Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG by Bioware

[lerath666]

The cartoony look is fine. I've no qualms about that aspect of the graphics.

I also highly doubt that development for the game started long before the development of the clone wars cartoon. If anything, I'd say that they may have gone into development around the same time, but you can't honestly tell me you don't see similarities in the designs?

The look of the ships.
The. Fact that the republic troopers look like clones
The empire has droid soldiers that look very similar to droidikas, and battle droids.

The smuggler in the cinematic intro is CLEARLY a human wearing Cad bane's clothing as a nod/ tribute.

The parallels are there. The art direction is there. To evoke things about Star Wars they hope resonate with the target auidence. Hell, Malgus is designed to look like Vader,as well.

 

[Drakul]

I think because of the size of the game it would have cost too much to have the graphics at the quality of today's games so instead of doing a poor job on trying to get something that looked more realistic they went with something more stylized so that people would accept it. Production would have started before the Clone Wars show so I doubt they were influenced by that.

I think they released it too soon since there were too many bugs in the first 30 levels or so of the missions

Yeah I think the thought was more let's make it in the WarCraft style more than let's make it in the Clone Wars (RiP) style.

 

[lerath666]

You guys are missing what I'm saying.

there is Art Direction.

Which means that this

Concept ( where the clone trooper influence is Primarily visable)

game models in layers

model

cinematic

Is intended to look like, and be derivite of this design

the STYLE is something else entirely.

You are talking about the "cartoonyish look" of the graphics. I'm fine with that. I even encourage it. Why? Becuase it means the rendering requirements are lower, allowing for greater acess on lower end computers, resulting in a larger auidence.



I am NOT saying that this

is intended to look like this

becuase it dosn't. Both end results look very stylisticly different. They do, however, share similar design concepts with each other. the way the armor looks, as well as some of the tech, and so on.

While I will concede that as they're both Star wars, they SHOULD look similar, but being separated by THREE THOUSAND YEARS they shouldn't look as similar as they do.

Especialy considering THESE designs were only 300 years earlier

Darthviper, as someone who works in the game industry as an artist, I'm baffeled that you don't understand this




Now what I'm saying is, those design similarities were intentional decisions, likely made at the direction of lucasfilm, in an attpemt to link with their popular Clone Wars Film, and Tv series which was released a full 2 years befre the game came out.
I'm saying this, becuase from a buisness and marketing perspective it makes good sense.


Do you get what I'm saying now?

 

[Kibishii]

My wife and I played end-game Everquest for seven years or so before having kids...every 'new' mmorpg seems easy and lacking content. EQ was very difficult and required serious teamwork to progress . We tried WoW and thought it was a great contender and far more assessible to recreational players, but just couldn't find the time to play. One of my buddies has been trying to get me to try this but I think I am going to pass.

 

[darthviper107]

I highly doubt that they were trying to link the two, since simply having characters that look like clones isn't a way of targeting people in that manner (hey if you like the clone wars, check out this!) and since they did nothing else to try and link the two or cross-promote them.

Of course they do look like clones, but the tech and stuff like that isn't terribly different from the KOTOR game, which was itself criticized about how little of a difference there was from that since it was 4,000 years before the movies.

 

[OSCORP]

Having some fun again started back up.

 

[lerath666]

waiting to see what E3 has to say about this.....

 

[OSCORP]

Double XP weekend having fun.

 

[Malgus]

It doesn't make sense unless your only goal is money.

If you're going to build a Star Wars MMORPG, you need to have more than just the human look-alike races.

Waiting for my Nautolan, Kel dor, Iktotchi, Togruta, Kaleesh, Wookie, Mon Cal, Aqualish, Bith, Bothan, Cerean, Chagrian, Devaronian, Neimoidian, Gamorrean, Gungan, Ithorian, Quarren, Rodian, Sullustan, Talz, Trandoshan, Utapaun, Weequay, etc.

This game can best be described as "Wasted Opportunity".

I think they are sitting on a gold mine with races like Wookie, Trandoshan etc. If they ever decide to stop taking the easy route and introduce these races in a real expansion you can buy in a box they will make a lot of money. It seems like the game has stabilized as for as players go. The servers always seems to have a nice amount of players no matter what time I log in.

I loved and played SWG for 3 and a 1/2 years. I don't love this game like I did SWG but its the closest I can expect to get.

 

[lerath666]

I think they are sitting on a gold mine with races like Wookie, Trandoshan etc. If they ever decide to stop taking the easy route and introduce these races in a real expansion you can buy in a box they will make a lot of money. It seems like the game has stabilized as for as players go. The servers always seems to have a nice amount of players no matter what time I log in.

I loved and played SWG for 3 and a 1/2 years. I don't love this game like I did SWG but its the closest I can expect to get.

They won't. EA is likely more or less done with inovating on this game.

You may have noticed that this game was completely absent from E3 this year? with a "HUGE" MMO like this, and not to get mentioned during the E3 EA games presentation? that tells me EA no longer really cares about it.

Yes, we might see another expansion or two, but for all intents and purposes, the game is dead.

 

[Malgus]

They won't. EA is likely more or less done with inovating on this game.

You may have noticed that this game was completely absent from E3 this year? with a "HUGE" MMO like this, and not to get mentioned during the E3 EA games presentation? that tells me EA no longer really cares about it.

Yes, we might see another expansion or two, but for all intents and purposes, the game is dead.

I read that they are making money on this game wih the combination of F2P and subscription model. As long as they are making a profit there is hope.

 

[lerath666]

I read that they are making money on this game wih the combination of F2P and subscription model. As long as they are making a profit there is hope.

They are. After firing most of the dev team, having the lead people quit, and then slashing the development budget, just like they did with Warhammer online, yes the game suddenly became majorly profitable.

The game has somewhere in the neighborhood of 350,000 to 400,000 subscribers. In mmo terms... That's not a lot.

Make no mistake, TOR is dying. Its on f2p life support, given that they have made the free to play version almost unplayable, without sinking in 20-30$ into the cartel store to unlock features that should have been included in the FTP version.

Specifically the way they massively hinder your exp gains, your number of flashpoints you can do in a week, and the idiotic thing with the hot bars.

TOR is dying, slowly, but it's dying without a massive overhaul. It has, in my opinion, 1-3 years left unless they devote some real time and money into improving it.

Which, given its EA, the kings of short term gains, I don't see happening.

 

[ExMem-LarjaThwei]

Though this game was a total failure in many aspects, one thing I continue to miss from it is the graphics. The environments sucked because you felt boxed in and had no where to explore, but the designs and graphics themselves were very eye-catching IMO.

The Fleet for example. What a beautiful design. Especially when you look out the window into the depths of space and see all the stars and planets.
Also the Dune Sea and rock structures on Tattooine.

It looked realistic, it looked up-to-date, it didn't look cartoony at all (unlike WoW). Also, I remember the lighting being very accurate and casting shadows.

I just wish they'd throw this MMO in the garbage and someone would start over and make it right. There's so much potential and it's sad to see it wasted like this.

 

[lerath666]

Though this game was a total failure in many aspects, one thing I continue to miss from it is the graphics. The environments sucked because you felt boxed in and had no where to explore, but the designs and graphics themselves were very eye-catching IMO.

The Fleet for example. What a beautiful design. Especially when you look out the window into the depths of space and see all the stars and planets.
Also the Dune Sea and rock structures on Tattooine.

It looked realistic, it looked up-to-date, it didn't look cartoony at all (unlike WoW). Also, I remember the lighting being very accurate and casting shadows.

I just wish they'd throw this MMO in the garbage and someone would start over and make it right. There's so much potential and it's sad to see it wasted like this.

 

[Drakul]

They are. After firing most of the dev team, having the lead people quit, and then slashing the development budget, just like they did with Warhammer online, yes the game suddenly became majorly profitable.

The game has somewhere in the neighborhood of 350,000 to 400,000 subscribers. In mmo terms... That's not a lot.

Make no mistake, TOR is dying. Its on f2p life support, given that they have made the free to play version almost unplayable, without sinking in 20-30$ into the cartel store to unlock features that should have been included in the FTP version.

Specifically the way they massively hinder your exp gains, your number of flashpoints you can do in a week, and the idiotic thing with the hot bars.

TOR is dying, slowly, but it's dying without a massive overhaul. It has, in my opinion, 1-3 years left unless they devote some real time and money into improving it.

Which, given its EA, the kings of short term gains, I don't see happening.

THIS!! I wanted to get back into when it went F2P to finish my Agent story but getting back into a lvl 34 character with tons of skills and 1 bar is just retarded so I gave up.

 

[Frosting]

Semi-necro.

The game was such a letdown compared to the original KotOR, but then again so was KotOR II, and pretty much everything from Bioware since KotOR.

It's pointless to wish for it, but if only Sideshow would do some PFs of the original characters like Revan, Malak, Bastila...

 

[darthviper107]

But hey, at least space combat is actually coming soon.

 

[ExMem-LarjaThwei]

So does this game still suck?

 

[Vader AL]

Just make us a damn kotor action rpg for PC and next gen (now current gen) and we'll buy it in herds.

 

[darthviper107]

So does this game still suck?

The game isn't bad unless you aren't on subscription.