GDC: BioWare's Walton on Adding Space Combat to Star Wars Galaxies & Customer Retenti

I would say JTL was both far superior and incremental to XvT. Through crafting you had many options for custom fitting your starfigher and there were simply more ship choices and POBs. This made it far superior to XvT. It was also just incremental to XvT in game play, mostly on the graphic side. Otherwise it was more of the same to XvT. Of course Xwing and Tie Fighter had better missions but that was the meat of that game, not PvP which JTL really had going for it. Some of those big battles on Starsider were quite impressive and far better than any campaign LFS ever had due to the technology involved.

Koster is into virtual worlds and SWG did achieve the virtual world part well enough. I am not sure a virtual world is what most people wanted out of a star wars product. I think they were looking for something like KOTOR with multiple people in the game. With that said virtual worlds themselves are not a fail although they aren't WoW big either. Some people love them. Second life has a strong following and people love those SIM games, just not with more than one person playing it for some reason.

I think a star wars based virtual world can succeed but it needs to be billed as such so people understand that is what they are getting. SWG was billed as an atypical game and not a virtual world which was a mistake. The game elements were import and what got people in the door but those are the people you won't find in a game like second life. Of course now MMOs without strong virtual world elements seem like limp weak sauce not worth playing for more than a couple of months. Either an MMO needs strong content only a company with the funds like Blizzard can deliver or it needs the virtual world component to keep people interested.

NGE was based in part off of the combat in KOTOR. I think they were looking for KOTOR success more than WoW success but it wasn't polished enough when they delivered it. Had they launched with the game they have now it probably would be a big success. Of course you only get to launch once and SWG soiled itself forever.

Now if Walton is thinking the target audience for TOR isn't the same one that plays space ship sim games because of JTLs failure then I wouldn't expect to see much space in this game. I expect their efforts to be concentrated on the ground game and content. We won't see a Startrek online fail here.

I agree in most of your points, Mep! But a few, the kotor gameplay on PC was horrible to be honest.. somewhat scrolling through options for then clicking what thing that should inflict for using specials and the likes.

NGE was the attempt to copy other gameplays into the game as well as reducing the number of professions that they had given up on developing as well as being a test model for EverQuest 2, look over the NGE gameplay and compare it to EQ2, its the same game but in EQ it works out nicely.

NGE is what is called they that they are tossing the towel into the ring and dropping the once 32 professions (33 with jedi) and dumping it down to 9 professions even though they where making progress with the CU, but instead chosed to remake the game with NGE lol

To me it appeared like with the CU and Pre CU system that there was some major lead classes that could be combined with subclasses, subclasses such as commando, scout, bountyhunter, creature handler, smuggler, combat medic, doctor or whatever as a substitute to master classes like Pistols, rifles, carbines as well as it would be for the melee classes.

Anyhow if they had kept the skill based system instead of the NGE system the game would still work out today as you could use cross profession skills to do stuff with, if ranged it would be ranged skills, if melee it would be melee skills or a combo depending on the class you have paired together for an own and more personal exeperience... they took that away from everyone with the NGE which caused people to leave.

The only reason that the servers in SWG now a day is full of people is because they have closed down half of the servers if not more giving the people the option to transfer from there old servers or die somewhere as it is, else the game has been rather deserted overall since the NGE struck down on people, a few servers had a bunch of people around still, but many of those other servers made it imposible for alot of people there to do the instances because there where no one around to play the game with or the lack of in general skilled players that it seem like SBR never have been without.

Please shutup guys, Cillian is a very good guy, though a bit odd at times.. go and read this thread here and post in it since he posted this awesome thing!!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=112703

You really hit very well with the hammer on the nail there Cillian, dunno I might have said some bad things about you now and then but I have to take that back because of this brilliant idea you deserve my deepest respect.

Thanks Quor your not so bad yourself sometimes

JTL would have been a lot better had they scrapped the idea of droid commands and implementing the recharge scheme from XvT. The engine also suffered flaws, but I don't know that you can blame that on the team that did JTL. They were stuck with the engine the ground game was using.

If it needs to have some kind of MMORPG way to it we need to keep on having some kind of thing so we can put guns and whatever into our ships, as for droid commands and the likes that could be needed for operating the ships I would not mind if they added in the system from JTL, but enhanced, so you still can move the power around from guns, shields, engine or whatever manually X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, XvT and XwA style to hoone ones vessel in flight for escapes and the likes or more heavy combat types that require more HP in the rear or front shields depending on whatever posible situation.

Also one should not just be able to jump into a starship or whatever and then be able to use it 100%, would in many very serious ways suggest having some kind of flight academy that would grant you the certificates for different flights, modules and whatever else to make it more real... plug and play games work nice enough for standalone games, but in an MMO world that should work as some kind of virtual world it would require one actually having to run through alot of different stuff for then being able to fly the game.

Would love if they implented X-Wing way or the likes that had them Training missions as well and then by that put that in as that you need to complete all those in the Simulator within the Simulator to be able to get from Cadet to Flight Officer or the likes and from then on expanding into more serious fligth and combat alongside with kinds of sandbox stuff, PvP and whatever.

A model could be like going by Bomber Missions, Scout Missions, Starfighter missions in a way that you would need to complete it all to be able to advance into POB alike ships.. and then mastery in POB ships, to advance to gunboats and from then on getting into maybe Huge ass ships or whatever, just some thoughts.

"The engine also suffered flaws, but I don't know that you can blame that on the team that did JTL. They were stuck with the engine the ground game was using. "

That my have been my problem with it, it felt like the whole thing was stuck in the mud. XvT seemed like a fast game. It felt quick. My experience with JTL was that it was painfully slow. The controls were slow, the turns were slow, and thus the ships seemed slow.

Things may have been slowed down to work with internet lag. The fact that a good low latency connection is necessary for all for a twitched based space sim may be why the whole genre fell through the floor. A FPS works well enough because people running about is sluggish compared to fast moving ships. XvT never worked all that well. We thought it was fine at the time because we didn't know any better. By today's standards, XvT is unplayable outside a lan party and does anyone ever do those anymore? JTL was far better than XvT in this regard but Pallos is right about it being sluggish. JTL was almost always functional though, unlike XvT which was almost always non-functional. Sluggishness maybe have been the priced that was payed for such functionality. If so, I wouldn't expect a twitched based space game in TOR. Something eve like is possible and would be nice if that did so but I don't see that happening.

Things may have been slowed down to work with internet lag. The fact that a good low latency connection is necessary for all for a twitched based space sim may be why the whole genre fell through the floor. A FPS works well enough because people running about is sluggish compared to fast moving ships. XvT never worked all that well. We thought it was fine at the time because we didn't know any better. By today's standards, XvT is unplayable outside a lan party and does anyone ever do those anymore? JTL was far better than XvT in this regard but Pallos is right about it being sluggish. JTL was almost always functional though, unlike XvT which was almost always non-functional. Sluggishness maybe have been the priced that was payed for such functionality. If so, I wouldn't expect a twitched based space game in TOR. Something eve like is possible and would be nice if that did so but I don't see that happening.

I remember the beta for JTL. They actually did the controls the way they did to try accommodate the lowest common denominator as far as players go, and it wasn't a limitation because of lag. They went through several control/response schemes during beta - at least one of them was exactly like XvT and lag wasn't an issue when they used it. They just figured Galaxies players couldn't cope with XvT controls. So they screwed themselves out of the majority of the MMO gamer market and the older XvT/XWA gamer market.

Lag is a poor excuse for not playing a game, I often laugh or used to laugh up in the face of people whom only could play with 75 ping or less as in I screwed over people easely in battlefield alike games and JK series and other games with having a ping at 180-200, even with new games it is about predicting the lag difference no matter what you look to it and if you are good at it you can easely learn in how to headshot or whatever shooting like a bit a side the head as you and the opponent strafe around, it is like taking height for the planets rotation around its own axis with artilery basically and often actually easier not having to aim directly on the head to get a headshot done for an instance.

I played JTL with around 160-200 Ping and I did very well there, mustered taking out multiple targets fighting multiple targets solo and did not die from it, also to mention I used the Vaksai which is a big and technically easy target to hit, unlike all ya all who had 60 ping or so I did not have to complain having 3x times higher ping due to living in europe.

Only problem that can happen with a game now a day is if your connection to the net is bad meaning lower than 128/128kb connection as well as a poor server can inflict on the only real problem which is known as packet loss, if you have packet loss because of various reasons the game is unplayable as in half your shots would not be registered on the server/client and you would technically be warping around on the server, now a day majority of people got broadband connections, hence you can allow more speed and whatever else, lag can be reduced by that you only fly around on the computer and that the server only locate coordinates on the map and keep the calculations out from that as well as hits or whatever, I mean how hard can it be to create a proper netcode in a simple way?

Anyhow I don't know about the states, but Fiber Optic connections is starting to get common in Europe step by step, no idea about US standards as it is now.. at some points in my country you can get 1000/1000mbit connections as it is now for private use that is around 128megabytes per second both ways if I am correct.

Can anyone say "Wall of text"?

I read most of it. I believe what makes Star Wars epic is the space - without such is to take away from the epicness. Without maximum epicness you cannot have epicness and therefore must have fail. Thus TOR without space will ultimately fail.

Damn . leave it to the bothan to sum it up the best . Without the shield wall of text . Bravo sir ! :thumbsup:

Well would suggest to voice the opinion on the SW:ToR boards instead of sitting here in a comittee.

Well would suggest to voice the opinion on the SW:ToR boards instead of sitting here in a comittee.

It has exactly the same amount of effect either way so why bother =p

This more people who say something about, this bigger chance that they will do something about it... do I need to say more?.... it is the same as for when you vote for a senator or president... if you don't vote you wont be helping either side.

This more people who say something about, this bigger chance that they will do something about it... do I need to say more?.... it is the same as for when you vote for a senator or president... if you don't vote you wont be helping either side.

Game development is not a democracy. Your just sticking your head in the clouds if you think a single thing that you say on the forums of major game designers means anything to them.