In an incredibly obvious Diablo 3-like announcement, Bioware and LucasArts confirm that they are indeed working on a Star Wars MMORPG set in the age of The Old Repubilc that has probably been in development since Knights of the Old Republic.
Is it just me, or is there something inherently wrong with two massively multiplayer games from two different developers about the exact same subject, trying to appeal to the exact same audience, at the exact same time?
Wait, don’t answer that question.
But this isn’t the same as a fantasy setting being done hundreds of times with roughly equivalent results. This is the most recognizable setting in science fiction. This is Star Wars. With lightsabers for everyone.
The Old Republic as a setting was preordained ever since the critical and commercial success of Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic. A universe that had only been explored by the Dark Horse comics because Uncle George wouldn’t allow anyone to touch the timelines before and after the Original Trilogy was finally seen as a legitimate replacement for the storylines that traditionally surrounded Luke Skywalker and Company. Or for the more forgiving fans, the Clone Wars/Jedi extinction era of Anakin Skywalker.
I still believe that SOE had a great product with Star Wars Galaxies, but decided to fuck it all up with the “New Game Enhancements” two years ago. So is The Old Republic LucasArts’ way of asking for a “do over”? User activity in Star Wars Galaxies has been in steady decline since late 2005 based on MMOGChart, which coincides with the implementation of the NGE. I’m sure the only people still playing now are the ones that can put up with a grind featuring blasters instead of broadswords.
For some reason, SOE thought that everyone wanted to be a Jedi when it introduced The Jedi Trials with one of its publishes previous to the NGE, but unless you were a new player the community response was less than enthusiastic. Part of what made SWG so interesting is how much it relied on the user base to simply populate the game’s many cities, where businesses were formed, Stormtrooper squads performed drills, and player characters were trained in new skills by each other. You didn’t have to be a Jedi for the game to be rewarding. The NGE created yet another experience grind where you met up with the who’s-who of the Star Wars continuum every 30 seconds making those encounters less special, and certainly took away the feeling that you were part of a galactic community instead of in some Star Wars amusement park.
There were always rumors of multiplayer being proposed as a feature in the KOTOR series, but it was never included in either installment. Which was a perfectly reasonable decision – they didn’t need it. Both games were story-driven experiences, where the actions of the main character had implications on what happened in the rest of the game. They played out like adventure games, where combat was only there to pace the plotline. The back story is important in an MMORPG, but it is completely unrealistic to cater to each player and provide an individual storyline in a game world made up of thousands of other player characters doing the same thing. It’s like killing the Elite monster at the end of a quest chain in World of Warcraft. You follow the quest line to get there, finish off the big bastard, only to have it respawn for another group. To provide each player – or each group for that matter – with a unique experience in-game would require an incalcuable amount of options that could never possibly keep up with the rate at which they are consumed.
In an interview with Gamasutra on story in The Old Republic, Daniel Erickson of Bioware thinks he has an answer for us.
[We have a team of] Dedicated writers, writing for years and years…we have more story content than every other BioWare game ever made combined, so it is the largest project.
We realized at one point that we were doing enough content, just dialogue, to fit in dozens of books. It’s pretty mind blowing!
That’s a lot of story. But how will they manage the challenge of players wanting their own story, or at least have their choices affecting part of the overall game narrative?
Well, again, one of the things that’s really important is that the galaxy is huge. Things can be changing that are amazingly important to your world. What you’re doing and what’s happening that doesn’t necessarily affect every part of it. And there are actually… amazing, huge changes happening in [places] all over this game world that we don’t know about.
That’s interesting. It seems like a nice way of saying that the story will be implemented like any other MMORPG. In reading the interview it’s pretty clear that Erickson thinks it can be done – and he rightly points out that being the first to attempt a task like this is always hard. And even if they only partially implement these features, there will be someone else to follow with a better product and continue the pursuit of this admirable goal. Personally, I don’t need an online RPG to satisfy my need for story, but it seems that the rise in popularity of MMORPGs coupled with those lucrative subscription fees make single-player RPGs seem like a thankless proposition. I can agree with the concept of limiting player alignment to two factions to form the core of character plotlines – but I want to see unique classes other than Jedi, and allow players to have an impact on the in-game community, not just the story.
Unfortunately, EA Games president Frank Gibeau had to open his big mouth to say that World of Warcraft was the target for The Old Republic, making ridiculous arguments like the recognition of the franchise alone was enough to win over subscribers. Didn’t he get the memo? Any MMORPG launched in the post-Warcraft age can expect to do no better than second best as a rule. I don’t think any MMORPG in history – Lineage included – has penetrated the world MMORPG market like Warcraft has. Instead of trying on de-throne Blizzard, Bioware should consider what worked in Star Wars Galaxies. Their focus should be on making a genuine Star Wars experience that takes advantage of the setting, not embarrassing themselves by creating yet another grindfest. With lightsabers.
