Star Wars The Old Republic: Great, or Horrendously Awful

By Cadalancea on June 23, 2009 3:42:35 PM from

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I'm sure many of you have heard of the eagerly awaited Star Wars: The Old Republic, a MMO created by BioWare and LucasArts, which claims to bring a new element to MMO gameplay. Story.

So they say. Now, I don't know if I'm the only one, but has anyone else noticed the creative bankruptcy of this game?

The clone, sorry, Republic Soldiers. The Clone Wars Era Nu-Class Attack Shuttle, no sorry, I meant the vehicle used by the Sith to attack the Jedi temple. The evil Imperials! ...who came 3000 years before the Galactic Empire, which suceeded the Old Republic. The Pellaeon Class Star Destroyers, whoops, I meant the Sith Battleships.

Even the story:

Those gol-durned sith are back! We gotta go kill em again! Which we already did only a couple of years before! And a couple of yeasr before that! And a couple of years before that! Oh wait, they attacked Coruscant? Again? Again? And guess who's blockading! That's right, those cursed Mandalorians! Who got almost annihilated as a culture a couple of years ago, after kicking the crap out of the Republic! The Republic apparently decided those silly mandalorians learned their lesson, and let the society that glassed multiple planets be unmonitered. That makes sense. And the Republic also decided to leave Corusant unguarded because, well, after all the Sith are meeting at Alderaan for peace, and those Sith are so trustworthy! They're definitely people of their word, so let's leave the GALACTIC CAPITAL unguarded! Oh yes, and the Jedi Temple gets razed. Again. And apparently they decide to rebuild it looking the exact same way it did before it was destroyed...?

Cases in point:

Clones/Republic Special Forces

This is a Star Wars: Old Republic Era
Republic Special Forces Trooper

These are clone troopers. Obvious?
I understand their are only so many ways to make full body armor.
But seriously?

Old Republic Sith Battleships

Legacy Era Pellaeon Class Star Destroyers (Legacy era is approximately 100 years after the movies.)

So there we are. The reasons not to be excited about star wars: the old crapublic.

Oh right, don't forget about Mr. Darth Malek ripoff.

+13 Karma | 62 Replies

Quoting ManSh00ter,

reply 25

I can already see the flamewars between the Jedi/Sith and the rest of the community over balancing. That, at least, is going to be fun to watch.

Agreed.

I don't know how you can make these judgements when you haven't seen the game in action yet. Don't you think that Bioware is thinking about all these things as well. Most of their games are really well done. I think you should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this game. Hopefully they are studying all the pitfalls that occured in SWG and they are trying to find ways of mitigating them. I know you probably think I'm just some Bioware fanboy, but really, the main problem with some of these MMO's isn't the game design.. it's the people playing them. *sigh*

I'm gonna try to be positive about this project and have faith that the guys at Bioware are aware of everything you have pointed out and are trying their damndest to make the game as fun as possible. But it may be true that the game will only be as good as the people playing it. Lets hope that the community is half decent at least.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I make judgements based on my previous experience as a gamer and based on my observations on how the AAA title production works.

No, I don't think that the Bioware folks are stupid... game developers rarely are, its a creative job after all and you can hardly mix creative with stupid. But I don't think they are the ultimate masters of their title. There are bigger "pencil-pushers" above them who call the ultimate shots.

Now they can be stupid. From a game design perspective. From the "earn truckloads of money" perspective I am sure they are quite competent. Most of the time. If you don't believe me, just take a look on how many AAA titles turned out to be mediocre slushjobs lately... I sort of doubt it was the game developers behind that.

I will bring SWG as an example again, because its such a good illustration of what happens when a businessman tells a game designer what to do.

SWG was a good game. It had some drawbacks, but at the height of its "game" it was fun, engaging, diverse and very "Star Warsy". It was also pretty unique with its sandbox approach to character building and fully player driven economy. I can tell you, that was the most fun I had from selling things in a game ever.

Then WoW came and the Businessman saw the green. And He beheld that SWG was not like WoW. So he went to the Designer and said "Let it be a WoW Clone". There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but ultimately the will of the Businessman prevailed.

And SWG died. Because It Does Not Do To Plagiarize Other People's Work - a lesson which every designer knows, but one which is totally lost on the business people, who do it all the time and usually get away with it.

Will Bioware escape the trappings which ultimately turned a good MMO into a cheap, half-dead ripoff without a soul? I hope so. It doesn't look that way from the available info, but I'd like to have a good SW MMO available to play, so I hope.

But as I said, I am more excited about Mortal Online than TOR, because MO guys seem to be bent on going with an original vision and approach (and are technically better equipped to pull it off than the available Darkfall). TOR guys unfortunately have to listen to LucasArts and EA honchos who are undoubtedly breathing heavily down their necks, all turned on by the prospect of potential dollars.

quoting post

...Star Wars: The Old Republic, a MMO created by BioWare and LucasArts, which claims to bring a new element to MMO gameplay. Story.

Hmm...well, I sure hope they bring in some other new elements, cause there's this little game called World of Warcraft that's been telling a story, too. Blizzard no longer makes Warcraft RTS games as they want to tell the rest of the story in an MMO.

One thing about story in MMOs...it's kinda hard to appreciate it when the hero is named "Jedilegolaslol"

LA LA LA LA LA LA

What's the point of designing an MMO? To make shittons of money by people stupidly paying a monthly fee.

How do you maximize this profit? Keep people playing for as long as humanly possible.

Where in that equation does a fulfilling storyline with a conclusion fit in there?

Ugh that blatant recycling of contend kind of puts me off. It just shows the devlopers would rather be cheap instead of creative.

As far as reused tech is concerned, it really isn't out there. The reason Tech from the old and new trilogies differs so much isn't because of advancement, it's because of cost-to-benefit comparisons. Moreover, it is clearly stated that star destroyers are based on ancient designs to cash in on the psychological impact of seeing one of the things.

You can always use an old chassis and stick some new parts in it. Look at hotrod cars today if you want a good example.

Technology doesn't necessarily always advance either. In our society we have this belief because we just happen to be smack in the middle of a spurt of advancement. Look at the Roman era to the 16th and 15th centuries; they actually LOST tech, aqueducts and all that.

Is it not possible even in a galaxy far far away? I would say it's impossible for this fluctuating line of tech NOT to exist.

But, then again this is all fiction so who cares?

Quoting alway,

reply 10

Wow, by the looks of it, there won't even be spaceships (player controlled ones anyway). They will just be WoW style flightpaths to get to the other zones... Er, I mean planets. In the entire 15 pages of concept art on the site, only 1 picture has any ships in it at all, and thats the Sacking of Coruscant picture shown in the first post.

A Star Wars MMO without player involved space battles... Now that's something even I am suprised about.

Incorrect. Starfighter combat is planned to be in at release..

Quoting ManSh00ter,

reply 53

I make judgements based on my previous experience as a gamer and based on my observations on how the AAA title production works.

No, I don't think that the Bioware folks are stupid... game developers rarely are, its a creative job after all and you can hardly mix creative with stupid. But I don't think they are the ultimate masters of their title. There are bigger "pencil-pushers" above them who call the ultimate shots.

Now they can be stupid. From a game design perspective. From the "earn truckloads of money" perspective I am sure they are quite competent. Most of the time. If you don't believe me, just take a look on how many AAA titles turned out to be mediocre slushjobs lately... I sort of doubt it was the game developers behind that.

I will bring SWG as an example again, because its such a good illustration of what happens when a businessman tells a game designer what to do.

SWG was a good game. It had some drawbacks, but at the height of its "game" it was fun, engaging, diverse and very "Star Warsy". It was also pretty unique with its sandbox approach to character building and fully player driven economy. I can tell you, that was the most fun I had from selling things in a game ever.

Then WoW came and the Businessman saw the green. And He beheld that SWG was not like WoW. So he went to the Designer and said "Let it be a WoW Clone". There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but ultimately the will of the Businessman prevailed.

And SWG died. Because It Does Not Do To Plagiarize Other People's Work - a lesson which every designer knows, but one which is totally lost on the business people, who do it all the time and usually get away with it.

Will Bioware escape the trappings which ultimately turned a good MMO into a cheap, half-dead ripoff without a soul? I hope so. It doesn't look that way from the available info, but I'd like to have a good SW MMO available to play, so I hope.

But as I said, I am more excited about Mortal Online than TOR, because MO guys seem to be bent on going with an original vision and approach (and are technically better equipped to pull it off than the available Darkfall). TOR guys unfortunately have to listen to LucasArts and EA honchos who are undoubtedly breathing heavily down their necks, all turned on by the prospect of potential dollars.

SWG died they moment they signed on with SOE...

They needed 1.5 years to get starfight combat into the game.. epic fail..

Even so, the game was fun to play. You always had stuff to do, provided you realized you're meant to play with other people. Not that SWG wasn't soloable, at the height of the "doc buff era" you could solo practically anything (if you didn't mind standing in line at the local spaceport for the docs to buff you), but it was at its best when you fully grasped the idea of a player-driven game world. Something like EvE, you had twice as much fun when you started fully playing with and for other players.

I think the open sandbox design was what allowed for this. That's why I have my doubts about TOR. It looks like its going to be instanced and scripted all over the place, a hybrid between a single player game and a MMO, and I positively hate that. It never works, and it breaks the immersion on a subliminal level, more so for me than any lack of spaceships.

Plus, one good thing MMORPG's have over single player games is their freedom (usually and to a certain extent) to shape your own story and character. In TOR you already have that premade... yeah, you can make choices in the story line, and they're going to affect the rest of the storyline for your character, but what if I don't want to play a Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Soldier and Whatnot? What if I want to play a shopkeeper, or a wild game hunter, or a local thug? I can't. So where's the roleplaying in TOR?

As it sounds I have more roleplaying freedom in Warcraft.

I've only read the main article and none of the comments.

Today, 3/19/2012 three years later, I found this:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/star-wars-video-game-to-allow-characters-to-have-homosexual-romances?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8921c1fcb0-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines_03_16_2012&utm_medium=email

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Star Wars The Old Republic: Great, or Horrendously Awful