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

[Prag]

I haven't read quest text in a long, long time - let alone enjoyed questing.

I welcome this change. Expediting the levels always seemed a little ludicrous to me, and sort of answered a lot of the questions about why there were so many bad players at level cap.

I think the dialogues will quickly turn people away who are just looking for that end game thrill. I think it will do a lot to give those of us who cherish the ENTIRE game a feeling of immersion in the story line that's been absent in many recent games.

[Argroth]

Indeed, Blizzard's attitude is one of the main things which puts me off putting any more money into their pockets than I already have. They constantly whine about how it requires "a lot of resources" to do x/y/z... don't give me that shit, Blizzard. There are over 10 million people paying monthly to play, as well as the huge amount of revenue from virtual items... and money = resources. Meanwhile other MMOs with significantly less subs (such as Rift) produce content which is on par with Blizzard's content these days on an ongoing basis. There is a new dungeon/raid in Rift at least every month or two, and despite the game not having the nice art style that WoW has, the content itself is easily as good as anything Blizzard has put out since about Patch 4.2.

What Blizzard has is the strength of their name, and their strong history in WoW. When you look at games like Aion, or Rift, or Warhammer Online, and compare it to WoW's "glory days" content such as Black Temple, or Karazhan... WoW makes them look like a joke. But now? The content is absolutely atrocious.

As for Bioware trying hard - frankly, they don't have any choice but to do that. It's one of the most expensive games ever produced. If they don't get a lot of subs, it will be a financial disaster. And furthermore, I think every other MMO has tried hard - most of them have just got it completely wrong and thus failed to retain a decent amount of customers.

My one hope with SWTOR is that they can stay on top of the game with new and HIGH QUALITY content. I think Rift almost overcompensates and certainly don't need new dungeons and raids every month to keep me hooked on a game, but WoW is the other extreme... nothing for so long, and then you get crap. If Bioware put out a high quality major content patch every 5 months I'll be happy.

All of this, Blizzard is so full of themselves they refuse to actually get things done. They work on thier own terms of rushing things through to get the most money for least effort.
This reflects greatly in the playerbase that prefers WoW, all they want is flashes in the pan with a dull cooldoen to the next one.
The story and voice over in SWTOR is constant quality, maybe not as impacting as the occasional brief WoW flash but it is always present (for the foreseeable future).
That and Bioware dosn't seem to get in its own way.

I'd prefer constant quality of a dedicated company over the high ups and downs from a company that dosn't care for its customers.

[Adam552]

This kind of story and dialogue? Lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0Y7...&feature=feedu

[namelessone]

One of my favorite things during Flashpoints and group quest conversations is the rolling on conversation involvement (am I calling it accurately?), but I can certainly see the WoW crowds getting annoyed at the tediousness of pressing the space bar and ignoring dialogue so they can powerlevel their characters. It's really a tossup. I really enjoy the story and stuff, and it feels really immersive when I'm playing, but I can tell there's already going to be people who are like "ugh, shut up and give me the quest already."

It definitely sets itself apart from other MMOs. I guess we will have to brace ourselves and see

I think you are wrong to lump people into these two groups - either those who LOVE story or those who think it's a waste of time. I love story when it's a good story. Some quests in TOR tell good stories. On the other hand there are also many quests where the NPC goes into a long-winded explanation of why he needs me to kill 20 bears, and it does make me feel like "OMG, WILL YOU EVER GET TO THE POINT?" I can't give you examples, NDA and all. I did love the flashpoint conversation system though, it added a LOT of ... ummm .... character, I guess. It was pretty cool to actually be able to see other party member's faces for once! Or think about them as actual characters and not a bunch of players with fancy skins.

[barrsftw]

Bioware actually seems to have quality in mind when they make thier product. They don't just focus on making the quickest and laziest buck. I think that may actually pay off for them in the short AND long run.

As all games do prior to being popular. WoW cared about content before it became a god. Popularity gets the best of all of us.

[Barrowmore]

I think that many more people will enjoy the story element if they treat SWTOR as a single-player game with multiplayer elements like Totalbiscuit suggests.