The revealing of Star Wars: The Old Republic'sfinal two classes has incited much discussion amongst the community and inside my own brain. On one hand, lots of people are happy to have more Sith and Jedi classes to choose from. However, on the other hand, some people are disappointed in the lack of creative and unexpected class options.
In all reality, BioWare probably made the right choice, but let's look at the view of both sides for the sake of argument and to have a little fun.
The trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic blew nerds around the world away, and has managed to build some of the greatest hype possible for an MMO in just a few short days. The question has been asked whether or not a trailer which contains absolutely no gameplay footage should be producing that sort of hype, but that trailer wasn't all that we saw of the upcoming MMORPG at E3. A panel dedicated to The Old Republic had much more to say.
The panel opened up with the stage being set: The Old Republic begins 3,000 years before the rise of Darth Vader, 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, which would give BioWare an excellent opportunity to define and expand upon key events of Star Wars "pre-history."
The entire presentation laid a significant emphasis on story and story elements. Right from the beginning, the developers lay out it: RPGs have four primary elements. Exploration, combat, progression, and story. The story element is the one most overlooked in MMOs, and The Old Republic intends to address that head on. They intend to embrace story right alongside the other RPG elements. It will be a major player, and not something just used to justify the other elements.
Here's something interesting. It's a LEGO Universe behind the scenes look video (mouthful!) in which we get to see some sneak peek stuff concerning the upcoming title that lets players build their own world, which is likely full of genitals. Oh, we also get to gawk at a really cool building full of more LEGO than half of America sees in a few years. We really aren't sure how anyone at NetDevil or LEGO gets anything done with all those blocks just begging to be put together. We'd be halfway done creating our LEGO-dition of Han Solo frozen in Carbonite after our first day or two.
It didn't help our jaw-to-floor ratio when the video also informed that within LEGO Universe, we can expect to experience pirates, ninjas and robots in LEGO form. It's a nerd trifecta +1! We're not sure whether we want this MMO to succeed or fail. Success means the loss of our entire lives for an undisclosed amount of time and failure -- something we never really wish upon a developer -- means keeping our families, friends and jobs. You can check out the video for yourself below below the cut.
Nov 30th 2009 at 7:00PM
