced -- they basically took the "chat rooms" of Diablo II Battle.net realms and moved them in-game into cities, but it was otherwise like D2 realm play -- you left the city and were in your own instance of the zone with only your teammates, and possibly a few enemy teams if it was PvP. There was no persistent world. At the end of the day, it was no more an MMO than Diablo II Battle.net realms had been an MMO, because that was the model they were basing it on. It should be noted that they released just shortly after WoW. They had no idea just how popular the MMO market was going to become, and thus it's understandable why they weren't planning on making one to begin with. GW2 is basically their attempt to take their ideas and making an actual MMO out of them -- it's probably what GW would have been if they'd realized an MMO was the way to go.

As for the trinity effect, the gameplay in GW won over every similar game I've tried precisely because there were no tanking per se. It was pretty much impossible for one character to draw everyone's aggro (there are no "aggro" skills in the game), nor any characters suited to the role of simply soaking damage while everyone else dishes it out safely. Tanking in that sense simply doesn't exist in the game. They still had and needed healers, but short of body blocking there was no real way to keep creeps off the "squishies" -- the usual tactic for protecting healers and caster was to block and try to delay enemies reaching them, and when that inevitably failed, to simply quickly kill whatever was attacking them. It did help that Warriors had the highest consistent DPS, rather than the lowest as in the case in games where proper tanking exists, and as such could usually hold an enemy's attention once they got it, but since all battles were basically group on group, that wasn't of huge value.

Actually...(Re:WoW 2.0)

[EXTomar]

Sounds pretty much what is in "WoW" 4.x or Cataclysm. This is why I keep scratching my head when people say "TOR is completely different than WoW". Finding out who blew up the horde ship in "WoW" really doesn't appear to have big or critical impact than finding out who stole the ship in "TOR". Its great lore but actually clumsy play mechanics limited in a MMO engine.

The thing I think "TOR" gets wrong and "WoW" gets right about quests is that although you can refine the presentation its still a quest limited in the MMO structure. Lore is important but doing voice over to a "FedEx" quest (NPC wants you deliver X to NpcA) is nice but it turns out that beyond the first play through, many really don't care. So many players over value lore in quests when they instead want to play through the quest as fast as possible. No matter how many choices or cinematics or voice overs inserted, its still a "FedEx" quest. "WoW" goes to great lengths to make quest objectives clear and easy for anyone to understand independent of context (new player first character, old player 10th character) instead of trying to dress it up. Is that what "TOR" does instead? I am not sure that is entirely re-playable though when you are forced to watch the same scene unfold for the nth time because everyone voted for the popular option.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[nomadic]

They also cost almost nothing to set up and run where you had even a moderate internet connection.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[osu-neko]

Honestly if this game didn't have STAR WARS in the name no one would care.

Interestingly enough, that's the main reason I don't. I'd love a good sci-fi MMO, but it would have to be either original or based on a good and interesting sci-fi universe. I'd love a Babylon 5 MMO, I'm sure. Maybe Dune? That might be cool. Instead we get crap based on Star Trek, or even worse, Star Wars, the worst schlock ever foisted upon the public whose only redeeming value was as eye-candy. (Seriously, just watch the movies with the volume off -- you can appreciate the eye-candy without being inflicted by the absurd story and cringe-worthy dialog.)

SWTOR = KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10

[the computer guy nex]

SWTOR has 8 distinct storylines from levels 1-50, and this doesn't count the light/dark choices available. While you happen to be on the same planet and in the same area as another player, your purpose for being there is completely different. This is completely revolutionary to MMO gaming. Traditionally you hop from city to city simply to obtain that 1 extra level and move on. In SWTOR your character is participating in a story to save the world, and has a distinct purpose for being there. This results in a level of attachment to your character, other NPC characters, and the world as a whole not seen in other MMOs.

I guarantee most players will level 1-50 with different classes simply to experience the other storylines. The writing in this game surpasses most Hollywood movies nowadays.

Re:SWTOR = KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10

[Luckyo]

Problem is, the "participation in story to save the world" is done in WoW 2.0 style. Unchanging world. WoW's world started to change as you progressed in 3.0, and this was further improved in 4.0. WoW is now on 4.3. TOR leveling feels like a mix of Burning Crusade (2.0) leveling with voice acting with class quests.

A great example of difference was WoW 3.0's Icecrown map. At the beginning, it's fully under scourge control. There's only 1 allied base, everything else was hostile. You enter it to find it under heavy scourge siege (phase 1). You reinforce the base, only to find that it comes under massive scourge assault just as you finish setting defenses. You jump onto one of the wall cannons you helped set up (phase 2) and defend against heavy onslaught. If you succeed, you're asked to send the word to the forward outpost that gets set up after enemy has been beaten back (phase 3). After this, you reinforce the defenses to prevent next assault, then you are asked to set a beachhead deeper in Icecrown to prevent further assaults. You push to the next hill with the elite friendly NPC company and hold the hill as it comes under counter-attack to set up the forward scouting base (phase 4). After being successful, you're asked to deliver report of victory while tents are is set up. When you fly back, scout base is up and functional and NPCs with next quests await...(phase 5).

That's just five initial phases of many (there were tens of them in icecrown). Each one directly influences the world - new bases are erected, new NPCs spawn and others vanish and so on. Friendly death knight faction conquers one of the scourge strongholds for themselves and sets themselves there. Scourge abomination manufacturing factory goes from pushing out abominations to being under siege by your allies. Even the very entrance of Icecrown Citadel goes from peaceful zone far behind many gates defending it to fully breached warzone.

And this is unique for each character - two different characters can be in the same place on the same map in the different phases, viewing a different landscape from different parts of the story, according to their own personal progress. It's an excellent story vehicle, and it being absent in TOR is far more damning then any other feature currently missing in it in comparison to WoW. TOR world is STATIC. WoW 3.0 and 4.0 world is DYNAMIC. TOR is basically two whole versions behind WoW in this regard, and that's pretty damn bad thing for a game that claims to be story-driven to be missing such a crucial story-driving element.

The other issue, "different stories for different characters" is a choice. WoW made a choice to make two stories - alliance and horde, and blizzard presented a very good reason why they gave up on class quests completely - they want you to be able to experience as much as possible on a single character if you want to play it that way. It's not a flaw - it's a design choice. It means you only need to create two characters, one for each side to fully experience the questing and lore. In TOR, you'll have to make eight, which can be both a blessing and a curse (altoholics will love it, and people like myself who like to focus on one character will hate it). For the longest time, they even tried to fuse alliance and horde quests into essentially one quest line, including making a single sanctuary hub for both factions, but that concept wasn't taken too well by player base and WoW went back to two completely separate quest lines in 4.0.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you played the game? Quest chains are not always different at all, there are some slight changes but really the story is pretty much the same. lightside darkside are really no different to reputation gains etc in wow. The influence it has on your questing is extremely small and whoever told you that you can have 4 siths inquistors with completely different story lines was telling you lies. I can only assume you haven';t played the game as if you had there is no way you would have written that.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[GodInHell]

9/11 wasn't 9/11 either. Nothing changes anything. Individuals struggle for freedom, government and capital struggle for power and control of resources, and in the background the minstrels and play-writes do their best to ease our way through the crap.

I for one welcome our new Lightsaber EQ clone masters, I hope they add in better sex scenes next time.

-GiH

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Lyrata]

Mod parent Underrated. This is classic slashdot, "-1: Disagree"

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Zalchiah]

In swtor you are NOT going to meet Vader, or Skywalker, Princess Leia or hang out with Yoda.

You're spot on about that. Because the game is set well before the events in any of the Star Wars movie. It's called "The Old Republic" for a reason. I have played WoW, Eve, Rift and was part of the Beta for SW:ToR. For me, one of the major differences was the Bioware feel the game had. It was engrossing. You felt a part of it. Hell, you got quests by talking to people, not by being spoken at by people. I just want a release date for Australia.

Depends on the game

[Sycraft-fu]

Some are very well done. D&D Online is an example of one very well done. So you basically have three choices on how to play:

1) Totally free. In this case, you have access only to a very limited subset of the content. There are many "premium" modules that you can't go in. Someone can give you a one time pass (that they have to buy) to get you in to them once if they want.

2) Subscription. In this case, you pay $15/month and get access to everything. The whole game is unlocked to you so long as you pay the monthly fee. You also get a stock of "points" each month for things in their online store, which are things like vanity clothes or the like, or things like passes for F2P players to get in to premium modules.

3) Purchasing points. In this case, you buy a stock of points to the store for a price, and you can use them to buy access to modules you like. Once a module is purchased, you can play it forever, no more fees.

Works real well. When I played it, I subscribed. $15/month is fine for me for a game I like. My friend who plays it does the points pack thing. He doesn't like monthly fees. He realizes he spends almost as much on points, but he likes it better that way.

There are some "booster" type items you can buy in the store, but nothing major. You can get some better starting weapons, some potions that make you get more experience, and so on, but nothing that makes you stronger end game or any of that thing.

So when done right, it can be a valid way of doing things. However yes, it can also be done in a very greedy fashion.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[hairyfeet]

Actually MMOs have been around since Nevercrack and Evercrack dude, its just Warcrack is the most famous but now here comes Starcrack!

Personally i never did get the whole MMO thing, let me loose in Just Cause II or HL 2 and hand me a large weapon and i'm a happy camper but frankly my oldest says the new Star Wars is a blast. he's been playing it for like a month now, first as a beta player and then we got him the full shebang for Xmas so he could get in early and he's just having a ball. His main character is a bounty hunter so he isn't aligned to one side or another, whatever the hell that means, but as long as he is having fun that's what matters.

Still to me nothing can measure up to getting into my Monster truck in just Cause II and running over villagers, "up on the sidewalk bonk bonk bonk" as the bodies go flying, or using my jetpack to pop out the sky like batman and whiz some old lady that smarted off to me off the side of a mountain. its the little things you see, you just got to take the time and enjoy the senseless death.

But if going on "quests" and fulfilling "objectives" instead of slaughtering entire towns is what makes you happy? Well it does look nice and seems to play well even on wifi, and the sounds do sound like the movies. Personally I don't see how he can want to go 'pew pew" at bad guys with a blaster when he could be in JCII strapping remote charges onto passersby and watching them scream as they run down the street while you decide when to set them off, but hey, its Xmas and if it makes the little guy happy who am i to argue?

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Xugumad]

Err... early MUDs tended to cost a lot to set up, but were run as curiosity projects as universities. I also remember MUDs that did charge for access, such as Avalon (still in existence: http://www.avalon-rpg.com/ ), although many came with other services, for example Terris ( http://www.legendsofterris.com/ ) came with OnLive in the UK, then went to AOL, before becoming independent.

They Lost me at..

[crossmr]

Charging $59.99 for a game which then relies on a $14.99/month subscription model.
The greed of EA is beyond the pale. This is probably the one game with a chance to dethrone WoW, and if they do, they're looking at making over $100 million a month and they want to jack the base price up $10 in that scenario?
Bioware has gone so far down hill.
I just don't know why they ever allowed themselves to be bought. They were one of the good guys and completely sold out.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[nomadic]

Most of the early MUDs ran as processes on university servers used for other things, used up very little system resources, and the software was almost inevitably open source. Since they tended to run on unused server resources that otherwise would not be used, yes, they usually did not cost a lot to set up.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Xugumad]

Okay, I brace yourself not to laugh, but I've gone back to the MUD FAQ...

"Because of their size and their constant computational activities, servers can be extremely CPU-intensive and can even be crippling to any other work done on that computer. Even if they're not CPU-intensive, most MUDs can take up a fair amount of disk space - anywhere from 10 to 90 megs, which could impact the other users on the machine. Do not ever run a MUD server on a machine illicitly or without express permission from the person responsible for the machine. Many universities and companies have strict policies about that sort of behavior which you don't want to cross. "

- http://www.mudconnect.com/mudfaq/mudfaq-p2.html#q9

The point being, when MUDs were the main form of multiplayer online gaming, they were not trivial in hardware requirements.

And yes, I'm sure your mouse does have more storage than that these days...

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best question was "so if this truly is MY story, why are there twenty guys who look just like me talking to the same NPCs and doing the same quests?"

You sure your friend actually played it? Because in the important (particularly class-related) quests, you are in a private instanced area for all NPC interactions. So, there aren't twenty guys talking to the same NPCs doing the same quests -- or at least, there are, but you can't see them any more than you can when playing a single player RPG.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bloodhawk]

From reading your other comments and seeing you haven't played the game and are basing all your information on what must be some seriously biased/fanboi based reviews I would suggest you stop posting and actually go try the game. It really is no different to wow and no the story is not done in some amazingly new way that is completely different to wow, it is done the same way, it is better and richer in story apart from that there is really minimal differences. Instead of refusing to believe myself and others that have played it and are still playing it I really suggest you try it for yourself, it is a good game, just not particularly revolutionary from anything that has come before it in the MMO space.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Sperbels]

No, the crafting/resource system was the best thing. And they didn't import that either.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Phrogman]

Except DAOC was (and IS even in its current state) a far better game than WOW. Its just that its a bit harder and more involved. WOW is designed to be easy to play, with less challenges.

Re:Cost and Subscription Fee

[Phrogman]

Yes it costs money to buy the game itself - which gives the developer incentive to make expansions. Yes, it costs money each month to play the game, but given the amount of time you can play it in a month - and which many players will play it in a month - its a very cost effective form of entertainment. If I buy this game - and I am still on the fence, although I liked it in beta - I will likely play it rather casually, say 5-10 hours a week. Thats 20-40 hours a month, so thats between $0.75 and $0.375 an hour. Put another way, I could spend the same money on a few coffees at Starbucks over the course of that month, and get far less entertainment value out of it.
MMOs are pretty decent value for the money, and by paying the subscription fees you ensure they have the money to maintain the servers, pay the developers and artists, writers etc a wage to generate new content and new expansions etc.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[daath93]

Star Craft MMO FTW!

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[drsquare]

According to the accounts, it costs $2 per player per month to run WoW. With the box price covering the cost of development, that's $13 of pure gravy. And most of the content is single-player or instanced anyway.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Phrogman]

You will pay, one way or another. If you pay a subscription fee, the developers will work to ensure the game is balanced and fun for as many as possible. If you don't pay a fee because its a F2P game, then the developers will work to ensure that you need to buy certain items, advancements, zone access etc from the company store, or you will not enjoy the game as much because its not as balanced.
Either way the companies running these games plan on hoovering your wallet in some form. F2P is the result of dropping subscription rates and a desire to get money by some means or another. Generally it signifies a game that is dying. LOTRO is the only exception I can think of that has done it well.
Game companies run MMOs to make as much money as possible. When they don't, and can't salvage a dying title, they close it without any thought to the game's players - see SWG and SOE/LA.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Sabriel]

(posting in part to break moderation - I clicked Underrated, it got modded Overrated. WTF, slashdot?)

But while I'm here - I've played the game as far as Coruscant. I think the dialogue is pretty damn good actually - yes, many (but not all) of the dialogue choices are superficial, but if it's good enough to help me imagine that they're important, does it really matter?

What actually broke my suspension of disbelief - hard - was all the identical "companions" upon reaching the first space area after leaving the starting planet. They've presented this story of a unique NPC teaming up with you, when you walk out of a shuttle and a dozen identical copies of him run past you following other players.

(and yes, you can customise his gear, but the other dozen+ players all still had the stock gear - blam, SoD blown away)

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[geminidomino]

It's also not the "F2P" model he's talking about, where they give you the game and limited access, then sell you power ups, more zones, etc...

Although I fear the possibility of ANet going that direction (at least the latter part) with GW2 when the initial surge of interest starts to fade and they need the cash injection. They've already broken the seal on selling "power" with PC mercenary slots, so when things slow down are we going to get another EotN crapfest and RMT +XP potions like Age of Conan?

Hope not, but...

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bloodhawk]

Cheap to setup? moderate internet connection? MUD's were running around long before the internet was commonly available with even low baud rate modems and they cost a lot in computer resources to run. They were commonly snuck onto university systems and were a hideous waste of space and resources,.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bemymonkey]

Would you say a KOTOR fan will definitely like TOR, even if they've never played an actual MMO?

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[sixsixtysix]

the worst thing lucasfilm does is let people expand its universe, then years later, retcon the shit out of it. for me, boba fett's back story will always be the jaster mareel one, not the lame prince of the clones bullshit.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Jorth]

I've reached level 29 now after some relatively hard core sessions with only 2 days EGA. But I'm starting to see the variation as I have 3 of the full 5 companions available to each class now. So some people have droids, some have various alien races and some have human females/males. It does start to change as peoples preferences change.

From a story point of view, you could certainly play 2 of a class but you could do that with the 2 variations via the advanced classes that are available as your primary story is based on the initial 4 choice selection. That means you could play a Sith Juggernaut as a goody two-shoes and then a Sith Marauder as an evil bastard. The choices really do affect the quests in a way I've never experienced before in an MMO and I love that.

A completionist alt-lover may get through all the variations, but for me, 1-2 classes is all I ever bother with as I focus on one normally but I want to experience some of the differences, just the way every quest giver addresses Sith differently to bounty hunters or imperial agents is a lovely touch.

However there aren't really.

[CountBrass]

It's only a label.

Bioware have stated explicitly (in the description of RP servers) that there will be zero RP enforcement of names or behaviour.

So there's nothing to stop people, as they already are, running around with names like EliteLightSabreDood.

There are no RP servers.

Not really.

[CountBrass]

Not really. Because I couldn't have played it with my wife.

And actually I quite like the social aspect of grouping up with a bunch of strangers now and then.

For me SWTOR has got the balance right- lots of solo play, but with a society around me, and enough multi-player content that I can dip into it when (and if) I want to.

You're mistake is..

[CountBrass]

You're mistake is that you're looking at dual-specs, which are a solution to a basic flaw in WoW that some specs are really hard to solo (holy healing priest for example).

If a game doesn't have that flaw then it doesn't need the fix either. I'm playing a jedi sage (dps-healer, specced as healer) and I can easily solo and during the Flashpoints I spend most of my time dps-ing as it's only really on the bosses that I need to heal.

Which is great!

And does mean I dont have to worry about kludges like WoW's dual-speccing. I can dps and heal from the one spec.

Eh... he is over there!

[SmallFurryCreature]

Why are you looking at me? I didn't steal your ship, I don't steal and anyway, I killed that guy so you can't be him. Unless you are a force ghost. Eat flame thrower!

(Bounty Hunter quest line)

The game is WoW with light sabers... YES! That is like saying your girlfriend is like a supermodel japanese school girl with red hair and green eyes with super model friends she insists on inviting over for the night AND day. Where is the bad?

Oh yeah, she keeps begging me to stop playing swtor and join her and her friends in what she calls a horizontal dance. As if!

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Digital Vomit]

Fact is, you just can't make a good, immersive story about a "hero that stands above the crowd" in an MMO. You have to be one of the masses, and by extension, not really a hero that stands above others. When MMO's pretend it's not so, like TOR and some of the new/remade zones in WoW, it looks silly and breaks immersion in a very bad way.

This is a very interesting point. It doesn't make sense to have the player in a MMO be *the* central character. It would be far less jarring if NPCs in MMOs treated the player as "just one more face in the crowd". It should be up to the player as to whether or not he wants to make a name for himself and become a hero, or stay in the sidelines and do his own thing.

I guess for this sort of gameplay to actually work well, we'll have to wait for the next generation of MMOs (or perhaps the one after that) where the gameworld is dynamic and players will be able to generate content in the game. That's the point when MMOs will truly shine.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

Worth noting that WoW's world has been dynamic since 3.0. It helps the problem a bit by making it appear that your actions in fact influence the world. In WoW, you can for example do a few quests in a small allied base as a part of effort to build up, and after a while, base will enter a next phase and grow. Essentially it means that there are different versions of the base in the same place, and your questing progress determines which one you get to access.

It still doesn't remove the "there's ten other guys doing the same thing" issue though, but in most cases that doesn't matter because quests themselves are often structured as either "adventurer, you're doing a small part in large scheme", or quests lead to hot-join events where you are asked to "go join an event" and the event happens in intervals, and your joining of said event doesn't really impact it. You can make it faster by helping, or you can just stand next to characters and watch. The event will occur in spite of your participation, which on other hand is quite immersive in terms of "this is a functional, living world with or without you", but also removes the possibility of being a central hero. You get to interact with central heroes, and often help them, but you never are one.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[hesaigo999ca]

When WoW/Blizzard said it was!
nuff said!

It's very immersive and enjoyable

[sarbonn]

My disclaimer: I started playing yesterday and only have hit level 6. But I'm loving it. It may not last forever (the love part), but it brings me back to when I first played KOTOR the single player game. It's VERY MUCH like that. And I really like that. What really hit me like a ton of bricks was how much I actually started caring about the story just from watching the opening movie and then the movie that starts up as you play your first character. I felt I was watching a movie that I cared about the characters on the screen (even though it was just a freaking movie). And then when that scene ended, I realized I now wanted to be part of that fight that was taking place, and then boom, I was. THAT alone is exactly what so many MMORPG players have wanted for years. I remember a sense of this when I first started playing Tabula Rasa (caring about the world from watching the opening movie), but then the game became a simple grind, but that was mainly because the developers seemed to stop caring more than they had done something wrong. My other disclaimer: I play WOW all the time, and I still will. There's nothing that says I can't enjoy two games at the same time.

Re:It's very immersive and enjoyable

[xhrit]

Which characters in the opening movie did you care about? The nameless pirate sith? The ninja jedi? Or was it the cowboy bounty hunter, who happened to own the fastest ship in the galaxy? Was it the girl with the jetpack? She was so hot, i totally cared about her? what was her name, anyway? In fact, what were any of their names? I was watching some epic battle between random people who i've never seen before, and then boom, I wasn't anymore. Turns out none of the characters I created had anything to do with any of the characters from the movie. I played for 2 hours and I didn't see any of them anywhere.

Re:It's very immersive and enjoyable

[indecks]

Haters gonna hate.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[avg_joe_01]

The game is MUCH richer in story with a LOT MORE EFFORT put into the quest dialogue and story

You shot your own post in the foot. It's exactly the same except for the parts where it's better? I see.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[xhrit]

I played the TOR beta a few weeks ago. KOTOR started you out as a hero of the republic in the mist of a battle between the two most powerful people in the galaxy, with the fate of the entire universe resting in your hands. The game literally starts with a bang; huge explosions are the first thing you see, before you are instructed that the ship you are on is about to explode, and are directed to the escape pods. There is an immediate sense of urgency, tons of action, and memorable characters. I was hooked from the first line of dialog.

TOR starts out with 20 min of loadscreens and prerendered CGI cutscenes featuring an endless stream of unnamed forgettable characters and overused cliches. Ninja jedi, pirate sith and cowboy bounty hunters. Then they let you create your character.

There are 4 classes for each side, and 4 races each class can choose. Each race has male and female, 4 body types, 6 heads, an extremely limited slider for eye colour and skin colour, and the option to chose between a few different tattoos and accessories. All of which are incredibly ugly. I wanted to be a twilek bounty hunter, but that combination is not available so right off the bat I had to make a choice between playing a class I didn't want, or a race I didn't want. After 10 min of exploring all the different choices I settled on the least ugly of my options, a cyborg bounty hunter. Who turns out has nothing to do with any of the people shown in the opening cutscene. Instead you start out as a low level nobody, working for some other low level nobody, doing something that happens every year.

The star wars scroll informs us that the main story line centers on an event known as the great hunt, which is the space bounty hunter equivalent to the super bowl. Every year all the bounty hunters get together and hunt stuff. Not exactly the most exciting plotline, but whatever, lets get to the blasting people, right? Not quite. Pan camera to landing spaceship. Exit my bumbling teen character, who makes his way through a bustling starport to the bounty hunters office, I guess.

After 15 min of meaningless dialog with wooden characters and exploring the starting area I get my first mission. I have to rescue a someones brother from a gang. So I head out and on my way I run into someone who has another quest for me. So I stop, and converse with the fellow, and convince him to allow me to assist him in his great task. The task of course, is to kill 0/6 mobs.

So I head out into the street and down an ally towards where my quest indicator is leading me. I see a group of thugs standing idle in front of the door I am supposed to go into. So this is it, I draw my blaster and like Han Solo, I shoot first! 45 min into the game I kill my first mob. Gunned down in cold blood, from beyond its agro radius. It respawns almost immediately, so I kill it 5 more times. Quest complete! I level up. Then I run through the door convince the gang members inside to free person I was sent to rescue. I head back, killing a few more people on the way. I turn in the quest, I level up.

I am totally bored at this point, and decide that bounty hunter may have not been the best choice. So I reroll, and try another character. Sith inquisitor, twilek. Maybe this will be more interesting? It is not. It is the exact same quests, but in a different setting. Instead of a city and gang members, its a sith temple and slugs.

Typical conversation...

Questgiver: So are you the new guy?
Option1 : Yes, I am here to help!(+1 lightside)
Option2 : I guess I am.
Option3 : Yes, and if you cross me I'll kill you.(+1 darkside)
Questgiver: Well I just hope you good enough for my quest.
Option1 : Yes, I am up to the task!(+1 lightside)
Option2 : I guess I am.
Option3 : Yes, I am. And if you cross me I'll kill you.(+1 darkside)

All the ingame cutscenes suffer from horrible pop-in, and have a global chat overlay. If you are going to break immersion why even have the cutscene to begin with? The h

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[AdamJS]

GW2 will have microtransactions but the plan seems to be to have them be as unnecessary as possible. It's "F2P" after the initial purchase, but we'll have to wait and see if they make it Pay2Win or not. I don't have enough experience with GW1 to know how they managed it in the past but I'd imagine that it wasn't to the extent of most other F2P MMOs.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[oreiasecaman]

In swtor you are NOT going to meet Vader, or Skywalker, Princess Leia or hang out with Yoda.

Actually makes sense, since it is The Old Republic i.e. thousands of years before the events described in the movies.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[nomadic]

I was MUDding back in the day (early 90's) and I remember being able to run MUD servers on desktops of the time at like 4-5% CPU usage. The hardest resource at the time was an actual internet connection with higher bandwidth than dial-up, so yes, technically that did require some resources but for the MUD admin themselves if they had an on-campus machine at a university they were fine.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[bloodhawk]

Are yes of course, because it is completely impossible for 2 companies to implement the same thing where one is better than the other. The point is the game play is the same, while the story is richer. the lack of innovation int he game I think will kill it in the long run, like it has every other recent MMO that has gone for more of the same rather than trying to innovate.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Digital Vomit]

Worth noting that WoW's world has been dynamic since 3.0.

That's not really what is meant by "dynamic". A dynamic game world is one in which individual players can globally and permanently affect the objective environment. That is, the things they change are experienced by everyone in a single, objective gamespace.

What WoW does is just "phasing", which effectively acts as adding more maps that are nearly identical to old ones, and players who are out of phase can't interact with one another.

Re:So, when did subscriptions become traditional?

[Luckyo]

Your claim is stretching the wording at best, because the world is perceived by YOU when you play it, not by other players. Therefore when world changes around you as a result of your actions, the world is dynamic. There is no way to "travel back in time" and go to previous phase - once you have done necessary requirements, you enter the next phase and are in it permanently - as far as your character is concerned, the world has been irreversibly changed by your actions.

Hence, dynamic world.

Re:No Mac Version yet

[dan_bethe]

FYI, in case it interests anyone, I'd like to state that I finally got Final Fantasy XI working perfectly in Wine. I did it on Mac OS 10.7, having purchased the entire collection for about $20 (including one free month) on Steam. So I'm playing my first MMORPG. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2739