Most Commented Articles
154 comments in the past 7 days
35 comments in the past 7 days
31 comments in the past 7 days
30 comments in the past 7 days
17 comments in the past 7 days
 
Tag Cloud
 
Editorial
10/5/09 10:55 AM -
Constructive Criticism 2.0 
by Zoidberg
, posted October 5th, 2009 at 10:55 AM
It has been a while since we have had a constructive criticism post going, so it is time to have one again. Like the previous one, this is where you state your concerns as well as a way to help fix them. This can be directed towards Bioware, or darthhater.com. As long as what you say is a genuine concern and why it is it is fair game. Just remember comments like "Topic X is stupid," won't cut it, go with "Topic X could be improved by adding Y." Remember to be nice and if talking about the game try to go with confirmed facts. (The micro transaction thing is one of those topics that has been talked to death with little confirmation on any level) If you have no complaints just ask a question and I will try to answer it.
 

I'll start this off with one of my own:

I am concerned that the voices of our characters will sound too similar. To help prevent this perhaps they could go with a system similar to the Sims 3, where you have 2 or 3 main voices and then the ability to adjust the pitch of the voice to make it more unique to your character. You may still run into a bounty hunter with voice #1, pitch 10, but at least all the male bounty hunters wouldn't have the exact same voice. I also still don't care for the Gumby cutouts from the last one.
 
This article's tags:

Related Articles
39 Comments
Comment by Force Feedback Friday  made on October 9th, 2009 at 9:24am
[...] Constructive Criticism 2.0 Zoidberg [...]
 
Comment by Matthew Lindsey made on October 7th, 2009 at 12:17pm
My thought is more with what i've heard in the community about multiple characters. Most people talk about playing many if not all of the classes (which i would like to do). But in most mmo's alts are easy to come by because there is little story. If SWTOR is really becoming the story driven game bio ware is saying it will be, how easy will it really be to keep the story straight on 4 different characters? thats like reading 4 different books at once. Though it is doable it is not easy. In wow i'd come back to an alt and have to remember how to play them over again. IN SWTOR you would have the added relearning curve to the story (OK why am i on Ord Mantel again?) I guess with this game i will need my own note book to write down key elements to my story so i can study before i log on.
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 7th, 2009 at 1:19pm
While the story may get confusing if you do them simultaneous, it could prove to me motivation to level up alts. In other games once you run through the game a few times it gets too tedious to continue to do it. If each alt has a separate story, it will allow you to feel like your playing new games each time, rather than the same game with a slightly different ability set.

To help you out they may let you keep a journal that recaps the story that you have completed so far, kind of like the start of the Clone Wars TV show.
 
Comment by Matthew Lindsey made on October 7th, 2009 at 2:41pm
True, i see how it could make me want to do maore alts. Perhaps it would just change how much time is pyut into each alt. Working each one up for a long time and seeing how the stories crassed would be amazing. But the fun of jumping on my jedi cause one group needs a tank and then going back to my smuggler would be much more difficult. I can see having much more invested in you characters (a very good thing) making me a lot less likely to delete unused characters as well.
 
Comment by Zihn made on October 6th, 2009 at 9:49am
My biggest concern is how the importance of the story experience might be affected by the gear/item system. I know it's too early to tell, but from what I've seen/read/heard it seems like TOR is going to be a gear-driven game. They've said gear is important, and that's fine, but I don't want the point of the "epic story driven adventure" to be based on the quest reward. When I think back on this or that instance I want my first thought to be about how cool or fun it was, and how it affected and progressed my character, not on which chest piece or saber crystal I got for finishing it. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to reaching the end of the storyline and having completed my gear set, I just don't want that to become more important than the end of the story solidifying my character's place in the galaxy. Every MMO gamer has been chasing loot for too many years. I want to experience a reward that's more satisfying, even if it's less tangible.
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 6th, 2009 at 10:45am
So you would like an epic questline that rewards you in the end with epic force power #7 instead of lightsaber of cutting #3? If that is the case I approve, because it is mixing things up, and power #7 is a reward that will stick with you and impact you for the remainder of the game, rather than for the next 5 1/2 levels.
 
Comment by Zihn made on October 6th, 2009 at 11:48am
Yea, that would definitely work. I also wouldn't mind things like medals and badges and what-not. Things that become part of my character's history and help cement the the ties to the story. I guess an example would be if the starting quest line for a Jedi were to grant upon completion your first crafted saber, refined force push ability and the removal of your padawan braid and/or participating in your knighting ceremony. For troopers it could give your first selectable weapon upgrade, improved toughness and that colored shoulder piece when initiated into Havoc Squad.
So, you'd get an item, something to improve your character's and something tying your character to the story. Just so long as the focus isn't on one while the others are mere afterthoughts (which is usually the case in gear driven games: the loot is paramount).
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 6th, 2009 at 12:01pm
I understand what you mean. One of the things I loved about World of Warcraft was the class quests I got on my Warlock every 10 levels. The feeling of doing a quest for something other than you average reward is always more rewarding it seems. Money and gear is always nice, but mixing things up keeps the game exciting.
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 7th, 2009 at 11:41am
I actually sort of despised that, but I played a druid, and all their quests could be boiled down as followed: "Before you can do ___, you have to appreciate what it means to not be able to do ____." They say that like 5 quests in a row. Want to cure poison? Gather these plants and rub them on deer. Want waterform? swim to two different, remote locations and get the two Pearls of Wow, Waterform Would Be Really Convenient At The Moment. The lock quests were bad too if you were an ally because they used the same quest end NPC as the Horde did, which was located in the Barrens. If this was your first character, you had no idea how you could possibly get to the Barrens.
 
Comment by indu.san made on October 6th, 2009 at 8:24pm
absolutely agree. the lack of progressive class quests bothered me in WoW. I lvld hoping to see another class questline pop up that added some interesting new mechanic or ability. (I usually play a game once before consulting outside sources which could have hastened my disappointment) Though I did level faster, ha.
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 6th, 2009 at 3:55pm
The more I think about this game from the perspective of KOTOR, the less I worry about these things. Was KOTOR gear-driven? Meh, not really.
 
Comment by Dave made on October 6th, 2009 at 9:13am
Am concerned about a few things:

1. End Game or lack there of - I do not want to have to re-roll at all.

2. A weird one: Character Customisation being too detailed. It does my head in. It took me three days to get my face in Oblivion just right. Wow style customisation suits me fine.

3. Sith not being evil.

4. Being released too early/not ready.
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 6th, 2009 at 10:38am
The one that got my attention is the comment about customization. I could think of a couple ways to fix that. Perhaps they could have some premade faces, so if you want to go with a quick pick you just go with what looks best. From there, if you want to continue customization you can change the parts that look a tad bit off.

Besides, how often did you see your face in Oblivion?
 
Comment by Panzzer made on October 6th, 2009 at 12:21pm
very good point about the default faces. I personally dont care too much about my facial expression so long as I dont look cool :D. But if push comes to shove I would'nt mind having my own personal face which I could possibly make to look like my own. Anyway usually I keep helm on so I would never see it unless the helmet I had at the time looked bad.
 
Comment by Indu made on October 5th, 2009 at 10:41pm
I'm concerned with the concept of a completely voiced game. It has the ability to push you away as much as pull you in. It depends entirely on the quality.

Also it seems to place a heavy requirement on time spent listening to all of this voice, as well as the physical memory for all of the audio.
Will there be a text only, instant text mode? I love immersion but I also love my time. I think that single player games with voice are a different scenario primarily because you can play at your own pace. MMOs require you to work within not only your own but other's time frames so time becomes more precious and more difficult to manage.
How much hard drive space will the game require for the audio alone? I know that there are new systems with Terabyte hard drives but anyone using an older system will have a small fraction of that. (Though I am planning to buy a new system, I don't think it should be a necessity, and obviously there are probably more likely candidates than hard drive size that would push people to upgrade).

cherrio.

Edit: Terra byte (earth bit, ha).
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 6th, 2009 at 10:41am
My guess is around 20gigs, but that is just from basing the stats off of Dragon Age. We will have to just wait for them to give us some real numbers. If you have too small of a hard drive perhaps you could go with an external hard drive to hold you over if you cant get a new system. It would likely run better on an internal hard drive, but it beats not playing the game.

By the way, after a Terra byte perhaps they will make a Sol byte.
 
Comment by Jaswar made on October 5th, 2009 at 6:58pm
The only concern I have for the game is how tight the environments and or planets will be. If the game is a mainly instanced (AOC FAILCOM) where at every turn you have to zone to a new area...then it will be difficult for me to stay. Lord of the Rings online IMO did a fantastic job at a great mix of huge open explorable areas combined with instances scattered throughout Middle Earth.

In LOTRO if you saw a mountain way off in the distance ...you can go to it....you can go around it, up it or through it...there wasnt any area in the game that flowed seamlessly into one zone or another.... AOC on the other hand..failed BIGTIME ...I remember seeing a bridge down this road and i said cool...lets go across that bridge and head off over that mountain range that looks great.....only to be blocked by guards right next to a zoning NPC taxi caravan... That killed it for me.
 
Comment by Stomis made on October 6th, 2009 at 12:17am
Yeah lets not forget the originals that did open world like EQ, Anarchy Online, and SWG. I'm going to be seriously worried if the zones are setup like KOTOR with specific paths to go down.
 
Comment by Jaswar made on October 6th, 2009 at 12:57am
Could'nt agree more....Yes Kotor I enjoyed alot..except for the specific paths everywhere...that claustrophobic issue is a huge factor for me....
 
Comment by snafu made on October 6th, 2009 at 1:46am
Yep, it can be especially tedious indoors. I hate wandering through mazes of hallways with tiny rooms off to the side every 4 steps. Hopefully ToR manages to go with more open environments that still seem realistic within the universe.
 
Comment by DinesenDK made on October 5th, 2009 at 4:02pm
I'm just worried that they won't bring anything new to the Deathpenalty vs reward system. I fear it will be another pvp faction grind without any wuaw experience from killing opponents like you get in a game like Eve-Online. And you will just loose xp or need to run your blueglowie from A to B so you can resurrect and continue your story. Why die at all then?
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 5th, 2009 at 4:46pm
Death penalty is always a tough thing to work out. From what we have seen so far, the best guess is you wake up in a bacta tank when you die as seen in the trooper walkthrough. (Unless your a dev and have debug mode) We don't know if there will be any other penalties to the death such as xp loss/debt or any other loss past needing to run back to where you were.

This is one of the hardest things Bioware will have to balance, because if it is too steep people will lose interest and quit the game. While a steep penalty will scare off players, a low penalty will encourage players to die for a shortcut back to town/wherever the rez zone is. Bioware needs to get at just the right spot to keep people from wanting to avoid death, while keeping them in the game.

The method I prefer is the xp debt from CoH/CoV as you do not lose xp on death, but it is paid off as you gain further xp. While it works as you are leveling, a different system would have to be put in place for endgame content. Perhaps a system that reduces stats slightly for each death within 30min or so would work for pve, while pve would have other penalties, such as a rez timer.

While it is nice to think about all the possibilities of death, we cant really go further without much confirmation from Bioware.
 
Comment by DinesenDK made on October 5th, 2009 at 5:23pm
I agree it is a though one to work out, and thinking of the bacta-tank I can't keep thinking of it might work like cloning from the "famous" SWG (Debug mode or not).. ;)

I fully understand it will be incredible hard to balance out which you very well shows with your two examples. And yes that is a part of my worry as well.

I'll be honest and tell you that I do like the Eve-model. Do I play the game? - No, but for other reasons.

My hope is that the system will give the players some feeling of punishment, but more in a exciting and thrilling way like Eve does. I doubt that people dislike the Eve system becourse this system, more then they dislike time spent farming missions to get ISK so you can buy new stuff like the stuff you lost. If you can lower the effort and time spent to get back on track I'm pretty sure more wouldn't mind the looting your kills or loosing your stuff as part of the war - Or at least that is what I like to think. :)
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 5th, 2009 at 6:39pm
I don't mind the Eve penalty that much either. I don't play it for other reasons as well, but it reminds me of the PotBS penalty as well. If you died, you pretty much had to rebuild. (resteal if pirate) Both had the potential to get me hooked, but a combination of factors has lead me here.

I have a feeling the penalty (if there is any other than the inconvenience of the run back) will be similar to the World of Warcraft model where there is a durability loss and a debuff if you take an alternative rez option.
 
Comment by DinesenDK made on October 6th, 2009 at 2:41pm
Come on? why is it the best? To me it is mindnumbing (No risk at all, what's the fun in that? - Everybody has gold enough for repairs so what's the penalty exactly?) and just an annoyance, a poor timesink with a fun value equal to zero.
 
Comment by Jendy made on October 6th, 2009 at 9:27am
Come one i think wow model is one of the best and i really woundnt mind if bioware will 'borrow' that thing. Tor will be different from wow in many other ways
 
Comment by DinesenDK made on October 6th, 2009 at 6:14am
Yeah I got the same feeling - That's what I'm worried about.
 
Comment by Panzzer made on October 5th, 2009 at 12:59pm
This was said in Mos Eisley radio but I agree that in the walkthrough flashpoint, the characters emotions and reactions seemed kind of cheesy. "Oh no! The Captains dead!". Also, the sih warriors hand gestures when he told the Captain to be loyal, he cut his throught which was kinda corny too.

But still it was a great walkthrough, i just hope that they have some cool and epic vocabulary and emotions in other flashpoints
 
Comment by Rafael Steinhoff made on October 5th, 2009 at 12:41pm
I am worried about the character customization. From the face to the lightsaber hilt.

I want to have a detailed character customization like "Champions Online".

About the hilt, I want to mold it the way I want and have the choice of stances when wielding it, and where to keep it when in holster.

Of course, if none of these happen, I´m still playing it 'till my bones start to shred.
 
Comment by Stomis made on October 6th, 2009 at 12:19am
Lol I'm worried there wont be holstered weapons, lets start with that. It'll be like SWG where you run around with it in your hands or CoH/Champions where it comes out of thing air when you attack...
 
Comment by Rafael Steinhoff made on October 6th, 2009 at 9:39am
LOL that´s even more worrying
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 5th, 2009 at 11:14am
I can't remember which article I read that said basically that all the characters looked like cartoon Abercrombie and Fitch models. That made me laugh, and that's sort of all I think now.
 
Comment by snafu made on October 5th, 2009 at 12:33pm
To be fair to bioware, when they released the gameplay demo and other media, they only implemented one facial model for their male playable characters. For release, they have stated there will be a character creator with plenty of features to make your character look unique.

If your comment is directed towards clothing and not the faces/hairstyles...well then lewl.
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 5th, 2009 at 1:56pm
When it comes to the customization of characters I hope they use every feature that Hero Engine allows them to have. If they do it will let us have characters that will look unique as long as we spend more than 50 seconds on creation.
 
Comment by Jendy made on October 6th, 2009 at 9:34am
Btw what engine aion uses, coz options of char customization are simply enormous there
 
Comment by Jendy made on October 6th, 2009 at 1:11pm
The graphic and flying are cool also, but yea it is still 'eastern' sort of game :(
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 6th, 2009 at 11:32am
Too bad that seems to be the only sort of depth that game possesses.
 
Comment by TaboriHK made on October 5th, 2009 at 5:12pm
All I ask is that I can make a hot chick. That's all I ask of any game with a character creator.
 
DH Team
Comment by Zoidberg made on October 5th, 2009 at 11:30am
No, the characters wear too much clothing for that theory to work out.