The Daily Grind: Have the post-NDA testimonials changed your mind about SWTOR?

@yibei I followed the link. Saw Kanye West in a red jacket. So No, I still don't want Kanye West, but I do want SWTOR. Thanks for asking tho.

@Critical Mass I felt the same way, but I have to say that they have a neat way of duplicating healing and spells in a mechanical or force power way.

For example, certain classes can summon a medical droid for their heals. Some can use guns to heal (darts, healing beams, etc.). If you are into fire or ice, they have certain guns that have those effects. Also, the force users have a lot of magic based skills. Star Wars is a mix of medieval, Sci-Fi, and classic gun-slinging all in one.

@Critical Mass

How is SWTOR not a fantasy game? There are knights, sorcerers, faster-than-light travel... just because the technology's more advanced, doesn't mean it's not fantasy.

@Spacegrass

You would be well adviced to read every comment I made elsewhere in thish comment field, but I would also like say that I think it is helpful in viewing most things SWTOR as kitch. Things (stuff in game and the game features) hardly being elements suitable for some engrossing fantasy, beside the game having an obvious arcade style, like any other game that I know of (hitpointsbar etc).

@Critical Mass (myself)

Oops, I believe the correct spelling is "kitsch" and not kitch as I wrote above.

@Grumms

Anxious good or anxious bad?

@(Unverified) I mean that in a good way. :D

@(Unverified) How can someone have bad anxiety over the release of a video game? Like the release will harm a person in some way? Really?

@Bloodlet

I know game Devs that would have such "bad" anxieties, wondering if their game will be a success. Woo-hoo!

;)

@Lombardus
*it'd not I'd. :p

Though I AM somewhat average. :p

@Lombardus yeah, I'm the same way... it looks like a good game and all, if I am in the market for a new mmo I may give it a shot, but it's not going to pull me out of my current game.

@fallwind I agree with you. The only reason I am getting SWTOR is because there isn't anything else that I play at the moment. I didn't play in beta but overall feeling I am getting is that it's an average game and over-hyped. My opinion might change once I play and I might get hooked for a couple of years. Who knows :)

@Critical Mass I think the words you're looking for is role playing game not 'fantasy'. And even that's debatable.

@Cendres

fan·ta·sy
Noun:The faculty or activity of imagining things that are impossible or improbable.

@Cendres

I can assure you, I am not "looking for" the words "role playing game" at all. Why would I want do that when I in fact are making a point about the notion of non-arcade games being based on fantasy (as such, not themes), a notion which would be more reasonable and preferable than the notion of "roleplaying" (about computer games), unless one is ignorant to the fact that the aspect of make-believe in a computer game is first and foremost related to what people in general trivially (and unfortunately) would want to call a "fantasy" game and not realizing that this make-believe is really some imaginary task by actually performing some kind of "role playing" outside the options offered by the game mechancs.

No fantasy, no roleplaying.

One can probably play a generic arcade game and think oneself to be "role playing", insofar as one pretends the game pieces have some desirable meaning, but, as for the concern with regard to game mechanics not simply relying on trifle and unwarranted sentiments to what one think of a game, then one ought to realize ones appreciation of how compelling a game actually is for you being the very experience when playing, and not having to rely on self referential justifications to retroactively explain what you think you are doing. Be the space ship, insofar as it makes sense doing so. :)

I suspect ones notion of what is to be understood as "a role playing game" is probably as incoherent as for when any bland game is to be called a fantasy game because of the visuals alone.

An important point here being, that insofar as one discusses game design, it does not make good sense to label games as role playing games, unless the game itself is designed that way (disregarding anything to do with "themes").

Thus one can sensibly ask the question: How is this game designed to be what one would understand to be a role playing game? Two wildly different situations seem to be worth considering for when answering such a question. To being either passively engaged in "make believe", or become involved in consequential gameplay that rely on the gamer giving a damn, offering coherent gameplay that works in a symbiosis of the gamer using the options offered to him, leaving meta gaming to result in whatever it might become for any game.

Or what I would prefer asking, as I personally would crave deep (complex), engaging and convincingly immersive games; How could a game be designed to be what one would understand to be a fantasy game?

The particular problem of deciding what is and is not to be understood as a "fantasy game" on a computer, should not be a trivial one, leaving such labels and the one "role playing game" to be more problematic, for games that obviously depend on some kind of alternate reality.

With the label "theme park" (scripted events with limited interaction) in gaming, it seem sensible to start taking the meaning of this derogatory label seriously and ask how better games ought to work, when probably realizing that known games just do not seem to successfully achieving this sense of alternate reality.