Reflecting on SWTOR and XIV

[Jadi]

I think some of it comes down to (god forbid because we all hate it) but the animation locks and spell movement locks.. with SWTOR I can jump around, do instants, hell not even face stuff and kill it.

And I guess this is a given that the thread will derail into "No it's not like wow!" fine.. tell me how it's different. What new and uncharted territory did SWTOR take? The controls are exactly the same, the game play is exactly the same, the leveling with class trainers is exactly the same, oh look it's got skill trees like.. umm.. wow. The differences between the two you could write on the back of a business card.

[casker]

I think some of it comes down to (god forbid because we all hate it) but the animation locks and spell movement locks.. with SWTOR I can jump around, do instants, hell not even face stuff and kill it.

Animation locks aren't necessarily bad, but in FFXIV they were exacerbated by the ridiculously clunky and laggy client, and having locks where they aren't necessary. GW2 for example, on the other hand, has hardly any animation locks but that game is way too floaty and spastic.

[Abriael]

And I guess this is a given that the thread will derail into "No it's not like wow!" fine.. tell me how it's different. What new and uncharted territory did SWTOR take? The controls are exactly the same, the game play is exactly the same, the leveling with class trainers is exactly the same, oh look it's got skill trees like.. umm.. wow. The differences between the two you could write on the back of a business card.

SWTOR has its main feature in the storytelling, branching dialogue, companion interaction and everything that is peculiar of BioWare RPGs.

WoW does not.

It's a radical difference, and one must be completely blind not to notice it since it's slapped in your face at every corner that you turn.

Saying that SWTOR is a clone of WoW is like saying that Battlefield is a clone of Call of Duty because they're the same genre and have similar controls.

It pretty obvious that it doesn't make the slightest sense. Everyone into racing will tell you that a tire doesn't need to be square in order to be different.

[Jadi]

I think we are very lucky with XIV, and hopefully we will see something that isn't a clone of typical A class mmo's out there, but is easy enough for those who are accustomed to those to be able to pickup quickly.

SWTOR has its main feature in the storytelling, branching dialogue, companion interaction and everything that is peculiar of BioWare RPGs.

WoW does not.

It's a radical difference, and one must be completely blind not to notice it since it's slapped in your face at every corner that you turn.

Saying that SWTOR is a clone of WoW is like saying that Battlefield is a clone of Call of Duty because they're the same genre and have similar controls.

It pretty obvious that it doesn't make the slightest sense. Everyone into racing will tell you that a tire doesn't need to be square in order to be different.

I don't view content as making it different. Of *course* the content is different, that’s a no brainier. I'm talking about it's structure and the way it operates.. if you remove all artwork and content from both games and add stick figures in... do you think you could tell what game you were playing in the first 30 minutes? The really nice part about XIV 1.x is that it was without a doubt NOT WoW, so I'm hopeful that SE continues to break new ground adding fallbacks to common mmo conventions if and when they make sense to do so.

As if controls should be different in every game... There is no need to try and reinvent the wheel. (Also it's not like WoW was the first game to be controlled this way.)

I don't mean in that sense.. you are correct, and there are common conventions but what I mean is for example XIV uses a different type of control than most other MMO's being controller friendly, the way the camera moves and locks.. that sort of stuff.

Partly I'm fearful now that SE is copying SWTOR with the companions in their ideas of the Chocoboos !!! NO SE! don't do it.. we don't all need to be running around questing with our Chocoboo!

[Abriael]

I don't view content as making it different. Of *course* the content is different, that’s a no brainier. I'm talking about it's structure and the way it operates.. if you remove all artwork and content from both games and add stick figures in... do you think you could tell what game you were playing in the first 30 minutes? The really nice part about XIV 1.x is that it was without a doubt NOT WoW, so I'm hopeful that SE continues to break new ground adding fallbacks to common mmo conventions if and when they make sense to do so.

Too bad that the heavy focus on storyline, the branching dialogue, the companion interaction et cetera aren't just "content". They're integral part of what you call "the structure of the game and the way it operates".

[BobbinT]

U know... I'm actually new to this kind of MMO. And since FF14 actually my 1st one, I have none to compare with.

But then one day I installed SWTOR. After 2 days, I concluded that even tho it has better responsive than FF14, the gameplay itself rather clunky and the graphic r way below FF14. Plus somehow I feel like controlling a doll where @ FF14, our player chara feels more alive. SWTOR does have impressive VA implementation tho, something that could be work on with FF14 which lacked this.

At the end, I resumed with experience with FF14 still. This game has sort of hidden charms I can't get away with, even after final save and it's like dead city game right now. ^^

[fusional]

somehow I feel like controlling a doll where @ FF14, our player chara feels more alive.

while general boredom with other MMOs certainly factored into things, this was pretty much what kept me playing XIV over the last year. if yoshi can deliver on giving us fluid, lag-free, highly mobile combat with reduced animation lock (a little is totally fine) while keeping the 'solid' feel of the characters and combat... i'll be sold.

[Kallera]

while general boredom with other MMOs certainly factored into things, this was pretty much what kept me playing XIV over the last year. if yoshi can deliver on giving us fluid, lag-free, highly mobile combat with reduced animation lock (a little is totally fine) while keeping the 'solid' feel of the characters and combat... i'll be sold.

I agree with this, from the video of SWTOR that I've seen, the combat looks like a flinch happy slugfest of effects splashing everywhere. Star Wars combat doesn't exactly translate well into MMOs in my opinion. In the movies, characters were one blaster shot or lightsaber swing from serious and permanent injury and death. The SNES-era video games got away with it to a degree. but long extended battles of taking point blank blaster shots and swings from lightsabers curable by "Channeling hate" seemed a bit...off. Like a caricature of a caricature.

[Rogue]

Well its not just with MMO's, the FPS genre is in a simialar situation, seeming to be heavily influenced by COD,

Its such a shame because i hate COD, but i spent my entire youth playing Duke3D, Quake, unreal and Halo 1. young players today dont know what an FPS is :/

I dont think we'll see another FFXI ever again, instead we are stuck with the instanced grinds we have now.

Alot of games are designed by people who wear a suit to work, "This game has done well so lets just base our game around it".. "but i want to do this"... "no you cant because we might not make as much money"

[Antipika]

The controls are exactly the same,

As if controls should be different in every game... There is no need to try and reinvent the wheel. (Also it's not like WoW was the first game to be controlled this way.)