Star Wars the Old Republic E3 teaser...

[Silent_Buddha]

How is that different from other dual faction MMOs? AFAICS most people solo the majority of the time in EQ2 and WoW as well until the end game, only grouping for gearing. They are all single player games with MMO stuff tacked on, the degree to which that stuff can hook people is the question.

Here's just one example.

Well, from what people I know have told me everyone in a raid gets raid loot appropriate for their character when a raid boss is killed. One of the things that keep many MMO players is raiding at the high end of the game.

Raiding can be thought of as a grind in a way. You kill a "boss" and you get a random chance at X number of raid items. Any given person on average will need months to get every piece they want from any given raid zone/encounter.

In SWTOR, everyone in the raid gets a raid reward tailored for their class. I believe raids in SWTOR are 8-16 people?

So, using Rift as an example. Raid bosses drop 3 pieces of loot. Each piece of which is specialized for one of 8 different "specs." You can do each boss once per week.

So a full raid of 20 people will take a long time to get fully geared when you have 3 drops per boss per week and if you have bad luck you man not see an item drop for your spec for 2-3 months (happened to us quite often).

Going back to SWTOR. Everytime a raid boss is killed by, say a 16 man raid, 16 pieces of raid loot drop all of which are appropriate for each individual player.

And as with many MMO's, once a person is fully geared, their motivation to attend all raids starts to dwindle.

Perhaps Bioware will change that in the future. If not, I don't see most of the high end userbase sticking around very long.

As well without some sort of high end grind for character progression or high level rewards, the incentive to keep playing dissipates rapidly.

From what I've heard Bioware trying to avoid anything resembling a grind. Again, less incentive for people to keep playing from month to month if there is nothing to do.

Basically you remove the grind, you remove the incentive for people to play.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlphaWolf]

So you haven't even played? Mystery solved.

WoW had 0 raid content at release... somehow 10 million people are still playing (and paying for it) it years later.

 

[MfA]

Basically you remove the grind, you remove the incentive for people to play.

Which has little to do with the single player with MMO stuff bolted on aspect of the game.

PS. one paragraph per sentence???

 

[Kyyla]

Wow that description of raid grinding is so sad. I'm happy I never wasted my time in WOW or the likes.

 

[AlphaWolf]

It's grinding if you don't enjoy it, which brings up the question of why would you be doing it if you don't enjoy it? Punish yourself to get gear so you can get more gear? The whole thing about an MMO is you build up a group of friends and do things with them online, that doesn't mean you can't have a lot of fun doing things solo. Raiding can be frustrating but it can also be a lot of fun, it's not for everyone, but I'm not sure that it's something to put down if you havent tried it.

 

[Reznor007]

So you haven't even played? Mystery solved.

WoW had 0 raid content at release... somehow 10 million people are still playing (and paying for it) it years later.

Actually it had Molten Core and Onyxia at release. Blackrock spire was a smaller raid, but still counts. And back at release even Stratholme and Scholomance were often done as raids despite being designed as 5mans.

 

[Alexko]

If you'll forgive the thread necromancy, I've finally started playing The Old Republic. Well, it's OK, but far, far from being as good as KOTOR 1/2.