Star Wars: The Old Republic - The Skepticism is Strong With This One
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If anyone has spent any time trying to play a slower, more story-oriented game with or around other people, they'll know it can be a challenge. Often, one or more parties present won't have the patience to sit and listen/read and sometimes players will want to return to the action as soon as possible. Yet other times, some people can't take the story seriously and will joke and make comments during the dialog (anyone who has been to a theater has problem experienced this as well). MMOs are typically the antithesis of a serious story experience players make references to the real world all the time, constantly joking and making smart alec remarks; they'll jeer bosses in dungeons if they soliloquize for too long before getting to the fight (understandable when you realize that most players have seen the (touching) moment multiple times in a night). In worlds where death is a trivial inconvenience and players are a smaller cog in the machinery of a group/guild/faction, individual story importance for BlondeBombshell the elf mage is neither asked for nor required.
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Going back to the necessity of this being an MMO, the question I have is... why in the blue hell wasn't the game developed as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3, a continuation of a single-player experience that's been critically acclaimed and well received in the past? This offline RPG series lets players play the role of savior/destroyer of the galaxy without the possibility of someone named LightsaberInMyPants running up and griefing them. The most persistent complaint I've read about Star Wars: TOR is that it's not a single-player experience for PC/PS3/Xbox 360. Given the time and resources they've already devoted to the game, it seems like a game (or two!) could have come out in the Knights of the Old Republic series and would have been that much more graphically impressive. Speaking of graphics... the style of TOR seems to be trying to replicate the look of the Clone Wars CG animated series, a decision that irks me. I realize the ongoing Clone Wars series is the most current Star Wars product out on the market now, but I would have preferred something closer to the aesthetics of the Knights of the Old Republic series. That's just a personal gripe, however, and not as much of a deal-breaker as class balance.
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The (launch) period of the game, I'm not terribly worried about enough people will give the game a try that EA will probably make their investment back; what I question is if it will be a world-beater in the long term to truly contest against World of Warcraft. The main wag of the game appears to be its story content where players can make choices that affect their storyline, and each of the eight classes is said to have their own unique backstory. That's an impressive amount of content, and maybe that will keep players occupied for 100 150 hours per character. That might seem like a lot, but to a determined MMO player, they'll blow through that in a month or two. There's always the option to play multiple characters (and some will certainly do that) but most people will just care about advancing their one character. Will these people care enough to play the non-storyline end game content to keep their subscription?
