Watch Out Blizzard – Here Come the Jedi
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BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic can take on the might of World of Warcraft
Blizzard have got a real fight on their hands in the MMORPG market if the new BioWare trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic is anything to go by.
Having dominated the market and smashed aside competition from huge fantasy franchises including Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and Lord of the Rings Online, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft remains the MMORG to beat. With the Star Wars licence behind them BioWare will be the first serious challenge Blizzard have had to contend with for some time.
BioWare have certainly got the pedigree in gaming to make Blizzard nervous. Swords and sorcery fantasy and great storytelling have been nailed in Dragon Age: Origins, whilst hi-tech guns, aliens and space warfare have been beautifully captured in the Mass Effect series. Put those two winning formulas together and BioWare have all the ingredients to make a great Star Wars game.
The clincher will be whether Star Wars: The Old Republic can capture enough players to make it more than a niche game and catapult it into the realms of global phenomenon. BioWare already have part of the work done for them with the massive cult following of Star Wars fans, and the opportunity to play as either a Jedi or Sith on both sides of the war on Alderaan will surely tempt many to play – especially if dual-bladed Darth Maul lightsabers are in the offering.
Blizzard is hardly sitting idle though. Before Star Wars: The Old Republic can hit the shelves, World of Warcraft’s third expansion Cataclysm is going to add a whole new level of addiction to the world’s most addictive game.
Can The Old Republic triumph over World of Warcraft? Write us a comment below with your thoughts on the MMORPG battle.
That picture makes it look as if the Sith is using a lightpenknife to fight against the dual-bladed lightsaber of the Jedi.
LOL true. That’s just how badass Sith are I guess.
Who needs lightsabers when you got a glow-in-the-dark butter knife, right?
It’s a good CGI short but it shows absolutely zero game content and doesn’t even touch on the story at all.
This video doesn’t show anything about THE GAME.
So far, this video shows nothing that Blizzard should even bother scoffing at.
Trailers like this are kind of retarded. Why would Blizzard be worried about a CG movie? Really, I don’t even know why these get much attention.
The single problem which will cause this game to be trumped by World of Warcraft is the dichotomy between the two sides. In WoW neither side is good or evil. The Horde has its goodness and virtue. That is the sole reason it remains a viable bifurcated world. The problem with the Star Wars universe is a fundamental dichotomy between good and evil. There is no ‘if’ and/or ‘but’ about it.
That means people must willingly acquiesce to the dark side, literally, in able to balance out this game. The populations will be fundamentally opposed in their composition and ethos. Therefore the game will die off. That is completely before you start into the fundamental problem of whether everyone should be given force powers, which might upset the purists of Star Wars history… But the opposite leads to a dry and drab game which I believe already failed once… Can’t remember anymore what it was called but I’m sure people who watch these things know what I mean. But, just if your wondering, I do wish it would work. But I am very pessimistic about its premise of division.
Oh, then of course there is the fact that WoW is playable on ANY COMPUTER made after 2004 and many before then if anyone still runs an old contraption. Whereas the fundamental necessity of realism in the Star Wars world requires unquestionably high graphics requirements which will restrict its player base. As a final coup de gras we must address the unquestionably limited number of diehard Star Wars genre fans per se who play a game simply because it is in the Star Wars universe regardless of reviews (and let’s face it EVERY MMORPG starts out shaky, even WoW did…). And yet those same diehard fans would unquestionably be pulled away by any other new and fancy Star Wars game to come out subsequently.
WoW has cornered the market share of hardcore MMORPG gamers and I honestly don’t see that changing any time soon. That is not to say that it couldn’t happen over time. But it will be a long haul, and Blizzard WILL begin a real fight of programming and designing capacity if any other game comes close to rivalling the innovations which have coalesced into the game of WoW over 6 years of tweaking, revising, player input, and development.
But again, the most important factor which will deny this game a large market share is the diametrically opposed factions which, unlike in WoW where they were able to salvage goodness in the Horde, create a moral divide. Some people simply don’t enjoy being evil. Darkness is a region where evil is its extremity. Unfortunately the Sith lie at the extremity not in the gray area like the Horde. Simply put, the game’s premise seems to lack equivocal, balanced, playability which WoW has perfected.
LoL, and one thing WoW has decisively concluded about MMORPG gameplay: opponents MUST be seen as LITERALLY equals. Different abilities allowed only to one side only foster contention, no matter how benign they seem. PvP and unbalanced playability in PvE groups leads to bitter resentment of the grass on the other person’s lawn, regardless of how contested one feels about affiliating oneself with the antithesis of their morality.
Thank you for your well-constructed and interesting point of view.
I must say that I agree with you on a number of points, particularly with the complete erosion of factional differences that has occurred in WoW in the name of balancing the Horde and the Alliance to stop the “grass is greener on the other side” complaints. The inclusion of once faction-specific classes (Paladins and Shaman) into both camps has meant that the only differences in terms of game abilities that lie between the two sides are the racial benefits.
I understand entirely the view that it will be difficult, perhaps impossible for BioWare to completely balance the Light and Dark side factions since their abilities will presumably be so wildly different. There could be many furious bouts of “OMG Nerf Dark Side/Light Side” that will rage across forums devoted to the game. I feel that BioWare will have a tough time managing that particularly thorny issue, especially when the game is in its infancy.
However, one area in which I must disagree with you is your argument that Star Wars: The Old Republic will not work because the Dark/Light Side is too evil/good and neither side offers enough moral ambiguity.
Granted, the distinction between good and evil is far more clear cut in Star Wars than it is in WoW, with Sith generally being evil despoilers and Jedi who adhere to the Light Side being noble and virtuous defenders. However, as we all know, viewpoints can change. Devotion to the Light Side can slip, the temptation of the Dark Side has overwhelmed the noblest of souls in Star Wars lore.
Perhaps BioWare will be able to make use of this unsteady path that the players in The Old Republic will tread? Maybe the moral viewpoints of the questgivers and NPCs that players interact will not all be so clear cut?
It would be fascinating to see BioWare provide players with a “critical moment” in their character’s development (say for example, the equivalent to the level 20 threshold in WoW) for them to choose if they stick to their original choice of Light/Dark Side or have a change of heart. What an intense questline that would be! Perhaps this idea is somewhat impractical, but my point is that it is possible that BioWare will give its players something more satisfying in the way of moral choices as they play.
If they don’t, if it is a simple “Good vs Evil” slugfest, I have to say I do not believe that will be a game-killing problem. You say that “some people don’t enjoy being evil” when they play games. This is certainly true, but many gamers do enjoy just that. In fact, some gamers, myself included, feel that the choice to be completely evil in games is under-represented. There are plenty of RPGs where being evil is an option, but unfortunately it’s usually the more difficult or less satisfying option.
As a generalization, many RPGs where players have a choice of moral alignment are designed with the thought in mind that most players will play through as “the good guy” first, then evil second time around, if at all. Being good is generally more popular and being evil rarely has a significant effect on the outcome of the game’s story. Usually you save the land from whatever “real evil” befalls it, even if you were a total jerk along the way (I feel Dragon Age: Origins is a good example of this).
There are very few games that truly represent the option to be evil properly. Fewer still are designed with being evil as the only option. I wasn’t a fan of the Overlord series, but the amount of sheer enjoyment that I got from being thoroughly evil in the Bullfrog classics of Dungeon Keeper and DK2 has yet to be matched by any subsequent title.
I for one can confidently say that I could find enjoyment in being a purely evil Sith in the forthcoming Old Republic. I am equally confident that I am not alone (there’s always more than one, after all).
It’s not for everyone, I can totally agree with you on that, but my question to you is: provided that BioWare made the gameplay fun and compelling, would such a stark choice of moral alignment really be such a disaster?
P.S: I believe you were referring to the once popular Star Wars Galaxies MMO. Apologies for the length of the reply, stream of consciousness and all that.