49 réponses à ce sujet

[Loerwyn]

NirvanaRain wrote...

Yes I think it was a mistake, the first two KotORs were console and PC and RPG, to suddenly jump to MMO and leave half the games fanbase hanging is just bewildering, why they did that I don't know.

Because MMOs are, arguably, the future of RPG gaming - At least the way things are looking now - and LucasArts wanted to start a new SW MMO (Hopefully to get past the stigma of their collaboration with Sony on SW: Galaxies; A game forever tarnished by one update) to jump back onto that bandwagon and fight with the bigger guns out there. Historically, sci-fi themed MMOs have never really succeeded, with EVE Online being the biggest success in that field (Although it's also rather different as far as MMOs go, hence why it's probably doing so well). The biggest hits are, by far, fantasy titles so a little competition from two well-known publishers (EA and LucasArts), along with arguably the premier RPG developer (BioWare) wouldn't go amiss in the current WoW-dominated market.

Is it a mistake? Time will tell, but I don't think it'll be BioWare's mistake. LucasArts are pretty notorious for their control over the Star Wars franchise (Lucas himself being doubly anal about it all), so I can't see BioWare being allowed to do anything to upset that. LucasArts have all the rights and stuff, so whilst it's BioWare's choice to be a part of this, I think most problems with the game will be due to LucasArts having such a tight grip on the franchise.

[metatheurgist]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
Because MMOs are, arguably, the future of RPG gaming

It might be the future of Computer RPGs (I hope you're wrong). Paying around Virtual tabletops (Maptool is my preferred option) with your friends is the future of real RPGs.

[Loerwyn]

metatheurgist wrote...
It might be the future of Computer RPGs (I hope you're wrong). Paying around Virtual tabletops (Maptool is my preferred option) with your friends is the future of real RPGs.

I would have thought the context of 'RPGs' would have been obvious, but I see your point.

And I also hope I'm wrong.

[CliffShepard]

While I am excited for The Old Republic, I woukd've rather had another regular console rpg that was single-player. KoTOR 1 was amazing, and 2 was really good. To have a third in the same style would've been nice.

[Garak2]

Everyone is saying and has said all along that they DON'T WANT AN MMO. Is Bioware listening? No and yes, TOR is a mistake.

WOW is dying, it now has an unlimited free trial. Next step is a Free to Play model like alot of other MMO's. It isn't just WOW that is dying, it's MMO's and I think there are a couple of reasons.

1) In this economy people are cutting monthly expenses.
2) People are growing tired of MMO's, their time has passed and Bioware is late to the party.

Look at FF XIV, if that game ever starts charging it will be a mistake on SE's part. Eventually FF XIV will also go Free to Play or SE will simply shut it down. People aren't quitting WOW to go play a different MMO.

[Spinalcore]

Garak2 wrote...

Everyone is saying and has said all along that they DON'T WANT AN MMO. Is Bioware listening? No and yes, TOR is a mistake.

WOW is dying, it now has an unlimited free trial. Next step is a Free to Play model like alot of other MMO's. It isn't just WOW that is dying, it's MMO's and I think there are a couple of reasons.

1) In this economy people are cutting monthly expenses.
2) People are growing tired of MMO's, their time has passed and Bioware is late to the party.

Look at FF XIV, if that game ever starts charging it will be a mistake on SE's part. Eventually FF XIV will also go Free to Play or SE will simply shut it down. People aren't quitting WOW to go play a different MMO.

WoW isn't so much dying as a result of people cutting costs so much as people being upset with the changes and dumbing down/simplifying of the game. There are also more MMOs out now that people are switching to and alot of them are doing the F2P that alot of people are switching to. I am personally happy that they are doing TOR as an MMO myself. Would have been nice if they did a KOTOR3 or had an offline feature like Phantasy Star did with their release of Universe. Even if you aren't questing with other players and running around solo it is still great to have people to chat with and run across other players in game.

As for FF XIV that was SE's fault for releasing a game that had way too many bugs to have even been considered for release but they wanted to get it out there and try to cash in on the hype while they could. 

F2P with optional Subs and novelty Cash shops seem to be the way to go with MMOs these days tho. EQ2X, LotRO, DDO and Age of Conan all have the F2P now and seem to be coming back to life. You don't feel obligated to have to make sure that you get enough time in each month to get the money's worth of sub time that you pay for so if you know you can't get the time to play enough you don't have to cancle teh sub to not feel like you are wasting your money.

[Mr Arg]

It seems some people fail to see the silver lining of TOR being released before any sign of a kotor3:

1) The amount of $$$ Bioware and EA are going to make from TOR is insane. The record-breaking number of pre-orders is a good sign of this. WoW got a lot of business and I think we can all agree that star wars is culturally more popular than warcraft. More money for Bioware = more money behind next kotor.

2) Bioware will see what aspects of a star wars rpg will work and not work. So by the time Kotor 3 is released (if it is), you can count on a rock solid third installment of the series.

So really, what's the crippling downside of making TOR???

Modifié par Mr Arg, 15 août 2011 - 07:23 .

[Varlak]

I think that your msitaken it might be 100millions but it sure not 100billions, and even 100million seems to be a way over exagerated.

And you seem to under-estimate the cash income even only a 100 000 custumers base paying 15$ a month can net. And SWOR will easely have the 500k to 1million custumers on release every MMO have upon release even if its only for 1 month, its a massive money making.

[heretica]

Yeah, I think the MMO is clearly a mistake. But why would they make a KotOR 3 when they already have Mass Effect?

A new novel is coming out soon so I guess I will take that as my last piece of info on the story of KotOR.

[jamierawr88]

malace_ixo wrote...

I love their games; hands-down my favorite dev. I'm not exactly sure what kind of investment they've made individually on TOR but I've heard it said something like a $100 billion's been put into it. I'm sure LucasArts has probably put forth a big part of that but that's a massive undertaking.
 
WoW dominates the MMO market and everyone wants to nip at their heels and get a piece now that they've seen how many paying customers show up for the online community. star wars is a huge franchise so they must be banking on a big fanbase and Bioware's reputation for great stories to somehow pull out something phenomonal.

I wonder if they'll be able to make as big of a dent in that niche as they're hoping for. My guess is they won't make enough profit for TOR to be seen as a success. For my personal taste I might have liked them to wait for the industry to provide better technical resources to get a next-gen flavor out of their graphics before going MMO.

KoTOR 3 got dropped, probably around suggestions from LucasArts that they felt it was time to take a plunge. Who can fail to infer how carefully they must have eyed WoW? I think it's a mistake. I'm confident TOR will be an awesome game. Bioware never fails to deliver. But with how much they must have put into it I don't think they'll get enough of a return for this to be anything but red ink. I'm filled with the impression that KoTOR 3 would have been a more sound business decision. It would have gone far to advance the reputation of the franchise and continued to draw in fresh faces as we all become more acclimated to the MMO world.

Idk. We'll have to see. I've been poring over everything I could find since the game was announced. It may prove to surpass my expectations. But a $100 billion is no light investment. A next-gen KoTOR would have killed

to put it simple, ive been beta testing TOR for the past few days now, and even in beta it is quite polished, and i am enjoying it alot more then WoW when i first started that, i think bioware did the right thing in making a mmo of the old republic era, its very enjoyable and in my opinion could well indeed give WoW a run for there money, as mush as anyone else i would love to see a KOTOR 3, and even then they could still put referenceses to kotor 3 in TOR via content update,
This game TOR has so much potential, its already awesome and enjoyable atm but it can even get better with doing the right sort of content updates and patches, which with bioware on the job i see no problem with it
only mistake bioware has made in my opinion is parterning up with EA, sure ea has the money to put these games up, but they kind of make bioware rush them, such as dragon age 2

[Tryynity]

malace_ixo wrote...

i meant $100 million. stupid oversight

LOL I was like REALLY  ?!?!? ...  for the $100 billion quote      Im like that with zeros too - so I understand fully hahahaha

In answer to OP = your original question...

If they have been brave enought to break the WOW mould and do something different I say no, not a waste of time/money/effort.

I am an MMORPGer at heart and I use the RPG part loosely - I have RPGd more in DAO than anywhere else.  I have in the past held 3 subs to different games non of them WOW - from what Ive seen of it the games I play knock it out of the park - but sadly these ones are still lacking the true RPG style ...

DAO was my first ever BIOWARE game and they certainly have my confidence as developers...

I have been signed up and waiting for TOR.... I forget now... long time - I dumped EQ2 to make room for the download ...sooooo.....

*FINGERS CROSSED*.... and arms... legs.... eyes

Modifié par Tryynity, 17 octobre 2011 - 08:06 .

[Orwain]

So far SWTOR has close to 1 million physical pre orders just in north american stores, that doesn't count the online preorders in north america neither the european preorders and still 1 month away from launch, so I wouldn't be surprised if they launch with around 4 millions or more active accounts, I would not call that a mistake.

And for my experience in beta I'd say is the 1st time a MMO really deserves the RPG part in MMORPG.

[DrakePowers51]

I had the chance to play it in a 3 day beta. While it is not fully polished and they know that, they will continue to polish it after release.  Those familier with thier other games will find the voice over fun. I liked the game and I am am going to play it.

[dragoneffectrepublic]

I hope you guys are right. Maybe BW will make a killing from TOR and have the budget to start KOTOR 3.

C'mon Bioware, heavy risk ....but the priiiiiize.

[Herethos]

Question remains what there is to do in TOR after completing the story line and side quests, just queue up for pvp or?

For example SWG didn't really have a character story-line, or alot of quests to follow when I played it, you just got put in a massive freeform non-railed world where you could explore the entire planets without anything telling you, "you can't go here" and make up your own characters story.
You could survery for minerals, build and setup entire mines, factories, build your own house, ship, speeders, droids, tame animals etc. But then came the "combat upgrade" and "new game enhancements" which basicly turned it into wow which was maybe 5-6 years ago thats basicly when I quit and alot of others too it seems.

http://en.wikipedia....r_Wars_Galaxies

Subscriber numbers were originally expected to exceed 1,000,000.[53] In August 2005, SOE reported that they had sold 1,000,000 boxed copies of the game.[54] In early 2006, unconfirmed reports showed that only 10,363 subscribers were playing on a particular Friday night, but Smedley denied that subscriptions had fallen this low.

[Oblivious]

You basically do what you do in every MMO: Raid and PvP. People say they want "different" and "innovative" when in truth they don't. Just look at the space combat. It's easily as good as the old X-Wing and TIE fighter games, but people still complain about it since "Bioware should have spent that time working on ground combat." People complain about the romances since "Bioware should have spent that time working on new Flashpoints." Heck, people complain about the companions since "Bioware should have spent that time working on more equipment."

Point is people are stupid and don't know what they want so after we cap we're gonna fall into the same old WoW routine of pvp and raid. And, tbh, that's how it should be.

[elitecom]

Pwnsaur wrote...They should have done KOTOR 3."

Pretty much this.

Besides the fact that TOR is a MMORPG and I don't have much left over for that genre, the story in TOR also tarnishes what KotOR 1&2 established. Even though I haven't played the game, there's only so much room that can be used when the walls have been as confined as they've become.

[Sangnz]

Regardless of the amount of subs lost WoW is still the single most played game on the face of the planet and will probably remain that way for quite a while.
ToR does not need WoWs subs to be successful, it just needs a solid player base which I imagine will sit in the 500,000 - 1,000,000 bracket after all the MMO hoppers leave after the first free month. No MMO has ever needed WoW level subs to survive and turn a profit.

I personally don't think it's a mistake on anyones part to make ToR, having played during the beta I am very much looking forward too full release. I honestly don't know if it has enough "high end" content to keep "hardcore" players interested but honestly given this MMO is not designed to be powered through (if you plan on skipping all the dialogue you're a nut ball) and played only @ max level, the PvP system is a clear indication of this providing a stat boost so a level 10 can compete against higher levels in the instanced PvP areas.

I can also attest that ToR makes a lot of nods to Kotor and Kotor2, even to the degree of a quasi religious group called Revanites who believe neither Jedi nor Sith is correct but a balance between the two is the correct path.

[Asguardwolf]

Not sure on ToR since they not even selling and marketing it to anybody outside of the US and Europe. Spoken to Bioware, and Lucas Arts people on this and they say they are concentrating on US/Euro for the moment which I thought was pretty dumb since they are going broke at the moment. Should have gone with Asia and Africa more. WoW comming out with a ass kissing expansion for us to get more of us to play there game. But I guess TOR will be free to play before they decide to come to us and hopefully with no bugs

[Sorgrimos]

ToR is fun, I'm definitely enjoying it. Still, when I play it, I can't help but think of what could've been; KOTOR 3. I feel like the game'll never live up to the potential KOTOR 3 had to be great. Again, ToR is a good game, I can see it being the next "WoW-killer", but I can't see it replacing the love I have for KOTOR 1, or 2.

[iromandav]

No. Bioware has led the field and can lead the league. From console to PC to MMO is diversity, which leads to profits, which leads to better support and quality. The lack of a new series doesn't mean the game is over. They are following the same business model as Blizzard...IMO.

I discovered Bioware long after they published their first game. But, after seeing what they can do, I spent the time gathering everything they made. I was not disappointed and feel that many people had no idea, just like me, of the wonderful gaming they provide.

I'm not easy to impress or fool.. Bioware doesn't need to trick, they have and will continue to build treats for all audiences if we give them a minute or two.

[Alleath]

New KotOR would have been good, but the MMO has been pretty good as well and already very successful. We'll see how it holds out in the long run

[Drimberly]

No, not a mistake, just a diffrent buisness strategy. Time will tell if it works. However as a huge fan of KOTOR 1 and 2, I was very exited to hear of TOR. If it is a MMO even better. If it had monthly pay I will never get it. And I stick buy that. A digital delux edition of Kotor 3 I would pay £60 for though.

[Stanley Woo]

Not really KotOR related.

End of line.