Like we reported back at E3, Star Wars: The Old Republic is making its way to PCs in hopes of doing two things. The first is erase the sour taste that was left in the mouths of players from Star Wars: Galaxies, the first attempt of making a Star Wars MMORPG. In addition to getting rid of that sour taste by establishing a new Star Wars online experience, it looks to take the fight head on to the dark Sith lord that has dominated the online gaming world for the last four years, World of Warcraft.
No longer calling itself an RPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic considers itself a Massive Multiplayer Online game with action and roleplaying elements. Even with Blizzard’s response of a new expansion for WoW called Cataclysm, Star Wars: The Old Republic from Bioware may have the best shot of any upcoming MMO to unseat the Warcraft powerhouse.
Coming from Bioware, the makers of the critically acclaimed best seller Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, its sequel and Jade Empire, The Old Republic is created with the goal of making an MMO that tells stories. Bioware hopes to take what it learned from their past epic tales and translate them to the online world with the first ever fully voiced MMO. In addition as you will see in the footage below, the scenes play out in cinematic fashion with animation from characters involved as well as well written and most importantly well acted dialogue.
Players’ characters will also finally be given a voice in their game as opposed to the silent protagonist that usually acts as the star in the MMO world. Players will be given a chance to choose reactions during conversations with NPC’s that will actually play varying levels of importance in the way the world around them looks at their character.
Star Wars: The Old Republic has also put a strong focus on what they refer to as “heroic combat”. This new combat style focuses on letting players feel like their player character is one of the main components driving the story in this world forward, as opposed to a grunt in a game like Warcraft in which missions sometimes follow the “Go kill 10 giant rats” mission which is followed by a “Go kill 10 wild boars” mission. Instead, players take part in missions that feel like they have some gravity behind them as it relates to their character’s story and not let a player just feel like another faceless drone running errands to grind experience. These missions are usually fairly combat intensive with the player taking on multiple hostile enemies at a time. Being able to overcome these odds helps give the player the feel that their character is actually an important hero (or villain) in this world as well.
Stay tuned to the Flickcast as more information pops up on this almost assurredly blockbuster title coming out for the PC. Until then, take a look at footage provided by Bioware themselves with looks at the Bounty Hunter, Smuggler and Sith Warrior classes in action. Check out the exclusive walkthrough videos from our friends at IGN below.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Walkthrough Pt.1
Star Wars: The Old Republic Walkthrough Pt.2
Chris Ullrich
September 30, 2009 at 11:32 amHey Jamie,
Star Wars, Empire and Jedi are three of my favorite films of all time and have been hugely important and influential in my life and career. They are some of the movies that made me want to make movies and as such will always have a special meaning for me.
Sadly, at least for me and a vast majority of my peers, the prequel trilogy was a huge disappointment.
jaime
September 29, 2009 at 8:55 pmCool,but i do love the prequel’s.
John Carle
September 28, 2009 at 7:11 amOh, on the contrary Jaime, the members of this site, especially myself as you’d see in my profile in the “About” section are huge fans of the Star Wars franchise. Especially the original trilogy. For the most part though, I don’t believe any of us were impressed with the prequel trilogy. If you ever read or hear anything negative about Star Wars, it is usually reserved to the prequels or the Star Wars Galaxies MMO which in terms of what people were hoping for were pretty much failures, even if they did well at the box office. Hope this clarifies our stance on it.
jaime
September 28, 2009 at 4:56 amGood post but given that you guy’s & girl seem to not like the film’s i ask myself why if anything Star Wars is on the site? Empire get’s a shout out on one of the podcast’s but i’m not saying don’t put star wars story’s on the site’s I love Star wars it just sound’s like you guy’s don’t.