A long time ago in a galaxy... you know the rest. But can BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars MMO live up to that magic line?
At long last, we've gotten a brief hands on session with one of the most anticipated games of this young century.
Yes - we've played The Old Republic MMO.
It's an odd bird, this game. BioWare, who can seemingly do no wrong (though, as time goes on we're more and more convinced that Dragon Age wasn't as good as we first thought...), have repeatedly said this is a new kind of MMO - one that places you firmly at the heart of your very own story.
It's a common complaint of the genre - sure, you have this huge open world and thousands of people in it, but nothing you do really makes an impact. No matter how many times you storm Ice Crown Citadel, the baddies are always going to respawn so someone else can do it again.
But a world with truly persistent outcomes, where baddies stay dead and no one ever does the same quest twice, is near impossible with the current level of game design. So, with this limitation in mind, what is BioWare's take on this seemingly insurmountable MMO problem?
Star Wars meets Mass EffectWell, the truth is that BioWare's in much the same boat as any other MMO. You and every other schmuck take the same quests as everyone else. But what BioWare has done to make your take on each quest unique is to introduce each one in a totally different way.
First up, everything is voiced - each NPC, each quest giver, each character. Secondly, each time you click on a quest giver you get an in-engine cut-scene, complete with Mass Effect style dialogue options.
So, while everyone who plays the right portions of the game will have to go kill X of Y for Z, each player will at least get a much more personalised version of that quest. Some of it goes pretty deep, too - in some instances you can even choose to kill your quest giver in a fit of rage!
Though we assume that's only a Sith option...
These choices can have a cascading effect on how your character progresses through the game, too. We've not seen yet how deep this effect is, but it's easy to imagine that it can change the way certain factions react to you later on in the narrative. What it does do is give you another quite unique way to bring individuality to your character, always a welcome thing in any MMO, and make each run through a quest chain a little-bit different.
It might even get you more phat lewts.
But the real neat thing about this dialogue system is that it works in party-based quests, too. Star Wars (the original trilogy, anyway) is known for the witty banter of the heroes, and The Old Republic nails that mark too. An entire dialogue tree is open to all players to choose from, so as different players respond to each other, the encounter itself plays out. It's a nice touch that the roleplayers amongst us will really dig.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012