Its a nice attempt but for some reason I just can't get that fired up about the whole legacy thing. I would be ok with a coalition but having them actually married to each other family tree kind of thing hmmm. Gahh! SWOTR babies!
At the guild summit one of the crowd members brought up a good point - so your guild is Empire side yet you are getting bonuses for the opposite side. If players leave to go play that character/side would that end up fracturing up the guild? The dev counter suggestion was guild alliances Empire - Republic side.
I am also worried about losing class identity, meaning there are key iconic abilities for example like force choke associated with a specific class but now its being spread all around?
The rest of the stuff for 1.2 I am pretty excited about and l look forward to how that will change our game world.
I also hope sometime in the near future they will release the exploration achievements and unlocks that they talked about during their dev posts.
Spot on good sir! I did my fair share of EQ raids myself as a Cleric and we did not have any fancy smancy VoIP to do it with either! Same goes for those flipp'in addons.
We made plans, built a strategy and when we did lose a boss fight, we took time to find out why vs wasting time finger pointing.
I am glad to see the gaming hobby is more popular as that usually leads to more games and variety. Unfortunately the price to be paid is popularity and with that comes the giant gibbering blob of the many.
Most of these recent changes to game environments (like MMO's) are still new so hopefully after a while things will smooth out and improve as people use them.
Oh and yeah! All of you delinquents need to stop cutting across our lawns pronto! Use the danged sidewalk!
Best bang for the buck: I have found that raid content is the least amount of effort a developer must put into a project for maximum reward in an MMO.
Raid Recipe: Put some shiny things at the end of a tread mill. Next add cat herding - adding more players needed to run on the tread mill. Lastly add square dancing where all the participants must step in time and position to the song the devs have setup.
Now for the finishing touches: if the players complain then queue responses: "Your team must lack: skill, teamwork, strategy, or are just not hardcore enough."
After that the dev's can just sit back like a life guard and watch the kids fight it out in the pool for awhile.
Once enough of the shiny things have been captured, repeat the same steps as before but with a new square dance song and shiny things +1.
Non raiding stuff: Casual content usually lacks exclusivity so there is rarely any loot lust involved. Also there can be more scripting involved because those darned role players want some story time *shakes fist*. If they can make it more exclusive its usually through rare drops via a daily activity.
Raid content target: 10-40 players. Casual content target: 1 player.
The bean counters will see the above and say "Let's focus on raids! It's obviously more economically sound so your project funding has been approved! *rubber stamp thunk sound*
It came from space: My hope is that in the near future tiny AI's using something like fuzzy logic or similar simple decision making will be doing most of the bulk script work. This can be a weighted decision process system that can be tuned by the dev's as needed.
Example for tomorrow's content - find and bring together the friendship is magic ponies. They are lost - distributed throughout the realm and need to be brought back together. Once all are gathered to a central area then active rainbows - maximum firepower! Now for next week's content: Shark week - stay out of the water!
So for now I feel that MMO methods are still stuck in the 1990's. Things are getting better though, activities are more polished now and break far less often. Even better we are now seeing quest self healing scripts that fix bugs or glitches - missing quest items, npc not spawning etc.
The cafeteria plan, eating on a budget: Every year that goes by we have more MMO's to choose from. My hope is with so much choice new trends will emerge that will promote and grow the MMO environment that we all enjoy so much.
Next up: Usb smellovision - raid item drops *whoosh* "Oohhh bacon smell! Must be an awesome drop!"
Very nice! I do love the Ren-fest example. Also paying a bit more for a subscription is a good incentive with companies for the "why" RP servers should be supported. Hopefully this change would align both parties interests and promote good servers to become great servers to login to.
Good point about the "something feels missing", I felt the same myself but I could not put my finger on it until you pointed this out.
The combat system is interesting but the UI feels torn between specializing with a controller or staying with traditional mouse/keyboard.
I am grateful that they have removed much of the grindy aspects of the game but still most quests quickly boil down to kill X. Because of this I am ashamed to admit that I have quickly clicked though most quests and have completely ignored the text entirely. I want to get more into the lore but I have yet to feel compelled to do so.
If there was one key take away point where Tera clearly stands out from other MMO's is that you can lose the main tank, heck even several party members and still recover! If other members are familiar with the battle they can keep themselves alive long enough to rez the other members. You still need at least one healer type for a rapid full recovery but I am glad this option is available for groups.
How this works is the BAM (big ass monster) have routines like in console battles vs other MMO's where the boss will pound target X until you or it is dead. There are plenty of youtube videos that display Tera's BAM fight behavior. If you pay attention to the BAM you can actually dodge and get clear of several of their attacks while bringing your party members back to life.
Yes trolling is rampant, I have seen some moderation on some of the servers but for the most part its a Niagara falls of raw trolling. Hopefully this will not cause too many people to skip retail release due to how bad it is currently. On the other hand most of the people that I have grouped with have been pretty nice : )
Lastly there is that "Aion effect" concern. That disconnect of the development team not interfacing directly with their "other" community. So far the Devs on the NA side of the house have been great and mange to keep a sense of humor while dealing with issues. Whether they can offer enough pull with the primary dev group and how much change will actually be allowed/occur remains to be seen.
Still a ways to go til May release so keeping my fingers crossed. Tera certainly adds a nice variety option to our MMO cafeteria plan. : )
At the last part one of the members in the audience brought up an excellent point about a potential issue with the legacy system.
Basically your guild is made up of lets say all empire side - the legacy system promotes you to play the opposite side would that not take away players from the empire guild and split the player base?
They did come up with an on the fly tentative solution, allow for cross faction communication with guilds that you have an alliance/treaty with.
I really tried to get into GW1 but I had too many issues with the UI along with not being able to jump. Also some of the classes were a turn off. For example, I really wanted my Necro from EQ1 but for some reason the flat refusal of allowing permanent pets for that class was a real bummer for me.
That said I did like how the environments changed as the story progressed, made the game world feel a bit more alive and gave the story more punch.
I still check in from time to time to see what has changed or improved.
It's all about content control and removal of property rights. "Sorry this digital content is no longer available and has been removed by its author..." Does not matter how much $$ you shelled out, your rights are zero.
Always on DRM, changes EULA's "You can't sue us if we screw you over" in these online environments.
We have had a few wake up calls, such as users losing access to all the content they have purchased. Despite the warnings people keep buying up digital content like its a fire sale. I keep waiting for when the pendulum will swing back the other way towards consumer rights.
Only bright light I see so far are companies like Good old games.
Leave your legacy with Star Wars: The Old Republic's newest dev dispatch video
Mar 22nd 2012 4:07PM (Massively)At the guild summit one of the crowd members brought up a good point - so your guild is Empire side yet you are getting bonuses for the opposite side. If players leave to go play that character/side would that end up fracturing up the guild? The dev counter suggestion was guild alliances Empire - Republic side.
I am also worried about losing class identity, meaning there are key iconic abilities for example like force choke associated with a specific class but now its being spread all around?
The rest of the stuff for 1.2 I am pretty excited about and l look forward to how that will change our game world.
I also hope sometime in the near future they will release the exploration achievements and unlocks that they talked about during their dev posts.
Activision registers ActivisionNews.com, trying to put us out of work
Mar 22nd 2012 11:37AM (Joystiq)Funny it's just like Palpatine early on, he had good skin color and tone but as he revealed more of his true nature, the worse he looked : )
Please do not feed the trolls, he will go away if you stop sending him money.
lol maybe he will jump ship and move over to EA since he has such desirable management skills.
Kotick, continuing to fail upwards since 1983.
Howsabout another 5000 TERA closed beta keys?
Mar 21st 2012 2:20PM (Massively)Really the only basic bummer is that you only get to beta test every other weekend.
Yes preorder players will keep their beta characters until the beta ends. After that those characters will be wiped.
Also there are plenty of us already at level 32 since the last beta test weekend. ; )
When the head start begins, then new characters are generated and are saved as we move into retail release.
The Soapbox: Voice chat is the worst thing ever
Mar 21st 2012 1:21PM (Massively)Spot on good sir! I did my fair share of EQ raids myself as a Cleric and we did not have any fancy smancy VoIP to do it with either! Same goes for those flipp'in addons.
We made plans, built a strategy and when we did lose a boss fight, we took time to find out why vs wasting time finger pointing.
I am glad to see the gaming hobby is more popular as that usually leads to more games and variety. Unfortunately the price to be paid is popularity and with that comes the giant gibbering blob of the many.
Most of these recent changes to game environments (like MMO's) are still new so hopefully after a while things will smooth out and improve as people use them.
Oh and yeah! All of you delinquents need to stop cutting across our lawns pronto! Use the danged sidewalk!
Star Wars: The Old Republic answers questions on 1.2 and priorities
Mar 19th 2012 4:41PM (Massively)Raid Recipe: Put some shiny things at the end of a tread mill. Next add cat herding - adding more players needed to run on the tread mill. Lastly add square dancing where all the participants must step in time and position to the song the devs have setup.
Now for the finishing touches: if the players complain then queue responses: "Your team must lack: skill, teamwork, strategy, or are just not hardcore enough."
After that the dev's can just sit back like a life guard and watch the kids fight it out in the pool for awhile.
Once enough of the shiny things have been captured, repeat the same steps as before but with a new square dance song and shiny things +1.
Non raiding stuff:
Casual content usually lacks exclusivity so there is rarely any loot lust involved. Also there can be more scripting involved because those darned role players want some story time *shakes fist*. If they can make it more exclusive its usually through rare drops via a daily activity.
Raid content target: 10-40 players.
Casual content target: 1 player.
The bean counters will see the above and say "Let's focus on raids! It's obviously more economically sound so your project funding has been approved! *rubber stamp thunk sound*
It came from space:
My hope is that in the near future tiny AI's using something like fuzzy logic or similar simple decision making will be doing most of the bulk script work. This can be a weighted decision process system that can be tuned by the dev's as needed.
Example for tomorrow's content - find and bring together the friendship is magic ponies. They are lost - distributed throughout the realm and need to be brought back together. Once all are gathered to a central area then active rainbows - maximum firepower! Now for next week's content: Shark week - stay out of the water!
So for now I feel that MMO methods are still stuck in the 1990's. Things are getting better though, activities are more polished now and break far less often. Even better we are now seeing quest self healing scripts that fix bugs or glitches - missing quest items, npc not spawning etc.
The cafeteria plan, eating on a budget: Every year that goes by we have more MMO's to choose from. My hope is with so much choice new trends will emerge that will promote and grow the MMO environment that we all enjoy so much.
Next up: Usb smellovision - raid item drops *whoosh* "Oohhh bacon smell! Must be an awesome drop!"
The Daily Grind: Do you expect a roleplaying server to be policed?
Mar 19th 2012 3:20PM (Massively)Very nice! I do love the Ren-fest example. Also paying a bit more for a subscription is a good incentive with companies for the "why" RP servers should be supported. Hopefully this change would align both parties interests and promote good servers to become great servers to login to.
GDC 2012: TERA's growth spurt and dynamic events
Mar 12th 2012 1:16PM (Massively)Good point about the "something feels missing", I felt the same myself but I could not put my finger on it until you pointed this out.
The combat system is interesting but the UI feels torn between specializing with a controller or staying with traditional mouse/keyboard.
I am grateful that they have removed much of the grindy aspects of the game but still most quests quickly boil down to kill X. Because of this I am ashamed to admit that I have quickly clicked though most quests and have completely ignored the text entirely. I want to get more into the lore but I have yet to feel compelled to do so.
If there was one key take away point where Tera clearly stands out from other MMO's is that you can lose the main tank, heck even several party members and still recover! If other members are familiar with the battle they can keep themselves alive long enough to rez the other members. You still need at least one healer type for a rapid full recovery but I am glad this option is available for groups.
How this works is the BAM (big ass monster) have routines like in console battles vs other MMO's where the boss will pound target X until you or it is dead. There are plenty of youtube videos that display Tera's BAM fight behavior. If you pay attention to the BAM you can actually dodge and get clear of several of their attacks while bringing your party members back to life.
Yes trolling is rampant, I have seen some moderation on some of the servers but for the most part its a Niagara falls of raw trolling. Hopefully this will not cause too many people to skip retail release due to how bad it is currently. On the other hand most of the people that I have grouped with have been pretty nice : )
Lastly there is that "Aion effect" concern. That disconnect of the development team not interfacing directly with their "other" community. So far the Devs on the NA side of the house have been great and mange to keep a sense of humor while dealing with issues. Whether they can offer enough pull with the primary dev group and how much change will actually be allowed/occur remains to be seen.
Still a ways to go til May release so keeping my fingers crossed. Tera certainly adds a nice variety option to our MMO cafeteria plan. : )
Hyperspace Beacon: One step forward...
Mar 6th 2012 5:29PM (Massively)Basically your guild is made up of lets say all empire side - the legacy system promotes you to play the opposite side would that not take away players from the empire guild and split the player base?
They did come up with an on the fly tentative solution, allow for cross faction communication with guilds that you have an alliance/treaty with.
The Daily Grind: Are you playing GW in anticipation of GW2?
Feb 28th 2012 11:13AM (Massively)That said I did like how the environments changed as the story progressed, made the game world feel a bit more alive and gave the story more punch.
I still check in from time to time to see what has changed or improved.
Jagex CEO predicts the imminent demise of physical game retailers
Feb 21st 2012 11:14AM (Massively)Spot on and these are my concerns as well.
It's all about content control and removal of property rights. "Sorry this digital content is no longer available and has been removed by its author..." Does not matter how much $$ you shelled out, your rights are zero.
Always on DRM, changes EULA's "You can't sue us if we screw you over" in these online environments.
We have had a few wake up calls, such as users losing access to all the content they have purchased. Despite the warnings people keep buying up digital content like its a fire sale. I keep waiting for when the pendulum will swing back the other way towards consumer rights.
Only bright light I see so far are companies like Good old games.