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Primotechnology wrote:A source close to BioWare confirmed to us today that the studio’s upcoming untitled massively-multiplayer online RPG will be centered around the Star Wars universe, specifically that of Knights of the Old Republic, which the developer released in 2003. The game garnered critical acclaim and spawned a less-popular sequel, released by Obsidian two years later.

The game is being developed by the company’s Austin studio, formed in 2006 and headed by BioWare Creative Director James Ohlen, whose past credits include the first KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, and Baldur Gate’s I and II.

This is not the first Star Wars-related MMORPG: Star Wars Galaxies debuted in the summer of 2003, followed by several expansions. It was generally well-received by fans and critics, but subscriber numbers plunged and never recovered after a controversial gameplay update in 2005. It’s estimated that the game now has fewer than 100,000 subscribers and less than 20,000 active players.

It’s currently unknown whether or not EA, which acquired BioWare last week, will act as publisher for this title, or if the studio had a previous arrangement with another publisher.

Expect the game sometime in 2009.

Personally, I'd prefer they'd use the time period that the Legacy Comics are set in a little more, as that gives us something more than just black-and-white, good-and-evil, but the KOTOR fans (I want to say fanwhores, as they can be rather rabid about it) soak the shit up.

This could be interesting. I just hope they don't fuck it up like Galaxies.

Jericho Kross wrote:This could be interesting. I just hope they don't fuck it up like Galaxies.

Oh, well to help abate your fears, Bioware was recently bought out by EA... oh wait, that's not very encouraging at all.

General Schatten wrote:

Jericho Kross wrote:This could be interesting. I just hope they don't fuck it up like Galaxies.

Oh, well to help abate your fears, Bioware was recently bought out by EA... oh wait, that's not very encouraging at all.

It could be worse, I've heard many reports that SoE fucked up Galaxies deliberately to remove competition for EQ2, the game certainly was a complete abomination. EA haven't done as bad a job with UO as some think. The fact that UO is still going strong over 10 years later, retains stable servers and a friendly community, which is more than can be said for more modern MMO's like WoW.

Yeah, but the main problem with having a Star Wars MMO is the way an MMO is structured. Basically, there really isn't any way for any player to make a significant impact on the world. Quests have to be repeatable in order to make the game accessible to people who come into the game later on. So you could effectively commit mynock genocide, but they'll just keep coming back because new players are also going to need to kill mynocks to get that bit of XP in the beginning.

So try to combine "nothing you do will permanently impact the game world" with "you are part of a monastic order that has had members single-handedly topple Empires, and you personally possess the same type of reality-defying powers". It doesn't mesh very well.

When I think of the KOTOR games, I think of two things:

- The storyline. But as Civil War Man said, its hard to build a storyline into an MMO.

- The combat system being turned based, even if it didn't look it. So either they are dropping the turn based part, or there will be some jackasses who let the turn timer nearly elapse every turn in the hopes of making their opponents get pissed off and leave.

So apart from the setting, I don't see KOTOR carrying over to an MMO that well. So we are talking a completely different game to the KOTOR games.

Maybe I'll become a Sith or a bounty hunter, or a SITH BOUNTY HUNTER!!

Sorry, much like the whole feel of the PA comic I stole that bit from, I am hardly excited.

KoTOR's era just allows more Jedi/Sith exist, and designs that aren't from the movies. Unless Bioware is going to go the route of SW WoW, it's going to be pretty much "Level up and now PvE or PvP depending how we made the game.". Thus just using Star Wars to sell it to the fanatics.

SW + EVE = win. You CAN have an MMO where things actually, really happen, and it's been done for years. A SW trading empire or mercenary company is going to be a lot cooler than a made-up one like in EVE.

Course, it'll be WoW with ewoks instead.

Stark wrote:SW + EVE = win. You CAN have an MMO where things actually, really happen, and it's been done for years. A SW trading empire or mercenary company is going to be a lot cooler than a made-up one like in EVE.

Agreed. Something like EVE, or even how Galaxies was originally intended would be quite awesome. Despite what it became, and despite the generaly bugginess, the first 6 months or so of Galaxies were actually quite cool, and I miss them dearly.

Course, it'll be WoW with ewoks instead.

That would sadden me greatly.

But on the other hand, this is BioWare. If anyone can pull this off, it's BioWare.

Why? Because of their history and experience making massively multiplayer games both interesting, fresh and balanced? Their great knowledge of the casual/hardcore player issues, and the understanding of progress gradients? They have none of the special skills or experience required to make an MMO, and their single-player RPG history actually works AGAINST them. Sure, they appear to not be retards (which is a good start), but the odds of them turning the MMO world on it's head would seem to be low.

If it's emergent like EVE and has a similar 'no-grind' progression, it'll be good.

Stark (oooo see what i did there)

I'd argue their inexperience is a bit of a benefit, actually. Odds are they'd be more inclined to avoid the same EQ/WoW formulae that everyone tends to copy or slightly modify, since they're coming in fresh and with no bias toward "well that's how we've always made MMOs."

EDIT: Also, KotOR didn't suck. Galaxies had some god-awful shit in it that had absolutely no relation to the movies whatsoever and looked like something someone came up with while on a mystical LSD-induced spirit journey (though the devs tirelessly defended their shit with even more horseshit)... despite Galaxies being set during the movies.

KotOR, on the other hand, set thousands of years before with only a handful of canon source material to work from, managed to look incredibly Star Warsy with all of its original content.

Brother-Captain Gaius
I dunno, many companies have gone the 'WoW+bits' direction before: maybe they have good marketing.

And experimentation does not always give a good result. There have been plenty of MMOs with good ideas, but bad balance/progress/stability/whatever and failed. That's why WoW is important: it's not *good*, but it's a long-lived successful MMO, and people are going to be inspired by that to a greater or lesser degree.

The big thing that could go wrong with this is balance. The first obvious problem is the fact that anywhere you have Jedi/Sith, by the unbreakable laws of Force Pwnage, there can exist no effective counter (save other Jedi/Sith), which of course puts a real damper on anyone (like me!) who wants to be something other than a Jedi.

As an aside, this was something that frustrated me to no end in KOTOR I. I put all of my point into using guns - and yet by halfway through the game, there was no point in using guns at all, as I could do more damage with a lightsaber, and most of the enemies could just reflect my shots back at me anyhow. I had to start over and rebuild my character as a melee fighter.

The other problem is the Jedi - Sith morality balance. Unlike in, say, WoW, where both sides are morally 'The Good Guys', there exists a clear good vs bad, any moreover, morality is directly linked to power. They need to find some way to reconcile the the 'Light Side / Dark Side' morality issues with balancing player power.

Given the balance issues in KOTOR in the past, I'm not optimistic. Still, KOTOR has one of the most interesting time periods, and if they pull it off....

Regardless, I'm being a droid. I don't care what magical powers everyone else gets, I want to be a droid. Droids are the unsung, and somewhat dimly sung, heroes of Star Wars. From R2 saving the day, to the standard ol' battle droid being manipulated into a war with the Republic, the world turns on the affairs of droids! Rise up!

Erm. Anyway, the game might be good, but please, not like Eve. That game puts me to sleep. Even if it's a "no grind" system, there's still an awful lot of waiting around. If the time from start to finish was much, much shorter then I'd be happy. Honestly, what's the point of levelled systems anyway? They would be better off rewarding players for a percentage of completion rather than experience or time spent--and make it so the storyline itself is only as long as a normal game, say, 30-50 hours or so. After which you're basically at "playable" level. Think of it as an extended player generation system.

PvP stuff works most easily when we can assume a roughly equal degree of material quality (levels, gear, etc) amongst participants. I don't see why people make me wait so long to get to the good parts. You can easily, EASILY sucker people into paying fees to play house and dressup with their characters without the need to hinge it on an arbitrary levelling system as well. We all get to level 20, 60, 70 or whatever eventually anyway. Let us get to the good parts instead.

Oh yeah, EVE is boring as shit, and it's just the 'metagame' that makes it cool - it literately put some of my friends to sleep as well. It's just got good non-WoW ideas.

And 'lose your shit, it's gone' is the best idea in MMOs ever.

Of course EVE puts you to sleep! That's what engrossing space travel does! That's when you alt tab and do something else, but make sure to alt tab back every few minutes to make sure you're not about to become a debris field.

If there was a semi-accurate and engrossing SW mmo like EVE, can you imagine how much time hyperspacing between locations would eat up?

Er, none or no more than riding shit in WoW? No game is going to make you do nothing for any appreciable length of time: the secret of MMOs is to waste player time while convincing them they're doing something, not 'lol u are in teh hyperspace go make a coffee'.

And EVE is really only that boring if YOU'RE boring: mining is for lamers. However, even Space Pirate Stark gets bored, since the combat isn't very interesting and can go for fucking ages.

Stark wrote:Er, none or no more than riding shit in WoW? No game is going to make you do nothing for any appreciable length of time: the secret of MMOs is to waste player time while convincing them they're doing something, not 'lol u are in teh hyperspace go make a coffee'.

Star Wars has a history of a) entertaining Hyperspace games, such as Wookie Chess or whatever the hell that was that Chewie was playing, and b) incredibly ridiculously short travel. I'm not sure if a Wookie Chess minigame is exactly what people want to do in Hyperspace, but there's no reason to make hyperspace travel take any variety of 'time' at all.

And from a game perspective, unless you're trying to make Hyperspace travel of tactical importance (like tracking someone or whatnot) or of moneysink significance, there's no function for it. Just have the person line up their target, get the exterior camera of their ship winding up their Hyperdrives, zipping off into Hyperspace, and one of those Funky Star Wars Wipes to the next scene.

Making it into an interactive Star Wars Movie is a lot more fun, and sensible, than trying to be realistic.

Stark wrote:And EVE is really only that boring if YOU'RE boring: mining is for lamers. However, even Space Pirate Stark gets bored, since the combat isn't very interesting and can go for fucking ages.

That's what Eve felt a lot like for me. Though it was easily windowable or tabbable so I could keep it running on the side, it was otherwise just a lot of waiting for things to happen. Even combat, since it was basically all automated, went on for-fucking-ever and I'd just be able to kick back and wait for the action to be decided on it's own.