Why do I care that it's an MMO?

[Dan.Willcocks]

Hey,

 

The game looks awesome, I'm always really excited about anything some comes from the pens of these guys. But the question that I keep asking myself is: Why is this an MMO?

 

This seems to have been asked lightly a few places on these forums but I couldn't find a solid answer so I really wanted to ask it very plainly and see what people come up with.

 

So, my question again is: If we took SWTOR offline and now all that you could do is experience the individual single player components. What do you think we'd lose? i.e. what parts of this game are we going to be paying a monthly subscription for? Will they be worth it?

 

Any thoughts would be great.

 

- Daniel.

[Davin Starr]

Personally, I think it sucks that it's only going to be an MMO. There are those of us who don't play online games, prefering the single player, offline games instead of having a monthy fee to make some company rich for the privledge of purchasing and playing their game. It's a trend that has alienated some players like myself from being able to fully enjoy some of the new games coming out on the market, hense resulting in how much lost revenue for the developers of said games? Personally, I believe it should be purely optional, not a requirement. (Steps down off his soapbox)

[Demongo]

I have played 3 MMOs so far and EVERY single-player game was better than them imo. I think we lose lots of fun because it's an MMO.

[Hallucination]

Personally, I think it sucks that it's only going to be an MMO. There are those of us who don't play online games, prefering the single player, offline games instead of having a monthy fee to make some company rich for the privledge of purchasing and playing their game. It's a trend that has alienated some players like myself from being able to fully enjoy some of the new games coming out on the market, hense resulting in how much lost revenue for the developers of said games? Personally, I believe it should be purely optional, not a requirement. (Steps down off his soapbox)

It is optional, you have option A) Subscribe to the game and play or B) Don't.

[Astor]

At first, I was firmly in the 'this sucks' camp, but as I've read and seen more, my opinions on the game have changed, and i'm willing to give it a chance.

 

I'm willing to look past the fact that it is an MMO, provided I enjoy the game. As long as the subscription fee is acceptable based on the experience I have, then I probably won't mind paying it.

 

Of course, if it does suck, I won't waste my time playing (and paying) it.

[darthfergie]

Look I understand that KOTOR and KOTORII were great games. I spent a lot of hours in those games. Thing is, I was spending that time by myself.

 

I couldn't spend that time with my wife, with my friends, etc. So you end up dropping time playing your core RPG to go do some WiiPlay with the wife or some TF2 online with friends in another state.

 

MMOs join all the forces. It allows you to spend time with each other, learn about each other, and explore your favorite universe together.

 

Yeah single player RPGs are fun, but they arn't nearly as dynamic as an RPG run by multiple players.

 

Also with a single player RPG you may get a hundred hours or more if you play it over again. With the MMO, you're not talking in hours anymore. You're talking years of playtime. It's taking that attachment you've built with your character and letting you continue its story.

 

That's why I care it's MMO.

[Prime]

If they can get the singleplayer/story-ish aspects working as they claim, the MMO server model will allow for a much larger world to play in, which is quite exciting, methinks.

[DAWUSS]

There's more you can do with a SP game, especially in terms of mods. In an SP game, the end game content is provided by the player, while in an MMO the end game content is provided by the developer.

 

Also, the PC in a SP game is a lot different than the PC in an MMO.

 

OTOH, playing with other people should make worlds feel more alive.

 

The monthly fees suck, though.

[TheRogueForums]

At first, I was firmly in the 'this sucks' camp, but as I've read and seen more, my opinions on the game have changed, and i'm willing to give it a chance.

 

I'm willing to look past the fact that it is an MMO, provided I enjoy the game. As long as the subscription fee is acceptable based on the experience I have, then I probably won't mind paying it.

 

Of course, if it does suck, I won't waste my time playing (and paying) it.

 

My thoughts, exactly. I will give it a chance.

[lukeiamyourdad]

First off, been an MP player for years. I like the socializing aspect of it all. Even with strangers, a good game of UT2k4 or BF2, with some nice and fun chatting, beats sitting alone playing an SP only game.

 

That doesn't mean an SP game isn't good in my eyes. Think of it this way...

 

SP is like reading a book. You can't really read a book with a group of friends. You can however, watch a movie with a group of friends.

 

Some people prefer reading books, others watching movies.

 

TOR is like a movie. It's ok alone, but better with friends!

 

I'm doubting a bit about TOR succeeding at the ''MMO'' part of MMORPG, but oh well.

 

Personally, I think it sucks that it's only going to be an MMO. There are those of us who don't play online games, prefering the single player, offline games instead of having a monthy fee to make some company rich for the privledge of purchasing and playing their game. It's a trend that has alienated some players like myself from being able to fully enjoy some of the new games coming out on the market, hense resulting in how much lost revenue for the developers of said games? Personally, I believe it should be purely optional, not a requirement. (Steps down off his soapbox)

 

This is how it works...some games are made purely for SP (think Oblivion), some games have both (think...errr...Halo?) and some are made for MP (think Unreal Tournament or Battlefield series).

 

You will not fully enjoy an MP-designed game if you're alone blowing up bots or something.

 

There's more you can do with a SP game, especially in terms of mods. In an SP game, the end game content is provided by the player, while in an MMO the end game content is provided by the developer.

 

I don't think there's inherently more you can do and that endgame being provided by the player is a better thing then being provided by the developer.

 

Modding is too unreliable to be an incentive to buy a game. The game has to be popular and be easy to mod. What if it flops? What if the developers do not provide the tools for easy modding? Would games like Oblivion or Unreal Tournament have as many great mods if they were obscure?

 

 

 

Final note: Why is there such a feeling of uneasiness towards a certain genre? Sure, people rightly prefer one genre over another, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a game just because it's not exactly the type that fits you. Sure, I'm more comfy in the world of FPS or RPGs, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a rhythm game or a good platformer. Keep your minds open to the art of gaming

[jrrtoken]

SP is like reading a book. You can't really read a book with a group of friends. You can however, watch a movie with a group of friends.

When I watch a movie, I keep silent, and I expect all of my other "friends" and anyone else to keep quiet, lest they incur my wrath. So, the analogy equates to a typically non-social activity to an indirectly social one.

TOR is like a movie. It's ok alone, but better with friends!

But, if the movie sucks, then why should I see it, unless if I simply want me all of my "friends" to satire it?

You will not fully enjoy an MP-designed game if you're alone blowing up bots or something.

On the contrary, there's a plethora of MP-only games that only feature that...

Final note: Why is there such a feeling of uneasiness towards a certain genre?

If the genre in question wasn't a complete cash-in, designed to reel in the player's money with a repetitive reward-based formula, then I'd have no qualms. Unfortunately, I do.

Sure, people rightly prefer one genre over another, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a game just because it's not exactly the type that fits you.

Of course. This isn't the point here, however. We're talking about the cancellation of K3, a single-player RPG, with the intent of producing an MMO, in an attempt to win over to genre fans and their monies. It's pigeon-holing one group to win over another; plain and simple.

 

Maybe if MMOs weren't watered down SPRPGs, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. Maybe if MMOs didn't charge a ridiculous amount of money for little physical product, then I'd feel content. Maybe if there was both a KotOR MMO and a single-player K3, then I'd have no qualms with simply playing K3 and ignoring the MMO, while leaving others to pick and choose. Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world...

[minus0ne]

The more I see of this the more I'm getting the feeling that this is going to pale in comparison with KOTOR 1 & 2, and everything we've seen so far has a very generic feel to it, like most of this game is going to consist of "go there, kill that" gameplay. It even looks worse than KOTOR (not that I'd care if the gameplay made up for it, but I don't see that happening).

 

I was naive to think BioWare would make this as good as a single player KOTOR game (which I also foolishly took to mean it wouldn't be subscription based), but time will tell I guess. At the moment they're making every attempt to woo WoW-players, and I'm losing interest fast.

[darthfergie]

How does this look worse than KOTOR?

It has bigger, more expansive environments that look incredible. Just look at Coruscant. KOTOR did a good job of capturing a planet like feel, but at the same time it was very linear in how to navigate the world. SWTOR won't be nearly that brand of linear and because of that there is more to explore and more to enjoy.

 

As for the gameplay, sure there may be some kill quests, but then again the quest we saw on the frigate looked NOTHING like a kill quest. It might have started off with your dark Lord just joining the frigate for the attack and the commander getting spooked with you being there and attempting to knock you out of the picture. You then get pissed and take down his crew.

 

The devs have repeatedly stated they want to take a lot of the mundane activity out of the MMO world. Sure we've seen characters attacking generic NPCs, at least to us they look generic. But while in the game they might be a part of a swoop gang that a BH was hired to capture the commander of that gang. Or they might be a bunch of mob men after your smuggler's enterprise.

 

We havn't gotten to see any of the backstories so far, but everyone wants to say it's all kill quests? We havn't gotten to see any characters or abilities over basically lvl 10, but everyone wants to say it looks terrible and boring?

 

Chill out people and wait to see some actual gameplay.

[Jan Gaarni]

When I watch a movie, I keep silent, and I expect all of my other "friends" and anyone else to keep quiet, lest they incur my wrath. So, the analogy equates to a typically non-social activity to an indirectly social one.

 

It all comes down to the movie really. I hardly believe you would keep quiet while watching a comedy.

And you would laugh even harder if you are watching it with friends rather than all alone. So the analogy sticks.

[jrrtoken]

How does this look worse than KOTOR?

First and foremost, repetitive quests. All I saw was dungeon crawling and fedexing tasks dressed up as something revolutionary. Of course, all SPRPGs have this, but they're usually interlaced with branching end results or *something* that makes them fairly interesting. Unfortunately I haven't seen that yet.

It has bigger, more expansive environments that look incredible.

Oblivion and Fallout 3 had large, open-ended environments, but that doesn't make them good games.

Just look at Coruscant. KOTOR did a good job of capturing a planet like feel, but at the same time it was very linear in how to navigate the world.

Coruscant wasn't in KotOR...

 

Even then, other city-based planets in both K1 & 2 were definitely non-linear. Most included a "hub" module, along with other companion modules adjoined to it. You could freely walk around Manaan and Nar Shaddaa and would never be "boxed in" by the main quest. (To a certain extent, however)

As for the gameplay, sure there may be some kill quests, but then again the quest we saw on the frigate looked NOTHING like a kill quest.

Uh, no. It might have started out as a diplomacy-esque romp (With not much diplomacy, however), but after that, the PC was tasked to STOP THE REPUBLIC INVADERS!!!. The party then proceeded to run across the ship and kill everything in sight. So, yeah, it was definitely not a grindfest.

It might have started off with your dark Lord just joining the frigate for the attack and the commander getting spooked with you being there and attempting to knock you out of the picture. You then get pissed and take down his crew.

...which you then proceed to murder the Republic anyway. Somehow, I feel that sparing the captain would lead to the same result: stopping the Republic boarding party.

The devs have repeatedly stated they want to take a lot of the mundane activity out of the MMO world. Sure we've seen characters attacking generic NPCs, at least to us they look generic. But while in the game they might be a part of a swoop gang that a BH was hired to capture the commander of that gang. Or they might be a bunch of mob men after your smuggler's enterprise.

You're missing the point: It's not about who you fight, but the entire reason thereof. I'd rather have several options that didn't resort to direct combat. (Diplomacy, extrotion, "creative" kills, etc.)

We havn't gotten to see any of the backstories so far, but everyone wants to say it's all kill quests? We havn't gotten to see any characters or abilities over basically lvl 10, but everyone wants to say it looks terrible and boring?

The demo was meant to represent the game in a brief amount of time; I admit that we haven't seen everything, and it's still too early to cast full judgment, but from what we've seen, it's all very dull to me. The gameplay pales in comparison to even K1, which didn't bring about a completely new watershed in game design.

 

Think of it this way: I liked the KotOR series, and I thought that both games were quite good in adapting the Star Wars franchise to an RPG. I liked most of the quests, most of the dialogue was adequately to amazingly well-written, and of course, the feeling it tried to endow on you was well-executed. Now, I'm left without a K3, and I'm given TOR, an MMO, as a continuation of the series. I was never fond of MMOs to start, but once I learned that TOR would feature more single-player elements, I got my hopes up. Until I saw the gameplay demo, that is. I saw things that made both KotORs look flawless in comparison. Naturally, I'm bound to be disappointed...

 

Chill out people and wait to see some actual gameplay.

Funny, I thought we already did...

[Jeff]

Uh, no. It might have started out as a diplomacy-esque romp (With not much diplomacy, however), but after that, the PC was tasked to STOP THE REPUBLIC INVADERS!!!. The party then proceeded to run across the ship and kill everything in sight. So, yeah, it was definitely not a grindfest. ...which you then proceed to murder the Republic anyway. Somehow, I feel that sparing the captain would lead to the same result: stopping the Republic boarding party.

I'm not going to respond to everything, but I will just say that having seen both ways that the demo could have played out, it did lead to the same ends: fighting the republic and killing the Jedi. The means to get there was different though and your choice will have impact later down the line.

[darthfergie]

That's quite a quote storm PastramiX.

 

The gameplay we have seen is one segment of a quest chain here, another segment there. They've shown us only one decision point period. How do we know there arn't decision points for diplomacy, extortion, etc? Bioware has stated that the Smuggler is a great negotiator. We've seen maybe an hour of gameplay that was limited on purpose to not show anything more exciting than "See Jim blow stuff up. Jim dances!" We're missing hundreds of hours of gameplay. It's like judging a game based on the game manual, and even then we still have less information available than will actually go into said game manual.

 

That's why I say, chill out and wait for some actual gameplay.

[lukeiamyourdad]

:confused:On the contrary, there's a plethora of MP-only games that only feature that...

 

Eh forgot about coop games, but you get the point.

 

If the genre in question wasn't a complete cash-in, designed to reel in the player's money with a repetitive reward-based formula, then I'd have no qualms. Unfortunately, I do.Of course.

 

MP games are repetitive by nature. I played the same Omaha Beach map in BF1942 countless times. I used the same tactic in UT2k4 countless times with the Flak cannon.

 

Now, they're cashing in with DLCs to provide more content for shooters. They even do it for SPRPGs (starting famously...or infamously...with Oblivion). Honestly, I don't see it as much of a problem. The cost of producing a game is rising and well, the era of freebies can't last.

 

And mods are not free either. Well, technically they are since you can't sell them, but you need a place to host them and that costs something. So some person is kind enough to volunteer time and energy for the mod and some people are kind enough to host it.

 

 

Open-ended or non-linear?:

 

Although Oblivion featured large open-ended areas, they were scarcely populated and made you feel...alone...more then everything. Sometimes, it's good and realistic such as the large forests, but the cities were underpopulated. They lacked any sort of life to them, from the remote towns in the mountains to the Imperial city that's supposed to be a metropolis.

 

Realistically, everyone has house and a place to stay, so no NPC is "just there". However, it has the downside of making the population of Cyrodiil ridiculously small. The "epic" defense of Bruma involved around 10 soldiers...epic indeed.

 

KotOR had it better with non-linear small areas that concentrated on quests. Unlike Oblivion, almost everything had a purpose. Every area you went to had something there, unlike Oblivion's empty spaces (no, the one-hundredth generic cave with generic monsters doesn't count). Areas bristling with life are bristling with life, areas devoid of life were devoid of life.

However, the downside was that areas were very small and the game concentrated on only a fraction of the planet. Though it makes sense for some of them, a planet like Nar Shaddaa was so tiny in TSL when it's supposed to be so large. The same can be said for Taris. An explorer like myself never had a good fix with KotOR.

 

WoW (yes, an MMO), I think struck a better balance between large open areas and their feel then Oblivion did, making them not too large and always properly populated. It was great to explore.

 

 

Killing generic-random guys:

 

I'm sorry, but the KotOR games made you kill a lot of nameless critters and individuals. There were many instances where you did things differently, but as far as I know, I can least an equal number of instances where there's no avoiding combat.

 

Just listing a few...

 

-Taris Lower City: No parlays with Rakghouls, you just killed them.

-Lower City Sewers: You wiped out all the Gammorreans.

-Vulkar Base: You killed everyone in the base unless you decide to betray the Beks, which makes you kill everyone in the Bek base. Either way, you killed a lot of generic NPCs.

-Davik's estate: You killed everyone there including Davik and including the first death of Calo Nord. You cannot avoid it.

-Encounters with Sith: On every planet, you encounter Sith that are sent to kill you and even if you try to convert them, you end up fighting and killing them.

 

And that's just a few, before the famous Star Forge final level which involved no parlays whatsoever and just killing, up to Bastila's chambers.

[Xu Kaiwen]

I think we all know the main weakness of mmos: too many levels to gain, too much exp to grind, too long of a gear grind, and repetitive, meaningless quests. MMO makers do this because they want people to keep paying subscriptions.

 

That's especially true compared to single player games where the gear and level you have is always good enough (partially because you don't have to compare with the other Jedi) and the quests have meaning.

 

The strength of mmo's is pretty straightforward, too: playing with friends and family.

 

Right now I'm giving TOR the benefit of the doubt--that they will do what they promise they will do--give us meaningful quests and a fun story. Heck, they are apparently promising us EIGHT fun stories, not just one. We'll see how that pans out.

 

If they succeed in giving us multiple Bioware quality stories, then I think I'm willing to pay $50-$60 for the initial purchase and then whatever other fee until I play out all the stories. Think about it. In KotOR, you got one very good story to play from two angles. That was worth $50. Imagine eight. Imagine eight multiplied by at least two because of the branching paths.

 

Of course, that's a big "if." Here's hoping Bioware delivers.

 

"If" they do deliver, then I'm looking forward to playing those eight stories with friends that make me laugh.

 

I'm curious about how they will approach the grind issue. Here's to hoping we naturally hit max level just by playing the main story and interesting side-plots, like in KotOR. I also hope (perhaps beyond hope) that Bioware realizes that if they actually write eight good stories, they won't need to add grind to keep people paying subscriptions.

[Tommycat]

Well I look at it like this: (I swear I answered this before....)

 

The MMO aspect allows more content than could be reasonably placed on a DVD or two. It allows for far more quests and being a part of the world. Sure you're not THE guy. But you do get to do a whole heck of a lot more.

 

Content is constantly added and updated. About the time you finish specific content, you are ready for the latest update.

 

If this game were to be released on disks it would be TOR:Bounty Hunter, TOR:Smuggler, TOR:Trooper etc. It'd be so many fragmented games. Patching would be a nightmare. Good luck getting updates NEARLY as often as with an MMO. When was the last update to Mass Effect again?

 

Think of it like TSL. Imagine if they didn't have to stop development and rush the game out for Christmas. Or after they released it they would provide content updates. That whole TSLRP would be wholly unnecessary. They would have just fixed it and pushed it out in the next content patch. If a quest is broken, you can call a GM out to fix the part of the quest that's broken. You wouldn't be stuck with a broken game for months waiting for the developer to provide a fix. Assuming the daveloper actually provides a fix.

 

Then there's the community reward. When I played SWG, I was recognized. Respected. FEARED(well ok, I wasn't feared... bullet magnets are rarely feared). But the reality is that I made a name for myself. How many Revans are there. What did they do to earn the Darth Revan name. Nothing... they played the same game as the rest of us. Got the same back story. became the same character. A jedi remade from a fallen Revan... Everyone's story is the same. Which is ok since you aren't sharing that story with another player. But the stories of how I got titles of varrying flattery in SWG are completely different than the stories of others.

 

What's the longest single player game's content? 160 ours? 200? heck even at 400 hours MMO's have them beat. Simply because most people don't have object oriented databases on their home machines with the ability to store petabytes of data.

[Robb Stark]

Nearly every player in an MMO is playing a person controlling a game character rather than "becoming" the character like you can in a single-player game. When people are talking about being "attached" to their character in an MMO it is in the same way as someone who, say, gets attached to an antique car he has worked on fixing up for a decade of his life or gets attached to an action figure collection.

 

You are proud of your MMO character because of the weeks/months/years of work you put into him and the proof of your effort in your character's stats, gear, and achievements. Good MMOs excel in the practice of stimulating the effort->reward mechanism of the human psyche.

 

MMOs promote power-gaming. All this high talk about being able to earn "respect" from other players is nice but it swings the other way too. It requires a massive commitment of time and a streamlining of character build and gear to achieve popular respect (unless you're delusional enough to convince yourself that other people in the game worship you when you haven't actually earned it). In an MMO character build is no longer just a fun intellectual exercise like it is in KotOR where any build can successfully complete the game but instead becomes a mathematical reality - if your character is not built and/or geared in such a way that it can compete with other characters of your class, you will earn the reputation of being a bad player, reducing the likelihood that you will be invited to participate successfully in group-oriented content.

 

The play-time aspect also has a dual-nature. Yes, a single character in an MMO can give you thousands of hours of enjoyment, yet not everyone has or desires to spend that much time to experience the physical and story-based content of a game. Single-player games can be broken out like a novel on a rainy or cold weekend, played through from start to finis,h and then stored away again. If you take six months off from your MMO character you will find the "game" will have passed you by (to be sure, you can catch up in levels and eventually gear, but you will find it extremely difficult to find players to commit to playing through content that is no longer at the front end of progression). You essentially are forced to make a regular commitment that adds up to hundreds or thousands of hours if you wish to see the conclusion of major storylines. In addition, a large MMO like WoW might have the benefit of a large cast of characters, but, say, the Lich King storyline in the WotLK expansion is in no way structurally or thematically sounder or deeper than the plotlines of smaller single-player games like the BGs, NWNs, Deus Ex 1, or even the KotORs.

 

Role-playing in an MMO is largely an exercise in futility. The experience is ruined either by intruders who harass role-players, other role-players who are playing with a different set of "role-playing rules," or the fact that it is difficult to get enough sufficiently skilled and geared role-players together regularly to successfully complete more advanced content. Foregoing certain quests and rewards based on role-playing can have a detrimental or even crippling effect on your character (imagine a druid in WoW who refused to kill animals or a Paladin who refused to take part in "revenge killings" or aid characters with unlawful or evil intentions). An MMO is generally forced to fabricate excuses for role-players to undertake actions that are counter to the standard role-playing ideology of a given class more often than a single-player role-playing game in order to keep a character moving along in the determined path of progression.

 

Single-player games are generally designed to allow the player to make choices--as his or her character--which will affect the story and/or that character's development. They are typically easy enough that any player can experience the full extent of the story while still allowing intellectually rigorous players the opportunity to explore the combat system and min-max to their heart's content. The reward of a single-player RPG comes from completing the story and one's own broadening of his or her imagination in exploring the main character's personality and motivations.

 

I know this might come off as a condemnation of MMOs, but I don't intend it to be -- I've logged several thousand hours over various WoW toons including five 70s in TBC and four 80s in WotLK, and am quite proud of my primary raiding toon. The game has given me much enjoyment over the years and the opportunity to make friends with people with vastly different life-experiences than the ones I regularly meet in daily life.

 

But, many of the people who hang our on MMO forums are so blindly dedicated to the format that most imply that it is always superior to the single-player format in any way that should matter to players. I felt it necessary to point out that many of the cited positives could be negatives for players with other gaming objectives and that those differing objectives doesn't necessarily make those players crybabies losers as many MMOers choose to believe.

[Tobias Reiper]

I read on the site that a large part of the game can be done by yourself, and you can turn off chat options and such if you really, really, don't want anything to do with anyone.

So I guess all the haters can just turn it off and pretend the players walking by are just NPCS, and everyone wins.

[Deft Aklin]

Why an MMO?

 

Simply put, money. Why would a team design a game they make $50 off of one time when they can make a game they can make $50 today and $15 every month for the life of the player's interest in it?

 

What do we gain as players of said game?

 

1) More support than your stereotypical single player game. The developers will be constantly trying to fix bugs and remedy unbalanced game mechanics for your enjoyment.

 

2) Content. The devs will constantly be adding content, events and expansions to keep the game interesting for all parties involved and to make even more money by extending the average lifespan of each account.

 

3) Social structure. We garner the ability to show off our achievements to one another and compare feats instead of simply playing by ourselves and one day saying, "Yay I beat the game. What now?" By the way, this also makes them more money, I mean, after all, who wants to leave their friends?

 

4) PvP. We get to womp on each other and flex our muscles in large scale battles. Nothing is more exciting than a large coordinated battle that lasts for hours. PvPers, amusingly, are the striving force behind much of what happens in an MMO. PvPers want to be able to dominate each other. They strive for the best stats, specs and gear. In doing so, they inflate the economy and keep raising the bar for people to aim for which; keeps people playing longer and harder... which extends the average life expectancy of each account... which.... makes the company more money.

 

 

I say a LOT in jest here, but there is a lot of truth to it. Yes, BioWare will make a killing if the game succeeds. That doesn't mean we don't get a better game for it though. If they get a million subscribers, and of those million four hundred thousand play for four years... they make a lot of money. However; they will return a portion of that revenue to make the game better for us. We will get new content, instances, abilities, and whatever other pixelated coding the developers can think up to keep the game fun and exciting. In the end, hopefully we all get a little more out of it because it was an MMO and not a single player game we play for a six months and throw aside to collect dust.

[SirRobin]

Why an MMO?...

 

Well said and I agree with just about all of it. However, the feel I am getting from the "hype" Bioware is generating isn't just MMO hype. A lot of it seems to be SP (single-player) and CC (console-coop) hype too. Its almost like Bioware is jumping up and down, wildly flailing its arms, and screaming at the legions playing World of Warcraft, "Look over here! Bioware is making an MMO! A STAR WARS MMO!!!"

 

Yet at the same time, to the regiments playing Dragon Age: Origins, they are pulling a wink wink nudge nudge "Sssure its an MMO. Its really just KotOR 3."

 

Its like Bioware is trying to appeal to the fans of their previous single-player games and fans of massive-multiplayer-online games at the same time. Previous efforts to combine the two game types, through heavy instancing, like Age of Conan and Guild Wars have not been very successful compared to the giant, World of Warcraft. Neither of those games were able to maintain anywhere near the numbers that initially purchased once they went retail.

 

This should be a big concern for Bioware because Warhammer Online's troubles showed us how Electronic Arts deals with studios that don't meet their expectations... Mythic's boss, Mark Jacobs, got fired.

 

In my opinion it would have been a lot safer for Bioware to say they were making KotOR 3 instead of an MMO. However it seems that both Lucas Arts and Electronic Arts wanted a Star Wars MMO. I just hope for the job security of Bioware's boss that they can live up to the challenge.

[Deft Aklin]

I think they learned a LOT from the SWG/SOE endeavor. People wanted more story. Craved it so much they get to make their own quests now. However, the truth of the matter is, LA and SOE tinkered too much and didn't listen to their community. If ANYTHING Blizz does with WoW, it is listen to the community. I am hoping LA brings that to BioWare and that knowledge perpetuates the game. I do like that they run questionnaires on the forums to get ideas for how certain things should operate. Let's see if they listen.