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E3: We preview Star Wars: The Old Republic
LucasArts and Bioware offered a sneak peek at Star Wars: The Old Republic at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and SCI FI Wire was there. The backstory begins 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader, when a powerful Sith Empire appears out of deep space to invade our favorite galaxy far, far away.
Three centuries before the present game, Revan disappeared into space, looking for a Sith Empire run by an Emperor determined to destroy his ancient Jedi enemies. Revan never returned. But the Sith Empire did. The Old Republic takes place 300 years after the events of The Knights of the Old Republic.
The trailer looked amazing, especially for someone used to a massively multiplayer online game such as World of Warcraft. Tons of action, beautiful graphics and an excellent score. The look is "stylized realism." We were told that instead of going for photorealism, designers decided to concentrate on having a signature style, more like a painting than an actual photograph. The trailer reveals a pivotal moment in the war between the Jedi and the Sith, the "Taking of Coruscant," which sets you on your journey. The official Web site fills in the backstory from Dark Horse Comics.
The game is the first fully voiced MMO: Every class, male and female, and every single NPC and quest giver in the entire game will have a full voice-over. Like KOTOR, the conversation tree has three choices, and every choice you make affects gameplay, sometimes drastically. But since this game is in real time, there is no chance to save and see what would have changed if you had made another choice.
Everything we saw of gameplay was live. The first class we were shown was the bounty hunter (excellent for all you Boba Fett fans out there). Your bounty hunter starts out on the planet of Hutta, the homeworld of the Hutts. This is the first time Hutta has been fully realized in a Star Wars game. Your mission is to find your way into "The Great Hunt," which is an event sponsored by the Mandalorians to find the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Once you complete that quest, you have access to greater bounties and greater rewards. The bounty hunter is a ranged class, but he does have some armor and lots of gadgets. We watched as our bounty hunter demonstrated that he could also handle hand-to-hand combat with some dirty moves and weapons such as a flamethrower.
Announced for the first time anywhere is the smuggler class, based on the Han Solo character. He's a scrappy, jaded underdog who always gets the girl and always seems to come out on top, no matter what the odds. You begin on the planet Ord Mantel, a scrap-heap planet on the outer rim, filled with smugglers, mercenaries and exiles of all sorts. You mission is to run guns to the Republic. The smuggler is a ranged class as well. To aid in finding cover to shoot from, we have the first-ever cover mechanic used in an MMO. A little green character in the shape of a crouching man shows up on anything you can hide behind.
We were told that this is Knights of the Old Republic 3, 4 and 5 and so on, but one you can play through with your friends. In addition to the player-vs.-environment mode, it was confirmed that there will also be a player-vs.-player mode. And as in any good MMO, there is looting: You can steal anything from a corpse, including weapons. There will be character customization, raiding, guilds, grouping, an in-game economy and all the traditional features of massively multiplayer games, though no details were given for any of these.
Star Wars: The Old Republic's release date has not been announced. We were merely told that it would be released when it's ready.
By j-dub at 4:45 AM ON 06/03/09
The score was borrowed from Episodes I through III.
By SciFiFan at 8:09 AM ON 06/03/09
I know Lucas is working on a tv series but, One set in this time frame would be awesome.
By Snowkestrel at 11:15 AM ON 06/03/09
I must admit to some disappointment that this is an MMO- I am one of those people who has very little time to devote to gaming, and I prefer a format where you can turn it on and play through the story for a little while, and then just save and come back later.
Am I wrong? Does the fact that a game is an MMO preclude the ability to play through the game and the quests as you would playing KOTOR or KOTOR II?
By j-dub at 1:14 PM ON 06/03/09
I see your point Snowkestrel, however, making this game an MMO makes it bigger than any console game like KOTOR/KOTOR II could ever make it. The story can go on much further than it could ever go on a simple RPG console game. Plus, just because you cant hit the save button and come back to it later doesnt mean that you cant hop on for an hour or two and play through a little bit of story.
By ThrakenSal at 2:04 PM ON 06/03/09
This game is going to be AWESOME!! I'm glad to see they will have a smuggler class. that was one of my favorite classes in SWG (before the Dark Times, before the NGE) I can't wait for it to come out. It'll be THE WOW Killer!
By Chris at 8:31 PM ON 06/03/09
I'm with Snowkestrel 100%. I'm not a hardcore gaming nerd. I have a life beyond my PC and console. KOTOR remains one of my all time favorite games and it hurts me to say I will not be following it to the next incarnation.
Too bad casual gamers can't enjoy what was a good thing. Oh well.
By karmicmonk at 8:50 PM ON 06/03/09
Get over yourself Chris, MMO's aren't scary timewasters, you get out what you put in.
This will be KOTOR, just a bit more social. besides it's STAR WARS and will rocketh
By Kermonk at 9:18 PM ON 06/03/09
Yes, it looks very nice. Now where can we download it in divx?
Btw,
"Every class, male and female, and every single NPC and quest giver in the entire game will have a full voice-over."
That's not a good thing. Then we have to sit and wait for them to get through the lines. I can read it 10000% faster than they can say it.
By musigma45 at 12:32 AM ON 06/04/09
Seriously folks, until they release more information on the gameplay, there is no way to tell that you have to "be a hardcore gamer" to get in to this MMO.
I had the same misconceptions when I started WoW back in Nov 2004. I learned that a good MMO has elements of both. So long as this is done right, you can play casually and still get plenty of bang for your buck. YOu get out of it what you put in to it...some games deliver that better than others. But to say right off the bat that MMO = hardcore is not true.
If anything, this has a better chance of being more casual friendly to eat at the growing anti-wow population of gamers who want something new.
By jammer75k at 1:27 PM ON 06/04/09
That trailer was awesome!!! Can't wait to see more.
I have a couple questions though, why were all the Jedi and Sith wearing body armor? Is that standard for that time era?
I am also assuming that since this is an MMO there will be a monthly charge to play, has anybody heard how much?
By musigma45 at 3:58 PM ON 06/04/09
Jammer:
I looked over their site for about 90 minutes or so last night. No details on per month amount or anything. Three classes announced, Trooper, Smuggler, and Bounty Hunter. All ranged classes it seems like. Jedi and Sith are in it but no details out yet. Its a neat site and gives good background.
By Jamion at 2:53 PM ON 06/05/09
Not the Taking of Coruscant, it's the Sacking of Coruscant... swtor.com and on twitter @swtor to follow the official news and info from TOR.
By Jon3s3y at 9:26 PM ON 06/05/09
They should have just made KOTOR 3 on the Mass Effect 2 Engine.
MMO's suck for people with full-time jobs and a life. Whether you like it or not, they do take MUCH more time investment than a single player RPG and the graphics take a huge hit.
By taliesin at 2:12 PM ON 06/08/09
I must agree with the previous ones who said that MMO does entail a bigger time commitment to be as equally satisfying as a single player RPG. I have played the Star wars galaxies and the quest mode is much less satisfying then the usual RPG. Many times I feel I'm making silly runs all over the place without getting something specific done. It is much easier to lose yourself in the world and, thus, have to employ much more time then in a RPG to reach the same "staisfaction level". Unfortunately, they most probably get much less money from gamers so...
By EviLNygma at 8:03 AM ON 06/09/09
I'm with Thrakensal on this one.. I also was an avid StarWars Galaxies fan and have tried to get back into since the NGE but as it kicked its sandbox style It no longer grasped my interest...
THIS IS STARWARS... We welcome another StarWars MMO.. even though my time (as with SnowKestrel) is now limited. I have played many MMOs in the last 9 years (my first was DAOC) and as my responsibility has increased my online time has decreased but I have still managed to retain an enjoyable level of gaming both in MMOs and console games.
I look forward to this release and am salivating at the thought of the jedi battles that are to come.
I miss my Pre-NGE publish 10 Jedi...
By Tegashi at 9:20 AM ON 06/09/09
I just hope that what they end up implementing as 'Raiding' is nothing like the exclusive time sink in WoW. It should be open ended and very casual friendly.
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Tegashi:
I just hope that what they end up implementing as 'Raiding' is nothing like the exclusive time sink in WoW. It sho...More »