The Perfect 9 1/2

George:  Hey Steve. I met the perfect woman!

Steve: Really? What’s she like?

George:  She’s a real looker to begin with but that’s not all – not only is she beautiful, but she is intelligent as well. On top of that she’s funny, fun to be with, loves to cook and she’s willing to support us both and pay all the bills!

Steve: She sounds just awful.

George:  Are you insane? She’s everything I’ve always wanted in a woman in more. Your just jealous because your wife left you last year.

Steve: Well….

George:  But I will admit she has one small fault.

Steve: Which is?

George: She snores.

Steve: Really?

George:  Yes.

Steve: How loud??

George: Like a back hoe.

Steve:  Kill her.

Most criticisms I have read about Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR) run close to the same as the imaginary conversation above between George and Steve.  Realizing that one woman’s treasure is another woman’s steaming heap of dung, it is interesting to note that the object of one of the most common complaints about SWTOR is also one of the most common praises – the interactive cut scenes that has made Bioware famous for games like its Mass Effect Series. Some members of the vocal minority are complaining that the cut scenes are like movies with press buttons. To others, myself included, this is one of the most immersive elements of their single player roleplaying  games and one of the most important innovations to mmo gaming in a long time.  The difference seems to be accountable by a factor I have read (and I apologize for not being able to remember where) that veteran gamers who long for what they see as “the good old days” of gaming* can’t seem to adjust to change.

Perhaps some of the more unusual comments on SWTOR come from Terra Nova where author Castranova spends time complaining that SWTOR is not a single player sandbox game like Skyrim, or Fallout 3 and he is absolutely correct…it’s also not a 57 Chevy, a casaba melon or a watermelon falling from a great height.   As one of the readers put it, “These games are entirely different and are predicated on entirely different things. To ask that SWTOR effects the whole world as a whole is darn near impossible when you have thousands of people playing at any given time.” The oddest extension of the comparison above concerns  the ability to have your NPC crew do your crafting – complaining that the market feels dead because “… net monetary proceeds from doing crafting are near zero (labor theory of value works here – zero labor input implies zero profit on sales of things labor produces).” The whole thing falls apart with the fact that the only labor involved in any videogame is button pushing and the ability to put up with mind numbing boredom. That, and the fact I am already making a tidy profit with the same system.

Still, to each his own and anyone who does long for the mind numbing crafting that more established games can offer need look no further than Eve Online.  Players are able to spend hours upon  hours staring at screen doing little more than waiting for their virtual ore hold to fill.  In fact an article I wrote about it earlier, called Zen and the Art of Asteroid Mining can be found here. And for those players who long for games where NPCs stand by mutely while players read a wall of text…well that’s  just about every mmo out there.

The Single Gamer and the MMO

One of the more  unique views of Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR)  I have read comes from Game by Night noting that “SWTOR makes a poor single player game.  Apparently the author feels there is a connection between what he perceives as an outbreak of R. Asshaticus among players and a drop in EA stock. The unique part comes when Chris goes on to explain what typifies the attitude of a devotee of single player games when introduced to the world of mmos…

“As all of these single player gamers’ sign up and take on the world without ever once grouping, they start to realize that damn, this is a really long game. At about 60 hours, it’s become, damn, I’m just skipping this other crap and listening to my class story. Fast forward to 100 hours and, damn… why am I even doing this anymore? I’m not even level 40… and this story is so SLOW.  The experience of playing through those hours varies from class to class, as does the scenery, but the repetitive nature of the side quests is static.” – Game by Night, Chris

Complaining about too much content seems a bit like going to a smorgasbord and complaining there is too much to eat; but it is not the first time I have heard this.  As far as the nature of side quests is concerned, there is only so many ways to uniquely tell players to kill ten womp rats.  However, Bioware’s unique interactive storytelling and environment triggered comments are so involving I rarely notice whether a side quest is repetitive or not.  It should be noted that Chris gives readers some very important advice at the end of his article…

“So this is my advice to help you prevent burnout: Step out of your comfort-zone and  invite people to groups yourself. Get in there and experience the group content. It will remind you that this is an MMO and that people who call the game an sRPG have only been telling half the story.” – Game by Night, Chris

But not every player agrees with the above – Spinks felt that Bioware has “nailed” the single player element of SWTOR.  I found his comment on the difficulty of the mission, versus the importance of the story especially interesting…

“And what’s more, I’m finding that the difficulty supports the storytelling. Not in every case for sure, but the way the single player class quests balance increasing difficulty with increasing story importance has worked really well to draw me in.” – Spinks, In which Bioware finally nails single player gameplay

The date face comes off

But like any other significant other, once the date face is off, and the honeymoon period is over we find ourselves getting acquainted with the real game – The most recent of which is a patch that broke PvP in Illum. Interestingly, while we surely can’t absolve Bioware from any blame in the matter, no one thinks to fault the players who were exploiting SWTOR game mechanics in the first place – the reason for the need to patch pvp at all.

“After Game Update 1.1 went live, we discovered that the Open World PvP area on Ilum was not working as our PvP design team intended. As many of you know, large groups of players began capturing the Ilum control points, then ‘camping’ at the enemy’s base. This led to a very frustrating experience for a number of players who were unable to leave their base and fight back against their attackers. It was not a fair gameplay experience. In addition, some players on the attacking side gained more Valor points than designed for the time they spent in PvP.” – Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer – Live Services

The Beginning of the End

The question remains is what Bioware will do in the long run to keep players involved. Will SWTOR become a “system of inventory management” for which Richard Garriott faulted Blizzard?  SWTOR is also the only mmo of which I am aware, that actually has an “ending” of sorts. In fact Dr. Richard Bartle discusses this at the end of a recent post on SWTOR which can be found here. (excerpt below).

“To cut to the chase, it comes down to this: self-actualization occurs when you accept that the game accepts that you’ve won. In most modern MMOs, the game never admits that you’ve “won” because the developers believe that if it did, players would stop playing and go off to some other MMO instead. Their preference is to keep players around for long enough that an expansion can be built to move the finishing line further away. Players either self-actualize through their own strength of will, or they get increasingly frustrated and drift away, or they become trapped at an earlier stage (typically that of planner/achiever) and keep going until they burn out….Well, SW:TOR has only gone ahead and done it: it’s told players that at the end of their class quest line their story is over. There are other stories, but your main one has come to an end. Congratulations, you’ve won. The question is, then, what will players do next?” – Dr. Richard Bartle

The Fourth Pillar of Gaming

As for me, I have been too busy enjoying what Bioware calls the “fourth pillar” of gaming – Storytelling (the other three being exploration, combat, and progression) and having fun to notice any problems.  And even if the player can’t make a difference in the world, they can change their place in that world…

“And absolutely, we have story arcs, and we have real storytelling with beginnings, and ends, and places to say, ‘Hey, that was great, and time has passed, and things have changed. By the way, here’s that quest that happened twenty hours ago where you totally forgot you screwed that guy, coming back to bite you in the butt, now how are you going to deal with that?’” -  Daniel Erikson, Lead Designer for Star Wars The Old Republic

 

*(for an excellent discussion on the “good old days” of gameing see a recent addition by Syp on Biobreak here.