It seems to have been a busy couple of months for Bioware and Lucasarts. I've been checking news sources since March 2006 with increasing regularity for news of what is potentially a new Star Wars MMo.

Firstly as stated by Bioware on several occasions now there is no KOTOR 3. If and when they announce it it will be a single player affair with some possibility of network play. No official word has been given on this, its just plain common sense. Anytime someone challenges Bioware or Lucasarts with a question about Kotor3 or a Kotor MMo they'll just shrug and say they ain't working on it atm. At no point has anyone at Bioware denied working on a Star Wars MMo, they have only denied its Kotor3/KotorMMo to my knowledge.

The new Star Wars MMo, which Bioware Austin are working on. (providing you're prepared to believe disgruntled employees who may not have been directly involved with the project) is not Kotor and will not be titled so, but will be set in the Old republic thus providing conflict between sith and republic factions. I wouldn't like to guess at what point the game will be set, given there is something like 3000 years of relatively unexplored history between KOTOR2 and The Phantom Menace .

It is likely to be titled Star Wars: The Old Republic (with some pithy little catchline tba).  (The patent application is filed for this).  The title suggests a larger scale project then a simple shooter or an rts.  If I were George Lucas I wouldn't use up that title on anything less then a triple A title with the potential to land a large playerbase and a lifespan of several years.

Lastly the release date has slipped from 2009 to 2010 according to some Internet sources. The Star Wars TV series (Live action not animated) is also scheduled to screen in 2010. It would make sense for a new mmo to ride the success of renewed interest generated by a successful tv spin off.

This is not gospel, most of it is purely speculation on my part, driven by recent events in the gaming press. So i reserve the right to be wrong, it could be a Willow MMo after all.

Well, there is a cartoon movie coming soon based on the clone wars.....just saw the previews today in the theater!

 Feel free to check the link under my Sig for all the info I've been able to gather :)

Originally posted by DeaconX

 Feel free to check the link under my Sig for all the info I've been able to gather :)

Deac, time to give up on Bioware. Take a look at either Fallen Earth or Earthrise, both will be out long before Biowares game. Personally, I plan on playing Fallen Earth, closest thing to what we once had as far as i'm concerned. Earthrise a very close second.

I simply love Star Wars, so on one hand I have been excited about this for a long time. But since Bioware's CEO clearly says he love WoW and the Blizzard way of doing things, I can't imagine this game will be anything as good as Star Wars Galaxies.

I played Star Wars Galaxies pre CU/NGE. It had:

• player generated economy
• player vendors
• player buildings and cities
• vehicles (but not a launch)
• incredible crafting with shifting ressources
• open dungeons rather than instances
• rvr
• social classes like entertainers, forcing social time with shuttles or waiting for doctors.
• jedi wasn' in the game at the beginning and it was interesting to imagine who will be first (before the holo grind).
• Skill system rather than level
• Amazing character creation

So will Bioware offer a skill system or level? I am sure it will be level. And why KOTOR? Well so all the kids can be jedis and no one can complain.

So excuse me if I curb my enthusiasm. SWG was a fantastic game. I know it won't come back. But I can't let it go. Some day, some developer might do something similar again.

Can you imagine any developer right now make so much furniture for player houses? Or making social classes?

Bioware will probably do story-arc'ed hold-my-hand, LotRo-in-space, mmo complete with Star Wars theme parks, instances and catering to the wow crowd with arenas, battlegrounds and Raids (!!, yuck!!)..

Goodbye to SWG, goodbye to real open world gaming, goodbye to RPG and MASSIVE in mmorpg.

bye

I miss SWG, I finally relented and got a Jedi just before NGE went into Beta. I am unhappy that the time I spent had been wasted but I've got over it. I miss my TKM-CM combo, I miss the freedom I had in SWG to explore and hunt

SWG was a great concept, truly great but the execution was flawed, pre-CU we went through broken loot tables, mobs not spawning,  quests not working etc. Sometimes I think as Vets we forget that.

Bioware are making  a Star Wars MMO, I liked Kotor, Jade Empire, NWN and right now I am liking Mass Effect. It might be that the new game is a WoW rip off. It could be that a developer finally gets it right and makes a huge sandbox world and then fills it with gripping story arcs and one off quest that you get drawn into.

If Bioware can find the middle ground between games like EVE, SWG and WoW then I think they could have a game thats all things to all men. But if all I get is WoW with Wookies, then screw it I am still going to play it because I would rather be a Jawa then a Gnome.

Originally posted by Elvith

Bioware are making  a Star Wars MMO, I liked Kotor, Jade Empire, NWN and right now I am liking Mass Effect.

There is no doubt about it that Bioware is a very qualified game production company - i have played several of their games, one of the last being Mass Effect. I am however still not convinced that the supposed MMO is really a "pure" MMO. I think it will be more in the lines of a single player game with an evolved multi player (that's the MMO part). So i'm guessing along the lines of Hellgate: London perhaps?

But then again, i have never played Hellgate so is it a "pure" MMO like SWG, WoW or  AoC?

Originally posted by hdnine

Originally posted by Elvith

Bioware are making  a Star Wars MMO, I liked Kotor, Jade Empire, NWN and right now I am liking Mass Effect.

 

There is no doubt about it that Bioware is a very qualified game production company - i have played several of their games, one of the last being Mass Effect. I am however still not convinced that the supposed MMO is really a "pure" MMO. I think it will be more in the lines of a single player game with an evolved multi player (that's the MMO part). So i'm guessing along the lines of Hellgate: London perhaps?

But then again, i have never played Hellgate so is it a "pure" MMO like SWG, WoW or  AoC?

I am very afraid it will something akin of Hellgate: London too.

And we all know how well that went!

Originally posted by Draccan

I simply love Star Wars, so on one hand I have been excited about this for a long time. But since Bioware's CEO clearly says he love WoW and the Blizzard way of doing things, I can't imagine this game will be anything as good as Star Wars Galaxies.

I played Star Wars Galaxies pre CU/NGE. It had:

• player generated economy
• player vendors
• player buildings and cities
• vehicles (but not a launch)
• incredible crafting with shifting ressources
• open dungeons rather than instances
• rvr
• social classes like entertainers, forcing social time with shuttles or waiting for doctors.
• jedi wasn' in the game at the beginning and it was interesting to imagine who will be first (before the holo grind).
• Skill system rather than level
• Amazing character creation

So will Bioware offer a skill system or level? I am sure it will be level. And why KOTOR? Well so all the kids can be jedis and no one can complain.

So excuse me if I curb my enthusiasm. SWG was a fantastic game. I know it won't come back. But I can't let it go. Some day, some developer might do something similar again.

Can you imagine any developer right now make so much furniture for player houses? Or making social classes?

Bioware will probably do story-arc'ed hold-my-hand, LotRo-in-space, mmo complete with Star Wars theme parks, instances and catering to the wow crowd with arenas, battlegrounds and Raids (!!, yuck!!)..

Goodbye to SWG, goodbye to real open world gaming, goodbye to RPG and MASSIVE in mmorpg.

bye

 

 

 

sadly i think i have to agree here. i read somewhere else on mmorpg.com that TOR will be instanced sort of like AoC.

it will not have any sandbox type environment. Heavily scripted; do this go here type stuff. No free roaming.

If this is true, I just went from 'must buy' to 'must avoid'.

i guess there is always the swgemu...

on another note, i think they use the term mmorpg way too freely.

we all know what mmorpg means and what it is supposed to stand for. if what i am hearing about ToR is true, then it is not a true mmorpg. it is a mmofps with a spattering of other things to make it seem like a pure mmorpg, like the nge.

Originally posted by cepolly

 

sadly i think i have to agree here. i read somewhere else on mmorpg.com that TOR will be instanced sort of like AoC.

Yes, because those posts are going to have a lot of credibility -- there isn't even an official name to the game yet, let alone an Official announcement  (I don't consider the ceo's slip official -- let's see the press released) and now it's most certainly going to be instanced? C'mon...

Originally posted by therain93

Originally posted by cepolly

 

sadly i think i have to agree here. i read somewhere else on mmorpg.com that TOR will be instanced sort of like AoC.

 

Yes, because those posts are going to have a lot of credibility -- there isn't even an official name to the game yet, let alone an Official announcement  (I don't consider the ceo's slip official -- let's see the press released) and now it's most certainly going to be instanced? C'mon...

i hope you are right.