I thought the potter books did end? Didn’t he get impregnated by a vampire and fall in love with a werewolf or something? I think Angie posted about it. I don’t read them, obviously.
Maybe they did, I haven’t read them. You see my point, though.
No, nothing that fancy, just thinking out loud. And there was a last Harry Potter book so I do believe there was an “end” :)
Yeah, it was a half vampire baby and so he had to be turned into a vampire by his vampire life partner to survive the birthing, presumably through his pooper. I don’t think they showed that in the movie version. Not sure where his werewolf gay lover comes in, maybe that was the ginger kid from the early movies when they went to school? But I digress.
From what I’ve read (and there’s not much available yet), the developers have several archetypes, each of which has their own fully fleshed-out story, and they plan on releasing new chapters regularly. When you finish your republic bountry hunter story, you have to wait for the next chapter to continue, so maybe you play your sith slave owner for awhile, and so on.
It’s way too early to do this, I know, but I’m already a little bit excited. I think KOTOR is the best Star Wars anything since the original trilogy, and I really like the way it’s so removed from the movie continuity that it’s basically free of constraints (apart from containing things like droids and lightsabers and blue chicks with head-tentacles). One thing I noticed on there that really intrigued me was the section on companions.
Along the way you will befriend courageous companions who will fight at your side or possibly betray you based on your actions. Together, you will battle enemies in dynamic Star Wars combat and team up with other players to overcome incredible challenges.
Sounds to me like companions are distinct from other players, and probably represent NPC wingmen similar to the ones found in Bioware’s other recent games. That could be a very interesting mechanic.
The story section left me wanting more, a lot more. It talks a bit about the changes in the 300 years since KOTOR but I’m really curious to see more specifics about the state of the galaxy. One thing that doesn’t seem to be mentioned at all is the Mandalorians. I’m a little disappointed they’re not a playable faction, to be honest. Maybe they’ll be an NPC faction that you fight a bunch, and maybe they’ll even become playable in an expansion or something. But they were my favorite part of the KOTOR mythos and I hope they use them in a meaningful way.
I don’t think this is true – apart from a couple of individuals, the impression I got was that this project (run out of the Austin office) is mostly people who did not work on KOTOR.
I will put this on my radar, so wake me up in 2010 when they announce a release date!
So is this gonna be like a cross between NWN and WoW? How do you do a non-linear story while allowing for multiple PCs? Wasn’t this kind of the idea of Dungeons and Dragons Online?
Wow, those screenshots look like something that stepped out of the world of KotOR and into a spinning propeller.
I’m going to watch development of it from time-to-time even though I have very little, if any, interest in an MMO of any sort. Certainly, the look of the screenshots doesn’t do anything for me, and regardless of how much emphasis they put on story, it’s not going to be able to match the level of story-telling you can do in a single player game where you know all the actors. Unless they plan on a full single-player story arc within the MMO universe with the rest of the game being heavy on the multiplayer interaction.
Too, while I loved playing the original and sequel KotORs, I’m not that interested in SW, in general. I’m interested to see where it goes, but hooking me is going to require something extraordinary.
Waaaaaay to early to tell anything but from IGN’s preview, it sounds like their idea to get more story into MMOs is to simply have different story arcs for each class.
Based on what I saw and learned in my conversations with BioWare when I was out in Austin doing (shameless plug) PC Gamer’s Holiday issue, this game couldn’t be further from Galaxies. I know this because my first question was “How is this not like Galaxies?” and they have some pretty persuasive arguments. Without going too much into it, their angle was that Galaxies’ gameplay was about the little stuff of life in the Star Wars universe. The Old Republic is about the big, heroic stuff.
And I can say that the story content that BioWare is talking about is more in-depth than you guys think.
Speaking of SWG, any speculation on what LucasArts will do with that game once Old Republic goes live? I don’t know if there’s enough appetite for two Star Wars MMOs, regardless of how different they each might be from the other.
The most prevalent criticism of Raph’s SWG (before they took control away and changed everything) was that it was essentially an Aunt Beru simulator. You got to play in the SW universe, and you could be a cantina dancer, a musician, a doctor, a merchant, an ore miner, an architect, a droid engineer, a freakin’ hairdresser, pretty much anything but a hero. Lucasarts is well aware of this; they forced SOE to essentially kill SWG in a misguided attempt to fix it rather than creating another game. Which is where we are now, several years later and (hopefully) wiser.
If SWG loses money, they’ll kill it. If not, not. With the station pass I can’t imagine it’s not breaking even.
I’m at LucasArts right now, and would just empahsize what Dan said. It seems the angle they’re pushing is that you’ll never be doing mundane stuff in the game – you’ll never be killing 10 rats or 20 bunnies or rescuing someone’s cat. As a Sith, one of your level one quests is to kill this creature that’s 20 feet tall.
Now, can you actually make an MMO where everything you do is heroic and epic? Dunno. But that’s what they say they’re doing.
edit: one thing they’re saying they’re shooting for and seems pretty attainable is to have all the classes play out pretty differently. They’re shooting for zero crossover in quests from one class to the next, and that the level 1 to level whatever experience play out completely differently, which isn’t the case for most MMOs.
Do I smell a petition brewing…?
Excellent, another reason to buy a new PC.
THANKS VERY MUCH, BIOWARE. WHY DO YOU HATE MY WALLET SO
You’ve probably got until november 2010, so plenty of time to save your pennies.
This seems like an “arms race” problem – not sure how they will ensure that it still feels appropriately epic at higher levels.
This is commendable – hope they can achieve it!
Yeah, but I’m already committed to buying a new PC for Dragon Age. :(
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BUY 2 PCS I TELL YOU