Hmmm, a new MMO. Can Bioware pull this off and deliver a good, engaging, interesting MMO without first WOW’fing it?
This blew me away: “There’s more story in SW:TOR than in all the Bioware games released, COMBINED.” :eek:
Here’s hoping they don’t fuck it up as much as Galaxies.
Edit: Also, buggeries that this means no KOTOR 3.
I am so in on this. Woooooo.
I don’t think a whole lot of Bioware, particularly since they sold out to Eidos (literally), but they can probably do something good. Will it be distinct enough from other MMORPG’s to matter, though? That’s another question.
It sounds interesting but I really hate that they canned KoTOR 3 to do it.
agreed, too bad I basically hate MMORPGs as a rule (when I was younger I was way into EverQuest, then DAoC, then Neocron, then WOW, and sprinkle in a few more forgettable titles in there. I just got insanely bored with the whole formula)
I have a boner.
A BIG boner.
This IS KOTOR 3.
Sad. If anything could get me onto an MMORPGy this would probably be it–but I don’t think this will be it. Oh well–I have my Star Wars comics.
This could be incredibly awesome. I played the previous Star Wars MMORPG (SWG) until my fingers bled. But then the suckiness that was the NGE forced me out, and I followed every other dork in the universe to WOW. I’ve had tons of fun playing WOW, and lately Warhammer Online has been a nice change of pace, but if Bioware gets this even kinda right, it will be huge.
No it’s not. It’s a freaking MMO.
It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!
And lemme put it this way. This KOTOR? They ain’t gonna have to worry about gutting the ending to get it out on time.
In SWG I liked that I could be something other than a Jedi. I played the smuggler/bounty hunter, armed with a pistol. Apart from the NGE I began to hate the Jedi in the game. They were so much more powerful, which you would expect, but they became so damn numerous. What used to be fun raids on Empire controlled outposts became Jedi training grounds.
I think the concept of a Star Wars MMOG is flawed. It seems everyone wants to play a Jedi, while expecting them to kick ass. Where does that leave the rest of us?
We’ll see…
Yeah, I can see this happening pretty much immediately.
I’ve heard that half a kilometer of heavily armed capital ship does wonders for evening the odds. 
Well, it looks like you’re going to have companions in this game, who will interact with you, maybe betray you, and so on.
One of them might be a jedi. Or not.
Not in The Force Unleashed it doesn’t. Starkiller is the most badass Jedi ever.
As much as the game as worth renting…
Starkiller was a personality-less collection of terrible uber-ness because the video games feel the need to increase everything to ubernes.
That and he looks like the poster boy for Abercrombie and Fitch. I HATE his character design (so I played the whole game with him wearing a hooded outfit of one-kind or another, which unfortunately didn’t help in the cutscenes (seriously?! It’s 2008 and they didn’t incorporate outfit changes into cutscenes?! what’s wrong with you guys?) but helped the rest of the game
I’m playing Force Unleashed now - and I hate the character.
Okay, “Starkiller” links back to the Anakin Starkiller of the early drafts of Star Wars, and you could either be fanboyish and view this as a nice fractal dimension to the overall story arc of the films, or be dull and just say it’s the exact same damned character and story development that we’ve already seen.
…and I would chew my own testicles off without so much as a shot of bourbon to dull the pain before I would play a Star Wars MMORP.
Yeah, there was a time when I could (and did) recite the entire dialogue of the first movie with glee, and yeah, I did have a complete collection of Kenner Star Wars toys up until 1983, but… playing that game would depend on co-operating with… nerds.
Ah, but can you shave with it?
I’m excited. I love the take-your-time approach to combat in KOTOR and if there’s one IP that could translate well into an engaging MMO, it’s the Star Wars universe viewed through the KOTOR prism. It allows for people not having Jedi powers, it allows for a sliding scale of evil, it allows for actual choice, it allows for a vast galaxy ready for exploration and it’ll have a pre-existing and nicely malleable canon of backstory ready for day one.
One also does not need to bend form over the proverbial knee to accomodate function, since modern+ society already accomodates most of the social necesseties of an MMO; auction houses, bars, big cities, factions, a wide range of weaponry and so on. There is really no excuse for these things not being present for launch.
ETA: In a compromise between developers and gamers, Bioware just released a press statement signaling that in due recognition of the wishes of its fan-base, “a character mentioning a wild theory about something called midi-chloridians will be assaulted by police officers during the intro cinematics, then taken behind a shed and shot in the throat.”