What I can say is likely the best option for having an important follower is to let the player "create them" from some preselected backgrounds and such, you know, like you could do with Shepard in Mass Effect. I have just been discussing this in regards to Pen and Paper Roleplaying... players care more about things THEY create than things the DM creates. | |
Wow, your whole article just perfectly summed up my thoughts on this game. I have nothing to add...which makes me feel all weird inside... | |
I think it looks pretty sweet. I can't help but think it'll be awesome, but at the same time I'm not trying to hype myself up too much. I guess we'll have to wait and see. | |
I am ripped asunder on this game. On the one hand: Bioware needs to father my babies. I love them so much, and nearly every game I've played by them has been golden. Fantastic story direction, memorable characters, amazing gameplay...nuff said. On the other hand: It's a KOTOR MMO. Where's the guff in that? Well every Tom, Dick, and Harry-Wan-Kenobi will running around as a Jedi, which makes BEING a Jedi that much less special and cool. In the first Star Wars MMO, it was very hard to become a Jedi. Granted, the game sucked, but that is one thing they did right. It made them something to be feared, something to strive for, something to be respected. Now what is it? It's a character class that anyone can choose. Where is the mystery of the force now? | |
I hope this game comes out good, I haven't known any games that Bioware made I didn't like. I sure hope its good! | |
I was completely jazzed about this game once it was announced, but I have to be honest, this preview documentary really has me thinking this game isn't going to live up to the name. Don't get me wrong, I love Bioware (when I say I love Bioware, it's to a creepy fetishistic degree) so it hurts me to say this. The biggest design decision that has me worried is the AI companion. Isn't the point of playing MMOs is to have actual, human companions? I know there are classes in MMOs that grant pets and you'll occasionally have NPC companions in less popular MMOs to stabalize group dynamics (I'm looking at you Guild Wars) but to hinge the protagonist's narrative on an NPC? That sounds like a poor choice. This video left me with the feeling that this will be a great single player game that has to be played with people in an MMO space. Also, the visuals were a bit underwhelming, but I'm not going to worry about that unless that's the same footage they're showing us a month before launch. It looks like they have the aesthetic and concept down, it's just that their animations could use a little work. I'm not going to worry about that issue and trust Bioware will have that resolved, but I'm not holding my breath on this on, sadly. | |
Mmm, pretty much the universal opinion works here. MMOs, cool, story, cool, but the two don't really combine well, and hinging your MMO on the story seems, well... a very bad idea. I dearly hope they pull it off, and if anyone can its Bioware, but the only MMO I've ever known that has a real sense of story and uniqueness is, dare I say it, EvE. And that's only because, actual mechanics aside, the game hinges on player interaction, not pre-programmed NPC-player interaction. | |
Looks and sounds like fun, but I'll wait for them to deliver on their talks of course. | |
This will either be Biowares most epic moment, or the day they begin the fall into the abyss. Much like Blizzard and Stacraft 2 really... | |
Hope is all we have. It's bioware so hope for the best, but lucasarts so prepare for the worst. | |
Must. Be. Droid. It cannot happen any other way. I refuse to be some stick-waving meatbag, the force is for chumps without the metal stones and processing power to gun down your foes from afar. | |
You can make tons of choices that you'll have to live with! Permanently! Do you choose to skin the hides of bunnies for NPC A, or will you go the dark side and eat the bunnies alive and collect reward at NPC B? CHOICES! Did I mention you'll have to live with these choices permanently? ... that is, until you roll a new character. Ahem. Also! And is everyone going to be a damn jedi with a lightsaber or will there be.. other options? | |
Meh. It's another shitty MMO. | |
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First Look: Star Wars: The Old Republic
A short web documentary about Star Wars: The Old Republic contains not just early-production in-game footage and concept art, but also Ray Muzyka's proclamation that the game will be the "best thing that BioWare's ever done."
Now that Warhammer Online and Wrath of the Lich King are out, the biggest MMO lurking in the distant darkness of the future is BioWare's first foray into massive space, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Naturally, both BioWare and LucasArts are aware of the title's potential clout, and so over this last weekend released a web documentary starring some of the major players in the project atop concept art and some actual in-game footage.
For the most part, it's a pretty standard "Hey look at us, aren't we going to be awesome?" spiel, and the in-game footage isn't exactly breathtaking - I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here and chalk that up to it being early in development, though. On the positive side, if the concept art and footage are any indication, they've nailed the KotOR aesthetic (as one would have hoped, given that they made it) in both design and the general feel of combat.
The main thing that they keep bringing up is how integral story will be to the TOR experience. Sure, BioWare's had plenty of experience crafting an engaging single-player story and weaving it with the gameplay, but a MMO is a wholly different beast. Persistent worlds and storytelling aren't the most comfortable of bedfellows, and while having a story-driven MMO isn't exactly a new concept, nobody's really hit the ball out of the park yet ... at best, they're stranded on second base with two outs.
It's one thing to have the player save Zaalbar the Wookiee, who consequently pledges a life-debt to your character. It's another thing entirely to have a hundred thousand Zaalbars all pledging lifedebts to every single player character who did the quest to save him in the first place.
Maybe this is just needless pessimism, because BioWare certainly has the credentials to potentially pull it off, and there are more blind wild guesses than concrete details at this point. If they can work magic with the concept, I'll be as thrilled as anybody, and I'm definitely looking forward to TOR. But it's certainly no easy task.
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