KOTOR….O? – Officially confirming the already Official?

A not so long time to come, in an announcement half-already made…

We’re going to get the ‘official’ announcement that Bioware and Lucasarts have tied the knot to make a KOTOR mmorpg!  I’m actually really excited about the potential here, despite my dislike for the actual KOTOR games.  I could never get into the combat or the style of the games, sorry.  Graev’s a fan though.   Hopefully they don’t remain tight-lipped about the mechanics of the game for long.  I want to know right away whether or not it will be worth following the game.

I’ll be looking for certain ‘tells’ in the announcement and as the development of the game progresses I’ll be looking for whether or not it’s going to be a flop or a success.  As always, I’m getting my hopes up that this one will go the distance and ignite a mix of DAOC, SWG, and EQ for me.   I don’t know why I do it to myself – I really don’t.

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  • Not to sound cliche’ , but if anyone can pull off a Star wars MMO, it’s got to be Bioware.

    I’ll be following this one for sure.

  • I never played the second one, but I thought the first one was excellent. The beauty of KOTOR is they can be wide open- I always thought trying to shoehorn a MMO around the Star Wars story was a stupid idea.

  • lol I hear ya Keen. I swear I build myself up soooo much for AoC, WAR, etc. and then after a few weeks I find myself looking for the next big thing, I think I may have some kind of medical condition mmoitus?

  • KOTOR is among my favorite rpgs along with Fallout(1/2) and Baldurs Gate(1/2 + expansions). So an MMO for it would be cool but I personally dont think its a good idea. I mean, theres already been one Star Wars MMO. another one just seems like overkill to me.

  • @Skeloli remember that that Star Wars MMO sucks and royally pissed off Star Wars fans (and fans of the game) after the NGE. Most F2P games have more subs then SWG.

  • @Zeev yes, SWG did piss star wars fans off, including me and having another star wars MMO to have my hopes shattered just doesn’t sound ideal to me. Either way, overkill or not, im still anticipating a good game. Only because Bioware rarely fails. unless you count jade empire, which wasn’t as good as their past RPGs imo.

  • Where did that image come from?

    I don’t consider that ‘announcement’ by the EA CEO anything as it is completely un-corroborated. Anything Bioware makes I will likely buy, this is no exception.

  • So…. what % of the population will be HK-Assassin bots? I’m going with 65% 🙂

    Playing a Mandalorian would be pretty tough to pass up too though. Will be fun following this games development. Bioware is a solid gamemaker, be cool to see what they might bring to the MMO world.

  • Yes, that’s the invite that went out to press as an invitation to attend the unveiling.

    I’m looking forward to this because I think it has the ABILITY to go places that perhaps SWG never did. I also hope that they gloss it up and make it feel high budget, but at the same time they NEED to stick with solid and time-tested mmorpg mechanics. Great ideas can be destroyed with one poor decision. Trying to break the mold too drastically or take the game in a direction that appeals to a mass-market will destroy the game for me. I can just imagine it being like Guild Wars or Age of Conan … I would die a little inside.

  • IMO, SWG was placed in the wrong time for a MMO. Lord of the Rings suffers the same problem. You should not place the timeframe of a game in the middle of a pre-existing epic story. Players should be able to become the Epic heroes. Not pre-defined NPCs. What is worse is that no matter what the players do the story has already been written. No matter what you did in SWG you know that the end was predetermined.

    Also for Star Wars, people want to play Jedi, so you need to place the game at a time where you can have lots of Jedi. So Knights of the Old Republic era is much more open for the players themselves to become the epic heroes.

    Bioware’s strength is in writing good stories. Game play in their games has been good and solid but usually very simple.

    I am curious to watch how this develops.

  • Gustavef has some very good points and Bioware has often had stories as a forte. I would love this if it became strategic in some way. We’ll have to wait and see.

  • I’m quite exited for a few reasons;

    First of all, I love Star Wars! I love to be able to wave with a lightsaber, I just love the sound of the lightsaber moving in the air, I love about everything that has to do with a lightsaber!!

    Sadly though, there will be two possible outcomes on that statement:

    1#: There will be some sort of Jedi class, and guess what? It will be WAY OVERPOPULATED! I’ll bet over 80% of the server will roll Jedi! And that kills it for me, no matter how much I love to be able to use a lightsaber, playing a overpopulated class is NEVER fun in my opinion.

    2#: There wont be a Jedi class because BioWare knows that would make about everyone rolling one, so then there is no chance of me becoming a Jedi..

    Perhaps they figure out something very smart, like you have to do something really special in the game for being allowed a lightsaber, but still something like that would make 80% of the server doing that special thing.

    And to be honest, playing Star Wars without a lightsaber isn’t that much fun, because I will be running around and be thinking of that lightsaber ALL THE TIME!

    In KOTOR and KOTOR2 I could barely wait for my lightsaber, the fourmost thing that made me keep playing was the thought of me soon getting a lightsaber!

    Of course KOTOR is one of the best RPG-games ever made, KOTOR2 isn’t that bad either, but that whole lightsaber thing just made it perfect for me!

    Playing a Star Wars MMO without a lightsaber? NO WAY!

    I think this might become a huge success, a Star Wars MMO will get lots of players just because of the fact that it’s Star Wars! A lot will buy it just because it’s Bioware, whom really haven’t made any bad games ever? Jade Empire have to be the most dissapointing one, but still their worst game is in my opinion worthy of a 8 / 10, which says quite a lot!

    Bioware, along with Sports Interactive and Blizzard are by far the best developers in the world in my opinion, Blizzard have yet to develop a game I don’t like, they also got that certain quality over all their games, the same with Bioware and Sports Interactive!

    So I’m quite convinced that this game has to be good, the core if this game will be GREAT. I’m just wondering how Bioware is going to handle the whole MMO-thing, they have never done MMO before? And RPGs and MMORPGs are to different things!

    But Bioware have proven themselves to be one of the very best developers in the world, they have never failed and makes the best game stories ever! And as I really love Star Wars, and the fact that Bioware are so good as they are I can’t really see how this is going to fail, the romours about this game has been around for ages so it seems like the game has been under developing for quite a while, so it’s not seeming to be rushed either? Bioware never rushes anything though, but as they now are a part of EA it wouldn’t suprise me if EA are pushing them quite hard.

    I’m really exited! This might be the next big thing!

  • SWG Failed because “everyone is a jedi lol”. Which was the natural end result. everyone playing wants to be a jedi.

    But this concept could work in kotor, since, well, everyone is a bleedin’ jedi.

  • The trick is to make sure Jedi are not uber by the fact of being Jedi. Sure 1-on-1 Master Jedi were almost unstopable. But Get enough clones and you can only deflect so many blasters at once. And not everyone is a Master Jedi.

    There is enough room in the canon to make sure that jedi are not then end of everything.

  • The real trick is to make Jedi classes instead of just one Jedi class. Like in the first two games, where you can be a Jedi specializing in various things.

    This shouldn’t be an issue and I imagine this is what they will do. Jedi and Sith are numerous in the KOTOR era, the main problem with SWG besides it being down right crappy… was the era. Not many people I know want to play a Star Wars game to be anything but a Jedi.

    BioWare hasn’t let me down since I started playing their games, and I have high expectations for this.

  • umm well they could jsut amke everyone jedis…ordark jedis like the kotor games you end up a jedi in the end in them why not in the mmo version?

  • Well in SWG, being a Jedi was wrong, cause the ones that still existed after the Jedi Purge, were Deeeeeeep into Hiding, not sparring in Coruscant.. But KOTOR.. Old Republic timeframe, long way befor the Rise of the Empire can sustain that many Jedi.

  • How many of you have actually played Kotor? There are “other classes” in that game. Droid and human alike. There could be mine setting engineers, gunners, ship captains, etc.. Jedi’s cannot deflect much other than small blaster fire. Big blaster fire will just clobber them. And thermal detonators and such work great on em. There’s lots of options. Sticky grenades and personal shields anyone?

  • Thallian, I never felt as though any of the non-jedi characters were as powerful as the jedi characters.

    Although I can see a boba fett style fellow after watching the duel with obi wan in attack of the clones 😉

    Anyway, even if 100% of PC’s are jedi, it doesn’t matter. There are lots of ways to make a jedi, and I’m sure we’ll see some standard melee/healer/ranged class types.

  • If I had to guess I would say that most of the classes will be jedi therefore there isn’t one jedi class that everyone will be. Have those of you bitchin and moaning about “Everyone will be jedi!QQ!” even played the KOTOR games?

    Its not so hard to have different classes that are all jedi. For example melee tanks and dps can be your jedi that are primarily lightsaber fighters while ranged dps and heals can be your jedi that fight primarily with force powers. This is how I built my characters in KOTOR at least.

    I suppose they might have some non jedi classes but I dont see them making more than a few. Possibly droid assassin, medic/engineer or bounty hunter. I honestly didn’t use non-jedi in my groups much in KOTOR though so I have a feeling they won’t waste much time developing non jedi classes since most will want to play a jedi character.

    On a side note, they might not even have u pick a class at the beginning. Maybe you start off as Joe Schmoe with a blaster and the decisions u make in game eventually mold you into what your “class” will be. Most new MMO’s aren’t breaking away from the mold of picking your class at the beginning though so I would be surprised to see a skill based system or some other alternative to a class system.