Cont’d from Brent’s Behind Closed Doors With The Old Republic

After the presentation from Jake Neri, we filed out of the small presentation room and began our highly anticipated wait for the hands-on.  While in line, we met up with Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager for BioWare and Alyson Bridge, Community Coordinator.  Some of you who watched the reality gamer show “Ultimate Gamer” may recognize Alyson.  She was a contestant (but unfortunately didn’t make it very far) who obviously has landed on her feet coordinating a massive community – a community absorbing every detail of this highly anticipated game.  While we were chatting, I couldn’t help peaking around the corner every few seconds to awe at the Old Republic “Game Room” .

There were 12 workstations set up – but only 6 playable classes: Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Imperial Agent,Trooper, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter. Brent and I were able to play side by side – he playing the Sith Warrior, and myself playing the Sith Inquisitor. I began the demo standing amongst a group of Sith (..there was a Mon Cal!) where I picked up my first mission, and experienced the first instance of the story driven content.  Not going into details, he basically said I was a scrub until I proved myself and that I would probably die on the mission. Go figure.  I then followed the map indicator (in the upper right of the screen) that told me the direction to go for the mission.  Brent was in another area of the temple with his Sith Warrior, but we soon met up outside, facing the valley of the Dark Lords. that’s when I slash waved – and my character performed a waving emote

This is when I really started to get excited – I looked around to get a scale of things, and was amazed at how detailed – and how LARGE the area was.  Then I noticed I couldn’t see Brent’s character when we grouped.  Tim Timmerman, Assistant Producer for the game, walked up to assist.  A few debug actions later and I could see Brent’s Sith Warrior.  From there, we ventured across the valley and entered one of the temples. Once we entered, there was an NPC at the bottom of the ramp that I talked to, who basically said that his troops had been trying to get rid of a slug menace and everyone was dying.  The conversation was very in depth, but my favorite part about it was the Inquisitor’s response to the worried commander. Commander: “But, my lord – my men are dying! Please, help us!”  Me: “Dying is only the final failure of the weak”  Damn straight.

Once we proceeded on the mission, I noticed that the slugs were not aggressive, so they didn’t attack us immediately.  In typical MMO fashion, I targeted a slug and began to attack.  Brent was using his Warrior tanking abilities while I was kiting with lightning and attacking occasionally with my ‘lone’ lightsaber attack.  the movements were very smooth, and I didn’t notice any choppiness in the combat animations. A couple of times we were fighting multiple enemies, and so I used another force ‘suspension’ type ability to crowd control one of the slugs.

Aside from taking the game in for the first time, one of my primary missions was to get an MMO feel for the game, or at least what I’m used to.  There were other demo players around killing enemies for missions – after you killed an enemy, it dropped loot. At one point, I looted a GREEN pair of gloves.  There was a character and inventory screen that I could find, along with a status window that appeared to gauge your affinity toward light side and dark side (much like the KOTOR games).  I could go anywhere I wanted, so as far as exploring – there was no linear aspect on my direct gameplay, only that which was obtained from the missions.  Even then, I wouldn’t call the missions “linear” because there are so many options available to you.

Unfortunately, we were asked to wrap up our demo.  We spent so much time exploring, looking around and tinkering with the controls that we weren’t able to finish either mission.  Tim was nice enough to pose for a picture with me, and we were on our way out the door. “What’d you guys think?” asked Rob Chestney, Senior Writer for Bioware. “F*cking Awesome” replies Brent.

I left feeling justified that my time was well spent, and any worries that I had about linear gameplay, or the lack of a true MMO feel for the game was completely gone.  It was truly an amazing experience in this small little corner of E3, when I realized that my dream MMO was less than a year away.

Final thoughts:

Announced you can play as a Twi’lek Smuggler, and Chiss as an Imperial Agent (you guys may recognize the Chiss race from the expanded Star Wars universe – Grand Admiral Thrawn was Chiss.  Appropriate, I think, for the Imperial Agent class.

Player/NPC interaction was amazing – to experience it first hand is a great example of the integration of MMO and classic KOTOR playstyle. I loved the quote “Dying is only the final failure of the week”!

The world is HUGE! We started on the planet Korriban – and I cannot.. CANNOT stress the scale of the planet – just the starting zone alone was expansive – best guess is perhaps twice the size of real world surface area than a a typical zone in World of Warcraft (for those that are familiar).  Again, this is just a guess based on playing the game and checking out the map.

I was immediately familiar with the controls – chat window was in the upper left, player status bar just above the action ‘bar’ which included the controls. We have already seen an expansive amount of screenshots and gameplay video – but what we haven’t seen a lot of is the character screen, inventory screens, etc..  Character status screen (inventory) was very detailed – my inquisitor had an enhancement equiped that was an image of a brain with some lightning around it (not sure what it did). The force ‘status’ window had a familiar gauge for light side and dark side – mine was neutral.  No idea yet as to what types of buffs or abilities you can get from either one.

As you fight enemies, you see the damage number above their body as you deal damage.  The font is larger when you perform a crit.  Once you kill an enemy, it pops up how much experience you gained.  Also, items have durability. During the limited gameplay, I didn’t see any detoriation.

From a gameplay prospective, for those expecting something completely revolutionary, don’t read into my fanboism as to thinking this is the most amazing gaming experience you will ever have. Truth is, its not going to completely change the MMO genre, if you were expecting it.  However, with the addition of the amazing story line, what you get is a complete experience.  You can definitely tell where they have taken aspects of all MMO’s that work, and included those into the game, with BioWare polish.

The folks over at Darthhater.com have a more complete demo experience as well, so I highly recommend you checking out their Q&A HERE as well as the extended G4 hands on video (below).  The force is definitely with us in this one.

Seriously though, Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn’t need more hype.  The fans need Bioware to bring this one home, and it looks as though they are well on their way – or are they? How do you feel about the news thus far coming out of E3? Are you more excited, or are you still maintaining a ‘wait and see’ approach till you get your own hands on? Let us know!