By Alec Meer on June 10th, 2011 at 9:00 am.
The Star Wars: The Old Republic intro movie may have been so monumental that we entirely deliberately and definitely, definitely not accidentally posted it twice, but it sure did get a few backs up. All very pretty and very Original Trilogy, yes, but what on Earth has all that pre-rendered willy-waving got to do with playing an MMO? Fortunately, Bioware are now letting us a little closer to their multi-million-dollar baby, with a guided walkthrough of whiny Luke’s adopted homeland – the desert planet known as Tatooine.
This being many moons before A New Hope, sadly there’s no quest to reclaim a Rancor tooth necklace from the charred bones of Aunt Beru, but instead a focus on the Sith exploring the planet’s caves, canyons and lost temples in search of some manner of doohickey. Quest ahoy!
Wow, that sure does look quite a bit like [redacted] with sci-fi stuff. Good thing or bad thing? Little of column A, little of column B, I’d say. John says more, in his two-part mega-preview the other week.
10/06/2011 at 09:04 Red_Avatar says:
Oh look, the new WoW expansion pack … wait, EA? Ooo it’s TOR … (yeah I know it’s a weak joke but I can’t help but get far too many WoW vibes from this game)
10/06/2011 at 09:28 Koojav says:
Well it surely looks like WoW to me :)
Outdated graphics, repetitive gameplay and those speeders that move 20mph exactly like a WoW texture pack.
And FFS it’s 2011, can’t we get an animation of a Sith guy hoping on a hoverbike instead of appearing on it in a flare ?
10/06/2011 at 12:05 Rii says:
A WoW texture pack? Have you seen WoW lately? It looks like freaking Crysis compared to this.
10/06/2011 at 12:57 Kelron says:
But it has conversation options! Another revolutionary RPG from Bioware.
11/06/2011 at 11:27 Dhatz says:
did you hear the music playing uselessly as they ride their slower bikes? I bet its gonna be more intrusive than BGO music was at the start.
10/06/2011 at 09:09 Commander Gun says:
(Waiting for the inevitable comparison by which Wulf glorifies Guild Wars 2 features again)
10/06/2011 at 12:45 Faceless says:
It needs to be glorified? That’s like glorifying… something that is already… glorious.
Yes, I am not very good at this. We should just wait for Wulf.
10/06/2011 at 17:21 Falcon says:
I can’t help but yawn during all of these gameplay videos. They look so boring. The combat is as dry as the narration.
Maybe I’m just done with MMOs, and I realize there are definitely technical considerations when you have large amounts of people playing, but give me an action-packed, meaty combat system, please!
Guild Wars 2′s combat looks so many miles ahead of this it isn’t even funny. Maybe it’s a lot more fun playing the game than it is watching these videos…but generally I’m very open-minded and forgiving when it comes to games, and this just looks completely “meh” to me.
10/06/2011 at 09:14 TheSaddestSort says:
The meh is strong with this one.
10/06/2011 at 10:46 Gorgol says:
Indeed. The gameplay looks absolutely terrible! Couple that with the poor showings from Bioware’s single player RPGs lately and this is really uninteresting even to someone who has KOTOR on his list of all time favourite games…
10/06/2011 at 18:01 Betamax says:
By poor showings I’m guessing you mean DA2? Yeah that’s one. Or are you one of those that tries to make out ME2 was awful and everyone knows it but chooses not to mention it and instead say they really like it?
10/06/2011 at 18:19 Gorgol says:
By poor showings I mean everything after Neverwinter Nights.
10/06/2011 at 09:15 jeremypeel says:
‘You are kind to lie.’ The writing; it’s good. And multiplayer conversations are interesting!
Does combat stick to the same ruleset as KOTOR? Do we know? It certainly looks familiar.
10/06/2011 at 09:28 Anthile says:
Kotor used a modified d20 system, not unlike D&D 3E and this doesn’t look like it.
10/06/2011 at 10:49 Gorgol says:
Doesn’t look anything like KOTOTR’s combat, come on! KOTOR’s was exciting, fast pased, and with heavy tactical gameplay. This is repetitively casting a single spell, and with a cast progress bar? WoW much?
10/06/2011 at 11:55 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Multiplayer conversations are interesting? Another way to see it is that the way it’s implemented engenders solo play more than anything else. If you’re in a group of four and your fellow players choose differently every time I can see where that would get annoying, especially since there’s only PC-to-NPC interaction in that sense. Having in-game argumentation, persuasion and conflicts (again, with the conversation wheel) between PCs -would- make this a whole lot better, I feel.
10/06/2011 at 12:25 woodsey says:
“KOTOR’s was exciting, fast pased, and with heavy tactical gameplay.”
I love KotOR, and the combat (unlike a lot of people), but it was none of those things.
10/06/2011 at 12:29 bleeters says:
@ Gorgol
Funny, I got through KotOR by repeatedly casting Force Lightning :P
10/06/2011 at 12:57 Gorgol says:
Woah woah woah, if you were not excited by the final assault on the star forge then you are dead inside. Also KotOR’s combat was fast paced in the sense that you were frequently and quickly called to your next combat decision. It was highly tactical when you’d bitten off a bit more than you could chew. Lastly if you got through it all by spamming force lighting I strongly doubt you were playing on the hardest setting like I was. And compared to watching a cast bar progression in order to cast force lighting anything is exciting, fast-paced and highly tactical, even taking a turd.
10/06/2011 at 14:12 bleeters says:
I started on normal. I had to put it onto hard later, around the time of heading to the second star map planet. Force Lightning really was just that good. There was that time I played a light side guardian, I suppose. That differed in that instead of setting up repeated force lightnings, I instead cast force speed and mashed flurry over and over, as if the -1 attack/defence penalty made any difference whatsoever.
Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the lightsaber scrapping in KotOR, but it’s not what I’d describe as involving edge of my seat tactical genius.
10/06/2011 at 15:19 Bureaucrat says:
The final assault on the Star Forge was a sterling example of boring and pointless endgame grind.
10/06/2011 at 15:31 Gorgol says:
Very well bleeters, you’re right and I was exaggerating, I retract the “heavy” and “highly” and reduce it to occasionally tactical, but still, compared to the crap shown in that video it was a game of chess
10/06/2011 at 16:22 Urthman says:
Funny, I was going to quote, “If he can’t take the heat, he should leave the base!” and congratulate Bioware on hiring George Lucas to write their dialogue.
I guess good dialogue wouldn’t be canon.
10/06/2011 at 09:15 Pemptus says:
I like how at the end of the second video he reminds us that the Emperor used force lightning against Luke. And we can use it too! Just like the Emperor! SOLD!
Also, the slow plodding around in “speeders”. Eh.
edit: Oh, it’s not the same video. I meant this one: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-star-wars/715702
11/06/2011 at 09:02 Tei says:
This is a era where the Jedi and the Sith are everywhere on the universe, and not all knowledge is lost.
By the time the movies, the jedi are almost a myth.
Jedi use to do all sort of cool thing (but not fly in bullet-time like in a hollywood-honk kong movie) but the trade-off is that power was not concentrated. Thats another mechanic of the Star Wars lore: a lot of force users: the energy is divided, a few force users: the force is very strong in then. By the time of the Emperor the power has highly concentrated. And.. anyway, Skywalker was a dumb lame newbie jedi. Skywalker concentrated some power just because the effect of few force users, lots of power.
On the time of the old republic, a lot of force users would know a lot of jedi tricks, but the force would be low.
Is also weird to me that any high level sith would have any problem to kill a sand people. But this is a RPG, and combat is slow in most RPG’s for some reason.
10/06/2011 at 09:16 Limey says:
Director of production? I thought he was a producer of direction.
10/06/2011 at 09:24 jeremypeel says:
Nope, he’s a consultant, best known for his book, ‘Of Production Direction’.
10/06/2011 at 09:20 RaytraceRat says:
This speeder moves more like a moped
10/06/2011 at 10:14 Giant, fussy whingebag says:
It’s a hover-segway…
10/06/2011 at 10:14 Rush Ton says:
I thought it looked more like a future segway
Edit: Damn beaten to it
10/06/2011 at 11:23 TillEulenspiegel says:
Everything about this game is so budget. Appropriate for a F2P game, but god help them if they try to charge a subscription fee.
10/06/2011 at 09:22 Vexing Vision says:
Ah, a level 1 mount. I am sure the level 20 races will have 30% more speed.
10/06/2011 at 09:23 Olero says:
They sure use the force a lot, picking up all those items while standing meters away.
I’m more into Column B(ad) about this game. Too samey, arcadey, big pop-up numbers to be interesting I guess.
10/06/2011 at 09:32 Simon Hawthorne says:
Oh dear, I really hope I’m wrong but this is going to crash and burn and then LucasArts will be too scaredy-fraid to ever commission another KOTOR game :-(
I have a bad feeling about this.
10/06/2011 at 11:08 Zelius says:
My thoughts exactly.
What’s even worse, if this game fails, nobody will ever dare to take such a massive undertaking again.
10/06/2011 at 09:35 Scatterbrainpaul says:
I for one am really looking forward to this game. It looks fresh, exciting and the graphics look brilliant
oh wait, it’s not 2004
*I’ve never been very good at sarcasm
10/06/2011 at 09:40 Escalus says:
that speeder looks very uncomfortable to ride, what no seat?
11/06/2011 at 04:03 Nico_101 says:
If Im not remembering it wrong, He-Man had a speeder just like it.
10/06/2011 at 09:51 Grey_Ghost says:
I don’t follow this game too closely. Glad to hear that your characters light-side dark-side scale is based on your own choices in groups, and not just whomever won the roll.
10/06/2011 at 09:51 drowsy says:
My problem with this game is that they’ve given me no reason to play. I already played this game for three years, and just changing the setting isn’t enough to make it any different. I’ll just go play KOTOR again if I feel like playing a Star Wars RPG(ish).
10/06/2011 at 09:55 John P says:
I love comment threads for this game. Much more entertaining than the videos.
And why hasn’t Bioware stopped their videos from auto-playing yet?
10/06/2011 at 09:55 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
Why is there Star Wars music in WoW?
10/06/2011 at 09:56 kael13 says:
Feels like I woke up in 2006 this morning. Steve Irwin’s shooting a wonderful documentary about stingrays and there’s a bunch of agitated birds squawking outside… I bet they have the flu.
10/06/2011 at 09:56 v_ware says:
Why does that Sith sorcerer even have a lightsaber, he uses sith lightning over and over and over and over and over and over…
10/06/2011 at 10:05 Olero says:
Superglue?
10/06/2011 at 10:09 FakeAssName says:
to block the lazier blasts, duh!
10/06/2011 at 09:59 Spectre-7 says:
Wowza, that’s looking just incomparably dreary. I was already looking forward to not playing it whenever it comes out, but I must say that this video really got me hyped up to not touch it ever.
10/06/2011 at 10:01 FakeAssName says:
HI I’m [muted] ….
10/06/2011 at 10:12 terry says:
I’m detecting a Star Trek Online type disaster here.
10/06/2011 at 10:16 Jacques says:
Zombie quest!
10/06/2011 at 10:34 DevilSShadoW says:
IS IT SO DAMN HARD TO NOT SUPERGLUE WEAPONS TO CHARACTERS BACKS??
SERIOUSLY? GOD FUCKIN DAMN IT THIS GAME HAS A MULTI MILLION DOLLAR BUDGET YET THEY CANT AFFORD TO MAKE SOME FREAKIN HOLSTERS FOR THOSE WEAPONS. GOD HELP US ALL.
I’m sorry, I got carried away.
10/06/2011 at 10:47 FakeAssName says:
dude, Clint Solo in the opening cinematic literally pulls two blasters out of thin air … well, either thin air or his ass cause he -was- reaching in that general direction.
if they can’t be bothered with holsters in the cinematic they why would you expect them in game?
10/06/2011 at 18:32 Erd says:
Yeah this is one of my pet peeves too.
It’s more than just a design choice now, it’s more like a trope. Dual weild? Unshieved, on the back, everytime.
10/06/2011 at 21:16 notjasonlee says:
ahem, you mean “unsheathed”
10/06/2011 at 10:34 geokes says:
When will lucas arts admit defeat and release the KOTOR game we all want. (and remember Jedi Knight)
10/06/2011 at 11:13 Zelius says:
For them to ‘admit defeat’ and create another Star Wars RPG, ever, this game will have to succeed. Otherwise, game over. Game over, man!
10/06/2011 at 10:48 Teddy Leach says:
Why the autoplay? Why the need?
10/06/2011 at 11:01 Wilson says:
Yeah, can we just have a link to autoplaying trailers instead of including them in the article? It’s really annoying, as you might want to comment without the trailer constantly playing again in the background. Sure I can mute my sound, but what if I’m trying to listen to music?
10/06/2011 at 12:08 Tony M says:
+1 vote for no autoplay
10/06/2011 at 10:52 hotcod says:
Every post on this game is filled with the same rather strange comments. From the start they pretty much said “we want to make wow with mechanics from kotor and our USP is going to be adding a depth of story and player choice in that story” and yet every one still seems shocked that it’s… well.. exactly that.
If it;’s not for you or you think what they are trying to do is stupid then that’s fine, there’s every chance that it really is. But yes it’s just another mmo in a lot of ways, we all know this and they never claimed that it was doing anything different in that vain. What we are getting in essence is a starwars wow with ideas taken from kotor (companions who join you on a ship while you engage in a story driven rpg.) and in some ways improved on (while you can only have one character with you at a time the rest can be assigned tasks like crafting which happens in real time on your ship) and for me that is pretty much awesome. But that is just me.
Like I’ve said in every thread I’ve commented in so far the little I’ve been told by people who have played it (including long term testers) is that it’s does what it set out to do very very well. So over all I think the game is going to find enough of a player base to get along well enough.
10/06/2011 at 10:58 Mark says:
Yeah, it looks okay to me, also. It’s an MMO, they said it was going to be an MMO, so why the disappointment? I think the problem is genre fatigue, personally. That’s what’s likely to cause this game to be a failure.
10/06/2011 at 11:07 Gorgol says:
Nah nah nah, the genre is fine. What’s not fine is people devilering the genre in the same way over and over and over again. We already have a WoW which does what it does better than anyone else does or can do. So, do something interesting with your wannabe MMO and it might work! Of course, we should have expected this from Bioware because that’s what they’ve always said they were going to do, but what really pisses people off is that they had a once in a lifetime, golden opportunity to do something interesting with the MMO genre and the Star Wars franchise, and they totally blew it through being utterly creatively lazy!
10/06/2011 at 11:08 Wilson says:
@hotcod – What you say is true, but people were never going to take this game on it’s own merits alone. I don’t say that in a dismissive way either, it was always going to happen with the way they’ve marketed it. People aren’t just comparing it to other MMOs, they are also comparing it to the two KOTOR games. And because it’s Star Wars, people probably have higher expectations and get more upset if they don’t think it’s doing justice to that universe.
I’m wondering if they may have shot themselves in the foot a bit with the setting. I feel like I might be kind of interested in a story based MMO game, but when it’s in this Star Wars setting all the standard MMO things grate far more. It’s hard to ignore the segway-speeders and the Sith guy hardly using his lightsaber (I’m guessing his class isn’t good at melee), because it doesn’t ‘feel’ Star Wars. I hope the game does all right, but I feel like the extra publicity and such from the Star Wars name may come with some downsides in terms of increased expectations, too.
10/06/2011 at 13:03 hotcod says:
@Gorgol
So you are saying bioware is not doing something new or interesting with there game at all? They may not be changing the base MMO but simple facts like it having more recording dialogue than any other game ever kind of point to them doing something remarkable with the genre. They put there effort in to a part of the game that has been pretty much unchanged in mmos since way before WoW.
@Wilson
No I agree, I just find if funny that people will time and time again post the same comments about the game being what the game said it would be. RPS is often an overly cynical place but I at lest expect some interesting bitch based in some kind of fact not just rehashing the same pointless jokes about it.
But just actually think about the kotor games for a second. How different is the combat? not very but it actually looks improved. I’m a huge kotor fanboy and I was outraged when news of this game first came out but it slowly won me over because all they’ve really done is made a huge mulitplayer kotor game. There are some things that have been lost or won’t be as good as in the kotor games but there are things that are going to make up for that.
It is true that people wiho are kotor or starwars fans who find a little thing to hate in this will eat it alive all I can say is that, again, the little feed back I’ve been allowed to have from people who have been playing the game on a long term basis is that it’s very very very good at doing what it sets out to do. Hopefully that will win people over but if not I’m still hugely looking forward to it :)
10/06/2011 at 14:27 Hallgrim says:
@hotcod
What he’s saying is that changing the art, adding dialog trees and a companion isn’t going to make the game new enough to excite people like him (and I). People who have already fully consumed and digested (and excreted) WoW and are looking for something that moves the genre forward and make it compelling again. We’re disappointed that EA is making (yet another) WoW-clone. I’m betting this one will be more successful than Warhammer, but jesus it looks bad.
What EA is thinking: 11 million people play WoW. This is WoW with LIGHTSABERS, surely a few million of them will play our game instead.
10/06/2011 at 15:31 hotcod says:
@Hallgrim
I honestly honestly can’t understand how you can look at what they are doing with the game and saying they are not moving it forward. Yes they are not changing the base game play as much as something like guild wars 2 but they are doing even more than guild wars 2 in terms of story and guild wars 2 is doing a hell of a lot there. If their stuff in stor works it is a game changer for mmos in a part of the genre that hasn’t seen innovation since ever quest. I think you are doing your self a huge disservice to dismiss it so readily at the moment… not saying the game will be for you but I think you are giving the game far to little credit for what it’s trying.
10/06/2011 at 18:47 Erd says:
I don’t think the story stuff is gonna seperate it enough from the competion. The real challenge will be in deciding the payment model. If they want people to play their near identical game it needs to have a payment model that enables it to coexist with existing subscriptions or is competitive to the point of making people abandon them in favour of this.
11/06/2011 at 00:26 Gadriel says:
Story is lovely, and I can definitely respect them for pushing the genre forward in that regard. Since the early days of MMOs I’ve wanted to play one with real, engaging story going on. However, story does not a good game make. There’s a relatively small fraction of people who will do something that isn’t fun just to get the story. I don’t feel that I would enjoy a game that plays just like WoW and its myriad clones that I’ve played for so many years just because it has voiced dialogue and a focus on story. I don’t think I’m alone in this.
I don’t think anyone is criticising SWTOR on the things it does well. We’re all criticising it because we really, really, really wanted it to be good and are finding that the more we see it the less interested we become, because of those tired MMO tropes. We lament what it could have been.
I hesitate to bring up Guild Wars 2 but I admit I find myself more interested in it despite having scarcely played the first and knowing nothing of the world or lore or story because the gameplay seems fresh and different and I love their take on dynamic events.
11/06/2011 at 01:20 hotcod says:
And there we have it you want innovation of some of the mmo tropes that stor is sticking too, a subjective and perfectly valid personal choice. What it’s not is objective If you remove your personal history and taste in mmos from the picture and look at it in an objective manner then it’s clear that the WoW tropes that STOR is follow are things that have worked well. In fact it’s clearly they still are working well and that people are enjoying them.
In other words objectively the wow comparison is not a negative one, stor being like wow does not make the game bad. What matters is the individual persons feelings on the WoW type tropes the game is using. In your case you are tired of them and want more innovation in the basic systems like GW2 is likely to offer (i’m not hesitant to bring it up because it is looking fantastic in that manner) and in my case I’m perfectly happy with them so long as they are solid and offer the underpinning to the story telling experience that the game is going to offer. In my eyes it’s really not very different from a mulitplayer version of kotor. Any one who thinks the combat in kotor was not very mmo like in the first place is some what kidding them self’s.
So if you want to come in to the thread and say “I’m sick of wow’s base mechanics and the USP of the game are not enough to win me over that problem” that a view I understand… but that’s not what is being said in these threads, not by a long shot and it’s annoying as hell. Any interesting debates on our subjective views are for the most part going to be drowned out by noise and I think people who had an open mind towards the game are going to get it unfairly jade by people who can’t devoice objective reality from there subjective worlds…. but then again this is the comment section of a gaming site so I don’t know why I ever expected anything different.
10/06/2011 at 10:59 Turbobutts says:
Standing In Front Of Each Other And Mashing Attack Until One Dies: The Game
Seriously. Worst MMORPG combat I have EVER seen, and the models, animations, textures, effects and writing aren’t that good either.
10/06/2011 at 13:05 hotcod says:
Then I honestly think you can’t have seen much MMO combat.
10/06/2011 at 11:03 MiniMatt says:
I thought RPS was all about PC gaming? This one looks like an iPhone release.
10/06/2011 at 11:08 Heliosicle says:
Anyone else think this is likely to sink EA and they should never have attempted to do this?
10/06/2011 at 11:10 Wilson says:
I have no idea, I haven’t been following the ‘buzz’ anywhere else on the internet. They don’t need it hailed as a critical success, they just need players. And Star Wars alone seems likely to bring some players.
10/06/2011 at 11:14 Wulf says:
The unfortunate part is that it’s very ‘New Wars’ and doesn’t really have even one really interesting race on offer, and the gameplay is, whilst not bad back when it was new, kind of dated for a new game. It’s been done before, and probably better. So… it’ll depend on just how fanatical the fan is.
10/06/2011 at 11:16 Gorgol says:
Is sinking EA even possible? O.o
10/06/2011 at 11:26 Nick says:
They need players who will keep playing, thats usually the killer of MMORPGs..
10/06/2011 at 12:33 bleeters says:
I shouldn’t think it’ll sink the good ship EA in the event of failure. They’ll just do what they always do and jettison women and children over the sides to compensate.
A better question is whether this will sink Bioware, I’d imagine. That seems far more likely.
10/06/2011 at 11:12 Wulf says:
I knew I’d seen it in alpha with multiple button bars! I thought I was going crazy since they hadn’t featured that since. I was actually wondering if they were moving away from the WoW UI style…
10/06/2011 at 11:24 Nick says:
I think it actually looks like less fun than Galaxies.
10/06/2011 at 11:52 Wilson says:
Yeah. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m sure Galaxies looked nicer than this. I had a bit of fun with Galaxies and a Trandoshan shooty guy in a free trial period.
10/06/2011 at 12:21 DiamondDog says:
Impossible.
Also, stop mentioning that game.
10/06/2011 at 16:30 Thunderkor says:
At least the space combat in Galaxies isn’t on rails.
10/06/2011 at 18:22 Gorgol says:
What game should we stop mentioning? Galaxies?
10/06/2011 at 21:56 woodsey says:
*comment on wrong place*
10/06/2011 at 11:25 dwl says:
I think they should just stick to making cinematics..
10/06/2011 at 11:29 neolith says:
These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.
10/06/2011 at 11:35 MrThrope says:
Watching that undead warlock and blood elf hunter run around killing mobs in space age Orgrimmar really got my blood pumping.*
*although to be honest the interactive story arcs look interesting.
10/06/2011 at 12:06 Rinox says:
This looks like a fun game to do together with my friends, with the conversations etc.
10/06/2011 at 18:51 Erd says:
Yeah, I hope they can take this conversation model and apply it to a non-MMO co-op game.
10/06/2011 at 12:07 Koozer says:
I honestly thought that was a Galaxies screenshot with some sort of UI mod for a second.
“WoW style” MMO combat can be fun with a variety of moves to pick from for different situations, and without an overwhelming number of them you can’t even fit on your screen. I thought Champions Online got it pretty spot-on. That video seemed to show Mr. sorcerer using lightning over and over again, with a token shield that he didn’t even need. Oh well.
10/06/2011 at 12:07 pakoito says:
I knew if from the first moment and I kept saying it in every SWTOR thread.
10/06/2011 at 12:36 DiamondDog says:
I know most people here are taking particular delight in panning this game, but as CoD shows the opinions of RPS folk don’t sync with the majority.
All I’m saying is just because TOR has got a bad reacting from most of you doesn’t mean it’s an instant failure that will ruin EA.
Obviously I don’t have a crystal ball, I’m just thinking the Star Wars tag might save it. Plus, when people use WoW as a disparaging comparison because it plays to the RPS crowd, it kind of ignores the fact that a rather large amount of people like the WoW way of doing things.
TOR doesn’t really need us, it needs a few million bored WoW players to see the shiny lights and go take a look.
10/06/2011 at 12:47 Rii says:
Speaking as a bored (ex-)WoW player, TOR looks to be several steps backwards in near every respect save BioWare’s dedication to voiceover work and character-based storytelling. The former doesn’t interest me, and the terrible group conversation system compromises the latter.
But hey: lightsabres.
10/06/2011 at 12:58 Nalano says:
The WoW way of doing things was great and accessible… in 2004.
It is now 2011. There is no excuse.
10/06/2011 at 13:07 DiamondDog says:
I’m the same as you really Rii, but I’m talking about the kind of people that still play WoW but also want something else. The people that see a new MMO like Warhammer Online and go take a look because they want something new, then find it’s not WoW and go back to the comfort of Blizzard. If they get people from WoW to try out TOR and they find an experience that is comparable, but essentially with new content, they might get them to stay. I dunno, it’s just a thought.
You get my point across better than me, though. Lightsabers. That’s all they need.
10/06/2011 at 13:07 Batolemaeus says:
You know, the greatest fallacy is assuming that by making a game like wow, it will draw in wow players.
It does not work that way. People who play wow are already playing wow, not the new game that plays like it or is even inferior. They aren’t likely to leave either.
10/06/2011 at 13:09 hotcod says:
@Nalano
wows way of doing things clearly still works well else it would have died already. Other games are innovating that game play true and that’s awesome but STOR always planned on innovating the use of story in mmos. If you don’t like or can’t accept that then it’s not a game for you but it does not make it bad.
10/06/2011 at 22:04 Arglebargle says:
WoW is big, because WoW is big. Certain things hit at just the right time and played their cards well. Ebay, Paypal, WoW. Right time right place. WoW is the name that non game players know. EA may be hoping that the Star Wars name will bring in the subs. If they are smart, they will make a high dollar PR campaign as well. But then, it is EA….
10/06/2011 at 12:45 f4Ri says:
Guild Wars 2 stands unchallenged.
10/06/2011 at 12:58 thesonglessbird says:
I think it looks alright, personally. But then, I think MMOs are shit. Although I enjoyed DCUO. Maybe I just hate the geeky ones with fairies and wizards and stuff like that.
10/06/2011 at 13:01 Rii says:
Yeah, because Batman is less geeky than Star Wars.
11/06/2011 at 03:42 thebigJ_A says:
Yeah, I hate to tell you this, man, but comic books are just as “geeky” as fairies and wizards.
You’re a geek like us. Deal with it.
10/06/2011 at 13:13 JKjoker says:
the epic music seems to be actively mocking the player as he does mundane and boring tasks
10/06/2011 at 15:51 Gorgol says:
Hahahaha!
10/06/2011 at 18:57 Erd says:
And what’s the bet that when epic things do happen, it involves 25+ people throwing brightly coloured energy for half an hour at a man who for targeting reasons is now 20 feet tall.
10/06/2011 at 13:17 Gap Gen says:
As long as you can visit Space Planet.
10/06/2011 at 13:52 papabear says:
I wonder why RPS wont cover anything about The Secret World.
Well, Funcom has a bad reputation but they are taking their time to finish the game.. And the features they revealed so far looks fresh and promising.
I would happily read a TSW coverage rather than a 722th TOR coverage. Not that it is shite but It is pretty boring.
10/06/2011 at 13:58 CMaster says:
Yeah, nothing at all.
If there’s anything particuarly interesting comes out, mailing it to the RPS email normally gets some coverage.
10/06/2011 at 14:06 bogeymanuk says:
Ive been a star wars fanboy for quite literally decades now and I was looking forward to this for the longest time, but perhaps 5 years of playing wow has dulled my excitement for more of the same even if it does have lightsabers. Hopefully they are showing the dullest class to play cos that looked monotonous as fuck the way it was being played.
And that bike appearing out of nowhere uuuugh! Couldnt they have his ship fly over and drop one off or something, anything?
Reskinned WOW with ME conversation wheel me no likey :(
10/06/2011 at 14:34 InternetBatman says:
I guess I’m the only person here excited for this. It looks like WoW but more interesting, with a much better story. If you don’t like WoW or MMOs that’s cool, but there’s no reason to repeatedly post negative and predictable opinions just because it’s like WoW. That’s like complaining that Street Fighter doesn’t have enough turn based combat.
I too would rather see another turn-based single-player KOTOR, but that wasn’t happening either way. Bioware has made it pretty clear that for now they’re done with turn based games, and for the large part, done with tactical combat. They’ve made it extremely clear that they’re about done with licensed games, they didn’t make Kotor II or NWN II. Kotor III was never coming, especially not from Bioware, so the gripes are kind of empty.
That said, the biggest worry I have is that it looks like classes don’t have enough abilities. That’s a sure-fired way to kill the joy of leveling in an MMO. Ability pacing is something Blizzard, for all their flaws, has done brilliantly. The Sith looked like he was spamming one power when you would have used three in WoW. That’s a big, big problem.
10/06/2011 at 15:05 Ace McAwesome says:
Nah mate, I’m excited as well. I played WoW from release until recently, with a couple of breaks when I got bored or too busy. WoW became a bloated, convoluted mess, but I still like the basic system… I like the fact that it’s a game that essentially never ends.
I’m mainly excited for ToR for the freshness. It’s all new and shiny and Star Wars-y, sure the graphics are pretty meh but they’re not eye numbing shite, just dated. I would’ve preferred modern graphics, but I see the money grab at work and hey, I’ll take it if the gameplay is good. And it looks like it will be, in terms of, if you liked WoW but want something a little different, we made you this cake over here. So have some. It’s tasty.
Also, auto-play sucks.
10/06/2011 at 18:04 Betamax says:
You are not alone. We are out there, waiting, watching.
10/06/2011 at 21:58 Althilor says:
You aren’t alone. It is just that many of those actually not being completely cynical and putting 4 and 4 together and making 10 keep quiet in the RPS comments sections regarding this game, and any other Bioware game at the moment.
10/06/2011 at 14:52 Burchard says:
It’s really just standard Bioware dialogue (which isn’t very good). Choose option 1 proceed with a smile. Choose option 2 proceed with a frown. Either way the person you’re talking to pretends that you weren’t an asshole and goes on with his lines.
However, this time you earn “social” points from being an ass. Which leads you to greater hat options. An innovative ass-hat mechanic if I’ve ever seen one.
10/06/2011 at 15:01 timmyvos says:
Please be a good game so you can begin developing Battlefront 3, it’s one of the best and one of the best-selling Star Wars series and it’s been 6 years since Battlefront 2. With today’s graphics it’d be awesome. And it’d be awesome if they finally developed Republic Commando 2, also one of the best Star Wars games.
10/06/2011 at 19:00 Erd says:
Sorry to crush your dreams, but didn’t pandemic join bioware, go broke, and then all the employees went to 343 to make Halo?
10/06/2011 at 19:19 FakeAssName says:
close: Bioware conned Pandemic into hoping into the sack with them (and Bono), then once they had most of the high profile star wars developers under one roof, the Bioware guys could get way more money from a EA buyout than what they could if they had been solo.
However, EA never really gave a shit about Pandemic and fucked them around for a little bit before forcing them into an early release of what they had in development when EA bought them out, then shut them down because of it’s poor performance after they literally had zero marketing for it.
The head guys at Pandemic got to stick around (probably because they got EA stock options from the buyout, or something like that) but they told everyone else to get the fuck out.
you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_Studios
10/06/2011 at 19:36 timmyvos says:
Yeah but that doesn’t mean there won’t be another developer. I read some rumours that Spark Unlimited might be making it but that doesn’t bode well since they developed the god awful Legendary and Turning Point. Here’s hoping they pull this one of better than those. Also Republic Commando was made in-house so they could just hire any developer (but I’d like to see some PC-centric developer do this one since I think it’d be better on the PC). Apart from that I really want a sequel to Empire at War, one of my favourite RTS’s ever.
10/06/2011 at 15:01 Serenegoose says:
Why would I want to play a bioware game where someone can make all the assholey conversation options and have a 50/50 chance of forcing me to go along with it? I mean really. A bioware game now with -less- autonomy? Are you kidding? Honestly the whole WoW thing doesn’t really bother me at all but that does.
10/06/2011 at 15:56 Masked Dave says:
Well then don’t play with that person. You aren’t being forced to team up.
Also, if you’re playing with a Sith Lord, you can’t be surprised if they choose the arsehole option.
And you still get the points as if your option had been chosen, so from a game mechanic point of view nothing is different.
10/06/2011 at 15:56 hotcod says:
Pick a class that will have skills to influence the dialogue rolls then. I actually like the idea that you if you pick up a random group you have to be willing to deal with choices those people want to make. If you are bothered then do what you’d do in real life and bring along a group you trust. It’s an really interesting dynamic. I also get the feeling that for the quests related directly to your character you will either be doing those alone or be the only one making a choice if you bring some help along.
10/06/2011 at 15:55 Masked Dave says:
Looks so much better than Galaxies, that’s for sure.
10/06/2011 at 16:02 bill says:
I seem to be alone in thinking the Group Conversations system is a nice one.
But other than that, it looks dull dull dull. mindless tasks, trekking about, killing small groups of sandpeople over and over. Hardly big and dramatic.
PS/ What did sandpeople ever do to become the cannon fodder of every star wars game? Poor guys…
10/06/2011 at 18:00 Hoaxfish says:
sand-people, jawas, and beeping droids are the only good thing in Star Wars
10/06/2011 at 22:16 Arglebargle says:
Everyone knows that Sand People are just Evil Bears!
Lucas said it! It must be cannon!
10/06/2011 at 16:18 v_ware says:
If this game turns out to be of DA2 quality I’m going to slice them Biowoware devs open like a tauntaun.
10/06/2011 at 17:15 Yosharian says:
Looks boring.
10/06/2011 at 17:45 Hoaxfish says:
Next week on “Time Team in Space”, Darth Phil discovers a buried screwdriver and we unearth ancient sand people huts
10/06/2011 at 18:10 Betamax says:
TOR in ‘looks like an MMO’ shocker.
I’m not sure what some people were expecting, they always said they wanted to make an MMO with tonnes of storytelling and full VA. That’s what they have done. I don’t remember them setting out to reinvent the genre, and some people seem to forget how long it has been in development, that added to the fact they have (wisely) chosen to make the graphics accessible over super realistic but only 5 people will play it like that means it sadly doesn’t look as good as ME3.
We all know Guild Wars 2 is the messiah (can’t wait to play it one day), that doesn’t suddenly mean that every other more ‘normal’ MMO is crap.
It reminds me more of LotRO than WoW with the emphasis on story anyway. The WoW comparisons, while having some truth to them (WoW has inspired most current MMOs to some degree) are still kinda lazy.
11/06/2011 at 01:35 TillEulenspiegel says:
Did you play Ultima Online? Asheron’s Call? Shadowbane? Any MMO before WoW? EVE? No “reinvention” necessary; feel free to steal from any of them.
It’s disgraceful that the genre’s come to be defined by nothing but terribly bland hack-and-slash gameplay with ability spamming and level grinding. And WoW is probably to blame. I’m not about to lower my expectations and pat developers on the head just because everybody else is churning out the same garbage.
It’s massively multiplayer! Persistent worlds! The possibilities are endless. And yet there’s almost nothing but WoW clone after WoW clone, with minor tweaks and more polish. How fucking boring.
11/06/2011 at 12:33 Gorgol says:
Very well said TillEulenspiegel!
10/06/2011 at 18:16 ScubaMonster says:
Even the character animations look like WoW lol.
10/06/2011 at 18:40 Backov says:
Someone set Bioware up the Bomb.
Because that’s what it’s going to do.
I too am concerned that this giant failure of an MMO is going to discourage investors from investing giant wads of cash in a new MMO startup that might actually take a risk.
10/06/2011 at 19:26 forddent says:
Re: Combat–this basically seems to play like KotOR. I’m sorry guys, but I am currently playing KotOR and this is basically what the combat is. The only real difference is that you can’t pause combat to consider your next move.
I’ll be playing this for the same reason I play KotOR: to run around in the Star Wars universe and shoot things with a blaster whilst playing around with the conversation system. Or maybe wave a lightsaber around.
10/06/2011 at 19:28 Nick says:
Its not really though.
11/06/2011 at 01:25 hotcod says:
@Nick
In which case you won’t mind take me through step by step a fight in kotor and then do the same for something along the lines of wow. Lets control for things like party and pausing the game as we are talking about the basics of combat and how they work and asking for a pause button in a mmo is just something that would never have happened anyway.
My bet is that they are very easily argued to be pretty much the same thing.
10/06/2011 at 21:58 woodsey says:
I am very much looking forward to playing this game. Feedback from people who have actually played it seems very positive.
That is all.
11/06/2011 at 01:28 hotcod says:
as I keep saying in threads about the game (and which no one seems to actually pay attention too) I know a few people who have been long term testers of the game. They can’t give details and they are pushing it to even let me know they are playing but what little they can say about it is glowing with praise. A very enjoyable wow like mmo at it’s heart that does new things and is full of bioware story and style… which is pretty much what the devs always said they where aiming for so any one who dislikes that idea should have already moved on from the game.
11/06/2011 at 03:54 thebigJ_A says:
You don’t care that it plays just like WoW. We get it. Some people do. Give it a rest.
11/06/2011 at 03:28 nafe says:
That’s not a speeder – that’s the latest segway model! It hovers, it’s rechargable, and it’s *slightly* faster than walking!
11/06/2011 at 03:51 Jason Moyer says:
From what I’ve seen so far, I still have no idea why this is an MMO and not KotOR III.
11/06/2011 at 06:29 Grey_Ghost says:
So the consensus here is that it is too much like WoW right? I’ve never played WoW, as I was never a fan of the Warcraft universe. I suppose those of us who have avoided WoW are in a PC minority? I still have no idea whether I’ll like this game or not. Graphically… I am OK with it, and it will all come down to the actual gameplay.
11/06/2011 at 12:36 Gorgol says:
Then I bet you won’t like this game. The gameplay promises to be the worst thing about it. I’ve been following this game for a while and my impression is that the developers have made 0 effort on that front. They’ve never even mentioned it as an important factor IIRC.
11/06/2011 at 12:59 jeremypeel says:
The developers have made no effort on gameplay? That’s a bizarrely definite thing to say about such a broad and ambiguous subject.
11/06/2011 at 07:08 Strutter says:
“speeder” bike
12/06/2011 at 15:50 konondrum says:
My problem with this game is that I SHOULD be the target demographic for this game. I love old Bioware RPGs, have fond memories of Star Wars IV-VI and am a PC gamer. Unfortunately this looks mind numbingly dull. Now I have tried to get into MMOs before, I gave both WOW and LOTRO a chance, but the gameplay is simply not fun. Obviously there are millions of people out there who disagree, but if Bioware really wanted to create a new succesful online game it would have made sense to differentiate it from the title that dominates the genre. As it is, I WANT to like this game, but I know that I will find it to be totally unsatisfying. This is the real problem they have. They’ll only be able to leech away so many WOW players, and they won’t be able to draw in any new ones to the genre. A giant wasted opportunity if you ask me.