‘Lo Axeheads, as you know, this week, we’re exploring the potential-packed-picks (three times fast) we each have our sights set on in the gaming realm. Titles that may be unproven thus far, but that have dramatically cool possibilities. We’ve already seen a trove of great ideas submitted by the community in this week’s topic starter post, so head there and be sure to let your voice be heard if you’ve got a particular game that has the potential to deliver the kick-ass.
Since Reuben “EpicAxeMan” Moretz and I co-chair the EpicBattleAxe council on domestic Star Wars affairs related to awesome, I’m going to abuse my authority and use my position to advance an agenda for purely selfish reasons (just like your representatives in government). Today’s MBC , therefore, can be about nothing else but the game that showed zero gameplay, but conquered E3 2009 anyway; the game that mentioning the developer and the property in the same sentence is forbidden in 23 nations for fear it will drive the fanboy population to frenzy. I’m going to pass the mic to Bacbi to tell us why Star Wars: The Old Republic has the potential to bruise reality itself with its epicness.
Bacbi says:
I am a firm believer in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
I know it doesn’t come out until next year but it’s my most anticipated game period. The reason why I’m so exctied is because Bioware is making it.
I also like the idea of an MMO with a story, I played WoW on and off for a year just because of my friends but the only times I really enjoyed it was when I was playing with my friends. The old republic seems like it’s going to let you be able to pretty much level up by urself because of your companions, but u will have an option to bring other people along with you.
I also think that because of every class haveing both personal class quests and open quest for everyone it’s gonna be fun to level up multiple characters. And of course the big thing or me is that it’s the Mass Effect dialouge and VO.
Fin
Well said Bacbi, well said. MMO’s haven’t traditionally been all that interesting to me. The amount of time required to really get anything out of them, trying to schedule in game meet-ups with friends, it turns gaming from something I do to wind down into something that creates its own kind of stress. But screw all that because we’re talking Star Wars here…SW and BioWare for Odin’s sake! The pairing of these two dominant forces could be the greatest thing in recorded history, as long as it doesn’t unmake the universe in the process. Anyway. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and if you have something else entirely that you’d like to sound off on, then feel free to do that over on this week’s topics starter post where you can SUBMIT A NEW TOPIC:
SUBMIT YOUR MEMBER BATTLECRY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION HERE.
That’s going to do it for today, but we’ll see you back here tomorrow for more comments, punditry, and prognostication on EpicBattleAxe.com!
Stay Brutal,
Viking Brent
When I first heard that SW:ToR was going to be an MMOG, I was furious. No ending to the Revan/Exile story arc?! Then I warmed up to it as I learned more about the game and Bioware’s philosophy behind blending a strong story into a MMOG.
Now I’m merely indifferent toward it. It’s not that I don’t think it’s going to be a great game. Hell, it’s Bioware. But I’ve never played an MMOG and liked it. Major time commitments, monthly fees, grinding, stat based loot forcing everyone to look exactly the same… Bioware is amazing, but SW:ToR doesn’t look all that different from WoW.
Even worse, look at how great ME2 is. Imagine if Bioware ignored this MMOG business and focused on making a singleplayer KotR with ME2 visuals and dialogue options? Imagine if they made a realtime battle system that’s as polished as ME2′s with Force powers and lightsabers? A missed opportunity, if you ask me…
I’m of the same sentiment as WakingEveryGod.
I really appreciate the fact that Bioware is developing this game since I have been a long time fan of the company and the Star Wars saga (minus the prequels; please watch Red Letter Media videos in Youtube and you’ll understand) but as someone told me one day “this game will fail in a entirely different way”.
I truly don’t hope this game to fail, but I’m sure it will not meet anyone’s wild expectations, of that, I’m sure.
My main beef with SWTOR is the art and character design, followed by the item design.
I feel I’ll be playing a Walt Disney movie with guns and lightsabers taken out directly from the “Infant section” at Toys’R'Us.
I don’t know who in the name of the Force came up with that “Stylized reality” art concept. I didn’t know that “style” rhymed with “huge hands” and “big feet”.
I’m also a big “carebear” type of gamer, specially in MMO’s since everyone know, all you need in PvP is a character template, # key and F key mashing skills to win.
Also as WEG mentioned, a game based on PvP will eventually make everyone “look the same” and mainly due to PvP, thus destroying the whole potential for “diversity”.
I really don’t know what’s up with every MMO needing to force PvP into people, what happened with Coop end game? Did every developer (besides Square Enix) is suffering of a fixed “creativity block” after a couple of months into the games’ release?
Anyway, I hope the best for SWTOR but I’m not sure I’ll be playing it due to #1: Aesthetically lacks appeal to me, and #2: My wife (who happens to love Star Wars, but loves “daddy’s sugga” even more
)
Cheers axe heads!!!
@Raisins:
All good points. My beef with loot doesn’t have so much to do with PvP, but with the way loot is utilized.
I think we can all agree loot is one of the major reasons people play MMOGs for years. It’s not enough that an item be rare; it also has to do something beneficial, too. In a game that bases its combat around character stats (i.e. dice rolls happening behind the scenes) as opposed to player skill, the most obvious thing to do, in order to make loot attractive, is give all the loot stat buffs. 90% of MMOGs do this.
Unfortunately, this creates a culture of min/maxing that totally kills diversity in the game world. Just take a look at WoW. Every single high level character, of the same class, has the same gear.
Even worse than that are the gameplay implications. Not having the latest and greatest gear could potentially exclude you from completing quests because the difficulty will be too great without having your gear optimized.
You certainly won’t get into any parties if you try to be a rebel, that’s for damn sure. I know you praised Square Enix, Raisins, but I found FFXI to be the least enjoyable of all the MMOGs I’ve played because of this aspect. Granted, the FFXI community is ridiculously polite (you’d think you were playing with the Hannar from ME), but no party will even give you the time of day if you don’t have the “right” gear.
All in all, I hope SW:ToR does well. I just don’t see it doing anything current MMOGs don’t already do.
I could not have said it any better myself. Well done, sirs.
Good stuff guys, I hope Brent brings this topic for discussion on the next EBC podcast.
I consider myself a moderate Star Wars fanboy, but I don’t feel it’s reason enough to just praise something that has Star Wars plastered all over it, and I’m not just talking about the games Lucasarts has been spewing since Jedi Knight II on the PC (fixing what was not broken) but every other product that comes from the dreaded “Skywalker Ranch”.
In any case, I think we agree that SWTOR is mostly an over hyped game for all the wrong reasons.
I apologize to you Brent, for not sharing the level of hype.
)
I hope we can all see this game at the end for what it actually will be, and not get too over exited by a CG trailer (which was very badass; Now I want to see one with Jedi kicking some pussy Sith ass
Cheers axe heads!
As do I. I definitely understand where Brent is coming from. I, too, was enthralled by that badass CGI. However, all the footage I’ve seen of SW:ToR totally doesn’t convey the same sense of exhiliration.
I’m not trying to be a dick, but has Brent seen any of the actual gameplay footage? It totally brought me back down to earth from cloud 9. It looks like WoW with a Star Wars skin. Even a Star Wars theme won’t get me to play WoW, and I love me some Star Wars.
Now, if that CGI cutscene preceded a new, singleplayer KotOR with equally awesome visuals, a revamped dialogue system, and realtime combat… I really have to stop dwelling on that or I’ll start drinking… more.
I was very excited for this game last year but as time goes by and I don’t see anything worth being excited over…meh. After the fiasco that was SWG I’m really not interested in investing my time and money into anything Lucas Arts related.
I hope it’s awesome but I’m not holding my breath. Just give me Kotor 3, and daddy’s sugga.
I agree with what WakingEveryGod has said: A Star Wars Bioware nextgen game can be so much more than a MMO. Specially after the way Bioware has matured after these years with games like Dragon Age and both Mass Effect games.
By choosing to make a MMO, you’re instantly putting yourself in a tight corner. Wether you like it or not, you’re still trading story and a deep variety of gameplay possibilities in exchange for something more profitable and generic. Don’t get me wrong here – if there’s a company that can pull off a good MMO other than Blizzard it’s Bioware – but MMOs always come with the problem of (duh!) masses of players all wanting to play the same game at the same time. This greatly reduces what you can do with your game because you have to cather for the millions of people playing the game. You make a system based of levels, loot and dices for everyone and you’re left to little else to add that makes a MMO different other than visual fluff.
About Bioware’s claim that players will be able to affect the universe dynamically and actually play a part in the massive story: Sounds like a gimmick to me. Sure they can do small instances that you can coop with your friends but there’s no actual effect on the whole world. After you finish a quest it will still be there for other players to do it. There’s no sense of real accomplishment through stuff like that to me. And there never really will because there’s no such thing as one player being able to actually effect a whole MMO world. Freedom like this is the ultimate goal of MMOs but at the same time it’s also it’s bane. Like with Communism, the premise fails when applied to our society because it bases itself on the falacy that everyone will behave and be nice persons to eachother when given the chance.
Everyone knows we can’t have nice things when there’s freedom and anonimacy combined. Not when there’s people who enjoy themselves by spoiling everyone’s fun and totally destroying what would be a good system (in theory) if it weren’t for them. Griefers, lamers, TKers, trolls. All of these pests exist online and would rejoice at the slighest opportunity of being able to piss off a massive interactive world’s population.
It’s because of this that I don’t believe that Bioware will be able to deliver such type of control to players storywise. Consider me skeptical on this matter.
Also, I think Star Wars is a franchise that needs action based realtime combat to work to it’s full potencial. I’ll always be a fan of the Jedi Knight series because of this. They mixed this type of combat with a slight RPGish upgrade system. To me it will always stand as one of the best Star Wars based games.
SW:tOR won’t be anything like SWG. SWG was developed by Verant (EverQuest) and they adhered to the old school of MMOG design (i.e. ludicrously slow character progression demanding unrealistic time commitments).
Verant finally realized how overbearing the grind was and implemented a more streamlined structure to character progression, but only years after the game was released. All of the stalwarts, who were used to the grind, got pissed off and left and potential converts turned away because the population had dropped so drastically.
WoW is the new standard, and it’s easy to see why. It still doesn’t get me to like MMOGs, but it does cater to a much broader range of gamers than the old school model does. I’m sure Bioware knows this very well…
@Frost:
I dislike MMOGs for all the reasons you mentioned. However, I’m not as pessimistic about their future. Technology has been the MMOG’s greatest obstacle, thus far. We haven’t seen an MMOG that delivers on the promise of individual actions causing ripples throughout the game world mainly because technology in this space is still limited.
MMOGs may interest me 5-10 years from now, but the current model is simply banal. Single player FTW.