Star Wars: The Old Republic Trailer

[AndroidVageta]

Always makes me sad to see someone from the light side fall...I was really rooting for the good guy in the end...sucks...guess I'll have to play to change this...

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
Always makes me sad to see someone from the light side fall...I was really rooting for the good guy in the end...sucks...guess I'll have to play to change this...

According to the storyline the jedi there were not the strongest,

The Sacking of Coruscant. It was the crowning achievement of the Sith Empire?s ambitious military strategy and the moment that changed the history of the Old Republic forever. You may have read about it before, but our first cinematic trailer captures this event with breathtaking action and beautiful detail.

Republic leaders have traveled to Alderaan to engage in promised peace talks with the Sith Empire.The most powerful Jedi have accompanied them to safeguard against an Imperial deception. The Empire?s real motive, however, was simply to lure the Republic?s strongest defenders away from Coruscant and set the stage for an audacious attack. Under the command of Lord Angral, the Sith fleet approaches the Republic?s capital planet for the first time in centuries. In advance of the fleet, the strongest Sith Warriors have flown a stolen Republic ship into Coruscant?s orbit. Their mission is critical ? to destroy the planet?s defense grid mainframe hidden in the heart of the Jedi Temple.

 

[ivan2]

Originally posted by: coloumb

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Unfortunately, that's likely the path that BioWare will take, because that's the path that WoW has taken, and WoW is financially successful. The MMO industry, though, needs the other kind of game...the open adventure game.

If you could convince publishers it would work, I'm sure they would be happy to do it. Sandbox games that charge a subscription don't seem to have a lot of mass market appeal though.

Actually - there was an MMO in a galaxy far far away which was doing quite well until the developers decided "let's allow the players to be jedi then let's revamp the combat system!" because we know the game better than the paying customers... and thus sent the MMO in a downward spiral towards hell.

You can easily have a sandbox MMO work if you make a game that players like to play rather than ignoring them and try to force feed them into liking it.

I think the largest hurdle this MMO will have to overcome is that it's not a fantasy based game.

SWG starts to fall apart after the first player city upgrade and people found out that there's really nothing much exciting to do. A small group of player stayed for the socializing aspect of the game (i know a few), but the majority left, including me due to the racial and class unbalance of PVP, disdain of jedi grinding and the lack of content. Raiding bases was fun for a short while but it got frustrating after those super fencer/smuggler/riflemen builds starting to pop up.

 

[Magusigne]

I loved the Crafting/Shop part of the game the most. Hopefully something similar will be implimented soon.

 

[Zerohm]

The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

The end state is very important as it is what keeps people playing for years. I actually hope they make the faction/profession/exploration mechanics very similar to SWG. Galaxies was a great sandbox/pvp game for its day. Then Sony just ran it into the ground by making drastic changes (tried to make it more WoW like) that alienated the customer base.

MMOs were meant to be social and sometimes ruthless places, not just a meeting place to do multiplayer levels. The hard part for Bioware will be balancing and incentivizing pvp and pve to their desired goals.

 

[Magusigne]

Yeah. But in all seriousness. If Bioware fails to make a successful MMO out of star wars...then nothing can beat blizzard but blizzard.

No other company can even come close to pitting it's success vs Blizzard. Bioware might be our saviour.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: Zerohm
The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

Fine by me, I don't particularly want it to be an MMO anyway. I want a good storyline. Actually, all the better if I only have to pay for it for three months, then suspend my subscription until they have enough new material 😛

 

[Zerohm]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: Zerohm
The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

Fine by me, I don't particularly want it to be an MMO anyway. I want a good storyline. Actually, all the better if I only have to pay for it for three months, then suspend my subscription until they have enough new material 😛

I'll admit, I secretly want this to be like an updated/improved SWG 1.0. They have a second chance to get it right! But yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not going to be the case.

 

[Zerohm]

Originally posted by: Powernick50
Yeah. But in all seriousness. If Bioware fails to make a successful MMO out of star wars...then nothing can beat blizzard but blizzard.

No other company can even come close to pitting it's success vs Blizzard. Bioware might be our saviour.

WoW is just the 500 lb gorilla humping your leg. You just have to let him finish. If the timing is right the next really well designed game will get the audience it deserves.

 

[Beev]

Originally posted by: Zerohm

Originally posted by: Powernick50
Yeah. But in all seriousness. If Bioware fails to make a successful MMO out of star wars...then nothing can beat blizzard but blizzard.

No other company can even come close to pitting it's success vs Blizzard. Bioware might be our saviour.

WoW is just the 500 lb gorilla humping your leg. You just have to let him finish. If the timing is right the next really well designed game will get the audience it deserves.

If an MMO "deserves" an audience, it gets an audience (unfortunately not true for single player games 🙁). Name any recent MMO that failed that did not deserve to fail.

 

[Homerboy]

I dont get it.
How can they make a game trailer 10x more exciting and entertaining than 3 full length movies, 1 cartoon movie and 1 cartoon TV show?

Just take the producers/directors/artists/writers that did the trailer and make some GOOD StarWars movies!

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: Baked
The trailer looks pretty good, but I need to see actual game play.

SNIPE**.

Better than WoW eh? Well, a lot of MMOs have claimed to do that, but all have failed thus far. We will see.

This is 100000% TRUE.

They all claimed to be 'better' ... they need to leave WoW out of the picture and just make there own damn game!

 

[Zerohm]

Originally posted by: Beev

If an MMO "deserves" an audience, it gets an audience (unfortunately not true for single player games 🙁). Name any recent MMO that failed that did not deserve to fail.

Yeah I agree. But WoW is such a juggernaut, I can't help but think there are social/friends and family forces at play here. The game experience is enhanced by healthy server populations, and most people are willing to play a slightly less fun game (in their opinion) to play where their friends are.

 

[Whitecloak]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
I dont get it.
How can they make a game trailer 10x more exciting and entertaining than 3 full length movies, 1 cartoon movie and 1 cartoon TV show?

Just take the producers/directors/artists/writers that did the trailer and make some GOOD StarWars movies!

this.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Originally posted by: GaryJohnson
Why does there have to be an endgame? Why can't we just play through the MMOs "Story" and then be "Done"? This is how it should work.

This is a really good point despite the negative replies that assumed GaryJohnson doesn't know anything about MMOs. Sure, there are some people who need MMOs to be one game that they can play "forever". These people will also be the ones who do the most complaining about lack of endgame this or that.

I've played more than my share of MMO's including some for years and years, but I've also played a bunch of MMO's for only a few months each. Some of my favorites of these? DDO, Asheron's Call 2, Age of Conan, and Warhammer.

I played DDO for three months, spent $60 on it ($30 + $15 + $15) and found it to be possibly the best use of $60 ever. The team based dungeon crawling in collapsible environments was awesome and Turbine did an amazing job on the different stories and quests. It was like playing a really fantastic version of NWN3 and I probably got 150 hours of great enjoyment out of it. So what if it didn't have an endgame? $60 for 150 hours is a great bang for your buck, and this was a very high quality 150 hours.

DDO didn't need to occupy my time for several years to wildly succeed as a game. That's just a ridiculous bar to set in the first place and is responsible for all the really tedious MMOs out there that try to stretch their content out over years with endless grinding. I don't understand the mentality behind people who think MMOs need this in order to be worth playing.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Originally posted by: ivan2
SWG starts to fall apart after the first player city upgrade and people found out that there's really nothing much exciting to do. A small group of player stayed for the socializing aspect of the game (i know a few), but the majority left, including me due to the racial and class unbalance of PVP, disdain of jedi grinding and the lack of content. Raiding bases was fun for a short while but it got frustrating after those super fencer/smuggler/riflemen builds starting to pop up.

I played with a pretty hardcore group of Imperials and we lasted about a year after launch. The FoTM (flavor of the month) buffs/nerfs were pretty irritating, but the only one that got me personally was the relatively brief OP Commando period where my Wookiee was already especially vulnerable to fire damage in the first place...

The things that SWG succeeded most at was the open world highly optional PvP, the crafting system, the completely open exploration system, housing and vehicles (after launch), and I even enjoyed the integration of the space expansion. If it had shipped with vehicles and the space expansion I think it would have been more successful.

The things it failed at were the constant over-tweaking of class balance with the FoTM cycles, the holo grind and over prevalence of jedi, the implementation of the PvE "endgame" (corvette, mando bunker), the addition of linear questing through the expansions and then of course the curb/NGE redesigns that alienated their vets in the hopes of drawing new players.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Originally posted by: Zerohm
The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

Your worry sounds like an amazing game. A multiplayer KOTOR3 with so much content that it takes you three months to complete? That's the game of the decade to me, especially when you start looking at how cool the combat and classes are shaping up to be.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
I dont get it.
How can they make a game trailer 10x more exciting and entertaining than 3 full length movies, 1 cartoon movie and 1 cartoon TV show?

cuz lucas had squat to do with it hehe

 

[Zerohm]

Yeah Josh, you do raise a good point. I wasn't trying to say that a 3 month game is an automatic failure, it's just not what I'm looking for.

Anyone know of a good sandbox/pvp game? 😛

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Originally posted by: JoshGuru7

Originally posted by: Zerohm
The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

Your worry sounds like an amazing game. A multiplayer KOTOR3 with so much content that it takes you three months to complete? That's the game of the decade to me, especially when you start looking at how cool the combat and classes are shaping up to be.

Eh...the problem is that the kind of people who generally want MMOs don't want to run out of things to do in 3 months, and a fair number of the people who think 3 months worth of KotOR would be great are going to seriously wonder why on earth they have to put up other people. A lot of KotOR's attraction was the in depth NPCs....and really, your typical MMO player doesn't exactly roleplay.

 

[Gothgar]

looks amazing

 

[Chriscross3234]

I was listening to the PCGamer podcast and heard that Bioware is claiming that Star Wars: TOR will be the first fully voice-overed MMO. If they are going to stay true to this claim, then this means that this severely limits the amount of story and content that can be put in the game... Not a good sign IMO.

 

[stumben32]

Originally posted by: drebo
Why do people associate role playing games with quests and levels and raids and thees and thous and high English and linear story lines and set, specific classes?

All of those things belong in a certain kind of role playing game, but none of them are required in order for a game to be a role playing game. Second Life, for instance, has none of them and yet it is a role playing game. UO in its hey-day didn't have quests or levels or raids, and it was certainly a role playing game.

The next big, really successful, long-term MMO will be one that goes back to the time before there were levels and classes and a linear story line. The reason most modern games have trouble with "end-game content" is because they follow a linear path. The problem with that is that a persistent-state game has no ending. Therefore, unless you are continually developing new content (and an expansion every year doesn't count), you will ALWAYS run out of end-game material. Once you get to the end of a string, there is nothing more there. Once you exhaust the "story", there's nothing left to do.

The next successful MMORPG needs to be an open-ended game with no classes and nothing but social norms restricting what you do. It needs to be a game based around a large world in which anything is possible and your path through that world should be of your own making. Think about virtually every MMO that comes out anymore...everyone starts in the same place, everyone follows the same story, everyone does the same quests, everyone goes through the same geographic progression. How is that immersive? In the end, everyone runs out of the same quests to do, everyone's already fought over all the same loot, and everyone ends up identical in the quest for "balance".

I would pay big money for a game in which nothing was dictated by artificial restriction or a contrived linear path through the game. The game should be simple and place emphasis on immersion into the game world and the social structure of said world. Grouping should not be forced or even encouraged, but rather should be done out of common joy of fighting along side someone or killing a bigger monster. One should be able to go anywhere and attempt to do anything right from the beginning. Linear progression through skill trees and levels are just more bullocks and artificial restrictions. I'd like to see a skill-based game that combines player skill and character development. The player skill aspect should not overshadow the character development aspect, but equipment and "skills" should not be the sole deciding factor in a fight.

My opinion is that World of Warcraft is a fine game for people who like to play in a tin-can and follow a tight-rope through the game. The biggest problem with that game is that World of Warcraft was the first MMO that was targeted towards everyone, and as such is the most successful financially. Hence, other developers try to emulate it. Virtually every MMO to come out in the last few years have been direct clones of World of Warcraft. Warhammer Online, from Mythic, was to be the spiritual successor of Dark Age of Camelot, which was pretty much the last open-ended MMO to be developed, but it ended up being a carbon copy of WoW, right down to the linear progression through the game. At least with DAoC, you had freedom, and as long as you were careful or had the money, you could pretty much go anywhere right from the get go. Of course, as Mythic saw the popularity of WoW, they adjusted the game to the point where they made it just as linear.

WoW didn't ruin the MMORPG industry. It simply drew many developers that otherwise would not have been involved in such an industry and spawned a shit-ton of copy-cats. Hopefully, we'll get a developer in here who is interested in building an immersive world based upon choice and society, rather than a contrived story line and preset character progression. Maybe this game will be that. Maybe it'll be another WoW clone. Either way, I'll give it a look in the hopes that they will give us a real role playing game that allows us to choose our roles, rather than thrusts them upon us.

Well said. My only disagreement was that I think the next great mmo for me can still be class based.

What I and many of you are sick of is the tin-can tread mill games. I will use Warhammer I think is the pinnacle of what mmo has become. I say that because while WoW is surely the most successful game, but Warhammer tried to overdue it. Warhammer is like a chinese buffet. You get everything you want, right out of the gate. You eat everything in site, and your so stuffed you cant even walk out the door. None of the food was bad, but nothing was great. Just a TON of it served on a platter.

Another thing I must say is a problem in itself is ... us. We as an mmo community on average have become fat greedy gamers who want to rush to the top. I saw this very very evident in Age of Conan. Its like every wants to be the most bad ass clan and dominate the server, and end game is seeing how much they can grief other players or shine their e-peen pvp prowess. Frankly, I am sick and tired of pvp as it exists in mmos for this reason. The mechanics are fine, fun as heck actually - but the environment and communities are putrid. In AoC it was so bad, there was a power guild on our server that everyone flocked to. I mean... everyone to the point they had Kashetta just totally blockaded, with just a bunch of other guilds struggling to even stay a guild. All for what? so they could just dominate a couple lame loot spots in the zone?

Mind you large in part of the problem in my 2 examples of warhammer and AoC - is the game funnels you into a couple pieces of end game. What REALLY needs to happen is go back to what games like SWG and EVE did - with user generated content and expand on that. Let players run thier own unique business, with the ability to create TRUELY unique items. SWG crafting system at the time seemed flawed , but dang its the best one I can think of to date. There was just something fun about htting your favorite arms dealer for a newly created batch of krayt enhanced Jawa rifles, then hitting coronet to find a good slicer to mod your weapon - and who knows what would happen... maybe a big reb-imperial fight would break out and you would drop what your doing and join the fray. Maybe you would end up in the cloner getting black barred - good times.

I want an mmo that EXPANDS on this type of thing - more things ( missions, gear..etc ) should be user generated! Please... warcraft has PVE raiding down pat. keep that in warcraft.

Long gone are the days where I would want to spend 6 hours straight watching the same fucking thing happen ( tank beats on a boring mob. healer heals tanks. Mage nukes target ). All for what... some rare colored item that you can equip to still sit and do the same thing?

As for The old Republic - it is extremely evident what they are doing. I picture the entire game being like 1-20 was in Age of Conan Tortage except better. Thats not a bad thing, and I will get it , it looks fun. The problem I see - WHY join a guild? WHY pvp? WHY do anything remotely "massive online' in the old republic? They have yet to show me anything even online related. That speaks volume for what is going to happen here. I will still get it, and probably leveling a couple chars. But I predict that will be it.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha

Originally posted by: JoshGuru7

Originally posted by: Zerohm
The whole ?more story driven? thing worries me. If Bioware puts all their focus into writing story lines, it?ll basically be KOTOR with multiplayer. Players will simply burn through all the content and then be bored in 3 months.

Your worry sounds like an amazing game. A multiplayer KOTOR3 with so much content that it takes you three months to complete? That's the game of the decade to me, especially when you start looking at how cool the combat and classes are shaping up to be.

Eh...the problem is that the kind of people who generally want MMOs don't want to run out of things to do in 3 months, and a fair number of the people who think 3 months worth of KotOR would be great are going to seriously wonder why on earth they have to put up other people. A lot of KotOR's attraction was the in depth NPCs....and really, your typical MMO player doesn't exactly roleplay.

It isn't nearly that cut and dried - a lot of gamers simply like having fun and there's definitely a market for "It's about the journey not the destination" type games. The idea that MMO games need to be grindy and take several years to "finish" isn't a product of careful thought on the part of the consumers but simply how it's been done in the industry and what the consumers have come to expect as developers try to milk customers along for many years.

There's a lot of fun out there for gamers who are willing to change their mindset regarding MMOs and treat them like they do the other games they play.

 

[geoffry]

SWG was my first and only MMO, I stayed around till the combat NGE.

I really enjoyed it, I had a pure crafting character and a jedi...I really enjoyed the KOTOR games and hope this takes the best of both KOTOR games and SWG makes a doozy.