The Furious Angels
Staff and News => News and Announcements => Topic started by: Tbone on November 05, 2010, 11:37:26 am
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This article (http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarstheoldrepublic/news.html?sid=6283531&mode=previews&tag=topslot;title;1) was released today talking about crafting and PvP. To sum it up...
Crafting sounds a lot like what EVE does. Your companions make up your "crew". You can queue up tasks for your crew to do, and after a certain amount of time, it is done. The progress continues even when you are offline (a la EVE). The article points out that you don't have to "skin rats" and the like - your crew will be doing all of that. I don't know how "hardcore" crafters are going to react to this. I suppose in theory it will allow people to hardcore craft while still freeing you up to do other things, but could this turn into a FarmVille thing where I have to check on my crafting queues ever 3 hours or they will fail?
PvP sounds like the instances I experienced in DCUO. As you level, you unlock instances. In DCUO, it was "play as Robin in Arkham" or something like that. You choose your scenario, and then wait for the game to tell you the match is ready. SWTOR seems to be working the same way - you can queue up PvP matches from anywhere in the game universe and then it just spawns you in when it is ready. I don't really like this method, as it really breaks the immersion. How did I get on Alderon? What's beyond these walls? I guess it makes life easier, but it doesn't seem as rewarding as getting your team together and flying to the planet and adventuring to the PvP area.
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This article (http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarstheoldrepublic/news.html?sid=6283531&mode=previews&tag=topslot;title;1) was released today talking about crafting and PvP. To sum it up...
you can queue up PvP matches from anywhere in the game universe and then it just spawns you in when it is ready.
Ew... I'm a little sad after reading this part. I'm definitely with you on the idea of traveling as a group for a massive battle kinda like with MxO or, Hell, even Darkfall.
The feeling of all us getting ready and storming off in a massive force is part of the feeling. Being dropped into a random area ready for battle sounds too much like most FPS games these days.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but i wouldn't want that in an MMO.
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I hope they include some other type of pvp besides battlegrounds.
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I hope they include some other type of pvp besides battlegrounds.
Agreed. I'm not all about constant hardcore pvp, but I like the feeling of open-world pvp. The danger of not always knowing what's around the corner.
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I dont see full open pvp in the future, but I can forsee pvp zones that you can walk right into.
Problem games have seen is getting enough players to fulfill those zones without one faction being stronger than another. hence instancing for balance and challenge. plus they can go multiserver so it fills up faster.
the crafting i know will make the crafting community sad. though I like the idea of being able to grind while im away from the keyboard.
Also jedi Wizard name change voting is up. looks like we're gonna be jedi Sages instead.
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I just don't like the idea of napoleanic style stand off, two "armies" standing on either side, fighting until dead to the last man. it makes the focus purely on frontal assault. I always enjoyed guerrilla style warfare in MMO's so that a lone person could wreak havoc on a group of people. I also enjoy having attacks and counterattacks so that you can have hit and run battles, adapt to changing scenarios and ultimately call on your reserves to join the fight. Battleground pvp should just be called what it is, tps (third person shooter).
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Nobody's really mentioned it, and I don't know if thats because it goes without saying or nobody plays, but the PvP system is exactly the same as WoW's battleground PvP system in it's current state. It was changed some time during this expansion from having to talk to battle masters who would put you in the queue. Now you can queue for Battlegrounds and instanced dungeons from anywhere, it teleports you in when ready, and sticks you right back where you were when its over.
This completely destroyed the process you had to go through to find a group for either BGs or dungeons, but few people complained about the loss of nostalgia because instead of spamming trade chat for other group members, now you let the ui do it for you. Another way Blizzard has nerfed the game and made it easier for casuals. Hopefully this is as far as bioware takes it because if they're really gunning for WoW's spot, I think we're going to see a lot more catering to the carebears. Meh.
I like that you called crafting farmville, T-Bone. I hope its a little bit more immersive than (again...) WoW's system of, "Oh you have the required materials, click this button........ yay!" I will admit that it sounds like some mini-game I'm going to have to check occasionally, but I've never been a huge fan of farming, and if its almost a civilization-type twist where I'm more managing the time of each of my crew, even for harvesting basic materials, it could be interesting.
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Everyone overlooks WoW bgs can still be done in groups, they just did what they could to cut the wait times down. In vanilla WoW you would wait up to 4 hours for some battlegrounds to have enough people ready to play. and that was on an rppvp server. At least the pvp has a purpose to an extent, vs a lot of games making pvp zones that have no bearing on what your doing, just a backdrop.
I love battleground for the fact it makes me feel like im on a mission, not just ganking noobs unsuspecting. I do want some open pvp zones where we get to Missions or objectives and possibly take them over, the RVR system i think its called in WAR. I expect that to come around as well since mythic is working pvp.
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Yeah I've never played WoW. I like PvP with a purpose, but battlegrounds sounds like when you go back to the main menu and click "multiplayer" and then choose a map, rather than it being a seamless part of the "campaign". Instead of it being like a high level loot area or other incentive, it seems like it might be a completely different game with its own goals and gameplay.
Hopefully at the very least they will have a bounty hunter system.
In terms of crafting, if they are going that route, I think they should also have a mobile app so I can just do my crafting while I am not at home. Lol.
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I personally don't mind the idea of battlegrounds. I think if they want to add some diversity to it, other than just frontal assault types, they could have objective type battlegrounds, which I don't think is too far fetched.
I've played WoW's battlegrounds, and there's a lot more to it than just two groups of people going to kill each other. The maps are pretty big, and if you play things right, environment has a lot to do with it. And considering the fact that there's classes in SWTOR that have the ability to take cover and what not, I assume environment will play an even bigger role.
Regardless of what it's like NOW (as far as what's announced), does it really matter? The game can dramatically change within months. The game is going to be nowhere near perfect at the start, and I hope no one is going in with that mentality.
Crafting, is meh to me. I always felt like it was something that should go right along side you leveling up, and not something you have to go out of your way and spend another extra 50 hours just so you can get a +1 to a stat.
Don't set your expectations too high guys. It's not going to be a perfect game, I don't think. But really, no MMO is.
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I hate the cop out of "it's an MMO, we'll fix/add it later". I have hopes that SWTOR will not be released as a paid beta. That said, I don't not expect them to stop development of expansions, updates or other new content, but I certainly do expect them to release a game that can support it's own weight.
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This new information is really disappointing. I played WOW for about 4 or 5 months and really began to hate if after a while. The "battlegrounds" type of PvP is part of what turned me off. I don't know if any of you recall DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot), but they had a similar PvP system and I did not like it at all there either.
DAoC was the second MMO I played when I discovered them back in the day.
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What DAoC's pvp kicked ass! RvR for the win.
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I never played DAoC or WAR but i've only heard good things about their PVP system. was it perfect? of course not. but if thats what they are trying to go for, awesome.
While I dont like the instancing in terms of Immersiveness, I have come to realize from the WoW crowd of players that immersion comes second to gameplay convienences. something I dont approve of, but unfortunately a market neccessary evil.
One thing I hope they dont implement is the Dungeon finder, that thing was a good idea on paper, but the outcome was horrible. I'll use my guildies for pvp and instances as much as possible, and friends I pick up otherwise before I resort to that thing.
as long as we can still group up for PVP before queuing and we get some open pvp areas that have the same or better objectives, I think we will be good.
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They talked about how in PvP you'd earn tokens that you can use to buy "PvP gear" that lets people know you are cool. I just don't know...PvP being reduced to token gathering. I really liked in MxO how anybody could go into the PvP zones, and if you got your ass handed to you, you called in your friends. It made for some epic, high-scale battles that make 8v8 seem like a yawn fest.
On the other side of the fence, I'm not sure about FFA PvP either. In Darkfall it was handled so poorly that it was probably the main reason a majority of the player base left, and that player base was known for being hardcore PvPers. I think it only worked in MxO's hostile server because of hyperjump and multiple phone booth spawns, and you didn't lose all of your loot - you just lost your pride, which, believe me, for most is enough.
I'd really like to see a system where guilds can opt into open PvP with other participating guilds in the "wilderness" areas and also incorporate some sort of bounty system against other players and other guilds. Something that would allow for spontaneous PvP battles, but not allow for choke point gank fests.
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They talked about how in PvP you'd earn tokens that you can use to buy "PvP gear" that lets people know you are cool.
Warhammer had something like this, if memory serves. I only played for a month or two, so I can't remember for sure. I believe there were different rewards for doing battlegrounds, and different rewards for the open-world RvR stuff.
It was nice to be rewarded for PvP (hell, in Warhammer it seemed you were rewarded for doing anything), but like you say T, it turned PvP into its own kind of grind.
MxO's PvP was mis-handled, but being so broken is what made it fun. The fact that it was so unbalanced and coupled with the ability to change your loadout on the fly, made for some awesome fights. It was the wild west of PvP.
I think FFA PvP is fun when it's done right. In EVE, everyone is fair-game, even in hi-security space. But there are some heavy consequences for attacking someone who you really shouldn't attack.
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T hit the nail on the head though. MxO had real, true, open world PvP with awesome fights not because of any PvP system or UI group-maker, but because of the travel. In MxO when your guildie got ganked at Mara C, you hit up the nearest hardline, along with the rest of your online guild mates, and all of you were at Mara C in a matter of seconds. No other game with open PvP zones has a travel system like this. In WoW, if you get ganked in one zone, you tell all your guild members, and the 5 of them that actually care jump on a flight path that takes 5-10 minutes to get them there. God forbid they're on a different continent or in northrend or outlands where travel time on zeppelins or ships could add another 15-20 minutes. By the time anyone shows up the gankers are gone, no time to retaliate, no time for them to get their guildies in on it, no big battles.
Shit, even when people attack low level cities of the other faction in typical mmos very few people come to it's aid. Nobody's flying in from the far reaches of the continent to defend it, because nobody cares if its not in their zone. And most of the people in that zone are going to lay low and try to keep questing because they can't be bothered to stop grinding for some PvP. Unless SWTOR has some sort of a travel system that rivals hardline jumping, there will not be true, honest, open world pvp for the sake of pvp. Yeah, they might have something like wintergrasp, but something feels dirty about PvPing in an "open world area" that has huge signs everywhere that say, "If you are a carebear you are in the wrong place! You might, possibly, get hurt or even killed by other players in this zone! You should probably leave!"
Another reason integrated areas are awesome. Turning the corner and seeing a pants-shittingly high number of reds standing around your hardline/mission objective/etc never happens in games where each side is kept contained in their own little quest hubs and cities.
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SWTOR seems to be working the same way - you can queue up PvP matches from anywhere in the game universe and then it just spawns you in when it is ready. I don't really like this method, as it really breaks the immersion. How did I get on Alderon? What's beyond these walls? I guess it makes life easier, but it doesn't seem as rewarding as getting your team together and flying to the planet and adventuring to the PvP area.
As enjoyable as that might be, it brings with it a bunch of problems. Sure it's cool if you and your group do it, but will the rest of the players do it? With Instancing you can make your way there and queue up, while somebody in Tython can also meet up and fight with/against you.
Like Paitryn said: "Problem games have seen is getting enough players to fulfill those zones without one faction being stronger than another. hence instancing for balance and challenge. plus they can go multiserver so it fills up faster."
This completely destroyed the process you had to go through to find a group for either BGs or dungeons, but few people complained about the loss of nostalgia because instead of spamming trade chat for other group members, now you let the ui do it for you. Another way Blizzard has nerfed the game and made it easier for casuals.
I used to play hardcore, but eliminating a 4 HOUR wait time is not catering to the casuals. This was an improvement to WoW, not a hindrance.
They talked about how in PvP you'd earn tokens that you can use to buy "PvP gear" that lets people know you are cool. I just don't know...PvP being reduced to token gathering.
Tokens used for PvP and PvE is one of the best ideas Blizzard developed. Anybody that played since vanilla will have good memories and will probably complain about how the game has changed, but tokens were necessary. It was ridiculous to do Molten Core or Blackwing Lair for weeks or months only to NEVER get your drop, because either it didn't drop or somebody bid more, etc.
With Tokens you are rewarded by each boss you kill or each player kill. The developers have increased the number of tokens, therefore increasing the number of people getting Tier Gear. This is an excellent choice by the Bioware team.
Yeah, they might have something like wintergrasp, but something feels dirty about PvPing in an "open world area" that has huge signs everywhere that say, "If you are a carebear you are in the wrong place! You might, possibly, get hurt or even killed by other players in this zone! You should probably leave!"
As fun as that may be, "open world" pvp is about the ability to attack or be attacked by the opposing faction at any time. Bioware wants this game to be accesible to the majority of gamers, both hardcore and casuals. Having a gank fest everywhere every time you reach a major city, etc is not fun. Eventually it will be annoying.
Sorry for the long rant. Just my .02
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Think MxO by its very foundations (both story and game design) supported open pvp very well from what everyone is saying. Unfortunately, Star Wars as a backdrop can't really support this same concept. Instant travel to zones would result in a lot of "immersion breaking" complaints because thats now how travelling in star wars works. In MxO its easy to instant travel because this was key in movies with the Hardline entrance system of the matrix. In star wars you have to get into a ship and hyperspace travel from one planet to the next. while we will probably not have long travel times for this (it can take months to travel from one side of the galaxy to the next. we will probably have a movie based travel time) It will still take much longer to get there than MxO.
Tokens for both raid and pvp are basically an easy access to the carrot that gets dangled in front of players to keep them reaching for goals. MMOs are a lot more goal oriented now. Problem is, at least in my eyes, that the goals are effectively pointless. The goal achieved, the reward is not really necessary. I.E. pvp for awesome gear, but to get that awesome gear you had to already been an accomplished PvPer. Likewise for raids. Once you reach a certain point, the raid drop gear is pointless to have.
My roommate is a prime example of this, He raided ICC (top raid) in WoW but instead of getting the gear, he just kept saving the DKP points from his guild. he already had the gear needed to down the final boss, so any gear he drops is not necessary. It would just be replaced at expansion. So when the new raids come up, hes already got a DKP surplus from past raiding.
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One of the complaints I had about MxO was that the same hardlines that made grouping up and PvP easy, also kept there from being a true feeling of adventure. Because you could be anywhere in an instant, any area that wasn't known as a hotspot hardline would usually be deserted. The mission system also meant that you could be anywhere an grind up.
I'm not saying SWTOR needs a fast travel system like the hardlines - quite he opposite. Queueing from anywhere takes out the adventure of getting to the PvP, albeit for some convenience.
I guess the "battlegrounds" method just reminds me of console games like Halo, as opposed to what I think of when I think o traditional MMO PvP.
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in a perfect pvp game setting the enemy would be plentiful and in the zones we want to fight in, but it never works the way we want them to. sometimes there's 1 vs 20. actually seems more often that way. and with most of us starting off on different planets im not sure when we will come together as a group whole gamewise.
its gonna come down to how pvp is set up and how we are set up in the game as to what options we have to work as a team in PVP.
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Traveling in space is a constant factor in EVE. Whenever I want to get together with Manic, one or both of us might have to make 10 or more system jumps, which takes a decent chunk of time, especially on auto pilot. That is why corporations can only expand their territory so much, because shifting resources across multiple systems takes time, and in a massive pvp fight, the whole thing can be over by the time backup arrives. That said, it still is technically an open-world pvp system, so I am not sure that traveling in SWTOR will have an impact on pvp.
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which takes a decent chunk of time, especially on auto pilot.
Do you really use autopilot?
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which takes a decent chunk of time, especially on auto pilot.
Do you really use autopilot?
If I'm in high sec and I'm making dinner or spending QT with the spouse.
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http://darthhater.com/2010/11/05/swtor-pvp-warzones-crafting-revealed/page/1
Interview article by Darth hater from the recent E3 winter announcements of pvp and crafting.
there is mention by Christine at BioWare that players who dedicate themselves to crafting will benfit more. Some thing we discussed at the last meeting.
Pvp there isnt anything new, just more insight on the warzone setup.
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I actually dont mind a slow travel time. In a game where you can get reinforcements instantly it can truly take away from the strategy. Someone was talking above about the matrix online where you could basically be anywhere in a matter of minutes and while i can see the usefulness in this I (personally) find this a little dull.
By not having this instant travel ability it makes timing all the more important. Lets face it, no one wants to coordinate a raid with all their guild mates, execute said raid and then have everyone from the opposing faction there in 30 seconds.
my point is simple, more time = more strategy and in the end it is not how good of a player you are or how good your gear is that wins the day. It is your strategy that gives you the clear advantage over others.
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I think it had more to do with being out alone and getting jumped by a group of the opposing faction and your backup being too far away. You end up having to wait till they leave before rezzing to avoid potential griefing. but by the time your backup arrives they have usually moved on to someone or somewhere else.
In the end its less about strategy, and more about how much time gets wasted by griefers.
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I understand that point of it but you cant have one without the other and all im saying is in the end I would rather deal with griefers than give up strategy.
But again thats just my opinion.
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I understand that point of it but you can't have one without the other and all I'm saying is in the end I would rather deal with griefers than give up strategy.
But again that's just my opinion.
Oddly enough, the griefing was far far worse in Darkfall, where it took 45-60 minutes to get across the mainland with a mount (don't even bother without a mount or from one of the islands). The experience there taught me that griefers are everywhere in any MMO, so the only strategy was work in groups. Working in groups is fine for defined/coordinated activities such as raids, but when grinding xp or other dull tasks, it becomes harder to keep a group focused or logged in at the same time for that matter. If SWTOR provides a safeguard such as locked mission areas for solo grinders then the griefing problems will be diminished.
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I understand what you mean. I played Darkfall for a month and while i thought the game was fun and unique, the fact i could be killed anywhere really got me mad (especially since i was guildless) I cant even keep track of how many times i did the "kill goblins to get their axes quest" because i was getting killed by everything from my own race to the goblins.
Darkfall however is an extreme to what i was saying. 45 minutes by mount to help your friends is a little ridiculous but i dont see a problem with 5-10 minutes.
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Another interview explaining crafting in greater detail:
http://darthhater.com/2010/11/12/daniel-erickson-on-crew-skills/page/1
The "mission skills" part of it is straight out of Mafia Wars (it takes a few minutes to 23 hours). Crafting items also takes hours. Gathering can be done in three ways - you can pick it up yourself, have your companion pick it up, or just tell a companion at the ship to find some of "x stuff" from somewhere.
Companions have bonuses to different "Crew Skills" (the name for the crafting system).
I think what they've done is actually pretty smart. They've made crafting extremely passive and casual, but in the exact same way that all of those addictive casual games are. So like in FarmVille if you don't check on your crops every few hours, they go bad, if you don't login and re-queue up your crew missions/crafting, you'll feel like you are wasting valuable crew time. It's a good incentive to get people steadily logging in. I don't know how "fun" the actual system will be, but I can see it being "addictive".
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Your right, I can see this being very addictive. even on days I wouldnt be playing I would still log in to give my crew orders so they were still working.
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Posted by Damion Schubert yesterday:
So just to throw a couple more stray thoughts about our philosophy.
* No, you the player cannot craft currently - which is to say you cannot choose to watch the progress bar fill up yourself. That being said, to us, watching a progress bar has always been the least interesting part of crafting in other MMOs. The part of being a crafter that is interesting to us is things like finding rare schematics, finding hard-to-find components, and the social game of finding customers and suppliers. We really wanted devoted crafters to be able to focus on these aspects of crafting, and not so much on the 'watch a progress bar go forward' part of things. Crafting should be a social thing - staring at a progress bar is not.
* No, you don't see companions running missions out 'in the real world'. While I laugh at the idea of a stream of companion characters filing into the palace on Alderaan, it's unfeasible for a lot of reasons.
* The real test of the value of crafting is less about whether companions or players are swinging the hammer and tongs, and more about how the itemization of crafting is balanced in a way that the gear is useful. Crafting is important to the systems team, and we're devoted to ensuring that crafted gear has a place in the economy, especially at the endgame, and doubly especially for the devoted crafters.
* It's worth noting that we really want the system to support the casual crafter (the guy who is taking crafting largely to outfit himself while levelling up) and the devoted crafter (the guy who wants to be known as the best Armormech in the galaxy). Supporting the former means making the system accessible and easy. Supporting the latter means ensuring that hard work can allow you to provide goods and services that almost no one in the galaxy can. The systems design team is striving to satisfy both groups of people.
* My own personal goal is that some crafters can get so good that players all over the server seek them out. My problem being a crafter in most other MMOs is that you tend to become a guild's pet at some point, and you're expected to do all of the work for free. We want those devoted crafters to be exceptional enough that they can actually demand a price, and that people will actually break out of the guild in order to pursue those goods and services. The system isn't there yet, but we have plans...
Think this really addresses some of our concerns about to what extent we want crafting to be and that the Devs share that vision. He admits they aren't 100% there yet, but are working towards it.