Trailers: Star Wars: The Old Republic: E3 2011

[Laxman9292]

1:36 - my god, Darth Maul has stumbled into the prop collection from Tron.

Also, he stood in line 4 times? I mean I understand, it's just I think I would never be able to survive that. I stood in line for the first-ever Diablo 3 beta and I would never have thought about doing it again no matter the game quality.

Yes but you underestimate the power of the force. It was strong in that one.

 

[Nurb]

While the voices and deeper stories for an MMO are fantastic, I worry the effort put into writing, voice casting, and then creating them in 3D within the game engine itself will reduce the overall content in the game.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Very little actual ingame footage shown. Trailers of all the pre-rendered video sequences don't count, you can do stuff in those that can't be done in game.

On the plus side, I like that this will be a solo friendly game, or have they cut that part out already?

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

This game will make a big splash on release, sell a lot for a week, the hardcore Star Wars fans will lap it up, then it will nose-dive hard, turning into just another MMO no one cares about bar the core players - however few of them there are. Server merges in this game's future, yes. Many server merges.

Calling it. Just like Duke.

 

[Susurrus]

I'd much prefer them to keep doing the cinematic trailers - I look forward to a new one far more than i look forward to the actual game, which has yet to impress me.

Also, can someone just confirm - the commando and the jedi that escape in "Return" are the same two that fight in the second video, right? And the sith is the same from both the others (but before his face was burned - which I guess happened in the second?).

 

[commiedic]

Ugh, I really wish I could bring myself to try this game. Maybe if they have a demo period I will try it out. After seeing this vid and noticing that it is another hotkey MMO. That has 3 skill trees and with PvP being warzones that are copied from WoW and WAR. Also instances and raids -_- so more grinding for gear to grind for gear to grind for gear...

I just can't do it again. Sure its different setting, time, and place, but I mean really? Take this for example. You play Counter Strike and you get bored of it. A friend comes along and says here try my new game out. You play it and its Counter Strike, but with different textures and a new feature added. Like now you have vehicles. So you play it to death and you get bored of it. Another friend asks you to play his game. Sweet! It's counter strike again, but with better graphics and now you have vehicles and a jet pack. Wooo! rinse and repeat. Hopefully this will be the last game of this washed out series.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Just throwing this out there, take from it what you will... a few people are calling this game a WoW clone, it's not a direct clone, I would say it takes what works, which is what Bioware are great at, but not a clone. Besides which, many of th modern classics do this.

I give you, as an example, God of War.

God of War took almost all it's mechanics, gameplay etc. from Devil May Cry, even right down to collecting red orbs and using them to buy abilities, and yet it's more highly praised than Devil May Cry. So who cares about this? No-one.

There's an interesting theory that everything is rehashed, that all gameplay has been borrowed from somewhere. WoW itself borrows alot from Diablo. True, this is the same company, but I would guess that even games like Ultima inspired certain aspect of Diablo itself. Unless it's a 100% rip off (which, since Bioware have stated many, many times they want to emphasise story, we're pretty sure it's not) then I don't see any problem with this.

Oh and I might also add that items, as far as I'm aware, are reflected by your level, rather than grinding for them. Just another thing to consider.

 

[coakroach]

*sigh* Star Wars fans.

 

[Woodsey]

Well that was a balanced recount of opinions may I say!

The Escapist, masking advertisments as media/news coverage since payed reviewes were invented!

Its a video released by EA. So yeah.

the game's interface is nearly copy-pasted from WoW, and (for some reason) I noticed that the experience points are the also the same.

Hardly an exact match, although of course there will be similarities. I've played hundreds of games with a similar interface - its used because it works. Its a GUI for goodness sake; no point in reinventing the wheel when what exists is the most accessible and best functioning.

Very little actual ingame footage shown. Trailers of all the pre-rendered video sequences don't count, you can do stuff in those that can't be done in game.

On the plus side, I like that this will be a solo friendly game, or have they cut that part out already?

There's probably hours worth of gameplay floating around online, only takes a quick search. And yes, they're still focusing on a strong singleplayer experience.

 

[Clonekiller]

Will TOR play like WoW? Yes. Does the graphical style resemble WoW? Yes. Are there numerous subtle differences that will make it different than WoW, as a game all it's own? Yes. TOR might be a standard MMO, but it's the subtle things (Reactive combat, full voiceover, AI party members, ranged-based tanks, etc) that make the game different, and in many ways, better.

P.S. Which is better? A time-tested successful game engine, like WoW, or an original yet failed game engine, like SWG?

1. Nice calling in another post out of context. But for the record SWG had its own issues. But i interpreted what you just said(aside from being posted in malice) as "Do you think all MMOs should play like WoW or SWG?"
2. Define reactive combat because i can't get anyone to do that for me.
3. AI party members that function like pets/ With their own skills, talents, and abilities you control and guide?
4. So what ranged tank it still sticks to the trinity formula.
5. Full voice over still dosen't do it for me. Though it is good that we would hear something other than "Hello" or some variation there of.

Reactive Combat: The light sabers move to meet each other as well as the blaster bolts they are deflecting. Not a perfect system, but it looks a whole lot better than most other MMOs.

Bioware was in an interesting position with this game. Could they have sunk a ton of time and resources into into creating a new and original game engine? Of course. (See Star Trek Online) They could have done something like an open-world Vindictus, or maybe something closer to Mass Effect. However, instead of reinventing the wheel, Bioware chose to stick with a game system most every MMO player already knows, and instead spend their budget money on hours of full-orchestra scores, voice actors, party members that function more like AI controlled classes than pets, quest lines that are a bit more epic than "kill 10 pigs", and so on. Is it "just another MMO"? You betcha. However, is that sole fact enough to condemn the game, before it even comes out? I must ask, to anyone who might read this, what exactly were you expecting?

P.S. Cause making valid points and asking valid questions = malice. (Sarcasm, in case you were wondering)

 

[fundayz]

They could have made a new and better engine for other MMOs to go off of but they stuck with a 5 year old model.

Which is made even worse by the fact that IT DOESN'T FIT THE STAR WARS SETTING.

Seriously, when have you seen a Jedi sit back and cast force spells exclusively? That's right, never. Star Wars doesn't fit the 'Tank, Healer, DPS' model and it makes no sense for them to use it.

Instead of saying "We have a great setting and story, let's design game mechanics to enhance this" BioWare resigned themselves to "We have a great setting and story, let's see how we can shoehorn a combat system designed for a completely different setting into it".

It's boring, lazy and impressively unimaginative. I expected more from a BioWare.

Oh I remember, it's not actually BioWare making the game! They are just sticking their logo on it because BioWare is writing the story.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

is that a picture of Revan and Malak in the thumbnail?
okay, on topic im not an MMO kinda guy, but i think i could be for this even if everyone's saying it looks dull and WoW-cloney.

 

[fundayz]

Now i know EA is calling the shots but don't they have a bunch of Mythic devs working in it? Is Mythic still around even?

Edit: wikipedia says they still exist but the merge for EAs MMO department must have pulled everyone that wasn't tied down and and moved them. So i guess EA is not putting Mythics name on it because they think that letting customers know Mythic is working on it would recall Warhammer online and scare off customers. Reasonable practice but if SWTOR dosen't get the billions EA wants i can see a new favored slave in EAs eyes.

The team making SWTOR, BioWare Austin, was made from scratch for the sole purpose of making SWTOR. The whole team consists of people from all over the MMO scene, from Mythic's Warhammer to Star Trek Online.

Their lead PvP designer is Gabe Amatangelo, the guy responsible for WAR's City Sieges and Scenarios. You know? The systems that had to be constantly reworked because they didn't work...

There are very few actual BioWare employees working on the title aside from their (very talented) writers and some of their top guys(which mainly oversee production).

That's why Daniel Erickson, their writing director, is their poster boy even though he is not actually a designer.

 

[fundayz]

Interesting. So its only Bioware in name and writing in charge of this and technically BIOWARE wont be to blame for any failures on it as a whole. But because its name is on the front to score points for marketing reasons guess who gets blamed for it.

Pretty much, although they are taking the lead and agreeing to put their logo on the box so it is still their responsibility for the game to do good.

 

[Zer_]

A while ago, there was a full 1h30 minutes of pure gameplay showcasing SW:TOR. It showed your ascention from a Padawan to a full Jedi Knight (including making your own Lightsabre). This is basically a Star Wars fan's dream come true, and honestly; those of you who are badmouthing it have no idea what you're talking about.

YES there are similarities between TOR and WoW. They're both MMORPGS, and TOR took the cookie cutter MMORPG and made Solo levelling FUN (you actually follow a storyline). The voice acting has much more impact on the game than you think. The only thing that has yet to be seen is the endgame content and PVP.

That being said, while playing TOR you WILL notice a lot of parallels between TOR and KOTOR. You feel as though you're in the KOTOR world what with the voice acting and unique storylines for each character/area. That's the beauty of the game, and if you guys doubt the impact it actually has on the gameplay, then there's nothing we can do to convince you otherwise aside from getting you to play the game.