Lit Star Wars: The Old Republic (Bioware MMO) [Spoilers Allowed]

I don't really think that they will left the possibility of playing a Sith out of the game, as it would just be basically shooting themselves in their own foot. Sith sell. And possibility of getting a Darth title in itself might tempt lots of people to play the game. What comes to titles, I don't think that the sides can be equal when it comes to this. Sith get the Darth title, the Jedi can just consider serving the Force a reward in itself. When it comes to Mandalorians, being a pillaging vandal who likes to fight would be reward in itself too - there's not much in the way of cool titles a player could achieve. Beyond this, I doubt but hope that there would be added classes, like a possibility of playing a non- Force sensitive Republic soldier.

 

We can have Sith and Mandys, can't we?

 

Yes, I believe we will allow Sith & Mandalorian character classes in our new KOTOR III MMO along with another 40 different character classes, said some guy named Tricky who wishes & hopes more than actually knowing anything specific...

 

Hopefully they won't make it so every Jon and Jane Antilles can be a Sith, Jedi or Mandy. Maybe making it a sort of prestige class.

That's what really bugged me about Galaxies, how easy it was to be a Jedi. They kinda went overboard with that.

 

I think if the rumours do turn out to be true that you can pretty much bet on there being Jedi classes from the get go. It may be like KOTOR1 where you have to level up a bit first to finish your training first and unlock your powers, but I think the main reason they're picking KOTOR is to be able to do what they did in SWG without the continuity issues.

This is where I'm torn on what to think about things like Mandalorian classes. Its quite likely if there are non-Jedi classes that the "bad" faction will have a Mando-influenced class, be it literally "Mandalorian" or a generic "Bounter Hunter" class. I honestly wouldn't be that surprised though if the whole game was Jedi and Dark Jedi/Sith, with "classes" all being variants, such as healer, battlemaster, consular, guardian, sentinel, weaponmaster, assassin, marauder, sorcerer, etc.

After all, even if people wanted to use guns, it would probably simply mean playing, say, Jedi Guardian and putting your points into things that turned you into a sort of Gray Paladin character with Force-assisting shooting.

I think it ultimately depends on the setting. If its the Mandalorian Wars then its a bit early for the Sith, really. Apart from characters like Haazen, the Revanchist faction are still just Dark Jedi, so they wouldn't be able to go into Sith Lord prestige classes from launch.

In an expansion? Perhaps they could advance the timeline to the Jedi Civil War and add epic classes or something of that nature. That way, either becoming Sith would simply be part of the wider story arc, or it'd be built into the game with multiclassing--which would actually be quite an interesting angle to take it, since WoW and its many clones like WAR don't have multiclassing, so it'd give a KOTOR MMORPG a fresher approach (not original, admittedly, as I think FFXI had dualclassing, but still not pure "WoW Clone").

I don't think they would leave out Jedi, Mandalorian, or [insert alternative class or faction] equivalents though. Class and faction balance basically drive most MMORPG issues, since if there's one way of getting the gamers to whine, its not giving them their PvP balance. "Wah! Why should Sith get better rewards! Now nobody plays Jedi!" etc.

 

I'm still wishing they would drop it in the New Sith Wars, where it has completely wide open territory, could actually do whatever is desired and get away with it, and would actually be doing a huge service to the community by opening up that era for exploration a bit more. And really, if they did that, they could still have all the aforementioned goodness (good post, Zor!) without the continuity headaches we've had from Galaxies.

I don't think it's likely, unfortunately, but I can dream.

 

Personally, I would make it so that you have a generic "force sensitive" class (or more than one, like say a Shaman class, a Cultists class and a self taught force punk equivalent...though probably just one for balancing issues.) and then you join the Jedi or the Sith and get your lightsaber. Or not join either and get some different rewards.

Of course, I don't think I would do a mmo-rpg so much as a mmo-action game. Gear of War controls forranged weapon users, and ninja gaiden controls for melee users (well, on an xbox anyway...), and maybe throw in halo style vehicle jacking and stuff....

I digress though. To move on to a more plausible scenario: Since this is based off the Kotor game, will it use the same controls? (Well, obviously you couldn't pause, but I never did that anyway.) Would it use the RPG rules...and would it use the old rules, or the new saga edition rules?

 

Everyone is talking about what classes there might be, which is all good. But I've been thinking more along the lines of what races they might choose for a KOTOR era? Will there be 8-10 races like SWG? If so which races do you think are most common in this time frame?

Humans are a given, but a lot of the species in SWG wouldnt be prevalent in this time period. Mon calamari and bothans, for example.

Ithorians, rodians, duros, twi'leks- these races are all very common in the KOTOR games/comics. I'm pretty sure we'd see twi'leks and rodians.

"KOTOR" races like miraluka, selkath, cathar...I dont know if they would work well. Selkath are neutral in the war and rarely leave Manaan, miraluka are all force sensitive (class restrictions) and cathar, well to my knowledge they dont seem common around the galaxy but i could be wrong. Races like Feeorin (featured in KOTOR campagin guide) and Massassi are very rare races to be seen throughout the galaxy and rarely leave their homeworlds. Rakata are unknown to the greater galaxy. Not to mention, 4000 years before the movies, there would be a significantly lot less discovered species/worlds in this period. Draethos are rare off their homeworld and wookiees rarely leave Kashyyk.

Khil could be a potential race from the KOTOR period maybe? Sullustans? Arkanians could be cool, but they would look too much like humans to me. Iridonians/Zabrak could be cool too.

Any thoughts on potential races? I hope canon doesnt get shot to hell with playable races, seeing miralukans and wookiees running around everywhere would ruin Zaalbar's and Visas' characters. Atton says in KOTOR 2 that miralukans are incredibly rare, and Zaalbar was apparently "A rare thing to see on Taris", even amongst all the aliens in the lower city. Most wookiees offworld are exiles anyway, so to see a million wookiees running around would be unrealistic. Not to mention the greater galaxy thinks of wookiees as primitive and do not understand their language. Zaalbar is amazed that revan can understand him.

 

My expectation is that for the near future BioWare RPGs will be based off the Mass Effect engine. Rather like how the KOTOR engine was ported out for a variety of other RPGs, not least Neverwinter Nights 2; I'm expecting the same to happen with ME's.

If that turns out to be the case, then it would be an incredibly unique experience. Every MMORPG that I'm aware of has been using "yesteryear's tech" in the sense of that none of them have really attempted interactive RPGing on an MMO scale, they're all still using standard turn based stuff. Mass Effect, however, was much more real time, a merger between an RPG and an FPS.

I don't know how well ME would transfer over to melee, however, which is my big curiousity with the next SW RPG (even if the rumour turns out not to be true, they'll almost certainly do another SW RPG at some point). ME was mostly ranged, only a close up knock down attack, so integrating full on melee controls into the ME engine would be the next step forward for BioWare. If they did that in an MMORPG, which I see no reason why not, as there'd be little reason to step backward to the older KOTOR engine, then it'd be pure awesomeness. (And it'd give them a unique selling point over the other WoW clones on the market, as well as appealing to the wider Xbox community who like action games not just RPGs.)

 

Link

 

Neverwinter Nights 1. The odyssey engine was a modified aurora engine. NWN 2 came out after KotOR 2.

I think it's more likely that KotOR 3, or whatever, will go with a Mass Effect style dialog, but a Dragon Age engine for the most part. So, considering Dragon Age will probably be very similar to ME insofar as dialog is concerned, it's probably better to say that it'll be pure DA.

 

How very odd that major video game websites such as IGN and Gamespot have yet to post a notification of any invitation. It's all from these small, unknown sites...

 

I'd hardly call Gamasutra unknown, they're a pretty respected gaming news website. Shacknews also has an article on it, which also happens to be the website I use the most for video game news so it can definitely be trusted.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55126

 

Well looks like we have some sort of "confirmation"
[image=http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/279/kotormmo669_screen.jpg]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6198627.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;2


If that is not KOTOR I'll shoot myself on the foot



thoughts?

 

I'm in a happy place...

(Not sure how I feel about the MMO part though...)

 

Well...i can give you guys a tentative release date of the Kotor MMO and then ME2 from Bioware if you like, but it may be off.

No, i have no source/link etc., only a well informed man i met at a TFU launch party in my town for the midnight release who claimed he Beta tested for Bioware in the past(and he had an ID to prove it, whether the ID was fake or not is anyones guess).

Supposedly this Bioware MMO is going to hit late-Summer Early Fall '09. This project has actually put on hold the majority of ME development team, putting ME into late '10 early '11. It(Kotoro) is supposed to be during the end of Mandy Wars leading into the JCW as time progresses(how Galaxies was SUPPOSED to have time go by to ESB and beyond origianlly). Jedi will be a starting profession, as will Smuggler, and Bounty Hunter. I did not hear of any others.

That is about all i could get out of him.

PLEASE NOTE: All of the previous is ONLY WHAT I WAS TOLD by a SUPPOSED Beta Tester for Bioware whom no longer tests for the company. DO NOT TAKE THIS AS FACTUAL UNTIL PROVEN.

I actually would have posted this before now, but i felt like i would be flamed like the kid who had an uncle who worked for SOE and posted everything about the NGE months before it was announced. And he turned out to be right, sooo....heres hoping?

Personally I am hoping they announce just KOTOR 3 Though...

 

My heart leapt into my throat when I saw that image. Then I saw "MMO" in the title and poured bleach in my eyes.

 

That's almost exactly my reaction. That's a great image, and I would love love love to see another KOTOR game . . . but, good god, MMO? Really? I can't get excited about that.

 

Just for now, I'll let the MMO thing slide... unless that's a statue of Ruin.

STUPID.

 

Either this place is going to be full of disappointed people, or the floor is going to be very sticky from our combined fangasms.

 

Pre-KotOR 1 Jedi Civil War works the best if they want to cash in on all the fan favourites, tbh.

Darth Revan? Check.
Darth Malak? Check.
Bastila? Check.

And so on.

It's also pretty unexplored beyond: "Darths Revan and Malak attack the Republic. Jedi and Sith fight a lot. Bastila's battle meditation keeps the Republic from collapsing." and allows for lots of Jedi and Sith.

 

And don't forget the Mandys!