Hands On: Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Greg Tito]

Hands On: Star Wars: The Old Republic

LucasArts and BioWare showed off the Republic?s Trooper class and told us that they hate the term, WoW-killer.

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[Dr. wonderful]

...

Bounty hunter, shall be my name!

EDIT: I want to be a bounty hunter but I like the idea of being a simple Jedi.

 

[Jared]

Certainly loos like it will be intresting.

Although, I bet everyone who is everyone will want to be a Jedi, or something along the lines.

I think I wouldnt mind playing a simple soldier type

 

[Headwuend]

If it's merely going to feature the traditional MMO-type (thus dumbed down) combat mechanics and mob AI, I don't think I'm going to play this.

So far I've not been impressed with what I saw - only the smuggler seemed to fight a bit more dynamically (cover system), but I guess this would get old soon, too.

The effort of having any dialogue voice acted is admirable, but nothing that will sell me.

Choices ("choices, motherf*ing choices") are nice and all that, but it's still left to be seen how immersive their impact really is.

Either way, I'm still going to follow its development for now. Maybe they'll deliver on the questioned fronts after all.

 

[EnzoHonda]

MMORPGs always promise more than they can deliver. I'm sure certain features will be neat, but "meh" when you get used to them. However, this is BioWare we're dealing with. Bio...wait for it... Ware. It's like when Ferrari releases a new car or James Cameron comes out with a new movie: You pay attention.

It's admirable that they don't want to be known as "WoW-killer." I didn't want to be known as "Heavy D" but the label still stuck.

 

[ma55ter_fett]

I am so damned envious of you at this moment in time.

 

[Delstrago]

Am looking forward to this game. Developers seem to be finally getting away from the High Fantasy of later years and moving into other areas. The Old Republic seems to be comming along well and I hope it is as good or even better than other Bioware games

 

[Fappy]

I really hope I have enough time to play by the time the game finally comes out.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

I want this game.


I also enjoy the prospect of being a good Sith.

Like, changing sides depending on choices you make, or vice versa with Jedi (Or Republic).

 

[fanklok]

MMORPGs always promise more than they can deliver. I'm sure certain features will be neat, but "meh" when you get used to them. However, this is BioWare we're dealing with. Bio...wait for it... Ware. It's like when Ferrari releases a new car or James Cameron comes out with a new movie: You pay attention.

It's admirable that they don't want to be known as "WoW-killer." I didn't want to be known as "Heavy D" but the label still stuck.

Wait wait wait, Heavy D. There was a guy I knew in high school that we called Heavy D.

What? Oh right the article I didn't really read it, uhh random generic not very interested in star wars response.

 

[Worgen]

aion did mmo char voices first, you can hear your char talk in some cinematics

 

[JaredXE]

And the Beta starts when?

 

[drisky]

I liked the look of the trooper mainly because generic solders are going to be less generic than the jedis, thats going to be funny.

 

[Danpascooch]

I am SO excited for this game, I am a huge Bioware fan

Also, I don't want to be "that guy" but there were an alarming number of typos and/or grammatical mistakes in that OP, there was one spot where it didn't make any sense, and it was off enough that I couldn't even tell what it was supposed to say. I don't mean to be an ass, but you should probably give the proofread another go.

 

[Danpascooch]

WoW-killer is a bit of an overstatement, sure, Bioware kicks ass, and this MMO might be totally spectacular, but lets face it, there is no way WoW is going anywhere.

"WoW COMPETITOR" is more like it, and with WoW's seemingly unbreakable vice grip on the MMO community, even that is a stretch.

 

[Adamsusskind]

Finally some new coverage. Thanks!

 

[Danpascooch]

PAGE 1:

Since it was first announced in 2008, BioWare's first MMOG has been the most hotly anticipated title in the genre. With the great RPG chops at the studio, it was the perfect choice to take over the Star Wars license and make the great MMOG that Galaxies never was. The plan was to concentrate on story, as BioWare games are wont (known?) to do. That's where all of the fully recorded dialogue came in; for the first time in an MMOG, we were going to be able to hear what our character sounded like. That was the feature I was most excited to try out when I was invited to the LucasArts facility at the Presidio in San Francisco last week. But instead, the demonstration build focused on showing me the Trooper class, a Republic military bad-ass with a big blaster and exploding bombs. At least the pre-built character at my station was a hot chick, that somehow made it all that much cooler.


My Trooper was a dark-skinned female human with a big gun and scarred, worn pieces of body-armor that were reminiscent of Boba Fett's costume. She was level 6, and her action bar was populated with around 6 different abilities. The Trooper's mechanics are based on "Action Points" which you accumulate by hitting a target with your basic attack, which in my case was a single shot of (from) my blaster. Once I had 5 or 6 points, which were displayed in the HUD by an increasing number of tiny blue lights below my health bar, I could use the more vicious abilities, such as a rapid fire barrage which used up all of your (my) action points over time.

PAGE 2:

The standard UI for most modern MMOGs is used for The Old Republic. You've got your minimap, your questlog and your target frames. While you get major story quests from a quest giver, you acquire the more simple "Kill 12 of these guys" quests once you actually start killing them. That one innovation may have more to do with not wasting computing cycles on quests that lack a significant story element (it gets hard to justify and (an) in-game story reason every time you wasn't (want?) your player to kill guys.) And it also means that less voice acting and scripting needs to occur to explain what is a comparatively simple task for the player.

I was disappointed that I didn't get to see very much story and dialogue, but I was pleased with what I did see. The first quest giver you speak to let's (lets) you in on the basic story that there's an uprising of separatists and you need to stop them, possibly by blowing up the base. You also get a side quest to track down a holograph reporter whose been taken hostage, which you can accept or not. This is all told through short conversation points to which you can choose from three responses in a radial menu. If you've played any BioWare game in the last ten years, then you can pretty much guess what those three break down into.

"With each decision you make, you can be good to bad, mean, snarky, whatever you want to be," Neri said(said Neri).

The good part is that these choices actually do matter beyond being a dick like Han shooting first (I don't know what to do with this, but it seems off). "You do have choices that have consequences in this game," said Neri. It seems that choosing to not accept a quest is just as important as dialogue choices. "It's not just about taking a meaningless quest, it's a quest that actually changes the story that you're participating in, which can also change your progression." Neri hinted that TOR might have some Fable-like changes as well. "You might go down the dark side as a player, and perhaps that affects the way you look from a physical perspective," he said.

PAGE 3:

There's still a lot we don't know about The Old Republic. LucasArts is being incredibly tightlipped on PvP or endgame (content) other than that they are aware that players want those things (them) in the game. If you want any more proof that LucasArts loves a secret (secrets), look no further than the fact that their office in San Francisco is on an ex-military base and that we were "escorted" when going to the men's room. You can read about Russ Pitts' adventures at LucasArts here.

Ok, I probably look like a major dick at this point, but I thought you should take a look at this, I don't know if you can edit a news article after it is posted, and some of the things I noted are suggestions and not pure grammatical suggestions (although some actually are the latter), but in case you're interested, above this sentence you can find my quick fixes.

 

[duchaked]

I'm a huge Star Wars fan (well, I used to be), but idk if I'd sit down and play an MMORPG

 

[TsunamiWombat]

ok have video games not learned anything from cod NO GERNADES THAT 1HIT KILL IT SUCKES FOR THE CASUAL GAMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COD is an FPS. This is a MMORPG.

Completly. Different. Mechanics.