The Digital Continuum: SWTOR turns up the heat, part 2
by Kyle Horner 
Jun 9th 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: New titles, Opinion, The Digital Continuum, Star Wars: The Old Republic
That mythological release date
How can I hope for a 2010 release date with BioWare promising fully voiced acting, branching story/dialogue and all other standard MMO features? Yes, it's a lot to ask of one company, but thankfully all this work isn't falling solely onto BioWare's shoulders. Lucas Arts and Electronic Arts are both heavily involved, count on it, and much of the legwork of voice sessions -- among other things -- will definitely be handled by their people.
More importantly than all that back-up is the money and time that have already been -- and will continue to be -- invested into the game. There's no question that EA is looking to tap into new and old markets, with the old market being Blizzard's.
When's the best time to pull away World of Warcraft players? When they're bored with last year's expansion, and the next one isn't until sometime in late 2011. Just imagine if Warhammer Online launched in the fall of 2007, when Wrath of the Lich King was over a year away. Assuming it was in the same shape that it launched in last year, a lot of people who've sadly departed would've still been employed. Blizzard's owes as much of their unexpected success to timing as they do to game design. Timing matters and BioWare, EA and Lucas Arts all know it -- especially by the looks of the game's E3 presence.
Somtimes it's hard to remember that BioWare Austin began operations in March 2006. My prediction: Next year, the game will show even stronger at E3 and follow that up with a widely marketed release date landing sometime in holiday of 2010.
Toss out the sink first
Traditionally, we hear about combat "concepts" or progression "concepts" before anything like classes, story and world design are anywhere near finished. And many developers tend to tout features on paper before they know if they can really achieve it. BioWare -- much like Blizzard -- is anything but a traditional MMO developer any maybe that's why I feel different about them. They've already shown they intend to bring their own brand of game design into the MMO arena, and they've got the backing to do it, too.
A lot of people scoffed last year when BioWare spoke about "The fourth pillar of MMOs" being story, but early reports show signs of that promise being kept. My mind boggles when I consider the amount of people likely working on this game night and day right now, and how much that pace is probably going to continue in the coming months in an attempt to capitalize on the right timing.
I'm going to end this on a frank note. Star Wars fans are legion, and never before has the MMO community been as huge as it now stands. Both of these groups want the same thing: something familiar, fresh and exciting. Star Wars can be all of these things, and in the hands of the creators of games like KOTOR, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, familiar, fresh and exciting are fitting descriptors
It's just as easy to jump on the hate train as it is the hype train, I know this all too well. But when the cards are stacked like they seem to be here, the difficult thing is to be honest with yourself. And honestly? I can't wait to see how SWTOR turns out.
How can I hope for a 2010 release date with BioWare promising fully voiced acting, branching story/dialogue and all other standard MMO features? Yes, it's a lot to ask of one company, but thankfully all this work isn't falling solely onto BioWare's shoulders. Lucas Arts and Electronic Arts are both heavily involved, count on it, and much of the legwork of voice sessions -- among other things -- will definitely be handled by their people.
More importantly than all that back-up is the money and time that have already been -- and will continue to be -- invested into the game. There's no question that EA is looking to tap into new and old markets, with the old market being Blizzard's.
When's the best time to pull away World of Warcraft players? When they're bored with last year's expansion, and the next one isn't until sometime in late 2011. Just imagine if Warhammer Online launched in the fall of 2007, when Wrath of the Lich King was over a year away. Assuming it was in the same shape that it launched in last year, a lot of people who've sadly departed would've still been employed. Blizzard's owes as much of their unexpected success to timing as they do to game design. Timing matters and BioWare, EA and Lucas Arts all know it -- especially by the looks of the game's E3 presence.
Somtimes it's hard to remember that BioWare Austin began operations in March 2006. My prediction: Next year, the game will show even stronger at E3 and follow that up with a widely marketed release date landing sometime in holiday of 2010.
Toss out the sink first
Traditionally, we hear about combat "concepts" or progression "concepts" before anything like classes, story and world design are anywhere near finished. And many developers tend to tout features on paper before they know if they can really achieve it. BioWare -- much like Blizzard -- is anything but a traditional MMO developer any maybe that's why I feel different about them. They've already shown they intend to bring their own brand of game design into the MMO arena, and they've got the backing to do it, too.
A lot of people scoffed last year when BioWare spoke about "The fourth pillar of MMOs" being story, but early reports show signs of that promise being kept. My mind boggles when I consider the amount of people likely working on this game night and day right now, and how much that pace is probably going to continue in the coming months in an attempt to capitalize on the right timing.
I'm going to end this on a frank note. Star Wars fans are legion, and never before has the MMO community been as huge as it now stands. Both of these groups want the same thing: something familiar, fresh and exciting. Star Wars can be all of these things, and in the hands of the creators of games like KOTOR, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, familiar, fresh and exciting are fitting descriptors
It's just as easy to jump on the hate train as it is the hype train, I know this all too well. But when the cards are stacked like they seem to be here, the difficult thing is to be honest with yourself. And honestly? I can't wait to see how SWTOR turns out.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
James said on 12:53PM 6-09-2009
They will get my cash. Then they get 2 months. I think the real key will be, do they have end game plan, and implemented at launch. I won't rush there, but some will and if they don't have anything to do they will complain and quite taking along their freinds. I will probably like to play other classes, but would like to explore the world at max level.
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ahac said on 1:21PM 6-09-2009
>>> Next year, the game will show even stronger at E3 and follow that up with a widely marketed release date landing sometime in holiday of 2010.
In that case... my prediction:
Blizzard will announce their next MMO at Blizzcon or WWI 2010 to take some of the hype away from Bioware.
Reply
Xyuleos said on 1:21PM 6-09-2009
I'd just like to say that the game will actually have player characters voiced as well as NPCs (it says only NPCs near the beginning of the article).
Reply
Tom said on 2:04PM 6-09-2009
KOTOR impressed me on the story front, but not so much on the combat front.
Thus, while I am optimistic (unreasonably so, I'm sure) about the story elements and the graphics of SWTOR, I am a bit concerned about the combat mechanics. Will they be overly complicated and clunky as in KOTOR? I certainly hope not. I am also uncertain about how "group-dependent" I may be in this (or any) online game.
Still, I think this will be a fun game. For now, I'm back in WoW, but I'm biding my time.
If the folks at Blizzard have any savvy at all (and they certainly do), they need to do something really special to keep WoW fresh and special against the likes of SWTOR. For one thing, WoW needs to institute some kind of mechanic to keep players interested and playing. My suggestion(s) would include:
--Make the level 1-60 areas free to play or charge a reduced sub for it
--Make the level 1-60 dungeons soloable or by scaling them down or (better, imo) providing NPC parties (think Guild Wars-style heroes/henchmen) for them
--With the release of the next expansion, do the same for the Burning Crusade zones
WoW/Blizzard (the 500-lb gorilla, so to speak) must be watching SWTOR very closely. It wouldn't surprise me to see WoW's next expansion make a quantum leap forward in terms of depth and, yes, story.
Whether WoW keeps me or I switch off to STO or SWTOR when those games are released will have a lot to do with how effectively these MMOs (yes, I know what "MMO" stands for) handle the single-player versus multiplayer balance and content. I think waiting around to find and form "balanced" groups for instances is one of the very worst features of most MMOs.
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Holgar said on 2:38PM 6-09-2009
""Blizzard's owes as much of their unexpected success to timing as they do to game design""
You really went there? Scratch that..... you actually think that?
Out of curiousity what about Warcraft's 1,2,3, Starcraft and Diablo? All timing?Luck?
I have to disagree STRONGLY with you there buddy.
Luck and timing has probably gained WoW three or four million subs MAYBE but its the quality that keeps people coming back..
Now Credit where its due Bioware make good games but this sounds just too good to be true.
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clerkenwell said on 9:28PM 6-09-2009
First of all, three or four million subscribers is an insanely huge number, so I wouldn't bandy that number about like it's a paltry amount. And I don't think he was disputing the quality of Blizzard's games.
That said, I do think that calling it 50-50 game design/timing to account for Blizz's numbers is simplifying things a bit. It might be a similar split like that in terms of keeping subscribers, but in terms of getting new ones, I have a feeling it's a bit more complicated than that. Personally, I think that, at some point, WoW hit a critical mass. They got so many subscribers that people started playing because everybody else already was. Forget game design and timing, I think that popularity begets popularity, or in WoW's case, more players begets more players.
Spectrum said on 11:42PM 6-09-2009
@ Holgar
"You really went there? Scratch that..... you actually think that?
Out of curiousity what about Warcraft's 1,2,3, Starcraft and Diablo? All timing?Luck?
I have to disagree STRONGLY with you there buddy.
Luck and timing has probably gained WoW three or four million subs MAYBE but its the quality that keeps people coming back..
Now Credit where its due Bioware make good games but this sounds just too good to be true."
..So, by your own volition you admit that said timing has had anywhere up to a 25% impact in WOW Subscriptions?
no, srsly tho, ur rite. not much at all....
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Loopy Garou said on 11:58AM 6-10-2009
Hrm, why do you think there won't be a new WoW expansion until late 2011? More likely, the next expansion will follow a schedule similar to Wrath — a big announcement at this year's BlizzCon, followed by a release in late 2010. Seems like 2009 would actually have been the ideal year to launch a big new title.
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RogueJedi86 said on 8:33PM 6-10-2009
After reading this article and talking with some friends, I never realized just how important a release date is. TOR will have to release either a few months before WoW's third expansion, or several months after, when WoW hype is down. If players are in a WoW lull, they'll be more apt to try another MMO, so you gotta release it during a lull in the Top MMO. Like the article touched on, that's a big starting reason for why Warhammer and Age of Conan didn't have a stellar start. So for the sake of TOR's sales, I hope BioWare/EA will time the release of TOR to be during a WoW lull, when people's minds(and wallets) are more willing to wander to other MMOs.
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