The Old Republic: World of Star Wars?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Link

Okay so the combat documentary is up for TOR, time to find out how similar to WoW it really is. I haven't seen it yet so I'll be finding out alongside everyone else.

[Ghost Rider]

LOL...thinking of how much money EA is pushing into this, and looking at the trailers. All I can say is I will leave WoW either sooner or later, but this is not getting my cash.

Gunplay is Mass Effect 1, Lightsaber combat is KoTOR. Oh and mobs that are as dumb as bricks. Really, at least STO offered what appeared to be something different, this is WoW with SW skin so far. Who knows maybe by 2011, it will be different. But for now, it's not seperating me from my wallet.

[Norade]

I would love to see kill shots in an MMO by more dynamic droids falling in half after being cut down by a lightsaber, smoking holes in armor after being gunned down. It doesn't effect game play, but it does make for a better game.

As far as gameplay goes it looks like re-skinned WoW with a heavier focus on range.

[Ritterin Sophia]

LOL...thinking of how much money EA is pushing into this, and looking at the trailers. All I can say is I will leave WoW either sooner or later, but this is not getting my cash.

See at this point I don't mind. I don't play WoW anymore, I thought I might come back until I got TOR and decided which one I liked more, but Blizzard fucked that up when they decided to change the entire dynamic of my Death Knight build. I'm looking for a game like WoW where I can play a DPS/tank hybrid with some minor casting abilities and other abilities I enjoy, oh hey look there's the Death KnightSith Warrior.

[Ghost Rider]

LOL...thinking of how much money EA is pushing into this, and looking at the trailers. All I can say is I will leave WoW either sooner or later, but this is not getting my cash.

See at this point I don't mind. I don't play WoW anymore, I thought I might come back until I got TOR and decided which one I liked more, but Blizzard fucked that up when they decided to change the entire dynamic of my Death Knight build. I'm looking for a game like WoW where I can play a DPS/tank hybrid with some minor casting abilities and other abilities I enjoy, oh hey look there's the Death KnightSith Warrior.

I understand that, but for me...the difference is what I stated. It looks like they merged Mass Effect and KoTOR combat systems. Something may spark me to try it but the combat looks too much a used up formula.

As for looking for a game like WoW, it might be, but I would hope not because the thought of 25-30-40 guns/lightsabers blazing for 10 minutes against Darth Rancoris, Lord of the Sith. The first Sith Lord Rancor and weilder of the Blade of Darth Penor, while funny, is too fresh to what I've been doing for too long.

So far, a no buy but who knows Bioware may pull something out of nowhere. The single player though sounds interesting if not a tad odd. They have hinted they want you to feel the center of it all, which is at direct odds to an MMO. So I do honestly wonder how they will pull that off and how successful.

[Feil]

Can someone explain to me how this remotely resembles Mass Effect?

[Vympel]

I'm interested by this game. If I'm going to play an MMO, I want to play one with a half-immersive story, I find Bioware does that for me.

[Stark]

Yeah, if only Bioware wasn't so retarded they never made a multiplayer game. I'll laugh if SWOW actually has an 'immersive story', though; hordes of people reading quest fluff in giant lines outside cantinas is a great image.

Bioware's entire product is 'you are the centre of it'. That's why their writing and plotting is so repetitive and mastubatory, why they never make multiplayer (even though it'd be easy without changing anything), and the core of what they sell. It's going to be great to see this smack into the MMO reality. I'm sure we all remember good old Conan.

Oh wait, nobody played that!

[adam_grif]

Shit, am I the only person who started laughing when they saw the combat in that video? I mean I know WoW looks silly, but pushing that combat with the Star Wars aesthetic looks awful. Is it just me or does the art style look almost cartoony?

P.S. the "senior game designer" looks like a 17 year old kid you'd see working at EB Games.

[Gramzamber]

Yeah, if only Bioware wasn't so retarded they never made a multiplayer game. I'll laugh if SWOW actually has an 'immersive story', though; hordes of people reading quest fluff in giant lines outside cantinas is a great image.

No, see, it's immersive because it's all voiced.
That's the key to a good MMO, concentrating on the fluff!

Wait..

[Eleas]

I too am sort of confused. When I look at developers gushing over a lightsaber engine, for some reason I expect it to look better than Jedi Outcast did. Instead, we get jerky movement, the typical KotOR-esque static dolls that abruptly tip over in the same identical move when their hit points go to zero, and just generally an ugly and garish colour scheme.

Also, GR, you had me going there for more than a moment with the whole Darth Rancoris spiel. Really, the Sith fanservice in this game was appalling from day one. And this is from the guy who liked Darth Sion.

[Korvan]

In that video I heard a whole lot of talk about dynamic and exciting combat, but what I saw was a whole lot of the enemy just standing still in one spot. I liked what I heard about not having a group of players against one opponent at a time but instead having epic battles that the player barely makes it through. Of course from the video I didn't see any battles with more than three opponents at once.

I'll be watching to see if things impprove, but I won't be buying this or any other MMO's out of the gate anymore.

[Stofsk]

I'm interested by this game. If I'm going to play an MMO, I want to play one with a half-immersive story, I find Bioware does that for me.

You flip-flopper!

I'm actually pretty interested in this game, for the exact same reasons.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I'm interested by this game. If I'm going to play an MMO, I want to play one with a half-immersive story, I find Bioware does that for me.

You flip-flopper!

I'm actually pretty interested in this game, for the exact same reasons.

Supposedly, every line of dialogue is voiced-over. And voice-overs add a level of immersion that plain text will never achieve as far as story telling goes. I'm not sold on this as a Star Wars MMO. I'm sold on this as a KOTOR sequel. The MMO bit is a cool addition.

[charlemagne]

Supposedly, every line of dialogue is voiced-over. And voice-overs add a level of immersion that plain text will never achieve as far as story telling goes. I'm not sold on this as a Star Wars MMO. I'm sold on this as a KOTOR sequel. The MMO bit is a cool addition.

Voice overs never sold anything to me, especially not MMOs. Age of Conan made a lot of fuzz about the voice over thing during the first 20 levels and even voiced more quests later on, but to me that's just a waste of money in MMO development - money they should've spent on more content and bug fixing in AoC's case

But seriously - voice overs are nice fluff, but I never played a game like KOTOR without subtitles on, and sooner or later you'll just skip the voice over once you've read the line. At least that's how I play games like that. I don't have the time to have everything read to me when I can read it myself a lot faster. And in an MMO you'll care a lot less about every single quest. Maybe that's just me though.

I do like it when interaction with NPCs is more than "window pop ups, you click "accept"", but you can achieve that without voice overs. Actually that's one of the very, very few things AoC did right - "real" dialogue with NPCs. I just don't see the need to voice all of it. As soon as you start to grind quests or leveling an alt you won't care about the voice overs at all. They're just doing it because it makes for a good first impression. "Full voice overs, OMFG immersion, 10/10"

On the other hand, EA/Bioware have the money to blow on fluff like that, so I don't really care either way. I just had to think of how Funcom kept spending money on voice actors when there were huge steaming piles of more pressing issues

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Voice overs never sold anything to me, especially not MMOs. Age of Conan made a lot of fuzz about the voice over thing during the first 20 levels and even voiced more quests later on, but to me that's just a waste of money in MMO development - money they should've spent on more content and bug fixing in AoC's case

But seriously - voice overs are nice fluff, but I never played a game like KOTOR without subtitles on, and sooner or later you'll just skip the voice over once you've read the line. At least that's how I play games like that. I don't have the time to have everything read to me when I can read it myself a lot faster. And in an MMO you'll care a lot less about every single quest. Maybe that's just me though.

I do like it when interaction with NPCs is more than "window pop ups, you click "accept"", but you can achieve that without voice overs. Actually that's one of the very, very few things AoC did right - "real" dialogue with NPCs. I just don't see the need to voice all of it. As soon as you start to grind quests or leveling an alt you won't care about the voice overs at all. They're just doing it because it makes for a good first impression. "Full voice overs, OMFG immersion, 10/10"

On the other hand, EA/Bioware have the money to blow on fluff like that, so I don't really care either way. I just had to think of how Funcom kept spending money on voice actors when there were huge steaming piles of more pressing issues

I can't say that the voice overs do not make an impression on me. I remember Dragon Age feeling a little strange after playing Mass Effect because my character never spoke verbally. The voice-acting gives an additional layer to the character. Sure, maybe after a hundred lines, you eventually end up skipping the voice-overs because the subtitles are already there but by that time, you're already accustomed to that character's voice and it still carries with it that extra dimension of personality.

And besides, the whole idea of blazing through quest after quest without much emotional attachment is the precise thing I hate about MMOs. The whole grinding and farming thing totally turns me off and I originally really didn't care for this game. Like I said, I'm not being sold on this game being WOW with a Star Wars facelift. This is supposed to have a similar feel to playing a KOTOR sequel with the added dimension of a persistent multiplayer online world. While I have my doubts on whether Bioware can pull it off sufficiently for me to enjoy this game for awhile, I'm willing to cautiously give them the benefit of the doubt in the meantime as they've proven themselves to continuously produce games I like.

[houser2112]

The single player though sounds interesting if not a tad odd. They have hinted they want you to feel the center of it all, which is at direct odds to an MMO. So I do honestly wonder how they will pull that off and how successful.

In what way is the game single player and MMO? Like Hellgate: London?

[Civil War Man]

Keep in mind that everything having a voice-over doesn't necessarily mean that everything will have a real voice-over.

It provides an incentive to have a lot of NPCs that are Wookiees, Rodians, or Twi'leks (to name a few) to save on voice acting costs.

[Eleas]

I don't know at which exact point this discussion became one about voice acting. For my own part, I disagree that it necessarily would add to the game. In fact, if the voice acting does not gel with the rest of the game, it's not going improve things and may actually hamper the experience.

Bethesda's Oblivion had lots of voice acting, to the point of setting a new record, if memory serves. All that did was merely to cement the almost apathetic blandness of the game. In other games (KotOR, actually, at least for some actors, or in Baldur's Gate 2) the voiceovers were performed with gravitas and a smidgin of immersion, which conferred those qualities on the game itself.

[Gramzamber]

Bethesda's Oblivion had lots of voice acting, to the point of setting a new record, if memory serves. All that did was merely to cement the almost apathetic blandness of the game. In other games (KotOR, actually, at least for some actors, or in Baldur's Gate 2) the voiceovers were performed with gravitas and a smidgin of immersion, which conferred those qualities on the game itself.

What? How can you deny the sheer dramatic tension of "Stop! You violated the law!"

[Ritterin Sophia]

If anyone's interested here's the ViDoc on Voice Acting, you get to see the scale of combat in one part.

Of course from the video I didn't see any battles with more than three opponents at once.

I sorta kinda remembered a better Dev Diary for combat, so here you go.

[Crossroads Inc.]

SO, because I had sound muted while watching that, can someone tell me if they make any attempt to explain away whacking at someone with a Light saber and NOT Instantly slicing an arm off? Does everyone have personal forcefields or something?

[Ritterin Sophia]

SO, because I had sound muted while watching that, can someone tell me if they make any attempt to explain away whacking at someone with a Light saber and NOT Instantly slicing an arm off? Does everyone have personal forcefields or something?

Are you serious? I mean totally and completely, are you fucking with me? It's an RPG and they want opponents to be at least a semblance of a threat whilst keeping all classes balanced. They want Jedi in the game but they don't want them to be overpowered.

[Norade]

SO, because I had sound muted while watching that, can someone tell me if they make any attempt to explain away whacking at someone with a Light saber and NOT Instantly slicing an arm off? Does everyone have personal forcefields or something?

Are you serious? I mean totally and completely, are you fucking with me? It's an RPG and they want opponents to be at least a semblance of a threat whilst keeping all classes balanced. They want Jedi in the game but they don't want them to be overpowered.

Except that looking at health bars those enemies weren't even within spitting distance of ever being a threat to those characters anyway. That could just be the fact that the devs wanted to show the characters being bad ass, but if it's that piss easy I don't want to shell money for it.

[Gramzamber]

SO, because I had sound muted while watching that, can someone tell me if they make any attempt to explain away whacking at someone with a Light saber and NOT Instantly slicing an arm off? Does everyone have personal forcefields or something?

The um... same reason as KOTOR. It's a game.
Mind you KOTOR did establish virtually everyone having personal shields and it's the same era, so there it is.