The 100 Million Dollar Beast: Star Wars: The Old Republic

Calling Star Wars an accumulation of films is going to be like calling the Eiffel Tower a collection of steel beams - the simple terms just doesn't cover some thing with such an extraordinary legacy and huge effect on pop culture. Star Wars has seen a large number of television spin-offs, toy franchises, video game adaptations, novelizations and coloring books, without limit to the retailing or product development in sight. Star Wars even had their own MMORPG, called Star Wars: Galaxies. Regrettably for that developer, Sony Online Entertainment, something just didn't jive with the fan base.

After the failure of Galaxies, may players and Star Wars fans alike wondered aloud if the franchise could ever succeed as an MMO property. After all, with Jedi and Sith running around, who'd ever want to take the reins of an Imperial Stormtrooper?

Bioware, the business famous for its incredible focus on detail and its unmatched capacity to create an immersive tale and ridiculously realistic surroundings, thinks it has found the solution to these questions in the form of its epic Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic. Reportedly the most costly game ever produced and bolstered with the full support of the EA media machine, The Old Republic has lots of potential to succeed in the open market. Naturally, in the event the game were to fail, it will be simply a disaster for the developer and publisher alike.

So what exactly does Bioware have up its sleeve?

Getting Back to Basics
To ensure that an MMO to ensure success, players have to be involved in the overall story. In case a player doesn't care about the actions they're taking part in during game time, that player is unlikely to return for another run. Bioware has built one of the more outstanding Star Wars environments ever realized, showcasing familiar locations and unusual new worlds alike. The company is no stranger to the Star Wars universe; they're responsible for the critic and fan-favorite Knights of the Old Republic.

The concept is familiar to fans with the MMO genre. When players first start Star Wars: The Old Republic, they'll have a choice of eight classes: Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent and Sith Inquisitor. The initial four operate on the side of the Republic, and the last four work on behalf of the encroaching Empire. Each group fills a regular RPG role - such as, the Jedi Consular is mainly a healer, whilst the Bounty Hunter is focused on DPS - but classes are versatile and can accomplish more than one tasks inside a group.

As a new character, players will be thrust right into a world packed with turmoil. The game starts with the ubiquitous Star Wars crawl, which helps to explain the basic story in addition to where new character fits in. From there, it's straight down to business as players meet up with friendly NPCs and help them to beat back brutal assaults or gather resources for bettering their position in the galaxy. Players should count on game play more akin to World of Warcraft than KOTR, as The Old Republic is extremely much steeped in the “fight, quest, gather" mechanics of MMOs of the past.


Fighting for Life

The in-game commands in TOR will probably be quickly comfortable to anyone that's ever played an MMO. Abilities are allocated across A hotbar, with each number on the keyboard representing a specific hotbar button. Special abilities will take some assets from the character, with all the specific resource used depending on the character's class. For instance, Jedis use Force power, while Bounty Hunters use heat and troopers use ammo.

And, because this is a Bioware game, players ought to be prepared to spend hours speaking to non-playable characters. Just about any conversation a character has within the game is supported by top-notch voice acting, and conversations follow a same path as the Mass Effect franchise in being a bit customizable depending on the character or mood of the gamer. The quests players get access to, especially at early levels of play, are familiar kill and collection jobs. However, the voice acting and Bioware's effort to make each quest feel essential help to limit the monotony that may sometimes occur when one has been leveling for many hours at a time.

Each class, once achieving a certain level, will have access to a unique class line. Players can choose between two specializations for their characters, which makes them better suited to the individual play style of the particular player. The Consular class, for instance, can choose between Sage and Shadow, which are healing and DPS specs respectively. Every player may also be able to follow either the light or dark path in their interactions with characters, no matter their affiliation with the Empire or Republic. The concept here is a wide open experience in which no two characters are alike and every playthrough feels unique.

The game also borrows World of Warcraft's “instance" system, by which dungeons are created solely for the gamers currently inhabiting them. What this means is a small group of players can combine their strengths to take on increased challenges compared to those located in the normal world, without stressing about other players griefing them or wrecking their encounters.

Star Wars: The Old Republic isn't attempting to reinvent the wheel and definately will function just as MMO fans have learned to expect, but will incorporate the long-established lore of the Star Wars franchise. If done correctly, TOR could be one of the most successful MMOs in recent history, coming at a time when many World of Warcraft players are progressively disillusioned with that title and the way it has aged. Bioware is poised to take the lead in the MMO market, and unless they make a spectacular misstep or to produce game loaded with unbalanced classes and nasty bugs, they have a pretty good possibility of succeeding.
Not surprisingly, there's always the possibility that the one thing that kills Star Wars Star Wars games could rear its ugly head within this game as well, specifically that gamers don't always wish to take on the role of any character without having a light saber. Bioware has strived to make every class just as interesting, so perhaps they can dodge this bullet and end up in the black.

Star Wars: Old Republic comes out Tuesday December 20th, 2011

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