A 20-Minute Walkthrough of Star Wars: The Old Republic

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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A 20-Minute Walkthrough of Star Wars: The Old Republic

Do you feel like watching some gameplay footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic? Do you feel like watching twenty minutes of gameplay footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic? Can I get a "hell yeah," please?

[ignvideo]object_ID=816935&downloadURL=http://pcmovies.ign.com/pc/video/article/101/1016934/gcom09_oldrepublic_spc1_082109_flvlowwide.flv[/ignvideo]

Not much to say here - part [http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/816935/bioware-mmo-project/videos/gcom09_oldrepublic_spc1_082109.html] series of videos from last week's GamesCom event in Cologne, Germany, where Senior Content Producer Dallas Dickinson walks us through 20 minutes of The Old Republic gameplay.

For the most part, it's... well, it looks pretty much exactly what you'd expect the KotOR games to look like if they were an MMO (and had Mass Effect 2's dialogue system). We get a look at three planets - Nal Hutta, Ord Mantell, and Korriban - as well as three character classes - the Bounty Hunter, the Smuggler, and the Sith Warrior. It all seems pretty standard stuff, but there's also look at one of the game's "Flash Points": a particular choice that will have a dramatic affect on the game's storyline.

Interestingly enough, during said Flash Point, we get a glimpse of some multiplayer dialogue choices, which is ... cool, but raises a few questions. Why did only the one player get to choose the Flash Point option, and what happens if I'm the second player, and would rather have taken the other branch? It feels like a slightly odd system to me.

The animations and models feel kind of awkward - particularly the Smuggler's - but hey, this is still very early-build stuff, so I'm prepared to overlook a lack of polish. The combat looks fun, and the environments do look really cool, so props to BioWare Austin on that.

Of course, this is an MMOG, so even a (relatively long) twenty-minute walkthrough is barely a drop in the bucket considering the amount of time players will end up spending with the game.

On another note, I can't decide if having someone named Dallas working at BioWare Austin is incredibly fitting, or incredibly ironic.

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Ultrajoe

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Apr 24, 2008
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Curse my office, curse my employers and curse on their filthy blocking of streaming video. How can I not work if they don't let me? Now I need to try and remember to watch this tonight. Oh, who am I kidding, i'll never forget to watch this; time to carve another oath into my arm.

Can the Smuggler match the Rogue? We'll see.
 

Calamity

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Aug 22, 2008
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Please [your religions deity here], let this game be everything they're saying it'll be.
 

Chipperz

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CantFaketheFunk said:
<
Interestingly enough, during said Flash Point, we get a glimpse of some multiplayer dialogue choices, which is ... cool, but raises a few questions. Why did only the one player get to choose the Flash Point option, and what happens if I'm the second player, and would rather have taken the other branch? It feels like a slightly odd system to me.
If I had to guess, you only get "judged" on your options. It would be pretty cool if you could have the option on your turn of turning to an ally and openly disagreeing with them, maybe getting you bonus points in the other direction, but damaging everyone else's morale or something.

And hey, if I've thought of it, I'm willing to bet the folks at BioWare have...
 

TsunamiWombat

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Yeah i'm guessing flashpoints only affect the story of the initiating character, everyone else is there for the instance lewts.
 

Nincompoop

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They are referring to cut scenes as something positive.
..

I hate the fact that everyone makes such a huge-fucking-deal out of cut scenes. Plus, it will feel weird knowing that 47,256 other players are also "the best shot [that mentor] has seen".

I kinda lost my interest in the game right now. Doesn't look good (graphically, although it might improve, I doubt it will be much better) and the action doesn't seem realistic. The only good thing about this game (so far) was the cinematic trailer.

Addendum; The melee on melee fights look cool.
 

mshcherbatskaya

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"I hope you are as excited about The Old Republic as we are."

Um, YEAH! Just a little bit. I am curious how precedence will work in the dialogue system. I'm assuming that there is a group leader, but this also seems like a standard quest, not an instance, so there could be options for other group members that we haven't seen. I wonder if you could disagree with a group leader's decision and find yourself in a PvP situation. There is certainly canon logic behind such a scenario.
 

Ancientgamer

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I'm just curious why they were on an Imperial vessel. Isn't this Star wars: the old republic?
 

Conveant0

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It just seemed...easy? On other MMOG's I've played, playing against 1 or possibly 2 things is normally the most you can handle outside a group or extra help. Playing against 4 things and coming out with barely a sanding off your health bar... kind of removes all feelings of difficulty.
As for how epic the fights are? It's epic when you and a group manage to take down iconic figureheads, gigantic bosses or getting specific gear from a challenging fight. Getting up to that point or just killing normal mobs like those shown in the videos aren't. Epic is a challenge, it's something you and possibly others have to work together and work well (With a splash of luck in the mixture), and if you do it wrong then you'll find that your work has been lost. Fighting 4 enemies at one time may be good at first but you are always going to be going up against groups, how epic is it when you've spent five hours in game and fought another group of baddies/goodies? It is just another generic, grinding mechanic like in most other MMOG's.

No thanks, if I wanted to end up fighting multiple enemies simultaniously without any real challenge/possible risk of dying, then I'd re-subscribe to WoW and go back to Elywnn Forest and kill rabbits (Because the Wolves are to scary).
 

Avatar Roku

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vivaldiscool said:
I'm just curious why they were on an Imperial vessel. Isn't this Star wars: the old republic?
Because it's the Sith Empire. That's what they were called under Malak too.
 

Ultrajoe

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Apr 24, 2008
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orannis62 said:
vivaldiscool said:
I'm just curious why they were on an Imperial vessel. Isn't this Star wars: the old republic?
Because it's the Sith Empire. That's what they were called under Malak too.
Sith are big on empires, they're like Pharaohs that way. Only where one of them had an instinct to point a huge but impotent spike at the sky, the other builds a huge and potent gun to look back at them. It also explains the fascination with huge-backed chairs and betraying underlings.

Just imagine the Emperor in an egyptian hat. Go on, it fits perfectly and you know it.
 

Playbahnosh

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"first, I'm gonna wave at somebody, that's what you do in MMG-s"
LoL! Seriously?

Well, the game looks like it's a single player game, but with thousands of others playing it beside you. I mean, five minute long cutscenes? Fully voiced NPC-s? Actual story, with multiple choices? This is not an MMOG. This game looks like it's actually FUN! MMOGs are bad looking, don't have a story (that you care about), NPC-s are only there to give loot and quests that say "kill x of monster y" or "get x items from monster y and bring it to stationary cockhead z".

MMOs are not meant to have a meaning, only to serve as a second job and a lesson in humiliation and how society looks in it's rawest form. Spammers, griefers, greedy merchants, money farmers, and of course whiny, bitchy teenage kids with inflated egos.

This game looks different. It looks like something even I want to play.
 

Avatar Roku

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Nincompoop said:
They are referring to cut scenes as something positive.
..

I hate the fact that everyone makes such a huge-fucking-deal out of cut scenes. Plus, it will feel weird knowing that 47,256 other players are also "the best shot [that mentor] has seen".
Cutscenes are good. If nothing else, they're much less immersion-breaking than small text boxes, which is the only other option I can see. As for the second part, that's just an inherent problem of MMOs.
 

Avatar Roku

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NoMoreSanity said:
From the description I got from orannis, looks fun. Still the Sith seem slightly over-powered no matter what the limits imposed on them are, but taking the Jedi's Lightsaber was B.A.
You should actually watch it. I don't think I described it too well.
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Playbahnosh said:
"first, I'm gonna wave at somebody, that's what you do in MMG-s"
LoL! Seriously?

Well, the game looks like it's a single player game, but with thousands of others playing it beside you. I mean, five minute long cutscenes? Fully voiced NPC-s? Actual story, with multiple choices? This is not an MMOG. This game looks like it's actually FUN! MMOGs are bad looking, don't have a story (that you care about), NPC-s are only there to give loot and quests that say "kill x of monster y" or "get x items from monster y and bring it to stationary cockhead z".

MMOs are not meant to have a meaning, only to serve as a second job and a lesson in humiliation and how society looks in it's rawest form. Spammers, griefers, greedy merchants, money farmers, and of course whiny, bitchy teenage kids with inflated egos.

This game looks different. It looks like something even I want to play.
Maybe you should play some different games, brah.
 

Avatar Roku

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CantFaketheFunk said:
Playbahnosh said:
"first, I'm gonna wave at somebody, that's what you do in MMG-s"
LoL! Seriously?

Well, the game looks like it's a single player game, but with thousands of others playing it beside you. I mean, five minute long cutscenes? Fully voiced NPC-s? Actual story, with multiple choices? This is not an MMOG. This game looks like it's actually FUN! MMOGs are bad looking, don't have a story (that you care about), NPC-s are only there to give loot and quests that say "kill x of monster y" or "get x items from monster y and bring it to stationary cockhead z".

MMOs are not meant to have a meaning, only to serve as a second job and a lesson in humiliation and how society looks in it's rawest form. Spammers, griefers, greedy merchants, money farmers, and of course whiny, bitchy teenage kids with inflated egos.

This game looks different. It looks like something even I want to play.
Maybe you should play some different games, brah.
Or stop quoting Yahtzee verbatim.
 

KSarty

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Aug 5, 2008
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CantFaketheFunk said:
Interestingly enough, during said Flash Point, we get a glimpse of some multiplayer dialogue choices, which is ... cool, but raises a few questions. Why did only the one player get to choose the Flash Point option, and what happens if I'm the second player, and would rather have taken the other branch? It feels like a slightly odd system to me.
During one of the earlier developer interviews I read they mentioned that they are testing a variety of different systems to make this work. The two that I remember are that either the party would take votes on what response to give, or right from the beginning the party would select a party member that would speak for the group as a whole. They mentioned that there are still other ideas floating around for this and that they haven't fully decided on it yet.