The Endless Old Republic Story

You know, Syp is right – with the fact that Bioware is teasing info about Star Wars: The Old Republic in chunks, there’s just plenty of room for speculation of all kinds on TOR. This is yet another one of those posts.

Bioware’s been releasing videos trying to document the timeline of The Old Republic. But of course, at some point, they’re going to come to an end, leaving us with the full scope of the atmosphere and setting under which the game will take place.

It’s logical to assume that with Bioware making a story that is attached to each character class, that the story might progress somewhat along a set timeline based upon all the flavor stuff we’ve been getting from them. Characters are going to experience a slice of The Old Republic’s timeline, perhaps going from being raw, untested newbies to hardened Star Wars veterans along the lines of the iconic characters we’ve all come to know and love.

But what about after that?

Endgame is a major component of any MMO, mostly because no viable endgame means you inevitably have trouble to retain the players that you have. While Bioware has already stated that they are going to avoid the extreme of the hardcore who will skip most of the story and rush to the end, they still have an obligation, at some point, to create a “now what?” scenario for players who reach the maximum level in their game. Whether it is a challenging and engaging dungeon with amazing gear rewards or a crown jewel engagement against the best of your enemy’s resources, the end has always been a great concern for any MMO out there.

At least from a lore and story perspective, The Old Republic, unlike something like World of Warcraft, will probably not struggle to find something that is believeable for its players to do. While the Warcraft 3 universe had its limits, the world of TOR is a well-known and established period of time helped along by Bioware’s Knights of The Old Republic. Having taken place thousands of years prior to the Star Wars films, there’s a ton of ready-made ideas to explore, from Coruscant, to perhaps the origins of ships like the Millennium Falcon, and more. Whatever box Bioware is constructing to put its players in, there is an endgame that can potentially expand it regardless of whether that is a PvE or PvP experience. This, I think, was Star Wars Galaxies’ biggest challenges – taking place during the course of the films meant that the inevitable approach beyond Return of the Jedi would be daunting, to say the least.

Even though there are those out there who are spurning TOR right now because they don’t know the details, there is still something to be said about the actual game experience as it relates to the story and lore your characters follow. If story and lore were not important, whether that is starting from level 1 to raiding the most epic of encounters, then I would hazard that some MMOs would not have as many subscribers as they thought. TOR, with the pillar it’s building for story, needs to have this more in mind than any other title out there.

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