Do you think Bioware's MMO inexperience will show?

[ancestorTOR]

I'm concerned about everything you posted about, and more...

Bolstering is a terrible system. In a perfect world, it's a fairly elegant solution to gear issues, but the way it has been implemented is going to fail tragically.
Putting level 10s in BGs with 50s and then just making them a bit more powerful is not a good solution.

Total lack of arena style pvp.
The SWTOR pvp system of tanks/dps/heals all being viable would lead to highly interesting arena matchups - but Bioware is refusing to implement it.

Too much focus on leveling, not enough on endgame. Newsflash - people don't play a game for its leveling content. Interesting 1-50 will keep people playing for 2 months, but you can be damn sure that without a deep endgame you're going to lose every sub you have once they hit 50. One raid, no arenas, a handful of max level dailies, and the possibility of rated bgs is NOT good endgame.

I think bolstering is brilliant. It eliminates long queues and allows low levels to immediately get in on the action. They are weaker than true high levels too, so while still being able to participate, you will get your face owned off. I do not speak about this with any experience whatsoever I promise ...

Also, just because you like end-game does not mean everyone will be looking for end-game. Not everyone enjoys rushing immediately to max level to start raiding; some of us enjoy the journey there. Plus, it's sort of ridiculous to criticize end-game raiding for a game that's not been released yet, of which they haven't mentioned the other end-game material yet.

Just my .02 credits.

[Osskssa]

Dont forget they have Mythic people helping them out on a few things, thats plenty enough experience for me.

Indeed the company is called Bioware/Mythic as EA merged them to make MMOs for them, they have plenty of people with experience in MMOs helping them out from Mythic

---------- Post added 2011-09-29 at 09:54 PM ----------

A
nyone who thinks gw2 will be a good game obviously didn't play gw1.

Guild Wars is barely even an MMO.

---------- Post added 2011-09-29 at 08:14 PM ----------

Mythic is more of a hindrance than anything, they have't learned anything from their mistakes. They've made some truly shit games and their course is set to make the exact same mistakes again.

In fact they have made two of the best PvP/RvR games ever....what they failed to do in Warhammer at least was fix the bugs and try to control the balance of classes...im sure they bring alot of technical know how to Bioware regarding running a MMO

[nyoan]

Indeed the company is called Bioware/Mythic as EA merged them to make MMOs for them, they have plenty of people with experience in MMOs helping them out from Mythic[COLOR="red"]

I think this will be a big help to the project. And, I think having folks who aren't as hard-wired for MMOs can be just as good. Sometimes you need someone to look at the problem of creating a massively multiplayer online game from a new perspective.

[PuliGT]

Where is this "24 Specs" coming from? This isn't WoW where you pick your talent tree and have that spec. All that is really released is that there are 3 trees per AC (2 dedicated 1 shared with the other AC from your base class). There isn't info released about how much you have to spec down a certain tree to be a viable tank/healer/dps for most content, but I don't think we should assume that given trees A,B, and C you have to be fully down one of them to be able to do regular content. Certainly this could be different for people aiming for best of the best (whether pve or pvp) but all content is not based around everyone min-maxing.


Edit: also, I am unsure how many of these issues have anything to do with MMO inexperience.

[Saverem]

Before I start - disclaimer: I am not here to bash Bioware, or SWTOR, I have my copy preordered and will be playing. Just want to have a discussion about this.

Basically, from the research I have done, there are some things that worry me and I just wonder if anyone else has worries too.

1. server only PVP.
This is a great idea in theory, creating real pvp relationships with both your allies and enemies on your server. However, anyone who has sat in a WoW pvp queue for 30 minutes at a time, knows it is no fun, particularly if it stops you from doing other things. Any server imbalances with factions will compound the problem, as will low population realms. Also anyone who has tried to queue in WoW at night, will also know that often it takes 2 hours for games to pop, and that is with the huge population and cross realm matching that they have. Bioware have stated that they will be keeping a close eye on this, and will also have bolstering and same faction hutball to help alleviate this problem.

This will depend on various factors. It'll depend mostly on faction balance. It'll also depend on server population size and the % of the server population that is actually interested in PvP. We have no info on any of those yet, we'll have to wait and see. But yes, I too worry about this.

2. People ninjaing items to gear their companions.
Since you gear your companions up, this is a real possibility. We saw it with offspec ninjaing in WoW, and selfish players may try to take any item that is vaguely useful to their companions. With 4 companions to gear up you will need a fair amount of gear for them, and I imagine pretty much every item will be useful to a companion in some way. I have not seen any info on class specific rolling or 'main spec priority' being built into the game.

I'm guessing you're talking about PuG dungeons as there will be no ninjaing in raiding. I can see this happening, but only once, because since you will only be able to group with those on your server, you could always /ignore them and let everyone on the server know that the person is a ninja. Unlike with WoW where the person can ninja and have no consequence because they're not in your server.

3. A wow-like pigeonholing of progression content.
This is my biggest fear really, that we will be forced to run the same raid every week, for months on end, then everything becomes obscelete when the new content is released. This is pretty much the main reason I quit WoW personally. I like having choices and variety when I play, with lots of content to explore, not to repeat the same thing every week for months. It is my sincere hope that we will have lots of endgame content and not 3 raid tiers in an entire expansion. I understand that rushed out content is a bad thing of course, but the long development time for this game and the 'wow-model' being considered acceptable by most people does worry me a bit. I personally think that blizzard should have had more teams working on raid content to give players more to do at endgame, and I hope SWTOR doesnt end up the same way.

I don't see the problem with this. This is what makes an MMO an MMO, the ever evolving story and the subsequent fights and gear upgrades. If you want to play a game where you acquire high end gear which remains high end forever, then play just a regular RPG instead of an MMORPG.

4. Lack of challenging 4 man content.
To keep players interested we will need to have things to do outside of raidtimes. From what I hear we will have only 4-5 flashpoints at release. If these arent sufficiently challenging, or regularly released I fear that the pve could be confined to raidtime only, as we see in wow. Add to this that a gear progression style means that content becomes obscelete means a lot of faceroll content, or the need for constant new content to be released. I have heard nothing of any scaling being used, or different difficulty levels (for example DDO dungeons have 4 or 5 difficulties each, and there are hundreds of them).

We haven't done any of the hard modes yet, so no one can comment on this. I am also worried about this though, I hope that they don't make it too easy.

5. Large disparity between roles and specs.
The choice to use 4 man groups, and I assume, the need to have a mandatory tank and healer, is going to cause problems. Compare this to how many people dont like to play these 'utility' roles and the vast amount of DPS specs. lets take a quick look at the numbers.

4man content: 25% tank 25% healer 50% dps
8man content: 25% tank (assuming 2) 25% healer (assuming 2) and 50% dps (assuming 4)
16man content: unsure how many tanks/healers will be used in this content.

specs (24 in total): 12.5 % tanking (3) 12.5% healing (3) 75% DPS (18)

I am suprised in the descision to go with 4 man groups if they require both a tank or healer, as a huge premium is put on these roles. I would prefer to see a system similar to DDO where group compositions are not set in stone. Tanks and healers exist in that game, but for most regular content they are not mandatory. I personally would prefer either 6 man groups or the need for only one of these roles being mandatory in a 4 man group (eg. a healer is needed to heal 3 dps, but a tank can sufficiently deal with the damage to allow for minimal healing in 4 man content)

Your math is faulty there. Just because there are 75% DPS specs and 12.5% for other 2 doesn't mean that there will be 75% DPSers in the game and 12.5% the other 2. Look at WoW. There are 30 trees, 4 tanks and 5 heals. If you go by that, then there should be only 16% healers in the game and only 13% tanks. There aren't.

What will determine whether the class roles will be balanced or not is not based on the percentages of which they exist, but whether or not they are fun/needed. I plan on rolling a Healing IA, but if healing isn't fun in SWTOR, I will respec to DPS or vice versa. BW needs to make sure that all 3 roles are fun to play.

6. 2 faction system.
A small personal preference here but when it comes to PVP, 3 factions is a far more interesting system than 2. However star wars lore (not my strong point admittadely) seems to force this though. I cant really blame Bioware for this descision I would have just like to see something a bit more innovative than the standard 2 faction systems we see in so many MMOs. Thankfully GW2 will have this in their WvWvW system so that should satisfy my desire for 3 sided PVP.

To each his own, I'm more than satisfied with the 2 faction system. Also, GW2 will have only ONE faction. The WvWvW thing refers to server PvP, nothing to do with the in game faction. SWTOR could also implement a WvWvW PvP if they so choose.

7. PVP specific gear. or gear driven content in particular.
Another personal gripe of mine, is the gear = win system. It remains to be seen how this will play out in SWTOR. Many factors will impact this: will players need PVP gear to compete; will this gear take a long time to aquire; and will skill or gear be the deciding factor in fights. There is nothing worse that wanting to pvp but thinking you will have to get owned for 2 weeks just to get gear. Again GW2 should satisfy my preferences here, but I am worried about this in SWTOR.


I would like to hear if you have any opinions on any of my points, or have worries of your own.

Another to each his own. I personally love that gear makes a difference. In fact, I wished that it made more of a difference in SWTOR. Apparently you'll be able to upgrade lower level gear with mods. Also, gear only boosts 10% or so of your power in SWTOR, I wish it was more.

---------- Post added 2011-09-29 at 09:33 PM ----------

5. I have heard than you can run flashpoints (normals) without a tank and a healer, however you give some one an easy option (using a tank and a healer) they will always take, I think you are saying the 'wow model' is not what you want, that is the model they chose.

Actually, that's false. You can only run the first Flashpoint with no tank or healer, and that's because you run it before you can pick an AC. Every Flashpoint after the first one will require the proper tank/heal/dps roles to run successfully, even on the easy modes.




Edit: Also keep in mind that WoW was also the first MMO for Blizzard, and no one can doubt its success and impact on MMOs. Just because it's a company's first try at an MMO doesn't mean that the MMO will be lacking. BioWare is a top notch developer right up there with Blizzard's caliber.

Simple math: BioWare + Lucas Arts + the biggest IP in the world (Star Wars) + $200+ million production = something I am looking forward to.

[Vmaster]

When Blizzard first created World of Warcraft, how much MMO experience do you think they had? If you look at the games they created before WoW, you can see the answer is zero. They had absolutely no MMO experience. Don't knock Bioware for not being an experienced MMO company when they are a very experienced gaming company that has been in the business for years.

Your best bet? Play SW:ToR without expectations rather than trying to nit-pick it to death without knowing the full story. Let it surprise you. Surprise is good.

[VenomousCarnage]

When Blizzard first created World of Warcraft, how much MMO experience do you think they had? If you look at the games they created before WoW, you can see the answer is zero. They had absolutely no MMO experience. Don't knock Bioware for not being an experienced MMO company when they are a very experienced gaming company that has been in the business for years.

Your best bet? Play SW:ToR without expectations rather than trying to nit-pick it to death without knowing the full story. Let it surprise you. Surprise is good.

Amen to that.

Cutting up a game before it's out is kinda silly. If you go in with spiteful feelings it's probably not gonna change.

The game hasn't even come out yet and people are flaming it. Of coarse some inexperience will show but you can't expect any MMO to be gold from the start. WoW wasn't and still isn't. The game hasn't even be finished/released yet so it still has time to change. Being an MMO it will also likely be updated so it will still change and hopefully improve.

I'm not saying go in blissfully ignorant with waves of euphoria cascading over you as you begin to play. That's almost equally as foolish.

As far as companies go, Bioware is light years ahead of Blizzard and I believe that will be a plus for the new game. I've played WoW for a couple years and have been slowly yet constantly disappointed until I said enough. Blizzard has set the bar very low for MMO customer satisfaction and service.

I am reserved but hopeful and logical in thinking that there will be some bugs, but considering the company, if any major problems are present they will likely be fixed.

[Deleted]

suprise is good, unless it is bad then its bad.

I have faith in bioware, I like most of what they have done before. If nothing else I will be happy with the levelling / story process alone for a while.

My intention is not to whine or say 'bioware is wrong, they must change', I just like to discuss these things.

[smashzu]

In fact they have made two of the best PvP/RvR games ever....what they failed to do in Warhammer at least was fix the bugs and try to control the balance of classes...im sure they bring alot of technical know how to Bioware regarding running a MMO

They've made good pvp games, that's for sure.

However, they have yet to make a passable MMO.

---------- Post added 2011-09-30 at 01:43 AM ----------

I think bolstering is brilliant. It eliminates long queues and allows low levels to immediately get in on the action. They are weaker than true high levels too, so while still being able to participate, you will get your face owned off. I do not speak about this with any experience whatsoever I promise ...

Also, just because you like end-game does not mean everyone will be looking for end-game. Not everyone enjoys rushing immediately to max level to start raiding; some of us enjoy the journey there. Plus, it's sort of ridiculous to criticize end-game raiding for a game that's not been released yet, of which they haven't mentioned the other end-game material yet.

Just my .02 credits.

The "journey" lasts for two months, even playing slowly. If any game wants to survive, let alone thrive, it NEEDS an endgame. This is not a sandbox game, it's a themepark, the only time you can have a game based on just the journey is an open world sandbox.

On bolstering - that is exactly WHY it's a terrible idea. Lower levels have absolutely no chance of success until they get to max level, which kills interest in pvp for new players. So, in making a tight knit pvp community - they're killing the pvp community. The better fix to infinitely long queue times is allowing cross realm pvp (if a single realm BG cannot be made in reasonable time) not forcing the newest and the oldest players together.

[Smitzelplix]

They've made good pvp games, that's for sure.

However, they have yet to make a passable MMO.

---------- Post added 2011-09-30 at 01:43 AM ----------



The "journey" lasts for two months, even playing slowly. If any game wants to survive, let alone thrive, it NEEDS an endgame. This is not a sandbox game, it's a themepark, the only time you can have a game based on just the journey is an open world sandbox.

On bolstering - that is exactly WHY it's a terrible idea. Lower levels have absolutely no chance of success until they get to max level, which kills interest in pvp for new players. So, in making a tight knit pvp community - they're killing the pvp community. The better fix to infinitely long queue times is allowing cross realm pvp (if a single realm BG cannot be made in reasonable time) not forcing the newest and the oldest players together.

There is already an endgame in place. They do have high level flashpoints and they have already discussed at least one operation/raid. They know and are working on endgame activities.

Also I don't think bolstering automatically shoots everyone to fifty. The way I believe bolstering to work is that it will try to match same level players first and if it can't do that then it will start to look to place that person or persons in higher level matches. I could be wrong about this, I admit that I'm no expert on how bolstering will work and I haven't seen much info about the mechanic.

[vizzle]

There is already an endgame in place. They do have high level flashpoints and they have already discussed at least one operation/raid. They know and are working on endgame activities.

Also I don't think bolstering automatically shoots everyone to fifty. The way I believe bolstering to work is that it will try to match same level players first and if it can't do that then it will start to look to place that person or persons in higher level matches. I could be wrong about this, I admit that I'm no expert on how bolstering will work and I haven't seen much info about the mechanic.

Bolstering will try to group you with people who are around the same level as you, yes, but it will still push everyone up to level 50 numbers, regardless of the average level of the group.

[Alatian]

Anyone who thinks gw2 will be a good game obviously didn't play gw1.

Guild Wars is barely even an MMO.

That's enough of that.

---------- Post added 2011-09-29 at 08:14 PM ----------


Mythic is more of a hindrance than anything, they have't learned anything from their mistakes. They've made some truly shit games and their course is set to make the exact same mistakes again.

That's because it wasn't an MMO. It was Diablo from a behind the character perspective. That's like saying "Anyone who thinks WoW will be a good game obviously didn't play WC3.

WC3 is barely even an MMO."

On topic, I think Bioware will be fine. Trion also had no MMO experience, but they've managed to do a very good job at handling their MMO.

[Kaninchen]

Bioware has one advantage, they can look at all the previous MMO's out there (not only WoW) and they can learn from their mistakes and what worked and what didn't.

Bioware made some fantastic games prior to SWTOR, just like blizz prior to WoW. Time will tell and most people don't care about what kind of experience bioware has with mmo's. When the game lauches all that matters is that people get immersed by the gameplay and that they have a great time playing, which would result in a successful launch. If they don't, well...then we already know what's going to happen.

[Kylos]

I am worried a lot less about the types of issues you are raising and a lot more about behind-the-scenes type stuff.

The reason is because a lot of the issues and potential pitfalls that you have raised are plainly obvious to us (as players) and are certainly obvious to bioware's dev team, a large group of which I'm sure has spent a fair amount of time playing WoW and discussing how they can do it better.

What I would be more worried about is the stuff we don't really see or know about with WoW. Like how to manage client-server interactions on an MMO scale, how best to implement a queuing engine, how to do hotfixes, how to deploy patches, how to prevent hacking (speed hacks or w/e). Devs at Bioware can't just log into wow to see how they handle spell queuing or how to deploy a new patch to millions of different computers.

[Sparkconater]

I'm a fan for the new and exciting, and yet I can't ever seem to yank my dedication to WoW away. I guess I'm MORE concerned that at the end of the day SWTOR is just not going to have "it", and less concerned about growing pains in MMO management. "It" is the ever speculated combination that made WoW stand out above the crowd.

If I did have inexperience concerns, I think they would be around up-time and implementation. Their systems around BETA access, early access, and pre-order greatly concern me. Their push for this Origin system make me think of the failures that FFXI and Warhammer experienced in forcing their systems. I especially hope that downtime and patch work are done at opportune times and are limited to a day or two a week.

[DaGhostDS]

Weren't loot based on a bag system? So that should not be a problem. (if it only apply to raid, well meh.. but anyway)

Ive heard that companion are always one level under the player, dont trust me on that i just heard.

Mythic is more of a hindrance than anything, they have't learned anything from their mistakes. They've made some truly shit games and their course is set to make the exact same mistakes again.

Heard good thing of DAoC and Ultima online, i see too much opinions in your statement.

[Caanon]

Bioware as a developer had no prior MMO experience, that doesn't mean it's individual employees don't. The entire reason they opened a whole new studio, specifically in Austin where lots of MMOs have been made is to hire people with prior experience.

Also every MMO I've played and liked(granted few) the developer had no previous MMO experience that I'm aware of. Those being EQ(Verant), WoW(Blizzard), SWTOR(Bioware...Played 50 hours). Tried a couple others and looked at others and had zero interest.

[Chrysia]

I'm a fan for the new and exciting, and yet I can't ever seem to yank my dedication to WoW away. I guess I'm MORE concerned that at the end of the day SWTOR is just not going to have "it", and less concerned about growing pains in MMO management. "It" is the ever speculated combination that made WoW stand out above the crowd.

If I did have inexperience concerns, I think they would be around up-time and implementation. Their systems around BETA access, early access, and pre-order greatly concern me. Their push for this Origin system make me think of the failures that FFXI and Warhammer experienced in forcing their systems. I especially hope that downtime and patch work are done at opportune times and are limited to a day or two a week.

I'd like to point out that the bolded part is false. SW:TOR, even if you order it digitally, does not require you to download Origin. You never have to install Origin to play SW:TOR. They've stressed this fact actually.

EDIT: Looking through the revised FAQ, I can see the source of confusion. They seem to have taken out the one about downloading the Origin program. The Origin account they are speaking of, however, is automatically generated, at least it was for me. My Origin account is my account through www.swtor.com. I never had to go to the Origin website to create another account.

[smashzu]

Heard good thing of DAoC and Ultima online, i see too much opinions in your statement.

Not sure where you're getting UO from, since it was designed by Origin not Mythic. DAoC was good *for its time* and was certainly a big step in the evolution of mmos. However, it stands to reason that the only game Mythic has launched since then was a disaster, like seriously tragically bad. Did you play WAR? Ech.

I have full confidence in Bioware making great single player story-driven games, I have confidence in Mythic's *technical* ability (client/server interaction etc). I have almost no confidence in them coming together to make a legit mmo.

Don't get me wrong, I can see TOR being a massive game and tons of fun (As a single player RPG)

[Zalgren8725]

This is an expensive dry-run for them. Hadn't thought about that yet. I have faith in Bioware though.