For TOR, The Devil Is In The Demo (Details)

SWTORBlog.net posted their usual updates regarding dev quotes, and apparently, according to TOR Community Rep Sean Dahlberg, there isn’t going to be much coming out of the Bioware front for a few weeks. This means that Bioware’s relative silence about the game is going to get that much more apparent. But there’s always some little gem to be had in any “aw shucks” quote, and TOR doesn’t disappoint:

“After we get through these next few weeks, we have a lot of content in store for all of you. Our updates at the convention (and after them) will also include updates to the website for those of you who can’t join us there. And yes, there will be some new reveals as well as the Gameplay Demo Walkthrough video.”

This is an interesting development, to be sure. It’s nice that Bioware is getting ahead of the concerns from outside observers that the game’s details and gameplay have for the most part, been a closely guarded secret, the only demo having surfaced being a press demo of one of TOR’s quests. We saw some subtle details in the voicover vid, but not much else.

I don’t particularly remember any other MMO developer out there putting out an actual dedicated walkthrough of the gameplay, unless they were displaying a piece of their game at a convention, in an interview, or otherwise as a side note in a general reveal about the game. If Bioware’s pattern for Star Wars: The Old Republic is to be guessed so far, they’ll probably only put the details that are truly polished enough for public consumption/chainsawing/blending in forums and blogs like ours. Sure, that means that we won’t get to see everything, but let’s take what we can get, folks – it’s probably going to be eye-opening and allow the community to speculate even more on what could be included in TOR.

It does seem that Bioware is learning from the mistakes of MMO dev past as well. How many times have you seen people on forums complain that a game “didn’t meet their expectations” or that “they thought it would work like x but it actually turned out to be y”? You probably will see some people who will say that about The Old Republic, don’t get me wrong, but prominently displaying their gameplay like this can and should set expectations at a level that Bioware is comfortable with, making it easier to soothe the savage community beast. I for one, can’t wait to see the kinds of things that the Gameplay Demo Walkthrough video will bring with it, because I thinkw e’ve all been salivating over more meat and potatoes about SW:TOR.