Overly Positive

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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So yesterday we were treated to another update on Bioware‘s Star Wars: The Old Republic – this time focusing in on the full voiceover, why they made this decision, and how they feel that the fully voiced NPCs and characterization in the game is an essential and necessary part of their intended game experience. It’s definitely worth a watch to go through the 5:38 it’ll take you, because there’s a lot to take in.

If you want to check out some of the breakdown, you can check out Moon Over Endor’s thoughts on the voice video, or SWTORBlog’s addition to a great official forum thread on the video.

This forum thread found what I thought was curious and noticeable about the documentary, taking away all the talk about voice acting – and that’s the inclusion of actual in-game footage and action. Here we have a subtle side bonus for the people who have been looking at this game, following it, and are skeptical about its look, feel, and overall presentation in mechanics. While the details are a bit sketchy – and the forum thread I linked pretty much does the obsessive breakdown better than I could (actual cooldown on abilities noted? Nice work, Ibliss) – it does show a couple of interesting things about Bioware’s marketing strategy.

The first is that the incremental reveal and tease regarding the nuts and bolts of the game continues. We haven’t heard much, but what we have seen and heard and read appears to give us just enough detail to whet the appetite but not enough for people to start coming to horrid and premature conclusions about how the game works. Though Bioware has never done an MMO before, they’re clearly aware of the sins of the past in terms of revealing certain things prior to them being ready to reveal. This is a shrewd strategy, as it teases and excites the people who are positive about the game while it holds back critics with a “wait and see” attitude. Either way, people are following the game. Well played, Bioware.

The second, which at first seems to run counter to that, is that Bioware isn’t afraid to show us what they have that is polished. From the dialogue and look, it looked like the quest with the Imperial star destroyer captain and its subsequent choices was what we were showed. This was material that Bioware has already released to the media for public consumption (see coverage from E3 for that), which means it is polished enough for them to feel confident to be put through the inevitable community blender of speculation and analysis. That we already have this kind of in-game footage is heartening for the development of the game, which means that it’s on pace and moving forward fairly well. By doing this, they’re also controlling the pace at which the aforementioned speculation is happening, allowing them to gather some subtle feedback from the impressions of the stuff that they deem fit to be seen.

So while it was great to hear about the voiceover mechanic and the talent that is to appear in it (those of you who are really geeky might have noticed the appearance of one Jennifer Hale, she of the voice of Naomi Hunter in Metal Gear Solid and Bastilla in KOTOR), I see what you did there, Bioware. Subtle, well-played, and most of all, intriguing.

In an effort to hopefully bring together the TOR community, I’ve been adding sites and blogs to my blogroll to encourage cross promotion, so when looking at sites like Forums of the Old Republic, the inevitable question of balance in terms of the community came to mind.

In any game that has some sort of basis in a conflict between sides, there’s always the inevitable question of population – which side will be more popular? How will the developers craft things to make a relative balance between sides? What’s going to be the “sexy” that you see on either side to make them appealing?

Bioware‘s Star Wars: The Old Republic will be no different in this vein. Whether people pick the Galactic Republic or the Sith Empire, it’s going to be Bioware’s responsibility to make sure that no one faction can dominate the other in terms of overall, sheer numbers. I’m not sure if TOR is considered a PvE game or a PvP game (it probably is the former, given the focus on story and the player’s experiences), but even PvE focused games have to worry a little bit about where their populations lie.

Thankfully, though, I think that Bioware already has a marked advantage in that the iconic nature of the Star Wars universe has already drawn fans fairly equally to either banner. The fact that at its core, Star Wars is essentially a template for the good vs. evil archetype means there are (mostly) clear lines drawn between the various characters, and appeal for each. If you want to be a swashbuckler like Han Solo, there’s a side for you. If you want to be an amoral bounty hunter like Boba Fett, there’s a side for you, too. Of course, you obviously can’t forget the Jedi and the Sith themselves – basically two sides of the same coin, with the various games about them building on the movies’ depiction of them by giving the Force different tendencies depending on your leanings.

As of this writing, in the official TOR forums, there are 439 Republic recruiting guilds and 419 Sith. There’s a slight shift in favor of the Republic but if the current guild count is any indication, things are fairly even. This goes to show that as much as the Star Wars universe tells a story of not only good vs. evil but good triumphing over evil, that there are plenty of people out there who are attracted to the Dark Side as well.

We really don’t know if on an individual server basis we will see Republic’s blue lightsabers dominating the battlefield or if it’ll be the bright red of the Sith that win the day. But we can at least take solace in the fact that regardless of your leanings, TOR will probably have a healthy incentive to join either side in the fight.

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