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[Column] Star Wars: The Old Republic: Changing the Face of the Galaxy
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
On Monday at the Electronic Arts presser at E3, BioWare Austin announced that it was overturning the applecart that is Star Wars: the Old Republic. While we got a taste of the next iteration the previous Friday when a somewhat calculated leak of the new expansion's name and many of its details was hastily removed from the official website, sometimes it takes a trailer and a studio General Manager showing up to make it feel more real. For a game that has had issues with managing expectations, they seem to be trying to finally make The Old Republic feel more like a proper BioWare game with the promise of more story as the core of the new expansion.
Read more of Jean Prior's Star Wars: The Old Republic - Changing the Face of the Galaxy.
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Comments
I am so good, I backstabbed your face!
Yep! And until then I'll be keeping an eye on those Cantina events and Gamescom.
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you want them to change the previous 59 levels of stories? just how should they go about doing that?
I really would love to get behind this. I just can't though. Don't get me wrong the trailer was very good. But Bioware has been using those same buzzwords for their games. I think I've lost count of how many times I've heard them say "choices that matter". Story is SWTOR strongest element but what happens after the story is over is it's biggest problem. I understand they are trying to do regular story updates now. But what happens inbetween those periods. Is it going to be more of what there is now? Level an alt, Grind a rep, Do a daily, Do a Weekly? No offense to them and the work they put in. But I don't care for that shit anymore. I don't want to grind another rep. I don't want to sit and watch weekly caps. I don't want to do yet another daily for cash.
I'd love for them to fix companions. They were a great idea. But right now to me they are not even on the same level as a pet in other MMO's. They need to give companions talent trees or something along those lines so that they aren't all the same. As they are now they are like extremely watered down version of player classes. They do also need to go back and add VO for Treek and HK in the earlier missions somehow. It still disturbs me that if you unlock them at start, they have almost 0 cutscene dialogues.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Love the trailers and am actually tempted to get the game for the first time in years.
I thought Blizzard's requirement of an existing level 60 character quite reasonable when they rolled out Death Knights; I was very surprised to not see some similar condition in place for the insta-60 character boost coming with this expansion.
From the trailer and the posts so far from officials on the SWTOR forums... ya'll are going to be disappointed.
This is RotHC/ SoR type of expansion, nothing more nothing less. The only reason the hype factor is high right now is because they are focusing on selling "story" and "scheduled content releases" in all the press releases. But this is just another 5 level booster with a fancy wrapping paper.
Still, I've been playing since launch and never had the complaints a lot of you people do, but your setting yourself up for disappointment if you really buy into the hype.
Welp I think it's still not enough to get me to return.
I agree that Bioware's new focus on story is the correct business model for this game. However, they are doing nothing to improve the systems they slapped together to make it into an mmo. Those systems have proven to be broken and riddled with the same industry problems plaguing other themepark mmos. The choice to allow level 60 character purchase is one such result. Copy and clone what Wow and also what Wow did to try correct their own game faults. Pvp continues to be ignored. The same crap events rotate through monthly and the events you want rotate through every 6 months to a year when you just want to get the shit done and over with. Class balance stuck in the eternal pve vs pvp loop destroying either side in ways players never wanted.
I can't do it. It isn't worth the grief and grind. Now if Bioware revamped the ENTIRE game to streamline it into their current development focus it may very well be worth the comeback as I do applaud them for throwing money back into their game unlike Blizzard who used Wow as a cash cow to jump on industry trends at the expense of their own mmo community they created and now are destroying.
You stay sassy!
Is it really though? On Dulfy they explain that this is an actual continuation of your class story. Every class will have a choice of 3 new romance-able companions, the npcs in the story, past and prior will take your past exploits into account, and so on. That sounds a lot more than what they did in the previous stories!
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Well...he meant they will not be class stories but rather like RoHC or Revan storyline...you still keep your class,but everyone one (I mean player toons) will start the lvl 60+ game as "The Outsider"...no where in the advertisements does it say continuing class stories, just that you will be getting more stories ... I could post the links, but have done so in other links. So..no , no class stories. Even says on Dulfy's site...you just have to get through the pr talk to see it.
"Your choices matter – that’s at the heart of our storytelling philosophy at Bioware."
LOL..omg where have I heard this before???!!
Oh yeah!!....... Mass Effect 3 anyone????
Lead Writer Charles Boyd made that statement btw...!!!
I believe there will be class stories, however it will be exactly like the SoR x-pac, 1 quick mission for a setup and then everyone doing the same missions. The spoiler has already been dropped that our toon is coming out of several years of carbonite freeze, so this is how they write off never giving us a finish to the Emperor's story line. Apparently while our toons were sleeping the world galaxy falls apart and the factions all deaded, this just means that your faction won't be the focus of the story anymore. The Outlander mysterious 3rd faction? Not so much, its a title that says your as cool as bad ass Sean Connery's 80's movie. The only part I saw as the positive was the chapters system they want to include. Personally I thought the lead up to SoR with the 4 different flash points that had a connected story was really well done, and I expect that is basically what these chapters will be, mini operations or flashpoints that can be solo moded for the carebears that qq about not having friends online or off.
Could I be wrong? I hope I am but its Bioware and lets cut through the shit here they take a decade to get a clue when it comes to the community.
Strange how that lvl of detail looks quite low, alpha detail or low detail on custom settings, but that kind of setting in the open world causes performance issues for pvp.
At least on high settings the game does look better.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
"Another good question to wonder, considering how a number of game studios set release goals that seem to slip over time for various reasons (looking at you, Carbine),"
hehe, so true, not a fan of the SWOR franchise but i love sci-fi and story driven content. if they make way as they intend- i believe this will get me to walk away from wildstar= since they havent been very story driven in any of their drops.
but itll f2p by fall= so i wont lose anything having ws up on the shelf.
Changing the whole galaxy doesn't necessarily mean changing 59 levels of stories. Although if they bothered to do that, I might go back and check it out. Of the characters I ran to level cap, only one class had a story that was interesting to me. And I'd give it about a 6 out of 10 on the interest scale.
Honestly, looks like crap. Having characters wake up after ten years to see everything they worked for conquered by some empire with absolutely no mention or basis within the current lore of the game is bullshit, and a complete ass-pull. How lazy can the writers over at Bioware get?
Oh, and leave the race-baiting bullshit somewhere else please. Skin color and even gender have absolutely nothing to do with this, period. Nothing. What's next, complaining that the blue Twi'leks are better represented than the red ones? Complaining that you can't play a trans-gender character?
Sad thing is that if the trailer had no white people in it, you'd have said absolutely nothing about it. Of course neither would I, because I understand just how irrelevant it is and don't try to create racism where there isn't any in the first place.
As an aside, anybody else notice that the Eternal Empire's troopers look suspiciously like the Easterlings from Lord of the Rings?
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
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Sounds like a great pack of features.
Lets wait for further news on the real impact on existing characters and PVP/PVE.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson