BioWare Targeting Spring 2011 For Star Wars: The Old Republic Launch 82
MTV's Multiplayer blog reports on comments from BioWare employee Sean Dahlberg, which indicate that they are aiming to release the game in spring 2011. He said, "While we have not announced a specific date, we can confirm that we are targeting a spring 2011 release for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We've got a lot of exciting updates and reveals planned throughout 2010, including the first-ever hands-on testing for the game. ... We can't wait to share more about the game with you as we progress through the year, so make sure you stay tuned to the official website for details." Recent posts to the game's developer blog provide details on the Imperial Agent and the Jedi Knight. They also released a video which gives insight into their design process for the Dark Side.
But I want an MMO (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree, it's too bad they didn't do more single player with it, but I'd like a cool Sci-Fi MMO too. Hopefully this will end up being it. MMOs are fun in a different way than single player RPGs. Neither is better or worse, just different and I like both. Well, there's been some good single player Sci-Fi RPGs, but no good SCi-Fi MMOs.
Also it isn't as though everything has to be an MMO. Note that since they've announced this Bioware has released Dragon Age and is going to release Mass Effect 2, both single player RPGs. It isn't as though Bioware has said "Fuck all other markets, we are MMO only!" No, they just want to get in on the MMO action. Personally, I'm very hopeful their offering will be a lot of fun.
The choice of KOTOR for the MMO also makes sense. It was done quite some time ago (they've been working on this since long before it was publicly announced) and they didn't have the Mass Effect universe to use. Plus people love Star Wars, having a popular universe helps. Lucasarts was also looking for someone to do a new Starwars MMO. They'd given the original one to Sony thinking that Sony would do a good job since at the time they had one of the few successful long running MMOs out there (Everquest). However Sony is retarded and they ran it in to the ground.
At any rate, I'm excited to see it. I like the Starwars universe and I could go form some Sci-Fi in my MMOs. I've gotten a little tired of WoW and nothing else has held my interest.
Re:No Star Wars game will ever compare to TIE FIGH (Score:3, Interesting)
Having played those games back then, I personally would have given preference to X-Wing over Wing Commander 3. Not in story, but just in raw gameplay. Both were good games though. I did REALLY like Wing Commander Privateer though which was a more open ended pirate/trading game in the spirit of Elite.
I must say though that as far as combat and story went, I much preferred Descent Freespace over either X-Wing or WC. Very engaging story and good engine.
I really find it kinda sad that space sims as a genre have kinda died out. That was by far my most played type of game "back in the day". There's still some open source ones that are out and available, but nothing really like a complete and polished studio game.
Re:IMPERIAL Agent & Old REPUBLIC (Score:4, Interesting)
The Knights of the Old Republic setting is set WAY WAY before all of the movies. This was done because Lucas is a moron and they want to stay as far away from that shit as possible. The Star Wars setting is hardly the most awesome setting out there. It has massive gaping planet sized holes in it in terms of coherency. That said, whatever it lacks in terms of being good is made up for the fact that it is extremely recognizable with a large following, and it is a pretty "fun" universe. Who needs consistent technology when you have freaking laser swords and magic?
Personally, I great this MMORPG with a yawn. I am filled to the brim with skepticism that any major production MMORPG is going to be more than a grindfest with gameplay directly ripped off from Everquest 1 and Diku MUDs before that. Woo, killing shit to gain levels to kill more shit. Thanks guys, I'll stick to real drugs. At least those are fun and not so damaging to your social life.
I think at some point someone is going to grow a pair and come up with some innovative MMORPG game play in a major MMORPG production. Star Wars Galaxies was actually pretty close originally in terms trying something different. It failed to be sure, but a few failures are what it will likely take to get out of this mind numbingly dull funk that MMORPGs are in right now where they are all glorified Everquest clones. Yes, I include WoW has a glorified Everquest clone. Don't get me wrong, they do it better than Everquest, but they do it in the same way that Quake did FPS better than Doom. Different cosmetics and refinement of the formula, but they are essentially the same beast. There are other things you can do when you have a few thousand people logged into the world besides grind and do some mini games.