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When LucasArts, BioWare and EA revealed their new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic last year, it was with a flourish, a loud fanfare, a lot of grand rhetoric, and almost no information. The game remained fogged with mystery: it would have lightsabers, lots of story, AI companions, and maybe be a bit like World of Warcraft in space - if there was going to be any space in it. They weren't talking about space that day. They weren't releasing video either. Or saying what the classes were, or whether there would be player-versus-player combat, or explaining just how this mammoth, high-stakes project might work.
In other words, the big-time triumvirate producing The Old Republic issued a wry Alec Guinness half-smile, waved a hand in our direction and we wandered off, contented that these were not the details we were looking for.
Since then, the game's been showing a bit of ankle under those long brown robes, drip-feeding its website with wordy developer blogs and videos slathered in concept art from which it's been possible to mine nuggets of information and seconds of gameplay footage. The most significant news was the announcement of a Bounty Hunter class to join Jedi and Sith. We were expecting more of the same from its E3 showing, especially after EA's press conference climaxed with an admittedly stunning cinematic and not much else.
We weren't expecting to encounter the game itself. But we did. And we weren't expecting to be so impressed with it, either.
Bounty Hunters are all Imperial and Smugglers all fight for the Republic, but any class on either side can tend towards light or dark at will.
Shown running off live servers in the game's Austin, Texas development headquarters, The Old Republic looked solid, colourful and attractive with fast-paced, punchy and crisply-defined combat. Those are rare enough qualities for any MMORPG to claim, never mind one that's at least a year away from launch. BioWare also tore the wrapping off a new class - the Han Solo-inspired Smuggler, who joins the Republic side - and showed combat and story instancing in some depth before reverting to type and clamming up under questioning. But it was too late, their secret was out; Star Wars: The Old Republic is already a frighteningly real prospect, and its developers seem to know exactly what they're doing.
One of the thing they're doing, they are still extremely keen to remind us, is building a "fourth pillar" of storytelling to further support and embellish the lumbering super-structure of an MMO. BioWare professes to be unhappy with the generally static, lore-as-background approach to narrative adopted by most massively multiplayer games and is promising to deliver an epic, branching tale that responds to player decisions, in typical BioWare style, for each character class as well as both the Imperial and Republic factions.
Does that sound daunting? Then how about the even scarier commitment to fully voicing the game that rounded off the E3 reveal? Not only is this a gigantic undertaking, it's one that substantially changes the rhythm of the MMO, bringing it closer in line with the cinematic presentation of a modern single-player game. Beginning the live demo with some Bounty Hunter questing, BioWare showed how the quest was triggered by a three-way conversation lasting a few minutes. The camera cut between long-shots and headshots and there was no on-screen text at all (save some signature Star Wars subtitles for alien speech). It was, essentially, a cut-scene.
Trooper is the other confirmed class - we wonder how BioWare will deal with the surfeit of ranged fighters in this game?
This move undoubtedly gives BioWare more room to flex its storytelling muscle, and may also go some way to making many players feel more comfortable playing an MMO. But it raises several difficult questions and risky departures for the developer. Voicing the player character is one: each character class will have a single generic voice, which risks undermining the strongly individual bond between MMO players and their "toons".
Then there's the sheer quantity of content these games require. Can all of it really be interesting enough to justify this kind of presentation? BioWare is currently indicating that it will be unwilling to let players skip or read dialogue scenes, and the rather stiff, bland and functional Bounty Hunter scene we watch makes us worried that they will slow the pace of the game to a crawl, especially for impatient, seasoned MMO players. Anyone who has made their way through the early parts of Age of Conan will attest to what a mixed blessing voicing can be in MMOs, although BioWare's commitment to never duplicating missions across the classes will certainly help.
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Latest Videos
Star Wars: The Old Republic - Designing the Darkside [0] 4 January, 2010
Star Wars: the old Republic - the making of Coruscant [1] 12 October, 2009
Latest News
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Latest Screenshots
14 September, 2009 [5]
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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0
Need to see to be able to have an opinion on an MMO since its the hardest thing to do. Even watching an ingame video for a few mins straight cant really give you a clear image when it comes to MMOs so.. Yeah this will take too much to know wtf its about and if even worth. I sure as hell hope so though cause I tried going back to WoW... BORED! Tried to go back to AoC... BORED! Even gave it a shot returning to Lotro and ofc BORED as fuck so... WAR i wont even try it lol so I dont know. Im afraid ill be dissapointed in the Star Wars.
Yeah, ive finished both the solo episodes and i loved them but when it comes to MMOs its a whole different story and im way too picky. |
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Silvervein
15/06/09 @ 14:27
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This whole fourth pillar is just advertising gimmick. It was done before, in city of heroes for example. But the way it's done there is that the stories never have any world changing results. Not a bad thing on its own, and the stories are certainly enjoyable. But when it comes to spinning epic sagas that bioware talks about, there has to be some tangible and permament way that your choices affect the world.
And I don't see how is that possible in an mmo. So it's either going to be epic instanced single player saga in mmo, or epic mmo saga that isn't really epic because it changes nothing at all. And there's nothing more immersion breaking than having to camp the epic villain or someone else in a long line of other super heroic stars of their own stories, that do exactly the same thing you do. And all that doesn't change the game world one bit. PS. And judging by my star wars galaxies experience (even before sony destroyed the game), there is nothing, and I mean, absolutely nothing more annoying than having hordes of jedi or sith run around going 'm3 gunna pwnz ur azz n00b'. And nothing I saw or heard about this old republic game so far says it won't be repeat of this scene. Especially that they aim for consoles and younger audience.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 15:32
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0
I must admit I'm very sceptical about this. Fully voiced dialogue? Voicing missions would be a huge bottleneck. Never duplicating missions across classes? Why would people group up then (apart from friends who enjoy playing together)? This sounds more and more like a persistent single player game and less like a MMO. I do like the idea of it being you vs. multiple enemies in combat but the standard-issue MMO auto-attack + triggered abilities stuff never really works too well in sci-fi settings I think.
Also the thoughts of other people choosing dialogue in turns is worrying if those dialogue choices could send you down a different storyline branch. |
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spudsbuckley
15/06/09 @ 14:47
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Another one for WoW to beat into submission by releasing a different coloured mount :D
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farticusmaximus
15/06/09 @ 14:49
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"when it comes to spinning epic sagas that bioware talks about, there has to be some tangible and permament way that your choices affect the world.
And I don't see how is that possible in an mmo" Well WoW has started down that path already with phased zones, and it works very well. It currently has no effect on other players, but you do permanently change parts of the world in some Wrath of the Lichking questlines.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 15:50
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AphoticCosmos
15/06/09 @ 14:49
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"Especially that they aim for consoles and younger audience."
Shenanigans: 1. It's not coming to consoles - PC only. This has been confirmed multiple times by BioWare co-founder and EA VP Ray Muzyka. 2. It's not aiming for a younger audience - the stylised graphics were adopted for lower system requirements and to set it apart visually from the swathe of games that simply use "next-gen" engines and wind up being a boring dullfest of browns and greys. Also, some factual inaccuracies in the article: 1. Each class does not have a single generic voice - it was confirmed in a much more in depth interview that each class and gender will have multiple options to choose from [obviously having the same voice presents a serious immersion problem in group dialogue]. 2. The game is not confirmed to be at least a year away - realistically it probably is, but there is no public ETA. 3. Auto-attacking has been specifically confirmed by several other sites in interviews to not be in SW:TOR.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 15:52
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0
"When it comes to combat, we can be clear: it's standard MMORPG stuff"
At first I thought "That's a pass for me then", but then I figured I shouldn't judge too hastily and read on... "Although fighting's still a matter of selecting an enemy, auto-attacking and then triggering skills by clicking on the skill bar or pressing the number keys" Alright, screw this game.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 15:51
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Silvervein
15/06/09 @ 14:53
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@sneetch
That's exactly what I'm talking about. And why I take their statements of 'creating epic branching stories for everyone' with big grain of salt. The only way their claims can be realized is only if they make fully dynamic game world. That is, living simulation of star wars universe.Then yeah. If someone kills slugga the hutt, he stays dead. His business might be taken over by other hutt or fall apart. But this particular quest won't be available ever again, for anyone. And I don't see bioware making old republic into this kind of game
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 16:04
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Silvervein
15/06/09 @ 15:01
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@farticusmaximus
Using technique described by you doesn't really patch that hole in game fiction that appears every time you realize that your epic struggles are nothing more than scripted event to be repeated by others (or even your other characters) any time fancy takes them. It's not what epic story is about, and that's what bioware suggests: that they will provide everyone playing mmo with single player quality storytelling. While I agree that in game like wow it might give people some sense of achievement, it's not a permament change to the game world that is expereinced by everyone venturing into given area. Especially if you consider the fact that with branching story, different people might have gotten different outcomes in the same story, and if they team up and go to the place supposedly affected by their actions, game will develop a hiccup trying to stuff two people that should see different things in one place. |
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rhinoxious
15/06/09 @ 15:15
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EXCELLENT.
A persistent single player game with good options for hooking up with friends and a drip feed of new content sounds perfect to me ... I was never interested in yet another WOW clone. |
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farticusmaximus
15/06/09 @ 15:16
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@Silvervein
While what you say is true, that the changed world is not changed to other players, the same is true of a single player game. It's an MMO so these kinds of world changing events are never going to happen, it's the nature of MMO's. There might be mechanisms to destroy buildings and rebuild them which could be shared with other players, or have occupied zones such as Halaa, but permanent irreversable change simply won't work in an MMO. That doesnt mean you can't have great immersive storytelling though, but you do need to put on your sensible hat every now and then and recognise that the game works within restrictions that technology cannot yet cost-effectively overcome. |
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Silvervein
15/06/09 @ 15:41
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@farticusmaximus
*smiles* if the technology is not available, it's not the sensibility hat I need to put on, but bioware, or rather EA hype corps that need to be honest and say they make yet another npc loot drop driven experience grinder with some story to it, instead of telling stories of how they will make single player storytelling experience similar to kotor in an mmo setting. PS. When it comes to single player games, the changes of the world are persistent. You can export your saved game and anyone who will load it will get exactly the same world as you left it. There are loads and saves of course giving you time travelling powers, but the progression of story as such is based on irreversible changes to the world, between one story fork and the next. For example, if you beat gerlon in the arena of kotor, save game and come back in a week, he won't develop amnesia, and will still hold a grudge for you beating him. Something that just doesn't happen in mmo's. And that's why I think that mmo's are very bad place to go and tell those epic stories. |
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hiddenranbir
15/06/09 @ 15:42
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I fail to see how EVERY single player will be capable of changing the 'static' game world they're claiming is different.
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0
'For example, if you beat gerlon in the arena of kotor, save game and come back in a week, he won't develop amnesia, and will still hold a grudge for you beating him. Something that just doesn't happen in mmo's. And that's why I think that mmo's are very bad place to go and tell those epic stories.'
at the moment that is There's no reason why it has to remain like this though. Sure if they use the same mechanics as existing mmo's then it's tough, but once again there's no reason why they should. Bioware are quality and I have faith in them delivering a quality product |
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iokthemonkey
15/06/09 @ 15:55
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I fail to see how EVERY single player will be capable of changing the 'static' game world they're claiming is different.
---- You could in SWG. Granted, you couldn't kill Jabba the Hutt or destroy Mos Eisley, but you could influence the world, with players creating their own cities, locating their own housing, mining resources (the game didn't drop "loot" per se) etc. |
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0
I really don't see how this is going to work as an MMO. Unskippable things are terrible for alts and unpleasant in situations even the first time through. Bioware are a great company, but a fully voiced, no repeat quest game that actually plays through to endgame in a measurement of days worth of play rather than hours would be beyond many seasoned MMO developers when you take into account there also has to be an end-game, and at least some token balanced PVP to even have people renewing subs past what is given away with the box. I don't see them achieving it all personally.
Having said that I wait and I hope, but I put on an air of skepticism to shield myself from disappointment.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 15/06/09 @ 17:06
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+1
"You could in SWG. Granted, you couldn't kill Jabba the Hutt or destroy Mos Eisley, but you could influence the world, with players creating their own cities, locating their own housing, mining resources (the game didn't drop "loot" per se) etc. "
Creating your own hairstyle isn't what most people would count as an epic storyline, Darth Sasoon excepted. Phasing as implemented by LotrO and WoW works well in this respect, but it's difficult to make anything other than a linear sequence of changes this way. Replacing the NPC you killed last week with a duplicate, just with a different name, is easy. Better is having the replacement recognise you ("You shall not find me so easy to defeat as my predecessor"). Better still is having the NPC faction take action against you. Imagine next time you log in that some Bounty Hunter has stolen your lightsabre; you track them down and find they have been paid by the smuggling outfit whose boss you killed only last week... |
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AphoticCosmos
15/06/09 @ 16:25
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@ Nocturne
The game has been confirmed to be 100% soloable [at least the levelling phase] if you want to have a more KotOR-esque experience. You don't have to group unless you want to. |
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0
@Gurgeh
Creating your own hairstyle isn't what most people would count as an epic storyline, Darth Sasoon excepted. Big freaking LOL! :D Excellent. I guess we'll have to wait and see if their instancing or layering or whatever method they use to allow people to separate the various versions of the game world works well. If it's a case that the rest of your party drop into a different layer when you walk towards the bar that you burned down in your world and they saved in theirs then, well, that sucks IMO. If you use the party leader's instances/layers instead then that's better but still unsatisfying. I dunno - it's a tricky problem. |
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0
AC1 did "world-changing events" years ago, where the resolution of a major quest in game led to repercussions in the world in the next monthly update. However, they didn't have the resources to have multiple branching worlds so the same resolution was applied to every server no matter how the players actually resolved it on a given server.
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Silvervein
15/06/09 @ 16:48
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@gurgeh
Oh, star wars galaxies hairstyles is something that's available in practically all online games. Even most of those dreaded korean grinders. But Towns, faction outposts, mining rigs and so on, they were all in the world for everyone to see. Or to blow up if those pesky imperials started to encroach on the town...My.Those were good times. Eh. No other game around does it like that anymore. Pity. By the way, what's with the dev obsession with iconic character and classes? I liked being a musician back in galaxies. Why do I have to run around with a blaster or glowing tube? |
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0
It's a shame Bioware are essentially cutting off a vast portion of the original fan base with this game. Many of the sales of KOTOR 1 and 2 were on the Xbox, and those players most likely will either not have the means to play this, or they won't want to.
In one interview, a developer said that this is a sequel to KOTOR 1 and 2, but it's so large, it's practically KOTOR 3,4,5. I don't want that. I want a nice conclusion to those stories. I want the same gamplay. I don't want to team up with real life people. Especially Americans. I don't want to buy a new PC, this game, AND pay a subscription fee just to complete the story. |
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0
As skeptical as I am, I just watched the trailer.
If you haven't seen it already I highly recommend you do so. It says virtually nothing about the game, but in itself it's more exciting than all the prequels put together. Again, as wary as I force myself to be to guard against disappointment, the very notion of this makes me giddy. If The Old Republic manages to crank out as much excitement over the course of its storyline(s) as it does during the trailer, I'm sold - multiplayer mechanics notwithstanding. |
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+1
"when it comes to spinning epic sagas that bioware talks about, there has to be some tangible and permament way that your choices affect the world.
Asheron's Call actually changed the world after each "live" event. Sometimes a city was destroyed, sometimes something new was build. MMO have never been able to copy that unique feature since AC had a streaming world. Anyway... you are right... this will not be very different from LOTRO (or to a very minor way WoW) where you will have instanced zones to indicate that you changed the world. That generates the problem that your friends might not be able to see/join you since they are in a different part of a quest. |
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NegativeZero
16/06/09 @ 07:04
0
I'm fully confident that Bioware will have a fantastic leveling experience. What I care about is the endgame. What will there be? MMOs succeed or fail on the strength of their endgame experience. That's one of the chief reasons why reasonably decent MMOs like Tabula Rasa crashed and burned - there was simply no content to strive toward. Compare that against WoW, where there is a ton of stuff available for you to do at the end, with new content being added every major patch.
If their endgame is 'start a new character' then it could be the best MMO ever, but it will still fail to retain any players after the first three or four months when they all realise there's no point to it and head back to WoW again. |
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AphoticCosmos
16/06/09 @ 10:01
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@NegativeZero
Well, there will at least be elements of a conventional endgame. Raiding and PvP have been confirmed, but fuck all is known about them atm. |
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notmyrealname
16/06/09 @ 12:15
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I keep hearing KOTOR is so great but I'm allergic for star wars and disney stuff.
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albertofustinoni
17/06/09 @ 10:43
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Looking very much forward to this, especially if it ends up being closer to Guild Wars (the only MMO I could play for more than 2 weeks without getting bored) than WOW.
Online KOTOR here I come... |
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only1kenobi
18/06/09 @ 15:19
0
I'm a big fan of KOTOR and the Bioware single player RPGs since Baldurs Gate. I'm excited about the prospect of an online RPG with Bioware creating a story around the Star Wars franchise. I am very skeptical though when developers say they are going to address those annoying MMO staples, but I look forward to their solutions to those problems:
Repetitive combat, Class skill rebalancing soon after launch, Item rebalancing soon after launch, Dumb AI, NPCs with Amnesia, Quest/boss loot farming, Quest NPCs too stupid to recognise how many of the enemy faction you already killed, Chain quests that can't be shared, Spoon fed dungeon runs from higher level players, You died because your internet connection timed out, Lack of mentor options, You died because of an instance bottleneck, Terrain having no effect, Ludicrously expensive mounts for the scenario, Global LFG spam, Spoiler global chat, GOLDFARMING SPAM, Rep grinding, Formulaic fetch quests, Ineffective consequence, No in game VOIP at launch, Artificially low drop rates unless these are addressed it won't be a true Bioware game just an MMO with some Single player RPG aspirations.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 18/06/09 @ 16:24
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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