By Jim Rossignol on May 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am.
Bioware have released another trailer detailing the development process of their MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. There’s a bunch of stuff here about the art direction of the individual planets, Tython, Korriban, Hutta, and Ord Mantell. The stuff about the Hutt world is particularly fun.
02/05/2009 at 10:18 Jubaal says:
Hmm the more I see of this the more interested I become. Bioware couldn’t screw this up could they? Could they…..
02/05/2009 at 10:28 Paul S says:
Those are some pretty stunning environments.
02/05/2009 at 10:42 Rudolfo says:
Every team needs an Ish-like dude, pimping the interior designs, don’t they? Love the little details though ;)
02/05/2009 at 11:12 Eveningfall says:
Wow. I really, really want this game. The worlds look amazing.
02/05/2009 at 11:16 Larington says:
Looks great, but what happens when you add a couple hundred thousand players to the environments.
02/05/2009 at 11:35 teo says:
If this game means there won’t be a KotOR 3 I will never forget BioWare. And I don’t think they know how to make an MMO because they make the jankiest games that pass for good out of everyone
02/05/2009 at 11:54 Magnus says:
Although I appreciate lots of people like MMOs, and they can make developers a ton of cash, I hope they don’t prevent progress on proper single player experiences.
I’ve not been a multiplayer gamer for the past 7-8 years, and I’d relish Bioware giving us some more RPGs…
02/05/2009 at 11:55 skalpadda says:
It still looks ace, but I also still want to see where the whole MMO bit comes in. It still looks very single player so far. “Player story”, “Companion NPCs” and so on, which sounds nice, but there’s nothing much said about what you’re supposed to need other people for.
*Grmbl*
02/05/2009 at 12:33 lumpi says:
I guess the whole “different planets” thing could work really well in an MMO. Not that I really care…
02/05/2009 at 12:54 DK says:
“but there’s nothing much said about what you’re supposed to need other people for.”
So you can make them pay a monthly fee.
02/05/2009 at 12:55 Xercies says:
Yep still doesn’t have much MM in it… we’ll see how it is.
02/05/2009 at 12:56 CakeAddict says:
It seems great and all but I wonder how it finally is when there are tons of people walking around.
I would still prefer KoTor3 real shame they made it a mmo imo.
02/05/2009 at 14:19 theleif says:
It probably has a lot of hot player on player action. I just reckon they want to show what differs them from all the other MMO:s first.
02/05/2009 at 14:24 Serenegoose says:
Really can’t see why this is an MMO. it looks like a beautiful singleplayer RPG. Hopefully this means they’re coming up for something really interesting (like hopefully some fully realised pvp like warhammer attempted but didn’t exactly succeed in).
Anyway, watching this with interest. People will find their lives nasty, brutish and short if this game makes lightsabres the be-all-end-all weapon.
02/05/2009 at 15:43 Orange says:
Yeah I’m hoping that Sith vs Republic pvp is the end game. not sure if the Jedi universe lends itself to itemisation, so hopefully the only balance issues will then be classes and population.
I’m not a fan of two factions though, it’s never 50/50, especially when one side is so heavily good and the other evil (and not in a cartoonish sense). That could be an issue.
02/05/2009 at 16:40 TooNu says:
Still can’t wait for this game, Star Wars + Game = my interest.
02/05/2009 at 16:51 That Guy says:
Was excited, then played KotoR1 and realized how trite and grade-school the whole “light side vs darkside” thing is.
This fails to impress me.
Holding out on the Secret World and maybe WoD
02/05/2009 at 17:31 Dave says:
This makes me feel all warm and gooey inside… I wrote the terrain sculpting tool in HeroEngine that they’re showing off. :D
Korriban is looking awesome now; when I saw the rough cut of it I thought it was going to suck.
02/05/2009 at 19:52 kyrieee says:
@That Guy play through all of KotOR II
It has much more moral ambiguity. Not that it would inspire hope for this game though. BioWare only do black and white morality
02/05/2009 at 21:31 Kadayi says:
Visual style looks great, but the nature of the planets sounds all a bit star trek to me. ‘This planet they are all thieves’ ‘This planet they are all evil’ I worry everyone will dress in the same uniform as well…
02/05/2009 at 22:37 Grey_Ghost says:
If the Melee combat isn’t just some meaningless clipping animations (think Everquest, SWG, whatever), then I will be impressed.
Seriously, the way combat animations play out will be a deal breaker for me. If my character doesn’t look like he’s dodging blaster fire, or parrying (etc) with his melee weapon then I won’t bother with this. I’m not attaching myself to another MMO of this style, till they go beyond characters hacking the air wildly.
02/05/2009 at 23:29 Dave says:
@Kadayi: that’s just the nature of space opera, I think. I don’t know why it is, but typical Star Wars planets have exactly one kind of terrain/climate/culture/architecture.
03/05/2009 at 00:04 Sunjammer says:
“World designer” gets my vote for coolest sounding title ever
03/05/2009 at 05:46 TheDeadlyShoe says:
..I always thought it was “Nal Hutta”.
03/05/2009 at 06:52 h4plo says:
I’m still not certain that you can have a full and decent single-player experience in an MMO, or even any online game. The biggest draw for me with a single-player RPG is the pacing – I can spend two hours dicking around in a tavern and interacting with the locals I want without feeling the pressure to link up with the rest of my group.
Unfortunately, I fear that this will never change for me – although its diminished in recent years, I’m still a highly competitive gamer, particularly in MMO’s, and that playstyle simply doesn’t lend itself to the world-exploring, NPC-loving playstyle of my single-player ways.
That said .. I’m not particularly interested in ever playing another level-grind gear-grind game again.
03/05/2009 at 09:28 qrter says:
.. you didn’t have that when you first saw the films?
03/05/2009 at 13:04 Xizor says:
Like TheDeadlyShoe I always thought it was Nal Hutta too – I’m pretty sure it is in the expanded universe books at least. Kind of a shame they simplify that.
03/05/2009 at 23:51 Kadayi says:
@Dave
I just personally find it all a little tired I guess. I liked KoToR as a game, but the one thing I didn’t like about it was the fact that the technology in the game wasn’t significantly inferior to that in the movies. 3000 years is a long time for there to be literally no technological advancement of any note.
04/05/2009 at 01:26 tmp says:
According to Star Wars wiki thing it’s “Nal Hutta, sometimes referred to simply as Hutta at around 3-4,000 BBY”. So i guess it’s no actual change there.
04/05/2009 at 11:32 Tei says:
Hutta looks is nothing like in the Artwork. This make me fear all world will feel alike, if the only “alien” world get a “Coruscant destructed” style, where the original style whas more like “Aliens: the 8 passenger”.
Now, If you pardon me, I have to change the hydrospanners…
@Kadayi: Probably thats the idea. You get a big empire (or republic) and is stagnated to death. Much like the Asimov books “Fundation”, withouth the collapse (but with the civil wars). Star Wars is a very medieval future.
05/05/2009 at 20:23 Kadayi says:
@Tei
The stagnation of an empire shouldn’t necessarily equate to a lack of technological development though.