Poll: The Old Republic: Will it fail?

[Saltyk]

I voted Average. As a Star Wars fan, I can't say that this game has elicted anything stronger than a "meh" from me. Perhaps it is because Lucasarts keeps trying to haphazardly kill it's top franchise through shoddy quality media releases or idiotic edicts from on high but I identified with Gabe from Penny Arcade when Tycho described Gabe's feelings as:

After a long while of not quite knowing how to feel about Star Wars: The Old Republic, he had a chance to play through an instance at the show, and felt the ancient stirrings. Star Wars is something his son likes now, in many ways. Not him.

I could tell that, in a way, he felt relieved. (Apr 6 2011 newspost)

And, speaking of Penny Arcade:

Well, every time I've seen or heard of people playing it, they were largely positive. Every person that I've heard even claim to play the BETA was overwhelmingly positive. Mike Krahulik, Gabe, of Penny-Arcade even wrote a little update on their site where he stated how much he has enjoyed his time in the BETA. And, yes, from what I've heard, the storytelling is that big a deal.

That doesn't really say much. You could apply that to Auto Assault (the only MMO that I was in from Beta to when it ended a year after launch). It had a very good story which kinda petered out once you hit Ground Zero. People thought that the Beta was great only to start dropping off once it was launched. You even had web comics doing comics on it.

And, yet, a year after launch, it was dead.

I think TOR is going to do better in terms of being an average MMO instead of shut down in a year but I don't think it's going to be a WOW or even a COH killer. This is, of course, presuming that Lucasarts can restrain itself from quelling protests by removing planets. this time.

Well, you pointed out what Tyco thought Gabe felt after playing a instance. That's not even a close comparison to what I mentioned. This was Gabe's own words after having played the actual BETA for a month. The link follows.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/

Spoiler: And here are a few excerpts from the article in question.

I?ve been playing it for a little over a month now and last week I asked if I could share some of my impressions with you all. It took some begging but finally they agreed and to their credit they didn?t ask to see what I was going to write first. Honestly they had no idea what I was going to say which must have been a little scary considering this is PA, but lucky for them I actually really like their game.

First of all, a lot has been made about the new ?fourth pillar? of story telling. Is it really all they are making it out to be? In my personal opinion, yes, it really is a big deal and let me tell you why. In the short time I?ve been playing SW:TOR I have already given more thought to my character than I ever did in all the years I played WOW.

As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.

In most MMO?s taking quests is what you do so that you can go play. In SW:TOR, taking quests is playing.

I will never get tired of slicing a guy in half with my lightsaber and then watching as my character lifts the blade over his head to block a blaster shot from behind without looking.

In SW:TOR you get a little message that someone in your party is taking a quest and do you want to join via holoprojector. The first time I saw this I actually said out loud ?Shit yeah I want to join via holoprojector!? and sure enough your character appears there in all his or her shimmering blue glory. You can interact with the NPC right alongside your partner. It?s a little touch but believe me when I tell you the game is full of smart little bits like this.

I honestly think they are making something unique and fun here. I?ve enjoyed my time in the beta even more than I expected and it just continues to improve. I?m excited to see what the final product ends up looking like and how people respond to some of its ideas.

Yeah, not quite what Tycho would have led you to believe. And yes, overwhelmingly positive.

You're not wrong, though. I admit that my hopes are high for the game. I just got back from pre-ordering the game with a friend. So, really at this point, I just hope it is good. But I don't think that hope is misplaced. I think this game has real potential. As long as no one really screws it up, I think it will do well. Though, even I think it is foolish to call this or any game a "WOW killer". If it happens, that's great, but I don't think its necessarily a goal to have.

And, Holy crap! The Collector's Edition is already sold out! It was just official today!

 

[infohippie]

Now don't get me wrong, I like SW but history has shown us that this popular sci-fi franchise has a very small list of good games (battlefront for example). So anything that has Star wars in it and is better than farmville will do ok. I just don't understand why more developers aren't taking advantage of the easy girl of the fantasy neighborhood.

I'd say the list of good Star Wars games is even smaller than that: It consists of X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. And KOTOR 1 & 2 for some people - people not me. That's it. And I'm old enough to remember the Star Wars arcade machine, and the couple of crappy SW shoot-em-ups that got released on the Amiga lo these many years ago.

The thing about TOR that I'm most interested in is seeing Yahtzee review it. If he does, it'll be brutal.

 

[thelaughingman]

I'm praying it won't suck. From what I've seen it looks o.k, but the make or break part will be the story, obviously. The combat and other game play mechanics look functional and the aesthetics look good as well, but that won't matter at all if the story fails. I am a little pissed it won't be available on steam, which could hurt sales quite a bit, but I've been waiting for a sequel to KOTOR 2 for to long to not buy it. That does NOT however mean i will be signing up for Origin.

 

[DolorousEdd]

No, because MMOs are inherently crap, yet are doing exceedingly well. And everyone will want to know how this one is and will give it a shot (i.e. all their money for time everlasting). And even if it's not as good as some dream it will be (like KOTOR 3-X), it will still be as good as you would expect from an MMO, so everyone will start praising it.

 

[Nicolairigel]

Well, I can hope it will fail miserably.

Okay, look. I don't rage about many things in gaming, cept frost mages in WoW and TOR MMO. I have an inhuman hatred towards this MMO. and even though I love Bioware to death, they frankly dropped the ball down a 7 mile pit by deciding to do this. Bioware are the kings of good writing IMO, and there combat system is usually fun but not enough to base a game around. THe problem is, it is very hard to use good writing in an MMO. Most people skip all writing while farming in MMOs, so it goes noticed. The art design is, in my opinion, horrible. It looks like a worse version of TF2's without the humor behind it. But, all that aside, the main reason I wan this game to crash and burn is THIS GAME IS REPLACING A THIRD GAME IN THE KOTOR SERIES. I love the kotor series with a passion, both 1 and 2, they are in my opinion the best things to come out of the star wars series to date. The second game ended with so many unanswered questions, mainly about what happened to Revan. Instead or releasing a full single player story rpg with an awesome story, they went and made this pos rip off of every MMO ever made. I already play WoW, I don't need or want another MMO, I want another awesome kotor game.

Man, this subject gets my riled up.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

-snip-

You're missing the point of my quote. The quote wasn't to point out anything about TOR. I used that quote because, if you look back over Penny Arcade's history, Gabe used to be a fanatic about Star Wars but, over time and mishandling of the franchise, his fandom has diminished. The point of that quote was to have an illustration as to how the same thing has happened to me. There are only so many Ahsoka Tanos and Force Unleashed IIs and Darth Caduceus (Most ineffectual Sith Lord ever) that you can foist off on me before I say "Unless it is a comic that John Ostrander is writing, I just don't care anymore".

Plus it provided a good segway into me commenting about hype. I heard a quote about the DC reboot that I think also applies here. "It doesn't matter how many people buy Issue #1. What matters is how many people buy issue #2". Yes, people are hyping up the beta now. Will that last after they start paying for it? Will the love for the story last when the inevitable need to grind starts setting in? (I started playing Dragon Age 2 on Monday. Bioware tried to make all the sidequests interesting but I'm beginning to hit the point where, repetitive maps aside, I'm getting tired of doing nothing but be someone's errand boy on sidequests that have no relation to this Deep Roads expedition that I'm supposed to be going on.) Will protests be handled better or will everyone on Naboo be teleported into space again?

These are all things that aren't really issues when playing the beta but may become apparent when someone is a lvl 60 Sith Lord and they're still trying to get 8 Womprat hides. I'm not trying to tear TOR down but, as I said, Auto Assault was really well-received. There were even people ingame who would talk about how glad they were not to be playing WOW anymore. Then, one year later, they're all back at WOW or had moved on to whatever MMO was the next big thing and Auto Assault was closing down.