Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic MMO E3 2009 Trailer

[dragon]

Looks kind of cool. Set 3500 years before Rise of Vader
Hopefully better than SW:Galaxies.

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The Old Republic takes place more than 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader.

The Old Republic takes place approximately three hundred years after the events of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). At the conclusion of the Jedi Civil War in KOTOR, Revan disappeared into unknown space in search of a great threat to the Republic, an expanding Sith Empire led by a mysterious Emperor who planned vengeance for his ancient Jedi enemies. Revan never returned from unknown space, but the Sith Empire did, kicking off a war with the Republic that lasted for decades. Now, despite the uneasy truce created by the Treaty of Coruscant, the tension among the divided star systems is threatening to once again tear the galaxy apart.

The Galactic Republic stood for generations as a bastion of peace in a galaxy of warring star systems. Protected by its stalwart Jedi guardians, the Republic held the greatest hope for the progress of civilization and galactic unity.

Deep in unknown space, however, a mighty Sith Empire was forged, led by dark Sith Lords who dreamt of galactic domination and vengeance against their ancient Jedi enemies. After centuries of preparation, the time came for the Sith to make their return.

With a massive fleet and an awe-inspiring army of fearless troops, the Sith Emperor launched a surprise assault, quickly capturing dozens of worlds in the Outer Rim, and sparking a war unlike any other in the galaxy’s history.

From the frozen wastes of Ilum to the desert plains of Dathomir, violent battles killed untold millions. Despite its avowed neutrality, surface structures on the water-covered world of Manaan were completely destroyed, forcing the Selkath to retreat to their ocean underworld. Other star systems fared worse—some destroyed, others left uninhabitable. The carnage concluded with the Sith Empire sacking the Republic's capital planet of Coruscant and forcing the Republic Senate into the controversial Treaty of Coruscant.

In the years since the treaty, fear and uncertainty have gripped the galaxy, enabling the Sith Emperor to pursue his own mysterious purposes while the Republic has made efforts to rebuild its infrastructure and adjust military priorities to the new galactic landscape.

Now, tensions between the Republic and the Empire are running high, and a series of border skirmishes and proxy wars have broken out, even on planets as historically peaceful as Alderaan. The uneasy truce established by the Treaty of Coruscant is quickly tearing apart at the seams, and a return to all-out war has begun in all but official terms.

A new generation of heroes, both light and dark, emerges to face the difficulties of these chaotic times, and fight for the fate of the galaxy in this most desperate age.

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[dragon]

An actual review of game footage. Love the Should an enemy get too close, the smuggler can stun them with a quick kick to the crotch and then finish them off by shooting them in the head part at the end.

June 2, 2009 - Day one, hour one of the show there's one place that I wanted to be: front row at the Star Wars: The Old Republic demo. The team at BioWare made some ambitious promises when we originally debuted the game, and we were excited to see whether or not they'd live up to their pledge to bring story to the forefront of the MMO experience. After seeing the first ever live demo of the game at E3 today, we're happy to say that BioWare is delivering the Star Wars MMO experience that we hoped The Old Republic would be.

First, the team walked us through the trailer that was shown at yesterday's press conference. The trailer shows the Sacking of Coruscant, an important event in the history leading up to The Old Republic. Apart from setting the stage for the Galactic Civil War, the trailer also showcases the cinematic combat and emotional weight that players will experience in the final game.


After months of waiting, we're finally seeing the game in action.After viewing the trailer, the teams from BioWare and LucasArts loaded up the game for our first ever live demo. We started by exploring the new Bounty Hunter class and the first of two new planets for the game. The bounty hunter, Ayrik, begins on Hutta at the start of The Great Hunt, a massive contest organized by the Mandalorians and designed to find the best new bounty hunters in the galaxy. Through his mentor, Braden, Ayrik starts the game as one of the more likely candidates.
The interactions with Braden gave the developers a chance to show off the massive amount of voiced dialogue in this game. The Old Republic will be the first fully-voiced MMOs; all the NPCs as well as all the PCs will have full dialogue. Moreover, the main interactions with the NPCs will play out in cinematic cutscenes that allow the player to input their own responses in a Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel. As Braden introduces Ayrik to his companions, a Nar Shaddan tech specialists and a Trandoshan security officer, Ayrik has the option to respond in ways that emphasize his moods. Whether he responds with humility or arrogance, cruelty or greed, will impact the way the rest of the story unfolds.

After playing through the cutscene, Ayrik heads outside to explore Hutta. This is the first time that Hutta is being displayed in video game form, so we were happy to see the ways that the art team has rendered the industrial wasteland of this Hutt stronghold. Through the sickly green mists in the air ahead of us we can see the palace of the Hutts protected by screens of Fa'athra gangsters.


The bounty hunter has some impressive attack powers.As Ayrik moved up to the palace, we had the chance to see the combat system in action. The bounty hunter is primarily a ranged attacker and makes use of special attacks like rockets and stun darts to maintain an advantage over his enemies. The requisite flamethrower attacks are thrown in as well for when the bounty hunter finds himself in need of some timely crowd control. All the abilities are triggered using a traditional MMO hotbar, but the actual action seems a bit more fluid and dynamic than the usual round-by-round combat in most MMOs.
The new Smuggler class also makes use of ranged attacks but doesn't have access to the same armor that the bounty hunters can use. To help even the odds in combat, the smuggler can use a new cover system. We saw this in action on another new planet, Ord Mantell, where the smuggler was running guns to the Rebels in their war against the Separatists. The opportunity for cover is displayed in the environment as a faint green crouching outline. When the smuggler takes cover, he gains access to new abilities and is protected from the attacks of his enemies. Of course, not all the smuggler's combats take place at far ranges. Should an enemy get too close, the smuggler can stun them with a quick kick to the crotch and then finish them off by shooting them in the head

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[Darksider]

ok, so the cinematic looked cool, but I don't like the track record with SW MMOs. I played Galaxies for all of ten minutes at a friends house, and nothing about it felt very Star Warsy to me. Bioware also doesn't have a good track record with capturing the SW "feel" in their games, they just transplant whatever D&D story they want into a SW setting. This'll probably just be WoW: the Star Wars reskin.

Also, the idea of a peace treaty between the Republic and the Sith is fucking stupid.

[dragon]

ok, so the cinematic looked cool, but I don't like the track record with SW MMOs. I played Galaxies for all of ten minutes at a friends house, and nothing about it felt very Star Warsy to me. Bioware also doesn't have a good track record with capturing the SW "feel" in their games, they just transplant whatever D&D story they want into a SW setting. This'll probably just be WoW: the Star Wars reskin.

Also, the idea of a peace treaty between the Republic and the Sith is fucking stupid.

Bioware did a decent job with KOTOR 1 and 2, not super but not half bad. As for the WoW carryover might be good business as WoW is pretty popular even though way to many kid and people that act like kids on it for my tastes.

[Stark]

Success at one player only story driven games does not translate into success at massively multiplayer stat-driven games. Imagine how terrible the typical Bioware balance would be in an MMO context.

[Oskuro]

But that's the point Stark! Horrible game balance so players whine incessantly for a fix! You see, MMO publishers are like drug pushers, getting us addicted one hotfix at a time.


Also, if they really wanted to keep the charm of the KOTOR games, they should let you roll an HK, with its mobile weapon/ammo storage locker (that R2D2esque robot).

[Civil War Man]

As for the WoW carryover might be good business as WoW is pretty popular even though way to many kid and people that act like kids on it for my tastes.

The way I see it, no developer is going to succeed if they set out trying to beat Blizzard at their own game. WoW is just too massive at this point. Trying to grab a large portion of the MMO market share by releasing what is effectively a WoW clone won't work because WoW is a known entity while a new copycat MMO is not. An MMO really has to distinguish itself in order to survive, and releasing "WoW with a different setting and maybe a couple new features" isn't doing that. Just look at Age of Conan (WoW with dialogue trees) or Tabula Rasa (WoW with lasers pew pew).

It's tempting to try to make a big franchise killer, but it was a big deal when David killed Goliath because Goliath stomped every other challenger into the dirt without breaking a sweat.

[Commander 598]

As for the WoW carryover might be good business as WoW is pretty popular even though way to many kid and people that act like kids on it for my tastes.

The way I see it, no developer is going to succeed if they set out trying to beat Blizzard at their own game. WoW is just too massive at this point. Trying to grab a large portion of the MMO market share by releasing what is effectively a WoW clone won't work because WoW is a known entity while a new copycat MMO is not. An MMO really has to distinguish itself in order to survive, and releasing "WoW with a different setting and maybe a couple new features" isn't doing that. Just look at Age of Conan (WoW with dialogue trees) or Tabula Rasa (WoW with lasers pew pew).

It's tempting to try to make a big franchise killer, but it was a big deal when David killed Goliath because Goliath stomped every other challenger into the dirt without breaking a sweat.

You forgot Warhammer (WoW with CHAOS). Anyway, the tl;dr point is: Basically no one wants to play a WoW Clone when they're already playing WoW, at best you're probably paying for a slightly different aesthetic. Moreover this probably just pisses off people who wanted a game from X franchise that actually felt like it was in X franchise so they probably won't play the game and thus it fails miserably.

[charlemagne]

You both forgot LotRO (WoW without female dwarves)

An MMO really has to distinguish itself in order to survive, and releasing "WoW with a different setting and maybe a couple new features" isn't doing that. Just look at Age of Conan (WoW with dialogue trees)

...but I have to disagree here. I'm not an AoC fanboy, but I played it for a while (and even had a bit of fun doing so ), and it's really not just WoW with more dialogue options. Combat is quite different from WoW, and so is the items/stats system (although the latter is apparently being overhauled, but 85% of the old stats system have been buggy since launch anyways).

Anyways, I really hope this game will be good.

[Civil War Man]

Eh, the reason I didn't mention Warhammer and Lord of the Rings is because those two are technically still alive, even if the former is rather rapidly withering away. Plus I think my point was rather effectively communicated without having to list every MMO that has tried and failed to put an appreciable dent into WoW's market share.

I sincerely hope that The Old Republic breaks out of the "Let's be like WoW" rut and actually does it in such a way that it manages to be a good game. It was a very pretty trailer, but one of the gems of wisdom that came out of one of Yahtzee Croshaw's reviews is that you can never use trailers to judge the quality of a game, especially if the trailer contains absolutely no footage from the game itself.

Though one of the things in the trailer that made me roll my eyes is that the bad guys consisted of Darth Vader minus the top half of his helmet, Mrs. Boba Fett, a wispy female Twi'lek, and a container truck full of Darth Revans. If the Sith were smart, they'd stop fielding mutilated abominations, armored behemoths, and/or Dark Adonises. One of the things that made Palpatine so effective in the prequels is that before he accidentally melted his face, he looked like some ordinary elderly dude. If he wasn't a powerful politician, most people wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a crowd.

[Ted C]

What is it with the bad guys winning in the trailers lately? Same thing happens in the trailer for Warhammer Online.

[Ghost Rider]

Pretty, shiny, and completely useless gamewise. And even worse...whatever happens doesn't mean shit to the thin story.

Really, it's like Bioware did a Namco preview and is hoping their name can carry into a market of fickle EQ/EVE/WoW users and claim something that Warhammer, Conan, and LoTR did not even scratch. Worse still, they have to overcome a Sony stigma attached to the franchise.

[Ryan Thunder]

What is it with the bad guys winning in the trailers lately? Same thing happens in the trailer for Warhammer Online.

Sets the stage for the conflict in as badass a manner as possible. The good guys are established, then have the shit kicked out of them. What are they gonna do now? "It's up to *YOU* to decide," or some other crock of shit like that.

[TC Pilot]

Bioware did a decent job with KOTOR 1 and 2, not super but not half bad.

That bodes ill since Bioware had nothing to do with KOTOR 2.

[Vympel]

Though one of the things in the trailer that made me roll my eyes is that the bad guys consisted of Darth Vader minus the top half of his helmet, Mrs. Boba Fett, a wispy female Twi'lek, and a container truck full of Darth Revans. If the Sith were smart, they'd stop fielding mutilated abominations, armored behemoths, and/or Dark Adonises. One of the things that made Palpatine so effective in the prequels is that before he accidentally melted his face, he looked like some ordinary elderly dude. If he wasn't a powerful politician, most people wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a crowd.

Actually I'd say if Bioware - and every other Hackey-McShitGame outift (I don't hold Bioware to be that, I quite like them, but I wanted to use the perjorative for a second) had a sense of imagination this wouldn't be a problem. This is a persistent fuckup with people who make Star Wars games. They just hit the same old reliable punch cards, with no imagination at all.

I despised the Sith Lords of KOTOR 2 as Sith (they were overwanked crap) - but they character design for them was IMO awesome. They were original.

But all too often it's just the same stuff over and over - Tatooine, Rancors, Stormtrooper-ripoffs, Darth Vaders, MANDOBONIANS, jetpacks, Twileks, blah blah blah blah.

[Darksider]

I was watching the trailer again and I just thought of something.

One thing that will ultimately decide whether or not I buy this game regardless of any quality issues (as in this is make or break, even if it's supposed to be electronic crack) is whether or not I get to do anything interesting right off the bat.

I'm not in high school anymore. I'm taking college classes that require actual effort and study, and I’m trying to get a full time job. I don't have sixty hours a week to devote to an MMO, so it'll probably take me a while to get to the higher levels. Longer if there aren't any fun quests or events for the low level tiers because it won't hold my attention for more than 1-2 hour intervals otherwise.
All that time I’ll be shelling out whatever their goddamned subscription fee is, and I don't want that to feel like wasted money.

If I don't get access to some fun content right off the bat, I’m not playing it.

[avatarxprime]

If each player class' story is very long then I doubt anyone but hardcore SW people are going to bother sticking around to play every character. So, considering they keep talking about "finishing the game" and then starting over for another player class they will probably have something interesting to do right off the bat for everyone and keep things moving at a brisk pace, but with a ton of optional quests.

[Perseid]

The trailer looks too good for it's own good, I just hope they don't make it a WoW clone as thats why I don't play any MMO's at the moment they're all far to similar to be entertaining for me anymore.

Looking on the official KotOR online site gives a different impression of the game. Graphically much nicer than WoW (in my opinion), and while they may have Bounty Hunters in there the Trooper, despite looking like a variation of Clone Troopers, looks like a fun class to play what with sticky grenades and a grenade launcher attachment for the rifle. The detail they've gone into for playing means I'm definetly gonna be keeping an eye on it, and probably end up playing it.

[Civil War Man]

Graphics can be a tricky thing to deal with in MMOs. The genre doesn't really seem to mix well with next-gen graphics. If you try to push the graphics too far, you end up with minimum system requirements that shut out a large segment of your potential consumer base, or cause anyone who isn't playing on a top-of-the-line machine to faceplant right at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley.

Granted, I'm someone who doesn't mind World of Warcraft's graphics, since it strikes me as being intentionally cartoony in order to avoid that very problem. The fact that you can run that game on a really old computer without too many problems helps.

I'll be interested to see the system requirements for this game as it gets closer to release. The graphics don't look like they'll be too demanding, but you never know.

[Eleas]

Well, in that regard we should be quite safe. After all, Bioware are well known for producing efficient code for delivering cutting-edge graphics with minimal effort. Just look at the Aurora engine. </massive sarcasm>

[charlemagne]

Granted, I'm someone who doesn't mind World of Warcraft's graphics, since it strikes me as being intentionally cartoony in order to avoid that very problem. The fact that you can run that game on a really old computer without too many problems helps.

I don't mean to bash WoW graphics, but I just never got what is supposed to be "cartoony" about WoW graphics. Yeah, big heads and goofy animations and stuff, but overall it's just not cartoony, it's just very low res/poly intended to run on every piece of crap computer out there. In my opinion everyone says it's "cartoony" because everyone says it's "cartoony". It's a somewhat clever marketing gag, that's all.

I also don't think that pushing high-end graphics in MMOs is the right thing to do, either. Age of Conan showed that this can go very wrong - the game looks great on really good hardware, but it doesn't scale down well and starts looking ugly but still giving bad FPS, and since the netcode is apparently also rubbish, big pvp fights are a nightware for everyone.

Anyways, yes, MMOs don't need to push the high end, but they also should scale good enough to still look good a couple of years after release. I honestly tried to get into WoW maybe a year ago, but the main reason why I gave up was mainly graphics and the clumsy and dated (at least it felt that way to me) UI and controls. I realise that it is surely different if you're playing WoW since launch.

[White Haven]

There are approximately seven Warcraft players in the world who actually use the stock Blizzard UI. The upside is that it's very easily moddable and there are a million different UI setups out there. The disadvantage is that as a direct result there's no pressure on Blizzard's UI team to actually improve significantly on their UI. And yeah, I wasn't one of those seven back when I played, it's ass; the fact that it used to be marginally worse doesn't change that. As far as the graphics, they've done some nice things with the engine recently, but what they've steadfastly refused to do is replace the models, except once when they optimized a bunch of them for even lower polycounts.

[Stark]

Did they ever fix the 'troll head hanging out back of helmet' thing?

[Samuel]

Why didn't the Sith just bomb the temple?

[Stark]

Graphics can be a tricky thing to deal with in MMOs. The genre doesn't really seem to mix well with next-gen graphics. If you try to push the graphics too far, you end up with minimum system requirements that shut out a large segment of your potential consumer base, or cause anyone who isn't playing on a top-of-the-line machine to faceplant right at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley.

Horseshit. It just soaks up time to generate assets that some small proportion of the userbase will use or care about.

This idea that 'looks good' = 'won't run on old hardware' is such a pile of shit. You just need 'press here to use low-poly models and small textures'. It's just not worth it to make quality graphics in a game like WoW where clearly nobody gives a shit.