Star Wars: The Old Republic is EA's Most Expensive Project in History

[Fire Daemon]

TOR has the added benefit of, well, being set in the Star Wars universe. I mean, do you have any idea how many people are going to buy it on that basis alone. A lot, quite a lot.

I would also imagine a lot of Bioware fans will buy this as well. Mass Effect sold what, 3 million copies (or maybe more), if one third of those buy it that's one million straight off the bat. Throw in the Star Wars fans and you have at least two million but quite possibly more, maximum 6 million I say, that will buy the game in it's early months. A strong advertising campaign so that people know it exists (not everyone lives on the Internet and hears about this stuff) and this game will do well as I can't see Bioware stuffing it up and making a bad game. That's got a Fire Daemon guarantee folks.

Yeah, I can see this sitting next to WoW nicely. I think I recall Bioware saying they weren't trying to go after WoW anyway.

 

[John Funk]

And yet the graphics looks like something from 2005? What the hell are they pouring all those money into?

Is there jet packs?

[sub]I won't leave Global Agenda unless it has jet packs...[/sub]

The bounty hunter has jet packs I believe.

An mmo is quite a huge game. Rendering all of it in high end graphics would tear your computer to shreds.

Take a look at these 2 videos:
TOR:gtuild
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKN4pZ0DaUc

GW2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdr8HHJ-zU

They're both MMO's, and is both scheduled to release at roughly the same time, yet GW2 looks a LOT better than TOR.
The textures in TOR especially seems very low res and bland.

Guild Wars is not an MMO. It's more like Diablo.

 

[Hawkeye16]

If this game fails, no one will ever challenge wow again. And we will be forever stuck in the generic fantasy grindfests.

 

[steamweedlegoblin]

This means that a relatively significant portion of those WoW players have already established themselves in the community, joined guilds, levelled up, etc. Aaaaaand they will leave all of that history, experience, etc, with WoW, and start all over again with SW:TOR, at the beginning level, with no contacts, no experience, and a new control scheme? Bear in mind also that its unlikely that players will subscribe to both at the same time, due to the monthly payment nature of MMO's.

Honest question here: do people who play MMO's really think like that? Not wanting to play a new game because you have to start at the beginning of it sounds more than a little silly to me.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

Ever since Everquest, I've had a compulsive need to try every single MMO that's released. Ugh.. This one looks pretty damn amazing, though. The longevity of an MMO, with the story of a single player Bioware RPG.

Been lookin' forward to this for about a year and a half now.

Honest question here: do people who play MMO's really think like that? Not wanting to play a new game because you have to start at the beginning of it sounds more than a little silly to me.

Can't say that's how I look at it. This coming from an avid MMO player, though I'm not that hardcore. Starting over is great, I think. Leveling up to the max level is half the fun. It's a journey of sorts. Once you get there, you get a real sense of accomplishment, and you can move on to raiding, or hell, even start a new class and do it all over again.

I don't think anyone would be deterred by having to start over. If you play MMOs extremely casually, and all you enjoy is the raiding, then starting over with a new MMO might seem rough if you just got to the max level, in say, WoW.

I think most of us would jump at the opportunity to experience an entirely new world and gameplay. A new world developed by none other than RPG maestros Bioware, no less.

 

[Worgen]

success really comes down to release time, ea messed up with warhammer and pushed it out too soon and right before a wow expansion when any flaw would be magnified. The best time this could launch would be about 6 months after the wow expansion when people are getting bored of the content and are willing to move to something else and hopefully that extra time would give more time for bug hunting and additional content

 

[Nurb]

Why does this give me a red-flag that it will suck?

 

[Feriluce]

And yet the graphics looks like something from 2005? What the hell are they pouring all those money into?

Is there jet packs?

[sub]I won't leave Global Agenda unless it has jet packs...[/sub]

The bounty hunter has jet packs I believe.

An mmo is quite a huge game. Rendering all of it in high end graphics would tear your computer to shreds.

Take a look at these 2 videos:
TOR:gtuild
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKN4pZ0DaUc

GW2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdr8HHJ-zU

They're both MMO's, and is both scheduled to release at roughly the same time, yet GW2 looks a LOT better than TOR.
The textures in TOR especially seems very low res and bland.

Guild Wars is not an MMO. It's more like Diablo.

Guild wars was an MMO, although I guess it wasn't full blown.

Guild wars 2 on the other hand is a full blown MMO with all the bells and whistles, and it looks like its gonna be a hell of a lot better than the old republic. From the information I've seen so far:

1. It looks better
2. The pvp is gonna be MUCH better (Will there even BE pvp in TOR)?
3. The "questing" is gonna be at least as enjoyable as TOR (Dynamic events and personal storyline means no normal MMO go fetch 10 bear asses quests)
4. The combat is gonna be better than TOR.

TOR looks like the run of the mill MMO, only slightly tweaked to make the lvling up process more enjoyable through story. GW2 on the other hand looks like its gonna take all that was good and different about GW and add proper PVE as well as a much more rich dynamic world.

 

[Feriluce]

This means that a relatively significant portion of those WoW players have already established themselves in the community, joined guilds, levelled up, etc. Aaaaaand they will leave all of that history, experience, etc, with WoW, and start all over again with SW:TOR, at the beginning level, with no contacts, no experience, and a new control scheme? Bear in mind also that its unlikely that players will subscribe to both at the same time, due to the monthly payment nature of MMO's.

Honest question here: do people who play MMO's really think like that? Not wanting to play a new game because you have to start at the beginning of it sounds more than a little silly to me.

If've you've played the same game with the same character for 3 years, you get attached to that character and to the friends you've met ingame.
If you start on a new mmo you have to leave the character behind that you've invested so much time in. Thats why people are reluctant to leave WOW.
If people were not as invested in their chars are they are, WOW would be dead by now.

Edit: This forum doesn't even merge double posts? How fail.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I am really looking forward to The Old Republic and even though i don't really play much of WoW these days i'm quitting it for good as soon as this game is released. Even though i already know it won't i really want The Old Republic to sledgehammer WoW off it's throne. I know i am really going to love this game because i loved Knights of the Old Republic and also Bioware are my favourite developers.

 

[Arisato-kun]

Glad to see Bioware has all the funds they need at their disposal. I have high hopes for this and so do my friends.

I'm surprised that people think it's going to be bad based on art style alone. Clone Wars already proved that animated Star Wars is incredible so why would art style hold this game back?

 

[John Funk]

And yet the graphics looks like something from 2005? What the hell are they pouring all those money into?

Is there jet packs?

[sub]I won't leave Global Agenda unless it has jet packs...[/sub]

The bounty hunter has jet packs I believe.

An mmo is quite a huge game. Rendering all of it in high end graphics would tear your computer to shreds.

Take a look at these 2 videos:
TOR:gtuild
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKN4pZ0DaUc

GW2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdr8HHJ-zU

They're both MMO's, and is both scheduled to release at roughly the same time, yet GW2 looks a LOT better than TOR.
The textures in TOR especially seems very low res and bland.

Guild Wars is not an MMO. It's more like Diablo.

Guild wars was an MMO, although I guess it wasn't full blown.

Guild wars 2 on the other hand is a full blown MMO with all the bells and whistles, and it looks like its gonna be a hell of a lot better than the old republic. From the information I've seen so far:

1. It looks better
2. The pvp is gonna be MUCH better (Will there even BE pvp in TOR)?
3. The "questing" is gonna be at least as enjoyable as TOR (Dynamic events and personal storyline means no normal MMO go fetch 10 bear asses quests)
4. The combat is gonna be better than TOR.

TOR looks like the run of the mill MMO, only slightly tweaked to make the lvling up process more enjoyable through story. GW2 on the other hand looks like its gonna take all that was good and different about GW and add proper PVE as well as a much more rich dynamic world.

If the whole world is instanced, I don't really think you can call it an MMOG.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

Here's what's going to happen. It'll be decent, it'll have a dedicated fan base, and EA will backstab the players by closing the servers. You know, much like they've done every single year with every single other game?

 

[Da_Schwartz]

It will never be as good as galaxies >.>
<.<

 

[Feriluce]

If the whole world is instanced, I don't really think you can call it an MMOG.

In GW1 it is yes, but all outposts and cities are not.
Anyway, its not GW1 I'm talking about its GW2. GW2 does not have its whole world instanced, but rather a persistent world like most other MMO's.

Also by your definition it would seem like TOR isn't gonna be an MMO then. I dont see how you can make each class have their own completely unique story without solely using instances.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

When its done.

That is the fuckin catch phrase of Team Gizka, the guys who were going to release the content mod for KOTOR 2. THey never got round to it, so TSLRCM made their own restoration mod.

 

[kementari]

It'll be done "when it's done?" Where have I heard that before?

By the makers of the most successful MMORPG of all time? Quit your whining.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Once someone said: "let's boycott their games by not buying them!" ...the idea is good, but in practice no one will follow... huhu

 

[Miumaru]

Oooooooh boy, just imagine EA's disappointment when (sorry, "if") it tanks like every other MMORPG that tries to cross WoW's path...

edit: I'm going to be frank, I don't think SW:TOR stands a single chance against the Blizzard monolith... and I think I have a reason to believe so, too:

Think about it this way - EA is trying to directly compete with Blizzard, and that means that they're gona have to try and detract some of the WoW gamers to SW:TOR instead. Yes, some players will also be attracted by the Star Wars universe and all, but EA are still gona have to take a chunk of Blizzard's cake if they stand any chance of competing.

Now, lets think about this for a minute: since WoW has recently stopped growing at 11.5 million subscribers or whatever, we can assume that they're not having a large number of players leaving/joining at any one time, i.e. the consumer base is fairly consistent. This means that a relatively significant portion of those WoW players have already established themselves in the community, joined guilds, levelled up, etc.

Aaaaaand they will leave all of that history, experience, etc, with WoW, and start all over again with SW:TOR, at the beginning level, with no contacts, no experience, and a new control scheme? Bear in mind also that its unlikely that players will subscribe to both at the same time, due to the monthly payment nature of MMO's.

So, lets sum up here: EA really needs to pull some portion of WoW's audience away from the MMO, when many of them will already have levelled up characters, built friendships, etc, within that game.

My guess is a lot of them will be reluctant to leave all that behind...

Yes, EA will be able to get an audience from Star War's fan too, but lets remember that Star Trek: Online had a huge Trekkie fanbase to pool from too... did that really help it?

Because you can only play one game of a genre. I hate the term WoW killer, since even if they managae to do better than WoW, people will still play it.
People put games against eachother too much even though people play both anyways.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

This is perhaps the greatest gambit that BioWare has ever embarked on. I have faith that they can pull it off. The rewards of success would basically ensure their continuation, even in the heartless mass that is EA, and perhaps allow them even more freedom within it. But the consequences of failure could be catastrophic. It may even kill BioWare.

And then who will finish the Mass Effect trilogy? Someone has to stop the Reapers!