Wasn’t someone always arguing with me that 2004 WoW difficulty was not better than WotLK+ for leveling/instances, yet now claims SW:TOR is ‘just right’ because it feels like 2004 WoW difficulty? Where are all those ‘rose tinted glasses’ comments now? And how long until SW:TOR gets Rift 1.2-ed so it’s more ‘accessible’?
On another hypocrisy note, how is it that people who play Pay-for-Power games like WoT have such a hard time admitting the game they play, with its gold ammo, is Pay-for-Power? So you prefer to wallet-bash people instead of skill/time-bash them, what’s the big deal? Also humorous that people defend the selling of power because “F2P games have to sell power or they can’t make money”, when LoL sits at the top of the gaming mountain with a shop full of fluff.
Hardcore Casual 
Dunno about other countries, but in Russia using paid-for ammo in WoT is rather rare. I played the game for several months and I don’t really recall any “I lost because my opponent paid money” situations. I can’t say this practice doesn’t exist, mind. The thing is, you have to pay too much for a benefit too little, so few really bother.
The things you usually pay for (besides monthly sub.. err, premium account) are EXP conversions to make low-level progression easier and (for those interested) gold-priced tanks. Yes, there is a problem of developers creating progression obstacles that just scream “pay up or suffer”, but it’s nowhere near Allods level of suffering, for example. Gold tanks are good money grinders, but they are inferior to fully-updraded non-gold counterparts – partially upgraded level of awesome, I’d say.
And no, you can’t buy IWIN button in WoT.
paying to level up faster in wot IS paying for power…
No, it’s not. Not by my definition anyway. The only things I consider power are things that effect the actual battle. Leveling up faster gets you into higher tiers, but does nothing for any one particular battle.
Now if you want to argue that thanks to the model WoT’s uses it’s less fun than LoL for people who don’t pay at all, I’d agree with you, but that’s a different topic from buying power.
“And no, you can’t buy IWIN button in WoT.”
Yes, yes you can. If we are in the same tank, and have the same player skill, but I bought gold ammo, I bought the IWIN button.
Again, there is nothing wrong with that, as WoT has had gold ammo since day one, and everyone who glanced at the game could see it, but pretending it’s not there is what I find silly.
I suppose it’s more about the definition of IWIN.
No, you can’t one-shot people without it. Yes, it gives you an edge, but I would argue it’s a small one.
That’s the reason for denial – it’s just a non-issue. No significant impact, so it’s ignored. And no, it’s not about people trying to persude themselves.
The thing is, skill in WoT is much more important than stat numbers. I’ve killed tanks several levels higher then me just by playing the game properly. What use is your ammo to you if you can’t hit me? :)
Yeah, the Gold ammo/Consumables are really a clan wars thing, and since you can earn gold in clan wars anyway, I don’t think it’s really much of an issue. I will say that some of the Tier 3 gold tanks are better than everything else at that level though, but, it’s tier 3, who cares, you don’t see them that often anyway. I am pretty sure most people use gold as you said, to sub and convert xp.
That isn’t to say that you can’t buy power in WoT, you absolutely can, it’s just that the cost versus the benefit is pretty high, and it’s all consumable stuff anyway. Also, in WoT you can’t buy better armor or more health, which would be way more of a big deal than better ammo.
Slow day at the blog mill? I mean, it isn’t even Friday and you are trolling Tobold here.
Gold tanks aren’t invulnerable and, for their tier, are inferior to their fully upgraded compatriots. They are essentially a short cut to mediocrity that pay off in earnings and getting into another tier quickly. I bought the Type 59 with the remainder of my launch gold and am happy mostly because the tier it fights in is a lot of fun. It is better to be mediocre in a tier where you have fun than than to be fully upgraded in a tier that is not as active.
Gold ammo, as you say, in an absolute “everything is equal” contest, gives advantage. I will worry about that the next time I am in such a contest. And the next time I am in such a contest will be the first time.
Where in my post am I talking about gold tanks? Pretty sure I only mentioned ammo.
And sure, gold ammo is a non-issue for ‘casuals’, but then “fair play” should be a non-issue since casuals just show up and watch the pretty lights, right? They don’t know the power differences between tanks, let alone the impact different ammo might have, right?
Of course being ignorant of a pay-to-win advantage does not mean it does not exist, but it’s fun to pretend.
It’d be interesting to see WoT stats on ammo use kinda like the stats eve just put out on ship losses. For example, something like, in the month of November, 1.2 million shells were fired in random battles, of which 150k were gold. There really isn’t any way to know if someone is using Gold shells or not since the penetration and damage formula is so random anyway. Hell for that matter, Gold shells could have the same stats as non-gold shells and Wargaming could just be ripping people off and it would be pretty hard to tell.
I guess by your definition there, if you aren’t constantly worried and upset that SOMEBODY out there MIGHT have gold ammo and that MIGHT tip the balance in some hugely unlikely scenario, then you are a noob.
Damn those noobs for not stressing over the trivial and just having fun! How you must hate them.
Game balance is now trivial in a PvP game? Interesting.
It’s ok Syncaine. I know how upsetting it must be for you to learn that there are more than a few non-solo, group-friendly quests to be had while leveling in SWTOR – that it’s not as faceroll-easy as you’d hoped.
I don’t think anyone expected there not to be group-friendly quests tacked in to the story.
But that doesn’t make the game any less face-roll easy. I half slept my way to level 10 in the beta before turning it off and finding something else.
Lemme guess, the something else you found was Eve, right? No wait, Darkfall? Don’t get me wrong, Eve is phenomenal at what it does, best sandbox ever far as I’m concerned. But did you honestly go into the beta expecting anything other than what Bioware has been saying the game will be for a couple years now? And considering how many times he’s referred to the game as SW:sRPG, yeah, I’ll go on record as guessing that Syncaine (among others) did NOT expect there to be much in the way of group content while leveling – that he likely DID expect the world to be mostly phased etc. Seriously, I feel your pain. It sucks that Eve is the only sandbox out there worth playing. But the simple fact that SWTOR is a themepark done in the traditional style does not equal bad. It just doesn’t. It’s simply not the cup of tea sandboxers are looking for (shocking, truly).
You missed the mark on me by a mile — I like both sandboxes and theme parks. I find some theme parks I can half sleep through and still move the game forward, and I’m far from elite, so I have trouble understanding what anyone sees in a game where there is barely even a possibility of failure.
I did actually die while leveling 1 – 10, because an important phone call came in and I left myself standing at a spawn point. But I was able to self-rez on the spot with almost no punishment. I fail to see it as even a game if I can memorize a button sequence, close my eyes, and succeed — and I fail to see it as a game if everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.
So no, theme park doesn’t equal bad. Face roll easy makes it bad. And box price + sub + expansions you have to pay for make it a scam. I feel a bit embarrassed when good friends post up on facebook about being excited for the game, much as I would if the same friend was blowing money trying to beat a rigged carnival game. But hey, at least the carnival game is a challenge. Having quests that require others along is not adding challenge to the game. It’s just the minimum they can do and call themselves an MMO with or without challenge.
And do you really want to go on record making conclusions about someone based on what is clearly hyperbolic sarcasm? It says more about you than it does about Syncaine.
Funny how success in the current market is basically approximating vanilla WoW’s leveling difficulty. Then again, said leveling experience is fully voiced, so I’m sure it’s absolutely groundbreaking, darling. Do let us know how exciting that fourth pillar is when you’re farming space-dungeons for the nth time; the anticipation is killing me.
Wow, the Syncaine apologists are really out in force today. The thing of it is, I won’t be farming space-dungeons to death, been there, done that, thanks. What i wil be doing is playing the closest thing to the KOTOR sequels that I’m ever going to get – and enjoying the eight distinct class stories while I’m at it. Oh, and as a bonus, whenever I wanna do group content with my guildies of 5 years, I’ll do that too. Is the game gonna keep me entertained for years and years? No chance whatsoever. Am I gonna have an absolute blast for 3-4 months? Positively. By that time I’ll be nearly 40 years old. Who knows, maybe by then I’ll have grown up, left the “Wowbies” behind and joined the ranks of “true gamers” like Syncaine, saucelah and yourself. I doubt it though.
I get all that.
You do realize SW:TOR is going to be a massive failure if everyone plays the game like you, right? If everyone is done in 3-4 months, SW is going to make WAR look good.
So either EA is just doing KOTOR fans a solid and dumping truckloads of cash down a drain just to please you, or YOU are not the audience they are aiming/hoping for.
That’s why people like myself are laughing at SW. The very people who are so happy it’s what it is (an sRPG) are the same ones who are going to spell it’s doom, and hopefully all other ‘MMOs’ of it’s ilk going forward.
So really, thank you for being you, and doing your part to make my dreams come true!
Ok. Thanks for calling me a true gamer, but Syncaine and I are in completely different leagues. I’m absolutely casual.
You’ve said yourself you’re going to go in, get the stories, and be done. And that’s all I’ve ever said about the game, that it isn’t an MMO if all there is to do is come in, get the stories, and leave. Even if you go beyond the stories, there’s a clear end, the moment that you are completely leveled and have all the best-in-slot items — the only reason to play after that is if the mechanics excite you, and even the biggest WoW fans I know don’t defend the mechanics as exciting, riveting action. Then if you are committed to the game, you will continue to pay subscriptions while getting nothing in return, and when the game expands, you will have to pay for the expansion. That’s just absurd, unnecessary maximum monetization, and to me it feels a lot like a scam.
I don’t expect you to care about supporting the game past that unless you work for EA. And that’s exactly why I found it terrible that they were making the game. The presales and early sub numbers will make them feel successful, then the tourists will leave and the game might become unprofitable. In which case, it will be a long time before anyone invests in a AAA MMO again.
I’m sorry that you’re almost 40 — but what the hell does that have to do with anything?
While this may come as a surprise, SynCaine is no trailblazer here. If we’re equating occasionally agreeing with apologetics, though, I suppose that marks you as a BioWare apologist (or, worse, a Tobold apologist).
Sophistry aside, I played 2004 WoW, and while it was an enjoyable experience, it’s not a game I’m interested in playing 7 years on, even had Blizzard not drug it through the mud in the intervening years. I stayed clear of Rift for this very reason, despite the (wasted) potential of the soul system, when it became clear their much-hyped dynamic content was scaled back considerably post-launch. Voice acting and lightsabers aren’t going to win me over, either.
With regards to playing it like the KOTOR3-that-never-was, I’d much rather play one of the multitudes of single-player games I’ve yet to try. It’s very possible I’m the odd one out here, but immersion is a big deal for me when I play single player games, particularly ones that are heavy on the narrative, or suspenseful/horror types. In any multiplayer game, the metagame inevitably becomes the game for me, and is constantly pulling me out of the experience. Both my partner and I have had underwhelming experiences “playing with buddies” cooperatively in games we otherwise have enjoyed solo. And these friends weren’t chosen blindly; they have similar interests both in choice of games, and modes of play. A Quake arena is one thing; I’m in no danger of getting lost in the narrative or the atmosphere there anyway. The inevitable metagame or off-topic chitchat isn’t going to pull me out of anything, and no one’s going to inadvertently let something slip out that ruins an upcoming plot twist, spoils a surprise, or trivializes a puzzle.
(Incidentally, we have gotten around these annoyances once; we imposed absolute silence, save screaming, should you feel so compelled. If that’s your cup of tea, it is effective, though perhaps not what most people have in mind while relaxing with friends.)
This isn’t even considering the in-game chat channels, guilds/clans, voice comms, players appearing/disappearing on login/logout, virtual teabagging, etc etc. Some of these are avoidable. Others aren’t. The fact that grouping is apparently necessary for the leveling game isn’t a point in its favor if I wanted to play KOTOR3 unmolested. My limited free time is better spent elsewhere, particularly in the era of $20 Steam sales, indie bundles, and emulators, with an expansive back catalog of quality single player games. If I were a graphics whore, or got especially wet over pricey voice acting, my choice might be limited enough that I’d consider paying box+monthly. Thankfully, I’m not, and I don’t.
The wealthy fear equality more than paying taxes (because fair even taxation is a form of equality ;)
I will never play a game that allows wealthy people to own based off of purchased items. If I lose via skill, I bow and congratulate. I get the shaft in real life, I go to games to get away from that.
I’m wondering why you begrudge the wealthy from having a minor advantage over you?
It’s them playing for the content you’re playing, somebody has to do it. In the case of World of Tanks however you got the game for free so why not drop ~40$ on gold, which will by you a sizable amount of ammo, and you’ll be at equal footing with the wallet warriors for a month or two.
– That’s why people like myself are laughing at SW. The very people who are so happy it’s what it is (an sRPG) are the same ones who are going to spell it’s doom, and hopefully all other ‘MMOs’ of it’s ilk going forward.
So really, thank you for being you, and doing your part to make my dreams come true!
What you don’t seem to realize, genius, is that when I’m done with my 3-4 months (or whatever it ends up being), I couldn’t care LESS what happens to the game. Do you honestly think I (or anyone, for that matter) would/will keep playing, even though I’m no longer having fun, just to support the game/EA/Bioware? Seriously?!?! I’m not the audience they’re looking for. I completely agree. Doesn’t mean I won’t have a blast while I’m there. Whatever though man, I’m glad to do you a solid and make your dreams come true, ROFL!!
Oh my, you really got Syncaine with that reply! I bet he’s fuming!
Yep, you nailed it. I was trying to “get” him and make him fume. Obviously.
Are you saying your angry, argumentative tone isn’t because you actually feel that way about Syn and his points, but just because your life is filled with those emotions and it leaks out into your writing? Or is there some other explanation?
Hopefully your reply can be your one post not so filled with bitter sarcasm that we can’t actually tell what you’re trying to say.
Don’t worry though, if you can’t manage that we’ll just stick with the default assumption.
@saucelah
What hotbar-based-combat themeparks are you playing in which you CAN’T be successful by remembering a rotation then closing your eyes if you so wish? What themeparks are you playing that AREN’T easy in the way that SWTOR (and every other themepark released the past 5 years) is? If you’re of the mindset that a game can’t be or isn’t fun unless it’s really challenging, just say so. I disagree, but whatever, different strokes. Bioware just tacked on all the leveling group quests so that they can call it an MMO? Reaching there, seriously. Couldn’t be the case that they want solo AND group content. And box+sub+expansion = scam to you? C’mon, seriously? Yes, GW2 is gonna be great – without subs – and like you (I’m guessing), I can’t wait to play it. Are you and Syn just upset that people are calling SWTOR an MMO? Fine, whatever, call it a sandwich. Still gonna be fun, DESPITE the more or less easy solo content.
And the reference to my age is merely in response to all of Syns trollish, silly and (obviously) sarcastic references to WoW-kiddies, Wowbies etc. I’m a middle-aged adult that has FUN relaxing and unwinding in (GASP!) themepark MMOs (sandwiches) that aren’t the opposite of faceroll-easy.
Yes, seriously. And everyone with half a brain and awareness of the industry should realize they are getting scammed. Once upon a time that sub money was actually needed for maintaining servers and bandwidth. But it’s not 1998 anymore. So what is that money for? Clearly not new content — you have to pay for that. Clearly not bug fixes, as single player games without subs put out plenty of patches to fix bugs and do not expect to get paid for it.
So why is that money necessary? It simply isn’t. And if any company or individual has someone convinced that they have to pay for something that they don’t actually need to charge for, then that person is getting scammed. So basically you’ve bought a single player game with a lot of multiplayer options and you will buy it again every month — might as well just be playing some console game, check the story line, then play out the multiplayer. Same experience, less money. Your lack of consumer savvy affects all gamers, and I find that irritating.
So what theme parks am I playing that are not faceroll easy? None. Back when I played EQII, it wasn’t possible to memorize a button mash order and succeed, at least not as a tank, but I’m sure they’ve killed that since then. But I am playing theme parks, and I’m not paying to do it. Because I’m not dumb enough to pay for something that could have been released in 2004 and then keep paying for it on a monthly basis.
Do I think all games have to be challenging to be fun? Depends on the game. My main game right now isn’t so much challenging as time consuming, though it does reward planning. But I don’t think just showing up should lead to winning, and that’s exactly what happens in SW:TOR. They’ve managed to make dying in WoW seem like an actual punishment in comparison.
Do I think it’s possible for people to find mindless gaming entertaining? Of course. I mean, hell, my parents watch shitty TV all the time, that has to be more mindless, and I don’t think either of them are idiots.
But why must I admit that I think games are only fun if they are challenging, even if that were the case? Why not you just admit that you prefer mindless games because they help you relax? Then you’d likely not be bothered that others find your game mindless, solo, faceroll shiny fests, and you wouldn’t be wasting your time arguing with me.
Yes, I think your game is for kids. I think the target demographic that they talked about in marketing meetings was young teens. I base this on the art style — clone wars rather than KotOR — and I base this on the game’s hand holding, oh-my-god-we-can’t-let-you-fail style of play. Do I think that makes you a kid? No, for one thing, while I come here to read Syncaine because we have similar feelings about gaming, I’m not Syncaine. I didn’t call anyone a WoW-kiddie.
But I do think it means you’re going to spend a hell of a lot of your gaming time around kids, just like WoW players, so I find nothing wrong with referring to people that play those games as kids. I used to teach middle school — they all play WoW and can’t wait for TOR. I’d put up with a community based entirely around Barrens chat if the game was challenging, interesting, or innovative. TOR is none of these things.
Have you ever thought to ask yourself why you bother to read this blog if it pisses you off?
tl;dr: I wrote it, you can take the time to read it.
Pisses me off? No, not even close. Instead, I come here for the occassional good laugh, nothing more, nothing less. I’m just sorry you’ve reached a point in your life that GAMES upset and irritate you so much. Oh, and I like consumer savvy because I choose to pay a $15/month sub to a game I find really enjoyable? Wow. Just…wow. May God be with you, sir. Peace.
edit: LACK consumer savvy
After the first few months, a certain % of the initial playerbase (10%?) will stay subscribed to do PvP and endgame instances.
The rest will sporadically resubscribe when new story content is added in patches and paid-for expansions.
Bioware/Lucasarts will add a cash shop with cosmetic items and custom ships.
Spin-off games, comics, action figures and an animated feature-length DVD will be released.
I love EvE’s combination of player politics and open space exploration and I understand that some commenters hate theme park gameplay, but that is not indicative of the commercial viability of Bioware’s game.
Aside from spin-off games, which might fall into Bioware’s hands, the rest of those things will benefit Lucas Arts alone.
I don’t think the game will shutdown. But will it really make the investors feel like they made a good decision? I guess we’ll see.
And I think these issues with subscribers could have been solved, even in a theme park, by adding other elements that are more player-driven that could be turned to at endgame, other than just running the same instance, chasing a carrot.
I don’t think those elements have to be PvP, but they also can’t be story line quests. Quests end, equipment gets maxed. But games can be created that still have the linear nature of the theme park but with less emphasis on the loot treadmill.
Loot treadmills are just Skinner boxes, and I”m not a pigeon.
1. hathos
(HAY.thohs; TH as in thin) n. Feelings of pleasure derived from hating someone or something.
—hathotic adj.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/208604/i-will-never-go-back-to-normal-raiding-again