GDC Online 2012: SWTOR's Damion Schubert dissects story as a mechanic

I've been saying it since day 1 on these forums. This is a game designed for folks who want to roll alts, listen to the story, and then maximize their characters. That IS the product.

This game, unfortunately, has been judged for what it isn't and that is a terrible way to gauge its worth. It's like saying a car sucks because its not an airplane.

If you don't like rolling alts, you aren't big on story, and you don't want to PvP or casually run operations, then this game IS NOT FOR YOU. Stop trolling on the forums for a product you thought it should be and go play something else. The designers have made is plain as day for you: this is an MMO designed around story and alts.

Wow, seriously? I think you're misunderstanding why I responded. I just wanted to say I agree with the idea of turning quests into bonus quests. You have to manually paste in quotes since quoting a quote doesn't work. To be honest, I misunderstood what it was that you didn't buy in the first place. I wasn't trying to "spin" the point at all. But I edited in that second paragraph in my quote if it makes you happy But it doesn't change my feelings.

I would have liked if they went with multiple paths, but I'm not sure if WoW is a good example to contrast. Especially in MOP, it's pretty linear. And replay value in WoW is EXTREMELY painful after all these years. I've leveled nearly all classes to max level at this point and I can no longer bear to level more than one to 90, and the rep grind is making me want to kill myself.

I never thought story was a good alternative to focusing on the game engine and player activities before I started swtor. And while I have enjoyed much of the stories in swtor, they aren't what kept me here for the last 10 mos. Story and single player content is an appetizer, the main course is the competition (pvp, pve, crafting, gear looks, vehicle looks, whatever) with other players. Devs really need to take that to heart.

Massively: At the end of the presentation, Schubert was asked whether the SWTOR model was sustainable, given the amount of "incubation time" required for systems and quests to launch. Jokingly he replied, "Gosh, I hope so." In other words, he believes that it is. However, in a follow-up question, he was asked what the team is doing to help maximize the life cycle of the current content. His answer surprised me, but not in a good way:

Schubert: "We have not focused on making our content replayable. We have taken a lot of heroic quests -- particularly the group quests -- and made all those replayable. What we have spent the most time on since launch is beefing up the Legacy system, which is designed to get you to play the other really good content. We will probably continue beefing that up because it's our best stuff."

Replayability in ToR is indeed close to zero. Mostly because story choices have no impact whatsoever and there is too much shared content in each faction.

Speaking of the Legacy, even 10 months after launch it's still just a good idea with a really poor implementation. And honestly I don't see anyone rolling an alt because of the legacy alone.

If you take HK-51 the quest design is a miss because, even if you need 1 character in each faction to get it. It's mostly useless as only obtainable at level 50. 50 being when you start not using companions anymore. Now along Makeb/level rise or unloking a low level HK for an alt, that would have made sense.

Finally, hopefully there are better plans for this game otherwise we are really doomed.

It's funny... the only games I've worked on professionally were story-driven MUDS. Story has always been my main shtick in game design, and I've always held it to be of paramount importance. When I created a new area, I would get wrapped up in the back story and the look and feel. I figured most MUD players were of a similar mind. I would frequent areas, as a player, simply because I enjoyed the story or the area aesthetic (I do this with Korriban in TOR... love to go back there). I eventually learnt that for a large majority of players, the story was ancillary at best. The players enjoyed the story as they explored the area, but it was the mob fights, quests, and loot that kept them coming back to an area.

TOR's team doesn't seem to have learnt this crucial lesson, yet. Yes, the TOR class stories are great. However, I can only do the planetary arcs so many times before they become old news. The class stories don't contain enough novel content to make repeating planetary arcs four times feel fresh each time. The things that keep me coming back to MMOs are the things that Schubert describes as not being TOR's "best stuff." I come back for loot, for rare appearances, and for the competitive aspect of having those things versus other players.

Old DnD axiom: Story is for the DM, players don't care.

In an MMO, the "actual" story is detrimental to gameplay, especially for alts. An MMO should have vast, open-ended worlds with a vague story that players can either follow or ignore at their option. An MMO designer's goal should be to create a world where the player creates his/her own story. That story could be a literal story, roleplayed by the player and their friends or it can be a totally self-imagined story that only the player knows or cares about. This is how you make replayability in an MMO.

The world (or universe) in an MMO is it. The story is a distant second, third, or fourth. No matter how good the story is, if the world railroads you from one canned plotpoint to the next, then the world will have no "life".

Believe it or not there are other things the game offers that are overlooked.

PVP which is dynamic and going to be a different experience everytime based on who you play with and against.

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