Will the emphasis on story and dialogue help or hurt SWTOR?

[iceberg265]

The story is amazing. The story may or may not make them more money, but it definitely makes it a better game. Which is what matters to me. I could care less if 12million counterstrike crybaby kiddies quit WoW to play SWTOR as long as I enjoy it. And I love the VO and the story.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'd rather the counterstrike kiddies stick with WoW.

[Teriz]

This impression from Penny Arcade's Gabe sums up my feelings;

First of all, a lot has been made about the new “fourth pillar” of story telling. Is it really all they are making it out to be? In my personal opinion, yes, it really is a big deal and let me tell you why. In the short time I’ve been playing SW:TOR I have already given more thought to my character than I ever did in all the years I played WOW. I’ve had to make hard choices with my Bounty Hunter that have made me honestly think about who he is and what he’s like. At first I intended to play him as a real asshole but some of the moral quagmires these quests put you in just aren’t that black and white. Do I do what gets me the most credits? Do I stay loyal to the person who gave me the job even it means hurting Innocent people? As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.

And because of this, I think SWTOR is going to split the userbase right down the middle.

[Gxeternal]

I think that it could really suck in Flashpoints. It's pretty interesting the first couple times you run it, but when you have to sit through it over and over again, it gets really annoying. It will be like Culling of Stratholme all over again. And you know how much people loved the dialogue in CoS.

You have to remember though, in flashpoints some of the choices made in the conversations determin how the rest of your run will go. I love that aspect of the story telling, sure you can re run the flashpoint and make sure to pick the oppisite option to see how it would work both ways, but its still an inventive way of running things and makes you really feel like part of the story.

[jvbastel]

You have to remember though, in flashpoints some of the choices made in the conversations determin how the rest of your run will go. I love that aspect of the story telling, sure you can re run the flashpoint and make sure to pick the oppisite option to see how it would work both ways, but its still an inventive way of running things and makes you really feel like part of the story.

I'm kinda sceptic about that in flashpoints, after you've run the flashpoints a few times, you really don't want to see the same damn thing over and over, which you'll have to do if someone in your party wants to see it. In guild wars 1 for example, if you wanted to skip a cinematic, everyone had to press skip or it would just continue playing. It was bad design there, and really annoyed a LOT of people after a while.

I can see the same thing happening in SWTOR. After all, after you've done the instance 15 times, you'll know which option is the most efficient and you'll take that one, without wanting to wait until you've seen the npc say the thing he's said every day.

[rhorle]

Im never going back to reading quest in an mmo. :/

Prepare to miss out on story in TOR then. The phrase "fully voiced" does not mean fully English or native language voiced. So when it comes to alien species you will still need to read in order to understand what they are saying. If you don't read the subtitles you miss out on potential story elements and at the very least the context of the dialogue choices. Just hope any alien language you hate the sound of isn't done to often or with important story npc's as thats a whole lot of annoying.

Source: Note: Video from 2010 E3 potential spoilers for Trooper Game play or Story. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...ar-wars/101642 about 1:30 into the video.

---------- Post added 2011-11-16 at 04:01 AM ----------

I can see the same thing happening in SWTOR. After all, after you've done the instance 15 times, you'll know which option is the most efficient and you'll take that one, without wanting to wait until you've seen the npc say the thing he's said every day.

Indeed. People rarely remember their first time experience when everything was "new" when thinking about something they've run 30 or 40 times. I don't believe anyway that says they won't be skipping dialogue after 30 or 40 times running a flashpoint. Or any that are in Operations after everyone in the group has seen it 3 or 4 times. Time is even more of a commodity the larger the group is. The question is never IF but when the value of time will over take the value of the same dialogue.

[DaGhostDS]

Prepare to miss out on story in TOR then. The phrase "fully voiced" does not mean fully English or native language voiced. So when it comes to alien species you will still need to read in order to understand what they are saying. If you don't read the subtitles you miss out on potential story elements and at the very least the context of the dialogue choices. Just hope any alien language you hate the sound of isn't done to often or with important story npc's as thats a whole lot of annoying.

Source: Note: Video from 2010 E3 potential spoilers for Trooper Game play or Story. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...ar-wars/101642 about 1:30 into the video.

I know that but its not a block of text that kill your eyes, I was in the beta last weekend.
Having to read a few lines of subtitles > wall-o-text-o-doom!

[Fencers]

Those games had branching dialogue, much like SWTOR does, so I'm sure everyone has experienced this system before and know mainly what to expect from it. That being the case, do you feel that such a feature is a help or hindrance to a MMO, and do you feel that this strong story focus in SWTOR sets it apart from other MMOs?

It would be a hinderance to any MMO that didn't have the Star Wars license attached to it.

The franchise cache alone will bring in players that have no concern, knowledge or care for Expertise Rating, Hit Rating or any other THAC0 associated with MMOs at a high level of play.

What these type of players will get immediately absorbed and drawn in by is a well presented, single player friendly story in a familiar (& much loved) setting. That Bioware built the backend of the game on what is basically a Warcraft copy of finely tuned skinner box perfection is a kind of ingenious trick of sorts.

If an NPC was blathering on about dragons in Rift, most would be like, "Whatever. Just hand me my kill 10 rats quest and vendor these greys."

However, R2-D2's high pitched whistles instructing one to kill 10 Rancors and vendor Holocron cubes has a social & psychological appeal that allows Bioware to get away with a robot squealing like a teapot for 20 mins as a cutscene.

[Saved]

leveling/questing on swtor is similar to an rpg, if you do some world pvp/bg´s or group up with friends or guildies you bring the mmo, when you reach the level cap gz you have entered an mmorpg enjoy... the real deal starts now

[Wicari]

I personally like them. I like feeling that my character is actually a part of the story being told and has a direct impact on the overall outcome of the big picture. That being said however, after running something like that I don't really want to have to run the same questions/scenes again when I roll another toon.

In short I want something in between. I want the option of being able to bypass all the scenes/voice overs when I don't want to watch/participate in it.

[herpderpslurp]

the system is definitely not for everybody, it really slows down leveling. i played for about 15 hours this weekend and only got one toon to level 7 and another to level 6. however you do have the option to spacebar to skip dialogue if you prefer to just hurry up and go level.

[vizzle]

You have to remember though, in flashpoints some of the choices made in the conversations determin how the rest of your run will go. I love that aspect of the story telling, sure you can re run the flashpoint and make sure to pick the oppisite option to see how it would work both ways, but its still an inventive way of running things and makes you really feel like part of the story.

That's nothing more than a shtick novelty act that will wear off after the first 3-4 times you do it. You have to remember that flashpoints aren't heroic quests that you do one time and then continue on. They are instances that you will be doing dozens upon dozens of times. People will get tired of watching 2-4minute cutscenes just to do the flashpoint the nth time.

[agnarr]

That's nothing more than a shtick novelty act that will wear off after the first 3-4 times you do it. You have to remember that flashpoints aren't heroic quests that you do one time and then continue on. They are instances that you will be doing dozens upon dozens of times. People will get tired of watching 2-4minute cutscenes just to do the flashpoint the nth time.

The devs have acknowledged that and actually stated that is the reason not all flashpoints have the same level of story depth that the first flashpoint does.

[quras]

My biggest concern for SWTOR is content release with so much emphasis on in game cut scenes and voice acting.

The story for SWTOR and each class should be easy enough to come up with, but adding in all the cut scenes and voice acting seems to take longer than normal content development.

That concerns me knowing how quick players go through content and if new content release is similar to WOW then it's going to eventually be a problem. BW really has it cut out for themselves in that area I think.

[ghostprotocol]

The most important thing is that Bioware knows what they want and how to implement it, not just randomly implement crap because it is "popular" or people whine about it.

[Trollsbane]

Some people won't like it, and that's fine. For others like myself, it's something that will continue to make this game shine like a star.

After my group has ran a flashpoint a few times and seen all the paths and dialogue, we can just spacebar through it all. It hurts nothing an doesn't slow it down that much.

It's the times before that point that make it overwhelmingly worthwhile.

This is what I want in a game. If I wanted to just chop wood all day without talking to anyone else, without knowing why I'm chopping wood, and without getting paid much, I'd play the grindy games that don't focus on story. But if I know why I'm chopping wood, have people to bullshit with while I do it, and not only get paid, but get some awesome dinner cooked for me as well, I count that as a huge win.

Due to the sales of single player story based games, I believe a lot of people severely fail to grasp how many people love this stuff in a game. I understand that vocal minorities shout the loudest, and they are the ones who keep saying, "people don't want this, they just want to play", and that's their narrow minded opinion. They don't like that in a game, so it's projected to cover the bigger player base. But sales of these type of games state very loudly that people do in fact love these type of games. That's not me projecting, that's me basing it off easy to see facts.

[Hunkulese]

Star Wars is fantasy not sci-fi

[Trollsbane]

Star Wars is fantasy not sci-fi

It's both, and that debate will just derail the thread, so we don't need to go into that.

[agnarr]

I agree with Trollsbane.

I think when the real advertising campaign starts, you will see something similar to, "From the people that brought you hit games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect..."

And that alone will bring a significant amount of people that haven't considered playing MMORPG's into the fray.

[Meleti]

That concerns me knowing how quick players go through content and if new content release is similar to WOW then it's going to eventually be a problem. BW really has it cut out for themselves in that area I think.

What I'm expecting is that Bioware is going after the casual players, not the hardcore players. There will still be operations and such, but this game isn't made for Paragon.

Quoth the Gordon Walton:

"Don't tune for the hardcore." Turning to the audience, Walton asked for a show of hands: "How many of you have shipped an MMO? How many of you remember a discussion about making the game harder to keep people in the game longer?" He dismissed those who had but didn't, and suggested that this stems from "forgetting our object is not to keep people as long as humanly possible, but to provide entertainment." When it comes to grinding, "they will do it, but they will hate you."

When he first encountered WoW, he admits thinking that the game would be over in 50 days -- because it's so fast paced. But when its success became apparent, Walton realized something. "I was thinking about crazy people! Crazy people can finish the game in 50 days, but crazy people are not who we should be thinking about.... where's the real market, our real customers? If anything, I think people should make games that level faster than WoW -- that have the right content to hold up."

[DaGhostDS]

Star Wars is fantasy not sci-fi

actually its both with a bit of space opera, but lets not go there.