Interesting Gamespy article

[OhpUldum]

Really? I do find it a little odd that people proclaim the best part of this Massively Multiplayer game to be it's single player aspects. Does that not support the idea that perhaps BioWare should have just made a single player RPG (or a co-op one)?

Just because our idea of how to develop the game may differ from the development team doesn't make our opinion correct. I love the class stories and the strength of the game in sharing that story with you. I just simply want some quality of life changes that are upcoming throughout the year to making grouping easier. I personally don't feel that having a strong player focused main story is a bad thing in an MMO, I actually like it. It makes me want to login to continue the story and find out what happens next. With other games I am simply logging in to collect my daily reward then off I go.

Not to derail my own thread, but what is in 1.2 makes you want to reroll? I certainly hope that the games prospects lift a little, there is certainly a lot of (dare I say warranted?) negativity surrounding SWTOR's launch. Though, what MMO launch is considered successful these days living in WoWs shadow?

Oh the reroll is more to put myself on a high population realm so I can actually enjoy the game as an MMO. Currently on my server it is very difficult to get any group while leveling and I just can't be bothered to spend the amount of time necessary spamming fleet. At least with moving to a larger pop server the player pool will be larger to pick from. As far as what MMO is successful vs WoW that comes down to how you view and categorize success, which let's be realistic will change by the player since it is a subjective matter.

[Baelroc]

What I think happens so often with this issue is that people relate "story" to "single player." These two SHOULD NOT be mutually exclusive!

Who is to say that a MMO game cannot have a great story to go with it? SW:TOR does just this in my opinion.

As someone said earlier in this thread, the story is infinitely more interesting in TOR when you have multiple people playing it with you. Some friends and I have been leveling together and going through the content with a group adds an awesome dynamic, especially the way that BioWare causes you to react (gotta love when you get to those choice moments and you are wondering if the guy with you is going to pick light side or dark side and hoping that your choice wins).

Bioware has fully succeeded in my opinion (not saying there are not flaws with the game, but there are none that I see that Bioware is ignoring, all of which they have made clear they are actively aware of and working on), in doing what they do best, bring their awesome storytelling ability to an MMO world and are utilizing a deep and rich universe to do it. I love MMORPGs. I love single-player RPGs. SW:TOR is the perfect unison of the 2 for me. I get an actual in depth connection with my character, I get to shape his/her personality and morality, I get to make choices that impact the world (my world), but at the same time I can take him and down operations with my guild or queue up and destroy some Pubs in a Warzone.

I love it and cannot wait for the future of this game.

[Tarien]

Just because our idea of how to develop the game may differ from the development team doesn't make our opinion correct.

I wasn't really commenting on how the developed the game, more on what they developed. There was significantly more focus on the single player story side of the game than there was on the MMO side of the game, and that is odd given they were making an MMO. Is it any surprise that a lot of MMO players were disappointed once the story concluded and you were max level with little content and missing quality of life features? Or that articles like the one in the original post are popping up?

I'm sure in time Bioware will put the MMO back into SWTOR.

As far as what MMO is successful vs WoW that comes down to how you view and categorize success, which let's be realistic will change by the player since it is a subjective matter.

Very true. Many people consider RIFT a failure, but I consider it to be one of the best hot key raiding MMOs ever made because of their innovations in a number of areas. Numbers alone do not determine successes for sure, but it's hard to convince the masses of that.

---------- Post added 2012-04-06 at 03:14 PM ----------

What I think happens so often with this issue is that people relate "story" to "single player." These two SHOULD NOT be mutually exclusive!

That's true but from my own experience and the majority of those I have read about that story is largely single player. Sure there are group decisions sometimes but 95% of the time it's just you, your companions, and the decision that you alone make.

[Sumatran]

My apologies with jumping the gun. I have just seen way to many threads that serve no purpose other than bashing the game. There is more poison in this subforum than any other game at the moment.

In the future I will refrain from posting.

Thank you,

[Tarien]

My apologies with jumping the gun. I have just seen way to many threads that serve no purpose other than bashing the game. There is more poison in this subforum than any other game at the moment.

No worries I can tell you now after a year of the same trolling/bashing in the RIFT forums your best bet is just to patiently logic the trolls to death rather than denounce them which only adds fuel. Trolls want to see you agitated. Nothing kills troll threads faster than honesty and facts. All the facts mind you, you have to admit a games shortcomings but then throw out the (factual) positives to balance it out.

[Glorious Leader]

If you treat it like a single player RPG then all you'll get out of it is a single player rpg. If you treat it like an MMO then you'll get an MMO out of it. In the end, while BW could and will be making the MMO portions more prevalent and easier to access the game at its core is pure 100% mmo and it's a great mmo at that. I don't understand the logic of the criticism I see that says "It's a wow clone that would be better as a single player rpg" Well if thats the case then it stands to reason warcraft would be as well. SWTOR follows the same model and for all the criticism that people levy on it for doing that, I find it hard to reconcile the criticism that says it fails as an mmo. If that's the case then the model itself is flawed and all games (Wow, Rift, Swtor) fail as mmos.

[Lathais]

If you treat it like a single player RPG then all you'll get out of it is a single player rpg. If you treat it like an MMO then you'll get an MMO out of it. In the end, while BW could and will be making the MMO portions more prevalent and easier to access the game at its core is pure 100% mmo and it's a great mmo at that. I don't understand the logic of the criticism I see that says "It's a wow clone that would be better as a single player rpg" Well if thats the case then it stands to reason warcraft would be as well. SWTOR follows the same model and for all the criticism that people levy on it for doing that, I find it hard to reconcile the criticism that says it fails as an mmo. If that's the case then the model itself is flawed and all games (Wow, Rift, Swtor) fail as mmos.

Except WoWs has challenging end-game content that keeps you engaged and wanting to log in to improve your char. Yes that's gone downhill this ex-pack SWTOR, you don't need HM FPs, you can jump right in to "story" mode OPs, gear up and go to HM and clear that pretty easily too. You could run NiM but it wasn't even dropping the right loot to begin with, and is designed to drop the same loot you can get in HM currently. There are no extra mechanics on NiM, just more HP and more damage, almost the same from stepping up to HM from Story, but there are a couple new mechanics there.

If the story while leveling up is great and the end-game is lacking, that screams Single Player. MMOs have engaging end-games to keep you involved and playing. This is currently lacking in SWTOR. Granted, it's getting better with 1.2, and will hopefully be enough, but in it's released state and current state, it would have been better as a single player game. They are labeled that way by many and can hopefully overcome that and turn into a good MMO. At least we can hope right?

[Tarien]

In the end, while BW could and will be making the MMO portions more prevalent and easier to access the game at its core is pure 100% mmo and it's a great mmo at that.

I think that there are a great many people that would disagree, including some of the posters in this thread. I'm not denying that it is an MMO, but the best and most distinguishing feature of the game is it's storyline levelling, which is largely a single player experience. The MMO experiences which are any form of grouping, have been a bit... I dunno I don't want to offend anyone but for many players they haven't been as good as people were expecting?

I mean let's consider heroic areas, PvP, dungeons, and raids. Heroic areas were often avoided while levelling, they weren't key to the storyline and there were enough zones to be able to skip them entirely. Battleground PvP was I hear actually decent, though healing in PvP I hear is difficult and Illum was apparently really bad. Dungeons as far as I know from experience and reputation were good. Raids which traditionally are the key ingredient of this kind of MMO, were far too easy.

The actual group content which is what defines an MMO has been very average, some might say below average.

This is why people label SWTOR as a single player game, and I think why it achieved first place in the article linked at the start of the thread.

[Glorious Leader]

I think that there are a great many people that would disagree, including some of the posters in this thread. I'm not denying that it is an MMO, but the best and most distinguishing feature of the game is it's storyline levelling, which is largely a single player experience. The MMO experiences which are any form of grouping, have been a bit... I dunno I don't want to offend anyone but for many players they haven't been as good as people were expecting?

I mean let's consider heroic areas, PvP, dungeons, and raids. Heroic areas were often avoided while levelling, they weren't key to the storyline and there were enough zones to be able to skip them entirely. Battleground PvP was I hear actually decent, though healing in PvP I hear is difficult and Illum was apparently really bad. Dungeons as far as I know from experience and reputation were good. Raids which traditionally are the key ingredient of this kind of MMO, were far too easy.

The actual group content which is what defines an MMO has been very average, some might say below average.

This is why people label SWTOR as a single player game, and I think why it achieved first place in the article linked at the start of the thread.

Again it's the most you make out of it. I didn't avoid any heroic areas, in fact during my leveling experience I did them all. Their actually great experience and the game literally REWARDS YOU for grouping. The Flashpoints have stories to and its a shared experience and it's also great. The boarding party/foundry group of instances is a great example of this. The story spans both factions and is so damned epic. Later dungeons feature really neat mechanics to. The Collicoid Wargames for examples is a great throwback to star ship troopers. Waves and waves of bugs. A crazy puzzle to get through and figure out as a group. As for the issue of raid diffilculty it's simply a matter of progression. EV was fairly easy as an introductory raid, but the subsequent Karaggas palace definetly stepped it up and the next tier or raiding will do the same. Again this has all happened before in other MMOS and NOBODY at the time was making the case that wow failed as an mmo because the raiding tier 1 was bug filled shit. I don't meant to turn it into a comparison thread but the standards you people apply are in serious dispute. The group content is great and getting better (Kaon Under Siege is also a great example I wish the dungeon content in WoW and in Rift was as immersive as Kaon). People just don't make use of it. Some people would define it as such I'm sure. Those are the people who have not been using it.

As for why it got first place in the article, theirs likely a host of reasons and none of them have anything to do with the mmo aspects of the game. People don't like paying 15 a month for example. Or people prefer BWs single player games as opposed to this entry into MMOs. Personally I'm glad they did something like this. It broadens their horizons and I can't wait to see what they come up with in the future.

As an aside have any of you tried the new flashpoint on the ptr? From what I've read it's also a step up mechanic wise and looks really interesting. Oldrepublic.net had an article on it.

[maky13]

The story of your own character is more single-player-ish in nature because it`s your adventure. It`s meant to be that way, and that`s how it is everywhere. For those who prefer a group story, try a flashpoint. The "conclusion" of one of the stories is a group adventure, for example, and all flashpoints have lore behind them. It`s just a different part of the story compared to the individual character progression.

As for "not enough content" - this is again relative and depends from player to player. I believe there is enough content in the game, because there are frequent updates.

[Tarien]

Again it's the most you make out of it.

I have no doubt at all, though as a counter point I would argue that people take the path of least resistance and to not take that into consideration kind of invalidates the heroic questing content to a degree. Also lack of/ease of endgame content was still a major issue at launch, nothing you say changes that. Sure in time it will be fixed, but at launch it was a problem, and kind of still is.

I don't meant to turn it into a comparison thread but the standards you people apply are...

...are what some might say good standards for a genre that is now a decade old and is being done well elsewhere. There are plenty of examples of MMOs done well, plenty of articles and journals dissecting and discussing MMO development.

Look I don't mean to be argumentative or rile anyone up but flatly denying that there are any issues at all, telling everyone that SWTOR is the perfect MMO, attacking the state of another MMO seven years ago, that's not really constructive at all and doesn't lend any weight to the pro-SWTOR argument.

[Lathais]

Again it's the most you make out of it. I didn't avoid any heroic areas, in fact during my leveling experience I did them all. Their actually great experience and the game literally REWARDS YOU for grouping. The Flashpoints have stories to and its a shared experience and it's also great. The boarding party/foundry group of instances is a great example of this. The story spans both factions and is so damned epic. Later dungeons feature really neat mechanics to. The Collicoid Wargames for examples is a great throwback to star ship troopers. Waves and waves of bugs. A crazy puzzle to get through and figure out as a group. As for the issue of raid diffilculty it's simply a matter of progression. EV was fairly easy as an introductory raid, but the subsequent Karaggas palace definetly stepped it up and the next tier or raiding will do the same. Again this has all happened before in other MMOS and NOBODY at the time was making the case that wow failed as an mmo because the raiding tier 1 was bug filled shit. I don't meant to turn it into a comparison thread but the standards you people apply are in serious dispute. The group content is great and getting better (Kaon Under Siege is also a great example I wish the dungeon content in WoW and in Rift was as immersive as Kaon). People just don't make use of it. Some people would define it as such I'm sure. Those are the people who have not been using it.

As for why it got first place in the article, theirs likely a host of reasons and none of them have anything to do with the mmo aspects of the game. People don't like paying 15 a month for example. Or people prefer BWs single player games as opposed to this entry into MMOs. Personally I'm glad they did something like this. It broadens their horizons and I can't wait to see what they come up with in the future.

While I agree with you that they are stepping up the raiding, and I also did all the heroics and side stuff, leveling with a static group, and I did get decent rewards for doing such, the rewards weren't enough. When you get to 50, all those rewards are moot. Plus, while doing all the all the quests in a group things were quite frequently going grey and offered zero challenge. We facerolled through leveling as a group because it has to be easy enough for solo play too. The time and rewards were just not worth it. I could have gotten to 50 faster solo(less waiting on others), doing less(no Heroics/FPs), and been in the same boat at 50 gear-wise(run a few regs at 50 and you're set, if you don't get someone to run you through a super easy Story EV).

Also, I do not think the point is as it stands it would be better as a Single Player RPG, it's just that it could have been a great single player RPG if they had designed that group content for solo play with companions. IF I could pull out 3 companions at once, I could do all the group content, see the great story, get the great rewards AND get to see ALL my choices, not only some. That mashed together solo-choices with groups makes you miss some of the responses you want to hear. I missed tons of flirt options by leveling in a static group.

This is not saying that it is a failure as an MMO, and they still have a chance to improve it and get it where it should be. The point is, that if they had changed their design decisions early on, it probably would have been a very successful Single Player Game. That is actually the entire point of the article and is true about most of the games listed. A really big IF they had altered the design early enough it would have been a success in the single-player market and possibly more successful than as an MMO. All the article is saying by putting it a #1 is that if ALL of them had been made as single player games instead, SWTOR would have been the most successful of them. It's really just meant to be fun speculation, not really bashing at all.

[Glorious Leader]

While I agree with you that they are stepping up the raiding, and I also did all the heroics and side stuff, leveling with a static group, and I did get decent rewards for doing such, the rewards weren't enough. When you get to 50, all those rewards are moot. Plus, while doing all the all the quests in a group things were quite frequently going grey and offered zero challenge. We facerolled through leveling as a group because it has to be easy enough for solo play too. The time and rewards were just not worth it. I could have gotten to 50 faster solo, doing less, and been in the same boat at 50 gear-wise.

Also, I do not think the point is as it stands it would be better as a Single Player RPG, it's just that it could have been a great single player RPG if they had designed that group content for solo play with companions. IF I could pull out 3 companions at once, I could do all the group content, see the great story, get the great rewards AND get to see ALL my choices, not only some. That mashed together solo-choices with groups makes you miss some of the responses you want to hear. I missed tons of flirt options by leveling in a static group.

This is not saying that it is a failure as an MMO, and they still have a chance to improve it and get it where it should be. The point is, that if they had changed their design decisions early on, it probably would have been a very successful Single Player Game.

As opposed to being a very succesfull mmo? I don't see how one is worse than the other.

As for rewards being moot at 50, outside of flavor stuff like mounts I can't really think of anything I kept with me while lvling and used at max lvl in any other mmo. That's fairly standard. The key is that if you have a good network of friends, you can get groups to clear through those heroics and it becomes really beneficial in terms of XP to do so. The only way it's not is if you have to spam around and wait for groups. In this aspect the game is really rewarding as an MMO, it rewards and encourages social behaviour amoung it players. You like that dude you were in an instance with? Add him, add all of them and keep in touch with them.

Again none of this means it would have been better as a single player game simply because swtor allows you to play it like that. You want to play it as a single player game and get all your flirt responses go right ahead. You'd rather play it as a group go right ahead. I don't see how it's any different from any of the other models of mmo gaming that it's more or less based on.

[Lathais]

As opposed to being a very succesfull mmo? I don't see how one is worse than the other.

As for rewards being moot at 50, outside of flavor stuff like mounts I can't really think of anything I kept with me while lvling and used at max lvl in any other mmo. That's fairly standard. The key is that if you have a good network of friends, you can get groups to clear through those heroics and it becomes really beneficial in terms of XP to do so. The only way it's not is if you have to spam around and wait for groups. In this aspect the game is really rewarding as an MMO, it rewards and encourages social behaviour amoung it players. You like that dude you were in an instance with? Add him, add all of them and keep in touch with them.

Again none of this means it would have been better as a single player game simply because swtor allows you to play it like that. You want to play it as a single player game and get all your flirt responses go right ahead. You'd rather play it as a group go right ahead. I don't see how it's any different from any of the other models of mmo gaming that it's more or less based on.

I edited my post to more accurately describe my point. Again, I am not saying it is not or will not be a great MMO, we're just having some fun "what if" speculation as was the point of the article.

[Glorious Leader]

I edited my post to more accurately describe my point. Again, I am not saying it is not or will not be a great MMO, we're just having some fun "what if" speculation as was the point of the article.

I just disagree with their conclusions. I'm sorry if i'm coming across defensively, I just disagree that it would be better as a single player game. I happen to love the mmo elements in the game and I feel it shines the most in group content. The flashpoints were really what sold me on it.

[Lathais]

So, if it were a single player game and had some mutli-player elements like FPs it would be successful? I think that's kind the point as well. A single player RPG can have multiplayer elements. Look at Diablo 2 or Dungeon Siege or Halo. Good single player games, great multiplayer elements. If they released SWTOR as a Single Player RPG with FPs you could join whenever as multiplayer and some "end-game" DLC that was similar to OPs it would have been GREAT. Possibly could have made more money too charging everyone $4.99 for each FP/OP instead of a monthly fee.

See, fun what if's.

[Tarien]

So, if it were a single player game and had some mutli-player elements like FPs it would be successful? I think that's kind the point as well. A single player RPG can have multiplayer elements. Look at Diablo 2 or Dungeon Siege or Halo. Good single player games, great multiplayer elements. If they released SWTOR as a Single Player RPG with FPs you could join whenever as multiplayer and some "end-game" DLC that was similar to OPs it would have been GREAT. Possibly could have made more money too charging everyone $4.99 for each FP/OP instead of a monthly fee.

See, fun what if's.

Yeah I think that is the gist of the article, kind of speculating about games that they think haven't been great as MMOs (but by no means total failures) that had the potential to possibly have been great single player games. I think the article is suggesting that they should have been, but I would consider that a matter of opinion.

[ZeroWashu]

I thought it was a "WoW Clone" - wouldn't that imply that WoW, by design, is a single player game with MMO grafted on?
It's a silly argument. If you aren't experiencing the multiplayer part of the game, you have no one but yourself to blame. I played with more people in this game than I ever played while leveling in WoW. This game encourages playing with other people so many times... it is up to the player to take advantage.

Sorry, I do not see this game encouraging any sort of group play. If it did it would have tools to facilitate that and it most certainly did not. The LFG functionality was very limited; the comment area being so limited as to be nearly useless; and that left players spamming for heroic+ help. Top that off with the positioning of the chat box and it was "out of sight out of mind". Toss in a good helping of losing all UI elements while in conversation mode and the game pretty much crammed single player down your throat.

By single player design I am referencing the obvious imbalance between classes, let alone mirrored classes, in type and acquisition of companions, when interrupt and cc abilities become available if ever, and just general lack of balance between classes. Hell even some quest rewards and their ordering simply in the starting world were radically different. One class had two companions and their ship droid by the time they left their capital world, their mirror certainly did not, and many others were stuck going two more planets for their second real companion; the ship doesn't count. Worse, far too often companions are not complimentary to the characters they are assigned too. That usually meant they got put into the mission queue and never saw the light of day.

[namelessone]

I agree with that article wholeheartedly and I wish more devs would finally ditch the MMO fad. Thing is, MMOs require commitment. You can't just "play for fun", you have to spend countless hours doing repetitive stuff just to get to the fun bits. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am only willing to commit to one MMO, and I'm already committed to WoW, just like most CASUAL players out there (aka most of the WoW player base).

With single-player games, it IS possible to target an existing audience. For example, I can release a first person shooter aimed at MW fans, and it might actually sell. This same strategy doesn't work with MMOs, because by the nature of those games, only a small fraction is willing AND ABLE to commit time to play more than one.

[Kouki]

From day one i said its KOTOR3 with a monthly fee, hey it rhymes.

And ive been banned for asking can you swim over in its forum threads here on mmo.

Now we all see its crap.