From Pax East…here is the most recent developer walkthrough for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It features a group of 4 players going through the Taral V Flashpoint (instance/story). Just watching things unfold with the classic Bioware dialogue options brought a smile to my face, as I have always wanted to share the experience of playing through Bioware’s stories with other people. I like how the game allows each player to do a random roll on the party dialogue options, giving everyone an equal chance to steer the plot as it unfolds.
The Old Republic is truly starting to look like it will deliver on bringing the Bioware style of RP to the MMO genre…and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Combat looks nice and smooth with actual tactics being necessary to come out on top, even if the basic mechanics seem all too familiar. But it’s the story focus throughout the entire game that has my attention at this point. Bioware has claimed that The Old Republic will contain more story content than all of their Single Player RPGs combined. That’s an awfully impressive claim, to be sure.
Now I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but I am truly starting to feel like the internet is just filled with people who wait for something to become successful, then pull out their claws and rip to shreds because they are “too cool” for anything that is so loved by the mainstream. This isn’t really a new thing, of course. I understand that there will always be people who try to prove how awesome they are by insulting things that become popular. But lately I have been seeing it get real out of hand.
The obvious example is Blizzard and World of Warcraft.
Now, I could care less whether or not you like WoW or despite it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and preferences as to what style of MMO they enjoy the most. But you don’t even have to throw a stone to be caught up in the vile WoW hatred anymore. All you have to do is log in to any MMO and wait for the word WoW to be mentioned. It usually takes about 3.5 seconds in a new MMO, or perhaps a few minutes if the MMO is older. But to read some of the comments, you would think that Blizzard committed some brutal series of murders to incur so much disgust from people.
Tune in next week when we hear about how WoW is directly linked to HIV and the primary cause of Global Warming.
But seriously, it really is funny to see people get so riled up over a game. And each argument plays out in the same general way. The first salvo is usually the WoW is for kiddies argument. This mostly has to do with WoW having a more cartoony art style and maintaining a strong sense of humor throughout. Also, WoW is popular as hell and holds more subscriber than any other MMO, and so many younger people do play it. The community of WoW is not the greatest, I will be the first to say. Some of the idiots who play it can be extremely annoying. But I have also seen many adults who absolutely love WoW, and I’ve met many wonderful and mature guilds in my travels there. So it’s not just kids that enjoy WoW.
But I won’t let facts ruin a good story here, so we’ll move on.
The second place where I see this kind of hatred is with the film Avatar. Now again, it really does not matter to me whether you like it or hate it. I’m talking about the people who don’t just hate it….they really hate it. They hate it to the point that they started making up theories that it was un-American because it depicts American troops in a negative light. Those people must have watched a different movie than I did, because the movie clearly states that this is a coporate security force. They wear no flags on their uniforms.
So if anything it is a cautionary tale of corporate forces like Blackwater, but once again, I won’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
But the freshest example of this sort of behavior would be the massive amount of forum bitching that is popping up in lieu of Dragon Age 2. Apparently, Bioware has reached the proper success threshold that it is now a cool thing to hate on them as well. But to make myself clear once again, I am not talking about people who simply didn’t enjoy DA 2. I am talking about people who have now taken their rage to the forums and are claiming that Bioware is dead, calling them traitors, they hate PC players, they have sold out, they hate RPGs, they assassinated JFK…you know, the whole works.
Seeing crap like this from the gaming populace really concerns me.
You might wonder why this is, given that people also react this way to other forms of creative expression. Well, the primary reason is that gaming is still struggling mightily for respect and acceptance by the general public. Though it has made some strides in recent years, gaming is still viewed by many as something for kids…a fanciful distraction that any reasonable adult should eventually “move on” from. To compound this problem, I see so many of my fellow gamers behaving in an immature and petulant fashion, and so it makes me wonder whether people outside of the gaming community will ever be able to truly look at games as art.
And that is undoubtedly what games are slowly becoming…an art form just like books, music, or film. But until the gaming community learns to grow up and regard their hobby with a sense of dignity, it may be difficult for games and those who make them to ever receive the worldwide respect they so richly deserve.
I’m going to keep spoiler free, as I have only put in about 10 hours into Dragon Age 2 so far. But I did want to make a few comments on the experience as a whole and how it compares to the original. To begin with the positive…the snazzy new DX 11 effects and speedy animations definitely make for some very fun and engaging combat. It certainly has more of an action RPG feel than than the original, but I have still found it to be quite enjoyable and much more visceral. Though the overall pace of the combat does make things feel a little less tactical than before.
But hey, I always thought I had to spend a little too much time pausing the action in DA 1 to down potions like some sort of hopeless addict, so no complaints on that front. The function of the combat really isn’t that much different from DA 1 though, with the hotbar abilities and Tactics system for each character working just as they did before. But everything happens much faster this time around, and you will either love that or hate it depending on what you want out of your RPGs.
The interface also does a better job of streamlining the information you need to know and presenting it to you in a clean fashion.
I really liked how they put the quick heal/mana options on the right side of the hotbar. Very useful! But then I found that other elements of DA 2 have been stripped down a little too much for my taste. On the one hand, I love the Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel and am glad that they ported it over to the Dragon Age series. But I don’t really like how they have now placed a small icon next to each of your responses. This tells you exactly where the response will fall in terms of tone, with little hearts next to the romantic ones that take all the guess work and mystery out of discovering these things for yourself.
And while you can change equipment to your heart’s content, this only really applies to your character (Hawke). Just about everything you find can only be used by him, cutting out much of the inventory and party management that so many RPG-lovers adore. On that same note, I really don’t understand the great Bioware crusade against inventory systems. They ripped the very same thing out of Mass Effect 2 and now Dragon Age 2 has also fallen under a similar knife.
It all feels like they are trying to get the game to appeal to a more non-RPG crowd, which just doesn’t make sense to me.
But to the game’s credit, many of the signature Bioware elements are still in place here. The writing and voice acting are terrific so far, and it looks like we will have many of the same wonderful moral dilemmas that have become a staple of Bioware RPGs. Choice is what makes these games stand out, and so far it looks like Dragon Age 2 will be featuring plenty of it. I do have to mention that I haven’t really seen much of a main plot at this point…and some reviews I have read are confirming my fears that DA 2 doesn’t really possess a central, driving narrative like most RPGs. It’s more like a series of interconnected quests that add up to something but you’re not always sure of what that might be.
This may take away some of the drive I have to play whenever I have free time, as right now I don’t feel as compelled to see where the overall story is going to go compared to DA 1.
The characters in DA 2 have also failed to make a strong first impression like the ones in Origins did. Alistair, Morrigan, and Leilania were filled with all sorts of charisma and personality, making them an absolute joy to have around from the get-go. So far I have met no characters in DA 2 that have pulled me in and inspired in quite the same way, but I still have much game to play as I keep saying. If we can be sure of anything, it’s that Bioware games have solid writing. So this may well be a facet of the experience that improves with time. I should also be honest here and mention that Dragon Age: Origins is a tough act to follow. Though to be equally as forthcoming, I thought Mass Effect 2 outdid Mass Effect 1 in terms of characterization.
So it is possible for a sequel to surpass its original in that regard.
But keeping in mind that my opinion might change one way or the other once I play some more, my general consensus is as follows. Dragon Age 2 can be viewed favorably when looking at the sum of its parts, even though a few of those parts are a bit lacking and the overall story does not sweep you off your feet in the way it should have.
It should come as no surprise to any of you that MMOs will be taking a backseat in my gaming time these next few days. So I will not be available. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and please leave a message after the beep. Some things are just more important than MMOs…you know, like killing Darkspawn.
No one was more thrilled than I was to learn that Bioware, my favorite RPG studio, was going to team up with Lucasarts to make an MMO set in their engaging Knights of the Old Republic universe. When Bioware announced that they would be heavily focusing on the element of story, what they called the Third Pillar of MMOs, I was even more intrigued. I always thought how even more amazing their games would be if you could join up with friends and experience the journey together, everyone making choices that could affect the outcome.
I have gobbled up every last bit of information that Bioware has released on The Old Republic with a particular kind of zeal. So it is with a tinge of sadness that I report that no one was more distressed than I was to hear the same old hype-fueled talking points coming out of the Bioware machine in their latest video on combat.
Let me first explain that I have no problem with the gameplay footage in this video. Some of it even looks pretty sweet in my opinion. But what I see are all the staples of MMO combat. Any MMO player would be able to spot the auto-attacks and the firing off of different skills. It looks just as I expected it would, nothing more or less. But don’t tell these Bioware guys that…they are revolutionizing the way MMO combat works! Or that is what they keep telling me in this video at least.
The problem is that they make these wild claims about doing things with combat that no MMO has ever done before, then they show a clip from the game and it looks exactly like MMO combat. I see different animations for the lightsaber attacks and some look pretty good. I see other classes with fetch-like abilities along with an assortment of various attacks. The video looks fine, my problem is not with the footage.
Some of the skills look very cool and others look kind of average, but that is to expected in an MMO that is still probably over a year away from being launched. But listening to Bioware talk about how AMAZING their combat system is while they show videos that look just the way MMO combat is supposed to look…it all screams red flag to me. So it seems that Bioware is becoming just another MMO development company that is asking its fans to join them in a visit to…
Yes…hype…the slayer of dreams and the crasher of parties…it is the one thing that you must manage with great care, especially when selling your new MMO. Of course you want to talk about your game with passion and explain to people what you think makes it unique. Of course you want to get the word out there about what innovative things you are trying to do with your game so people will get excited and buy lots of copies.
The problem with all of this is that MMO success is not based on copies sold, but subscription numbers over the long haul. Hype is the very thing that can ruin your shiny new MMO before it even gets the chance to walk. By building up expectations to nearly absurd levels, you run the risk of disappointing far too many people who will then stop playing your game. When you do videos like this then you better be careful not to make any wild claims that your MMO will fail to deliver on.
So what whoppers do we have in this video? Let’s see…
“We’ve really been trying to progress the way we show combat…I think MMOs…we’re gonna take them to a new level.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
“We’re trying to create a sense of combat that…that’s just plain exciting.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
“One of the problems with other MMO combats is that you often have scenarios where you have multiple heroes beating on a single enemy…and that just isn’t very heroic.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
“Within minutes of starting the game you are doing things that you wouldn’t expect to do in other MMOs.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
“Something we’ve tried to do is to get away from that sort of…step and repeat kind of combat.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
“We want to be sure that players get the full experience of the different kinds of combat that is out there.”
Followed by a video than looks just like the typical kind of MMO combat…
Do you notice a theme that is building here? They go on to talk about how you will have to learn when to use this skill or that skill depending on the situation, as if no MMO other has required such a thing from you before. Then they explain how you don’t want to see the same attack over and over again, as if no other MMO has more than one attack animation. Have these guys even played an MMO recently? I am starting to get worried over here.
Now, I have no doubts that I am going to get flamed for some of this criticism, but I love Bioware and genuinely look forward to every game they make. So I feel justified in pointing out that their comments are already funneling way too much energy into the hype machine. Once again, the footage of the game is fine and I have no issue with it. So in closing I would like to say the following…
Every single aspect of your game does not have to be revolutionary, Bioware, you are already doing something unique by trying to bring your brand of interactive storytelling to a dynamic MMO environment. That’s enough to be proud of in and of itself, so stop trying to sell me on how your combat is going to change MMOs forever. As long as it’s enjoyable then it will fit the bill nicely.
Don’t feed the hype troll, my friends, it will eat you alive if you aren’t careful.
So here is one more quick post before I take a break to allow my keyboard to cool off, lest it catch fire. Allow me to say that if you haven’t gotten your hands on Mass Effect 2 yet then what in the world are you waiting for??!!! It’s my Game of the Year without question. If you played through Mass Effect 1 then there are over 700 plot hooks that lead into the story of Mass Effect 2.
nightwreath
