Gaming Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview

Well, wookie here. It's a preview of The Old Republic. Is it a bit Sith? We find out.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2011/04/29/star-wars-the-old-republic-preview/1

 

Shame, you would have thought if anyone could have done a good job it would have been Bioware.

 

It's an MMO, and to be successful it has to out-MMO World of Warcraft...which is why it becomes a World of Warcraft clone with Star Wars slapped on top. Quests get padded out because they have to engage the players for years (to reap the subscription fees), as if you could complete a story arc in a few hours they'd be running out of content rather fast.

 

I smell a game delay if the other 50 you played with offer similar previews. FF XIV might end up being the norm of big studio MMOs... release, flop, (hopefully) redemption. Hopefully if BioWare do release something similar to what you've previewed they will follow the same path as SE and not give up or it could be decades before anyone will finance another attempt at MMO SW.

 

This further reinforces my belief that MMOs need live actors RPing as NPCs, IMO it's the next step for these types of games.

That said, huge disappointment

 

Would never get past the beancounters, or would end up making the game unbelievably expensive.

 

Yip if you get stars they will demand the same salaries they would expect for acting in movies..

 

Wow, I thought if one company could pull it off it would be bioware. Gosh it must be frustrating to have so many years of development slammed. Oh well, I would've never played this anyway, MMO + not a fan of the art style.

 

Oh dear :-(

 

Got quite a few friends looking forward to this, surprised Bioware seemed to have failed so badly

 

World of Warcraft had many issues during the beta and the initial release that reviewers would have picked up on if it was 2011. However since WoW was somewhat ground breaking it was given the chance to mellow and become what it is now.

The problem is that any MMO that comes out now is expected to be equal or better than WoW. WoW is over 5 years old, it has had time to improve. Not all MMOs are given the chance to improve.

The WoW beta, which was about 6 months before the game came out, is what all MMos need to do now. Let everyone play for free for a few months, where they can beta test it and the issues can be ironed out. Revewiers should refrain from complaining during the beta time and only give a review when the game is released.

 

Didn't the Matrix Online try that path? Live actors for NPCs like Morpheus and what not. That game quickly became an after thought not long after release.

 

Not even that - if you have 50,000 NPCs in a game, you need at least like 5,000 voice actors to voice them. Even cheap actors would have a cost of like 100,000 per hour. You'd also just get lots of abuse and harassment of the voice actors, who'd be required to be trained for many roles and know masses of dialogue.

 

It's an MMO, who cares about the voice acting? I'd be banging my head against the wall if I had to sit through every explanation of "kill 5 imperial snipers".

 

I was surprised that Bit-tech didn't enjoy their time with SWTOR, every other site has been very positive with regards to the look and feel of the game.

 

indeed, i just read the gamespot preview...
i must say, i trust BT far more than they do, and bit has actually given us some useful insights into how the game actaully feels to play, not what are the details of a quest. I've had a similar feeling for a long time, every gameplay video they've shown has very bad animation + lackluster graphics...
Again, good comparison is wow: much better animation.
and if you want to see what a really good MMO looks like, try age of conan (it's reportedly a good game now after the 'slayer, i've been wondering to test it out recently.

Maybe bit would like to do a short revisit of AoC? Would be great to hear your thoughts on it.

 

I was surprised to see those positive previews too, as many of the other journalists I spoke to told me at the event that they were unimpressed with it.

 

The review sums up my suspicions on SWTOR. Anything that has the hype machine is in full force, needs to be examined carefuly. I'm heartened to read a fair, balanced and well written review that doesn't gush of the same insane fanboism that will result in so many demoralised and unhappy punters one or two months in to this MMO's lifespan. They talk about sustaining 500k to 1m subs. Not a chance as things stand.

There is no end-game in SWTOR. You could play through twice and not see the same PvE content due to the split nature of Dark V Light quests, but otherwise what is there to play for? PvP appears to be a secondary consideration, but if they do it well, it might be enough to lift what is in danger of looking like a mediocre MMO with some community-based elements and some fun single player activity.

 

Maybe you should change your name to HonestJoe. Lets hope this doesn't stop them inviting you back again!

It's a shame to hear that they haven't come up with a masterpiece they (and we) were hoping for. Ever since the game was announced they have talked big and hyped it up, so it's not too surprising to hear that they fall short of a revolution. There have been plenty of MMOs since WoW, many of which have been very well done, but without something special to change the basic 'kill X identical mobs' formula then they eventually fade into the background.

 

It seems utterly bizarre to question the lack of players and grouping/teamwork when playing through the first 10 or 15 levels of an MMO alongside 50 strangers. Can you imagine how empty a WoW server would feel with just 50 people on spread out across it? How little grouping and social interaction there is while running around the barrens at level 15? How pointless a story seems when you're halfway through a prologue?

This review seems to take all the stuff that traditionally makes reviewing/previewing an MMO difficult, and finds the game disappointing for those reasons.