Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
http://e3.gamespot.com/story/621054...rofession-and-e3-2009?tag=top_stories;story;2
Here's an interesting excerpt:
Here's an interesting excerpt:
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview - FULLY voiced MMO!
- Thread starter Shrennin
- Start date
Takeda Kenshi
blew Staal
Torquill said:
Mainly because of the fact they spent so much damn money on the voiceovers they barely had any left for the actual game. All the voices in the world won't amount to jackshit if the game itself is terrible.
Not that big of a deal. Several MMOs have in game voice chat and voiced NPCs usually end up being annoying, let's just hope they let you skip through the dialog. On the plus side, a voice over project on this scale means quality control will be lax, so we'll probably get some classic bad voice acting lines.
The more interesting pulls from that article are the confirmation of gear sets, full pvp gear sets, and that the Smuggler sounds exactly like the rogue class from WoW. The more they reveal, the more this game sounds like WoW in space and the more disappointed I get.
The more interesting pulls from that article are the confirmation of gear sets, full pvp gear sets, and that the Smuggler sounds exactly like the rogue class from WoW. The more they reveal, the more this game sounds like WoW in space and the more disappointed I get.
vandalvideo
Banned
A bit presumptuous of Bioware to say they are the ones bringing story to the MMO genre. Sorry, but voice doesn't suddenly escalate your story above the pack.
Blue Geezer
Member
this seems like the mmo where you play to watch the next cutscene...
and the voice thing is not why i play mmo's why not concentrate on a better game mechanic?
meh.
and the voice thing is not why i play mmo's why not concentrate on a better game mechanic?
meh.
Littleberu
Banned
Dirtbag said:
You mean like... WoW?
Cirekiller
Member
I'm pretty sure whatever amount of money Blizzard is throwing at their new MMO is going to blow away the budget for this game. The profit they make from WoW on a monthly basis just gives them such a big advantage over any other dev team.Xiaoki said:
There are definitely better ways of delivering story, narrative, and quest info to me than paragraphs of quest text from an NPC. If the voice over is quick, to the point, and intuitive, then yeah, it would be a hugely important to ones sense of place; in the story, in the world, etc.
I'd much rather hear two NPC's in a bar talking about a bounty or treasure, and then go searching for said objective than dealing with the mechanical process of WoW's questing.
I'd much rather hear two NPC's in a bar talking about a bounty or treasure, and then go searching for said objective than dealing with the mechanical process of WoW's questing.
I'm sorry, but the interview sounded good. PR fluff, but neat. I'm game to give them a chance at a story based MMO like this. Especially in the SW universe. FFXI is praised for it's missions and storyline (and for the most part, I dig it). If they can combine that with some other cool stuff, I look forward to it. VO's will only help that. A change of pace is needed from "look at quest objectives/rewards, hit accept."
methane47
Member
This a freaking useless bulletpoint.. I dont know about you guys.. but after a while.. I really couldn't care less about what the details/backstory of a quest are... Just give me the objectives and thats it... I usually just like Click accept as fast as I can for all quests..
And i think its a big waste of resources if I never even bother to listen to 90% of whats said.
Likewize in RPGs that are voiced... I usually can read faster than the dude talks so i just read the line and skip the rest.. I really dont need voices for everything in the game.
And i think its a big waste of resources if I never even bother to listen to 90% of whats said.
Likewize in RPGs that are voiced... I usually can read faster than the dude talks so i just read the line and skip the rest.. I really dont need voices for everything in the game.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Something about WoW makes it an easy franchise to swallow as a mainstream MMO, but Star Wars, I'm not so sure I could rope my GF, etc. into what appears to be a online-fanboygasm in the making.
Besides, nothing about the gameplay strikes me as exciting as of yet. Besides, full voice acting seems counter-productive in a genre where 90% of the playerbase skip through flavor text/story line to get to the bottom line: Getting more XP to get the next carrot, er, sword.
Besides, nothing about the gameplay strikes me as exciting as of yet. Besides, full voice acting seems counter-productive in a genre where 90% of the playerbase skip through flavor text/story line to get to the bottom line: Getting more XP to get the next carrot, er, sword.
People need to understand, you don`t need WoW numbers to be a great MMO.
I doubt any MMO even Blizzards next one will have that many subscribers. WoW was an anomoly.
There is a lot of info about SWTOR already, check the site.
They want to make the leveling process, like playing a single player console game in terms of story. They already said it won`t be, go to quest giver A, kill 10 rats, return type of questing. To the point where they said if it was, then they all got fired and nobody should buy the game.
This is the first next-gen MMO. With Blizzards next MMO coming on it`s heels.
I would be happy if this game could maintain 2-3 million subscribers. It would still be huge, make tons of money, and have a great community.
Nobody should expect anything to top WoW, and you don`t need to, to be successful.
I doubt any MMO even Blizzards next one will have that many subscribers. WoW was an anomoly.
There is a lot of info about SWTOR already, check the site.
They want to make the leveling process, like playing a single player console game in terms of story. They already said it won`t be, go to quest giver A, kill 10 rats, return type of questing. To the point where they said if it was, then they all got fired and nobody should buy the game.
This is the first next-gen MMO. With Blizzards next MMO coming on it`s heels.
I would be happy if this game could maintain 2-3 million subscribers. It would still be huge, make tons of money, and have a great community.
Nobody should expect anything to top WoW, and you don`t need to, to be successful.
Ok, yeah, Everquest 2 and Age of Conan attempted full voice overs but stopped half way through when they realized it was stupid.Torquill said:
The costs for something like this would extraordinary. Also, you need to consider that if they start it they have to continue it. Which means full voice updates and expansions as well.
Yeah, you dont need millions of subscribers to be a great MMO. But this aint the old days of MMOs that were made on shoe string budgets and could survive off a couple thousand subscribers. These are the days of mainstream MMOs costing $50 million or more.Trax416 said:
Activision Blizzard/Vivendi can eat costs like that. Bioware cant and its doubtful EA would tolerate it. But then I dont think that will be a problem with The Old Republic.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Blizzard + MMO makes sense because they are polish freaks. They make sure every product they put out is almost 100% bug free.
Bioware + MMO worries me because they are certainly not that type of developer, but I'm hoping they do the impossible and make a bug free, complex yet accessible MMO
Bioware + MMO worries me because they are certainly not that type of developer, but I'm hoping they do the impossible and make a bug free, complex yet accessible MMO
Xiaoki said:
EA tolerated it with Warhammer, and now Warhammer is turning a healthy profit, pays for everything it`s self and is completely self sustainable with 400,000 subscribers.
Obviously SWTOR is going to cost 10 times the amount Warhammer did to make, and has a bigger team. However 2 million subscribers or so would easily pay for it without much trouble at all. Couple that with Micro transactions to switch servers, race, gender (page out of Wow`s book minus race), and you are a cash cow.
With 2 million subscribers, which a realistic number they could achiev, they would be making 30,000,000 a month, not including the money they made off the initial game purchase. Not Including the minor micro transactions listed above. Not including advertising or partnerships.
That is 360,000,000 per year of ONLY subscriptions. Meaning they make more then Bungie, Rockstar etc..
I agree you can`t have 2 thousand people or even 500,000 and make a big budget MMO work. But you need nothing close to 11 million, and I doubt Blizzards next game even reach`s 11,000,000.
500,000 subscribers is more than enough for a big budget MMO. Hell, Blizzard dumped a gajillion dollars into WoW and they only expected a few hundred thousand subscribers, remember the ceiling at the time was set by EQ and that peaked at around 500k. Many top tier MMOs on the market (WAR, LotRO, AoC, EVE) have subscription numbers below 500k and they all do very well. This article, for example, has LotRO as the 6th most finacially successful MMO out right now and it's subscriber base was just under 200k last we heard. And they have a very active team and they crank out content faster than just about any other dev out there. If SWG is still alive and running, I cannot fathom a scenario where SWTOR gets killed.
What a waste of resources. Hardly anyone wants to sit there and listen to 2 minutes of dialogue for every quest. It will just be skipped over by the majority.
Blizzard got it right when one of their developers was recently quoted as saying it's a waste of time to have extensive quest "stories" because nobody cares.
Blizzard got it right when one of their developers was recently quoted as saying it's a waste of time to have extensive quest "stories" because nobody cares.
Defcon said:
LotRO does story very, very well and they do it through a long series of epic quest lines. I don't think I've ever read quest text (except when I can't find my objective) in WoW or for most of LotRO, but those epic quest lines are a different story. Blizzard dropped the ball in a big, bad way with their storyline, I wouldn't be looking to them for tips on how to do stories in MMOs.
vandalvideo said:
They are saying that cause each class has a different story and quest line. Still doesnt protect against the feeling of 5 million other people doing the same quests and story at the same time. Its just adding Bioware overused story structure and changing it a bit for each class.
Open Source
Banned
Blue Geezer said:
Asheron's Call 2?
Anyway, in order for presentation stuff like VO and cutscenes to add value, the game has to be designed in a way that doesn't give players an incentive to ignore or skip them.
Quests and such in MMOs aren't the main attraction. They are simply a slight variation on the main draw of MMOs: acquiring power and loot. MMOs are all about getting the next reward, and VO and cutscenes get in the way of that.
Poor synergy. Bad design choice.
Defcon said:
The reason people don`t care in Wow, is because their quests are horrible. Absolutly, horrible. Nobody gives a fuck about the lore behind finding some apples, and killing 12 ogre`s after cleansing a plant of corruption.
You have to do THOUSANDS of quests to level in WoW.
Who is saying SWTOR will be anything like that at all. What if leveling up is just like a KOTOR or Mass Effect game. Where it`s a fleshed out story that matters. That is what Bioware is trying to do.
Don`t get why people think everything has to be World of Warcraft.
Open Source said:
Oh, so you've played it?
Who says you can't have both? Who says we shouldn't have both?
You see the reaction Blizzard gets when they put out the new voiced trailers for patches right? You think people wouldn't go apeshit and love to see that in WoW itself more? Hint: They would love it.
If Bioware does it well, it could be great. LOTRO does it's own storylines pretty darn well so I'll give Bioware a shot here.
vandalvideo
Banned
Trax416 said:
I hate to break it to you, but that is probably how TOR is going to play. It isn't like Bioware is talking about genre defining gameplay mechanics. It is talking about how they are going to bring about more voice acting and 'story'. The lore in WoW and the story is great, players have just been conditioned not to care. I'm sorry to say, I don't see TOR changing the bar.
Leatherface
Member
I for one am ready for my new MMO overlords. 
HappyBivouac
Member
Defcon said:
Nobody in thier market comprised largely of 13-year-olds cares. Blizzard sees the MMO population as just a bunch of idiots scrambling for the next piece of uber gear.
There is a market out there for story-driven MMOs and that's why, alongside Rapture, I appreciate that this game is being made. Why is it that FFXI is STILL making Square Enix tons of money, while handfuls of ambitious WoW-clones in the past couple years have failed? There are people out there who want something else.
I'm pretty against the "get VA in every new game" movement and can't see myself wanting it in an MMO at all, but I do think story-driven MMOs are a good thing.
vandalvideo said:
They have gone on record, when they first showed this thing, saying you questing will not be like WoW, you will not go collect 10 apples, and you will not have to pick up a bunch of quests, turn them in for XP and move to the next `hub`. It will be much like Mass Effect in terms of how the single player and leveling stuff pans out.
This is old news. Year old news.
Also, the lore in WoW is complete and utter garbage. Cliche trash, with most of it being watered down stolen material from Warhammer. And this is coming from a guy who still plays WoW, and has played wow since beta.
Lets not forget they are using the Hero Engine. They would need to fucking downgrade the engine or use one tenth`s of it`s features to not RAISE the bar.
Like I said, this is the first next-gen MMO. With Blizzards being the next following closely (I hope) behind. It will be a significant leap forward, based on the engine technology alone.
vandalvideo
Banned
Trax416 said:
Two problems with this post; The gameplay we have seen on sites like ******* show largely similar gameplay to what we have come to seen from World of Warcraft. The screenshots we have seen of the game don't seem to be breaking any ground in the gameplay. Not only that, but I'm going to reserve my judgement until I actually see gameplay starkly different from the WoW questing system. I haven't seen any of that, and it hasn't been stressed all that much. I am more inclined to believe that they will be going the old route until then.
As far as WoW lore goes, the lore in WoW is about as rich as you can expect from any game this generation. With stories of redemption, sacrifice, unrequited love, and bloodlust WoW matches up to any store that you will find anywhere else. The ambient archs in Grissly Hills that feed into Zul'Drak, the stories of the character releasing Hakkar from his prison, Akama's redemption by defeating Illidan, Thorim's quest to right the wrongs of the past, and many other stories are easily on quality with other mainstream stories in video games. Just because you're too lazy to read them doesn't mean they are of any less quality.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
WoW gets stale FAST because of the lack of connection to the world. For me anyways.
This sounds fantastic!
This sounds fantastic!