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Star Wars: The Old Republic Editorial: Comic-Con Expectations
MMORPG.com Community Manager Michael Bitton has some thoughts about what folks attending this week's Comic Con in San Diego, CA might find out about Star Wars: The Old Republic. What will Bioware be bringing in its bag of goodies to show off to convention attendees? See what Mike thinks people will see in his Comic-Con Expectations article.
By Michael Bitton on July 21, 2010
The show season is in full-swing and the train is making its next stop in sunny San Diego for the San Diego Comic-Con this week! Of course with every show eager fans are hopeful to hear more about their game of choice (in this case, Star Wars: The Old Republic!), and speculation has already run rampant throughout our forums, the official forums, and all over the ‘net.
So, what is Bioware bringing to show and tell at this week’s Comic-Con? Bioware’s announced a few things, but they are leaving one up to the fans to earn (if you want my honest opinion, I think they’ve already earned it, whatever “it” is!).
First, those of you making it over to SDCC will be able to have a page of the Blood of the Empire comic signed by Bioware’s Senior Writer Alexander Freed, who, naturally, wrote the Blood of the Empire webcomic (d’uh!).
Some of you may think the next item on the list is a bit ho-hum, as I can already hear you guys shouting “Seen it!” Bioware will have the “Hope” cinematic trailer that made its debut at this year’s E3 on hand at Comic-Con, and they’ll be showing it on the big screen several times a day for all to see, with that last bit there being key. I’d also already seen the “Hope” cinematic several times by the time I saw it on the “big screen” at E3; I’d seen it on the plane flying over to Los Angeles, on my laptop in high-def while I was at the show, and even in the small theater at my Bioware appointment. Maybe it’s just the nerd in me, but there is just something awesome about watching it on a huge screen (especially when Paul Barnett is on hand to drum up the crowd!). Of course, if you’re not actually there, that doesn’t help you much.
Finally, we get to some of the meat of the event. Comic-Con is well known for being host to some pretty interesting panels, and this year is no different. Bioware will have James Ohlen, Drew Karpyshyn, Alexander Freed, and G4’s Morgan Webb on hand for a panel of their own. Dubbed “Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story in Star Wars: The Old Republic” we’ll be hearing about what Bioware has done to accomplish their goal of not only creating an awesome story-filled experience for players, but how they will be leveraging that whole “massively multiplayer” aspect into that.
Personally, I’m a bit iffy on the subject of the panel. On the one hand, yes, we’ve heard and seen a good deal about the story elements of Star Wars: The Old Republic, but they’ve mostly drummed up opinions along the lines of “Yes, you’ve put together KOTOR 3, 4…5…6” which is great, but many of us have been left wondering about how the multiplayer element plays into that. At E3 we got a taste of that, as Bioware showed off a bit of multiplayer dialogue, but there is definitely more to talk about here, and so it seems appropriate to use a panel at Comic-Con to do so. On the other hand, I feel almost battered in the head with story talk at this point. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some storyline, I just replayed KOTOR 2 and I am in the process of going through Dragon Age yet again. So, to be more specific, I definitely love me some Bioware story, but I simply want to hear about something else, anything else! I’ve been feeling a bit lukewarm (pardon the lame Star Wars pun) about the bits and pieces of non-story elements I’ve seen on the game so far, and I’m not trying to be an alarmist here, but sometimes I wonder if Bioware isn’t talking about all those other things because there simply isn’t much of note to talk about. Is Star Wars: The Old Republic’s claim to fame going to be story and really not much else? While everyone loves to compare every game out and coming out to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, I’ve noticed that sentiments that (storyline excluded) SW:TOR is simply going to be “WoW in space” have been a bit stronger as of late. And while I’m certainly not going to draw such comparisons myself at this point, I don’t feel Bioware’s done enough to assuage the fears of those that do (that aren’t just trolling, mind you!).
All of this brings me to my final point: Bioware’s secret Comic-Con reveal. Bioware recently announced that they have more in store for eager fans than they’ve publicly announced for Comic-Con this year, and that they’d be willing to spill the beans, if, and only if, fans manage to attain 200,000 (total across all territories) followers for SW:TOR on Facebook and 30,000 on Twitter by Friday, July 23rd. That’s not to say that you’ll never learn of whatever it is that they’re keeping to their chests at this point, it’s just that if you want to hear about it early, they’re ready to talk about it, provided you manage to hit those quotas!
Getting the community involved is always cool, but when your plans for a show are relatively light, your fans are starved for information, and people start comparing your marketing campaign strategy to mushrooms, I think talking about whatever you can feasibly talk about at this point would seem prudent.
EDIT: I kind of didn't say what I meant to when I originally posted. I meant to say that WoW at least had player interaction on a massive scale with the 40 mans in vanilla, and so far this game hasn't looked like it will do the same. The emphasis on a single player story and companion characters are things that replace the need for a community. Unless they come out and say that the story finishes quickly and there is a lot of player interaction then I will be disappointed.
I honestly feel bad for Bioware because they really should be doing what they do best; Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, and some new games as well. I just can't find myself caring about this world that Bioware is placing me in because I know I will have no effect on anybody, even if I "save the galaxy" or fight all the bad guys.
I played Baldur's Gate, ME, Dragon Age, and KOTOR and love Bioware's products. But I don't want Bioware in my MMO's. If they came out and said, okay, we're going to emphasize the need for a community and group tactics then I would have said okay, great job. But they say that story needs to be improved. I want story out of MMO's and I want to be able to make the story for myself in a game where I actually have an effect on the environment.
And they definitely had the budget to make such a game but simply chose not to do so. And I hope that I am wrong about them and that in two years I am playing SWTOR because I love Bioware. But right now they haven't released anything to me to change my feelings of disappointment about the game.
I honestly don't understand what you want the game to be. They have some really solid concepts, art, and animation.
Player Housing will be in at launch, something WoW never had.
25 and 40 man raids suck. They are repetitious and even when new encounters are added it's the exact same mechanics with newly skinned dungeons and NPCs.
Maybe you're just jumping on the "it's cool to bag on upcoming games with any modicum of hype" bandwagon, or maybe you have some well thought out reasons as to why you have such a strongly negative opinion about the game.
I, on the other hand, do not even begin to share your sentiment.
-The lore behind the game is solid and very engrossing.
-What I've seen of the voice acting is both solid and well written.
-The gameplay looks fun.
There's not much to dislike about the game.
You're never going to find a game where you will become a special and unique snowflake who can single handedly shape and change the game world for everyone else.
Even in table top games, which are infinitely more fluid and adaptable than MMORPGs, you won't single handedly change the game world... unless the DM caters the whole campaign to you, which would probably mean that you would be the only player in the campaign.
What would be the fun in that?
agree 100% with kryogenic. What the heck DO you want the game to be people????
Just because you don't find yourself caring about the world Bioware is creating doesn't mean that this applies to others too.
Of course, it's all speculation at this point, one speculation is as valid as the next.
So here's mine: although the amount of naysayers will be big and vocal, the information released in the months preceding the launch will show on what Bioware has been spending their budget on, a fully fledged MMO with all the features you can expect.
Even though opponents and haters will keep pointing towards the lack of innovation compared to other MMO's like GW2 and to the cartoony graphics, SW:TOR will have a successful launch and sub numbers that continue to be huge as word-of-mouth and reviews show what other people had suspected for a long time: Bioware has done it again, and delivered a polished and highly immersive MMO.
That was my speculation
PS: besides, if people would only keep doing what they do best at a certain time, the Bioware founders would never have started Bioware in the first place but kept on following up their medical careers, and Blizzard would have kept making RTS and hack&slash RPG's instead of WoW.
to be fair no one really wants a hater in there game so not a big lose lol
Yep, this post pretty much says it all. I am, at best, a modest Star Wars fan, but this game has me pumped.
Not WOW in space? No 40 man raids that require weeks of grinding to have gear acceptable to the uber geeks so they will allow you to play with them? Well shit ......when can I preorder?
I don't think he is saying that he has to be unique or a world changer, just that he doesn't like the idea of being led through game where the concept is to follow a story-line (where most of the content will be solo-able or with "pets") as that goes against what he likes in a mmorpg. He probably likes more open world, players make the story, group dirven type game, which is fun, as well. And I'm not trying to speak for poster, just vibe I got from his post. All games developed have had to make decisions on what the game will have in it and what mechanics/concept they will focus on. I think this game will be a fun story-driven game, with star wars type action, characters and "powers" that will be similar to other games, except for the IP. I do like the idea of choices PC's can make in the story to change the outcome. So there will be some "impact" on the story, if not the world. It won't be for some people, but many will like and play it. As for me, I'm still on the fence and will probably wait a week after launch before deciding. I tend to do this anyway, because of so many bad launches lately or undelivered promises. Been burned before, but Bioware seems to be a dev that will not launch until it is ready. Anyway, we've got until next year to argue about it. hehe
Same I can't wait for it to come out.
This game is putting out a new concept that hasn't seen in any other MMO, I am looking forward to it.
I hope the secret announcement is pie for everyone....I like pie.
I see where lethys is coming from and I don't think that he's doing any hating on SW:TOR.
I'm not a big Star Wars fan, I enjoyed it but it's not 'up there' for me as an IP. I'm taking the approach of an MMO player and a Bioware fan. To that end I'm expecting a finely crafted story with a rich lore, the videos have shown me some great co-op moments, I'm a GW fan so co-op is fine. They haven't revealed much else yet that's of great interest to anyone who isn't a fan of the IP and/or isn't a fan of Bioware.
Combat looks nice, animations look nice, graphics are fine, classes revealed are fine etc, but apart from story and voice acting where is the 'oomph!' that sets this apart from any other upcoming AAA MMO? I have no doubt it's going to be a lovely co-op theme park ride and I'll definitely be playing it, I would just like to hear something that gets me really excited.
I still find it odd that they advetise a game at a comic book convention... Seriously what ever happened to it being about comics
Dustin
i think in a way we're kinda pushing for the game to fail. It not nor will it ever actually appease every person who wants to play. one of the worse trappings of making an mmo is the proverbial dilemma over appeasing a core fan base and making money. Bioware is in the unique position that for ever 5 peopel that likes kotor there was at least one who hated dialogue trees and choppy combat. what i truly think is going to stiffle the game is the time period it's set in. Personally if this was more a reimaging of swg i think alot fewer people would be up in arms. For people that havent embraced all the novels and fan fiction alot of what's going to be present in the game is going to leave them feeling lost. and i have to wonder to with lego universe launching soon and their inevitable acees to the ip in soem form few kinds will play the old republic.
I am a huge SW/TOR fan and I agree with lethys, the story for each class while likely good - will not change the fact that the Trooper next to you (Assume you are a trooper) will have let a guy live that you let die, and in his canon he is still alive. Making your story null when you are grouped with him.
You can literally go on for hours with those types of examples, but really all that needs to be said is, "The game had better have an unrivaled amount of polish, polish we all know Bio-ware is capable of". Because for some people, more than a lot of people may think - are completely turned off to experiencing a story in this manner.
There is a simple solution to that problem. If you don't want Bioware in your MMO's than simply do not play it , and let the folks that are excited about the game enjoy it without having to hear your crying? NO offense mate, but all this complaining in every topic is really bringing me down. Cheers / I hope if you do decide to play the game you enjoy it.
I want to see some PVP combat out of commy con . I guess would like to see some of the warzone, or the world pvp. Maybe a show of how vast the lands are and some other unanswered questions that people have , such as races, and end game stuff.
Let's hope there will be ice cream too!
/thread win
Maybe someday intelligent, non-biased comments with descent counterpoints will spontaneously appear in gaming forums without fanbois flooding a thread with thoughtless spam.
If you like a game, you are biased. If you dislike a game, you are biased.
The game isn't out yet, but people are in love with it and people loathe it.
I am excited to try the game. I am a star wars nerd. I hope the game is great, but we shall see.
To me bioware has yet to do wrong. i cant see why this game will not do great. The comment that bioware has nothing to this game but "story" seems off to me. I highly doubt that bioware has just made a story game with nothing else to entertain us. Personaly i think that they just want to keep some of it off the books to gave us a nice surpize. why do we need to know this soon about what the game is going to be about? Lets face it guys we will not know truely what this game will be about till it is released.
That was your first mistake right there. Thinking you would find an intelligient conversation on the gaming forums. Second problem is, game has not came out yet and people are about sick and tired of hearing this game already. Your arguement is the same arguement 1000 of other people before you have came up with. Nothing new here. Yea, we want to see something good at the commy con, but whatever, Bioware isn't gonna do what we want anyhow.
"So, to be more specific, I definitely love me some Bioware story, but I simply want to hear about something else, anything else! I’ve been feeling a bit lukewarm (pardon the lame Star Wars pun) about the bits and pieces of non-story elements I’ve seen on the game so far, and I’m not trying to be an alarmist here, but sometimes I wonder if Bioware isn’t talking about all those other things because there simply isn’t much of note to talk about."
I said THIS same thing about a year ago, and I was flamed so much I had to leave MMORPG.com for a while to recover. Now a year has passed and we still haven't heard ANY real details about anything substantial what makes SWTOR a MMO.
Sometimes I really wish I wasn't in the UK.
I really am not certain how a story filled mmorpg could be WoW in space, but at least we have a point of reference for the mmos played by the journalist at comic-con. it's becoming a cliche in news articles on SWTOR: "WoW with light sabres". I think the problem for many on launch will be that the game isn't WoW enough, there won't be tier set raiding in the same way, and for that reason I think the game looks promising...I think there has to be some good gameplay information coming from this panel, if all they say is we can't talk about that and there is going to be group stories its really not worth the time.
People think we have a lot of information on ToR but the vast majority of it is fluff with back story or comics or class descriptions that missed out the advanced class choices or even what mechanics the class would use. We know there will be races and there will be restrictions but nothing more about the announced races. And so I think Bioware have to step up and start talking about the game play, what aspects companions will play, especially in group can we all pull out the same companion if we have them and if so which one interacts with the party or do we get a loop where your HK unit that you have turned to the darkside talks to you while my HK unit I have turned to the lightside talks to me.
In all honesty the difficulty of bring single player style story and consequences to group play may be too much for even bioware. And so rather than bother they will have cut it out, so you either play solo and get the story aspects or you play group and play a very generic kill the npcs style quest. And then this leads to more problems of if by playing in a group I lose out on being able to advance my companions or light/dark side points. Encouraging me (not that many MMO players need that much encouragement) to go solo. After all its get to play the full story driven MMO if I go Solo, get to play generic MMO X if I group. Its not too difficult to work out.
Most of the content will be soloable. Really... how shocking... last I checked that was EVERY MMO EVER! Here is a list of the only group content any other MMO has:
- Instances/dungeons/raids
- The occasional quest that's too hard to solo
- World Bosses (which are essentially raids/group quests anyway)
- PvP/RvR related content.
All those things will be in TOR.
Not to mention that TOR also has Group Story Quests, which are way cooler than the so-called "Group Quests" from most other MMOs (which are really just more difficult single player quests) . There hasn't been lots of information about Multiplayer options in TOR, but there's been enough. The only people who are concerned about it are the ignorant fellows who are jumping on the "Story = 1 player" Bandwagon. Go to the official website and browse for 10 minutes and a majority of your concerns will vanish.
I feel like people in this community complain soooooo much about every new game before even a fraction of the total information has been announced. There is sooooooo much awesome stuff announced for this game and it's still 9 months prior to release! I can barely believe how much they've given us with so much time to go, and yet somehow people find a way to rally behind a fear that is unwarranted. I hope the secret, official announcement they have is a look into end-game content that will shut up the trolls.
As far as I can tell, any new MMO that comes out automatically gets compared to WoW, regardless of whether that comparison is warranted or not. From my perspective the comparison "is nothing like WoW" can only be a good thing for a game; I tried playing WoW once and got utterly bored.
I realize there are many people who enjoy the game, which is fair enough. It would just be nice if more people remembered that there are people who don't. This is not entirely relevant, but it seems that, to many people, WoW is the be all and end all of the MMO super-genre.
From what I've seen of TOR it doesn't really strike me as being "WoW with lightsabers". I can't help but think there are many people who either hope it will be or are just so enamoured with WoW that, to them, every MMO that comes out is a WoW clone. Including the ones that pre-date it (and I've seen people try to claim that before).
I fondly remember the days when Warcraft was just an RTS.
Actually Elikal "WE" have hear real details. "YOU" clearly haven't, but that's bound to happen when you leave for a year and come back claiming that you know what you're talking about. Story does not equal "exclusively 1-player content". There's been more than enough announcements and sneak peaks at multi player content to assure the world that TOR will be an MMO. Unfortunately, in order to see information on the internet you need to actually look. Data doesn't just knock on your door and project onto your face. Try using the search bar and maybe try another 1 year hiatus before you post again. Ignorance is a waste of time to people that have insightful, relevant, or at the very least Up-to-date things to say.
What awesome stuff is that.
Don't say story because GW2 has a story mode that is as good if not better.
Fully voice! erm i am pretty sure GW2 will be fully voiced as well.
Personal stories that effect the game and your personal individual outcome, erm Guild Wars 2 has this.
Housing ! been done more times than i can count.
Tell me what is so awesomely different about swtor.
Companions! you mean glorified pets, right. GW1 has Heroes/Henchmen, it's nothing new.
What do you really know about swtor other than story-classes-planets-and some of the races and the world is meant to be a full open world when BioWare have yet to prove that.
So tell me about the mmorpg part of swtor, tell me about the skills or areas on the planets, how does the A/H work or crafting, where is all the awesome stuff you say has been release, have i missed something?
Over 5 years in development and what do you really know about swtor other than it's BioWare which is an over hyped dev company from Canada. Play one BioWare game and you have played them all, they are like watching a movie.
Huh? What the heck are you talking about? I wasnt left for a year.
You tell ME to use the search bar and you didn't even see me any time I posted here? Hellooo? Someone with an astronomic 13 posts in 5 years shouldn't berate ME about following debates.
The point is: what I said one year ago is now the common suspect of apparently the most. Or simply: toldja.
Really. Does this point really have to be argumented in seriousness, that Bioware isn't making a real MMO?
I cannot believe that people are actually believing that, it's either trolling or stubborn stupidity since reason and common sense say that Bioware would never jump into the MMO market and risking the enormous budget they got by making a MMO that doesn't have all the usual suspects when it comes to standard MMO features.
Do people really believe Bioware people are that idiotic that they'd risk losing large parts of the MMO gamer market by not including the regular MMO features you find in most of the MMO's? How idiot must someone be to believe that???
If people disagree with Bioware's focus on storytelling, fine, I can understand that. That's far from thinking that's the only thing they're spending their time on.
- They've already talked about encouraging group play and shown videos of teamplay.
- There are reports of playtesters who spend their hours in starter areas teamed up, and they liked it very much.
- Bioware devs have talked about it being very doable that players getting away from the story stuff and do other things and that there's enough to do.
- They said the planets are massive, and that they've implemented features/rewards to encourage exploration-on-a-whim
Since they only want to talk about features that as good as certain and finished made it into the game, there's a number of things they haven't talked about it yet. I think that's better than the ones promising all kinds of things only to deliver half of them.
A few times throughout this thread and other threads like it, I've seen people complain and whine about the game world not changing and making their character special. Well.. in what MMO does this happen? EVE ..... MAYBE. But that's not even really an actual world, yes the game is player run, but there's no physical world to change so to speak. And I haven't been following GW 2 so far, because the first didn't interest me, so I don't know much about that game to speak on it.
A long time ago when my friend was telling me about WoW when it FIRST came out, I was interested, but I remember asking him "Well, if I go and kill this dragon let's say, then what? the person behind me does the same thing?" and a small bit of me was confused and almost annoyed with this concept in my head, but after playing it, it didn't even bother me. And apparently it doesn't bother 11 million people now either, so why is it that everyone is complaining that "Oh, my game world isn't going to change and be special for me?" now SPECIFICALLY with SWTOR.
To me, it seems that this game is going to be the closest that we're going to get so far to having that.
I Love Star Wars
I Love MMOs
Sadly there are not any Star Wars MMOs in development. But TOR will be entertaining until the story runs out.
Perhaps you need to go and read up on GW2 then,their is a reason it the most anticipated mmorpg on this site and has been for the last 4 months.
Everything you are talking about GW2 will have,only this time round it's a full blown open world mmorpg.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/Guild-Wars-2.html
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/
then move
So, you apparently hate the idea of TOR and that's fine.
You also apparently love the idea of GW2, which is also fine.
What I want to know is, given that the above two statements are true, why are you posting here?
Your post reads like an advertisment.
There are some valid points the author of this post is making, though I don't understand the whole WoW with light sabres thing. Too many things are getting compared to WoW nowadays, just because it's the big kid on the block.
It's funny, people say they hate WoW, then get hyped up about a game in development, leave WoW, get disappointed by the new game at release because it is most likely not as 'polished' as WoW, go back to WoW flaming the new game saying that WoW has the best 'polish', then go and gripe about how they hate WoW again after getting bored with it the umpteenth time. It's a vicious circle.
I digress a bit, but I think the point needs to be made that we quite often are self-defeatest because so many of us love to hate. I don't blame Bioware for being conservative with the information they've released about their game. The MMO community is impossible to please.
I do think that there are issues with group play and storyline from the information I have gleaned about SW:ToR. Most groups don't really want to wait around for story, so people might be prompted to go through the storyline as fast as possible. This could cause strife between those that just want to get from point A to point B, and those who want to stop and smell the daisies. Some people here are talking about GW2, but in GW1 I remember some groupleaders in particular screaming at groupmates who wanted to watch cutscenes rather than skipping them. Maybe that's something Bioware should leave out?
I like most Bioware games, I like Star Wars, so I am looking forward to this game, but blindly bashing or supporting it while it's still in development and without much info, I can't say that I'm more of a conservative optimist about it.
Heres the thing for me. Most people in PUG raids were just loot stealing brats who ran thier mouth. That is why I left WoW,I got tired of the childish behaviour. Now with TOR I don't HAVE to run with the punks if I don't want to or if my friends aren't on. Lack of 25 and 40 mans? I say amen brother. For the most part in an MMO I will interact in social areas and when I'm questing I'd rather not hear all the arguing over this isn't WoW yet here I am playing so I can make your day miserable talk. Dissappointed? heck no I hope more MMO's go this route personnally.