The Distracted Gamer

Boware has revealed the latest in its Star Wars Old Republic games, this time a MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Set 300 years after the end of events in Knights of the old Republic (KOTOR), the Sith Empire has returned:

Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place more than 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader. The most powerful Sith Empire in history has emerged from deep space to attack the Republic and its legendary Jedi guardians. After decades of war, a tenuous truce has been established between the Sith Empire and the Republic, but events occurring in the game are leading the galaxy back to an all-out war.

Word is you can play as either part of the Republic or the Sith & you can be a Jedi or Sith class, but other classes (such as Elite Troopers ot Droids) are “coming soon”.  Well have to wait & see what else there is.  BioWare have said that they wanted to make playing for both sides enjoyable and realistic, not just ‘good guys vs bad guys’.  They’re also going to create a character history for each class. From the OGN article:

So your class story will start right away with you being introduced to your class, not based solely on the mechanics of gameplay, but in terms of what motivates your particular class and how you should start thinking about your opportunities. That’s not to suggest that each player of a given class will be forced into a scripted motivation; as we’ll see in tomorrow’s feature, BioWare will be giving players tremendous freedom to set their own sense of value and priority in the game. But the point is that your class story will provide a relevant framework for you to exercise your own choices throughout the entire life of your character. And then you can carry that sense of identity out into the rest of the game’s content that’s not directly tied to your class experience.

Perhaps the most intriguing benefit to this approach is that your own actions can begin to have a lasting impact on the game world. BioWare wasn’t ready to provide us with concrete examples, but we can imagine the watershed moments for certain characters based on the typical Star Wars experiences

I have to say, I’m pretty exited about this.  I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to play it too much, MMOs tend to require a fairly high level of time commitment to really get things out of them, but maybe they’ll address that.  Most die-hard Star Wars fans are adults now, and they’ll likely have less time to commit to a game.  I’m a huge fan of the original KOTOR & KOTOR II games.  I still play them from time to time. I’ll definitely be checking out the demo when it’s released. 

For now there’s a bunch of images you can view including concept art and screenshots.  There’s also a developer blog that will hopefully be updated regularly.

This has, of course, been covered by all the major gaming sites, so here’s the rundown:

• Rock, Paper, Shotgun: That’s No Moon. It’s a MMO: The Old Republic!
• Kotaku: LucasArts Massive Reveal: The Liveblog
• Joystiq: Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO unveiled
• 1UP: BioWare Reveals Star Wars: The Old Republic
• IGN: Star Wars: The Old Republic First Details