I know this has been discussed ad-nausm leading up to the game, but now that I've sat down with it for a few weeks... I think it should have. There are some amazing things about this game. The story, VA, that stuff is top noch. Whenever anyone wants to attack the game, these are the bulwarks you can use to defend it. And they are great. But... all that stuff are things that would have been in a KotoR 3. And arguably, better there.

I'm not going to spend this post pointing out ToR's flaws. There are plenty of people on the internet who argue back and forth over that stuff. I just wonder if anyone else things this game would be more FUN to play if it was a single player sequel to Kotor.

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

It needed to be an MMO because that was the only way Bioware was likely to take another crack at Star Wars. It's kinda shitty, sure, but hey, they made a great MMORPG, in classic Bioware fashion.

I'm satisfied.

That would have been amazing. Unfortunately EA wants to steal other companies costumers when they should put that focus into what is best for the game. (Battlefield 3 takes MW3 costumers, TOR takes WoWs costumers, or at least that's what EA hopes for)

@President_Barackbar said:

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

How unlike a company to wish to make more money.

@KingWilly said:

It needed to be an MMO because that was the only way Bioware was likely to take another crack at Star Wars. It's kinda shitty, sure, but hey, they made a great MMORPG, in classic Bioware fashion.

I'm satisfied.

I wish they had.

Instead, they took a great Bioware RPG, and wrapped it in what is a pretty decidedly average MMO.

It looks alright, but not amazing. The combat is passable, but it's not as fun as others I could name.. There are a few story fueled instances (Which are amazing, BTW) but also a bunch of "Kill everything in here, loot the boss, go home" ones. The planets are big, but lifelesss, you can't even click on most NPCs, and you have to run forever. I like the crafting system, but for all their talk, you STILL level it up sitting in the capital, because you can't get new recepies except there.

It's just so... average, when you take away the story and cutscenes and dialogue wheel. Basically, the stuff that started in Kotor and was perfected in Mass effect.

@DarthOrange dude its customer not customer.

Also whatever @ thread it is what it is. At least the bulk of getting the game out the door is done and hopefully frees up some resources to concentrate on making other projects better.

@Vodun said:

@President_Barackbar said:

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

How unlike a company to wish to make more money.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a shitty decision.

@SamDrugbringer said:

@KingWilly said:

It needed to be an MMO because that was the only way Bioware was likely to take another crack at Star Wars. It's kinda shitty, sure, but hey, they made a great MMORPG, in classic Bioware fashion.

I'm satisfied.

I wish they had.

Instead, they took a great Bioware RPG, and wrapped it in what is a pretty decidedly average MMO.

It looks alright, but not amazing. The combat is passable, but it's not as fun as others I could name.. There are a few story fueled instances (Which are amazing, BTW) but also a bunch of "Kill everything in here, loot the boss, go home" ones. The planets are big, but lifelesss, you can't even click on most NPCs, and you have to run forever. I like the crafting system, but for all their talk, you STILL level it up sitting in the capital, because you can't get new recepies except there.

It's just so... average, when you take away the story and cutscenes and dialogue wheel. Basically, the stuff that started in Kotor and was perfected in Mass effect.

I recently replayed KOTOR, dude, trust me, TOR plays a hell of a lot like it. It's a lot less party-focused definitely, and the MMO trappings are pretty much standard, but that's not what I'm playing TOR for. I'm not sure that's what most people playing it are looking for, honestly. That said, Old Republic has the Bioware pizazz where it counts. Namely in the story, the writing, and the characters. I mean, really, tell me you do not absolutely love at least half of your companions. Those three things are what really define a Bioware game to me.

I'm not going to focus on the game's flaws. Like I said in my OP, others debate that elsewhere. Instead I'm just going to name things that Kotor had as a single player game that I wish were here.

1. Mods: The obvious one. Tor will eventually let us modify the UI, but playing Kotor I loved what the modding comunity did to the game. For obvious reasons, they can never add weapons to an MMO.

2. Flexible class system: You could play anything from a full Jedi Guardian to a consula rand everything in between. There were even options to play as a Jedi who used blasters! Even in Kotor 2 there was a lot of opportunities for mixing and matching classes. In tor, you pick an AC and stick to it. My abilities are based purely on what class I roll. Necessary for an MMO, not nearly as fun for single player.

3. An ending. Like all MMOs, the story must go on. ToR has no ending. There are some impressive things in the class quests, but none of them are a true ending, because you load back up and get to fight someone next month when they add it in a patch.

I would, without a seconds doubt, have preferred KoToR 3. The first one is one of my favorite games ever, a game I've sunk over 600 hours into.

A million fuckin times YES. That's million yes.

Bioware makes ONE type of story. The Imperial Agent quest is basically Mass Effect. However, I love it every time, and would gladly pay 60 bucks for it. I will not gladly pay an extra 15 dollars a month to play that same story peppered with a whole bunch of side shit whose only purpose is to act as a time sink.

In a time when people are constantly bitching about not having time to play games, this shit makes absolutely no sense to me.

I also think, after two years of playing WoW like a maniac, that MMOs are the fuckin plague.

@AyKay_47: That's another thing. A LOT of the class quests are really good. My friend swears by the Shadow and Agent ones, while I've loved the inquisitor, Knight, and trooper.

But the class stories are just 10% of the story. The rest is the same no matter what class, depending on your faction. In order to see every "Story" in this game, you'd need to play it EIGHT times, and most of the time you'd be replaying the same content over and over just for a little extra new stuff.

In a world where people complain you need to beat games twice to see the good and bad endings, requiring you to beat it 8 times is just madness.

I'm still waiting for KOTOR 3. They need to either wrap up those two stoyrlines or start a new one.

Im just putting it out their but does anyone think it would have been cool to make a more real time single player Kotor game which had deep gameplay mechanics for long range and melee classes such as having a cover mechanic for those that use blasters and a deep lightsaber duel/blaster deflect mechanic for jedi's?

Of course it should've been KOTOR 3.

Did the first two sell poorly, or is this just a matter of EA being EA?

@Sticky_Pennies: The KOTOR MMO rumours were swirling long before EA had anything to do with BioWare. BioWare wanted to make games based on thier own properties. Hence why KOTOR 2 was shifted off to Obsidian while BW worked on Jade Empire. This really was going to be the only way BW was going to work on a Star Wars game again.

While I would have loved KOTOR 3, I will look on the bright side and say at least with this we get 8 awesome stories instead of just one.

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

Of course it should've been KOTOR 3.

Did the first two sell poorly, or is this just a matter of EA being EA?

While I definitely would have enjoyed a KOTOR3, I am 100% OK with the path that Bioware took. TOR has everything I really want out of KOTOR, adds better gameplay system, and I get to play with my friends.

Also, your complaints about each class having a customized storyline almost sounds like you're complaining about too much content. I'm not sure if it changes at the end-game, but during my journey to level 40 about 25% of the content I've seen has been specific to my class (including companions). Maybe I'm unique, but I played through Mass Effect 2 six times because I wanted to experience different plot choices and combat styles.

Now you're telling me I can do that eight times with TOR and, unlike previous Bioware games, 25% of the content I'm going to see is going to be completely new to me and, the first time I flip factions, it's going to be a completely different experience? Not to mention the fact that all the previous work I've done on my characters will trickle down to my new characters in the forms of crafted goods, credit loans, and whatever the fuck your legacy is going to do when it's fully implemented. All this does is make me wish I was still in college so I could sit around in my dorm all day and play without any responsibilities.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure KOTOR3 would have been excellent as well, but the staggering amount of content generated for TOR simply could not be done outside of an MMO. If it was KOTOR3, I probably would have enjoyed two or three 30 hour playthroughs of 99% the exact same content. Instead I'm going to get to experience eight 100+ hour playthroughs of ~60% the same content and I get to do it with my friends.

TOR may not have been what I was asking for, but as it turns out it's exactly what I wanted.

Now that you mention it, I think if you finished your class story, do all the faction quests, all the heroics, all the flashpoints and operations... You've seen about 40% of the game.

@StarvingGamer: As someone who has played several MMOs (including WoW) in the crazy 'I have no job or school and can play this game from 7 am to 12 PM' I cannot imagine leveling 8 differnt characters, so I doubt I'll see the story for each.

@SamDrugbringer: I raided EQ hardcore for years, did a lot of stuff in AO, CoH, and DAoC, and consumed everything WoW like a motherfucker before finally burning out HARD on the genre. I've hated every MMO I've tried since 2007 and was totally prepared to write TOR off as well. It's unfathomable how deep this game has gotten its hooks in me. It's gotten to the point where I don't want D3, ME3, FFXIII-2, and SW:HotS to come out because I don't want to have to choose between them and TOR.

It's like they finally made an MMO just for me.

@StarvingGamer: That's where I was about a week ago, before I started turning. Maybe you'll keep feeling that way.

After the first few days playing SWTOR I was really impressed by the quality of the storytelling, but the more I play of it the more I can see that the story suffers quite a lot from having been crammed into a MMO, with all the limitations that that entails.

I honestly can't say that there is really any element of the story that is actually made better because SWTOR is a MMO, and this is coming from someone that overall thinks SWTOR is a pretty decent game.

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This exactly. Go try to play KotOR now. The combat is terrible.

@SamDrugbringer: I think I will. I was worried about repeating non-class/companion quests but I've already leveled an alt to 23 and it hasn't fazed me. If I could get through ME2 six times on only the sliver of a promise of something new to see, I'm pretty sure that each completely unique core story, plus interactions with friends, will keep me going for TOR eight times through.

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This exactly. Go try to play KotOR now. The combat is terrible.

Comparing the game to such and old one is unfair. I'm not saying Kotor is more fun to play then ToR, but if they had made Kotor 3 today it would not be with that engine again.

Like DA:O was a new take on the Balder's gate formula (Let's not speak of 2) If they had tried I bet they could have done something similar to the Kotor combat formula.

@SamDrugbringer said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This exactly. Go try to play KotOR now. The combat is terrible.

Comparing the game to such and old one is unfair. I'm not saying Kotor is more fun to play then ToR, but if they had made Kotor 3 today it would not be with that engine again.

Like DA:O was a new take on the Balder's gate formula (Let's not speak of 2) If they had tried I bet they could have done something similar to the Kotor combat formula.

I see what you're saying but I really don't think that's relevent.

From what I played (and loved, for the record) of DA:O the combat was a giant pull for me because it felt like Neverwinter Nights. It didn't feel "new and updated," it felt familiar and refined. It was a good system that I enjoyed using then and I liked that they had the guts to implement it in a newer game.

As for KotOR, I never finished it when I played it. I gave up on Tatooine because I despised the combat. I found it boring, dull, repetitive and not fun in any way. I know people like it and claim it to be the best Star Wars game out there, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. I've picked it up on PC (thanks to the Steam sale) and I do plan on finishing it at least once, but I know that the combat isn't going to be something I'll enjoy about it.

Also: Why not compare it to today's standards? Things are getting better. People let their nostalgia cloud their memories way too much these days. Things weren't always better. A lot of the changes we have today have been for the better, and tend to be the ones we forget about.

@SamDrugbringer said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This exactly. Go try to play KotOR now. The combat is terrible.

Comparing the game to such and old one is unfair. I'm not saying Kotor is more fun to play then ToR, but if they had made Kotor 3 today it would not be with that engine again.

Like DA:O was a new take on the Balder's gate formula (Let's not speak of 2) If they had tried I bet they could have done something similar to the Kotor combat formula.

All I'm saying is that plenty of RPGs from that era hold up in combat, but KotOR's is noticeably terrible (and wasn't great at the time). The "click on these skills repeatedly until target is dead" mechanic from KotOR is basically what we know as MMOs now.

This guy is an undercover agent from Square attempting to plant in our minds that it is cool to place MMOs in the main series rather than making them spin-offs. DON'T LISTEN!

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This exactly. Go try to play KotOR now. The combat is terrible.

So glad to finally see someone say this.

@AyKay_47 said:

A million fuckin times YES. That's million yes.

:o

TOR should have definitely had been their next KOTOR. Everything about the game seems just right for a single player experience.

They made my dream game: a modern day KOTOR experience with cooperative play. Moreover, the MMO parts of it are pretty top-notch. There's very little else that I could ask for. I'm in the process of gathering a group of 3 friends together for the questing experience, and the idea of playing through a Bioware story with 3 other people sounds like the most entertaining thing in the world. I think my answer to this question is obvious. Making this game into an MMORPG forced Bioware to remove a lot of the jank from traditional Bioware experiences, remove the invisible walls, create a world large enough for thousands of players to work in... in many ways, the MMO genre has improved what KOTOR3 could have been. It also forced them to create enough content to suffice eight separate stories and two separate factions.

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

I completely agree with this. KOTOR is one of my favourite games of all time, but most aspects of the "playing" part of the game are janky as fuck. And while you could make the point that there was a technological limitation holding the game back, Bioware's more modern in-the-same-vein experience, Dragon Age: Origins, was still plagued to the teeth with traditional Bioware RPG jank. Like I said above, holding this theoretical KOTOR3 game up to modern MMORPG standards would have done nothing but improved the experience.

@President_Barackbar said:

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

The game has some of the most compelling group content that I've played in an MMORPG. Many of Bioware's design decisions to blend their traditional RPG formula with an open world multiplayer experience have done spectacular things for both their formula and the MMO genre at large. So, I'd argue that your assumptions are very incorrect.

@SamDrugbringer said:

Instead, they took a great Bioware RPG, and wrapped it in what is a pretty decidedly average MMO.

It looks alright, but not amazing. The combat is passable, but it's not as fun as others I could name.. There are a few story fueled instances (Which are amazing, BTW) but also a bunch of "Kill everything in here, loot the boss, go home" ones. The planets are big, but lifelesss, you can't even click on most NPCs, and you have to run forever. I like the crafting system, but for all their talk, you STILL level it up sitting in the capital, because you can't get new recepies except there.

It's just so... average, when you take away the story and cutscenes and dialogue wheel. Basically, the stuff that started in Kotor and was perfected in Mass effect.

Where was it "decided" that this is an average MMORPG experience? Many reviews are coming in nothing short of extremely positive. Is it a traditional hotkey MMO experience? Well, yes. But traditional and average are two entirely different descriptors. If we continue on by your logic, we'd better throw Nintendo off a cliff for not releasing a fresh experience since publishing Metroid Prime. I think the consensus is that Bioware has released the best traditional MMORPG experience since 2004, and I think that is an accomplishment beyond measure.

And to nitpick, the video interview with Daniel Erickson on the site stated that all the non-clickable NPCs are dynamic screen filler. They are not tangible people in the world, rather, they exist to populate specific areas whenever there aren't enough players around. In that respect, their "unclickability" (an incredibly boring, and meaningless criticism) is justified.

@SamDrugbringer said:

I'm not going to focus on the game's flaws. Like I said in my OP, others debate that elsewhere. Instead I'm just going to name things that Kotor had as a single player game that I wish were here.

1. Mods: The obvious one. Tor will eventually let us modify the UI, but playing Kotor I loved what the modding comunity did to the game. For obvious reasons, they can never add weapons to an MMO.

2. Flexible class system: You could play anything from a full Jedi Guardian to a consula rand everything in between. There were even options to play as a Jedi who used blasters! Even in Kotor 2 there was a lot of opportunities for mixing and matching classes. In tor, you pick an AC and stick to it. My abilities are based purely on what class I roll. Necessary for an MMO, not nearly as fun for single player.

3. An ending. Like all MMOs, the story must go on. ToR has no ending. There are some impressive things in the class quests, but none of them are a true ending, because you load back up and get to fight someone next month when they add it in a patch.

1. Mods exist to prolong the existence of a singleplayer experience via community creation. Well it's a good fucking thing that we have official content updates coming out of Bioware non-stop, rather than relying on the patchwork of conflicting design decisions of a inherently uncoordinated modding community.

2. I'd argue that there is far more gameplay variety in how you can build your character in SWTOR. If we broke down each tree/class down into a singular gameplay style, we're left with 24 unique gameplay experiences, which multiply into 48 cosmetically different classes (mirrored on each faction). I'm levelling as a medicine-specced Operative, healing Vector--my melee DPS companion. I've got an entire talent tree to customize my character with, and 24 skills in active button pushing use--not including the 10-15 cooldowns/less frequently used skills that I put on my sidebar. Compared to KOTOR's handful of skills, SWTOR's complexity and variety is astronomically more fleshed out.

3. Except, SWTOR does have an ending. Each class has three separate chapters that come to a close, separated by large jumps in the theoretical timeline. There is a point at which your class's story ends. Judging by some datamined information, it looks as though Bioware will release a chapter of class content per expansion pack--which is no small amount of story. But each of those stories is so significantly separate from the prior one that you could sell SWTOR: Imperial Agent / Agent 2 / Agent 3: More Agenting as three separate boxed releases, and I'd probably pay $20-30 for them.

I guess what I'm getting at is that you must really hate DLC and sequels. Because Bioware has clearly never released DLC or a sequel before--wait, nevermind. That's exactly what their development pipeline calls for. And most of the time, it melds in so fantastically with the experience that it's hard for me not to recommend the entire catalogue of Shepard's DLC side adventures--let alone his sequels.

@project343 said:

@President_Barackbar said:

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

The game has some of the most compelling group content that I've played in an MMORPG. Many of Bioware's design decisions to blend their traditional RPG formula with an open world multiplayer experience have done spectacular things for both their formula and the MMO genre at large. So, I'd argue that your assumptions are very incorrect.

Are they? You're literally the first person I've seen who has anything to say about group content and the like.

no

@project343 said:

@President_Barackbar said:

From everything I've seen and heard about this game, there isn't a single part of it that seems like it needed to be an MMO other than EA salivating at the chance to make way more money than a regular game.

The game has some of the most compelling group content that I've played in an MMORPG. Many of Bioware's design decisions to blend their traditional RPG formula with an open world multiplayer experience have done spectacular things for both their formula and the MMO genre at large. So, I'd argue that your assumptions are very incorrect.

Are they? You're literally the first person I've seen who has anything to say about group content and the like.

@Sticky_Pennies

Of course it should've been KOTOR 3.

Did the first two sell poorly, or is this just a matter of EA being EA?

This might surprise you, but EA doesn't own the Star Wars license.

@Sitoxity said:

Guys, take off the Rose Tinted Glasses. The combat in KotOR was dire and honestly, not that far off MMO combat in the first place.

This is really spot on. I picked up KOTOR while it on sale from Steam, having many fond memories of it when it came out. It's kind of....ass. I am able to enjoy it, but the combat is very MMOesque (auto attack, all stats, more about your timing abilities than anything else). And the character models? Good god. I don't want to play as any of the player character option I have.

@SteamPunkJin: I got about halfway through the character creation before I gave up. To be fair, half the reason was because the mouse wasn't working and I couldn't get past some of the menus...

Kotor really hates running on modern hardware.

Also if you guys would rather have a game inspired by KOTOR and made by BioWare Edmonton, there's this game called Commander Shepard or something coming out.

I thought about making a big post replying to all the responses others have had in this thread, but I don't want to defend my dislikes of the game. As I've said, others do that plenty all other places on the internet. I just wanted to say I think it might be a better single player game.

As to group content, I don't think most of the flashpoints do anything that other MMOs don't do. The exception is of course the Black Talon and Elsesses, which were amazing. I hope there are others that are as great as them later on, but the last three have been standard.

The most fun I've had in "Group" so far is pretty much the group conversations. It's fun seeing NPCs address other characters in your conversation. I prefer two person ones to solo now. That said, it's a steep price of admission.

Yes.

@President_Barackbar said:

Are they? You're literally the first person I've seen who has anything to say about group content and the like.

The reinvention of traditional dungeon runs into something that is more akin to the structure of a loyalty mission from Mass Effect 2 is, if you ask me, one of Bioware's greatest accomplishments. Interweaving narration, cutscenes, meaningful decisions, group dialogue mechanics, and player character voice acting into a tried-and-true formula is plenty entertaining. I've made--and completely support anyone who makes--the claim that SWTOR represents the first true cooperative Bioware experience, and it fucking rocks.

Beyond this, sectioning off parts of the world map to group play, and how group quests are handled are fantastic pieces of game design. I don't know if it's the narration, or the world design, but SWTOR's group quests are infinitely more compelling than World of Warcraft's. Assaulting and dismantling a factory on Hutta with a group of 4 people in a group quest chain remains to be one of my favourite moments of 2011. The series of bosses, the explosions, the ending scene... and juggling over the moral dilemmas with all the other heartless Sith on my team... I'd almost put that on-par with Portal 2's ending lunacy. And my favourite part is that I was just on the border of this "heroic area," looking for an adventure. Then I invited a few other confused individuals around me, and we just blew shit up together. This wasn't a fully-formed dungeon. This was just a partially-instanced group quest.

@project343: Then I am truly surprised noone is talking about it if it really is as great as you make it out to be.