RoninBlade

@Jef Reahard Why does it have to be either/or?

Isn't the MMO universe large enough to have both story-driven games and sandbox games?

SWTOR and EVE are examples of games that work extremely well in the areas in which they focus. With SWTOR, the focus is on story and the solo PvE experience. With EVE, the focus is on creating a sandbox where the players can do whatever they want, which is usually corporate PvP. They're both weak in the areas that they haven't focused upon -- PvP in SWTOR and PvE in EVE. Even solo PvP is almost completely untenable in EVE, as compared to Black Prophecy, where solo PvP is an entirely viable option.

The doesn't mean that one is good and the other is bad. It means that both are good for the type of players they attract.

I'd love to see more high-quality, player-driven, sandbox MMOs out there, but I'd also love to see more BioWare-style, high-quality, story-driven MMOs.

I don't have a problem with negative reviews in general, but I do have a problem with reviews that dismiss a game (or anything else) just because the reviewer hates the genre.

Imagine a music reviewer writing, "Rap isn't music. It's just noise and people talking. Why don't kids today listen to real artists like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones instead of all this Eminem and Lady Gaga crap?" and posting that review for every new rap or hip-hop album.

Imagine a writer at a car magazine writing, "SUVs suck. They waste gas and, they handle horribly on a race track. Minivans are for losers. They're underpowered, have horrible 0-60 times, and are laughable in the slalom. The only cars worth considering are two-seat, rear-wheel drive sports cars," and posting that as a review for every SUV or minivan.

Personally I agree with the latter, and I'm irritated that car companies put out so many boring SUVs and minivans just because people want to buy them. I would much rather have all car companies focus primarily on building the best sports cars possible. But different people have different tastes.

@(Unverified) That's your choice. I don't care about the endgame and I don't care about PvP so "phat lewtz" is secondary.

There's an option to display the light side/dark side points next to each dialogue option. I intentionally leave it turned off, because I want to respond based on my concept of my character rather than just min-maxing.

@(Unverified) I see what you're saying. Personally, my feeling was that RIFT was an example of same-old same-old, where SWTOR is not. SWTOR is ground-breaking in the areas that I care about -- character and story -- even if it's derivative in the areas that I don't care about -- color-coded gear, "The Trinity", health bars, etc.

I also disagree that story-oriented "theme park" MMOs are necessarily casual. Instead, I agree with what Tycho writes in the most recent Penny Arcade:

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/01/16

SWTOR is actually a much more involving game, for those who like character-oriented games, because the dialogue choices force you to think hard about who your character really is. Of course, that's only if you care. Just like you can just skim a great novel without become involved (say, because it's on a final tomorrow), you can just hit "1" over-and-over again without thinking, if you choose -- but then you're missing the entire point of the game.

@(Unverified) Sure, you can, and I wouldn't mind seeing more variety, but just because the form of a game is conventional doesn't mean it sucks. It may suck, but that doesn't go without saying.

This reminds me of Scott McCloud's take on Internet comics, which is that you don't need to have a set of panels arranged in a linear fashion, like a conventional comic strip, but you can arrange them in an infinite canvas with branching timelines going off in all directions. That's true, and I find many of his experiments fascinating. However, that doesn't mean that traditional three-panel or four-panel strips aren't worth doing, if you can do them well.

Hypertext, interactive fiction, all that stuff is fine, but that doesn't mean that the linear one-word-after-another book is obsolete.

Part of this is just the Internet's tendency to complain and argue about just about everything. But another part of it is that MMOs offer multiple playstyles that directly conflict with each other, in the sense that someone who enjoys one is likely to hate the others. Theme park vs. sandbox, PvE vs. PvP, RP vs. non-RP, harsh death penalty vs. light death penalty, solo friendly vs. required grouping, quick travel vs. time-consuming travel, gear-centric vs. non-gear-centric, crafting-oriented vs. non-crafting-oriented, simple NPC merchants vs. player-driven economy, cheap respec vs. expensive respec, etc. There's no possible way to keep everyone happy.

In some ways this is similar to single-player vs. multiplayer in shooters, but the difference is that in shooters, you can simply ignore the gameplay style that you dislike. In games like CoD, the single-player campaign and the multiplayer are effectively two completely different games shipped on the same disk. In an MMO, the things you hate are constantly staring you in the face.

I love SWTOR. It is exactly what I was looking for in an MMO. I was never into WoW. I wanted to like EVE, but never actually could. AoC started out strong but turned into a grind at higher levels. Aion is beautiful, but it's non-stop grinding from day one. Tabula Rasa had a lot of potential, but that potential was never fully realized. Fallen Earth was my previous favorite MMO, but for me the compelling thing was the world and larger story arc behind it. Finally, I tried SWG and found it incredibly boring -- with the caveat that this was in the final months before SWTOR, so the game was probably already dying.

I get that EVE is the perfect game for some people, and that SWG (at least pre-NGE) was the perfect game for others. I get that people are pissed that a game that had everything they liked (SWG) has been replaced by one that has almost nothing they like (SWTOR). I would be equally pissed if a game like SWTOR were replaced by a game like SWG, though that's based on minimal experience with the latter.

What irritates me are the people who assume that whatever they hate is automatically bad. I hate opera, country music, and broccoli, but I don't assume that people who like these things are idiots.

@Traptz If you think SWTOR is full of bugs, you should have seen AoC in the early months...