Actually...
I'm thinking it would be best if it be a Guild Wars-style RP instead of a WoW style-RP. Guild Wars is story-based/driven, but still possesses plenty of 'expanding' and PvP opportunities. It will both manage to turn the experience more KotOR-ish AND still keep it an MMO.
Oh, and imagine how cool it would be if both a 'regular' game and the online game would be simultaneously announced.
Lulz. You're gonna have a load of KotOR fans b*tchin' if the plotline doesn't involve exploring Revan's location and other, unanswered stuff (though the remake of TSL... or w/e it is they're doing... maybe actually answer some stuff), that it will simply be impossible to completely ignore it.
And how will they incorporate their battle system? Mid-fight pausing, a huge part of the gameplay, will be impossible when you're fighting against player. I wonder... well, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
I actually liked the battle system in KotOR better. Then again, I'm an RPG junkie, and there's no doubt that the system in JA is more complex and realistic... but yeah. Some of the graphics, the lack of depth of the actual styles, and the weird controls dragged the action down.
From what I see, TFU will likely be a mixture of the RotS game and JA. I'm pretty sure that it will feature the best saber fighting system to date.
I for one am completely outraged. Lucas Arts has made some big mistakes in the past (TSL comes to mind) but nothing compares with this. KotOR 2 had a definite cliffhanger ending, and the already fragile trust in LA will be shattered if the series is not completed. I will not be buying a KotOR MMO, but the instant a real KotOR 3 is released everyone I know will own it.
Originally posted by Master CrimzonStylistically? Probably. Overall? Hell no. TFU takes the RotS game's approach of treating a lightsaber like a club instead of something that burns through Space Age steel. Six hits to take out a mechanic as seen in one of the trailers is just stupid, and something the JK series avoided completely - it was possible to take out the final boss (Tavion/Katarn) with just one hit in JA, and the player could be killed in such a manner as well.
From what I see, TFU will likely be a mixture of the RotS game and JA. I'm pretty sure that it will feature the best saber fighting system to date.
Told you nublets it has probably nothing to do with the KOTOR story line its titled "Old Republic" not KOTOR 3.
From Gamespot
Game; Stars Wars MMO
Title: Some things LA has been trade marking recently...
"Star Wars The Old Republic"
"Star Wars Sagas"
"Star Wars Legends"
Setting: Probably in or near the Old Republic Era as seen in KotoR.
Maybe involving events seen in KotoR, maybe something completely different.
Publishers: EA/LA
Developer:Bioware
Game Engine:*[Simultronics'] HeroEngine
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin: We've licensed [Simultronics'] HeroEngine. It's a very good engine, and we're very impressed with it so far. "
Game Development Started: *December 2005
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin: We announced the game around March, but we'd really started on it in the beginning of December 2005."
Some core project goals: Good Story Telling, Character, Emotion, Making Decisions Matter.
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:And we can talk about the high-level goals: We basically want to bring what BioWare's famous for to the online space, and one of the things BioWare's famous for is storytelling ... and it's something that pretty well doesn't exist in the online space right now. Most "storytelling" in MMORPGs is just FedEx quests -- you know, you have to go get some eggs -- and it's presented in a format that's just a bunch of text thrown at you in paragraph for ... and that's not so exciting. We want to bring a level of storytelling that's equal to the single-player box games that BioWare has done. I think we can do that. One of the big challenges will be making our storytelling work in an environment that has multiple players."
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development:The key points that we're gonna do that no one's done before in an MMOG are bring story, character, and emotion to it. Decisions matter, and NPCs aren't pez dispensers, and you're not in a grind. You're really compelled to get on and play what's happening to day ... kind of like watching a series like Lost on TV ... putting page-turning in an MMO. It's going to be extremely challenging thing to do, believe me."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:I'm a huge story guy. I want to play in a world where I feel like I'm reading a good book, where I feel like I'm there. I have lots of fun with World of WarCraft, but it's not because of the story or characters. So if we made characters you could care about and believe in ... that would be huge.
End Game:Major focus
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:We have big plans for end-game content that we can't talk about because it's a major part of our design. We think it's a very important aspect of the game, and we don't want players to be stuck grinding through the same content over and over again -- I know when I hit level 60 in WoW, I pretty much quit. So whatever end-game model we have, it's not going to be that."
Instancing?:Likely
Dynamic Changing World?: Unlikely
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:Here's the thing -- you can't have a story that involves saving the world from the dark lord Sauron -- not that we're making a Lord of the Rings game, but I'll use LOTR as a good example. You can't stop the world from being destroyed by [Sauron], but you can do a lot of things that are personal to your character. You change how your character evolves over the game, the player's personal story -- and a player's personal story can be quite epic. It can involve parts of the world that, while they're epic, exciting, and interesting, don't change the landscape of the entire world for everyone else.
Smaug [from The Hobbit] is a good example. You can have a personal quest to kill an ancient red dragon; you can have a story that goes all the way through, and you can meet all these interesting characters, and eventually you end up killing the ancient red dragon. Other characters in the online world will know you killed a red dragon, but you haven't changed the world for them. And they can still -- especially when you use things like instances -- go on a quest that involves killing an ancient huge red dragon. We can change the player's personal story, and that gives players the sense they're having an impact on the game world. "
Quests: Focus on story driven quests
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: One thing we don't want to do is NPC Pez dispensers, as I call them -- go over there, dispense a quest, and then go "vacuum-clean" a zone. We want to make sure you listen to NPCs, because choices matter. And that's really important."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:There are lots of quests in a ****c BioWare game that would work in an online world. You'd be surprised how few wouldn't."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:That's something we don't want to encourage. We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward. Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that. "
Professions, Roles, Races, ETC.. (Also, Grouping/Solo Play: Unknown, but overall structure...
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: It's really important to have roles in an MMORPG. If you understand your role in the world, and others understand your role in the world with you, then you can get group dynamics and social behavior. [Developers] can set up interdependencies, which promote social dynamics in a game. If you don't have that, then you end up with loners ... and the world breaks down a little bit. Now, you'll be able to solo if you like in our game, that's for sure -- it's one thing that WoW proved can work. But it'll be a choice whether or not you want to group or not. You run into problems when people feel they're forced to group up or raid to get somewhere in the game."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:And while roles are important for gameplay, the visual aspect of your character is an area where we can let player differentiate themselves. We are gonna have a good selection of visual customization. We're probably gonna have more visual customization than you've seen in a BioWare game before."
Possible Concept Art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itlv__6Hl0M
Arist James Zhang:
"I've never used photobucket - those images were swiped off a private folder on my website, and certainly weren't intended for public use."
"I can't really comment on anything regarding the images."
Player Created Content? Probably Not.
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: There'll definitely be an economy in our game, like WoW. But is our game going to be a simulation? No. Our game is an entertainment experience. "
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:If we're going to create immersive, epic stories that are believable, that really goes against having a simulation-type world. Those two things don't go together well. "
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin:And putting the onus on players to create all the fun is ... a challenge."
Ship Date/ Game Polish: 2009?
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin Anything worth doing well is worth taking the time. It's hard to predict when it'll be right. It's important for use to wait and make sure it's right. That's gonna take some time. Everyone who's tried to cram one into a ship date has had issues -- been there and done that a couple times. "
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:We're gonna make the best game we can. "
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: When it's ready."
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155486
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itlv__6Hl0M
http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/kotor_3_artwork_uncovered_112787.asp
http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/LFL_Goes_A_Trademarking_115981.asp
HiFiSi
Posted 7/20/2008 11:44:37 AM
message detail
Originally posted by Master Crimzon
What's so wrong with TSL?
Nothing was wrong with it specifically. If you ignore the glitches, plot holes, general incompleteness, and non-ending cliffhanger, it was actually better than number one. Lucas Arts just messed up by hurrying production and leaving the ending unfinished and the game unpolished.
Originally posted by Dr. Styles
Told you nublets it has probably nothing to do with the KOTOR story line its titled "Old Republic" not KOTOR 3.From Gamespot
Game; Stars Wars MMO
Title: Some things LA has been trade marking recently...
"Star Wars The Old Republic"
"Star Wars Sagas"
"Star Wars Legends"Setting: Probably in or near the Old Republic Era as seen in KotoR.
Maybe involving events seen in KotoR, maybe something completely different.
Publishers: EA/LA
Developer:Bioware
Game Engine:*[Simultronics'] HeroEngine
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin: We've licensed [Simultronics'] HeroEngine. It's a very good engine, and we're very impressed with it so far. "
Game Development Started: *December 2005
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin: We announced the game around March, but we'd really started on it in the beginning of December 2005."
Some core project goals: Good Story Telling, Character, Emotion, Making Decisions Matter.
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:And we can talk about the high-level goals: We basically want to bring what BioWare's famous for to the online space, and one of the things BioWare's famous for is storytelling ... and it's something that pretty well doesn't exist in the online space right now. Most "storytelling" in MMORPGs is just FedEx quests -- you know, you have to go get some eggs -- and it's presented in a format that's just a bunch of text thrown at you in paragraph for ... and that's not so exciting. We want to bring a level of storytelling that's equal to the single-player box games that BioWare has done. I think we can do that. One of the big challenges will be making our storytelling work in an environment that has multiple players."
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development:The key points that we're gonna do that no one's done before in an MMOG are bring story, character, and emotion to it. Decisions matter, and NPCs aren't pez dispensers, and you're not in a grind. You're really compelled to get on and play what's happening to day ... kind of like watching a series like Lost on TV ... putting page-turning in an MMO. It's going to be extremely challenging thing to do, believe me."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:I'm a huge story guy. I want to play in a world where I feel like I'm reading a good book, where I feel like I'm there. I have lots of fun with World of WarCraft, but it's not because of the story or characters. So if we made characters you could care about and believe in ... that would be huge.
End Game:Major focus
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:We have big plans for end-game content that we can't talk about because it's a major part of our design. We think it's a very important aspect of the game, and we don't want players to be stuck grinding through the same content over and over again -- I know when I hit level 60 in WoW, I pretty much quit. So whatever end-game model we have, it's not going to be that."
Instancing?:Likely
Dynamic Changing World?: Unlikely
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:Here's the thing -- you can't have a story that involves saving the world from the dark lord Sauron -- not that we're making a Lord of the Rings game, but I'll use LOTR as a good example. You can't stop the world from being destroyed by [Sauron], but you can do a lot of things that are personal to your character. You change how your character evolves over the game, the player's personal story -- and a player's personal story can be quite epic. It can involve parts of the world that, while they're epic, exciting, and interesting, don't change the landscape of the entire world for everyone else.
Smaug [from The Hobbit] is a good example. You can have a personal quest to kill an ancient red dragon; you can have a story that goes all the way through, and you can meet all these interesting characters, and eventually you end up killing the ancient red dragon. Other characters in the online world will know you killed a red dragon, but you haven't changed the world for them. And they can still -- especially when you use things like instances -- go on a quest that involves killing an ancient huge red dragon. We can change the player's personal story, and that gives players the sense they're having an impact on the game world. "
Quests: Focus on story driven quests
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: One thing we don't want to do is NPC Pez dispensers, as I call them -- go over there, dispense a quest, and then go "vacuum-clean" a zone. We want to make sure you listen to NPCs, because choices matter. And that's really important."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:There are lots of quests in a ****c BioWare game that would work in an online world. You'd be surprised how few wouldn't."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:That's something we don't want to encourage. We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward. Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that. "
Professions, Roles, Races, ETC.. (Also, Grouping/Solo Play: Unknown, but overall structure...
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: It's really important to have roles in an MMORPG. If you understand your role in the world, and others understand your role in the world with you, then you can get group dynamics and social behavior. [Developers] can set up interdependencies, which promote social dynamics in a game. If you don't have that, then you end up with loners ... and the world breaks down a little bit. Now, you'll be able to solo if you like in our game, that's for sure -- it's one thing that WoW proved can work. But it'll be a choice whether or not you want to group or not. You run into problems when people feel they're forced to group up or raid to get somewhere in the game."
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:And while roles are important for gameplay, the visual aspect of your character is an area where we can let player differentiate themselves. We are gonna have a good selection of visual customization. We're probably gonna have more visual customization than you've seen in a BioWare game before."
Possible Concept Art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itlv__6Hl0M
Arist James Zhang:
"I've never used photobucket - those images were swiped off a private folder on my website, and certainly weren't intended for public use."
"I can't really comment on anything regarding the images."
Player Created Content? Probably Not.
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: There'll definitely be an economy in our game, like WoW. But is our game going to be a simulation? No. Our game is an entertainment experience. "
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:If we're going to create immersive, epic stories that are believable, that really goes against having a simulation-type world. Those two things don't go together well. "
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin:And putting the onus on players to create all the fun is ... a challenge."
Ship Date/ Game Polish: 2009?
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin Anything worth doing well is worth taking the time. It's hard to predict when it'll be right. It's important for use to wait and make sure it's right. That's gonna take some time. Everyone who's tried to cram one into a ship date has had issues -- been there and done that a couple times. "
"James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin:We're gonna make the best game we can. "
"Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: When it's ready."
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155486
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itlv__6Hl0M
http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/kotor_3_artwork_uncovered_112787.asp
http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/LFL_Goes_A_Trademarking_115981.asp
HiFiSi
Posted 7/20/2008 11:44:37 AM
message detail
Wow. Funny thing is, nothing in that refuted that it was set in the KotOR-period - it in fact reinforced that possibility....
Originally posted by The Rover
Wow. Funny thing is, nothing in that refuted that it was set in the KotOR-period - it in fact reinforced that possibility....
"You all do understand that the KOTOR label is simply that: A label, meaning this game can take place anywhere from before KOTOR 1 all the way up to the Clone Wars...but any Star Wars game done by Bioware makes me happy."
"Told you nublets it has probably nothing to do with the KOTOR story line its titled "Old Republic" not KOTOR 3."
Use your head silly...