STAR WARS MMO: THE OLD REPUBLIC anyone?

*Edit TITLE* Star Wars THE OLD REBUBLIC

Is anyone going to play Bioware's new MMO Knights of the Old Repbulic?

-AND will it be optimized for a full range of pc systems? e.g. WoW?
-REALISTICALLY, not just what the official websites says.

-MOST IMPORTANTLY, Will it be a true WoW killer?

 

everything has the potential to kill wow, but until developers stop trying to kill wow and market their game better, they will never get to that point of popularity

 

Question is it more socially acceptable outside of "hardcore" gaming community's to be WOW geek or old republic geek?

 

Yeah I guess you guys are right. Especially about the part of it appealing to the mainstream of gamers.

Well, I for one am kinda excited for the game. Never played an MMO, mostly RPGs like FO3, DA:O, ME1&2, Oblivion. Really like Bioware however and am a closet star wars fan. Good combination. I mean star wars and mmo by bioware, not the closet. haha

Are MMOs worth the money such as WoW or even GuildWars???

 

Im the biggest mmo fan here by far. Guild wars 2 is coming out next year around feb. Next year will be a better year for mmos then this year that's for sure. Aion is my favorite right now.

Star Wars:the Old Republic will release some time next year. They have been working on it since 2006. Will swtor be competition for wow, Im sure.

 

I've been following TOR for years, and I could tell you every possible fact and speculation there currently is at the moment. I also will assume my view point is fairly unbiased.

Yes, Bioware will be making this game workable on a ride range of computers. At E3 and Pax 10, they played the demos of TOR on Alienware M15x or 17x (not sure which one exactly since I was not there). This was about six months ago, which means the gpu that was playing this game would most likely be 5850m or equivalent. And this was playing the game on fairly decent settings at good frame rates. Pretty much any dedicated gpu and top of line integrated that are somewhat recent should be able to play this game on at least low settings just like wow.

No MMO will ever kill another MMO. And the people that say only blizzard could kill WoW are wrong also. Even when Blizzards "Titan" project comes out, no matter how amazing it is, it is physically impossible for it to make WoW's population go down to zero. The only way for an MMO to ever die is for the developers to pull the plug.

Any MMO is only worth the money if you will actually play it. Its just like every game. If you don't play it, its not worth it in hindsight. If you enjoy the game, I will assume you will be continually playing it and make the subscription cost worth it.

TOR has the greatest potential of any game ever released. There is no game that has even came close to its scope in size and quality. Currently, Bioware has shown nothing that says that game wont be an instant success, but we have still many important areas in the dark such as end game PvE. And the best advice you can learn from waiting for an MMO to come out, is that you should actually wait for it to come out AND then go back to the doomsayer posts and either shake your head in agreement or say "Yeah he was stupid."

 

isavetheday....

ALL valid points that you make. I really like the staying power that WoW has but have never really liked that pseudo medieval era and time that it takes place. Plus i just have a harder time with that form of rpg. Closest single rpg that is similar that I have played recently would be DA:O.

Star Wars, on the other hand I could sink my teeth into and would be willing to invest the time into learning that style of play to a point where I am proficient. I guess it was too late for me to join the WoW bandwagon. But with SWTOR I hope it develops into a huge fanbase. I plan to play for years....

BUT THATS JUST ME

 

I remember when they first announced swtor. Everyone had been wanting another star wars mmo and when they made it known that Bioware would be making it, it was an instant fascination with the mmo community. I dont think SWTOR is going to live up to all its excitement its brought, theres alot of mmos that have been devistated and shut down with weeks of warning. Its a tough buisness the mmo market is for sure.

I did feel awhile ago though that SWTOR would bring something special to the mmorpg table someting that hasn't been seen since wow. Maybee it will take off more then I expected. Having ground/space content is tough cookie at best to get right. I would like to think that SWTOR space part of the game is not a after thought and actually part of the game.

Theres many things that can go wrong and very few things that can go right with a game like this and the consequences of those two are definitely inflated towards the wrong side. Just like good games gone bad like age of conan or All Points Bulletin, games can go awry quick even with the most dedicated developers.

I think one thing is certain though, you will get your moneys worth with this game if nothing else. There is a dedicated team of proven developers working on it and for 5 years so there is going to be some type of substance. Im just totally freaked out by the numbers of mmos going bankrupt its hard to belive that any game can make it even when games like Aion, a game I think is the best ever can come crashing down into almost nothing with the north american crowds.

Ill tell you one thing though, Ill be the first one playing it when its released and cheering for it to do good.

 

Yeah I agree with you. That is why I posted this thread. I am pretty unfamiliar with MMOs and was trying to get a good idea of what it was like. Visiting the official site makes it way too biased so I was trying to get a better picture through another medium.

But all the MMOs that have closed down or bought out, merged, dropped players have killed the shelf life for those games. It is a shame because some of them I might have honestly tried, but not worth it now. I pray that SWTOR can avoid that pitfall.

Side Note:
Can you tell me what Aion is like first hand.....just trying to get an idea. Does it have a highly populated servers? I saw they came out with an expansion

 

I think you are confusing how space combat was designed for TOR. In a really old interview, one of the devs said that the reason they did not do a space sim was because of the splitting it did in swg players. While TOR may not have a space sim, do not think it was half assed. As an intended mini game, it seems to have pretty damn good polish to me.

It's hard to compare TOR to ABP or AoC. Its like comparing Blizzard to Stellar Stone. Just about all previous MMOs failed because they were rushed or not polished where they should have been. Bioware is not rushing this game, and they are making sure they have the polish where it needs to be. Almost 6 years of development time when the game goes live is a massive amount. Bioware has never released a half-missing game yet, so why would they do it with 6 years on their hands?

TOR will definentely be a great game even if the MMO aspect is on the same level as korean junk. Having 8 classes with completely different stories is thousand of hours of play time.

I played the beta of Aion, and about about 2 months of it when it went live. I got to about level 30, saw I had no quests other than "kill 30/30 tree trents" which was repeatable 99 times and I quit after that. With games like TERA and Rift coming out that seem to have much more "fun" things about them, I would just pass on Aion unless you like grinding.

 

Confusing? I dont understand your comment. The space comment on my post was just a second hand thought. I played star wars galaxies for 2 years though so I do know how space/ground combat should work if thats what your talkin about.

I have my reservations about any mmo released any more. To many go bankrupt, and Iv been through them all. Many the public dont even know about.

Comparing them is closer then one would imagine. I mean there both pay too play companys and considered grade A mmos in public eye.

BioWares in a new ball game with current mmo trends, its a cut throat market. I wouldnt be all suprized if there game floped to a niche community.

I want the game to be more popular then wow but will that happen, who knows. I hope so!

 

Well Bioware has the entire Mythic team with them. No matter what, the game can't do worse than Warhammer at launch unless they pretty much just looked at their computers all day and watch some kitty lick another kitty.

 

I think its an amazing game. Its got so envolving pvp that you could literaly spend large amounts of times with it and still enjoy the game. There is a pvp system into the game called a rift system that is the most fun Iv ever had in any game. Basiclly the rift system is theres two continent, one is for the asmodians and the other is for the elyos. The rifts bring a certain amount of players into each others continent and the pvp begins. Its a blast. Aion has its setbacks like other games, the quest system is great though, I really enojoyed all the quests. Isavethedays comments on the game are pritty much what the entire North American populas thinks tho, not me though. I just liked the game alot, one of the reasons is it played on my alienware that was 6 years old but any who.

 

What do you guys think about the business model of AAA MMOs? I've heard that Guild Wars was excellent in content and only required the purchase of the game. No monthly subscription fees plus the developers still provided all that continuous support for the game. GW 2 is suppose to follow that same model.

Or does paying a monthly fee like WoW the way that TOR will go?
Or even micro transaction like the rumors say?

Just you guy's thoughts on it.

 

I don't care for business models that result in the only content people receive are in 8 months apart expansions. The original Guild Wars is barely even considered an MMO. The entire questing experience was instanced, so the only real MMO aspect you had was pvp. At least Guild Wars 2 is fixing this. But I am still weary on how much content updates they will do in non-expansion forms.

TOR has to, and I mean 100% positive, go monthly subscription route. They have the largest budget for this game than pretty much any game ever made before. This is not Guild Wars where they can make a game for 25 million then make it back in just box and expansion sales. TOR would go bankrupt in about a year without any subscription cost.

Mico transactions are a hard one right now for TOR. In TOR's EULA, they mention things like "Bioware dollars". But since you can use Bioware dollars to buy dlc content for other Bioware games, I will assume that if they do use it, it would only be for buying expansions of stuff like mounts and pets.

 

I plan on playing this one. Very excited about it. RELEASE IT ALREADY!!!!

Thanks,

StevenX

 

There are some great MMOs (and games in general) that are made by developers who follow up on their game's release with loads of great content at little or no cost to the gamer. While these are a fantastic rarity, they are by no means the norm. Even in console games, how often is DLC free?

That's why I actually approve of paying a monthly fee for an MMO. Subscription fees that are reasonably priced are understandable given the time and money that goes into expanding and maintaining an MMO. Paid subscriptions also make it much less convenient for spammers and hackers. Bottom line, there is nothing wrong with monthly fees for an MMO as long as the development team shows they are using the money responsibly.

That being said, if developers don't want to charge me a subscription fee then I won't complain.

 

Ahh Ok, well that makes sense. I do remember reading something about how they would have to have almost have as many subscribers as WoW to offset their development cost. Or something like that.

Maybe $15 a month or a few dollars less to entice people at first to only raise it again when people get hooked? At that rate is it even worth it? I mean price vs. entertainment value ($15/month=$180/year)??? I mean $180 for 1 game plus the retail cost of it.

I know this is all hypothetical, but trying to wrap my head around this whole MMO business and environment.

 

Go buy three newly released games. That's gonna cost $180 and chances are you will beat 'em in less than 15 hours each. Is it even worth it? You gotta decide that one.

 

Lets say TOR's total cost at release is $150 million. With one million box sales at $50 each that would be $50 million. Now EA would only gets about lets say 70% of that, so that would be $35 million out of the $150 million paid back. Now we assume that 50% of those one million pre-buyers will subscribe to the game. For 12 months at $15 a month that would be $90 million, but EA would only make about $12 out of the $15 in real profit, so that would be $72 million. So with a million box sales, and half a million subscribers by the end of the first year, they would make about $110 million dollars. Pretty much they need one million box sales, and about 800,000 subscribers at the very minimum to break even after a year. Now these numbers are not perfect, but it should give you a general idea. But if the budget is rumored to be higher than what analysts would say it is, than Bioware needs over one million subscribers after a year to break even.

Also I forget to factor in the free month everyone gets, but that does not really effect estimates, since they are estimates.

 

I mean I usually only buy about 2 games a year. Shooters that have a robust multiplayer (CoD series/TF2) and rpgs that have a ton of replay value (FO3,Oblivion,DA,ME1/2). Wth a few thrown in there that are must haves (Portal,Bioshock). I mean they keep me happy.

Whoa that's daunting. I don't think that many people will jump on it in the first year. They will need to build a solid foundation of core players before tens of thousands others join those ranks. I mean It's taken WoW years to achieve this (sorry to compare them again). I don't know maybe it'll happen

 

You see I mostly do the same thing as you now, and because of it, I quit on MMOs. When I used to buy a ton a games, it was very economical to find one game that kept my gaming time filled, even if it cost $15/month. But now I pretty much have my go-to multipayer game (in my case Gears of War 1/2), and I buy about 2-3 RPGs each year to keep me busy in between classes and work. So for me, it isn't worth it. That's why I have no inclination to buy Cataclysm.

 

Our system of purchasing games is not a bad way to go. I mean all the games that I own on steam are classics or will become in our generation. I am very choosy about that. I do rely on aggregate critic score (however biased sometimes).
BUT I have become intrigued by MMOs, really only TOR. It seems to be a blend of the traditional MMO and a Grade A bioware rpg.

EDIT*** sorry, new to the NBR forum, so my bad about the misquoting.

 

hah just delete(edit) your bad post and write something new(edit button on bottom of your post).

Guild wars is one of my favorite games. I can tell you that guild wars 2 will be a great game. I know that for a fact. That's one game I can know for sure will be instant success for 10 years plus. No other game can you say that and surely not for swtor. Arenanet is the developer for Guildwars one and two. They know how to make anything work. There like gandi for the muslums and the pope for the christians. There god when it comes to making a good mmo and Guildwars 2 will be no exception.

 

So long as its free to play I will be playing it, I am already paying for my wow sus, and I'm not signing up to play another time sync of a game if I have to pay to play it. It looks interesting but I am honestly much more excited for GW 2.

 

Mod should close since OP created two threads for this

 

Not anymore, don't want to play a game that will encourage me to play for 3-4 hours at a time 4-5 days a week. That kind of gaming I want to leave behind.

Also everything I've seen of this Star Wars MMO is disappointing. Bioware should stick to what they do well. If I'm going to click the same few moves all the time for hours and hours, those moves had better be amazing, the Asian companies do it right. WoW was an exception since I did raiding there, so I wasn't paying attention to how lame Mind Flay looks, paying attention to boss and the strategy. The skills I've seen so far from the videos are lame looking. The graphics so far are dull. My list of complaints is like a mile long with nothing on the impressed list.

But I will give Guild Wars 2 a try, definitely buy it at retail on opening day. No monthly fees will and fancy skills. Something I can play casually, that will be my style.

 

The more I learn about it the less impressed I am, however that's more due to me becoming disenchanted with paying a monthly fee for an MMO style game. Graphics don't impress me, none of their gameplay announcements get me excited, and then there was that incident with EA Louse.

I'm purposely keeping my expectations low after being disappointed with WaR, AION, and FFXIV. Also similar to the above poster I'm more looking forward to GW 2, they've at least proven they can make an entertaining MMO style game, are trying to expand the MMO genre past its current stagnation, and aren't going to charge me a monthly fee.