Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO GC09 preview

The Game Room
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4 videos showing what they have so far.

Initial thoughts:

The graphics aren’t going to be polished yet, as it’s not even in a full alpha stage, but I do hope for higher-quality models. I couldn’t help but notice how polygonal their heads and faces looked (especially apparent on the bald guy). I like the cartoony direction – the ultra-realistic art direction of games like Age of Conan and Everquest 2 mire them hopelessly in the uncanny valley. The environments look fantastic. The character animations (particularly during the dialogues) seemed clunky and awkward, but they have time to work on that. Half the time, they seem to be gesturing for the sake of gesturing, to avoid standing board-stiff, but I suppose coding in meaningful, custom gestures for every line of dialogue would be silly. I still find it distracting, however. Then again, we’re not going to see any video game address that for quite some time. The particle effects look super lame, but that’s to be expected for a pre-alpha demo.

I hope they make the dialogue scenes skippable. Fully voiced is cool and all, but it really kills the pacing when you’re on your third or fourth character and it’s an area you’ve been through already. If for some reason I don’t like a particular voice actor, then their dialogue tends to annoy me or make me doze off; additionally, after Mass Effect highlighted what thoughtful camera direction/scene composition can add to a longish dialogue, I don’t think I can ever go back to the old static close-ups of tradition. They seem to be keeping this in mind from what’s shown on the preview. Oh, and presumably engaging in dialogue doesn’t lock out the NPC for others around you who may need to interact as well (ie- it’s client-side only, and other players just see you standing there); I’ve always hated when I’m trying to turn in a quest or something and someone else triggers one of the NPC’s scripts and I have to wait for it to finish (it’s cool the first time you see it, but beyond that…) – and what if you’re PvP flagged and someone attacks you while you’re in a dialogue (Age of Conan, anyone?)

Combat looks fast-paced and fun, even though at its heart, it’s a turn-based MMO system. The variety of fighting moves and styles will keep the player engaged, instead of just watching the numbers tick by while mashing buttons for an ideal rotation, as long as the relative power of abilities are balanced well. I’m sure facerolling through combat will still be viable, but it’s nice to have options (force choke, death from above, crotch kick, yay!).

Crowd control both determines PvP and ruins the experience simultaneously. From the CC we see in the demo, I’m curious to see how they handle that.

The choice/dialogue system (particularly the multi-player dialogue system) is intriguing. I’ll have to reserve comment until I’ve actually experienced it. I really hope the consequences and rewards of choices aren’t so disparate that it becomes a min/max decision instead of a character decision.

Even though it’s still pre-alpha, I couldn’t help but notice the newbie Bounty Hunter and the “experienced” BH in clip 4 looked almost identical (as did the two iterations of Sith Warrior). Variety is the spice of MMO vanity. A year into release, everyone in Age of Conan still looks bland and dull and the same as when they first rolled the toon (bright bikinis and leet pirate gear notwithstanding). WoW has tons of choice, but not if you want to be effective at all – EQ2 and LOTRO really nailed it when they implemented “costume appearance” separate from stat gear.

All in all, it looks promising, and I appreciate the direction they are taking. I say this guardedly. It’s far from taking my breath away, but hey – it’s only pre-alpha, right?

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It’s a Star Wars MMO. I’ll buy it on release; not really much more to be said except maybe FUCK YEAH!!!

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Has there been any news on what sort of in-game economy will be implemented? I always thought the concept of being a moister-farmer in the first Star Wars MMO (I forget the name) sounded really cool, but by the time I got around to trying it the Jump to Lightspeed expansion had come out and screwed up the crafting professions.

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That’s the most intriguing aspect of the game, but I admit I’m very doubtful they can truly pull it off. It does look to me like it’s going to be a single-player game with multiplayer action alongside. That might be pretty fun, too - it’s just not quite what they suggest.

The only way I can think of to make things happen is for the players to vote on each action, and have very small parties. Again that’s potentially very fun, although it probably isn’t going to eat very far into WoW’s market share. People may get irritated when they wind up sucking down Dark Side points because the other two wanted more. moreover, we know we’re not going to be talking about huge differences in quests and events, since they’re not going to model whole dungeons for different possibilities. It’s a nice idea, and a good experiment, but no more.

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What will the incentive be for everyone NOT to play as a Jedi/Sith?

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In this video, the developers talk a little bit about how they intend to encourage people to play as Star Wars’ standard cannon fodder.

It could be fun.

(I would be very hot for this game’s release, if I didn’t have a family that I probably ought not to completely neglect.)

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Smugglers have the one power greater than the Force. The power of wiseass.

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They’re trying to make the other classes pretty cool, I may be a Jedi I’ll admit but Sith so far was probably the most boring “standard MMO fare” class. The Smuggler I’m considering making an alt of at the very least, but he uses cover (which looked fun) not to mention he had a move to kick someone in the nuts and shoot them in the head. Not to mention all the classes have completely independent stories so people will be encouraged to at the very least get an alt of other classes to max level. Even if 80% of the population has a Jedi or Sith it would be likely that they at least have another character they can hop on.

We were worried about this on the official forums, what it looks like now is that the group members simply take turns, and whoever’s turn it is gives the rest of the group their points (and, as such, affects their story). This is more dire than just points because it could make your character’s story take another path if they make a choice that could haunt you later in the game. Some people said they liked that, because even in movie-land other people can make choices you don’t agree with that can affect you. It was almost unanimous though that your intentions should count towards your points, even if someone else could make the story change. There were a lot of solutions proposed like a vote system, or all the members choosing what they would do, even if their choice doesn’t count because it’s not their turn.

FWIW here’s my post on the subject:

We’ll see what system they’ll settle on, they said they’re still working out the best way to do it.

We’re not sure. It’s a story driven MMO though, not sandbox so I’d expect closer to WoW than SWG or EvE, though I think they said they’ll try to keep crafting closer in line with other ways of acquiring gear.