Knights of the Old Republic MMO Confirmed

Zafsk writes to tell us Gamespot is reporting that in a surprise move from E3 2008, EA's CEO John Riccitello announced that the long debated BioWare MMORPG is going to be a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic sequel of sorts. Currently the KOTOR MMO is slated for a 2009 release. "BioWare's first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game was released in 2003 for the original Xbox and PC, and was named the year's top RPG by GameSpot. An Obsidian Entertainment-developed sequel was released in 2004 and 2005 on the same two respective platforms. Both critically acclaimed games are set several thousand years before the events of the Star Wars films, and cast players as adventurers who eventually become powerful Jedi Knights."

Big shoes to fill

If only it could be as good as Star Wars: Galaxies...

Re:Big shoes to fill

You've been modded properly ;-). SWG was a lot of fun initially till it started out to be a non-paying job. Oh frick, my house is crumbling - oh frick gotta check on my machines. That and they sacrificed their current user-base in search of a new market (Blizzard is great at this - they don't alienate their current users while getting new users to sign up at the same time..mostly).

Re:Big shoes to fill

They need to take the original SWG, update the graphics, and rerelease. No other MMO is half as deep or customizable as that was. It just needed a dev team that would patch bugs instead of just looking stupid.

The last thing we need is another mod for WoW (I'm looking directly at you LoTR).

Re:Big shoes to fill

I agree totally. I loved the original. My first experience with it was hanging out in the Mos Eisley cantina, playing music and socializing. The huge variety of professions (and not just different combat types) made for a very deep and varied play experience. I mock what it's become because I miss it so much.

Re:Thousands of years

Just to clarify, by middle ages I meant what is usually called the early middle ages or the dark ages [wikipedia.org]. That's from approximately 500 AD to 1000 AD.

Of course the dark ages might not have been as dire as it's made out to be but it definitely was a period of slow or negative technological growth.

I don't think that's actually the case. Before 500 AD, Saxons, Franks and all those other Germanic tribes didn't build anything bigger than a farm or a wooden fort. After 1000 AD, they built huge gothic cathedrals. Construction technology definitely advanced during that period. Especially for the Germans, who were not the direct descendants of the Romans of Greeks (who did have impressive construction tech, but still not good enough for a gothic cathedral).

Between 500 and 1000 AD, Charlemagne founded his empire, invented the feudal system, and built lots of great cities. Vikings roamed the seas and travelled further than anyone before them. Metalworking improved, resulting in better armour and weapons.

It may not have been a very civilised age compared to the Greeks or Romans, but technologically, lots of interesting stuff was happening.

If we can't play it with real light saber Wii

If we can't play it online using gaming consoles with light saber emulators, like that of the Wii controller, it's just not going to be very good.

Half of the appeal is in emulating light saber battles.

Re:If we can't play it with real light saber Wii

Are you that star wars kid whose movie I saw the other day?

Re:If we can't play it with real light saber Wii

I'm assuming you never played the original Knights of the Old Republic, a d20-based role playing game. Yeah, I don't know how that couldn't be fun online without waving around a wiimote.

Re:If we can't play it with real light saber Wii

When you played the table-top game it didn't involve you waving around your 'wiimote'?

Guess that was just us then...

With all apologies to Sir Alec Guinness

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of hours of my free time suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Trend in the industry?

It almost seems like every company has to convert their previously-loved RPG titles into MMORPGs just for anybody to look at them. MMORPGs seem to provide a sort of depth and play experience that single player RPGs have difficulty matching. I don't see this trend stopping any time soon.

Re:Trend in the industry?

Actually, I was just thinking the same thing for the opposite reason. MMOs have a watered down grinding gameplay, they can't match the depth and complexity of a single player RPG. They're also a lot worse at telling stories. How can you have a good 'teenage kid discovers he's the chosen one and saves the universe' story, when there are thousands of protagonists?

MMOs are popular, not because they're better than single player RPGs, but because they have a good gimmick. To the hardcore fan, the single player, turn based, often tactical CRPG is obviously superior.

Re:Trend in the industry?

And CRPGS are watered down PNP RPGS. How can you have a huge quest in front of you, but instead end up terrorizing the towns people and never get on to the actual quest in a CRPG? Maybe that was just indicative of my play group, but we hardly ever found the actual quest, but still had fun.

Re:Trend in the industry?

Actually, I was just thinking the same thing for the opposite reason. MMOs have a watered down grinding gameplay, they can't match the depth and complexity of a single player RPG.

Actually it's a little of both.
Single player MMO play is horrible, they have stories and gameplay about as complex as what you'd find on an Atari 2600.
"Raid" co-op type gameplay is very complex, in depth, and more interesting; though not necessarily more fun, depends greatly on implementation.

How can you have a good 'teenage kid discovers he's the chosen one and saves the universe' story, when there are thousands of protagonists?

Why does everybody need to be "the chosen one"? Han Solo had a pretty interesting time, characters who weren't Frodo had important roles in LOTR. So long as each character has a unique and interesting heroic path their stories can make them compelling heroes.
In fact you don't even need to be a hero, there was a large fanbase for SWG because it was a good sandbox game. Roleplaying doesn't necessarily mean playing a hero, just look at all the people who roleplay in forums without stats and numbers. Good roleplaying can just take the form of adopting a different character from yourself, just look at all the folks at the renaissance festival, sometimes it's fun being random serf #214.

MMOs are popular, not because they're better than single player RPGs, but because they have a good gimmick. To the hardcore fan, the single player, turn based, often tactical CRPG is obviously superior.

MMOs are popular because of their communities. For many it's socializing online, with a neat little goal for you and your friends to work towards.

WTF is the summary on about?

So I'm reading the summary, and as I see that TFA is about a planned KOTOR MMO, I noice there's a blockquote (apparently from TFA).

Then I read the blockquote. It refers only to previously released games. WTF? Can't you at least give us something about the planned MMO in the summary?

I don't know who you are "Zafsk" (if that's your real name), but I resist your crude attempts to force me to RTFA.

Why'd they have to ruin that?

Both KOTOR and its sequel were absolutely wonderful single-player games.

I'd been playing through KOTOR II on the PC recently (good luck achieving that on Vista; you have to replace a bunch of dlls in the game directory to get sound to work); the storyline, the influence system, everything is just absolutely spectacular.

I'd really hate to see it become another crappy MMO; I just want to be able to sit down at the end of the day and pretend to be a leet Jedi for a while. Turning that into an MMO really ruins that if you don't have the time to commit to the damn thing.

Bioware MMO?

One of my favorite things about Baldur's Gate and KOTOR was the fact that it was single player. I've played my fair share of multiplayer games and MMOs, but sometimes you just want to play a game where the whole universe revolves around you. Where your actions alone determines the fate of the world. Those are the kind of games that Bioware makes and I kind of think they were forced to make this MMO because EA wants a piece of Blizzard's pie. Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing what Bioware manages to comes up with.

Re:Difference?

more importantly, which one(s) feature a planet full of jar jars and the ability to rip off their heads and shit down their necks after a slow and painful death involving pliers and sodomy?

Re:Difference?

That of course assumes that the SPORE Penis monsters don't get them first.

Re:Difference?

So there's a chance I can kill Jar Jar's great great great great great great great great great great grandfather and make it so the prequels never happened? This really could be a WOW killer, it would be the most popular MMO in history if that was an option.

Re:Difference?

Please provide links to info for all the other Star Wars MMO games in development by or licensed out by Lucasarts?

The only other Star Wars games I know of in the works are NOT MMO games.

Re:

Well, the training is one thing, but you also have to run a bazillion errands on the wookie home world where you have to watch the same cut scene at least 6 times.

That's a real midichlorian booster.

Re:The second one was not critically acclaimed

There was an ending on the second game?

I don't remember an ending at all. You just fly off into the nebula and then

Re:The second one was not critically acclaimed

Lucasarts should really have had its arse whipped for the state of the game.

Lucas should really have his arse whipped for the state of the franchise. FTFY

Re:The second one was not critically acclaimed

Now theres an EA slogan "Its just a game"!!!!