My take on Star Wars: The Old Republic

Here’s what we know so far about Bioware‘s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG:

The story takes place in the Star Wars universe shortly after the establishment of a tenuous peace between the re-emergent Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, 300 years after the events of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games and more than 3,500 years before the events in the Star Wars films.

The Jedi are held responsible for the success of the Sith and choose to relocate from Coruscant to Tython, where the Jedi order had been initially founded, to seek guidance from the Force. The Sith control Korriban, where they re-established a Sith Academy.

A collaborative effort between Bioware, Lucasarts and Dark Horse Comics has resulted in webcomics entitled “Star Wars: The Old Republic: Threat of Peace” and “Star Wars: The Old Republic: Blood of the Empire“, the purpose of which is to set up the story as the game opens.

Members of the two main factions—the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire—will have different moralities; the project’s key focus is to differentiate between the player’s faction and morality. Each faction will contain different classes, each with a distinct backstory and a branching storyline affected by players’ moral choices. Classes will also be exclusive to one faction or the other. All eight of the classes have been confirmed:

Galactic Republic Classes

• Trooper
• Smuggler
• Jedi Knight
• Jedi Consular

Sith Empire Classes

• Bounty Hunter
• Sith Warrior
• Imperial Agent
• Sith Inquisitor

Although each class will have a distinct storyline, they will be integrated with the game’s overall arc.

In the years before the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant, the Sith Empire sought to crush the Republic’s morale by destroying Alderaan. See one of the pivotal battles of this conflict in the second cinematic trailer: Hope, which was unveiled at E3 on June 16th:

The Battle of Alderaan. The Republic’s gravest hour. Recently promoted to Darth, Malgus launches the first of many surprise attacks that would become his trademark during the Great War, perfectly timing the assault with a feint that pulls the Republic fleet light-years away. Thousands of assault droids and hundreds of Sith set the heart of the Republic ablaze, and Alderaan’s few defenders are swept away with ease.

Unknown to Darth Malgus, small groups of Republic Troopers are stationed on Alderaan, some recovering from wounds, others are awaiting orders. As these brave soldiers take to the forests and mountains to fight a guerilla campaign against Malgus’s forces, the Republic fleet rushes back to repel the invasion. With time running out and Alderaan’s capitol threatened, it falls to Havoc Squad, the elite Republic Special Forces unit, to coordinate one last desperate stand against Malgus’ vastly superior numbers.

The trailers are beautiful – as one would expect from Blur Studio – it captures the very best of Star Wars in two 5+ minute sequences.

But I’m non-plussed. I really, really didn’t want an MMORPG, especially for Star Wars. I have still such a bad taste in my mouth from the horror that was Star Wars Galaxies that no matter what I see here, I’m still afraid the game will suck.

I play video games to escape from reality for a few hours, just as I read books or watch movies. In the games that I play, the world actually changes. My character can make a difference, defeat the bad guy, and call it a day.

What I don’t want to do are spend days and days on meaningless quests in order to simply advance a level. I don’t want to join a “guild” and spend infinite amounts of time making my in-game avatar cool-looking. I want a beginning and an end that leaves me satisfied. MMORPGs seem to have completely overlooked contextual story.

I fear that no matter how much Bioware tries to incorporate their incredible stories into an MMO setting, The Old Republic will still be nothing but day after day of raiding a Sith camp to defeat a bad guy in order to level up, then hang out and chat until the inevitable expansion comes out.

This is why I don’t play WOW or WAR or AOC or DDO.

Maybe I’m just mad that it is PC-only, and I’m a console gamer. Maybe I’m just mad that I have been waiting for an announcement for Knights of the Old Republic III for years.

But maybe, just maybe, I am worried that legions of wanna-be Sith and Jedi will run what could be a fantastic game by doing little else than running around starting fights and calling everyone a “n00b”, despite Bioware’s pledge that Star Wars: The Old Republic will finally bring “real story to the genre.”

I wish them all the best with this one – I really do – but this is one part of the Star Wars Saga that I don’t plan to participate in until I am proven completely wrong in all of my fears.