Loopy Garou

@Oteo - Thanks for the link. It does give a little more context to the conversation. If he's really just talking about quality standards and broad design philosophy, I certainly agree with him on that subject.

But ... the growing perception that SWTOR is too WoW-derivative isn't just coming from this quote, it's mostly coming from people who have played the game at shows and such. I just wish Bioware would do something to address that concern. Seems like a lot of people are gradually losing interest in SWTOR as time goes on, and I think this is the main reason.

I don't think the OP missed the point at all. According to the version of this story over on Massively, Zeschuk was asked whether SWTOR is a WoW clone. This has become a increasing concern in the MMO blogosphere, not because Bioware simply embraces Blizzard's high quality standards and populist approach to game design, but because SWTOR's gameplay seems entirely WoW-derivative to a lot of folks who have played it. People are questioning whether Bioware's focus on story and voiceover will be enough if the gameplay itself offers little or no innovation.

That's why he was asked about it. If that's not what his answer was meant to address, he should've been more clear. As it stands, "established standards" including "how you play an MMO" could mean just about anything.

He's right, though, bard isn't on the website yet. Too bad, it's a pretty fun class.

Just for the record, my biggest concerns/criticisms would be:

For me, personally — more powersets! Might, in particular, but also Electrical, Weather Control, Earth, Hard Light. They can hold off with Hard Light, I guess, if it's sufficiently cool when they eventually add it. But they really, really needed Might at launch. I'll never understand that design decision.

For the game's success overall — more endgame content and/or deeper design with more layers of stuff to do. The kind of stuff that keeps people active and subbing month after month. Basically, what Discord said — that's the game's biggest weakness right now.

@DiscordSK - I agree with the "needs more content" concern, and I get why some folks won't sub, or will only sub for a month or two, based on how fast they can burn through it. In fact, I think the most common concerns from beta are some variation of "what's there is good, need more (raids, powersets, customization, etc.)" Contrast that with Champions beta, where it was more like "ugh, just scrap everything and start over." Or maybe that's just how I felt. :D

I hope DCUO will have more of everything down the road. What I like is that the stuff that's there now is fun! After a string of MMOs that just felt lackluster, this one feels pretty fantastic by comparison (to me, at least). It's over too fast, and I want more of everything - no argument there. But customers who like a lot of what you've done and want more is not the worst problem for a developer to have.

@DiscordSK - Everyone's mileage varies, but personally this is the best MMO I've beta'd in recent memory. It's certainly not perfect, but the gameplay is a lot of fun, it's beautiful, and very immersive. I wouldn't call it middling at all, personally. In a middling MMO market, I'd say DCUO is well above the curve.

@markt50 - Re: the control scheme. It's really not a PC vs. console control scheme issue, it's a PC shooter/action vs. RPG control scheme issue. Both kinds of games have controls that are optimized for mouse + keyboard, they're just very different.

Quite a few people on the forums have seemingly never played a PC shooter and are completely unfamiliar with that kind of control scheme. They've tried to characterize it as a "dumbed down for console players" issue, but that really has nothing to do with it. If you've played PC shooters, action games, survival horror - anything that has a mouse-look style of control - you'll be fine.

I'm primarily a RPG player. The shooter style control scheme isn't generally my preference, personally, but there are full keybinding options, and I was able to configure something that works very well for me.

Yep, the 23rd is the anniversary of the original launch. Perfect time to blow up the world!

Cool! Gina Torres rocks. She was especially great as Jasmine on Angel, and I see that she was also the voice of Superwoman (the evil parallel universe version of Wonder Woman) in Crisis on Two Earths.

The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long to go F2P. I wonder what percentage of current players are lifetime subs, and thus, how close it was to F2P already.

They'll probably rework the rules anyway. It'll be whatever works best for the MMO format. I'm guessing when they say "based on Masquerade," they're mainly talking about the mythology, clans, Camarilla vs. Sabbat — the metastory details, in other words.