Will KotORO Be The Game SWG Wasn’t?
Posted by Stropp on July 24, 2008
I’m getting a little ahead of myself here considering it’s still probably two or three more years before Bioware release the now more than rumored and slightly less than confirmed, Knights of the Old Republic Online. But still I’m finding a bit of excitement building. I really am a big kid.
In fact, it’s probably the same level of excitement I felt all those years ago well before the release of Star Wars Galaxies when I read on the official forums and FAQ that players could be Jedi and do cool things like build their own lightsabres. That excitement slowly ebbed away as I continued to read the announcements of features like permadeath for Jedi, Blue Glowies, and only one character per server rules. The official forums erupted into two camps, those that loved these features and those that hated them.
The biggest problem with Star Wars Galaxies, as I saw it, was the selection of the era that the game was set in. Sure, the galactic civil war was raging, but there were only two Jedi (Luke and Yoda) and two Sith (Darth Vader and the Emperor.) It’s pretty hard to satisfy your players if they cannot play the iconic ‘class’ of the movies, and it’s pretty hard to keep the lore lovers happy if you do allow players to Jedi.
Even before the game released, I was starting to develop the opinion that SWG should have been set in the New Republic timeline. The Sith were crushed, but force wielding enemies were still around. Luke has begun rebuilding the Jedi Order. The galaxy is in chaos. There are plenty of novels for guidance, and a number of single player games for reference. It was the perfect setting for a MMORPG based in the Star Wars Universe. The developers could have lots of latitude.
Of course the other perfect setting is The Old Republic, and that’s where the KotOR games are set.
Like the New Republic timeline, The Old Republic has plenty of scope to experiment with new ideas and scenarios. In some ways it offers more to a developer than even the New Republic, since the New Republic has a huge amount of canon lore that already exists. Aside from The Knights of the Old Republic timeline, created by Bioware anyway, there are relatively few novels and stories set in this era.
Bioware also have the big advantage of having seen the mistakes made by SOE with Star Wars Galaxies from the beginning, especially in how the Star Wars fans reacted to some of the decisions. Hopefully, they can learn from them.
Still, without knowing what Bioware has planned for KotOR Online, it’s hard to say that KotORO will be the Star Wars MMORPG that Star Wars Galaxies wasn’t. But if Bioware’s game making record, and their experience in making games in the Star Wars universe, count for any thing KotORO should be a much better game than SWG turned out to be.
Like I said earlier. It’s an exciting possibility.
Now, once we have KotORO, someone just has to make a Spaceballs MMORPG and I’ll be in heaven.
May the Schwartz be with you.
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I agree about the era. That was the FIRST turn off for SWG for me. Seems with the clone wars they had a GREAT chance to have a good game in that time period AND expand. But instead they picked the most boring part.
And sure the Bioware game will be better. They have years of lessons from all MMO’s on what NOT to do
The problem with KOTOR (or the benefit, depending on how you look at it) is due to the time period having “lost sith technology”. Stuff like Mandalorian armor, and cortosis fiber weapons, and disrupters, and such will become common place and that ruins part of the experience.
I’d love to see a star wars MMORPG that includes, even as a completely separate game mode (like a pvp minigame) a galactic civil war empire vs. rebels game. Or clones vs. republic, however you like. You pick empire, and you can choose your class to be scout trooper, storm trooper, sand trooper, dark trooper, etc. And all of them have the same basic stock stuff, and you can level up to take command of individual units, and higher command levels give you access to better gear and classes (i.e. maybe a stormtrooper private advances to a stormtrooper with an E-web repeater, and then to a stormtrooper sergeant with a grenade launcher, etc.)
I mean, it worked pretty well with that star wars Battlefront series. It’d be sweet if you added MMORPG permanence to it.
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