LucasArts, BioWare Announce Partnership

Given the swirling rumours of a KOTOR MMOG, it should come as no surprise that BioWare and Lucasarts have announced they're teaming up for a project. They don't give any really concrete details, other than to say it is 'a ground-breaking interactive entertainment product'. They've also "launched a cobranded Web site, www.LucasArtsBioWare.com. 'Through our previous collaborations, we know that BioWare has an impressive ability to blend gripping stories with technological advancements, and we believe that our upcoming product will deliver an experience that will span the traditional boundaries of video game entertainment,' LucasArts president Jim Ward said in a statement. "

Comments

KotOR2

[Jaysyn]

Maybe they'll actually put out a complete game this time.

Re:KotOR2

[MuNansen]

BioWare didn't make KotOR 2.

Re:KotOR2

[microAmp]

KoToR2 developed by Obsidian Entertainment not Bioware. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II:_The_Sith_Lordsb

Re:KotOR2

[Jaysyn]

That's why I'm hoping for a complete game this time, cause it's not Obsidian. If it was there wouldn't be a chance in hell.

Re:KotOR2

[Monk Who Says Ni]

Your lack of faith disturbs me.

Re:KotOR2

[Futile Rhetoric]

The responsibility for Knights of the Old Republic 2 being unfinished lies squarely on LucasArts' shoulders, not Obsidian's.

Re:KotOR2

[bazald]

I hope Obsidian Entertainment isn't adversely affected by BioWare's latest deals with EA and LucasArts. I'm one of the (few?) people who actually enjoyed KoTOR II and am actively looking forward to Team Gizka's restoration mod. As Obsidian Entertainment has used technology developed by BioWare for some years now, I just hope BioWare manages to maintain their close relationship.

Re:KotOR2

[king-manic]

The responsibility for Knights of the Old Republic 2 being unfinished lies squarely on LucasArts' shoulders, not Obsidian's. The publisher did push it out too early. Bioware is known not to bow to publisher pressure and has a "when it's done" mentality... not as hardcore as Blizzards but still very prominent trend.

Re:KotOR2

[GeckoX]

Your lack of originality disturbs me.

Re:KotOR2

[meringuoid]

Maybe they'll actually put out a complete game this time.

You will find the Internet is full of surprises. At long last the community effort to restore the missing ending is nearing completion; it appears that the main functionality is fully armed and operational, although there are a few exposed thermal exhaust ports they're working to clear up before the public release.

Re:KotOR2

[MooseMuffin]

How can you possibly misquote this line? And on slashdot no less.

Re:KotOR2

[Monk Who Says Ni]

Extreme distraction, mostly. I was just as amazed when I came back to check the thread and found the need to merge my face with my keyboard. Truly, that I have not been struck down by some act of the heavens astounds me.

Re:KotOR2

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope that Lucasarts actually lets the company finish the product this time. The last 5+ years it seems like most of their signature products are released half done (Kotor 2, SWG) or just stunk (battlefield).

SWG for example had the best crafting system of any MMO. It was well done. If the rest of the game was up to this level it would have been great. But the civil war was non-existant, game was buggy as hell, the commando class was completely unplayable at launch, it had very little Star Wars feel to it, etc.

KotoR 2 was a complete rehash of the first and after you got to a certain point it just felt like it "ended." Like it was 40-45 minutes into Law and Order and it just stops.

Re:KotOR2

[Trogre]

Oh yeah?

Well I find your lack of accurate star wars quotes disturbing.

Re:KotOR2

[G Fab]

Obsidian's protests were heard loud and clear when we saw all those stray files that would have been used in the complete game. This is LucasArts being greedy. The game was not supposed to be released that early, but because Obsidian was getting it done so fast, LucasArts decided to get it out for Christmas... even if that meant cutting out tons of content. Load of crap.

That game was such a frustration.

Too bad that effort to finish the game seems to have fizzled, but that's only fair.

I hope this new game is as good as it could be. KOTOR is a really interesting universe.

Re:KotOR2

[Enderandrew]

Obsidian was given a year to make a full title, and then LucasArts went out of business and shipped KOTOR:2 even 3 months earlier than planned. Most people don't seem to know this, but LucasArts completley closed their offices and fired most of their staff. The new LucasArts works out of the ILM offices. LucasArts also just lopped the ending off the game at the last minute. Many files from the ending were still on the disc, and Team Gizka is "fixing" the game to restore the lost portions of the game, which include various quests, dialoges, etc. from the whole game. There was also a full planet cut from the game, which is still heavily hinted at in the shipped version of the game.

The Obsidian devs have a great track record of past titles, many of which used Bioware engines, and greatly improved on them. Some argue that Planescape: Torment is the single greatest PC title of any genre, ever. So don't go insulting arguably the greatest PC RPG devs on the planet.

After you've worked on titles like Planescape and Fallout, then you can critique.

Re:KotOR2

[Jaysyn]

Who the fuck are you telling me who I can or can't critique? The fact is KotOR2 wasn't finished & I wasn't happy about it. The fact is I haven't really been happy with *anything* the guys who currently make up Obsidian have done since PST, IWD or FO2.

Fallout: BoS = completely broken unless you apply nearly a GB of patches.

Baldur's gate: Dark Alliance - sucks

KotOR2 = broken & not finished

TES4: Oblivion = is nothing special.

NWN2 = sucks.

They've lost their ability to make fun games & are coasting along on name recognition alone.

Fucker.

Re:KotOR2

[Alexpkeaton1010]

If Kotor2 had a better/complete ending, it would have far exceeded Kotor1.

Re:KotOR2

[Enderandrew]

Obsidian devs had nothing to do with any of those titles save for NWN:2, and many are calling NWN:2 and its expansion pack the best RPG since Baldur's Gate 2.

Clearly, you have zero clue what you're talking about.

Re:KotOR2

[Jaysyn]

You need to check your facts, Devs from Obsidian were involved in all the titles I mentioned. If you've actually played NWN2 you'd know it's utter crap.

ground breaking?

[moderatorrater]

a ground-breaking interactive entertainment product As in a star wars mmo that doesn't suck ass?

Re:ground breaking?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Gotta love a group of six guys, five with laser blasters and one with a flamethrower, surrounding a dog in the wilderness and shooting it for sixty seconds to get it to die.

"But you have to have a challenge!"

Yeah, has any animal smaller than a skyscraper ever been a challenge to a guy with a gun or lightsaber in Star Wars? What? No?

Then leave the wilderness crap out of it, thanks. Elephant-sized animals should go down to one blast, like a level 1 critter in World of Warcraft. This is Star Wars, not reskinned EverQuest.

And we won't even get into the issue of a Jedi being either weak but omnipresent among players, something you have to spend months unlocking, or hard to unlock and weak. Good luck solving that issue.

Re:ground breaking?

[Markus_UW]

I dunno about this MMO thing... like BioWare isn't exactly an MMO sort of company. I seem to recall all of their games in the past being primarily of the single-player type (with the possible exception of NWN (which I played as exclusively single player, anyways)).

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

And we won't even get into the issue of a Jedi being either weak but omnipresent among players, something you have to spend months unlocking, or hard to unlock and weak. Good luck solving that issue. I can only think of a couple real solutions.

1. Simply don't allow anyone to be a Jedi.

2. Create a limited number of Jedi "slots" based on the population of the shard/realm. Like say for instance only .5% of the population can be Jedi. It would require both time and skill to become a Jedi. Jedi would be quite powerful - but the downside to becoming a Jedi would be that you could die permanently, creating an open slot for someone else to become a Jedi. Or at least be reverted to a "normal" character upon death or something like that, though I prefer the "permanent death" potential. Risk vs. reward.

Re:ground breaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

No Jedi class. Problem solved.

Re:ground breaking?

[rhombic]

Probable results for your solutions:

1. Nobody buys the MMO, as everybody wants to play a Jedi. Game fails

2. People buy the MMO, because they think they can become Jedi. They find out that they have to be hardcore to become Jedi
          2a) Casual gamers quit, game fails b/c revenue from hardcores isn't enough to keep it open
          2b) Casual gamers complain until Lucasarts forces Bioware to let everybody become Jedi

The problem is, Jedi are rare, and have power on a level way above "normals" in the Star Wars universe. Everyone's a fan of the Jedi, so everyone wants to play them. So for an MMO, you either have to nerf Jedi, make it nearly impossible to become one, or accept that everybody can be one & the universe turns into "City of Jedis". Sony tried all three w/ Galaxies, how's that working out for them?

Star Wars is a great setting for a single player game, but I'll be astounded when somebody makes a successful MMO out of it. It's like LOTR if everyone wants to play Gandalf.

Re:ground breaking?

[king-manic]

1. Nobody buys the MMO, as everybody wants to play a Jedi. Game fails

2. People buy the MMO, because they think they can become Jedi. They find out that they have to be hardcore to become Jedi
                    2a) Casual gamers quit, game fails b/c revenue from hardcores isn't enough to keep it open
                    2b) Casual gamers complain until Lucasarts forces Bioware to let everybody become Jedi Or you make every PC a jedi and make different types of jedi and make normal people NPC's or cannon fodder. Almost everyone wants to be a bad ass jedi so let them. You make your money fulfilling peoples wishes not ignoring it or making it hard.

Re:ground breaking?

[rhombic]

Making everybody a Jedi was Sony's last gasp w/ Galaxies. At that point it feelt so non-Star Wars-ish (i.e. City of Jedis) that everybody got bored and left. I think many players (esp. casual players) wish to be a Jedi as seen in the movies-- i.e. with cool powers that very, very few people around you have. That don't fly in a MMO.

Re:ground breaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 2. Create a limited number of Jedi "slots" based on the population of the shard/realm. Like say for instance only .5% of the population can be Jedi. It would require both time and skill to become a Jedi.

3. Award it based on two factors: (1) a set of in-game, computer-trackable accomplishments, that demonstrate player skill and familiarity with game mechanics, and (2) a record behavior, as tracked and recorded by invisible in-game CSRs, that demonstrate that the player is likely to behave like a Jedi when the slot is awarded.

In most MMORPGs, the CSRs and GMs are popping in and out of the virtual world at random times. Most of the time they're invisible. Sometimes they're visible. Either way, they're actually in a pretty good spot to gauge if a player is an asshat or not.

The guy you want to award the Jedi slot to isn't the guy who's on 18 hours a day killing mobs. The guy you want to award the Jedi slot to is the guy who's on for 6 hours a day, but who takes half an hour a day to teaching n00bs how to kill mobs. Or seeing a random n00b getting in trouble with a mob a couple of levels too high, and watching the fight from a safe distance. Not kill-stealing, just hanging around, waiting to step in and either draw the aggro away, or to one-shot the mob to death if it comes too close to winning against the n00b.

There's no easy way to for a computer to track that sort of playstyle, but it's very easy for a human to recognize it, in particular because it's so rare.

Just imagine - Jedi that actually act like Jedi. Hanging around in the shadows, doing Jedi-like things when the opportunity presents itself, and then darting off into the wilderness.

(Dark Side Jedi? Just offer them the same sort of in-game mechanic, but require twice as many mobs ground, and maybe a "secret" based on a metric of 10:1 ratio of PVP-duels-offered-to-other-players to PVP-duel-requests-received-from-other-players. Assuming most duels are offered at random between friends, one would expect about a 50/50 ratio of duels-offered-to-other-players to duel-request-recieved-from-other-players. One would expect an aggressive "Dude, let's fight!" personality to offer more duels than he received. Conversely, one would rarely expect a player suitable for a "light side" Jedi character to consistently offer start fights.)

Re:ground breaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could not deal with Jedi rarity at all by having the perfect setting for it.

KOTOR takes place 4000ish years before the original trilogy. Jedi are *plentiful* - there are entire bases / planets chock full of all sorts of different jedi (even neutral ones!) Every player can be a jedi without violating the lore.

Also, taking place this long before the original trilogy opens up the possibility of some very interesting story arcs that can be safely insulated from Lucas's Vision(tm) for the movies.

Re:ground breaking?

[badboy_tw2002]

That sounds like a lot of work for a CSR to be doing, but it does bring up an interesting idea of having MMORPGs with honest to goodness DMs. Of course, that's a lot of cost in running a game, and you've got a minimum wage dude with a lot of power running around. Also, is there round the clock survalence of these things? Who's watching the watcher? Still, as a side job, a professional MMORPG DM would be pretty neat. :)

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

I purposely didn't posit any specifics on what it would take to become a Jedi in option 2, because I haven't come up with any. But it seems to me it's really the only solution that's going to make a Star Wars MMO work, and I have faith that a good developer like BioWare can come up with a balanced system. Because as you said, if no one can be a Jedi lots of people will be disappointed, and won't by the game. But by the same token, everyone knows what a real Jedi is, and we also know that it simply won't work to have everyone be able to be a real Jedi in an MMO. Nothing would be a challenge for anyone, ever. There also wouldn't be too many buildings standing anywhere, as they'd be destroyed within minutes of being created. People would buy it, play it for a month, and move on to something else. So the alternative is to let everyone be a fake Jedi, except no one's going to be fooled because we've all seen the movies. The first time you stick your level 1 lightsaber into any other living being and it doesn't die instantly, all suspension of disbelief ceases.

This is the only option that they never tried with SWG, and I'd guess that's ultimately why it failed. Simply put, no matter how time-consuming you make it to become a Jedi, if you don't limit the actual number of possible Jedi, eventually everyone will be one. And if you make it so time consuming that the majority of people can't reach it by at least the 1 year mark, you probably won't have many people beyond a year anyway. Likewise, if you make it so difficult that most people simply don't have the skill to become one, you'll have multitudes crying and either getting their way or leaving, once again leading back to everyone being a fake Jedi, or having very few players. So they saw the inevitable and hastened it along, as well as their own demise.

Or possibly they're not making a Star Wars MMO at all, though that's a bit hard to believe at this point.

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

Yeah, but that still doesn't deal with how powerful Jedi are. So everyone can become a Jedi after about 3 to 6 months of playing (a typical amount of time for someone to hit max level and equipment in most MMOs). So we can expect by 6 months after release to have thousands of Jedi running around, one-shotting the biggest bosses, ripping down big buildings with the force, obliterating everything in their path, etc. Or did you mean fake Jedi, as in SWG style? Either way I'll pass.

Re:ground breaking?

[moderatorrater]

Actually, they've been fairly open with the fact that they've been making an MMO for the past year (at least). The real question is, has it been a kotor-based one or an in-house ip (like a mass effect mmo) or something else? LucasArts also has other stories they could be doing too, so it could be a Mercernaries mmo, lost vikings, etc.

But speculation doesn't come from nowhere, and they haven't denied it (which, if they were a person, is as good as confirmation, but who knows?), so I'm thinking that some star-wars based mmo is the most likely candidate now that we know they're still working with LucasArts.

Re:ground breaking?

[moderatorrater]

You're setting up a false dichotomy. General Grevious would require a lot of work for a jedi to take down, epic battles could be fought against hordes of sith, large beasts with lightsaber resistance (as seen in the expanded universe) could create challenges. If Boba Fett can beat Darth Vader, then mid-level bounty hunters should give low-level jedis problems. It's true that a lightsaber makes a significant number of encounters one-shots, but against a master or a large animal it's not a matter of hitting them once, it's a matter of wearing them down through swordplay.

As for ripping down big buildings, that's not very star-wars either. The biggest things we see being thrown around easily are girders. You can lift an x-wing with concentration, and that's it. The force has its limits, and in a world where it's plentiful, there are other ways to balance it.

Re:ground breaking?

[xhrit]

That is why you set your mmo in the old republic era, where there are 1000s ov jedis running around. Allow sith characters, with lots ov pvp, and make it hardcore so that characters can die.

Re:ground breaking?

[Rolgar]

What I'd be interested to see would be if each Jedi class player would be selected by a "Force Class GM" for their role playing ability. When somebody is selected, a fuller review (by 2 additional GMs) is performed before the player is selected to be eligible. The rest could then work as mentioned in the GP post. They are placed in the queue to become a Jedi/Sith when a slot becomes available, and they are notified that they are on the waiting list to become a Jedi or Sith, and how long they should expect to wait before they'll get their shot.

This should encourage behavior that would be conducive to having a fun SW MMO experience. Players on the waiting list would try to kill Jedi to open spots for themselves to move up the queue (such activity could be analyzed to verify the character doing the killing was acting in character, and the player be knocked down or off the list if it weren't.)

Likewise, Jedi/Sith characters that play out of character could have their characters revoked. That's not to say that a player shouldn't be able to wrestle with their conscience, but they shouldn't be allowed to do things clearly out of line of their character's basic ethos. So, if a Jedi starts to advance or use dark power skills, they should be watched and observed, maybe even questioned why by a Jedi GM.

This should raise the level of role playing in the game to improve immersion.

Note: I never played SWG, but I had a couple of friends that did.

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

You're setting up a false dichotomy. General Grevious would require a lot of work for a jedi to take down, epic battles could be fought against hordes of sith, large beasts with lightsaber resistance (as seen in the expanded universe) could create challenges. If Boba Fett can beat Darth Vader, then mid-level bounty hunters should give low-level jedis problems. It's true that a lightsaber makes a significant number of encounters one-shots, but against a master or a large animal it's not a matter of hitting them once, it's a matter of wearing them down through swordplay. Well, part of the problem is that episodes I-III aren't entirely consistent (yeah, understatement, I know...) with IV-VI. General Grievous wouldn't be that difficult for a real Jedi in most situations. He's a machine. Use the force to push him off the edge, rip his limbs off, crush him into scrap metal, rip down stones to smash him, etc. etc. He's a lot smaller than an X-Wing. Yeah yeah, you can make up all kinds of "reasons" why this or that boss isn't vulnerable to the force, light-sabers, etc. but then you're right back to fake Jedi. The simple truth of the matter is, in it's pure original form, the only thing that can block a lightsaber is another lightsaber, and the only thing that can block the force is the force. There are no other defenses. So that leaves us fighting Sith all the time. That would get old really quick.

As for ripping down big buildings, that's not very star-wars either. The biggest things we see being thrown around easily are girders. You can lift an x-wing with concentration, and that's it. The force has its limits, and in a world where it's plentiful, there are other ways to balance it. Really? Yoda told us size doesn't matter with the force. So perhaps the reason we don't see more mass destruction of buildings, etc. is that the majority of the time when we see the Sith it's in their best interests to keep things intact, while Jedi simply don't behave that way. Or perhaps more likely, the story just worked better this way. Either way, if you unleash hordes of 12-year-olds with that much power over a virtual environment and no repercussions, well it doesn't take much to visualize what would happen.

Re:ground breaking?

[sdaemon]

Dunno about everyone wanting to be Gandalf, but in WoW, roughly 70% of the alliance seems to be Night Elf hunters named some variant of "Legolas".

My favorite so far is "Superlegolas". Something about that one makes me giggle.

Re:ground breaking?

[aztektum]

the thing about SWG is that, it's a shitty game even w/o the jedi. make a good game where Jedi are designed as an integral component from the ground up and then you might have a chance.

plus it wouldnt be such a big deal if jedi hadn't been turned into super heroes over the years

perhaps they werent depicted as so over powering in the OT because of fx limitations, but a Jedi to me doesnt mean everyone being able to blow sparks out their ass, or single handedly save the galaxy. i like to think of them more as sage old samurai type warriors in a sci fi world. yes they are gifted fighters and scholars and such, and SOME can shoot sparks, but the prequel trilogy reduced them to action figures (in fairness this representation was somewhat precipitated by EU content over the preceding years as well)

i don't think the jedi need to be playable as a uber class. they simply need to be different than a soldier class. Bioware did a damn good job with balancing them against the other team members (granted you could turn almost anyone into a Jedi) Sure a Jedi should be feared but come on they got owned by foot soldiers according to canon, all depictions to the contrary are nothing but marketing an image.

Re:ground breaking?

[Knara]

Really? Yoda told us size doesn't matter with the force.

I dunno. Yoda has been established as pretty much the most powerful Jedi at the height of the Jedi's power. Yet it required him to focus just on the X-Wing in ESB to move it out of the swamp.

Now, granted, I hear that in the novels Luke does some light-dark combo FTW bits, but it seems to me that Vader's "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force" bit is an expression of a "theoretical" upper limit, as opposed to a practical limit (or ability, depending on how you look at it).

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

I dunno. Yoda has been established as pretty much the most powerful Jedi at the height of the Jedi's power. Yet it required him to focus just on the X-Wing in ESB to move it out of the swamp. Yeah, but that was when he was damn near dead of old age. Also, in that scene you don't see him moving anything smaller with the force, therefore for all we know he would have needed as much effort to move a leaf or a grain of sand. According to Yoda, Luke's only limitation in regards to the size of the object was his own mind.

Re:ground breaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally got the feeling that the time he spent concentrating was more meant as an example to Luke, rather than that it too him that long to do it. Remember, removing the X-Wing from the swamp was supposed to be Luke's final test, helping to prove that he'd learned all he could from Yoda, had reached a greater understanding of the force/peace of mind. But Luke was instead distracted by what was happening outside of his training, and when it became obvious he wasn't going to return focus to his studies, it was Yoda's last chance to set an example for him.

Re:ground breaking?

[rhombic]

but against a master or a large animal it's not a matter of hitting them once, it's a matter of wearing them down through swordplay.

Qui-gon Jinn disagrees*

*yes, yes, I know it was a lot of swordplay leading up to it, but it was still one hit

Re:ground breaking?

[C0rinthian]

Make goals ingame something besides killing things? Perhaps have the light/dark faction boundaries be fuzzy? (Do evil stuff like destroy buildings and you fall to the dark side) Perhaps have significant consequences to gratuitous power abuse. You can have powerful characters, yet still control them with original game mechanics.

Re:ground breaking?

[Rakishi]

Grievous is a cyborg, as in he has a human brain (and some organs) in that metal body so technically he could use the force is he was sensitive and all that crap.

Re:ground breaking?

[GaryPatterson]

The biggest things we see being thrown around easily are girders. You can lift an x-wing with concentration, and that's it. The force has its limits...

Yoda: "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship."

Actually, that quote would be better written for Yoda as:
"Size matters not. Look, me at. By my size, judge me, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. The Force, my ally is, and a powerful ally it is. Creates it, life does, makes it grow. Surrounds us, its energy does, binds us. Not this crude matter are we, no, luminous beings. The Force around you, you must feel: here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. The land and the ship even."

Mangled, his syntax is. Begun, my impression has. Difficult times lie ahead for my wife. Talk like this, I will.

(As an aside, the best Yoda impression I ever saw was a 6'4" Scotsman with a beard like a rhododendron who said that Yoda reminded him of a randy French dwarf in a porn movie. "Take this, you will. Hee hee hmm. On you face, it will be.")

Re:ground breaking?

[jollyreaper]

And we won't even get into the issue of a Jedi being either weak but omnipresent among players, something you have to spend months unlocking, or hard to unlock and weak. Good luck solving that issue. Or you can always go the Force Unleashed route and turn the Jedi into Dragonball Z characters. I still can't believe that trailer, some Jedi pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky. Was the game's script written by a furiously masturbating 14-year old Star Wars fan or Kevin J. Anderson, a grown man with the mentality of a furiously masturbating 14-year old?

Re:ground breaking?

[jollyreaper]

Really? Yoda told us size doesn't matter with the force. So perhaps the reason we don't see more mass destruction of buildings, etc. But Yoda also looked pretty tuckered out after the X-Wing trick. Perhaps the size matters not thing is along the lines of "Lord, I believe; help me with my disbelief." Theoretically, a Jedi could toss a mountain into the sea; in practical terms, a top level master like Yoda is still going to struggle moving an X-wing.

I don't like the uber-buffing of Jedi abilities that started with the prequels. The most satisfying portrayals of Jedi power is giving them moderately superhuman powers, sort of like movie ninjas. Anyone can activate a lightsaber and wave it around but only a Jedi is going to be able to put it where it needs to be and deflect an incoming blaster bolt. A Jedi can pull some crazy acrobatic stunts like leaping twice his height but he's not going to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The Jedi uses his speed and reflexes to outfight his enemy, he doesn't just punch his hand through the guy's chest and pull out the still-beating heart. With the crazy-ass superpowers Jedi get in the expanded universe, it's like someone playing through a video game on cheat mode.

Re:ground breaking?

[servognome]

Yeah, has any animal smaller than a skyscraper ever been a challenge to a guy with a gun or lightsaber in Star Wars? What?

Ewoks?

Re:ground breaking?

[servognome]

As in a star wars mmo that doesn't suck ass?

Before NGE Star Wars Galaxies was a good MMORPG. It was probably the best mainstream MMO in terms of role playing; the problem was the action combat most players look for was horrible

Re:ground breaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can lift an x-wing with concentration, and that's it"

Size matters not. Judge Yoda by his size do you?

In the video preview for The Force Unleashed we see the Sith apprentice bring down a Star Destroyer using the force.

No limits has the force. Only in your mind they are.

Re:ground breaking?

[nonos]

Nice idea, jedi could also fall on the dark side.

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

I don't like the uber-buffing of Jedi abilities that started with the prequels. See, that's what I don't get. I only watched the prequels once, and didn't really like them much. All my personal perceptions on how powerful the Jedi are come from the OT. The thing is, the Jedi way is defensive, not offensive. You'll never see a true Jedi wielding the full power of the force, unless it's absolutely necessary to defeat a Sith. They do only as much as needed. After watching Luke's training with Yoda, I was left with the impression that Yoda, in his better days, could have tossed that X-wing into space without breaking a sweat, and probably smacked around some Imperial Star Destroyers as well. He didn't because he was a Jedi.

But perhaps size does matter, despite what Yoda said. (Hey, he was small...)

Re:ground breaking?

[jollyreaper]

See, that's what I don't get. I only watched the prequels once, and didn't really like them much. All my personal perceptions on how powerful the Jedi are come from the OT. The thing is, the Jedi way is defensive, not offensive. You'll never see a true Jedi wielding the full power of the force, unless it's absolutely necessary to defeat a Sith. They do only as much as needed. After watching Luke's training with Yoda, I was left with the impression that Yoda, in his better days, could have tossed that X-wing into space without breaking a sweat, and probably smacked around some Imperial Star Destroyers as well. He didn't because he was a Jedi. Well, the influences behind the Jedi were equal parts Western white hat gunslinger, samurai hero, and Chinese -- shit, I forget the name for it, wushu or something, fictionalized historical morality plays, basically as fanciful as our westerns. One of the big points of martial arts is not mastery of others but mastery of yourself. If you are in a conflict, you don't get a grin because you now have an excuse to kick ass. You try to solve the conflict peacefully with violence being the last resort. And even if it does come to violence, you can get your point across by dodging a few blows and getting the guy in a painful hold rather than knocking his head off. Resolve conflicts without violence if possible, if not, with the minimum level of violence necessary.

If Yoda could knock around Star Destroyers, he could have come out of hiding and blown up the original Death Star just by looking at it. That certainly removes drama from the story. It starts to get as lame as the Christ story where you have an all-powerful God getting crucified as a sacrifice to himself to atone for the character flaws of the very people he created so he would no longer be mad at them. Huh? The point is, if Jedi are powerful enough to fling around Star Destroyers, you've removed all drama from the story. It's like watching old black and white Superman episodes where he's taking on normal human gangsters. Yawn. Where's the drama in that? It's like watching Hulk Hogan stomp on kittens.

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

If Yoda could knock around Star Destroyers, he could have come out of hiding and blown up the original Death Star just by looking at it. That certainly removes drama from the story. It starts to get as lame as the Christ story where you have an all-powerful God getting crucified as a sacrifice to himself to atone for the character flaws of the very people he created so he would no longer be mad at them. Huh? The point is, if Jedi are powerful enough to fling around Star Destroyers, you've removed all drama from the story. It's like watching old black and white Superman episodes where he's taking on normal human gangsters. Yawn. Where's the drama in that? It's like watching Hulk Hogan stomp on kittens. Yeah, I thought about that too. That's probably the only *real* reason they didn't showcase the full powers they said the Jedi have. That said, here's a few more things to consider story-wise. First, one reason the Jedi didn't use their powers for such massive attacks is that such a massive disturbance in the force would surely have revealed them and likely their location to Vader and Sidious. Second, remember that at the times of the Death Stars, Yoda was either dieing or dead (leaving Luke as the only Jedi), and Luke wasn't quite ready yet to do anything that massive. Heck, on the first Death Star, Luke was barely trained enough to use a lightsaber, let alone the force. Is this more nuanced and thought-out than the writers intended? Probably. But it does seem to fit.

Now, as to why we don't see more massive attacks from the Jedi in the prequels... well, my personal view on that is "who cares". Those are already such a fucked up mess, one more "little detail" like that hardly matters.

But to get back on the real topic, perhaps I'm mistaken and most people do not see the Jedi as being as powerful as I see them. If that's the case, then it's also possible to make an MMO with "fake" Jedi, allowing everyone to be a not-so-uber Jedi with no problems. They would just have to be more powerful and more of an accomplishment than they were in SWG after the massive fuckup.

Re:ground breaking?

[jollyreaper]

Yeah, I thought about that too. That's probably the only *real* reason they didn't showcase the full powers they said the Jedi have. That said, here's a few more things to consider story-wise. First, one reason the Jedi didn't use their powers for such massive attacks is that such a massive disturbance in the force would surely have revealed them and likely their location to Vader and Sidious. Second, remember that at the times of the Death Stars, Yoda was either dieing or dead (leaving Luke as the only Jedi), and Luke wasn't quite ready yet to do anything that massive. Heck, on the first Death Star, Luke was barely trained enough to use a lightsaber, let alone the force. Is this more nuanced and thought-out than the writers intended? Probably. But it does seem to fit.

That's still supposing the Jedi really should and do have that kind of massive power on tap. Put me in the camp of still not believing it. I mean really, if a Jedi could do that sort of thing, why did the Emperor even need a Death Star? Would it not be more terrifying if he could knock a planet's moon out of orbit and smash 'em together? But that would also be ridiculous.

The way I see it, the whole Force thing is sort of like the way personal shields were used in Dune. Frank Herbert wanted swordfights, that's the beginning and end of it. He wanted to create a setting where the valor of individual men-at-arms still mattered. Thus you get the ritualized combat of the Houses of the Landseraad. Note, every family still had atomics. You could get an all-out planet-destroying nuclear war if the gloves came off. But first, that would draw you into direct conflict with the Spacing Guild. Second, transporting all the equipment for an all-out war is expensive as hell. That's why House Harkonnen was put deeply in the red with the cost of taking over Dune. So instead of a battle being decided by vast armies, it was fought between superbly-trained men-at-arms, the fate of a planet decided economically on what would be a small skirmish in an all-out war.

Going with that premise, he stuck the shield technology in the book, the shield by necessity being permeable to air so the wearer would not suffocate but impermeable to lethal projectiles. And lasguns cause shields to explode like an atomic bomb, thus being a war crime out of bounds by Landersaad law. So you end up with skilled swordsmen in a lethal dance, trying to find the opening they need. The only reason the shields weren't used on Dune is because it antagonized the sandworms and guaranteed an attack.

Now, as to why we don't see more massive attacks from the Jedi in the prequels... well, my personal view on that is "who cares". Those are already such a fucked up mess, one more "little detail" like that hardly matters.

Agreed, I consider those movies less canon than the Holiday Special. But regardless of that, I still think superpowered Jedi are a bad idea. It just totally throws off the feel of the story if these guys are running around with the kind of powers that would put Norse gods to shame. Not that you couldn't tell a story with Norse gods throwing planets at each other, it might even be good; it just would not have the flavor of Star Wars with proper Jedi.

But to get back on the real topic, perhaps I'm mistaken and most people do not see the Jedi as being as powerful as I see them. If that's the case, then it's also possible to make an MMO with "fake" Jedi, allowing everyone to be a not-so-uber Jedi with no problems. They would just have to be more powerful and more of an accomplishment than they were in SWG after the massive fuckup.

The problem you'd run into is something that's been lampooned in comics before like a planet where everyone is as super-powered as superman. Usually the joke would be that there's one guy who has no powers and the entire city is waiting for him to get into trouble so they can save him. But back to the point, superheroes are about wish fulfillment and self-identifying with the excepti

Re:ground breaking?

[FictionPimp]

Remember, Yoda was dying.

Re:ground breaking?

[Endo13]

I've never gotten into Dune (too many other higher priority entertainments out there) so I really can't comment on what you wrote there. I could add a few more *possible* weak explanations for the rest, but I don't think it would really matter much, as I think we've pretty much played out this discussion.

So I'll wrap up my end by saying thanks for your insightful responses. (Even if we were massively off-topic here, heh.)

Re:ground breaking?

[obeythefist]

In KOTOR's era there were Jedi and Sith everywhere, armies of them in fact. So for story's sake it's much more conducive for the MMO style.

Re:ground breaking?

[obeythefist]

Yoda was wiser, Windu was more powerful. Windu defeated Palpatine and was only killed because he was betrayed by Anakin when Anakin saw that Windu was going to execute Palpatine and seize power over the Republic.

I know, the prequels sucked, but they're also canon. Deal with it.

Also, Luke used the Force to destroy the Death Star, which in turn had the power to destroy a planet. So perhaps more practical than theoretical after all?

Re:ground breaking?

[obeythefist]

A lot of RPG's justify the sheer unrealism of a "hitpoints" system where you can shoot some guy 500 times, and he's fine, but the 501st bullet kills him stone dead.

The way they do it is explaining hitpoints as a kind of toughness-morale system where you fight until you are worn down, bullets hitting really close and ricocheting nearby, then the last hit is the real finishing blow.

The only other way to do it is with a cumbersome wound effect system that takes ages to deal with.

Re:ground breaking?

[Luketh]

(As an aside, the best Yoda impression I ever saw was a 6'4" Scotsman with a beard like a rhododendron who said that Yoda reminded him of a randy French dwarf in a porn movie. "Take this, you will. Hee hee hmm. On you face, it will be.") That comedian was David Callan, who's actually Irish and a popular Australian comedian. http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/people/dave_callan.htm

Re:ground breaking?

[GaryPatterson]

Yes, I knew it was Dave Callan (I saw him at the Comedy Festival in Melbourne a few years back), but I didn't think his name would mean anything to people on this mostly US-based website. For some reason I always think of him as Scottish. I don't know why, and I know it's a terrible thing to get someone's nationality wrong like that, but I just can't get that right. At least I didn't say he was British!

Re:ground breaking?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I don't even wanna see "force resistant" stuff. That's a "hack" to give Jedi a challenge in games. Yet they have many challenges besides turning their awesome light saber into a wiffle bat.

Like deflecting tons of blaster fire, or taking on many opponents at once.

If they built a game right such that, if someone got behind you, they won, then tactics would make a much bigger difference. In all games I've seen, if someone is behind you, it's your AC minus a little bit. I.e. stupid and completely unrealistic.

Re:ground breaking?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's like coming up with challenges for Superman. There are more challenges to Superman than just:

1. Other Kryptonians

2. Guys with Kryptonite in their pocket

Like saving the girl from the speeding train -- can it be done in time? Can he defeat a horde of bad guy attacking something in time? Etc.

Everything doesn't have to boil down to a magnificent, glowing, humming laser sword that is secretly a wiffle bat. Let it be the awesome thing it is, then come up with other challenges than suddenly having girraffes with force-resistant skin omnipresent.

Re:ground breaking?

[moderatorrater]

Actually, the hit in the face was necessary for the chest wound. So it was two hits.

MMOG :)

[BlowHole666]

Maybe with Bioware writing the code instead of Sony Online we can get a good Star Wars MMOG.

Re:MMOG :)

[SpeedyDX]

I wouldn't put it beyond BioWare to make something on the level of WoW, or perhaps even better. They've shown that they can make in-depth, gripping, epic RPGs in the Baldur's Gate series and NWN. They've shown that they can execute a cleaner, simpler style of play in KotOR. The sweet spot for an MMO lies somewhere in-between simple enough so anyone can pick it up, but with enough diversity so any two given people playing the same race/class can have completely different play-styles.

If Blizzard was able to strike that balance (for the most part, anyway), BioWare, with a vast amount of RPG experience under its belt, certainly has the potential to as well.

Re:MMOG :)

[BlowHole666]

Also blizzard does not have a name like Star Wars in the title. Yeah War Craft is an household name and so is Star Craft but it does not compete with Star Wars. On that note I wonder if blizzard strikes back with a Star Craft MMOG?

Re:MMOG :)

[king-manic]

Also blizzard does not have a name like Star Wars in the title. Yeah War Craft is an household name and so is Star Craft but it does not compete with Star Wars. On that note I wonder if blizzard strikes back with a Star Craft MMOG? Star wars fans don't necessarily overlap MMORPG fans. Warcraft fans were likely diablo fans which have a significant overlap. Star trek would have enough greater overlap because both MMORPG fans and Star trek fans apparently suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders.

Re:MMOG :)

[cthulu_mt]

The Star Wars Intellectual Property would be a big help in going up against Blizzard in the MMO market. Releasing a StarCraft MMO would probably be a bad counter by Bliz as to would more likely canabalize the WoW customer base.

There is room for more than one good MMO in the market, heck, the competition might drive Blizzard to make a better product.

Re:MMOG :)

[Taulin]

They are using a customized HERO MMORPG engine, which is developed by a third party. They already have prototyped a lot of the missions in NWN, and started making levels.

Re:MMOG :)

[Enderandrew]

Gripping? Epic? NWN?

Bioware has made some good games, and created great worlds. But NWN's campaign was awful.

Re:MMOG :)

[ravenshrike]

The original campaign was awful, the 2 sequels were quite good, HoTU being better than SoU.

Re:MMOG :)

[servognome]

I wouldn't put it beyond BioWare to make something on the level of WoW, or perhaps even better. They've shown that they can make in-depth, gripping, epic RPGs in the Baldur's Gate series and NWN.

WoW demonstrates that most people aren't looking for an "in-depth, gripping, epic RPG;" players are looking for a fun and engaging action RPG experience.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

A dead company and a company that beats dead horses for living...

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[russlar]

A dead company and a company that beats dead horses for living...

What could possibly go wrong?
PETA could find out and put a stop to the whole project.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[tmosley]

Yeah, but which is which?

I have to wonder

[GammaKitsune]

How will they handle things like allowing players to be force users, or KOTOR's signature "Good and Evil" system? Assuming this is a KOTOR MMO, of course.

Re:I have to wonder

[moderatorrater]

they could have good/evil requirements for different factions, force users might have to start at a higher level (the user having already reached that level with another character), etc. What issues are you seeing exactly? Darth Vader was almost defeated by boba fett, General Grevious was able to fight multiple jedi, etc, so balancing is merely finding the levels at which these people are equal. Good and Evil has been avoided by most MMOs by locking people into factions, so if they were to make it so that they could choose their factions based on their alignment, which was fluid, it would create a very realistic (to the star wars universe) mmo. I feel good about it.

Re:I have to wonder

[king-manic]

How will they handle things like allowing players to be force users, or KOTOR's signature "Good and Evil" system? Assuming this is a KOTOR MMO, of course. I enjoyed KOTOR and KOTOR 2 but I always felt the alignment system wasn't good vs evil but good and jerk. I always felt their evil options weren't that natural. You usually got:

1- don't accept a reward: +2 light side 0 credits
2- accept reward: 0 light side 1000 credits
3- Eat his children and take his credits: 1000 credits +2 dark side +3 hp

I felt they could have nuanced it a bit.

Re:I have to wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. I never feel like I have the option to play as a character that is evil, but pretends to be good, while all the while manipulating everyone else for his own ends. When I try to play that way, I end up being "good".

Yet some of these games actually have NPCs that pull that off.

Re:I have to wonder

[meringuoid]

I enjoyed KOTOR and KOTOR 2 but I always felt the alignment system wasn't good vs evil but good and jerk. I always felt their evil options weren't that natural.

I think the chief problem is that RPGs are classically driven by the quest-issuing NPC. He's the guy who stands around in the marketplace saying 'Oh, won't somebody help me', and who gives you a quest when spoken to. Most of the sidequests revolve around helping these guys out.

What's the dark side option going to be? Kill him on the spot and just take the reward, that's one way, but makes the dark side game rather short and uninteresting. Better is an option like 'Turn him over to the bounty hunters who are the cause of his troubles and get a larger reward'. KOTOR had a fair few decent dark options - sell the medicine to the profiteering gangster rather than the doctor, say. KOTOR 2 was better - Kreia had some rather nasty teachings to impart, if you let her.

But in the end, I'm with the Korriban storekeeper. Why does everyone get the idea that 'dark side' always has to mean 'hooligan'?

Re:I have to wonder

[jollyreaper]

What's the dark side option going to be? Kill him on the spot and just take the reward, that's one way, but makes the dark side game rather short and uninteresting. Better is an option like 'Turn him over to the bounty hunters who are the cause of his troubles and get a larger reward'. KOTOR had a fair few decent dark options - sell the medicine to the profiteering gangster rather than the doctor, say. KOTOR 2 was better - Kreia had some rather nasty teachings to impart, if you let her. I haven't had a chance to play KOTOR yet. I think if you're going to put morality in the game, it should more depend on how you go about solving the problem than something comically evil. What was it, a Police Academy movie where the kid has a cat stuck up in the tree? The gun-happy officer pulls out his ridiculously large gun and BANG! Cat falls out of the tree. Well, you never said you wanted it alive. Well, that's still kind of comic. But a better example would be you've got a nice guy being troubled by the local mob, say he owes a Hutt money. The good guy approach would be to find out a way to earn enough money to pay off the Hutt. The Dirty Harry approach would be to stage a confrontation with the Hutt that doesn't leave people dead but gives the impression that a great many will be if the slug doesn't drop the matter. The more Sithy approach would be killing the Hutt to cancel the debt.

Part of the problem with the way the difference between Jedi and Sith is portrayed in the new Star Wars stuff is that it has to be so drastically black and white, good and evil. No, they couldn't just leave it at Anakin thinking an extra-judicial arrest of Palpatine was wrong, they had to have him be an accessory to the murder of a Jedi master. Oh, and once that happens, he isn't faced with a searing moment of soul-searching as he contemplates what he's done, he immediately goes and hacks up a Jedi preschool. WTF? The more interesting kind of evil is the one that looks right. NuTrilogy sithy evil is Snidely Whiplash bullshit.

Re:I have to wonder

[Xybre]

Yeah, and it seemed like the games expected you to pick one. There were always things that were only for light side or dark side, few if any powerful objects were for greys. I've played KotOR 1 and 2 probably too much, but I get the most content and most options playing as a grey, especially in KotOR 2. Even though there were few items, and few allowances made for greys, there was certainly more story there. I don't know if it was intentional or just my style of play created the most options.

As far as actually playing as Light Side.. no one in the Star Wars universe (that I'm aware of) was that nice, not Yoda, not Ben, certainly not Luke. In fact Luke in the third movie was using Dark Side powers, wearing black, killing and kicking ass, and you know what? He was *still* the good guy. In the books that follow Episode VI Luke goes on to create a new school of jedi, I forget what it was called, the unified force or something, where they recognized the Force for what it is, just the Force, inherently neutral. It's the person that is good or evil.

As far Dark Side, hell, sometimes it Just Made Sense (tm), like when those beggars threaten you, tell you to give them money, dark side tells them to fuck off or die, light side gives them more than they ask for - encouraging the bad behaviour. Usually though, you're hassling little kids and weeping mothers, shooting yourself in the foot for a buck, pissing off people who could help you.

Next time you play a KotOR game, just think to yourself.. What Would Vader Do? Would Vader give half a shit about 20 credits from a bum? No, he'd throw his ass out of his way and keep walking.

I'm not looking forward to a KotOR MMO, it'll turn into SWG or Matrix Online (does anyone play that? Does it still exist?). But I am looking for KotOR III, and maybe KotOR 2.5 to finish up the last damn game (Team Gizka hear my cry.. LucasArts obviously doesn't).

Re:I have to wonder

[obeythefist]

Of course if that made a KOTOR MMO, it would be rushed out but look complete and it will look awesome, except for one thing.

When you hit level 60 you'll suddenly be at level 85 wondering what the heck happened.

I miss the old LucasArts

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, when they made good adventure games.
Now they just make star wars games.

Re:I miss the old LucasArts

[sckienle]

Agreed; or at least go back to making games in more than just the SW genre.

Re:I miss the old LucasArts

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd made a Star Wars adventure game. Never understood why that didn't happen.

Re:I miss the old LucasArts

[HazMathew]

The closest thing to those oldies but goodies is the new Wii Adventure by Capcom: Zak and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. It actually reminds me of Gobliiins which was published by Sierra, but sort of along the same lines as the grand old Adventure games LucasArts and Sierra used to make.

Re:I miss the old LucasArts

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree, i would like to see a comeback in the adventure game genre, and i think that Lucasarts would be the company to start it.

Re:I miss the old LucasArts

[G Fab]

For sure, brother. They had those movies recently. Give it a decade, and maybe they'll chill out.

I would love some more Sam and Max, and even the more obscure stuff. Maybe games are like rock band CDs, and once the band gets successful their art loses its flavor.

Too bad games cost money to make.

Penny Arcade reference

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/24

I played SWG why back when it was released (first mmog experience) - and it didn't seem bad at first, but then Sony seemed to randomly change things for no good reason ("game balance" ...lol) and then the "everybody is a Jedi" thing happened and I was out the door...

Re:Penny Arcade reference

[BlowHole666]

Yes the same happened with DAOC. They got bought out by EA :( and they made the game to easy. It was an honor to have a crafter, now they made it easy. They made it hard to be the best player, now you can solo your way to become maxed out and be the best. They gave the game away to the people who just want to play every now and then. Just so they could make a buck. Now DAOC is loosing users left and right for other games.

Re:Penny Arcade reference

[Kilraven]

DAoC was dying before the EA acquisition of Mythic (Thanks ToA!). DAoC is like an 80 year old on life support - someone needs to pull the plug.

Probably after the Warhammer release party.

Re:Penny Arcade reference

[BlowHole666]

Yeah the plug is ready to be pulled. It is just easier to say it is EA's fault. They sure fucked up Westwood :)

Awsome

[flayzernax]

Lucus arts has some nifty tech/ILM good artists etc... Bioware makes solid games in every aspect! Hopefully they can reign in their lucas arts partners and get them with the program. Personaly... I never liked KOTOR or the other lucas arts games near as much as the original baulders gate etc...

Re:Awsome

[BulletMagnet]

Lucus arts has some nifty tech/ILM good artists etc... Bioware makes solid games in every aspect! Hopefully they can reign in their lucas arts partners and get them with the program. Personaly... I never liked KOTOR or the other lucas arts games near as much as the original baulders gate etc...

One problem - EA just bought Bioware. Therefore, by the time this thing goes gold, it'll require Madden '09 sound bytes of tackles and whatnot tossed in with Battlefield 2142 spawn points.

EA = the bastard 12 toe'd child of Computer Associates and Symantec

Re:Awsome

[coolhandlucas]

EA = the bastard 12 toe'd child of Computer Associates and Symantec

Wow. Harsh.

** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[Picass0]

Seriously Lucasarts. How long do we need to wait before you put out another X-Wing title? It's been eight years sinse the last one. Where's the love?

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[Guysmiley777]

Space Combat does not mix with MMO (very well). SW:G tried and failed, although I enjoyed JTL. Most MMO players abhor "twitch" game play and most twitch gamers abhor MMO treadmills.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[Chandon Seldon]

So... why don't they release a (traditional twitchtastic) X-Wing title?

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[ducomputergeek]

I miss the days when WoW meant Week of War at the gaming Zone. But alas, the space fighter combat sim game genre seems to have passed with the end of the last Millennium. Same with flight sims too it seems. I mean look at the companies that are no longer around. Origin's gone, with it Wing Commander, Dymanix is gone and with it the Aces series of games. Volitition & Interplay, both gone and with it Freespace (although the code is out in OSS land and there are couple projects like Beyond the Red Line worth noting.)

I haven't heard much from Totally Games, Lawance Holland the creator of the Xwings series, since Bridge Commander.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[Joe the Lesser]

An X-Wing/TIE Fighter MMO is the holy grail of gaming.

The trick would be to concentrate on stable connections so you don't get 2 seconds of no user input and you die for reasonable specs.

But I'd spend a lot of money to ensure I had the best connection and cpu speed for such a game, and a lot for the game itself.

So much potential *drools*. I'd totally be like the chick in Indiana Jones and fall in the crevasse over this game.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[smash]

If you're into flight sims, get Falcon: Allied Force.

Was released to very little fanfare last year some time (other than within the dedicated hardcore sim crowd), but it's awesome. It's (finally) what Falcon 4 should have been - crashes are rare, the dynamic campaign works well and the graphics and sound are good enough. :)

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[ducomputergeek]

Own it. Both the original F4 and AF. However, still AF is more or less the redressing of a 6 year old game (when it was released). And I forgot that Microprose is no longer with us either. Still, you are talking about the true flight sims like Falcon aren't being promoted anymore. Whether that has to do with an unpopular war or what...I don't know. They just aren't being made.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT MMO" **

[smash]

Truth is, they cost too much. The number of man-hours put into Falcon AF (much of it is a culmination of community-generated realism patches, amongst other stuff) is staggering.

Why would EA/etc bother to spend that much development time on a hardcore sim, when they can spend a couple of months re-skinning some generic 3d shooter, tacking a year onto the end of the generic NHL or Madden game, and releasing that?

It's just not (as) profitable.

Then again, who knows. Now falcon is at least somewhat stable, hopefully someone takes ownership of it properly and releases (at least) graphic/sound updates, new theatres, planes, etc... much of the hard work has been done - it's already SMP aware apparently :)

No more MMOs!

[Fallingcow]

I wish that all the good CRPGs weren't moving to console bastardizations and MMO models.

Some of my favorite games ever are CRPGs... Morrowind, Fallout 1 & 2, Vampire: The Masquerade and Bloodlines, Darklands (old school as hell, but one of the best games ever; we need a remake with a less-clunky interface. I'd pay new-game prices for it), Planescape: Torment, etc.

My wife's a much bigger RPGer than I am, and any trip to the PC game section of a store will draw complaints from her about how every RPG with an interesting-looking box turns out to be yet another damned MMO on closer inspection.

Re:No more MMOs!

[someone1234]

I know of 2 old school crpg's in the making:
Broken Hourglass
Drakensang

And of course Bioware's Dragon Age
Probably there are others.

Re:No more MMOs!

[Huntr]

I've got my eye on Age of Decadence

Re:No more MMOs!

[Fallingcow]

Haha, thanks, part of the reason that I posted was in the hopes that people would recommend some :)

Broken Hourglass looks especially interesting. I'll have to keep an eye on these.

Re:No more MMOs!

[pickapeppa]

Amen. I liked the first 2 KOTORs because of the immersion and the story. I doubt I'll immerse very well with aNaK1nlol_w0ot! bouncing by claiming "wookies are teh gay!"

Re:No more MMOs!

[LarsWestergren]

Hi, I like the same games... Witcher and NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer are two recently released games that might appeal to you. MOTB I have played, and while it didn't reach the greatness of Planescape: Torment it is one of the closest ever in my books.

Re:No more MMOs!

[someone1234]

Cool, action point based combat :)
This really sounds promising as i hate real time combat.

Re:No more MMOs!

[Tuidjy]

My hopes lie with the Witcher. But, to be honest, lately I have been too scared to go look for info on the game. I have it on pre-order, and I will start it with an open mind.

Goes without saying, I'm a fan of the books.

Re:Bioware sequel?

[king-manic]

You mean Bioware is actually making a sequel to one of it's games without porting it to a substantially worse company? I actually wonder if new Bioware owner EA will affect this at all though... Bioware is a developer, they don't decide which studio a sequel goes to. Lucas Arts did. Even then Obsidian didn't cock up KOTOR2 by themselves, what happened is for one reason or another lucasarts chose oblivion (likely cheaper) but pressured them to release before it was ready. Bioware didn't give in to such pressure in the past. this may be different now that they're EA Bioware.

www.biowarelucasarts.com is up for grabs

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy domain www.biowarelucasarts.com
2. ????
3. Profit!!!

Just waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

for the next non-groundbreaking game. Guess it will be Duke Nuken Forever.

Re:Just waiting...

[Devir]

Oh man, I hate this cheesy horrible borderline troll comment but I have to say it... (flushes karma down toilet)

I'll fart Gold Rose Petals before Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

Re:Bioware sequel?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, LucasArts wanted Bioware to work on KOTOR2. Bioware did not want to make games using other companies' intellectual property (which has obviously changed since then), so LucasArts went to Obsidian. LucasArts shares a considerable portion of the blame for KOTOR2 being the half-finished joke that it was, as they chose an awful developer when Bioware bailed on them. However, Bioware isn't exactly blameless.

Star Wars: Yoda Stories MMO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, Lucasarts realized the immense success they got from Yoda Stories and decided a MMO version was necessary to continue its lasting legacy in Star Wars gaming history.

Re:Bioware sequel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bioware did not want to do KotR2. They passed it off to Obsidian (aka Black Isle). Lucas Arts went ballistic and took a hatchet to the end of the game cause it was far to "dark" and went against lore

I miss the old LucasArts

[SmallFurryCreature]

You know, when they made good star wars games.

Now they just make bad star wars games.

Offcourse, if you are really old, you remember Lucasfilm Games as a flightsim company. Kids these days and their new fangled adventures. You want adventures, you go to Sierra.

Another company that went down the crapper.

Actually I have no idea if it was adventures or flightsim that came first.

Well, where is the money?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Look at happened to poor Oblivion when it dared to charge people for a small upgrade, why they were nothing more then common fraudsters.

Meanwhile a small company called Blizzard is raking in several times what that horse armour costs EACH month PLUS they charge 5-6 times for an upgrade. Oh okay so their upgrade is a lot bigger, but people been paying them a monthly fee for years and they still want more AND get it?

Companies got to be asking themselves why they spend years on a product that if it is a big hit might make them a small fortune once while they can also spend that time making an MMO and if it is a hit make more money then they can dream off.

On the other hand, will this be an MMO? With Star Wars Galaxies still running and it still having a lousy rep and neither company having any experience (except lucasrts with destroying one) with MMO's?

We shall see. But MMO's are here to stay, because Blizzard has shown you can get some serious money from them.

Re:Well, where is the money?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Yeah, and really... for all the terrible things you'd constantly hear about SWG, I bet it still was a way bigger money maker than KOTOR or probably nearly all single player games.

(Something like Halo can still make a lot of money without being an MMO, but I think if we're honest it's mostly selling on the appeal of multiplayer.)

If making a half-assed MMO makes you more money than a great SPG like a Planescape Torment or what have you, where's the incentive to make the great single player game? For every manager that's motivated by pride in a job well done above all, there's many who want to sleep on a bed of money. People have voted with their dollars, and as often picked something crappy.

Re:Well, where is the money?

[Das Modell]

Meanwhile a small company called Blizzard is raking in several times what that horse armour costs EACH month PLUS they charge 5-6 times for an upgrade. Oh okay so their upgrade is a lot bigger, but people been paying them a monthly fee for years and they still want more AND get it?

It's not about the money, it's about what you get in return. The horse armor upgrade is so utterly trivial that asking money for it is preposterous. WoW's monthly fee is perfectly justified and people are willing to pay it. Most singleplayer games, which cost between 50 and 70 euros depending on the platform, will last you for a few days or a week. WoW is a game that you can play for years, and you only pay ~12 euros a month. You also get constant updates, some of which feature additional content or major changes to the game.

WoW only has one expansion so far, and it's a big one. There's nothing unreasonable about charging money for that. Oblivion also has expansions (smaller ones), which is what you should be comparing BC to.

Re:Well, where is the money?

[dtml-try MyNick]

First of all, you can hardly call Blizzard a small company anymore. It became a multi billion dollar industry of it's own. The Warcraft and Starcraft franchise is huge.

The difference between Blizzard and the *big* majority of other developers is that so far Blizzard haven't sold themselves out yet.
When they release something it is done, the product is finished and polished as good as it gets. They rather wait a few months, miss that oh-so important Christmas release and release it later instead of making something just work and patch it up later.

As a customer you feel the difference between such a developer and for instance a monster like EA which is just after the fast cash.
I'm sounding like your average Blizzard fan-boi now, and heck, I am one. Because experience has thought me that if I bring money to Blizzard I'm going to get something good in return.
The same experience that has tought me to never ever buy a EA title again, or for that matter never buy something from most developers again before having played the "free (as in beer) version first. Because most of the times you're going to bend over and get it from behind. The Oblivion upgrades are a good example.

We shall see. But MMO's are here to stay, because Blizzard has shown you can get some serious money from them
I disagree, they have merely shown that delivering quality pays of. This concept simply still works in most business :p

Re:Well, where is the money?

[jollyreaper]

Look at happened to poor Oblivion when it dared to charge people for a small upgrade, why they were nothing more then common fraudsters.

Meanwhile a small company called Blizzard is raking in several times what that horse armour costs EACH month PLUS they charge 5-6 times for an upgrade. Oh okay so their upgrade is a lot bigger, but people been paying them a monthly fee for years and they still want more AND get it? There will continue to be a market for MMO's but I'm over and done with 'em. I don't have the time for it. Getting into Oblivion now and this is where it's at. You can play the game, enjoy it, and be done with it. The problem with an MMO is you're frickin' wedded to it, unless they make it something non roleplaying like a Counterstrike or Halo.

Companies got to be asking themselves why they spend years on a product that if it is a big hit might make them a small fortune once while they can also spend that time making an MMO and if it is a hit make more money then they can dream off. Episodic content makes sense, I don't know why Valve is having so much trouble cranking out the Half-Life episodes. If you have a good game, a good engine, and most importantly a good story, you could easily sell episodic content. Make them expansion packs, make them good, and make them drive the story. Once all the work of creating the basic world is done, it should be a lot less effort to create another game's worth of content vs. creating a whole new game from scratch. I'm not sure how big the Oblivion expansions are but it sounds like they're nowhere near as big as the original game. But that's what they should do. Come out with an Oblivion, then release a solid expansion each year after that, then by year four you're coming out with the totally revamped new version number edition of the game and start the cycle over again. If the material is good, people will be happy to pay.

With the original Half-Life, the expansions weren't all that great. Opposing Forces, Blue Shift, very meh games. But imagine if you were getting the continuing story of Freeman, and without the hacked up nature of the current episodic titles.

On the other hand, will this be an MMO? With Star Wars Galaxies still running and it still having a lousy rep and neither company having any experience (except lucasrts with destroying one) with MMO's? With their powers combined, they're Captain Cock-up!

Re:Well, where is the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when I was an EQ1 Addict, we calculated the cost of upkeep and factored in production/dev costs for EQ 1 and the revenue of the playerbase and estimated that EQ 1 was making millions a month profit. Discussion began during a raid and we did it while forming for the next instance.

Monkey Island

[Trojan35]

I don't want to hear it until they start developing a new Monkey Island. Like the first two, not the crap that came after it.

Hell, even re-release the first two on Xbox Live Arcade and I'll be happy. LeChuck's revenge was my favorite.

Re:Monkey Island

[Anonymous Coward]

One unfortunate side-effect of reading Slashdot comments too quickly is that at first I saw your comment as wishing for a Monkey Island MMO. Now I'm going to be trying all day to figure out how that would work.

(If it did work, it'd probably be a blast, though.)

Re:Monkey Island

[Grant_Watson]

To be fair, Murray was a redeeming factor in the third game. But you're right, the first two were better; still, can you see any company using that sort of engine these days? It's sad, really.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT" **

[radarjd]

So... why don't they release a (traditional twitchtastic) X-Wing title? Tell it! I would love to see even X-Wing v Tie Fighter with updated gfx. Of course, adding prequel ships would be sweet, too.

By "BioWare" I assume you mean EA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since BioWare cashed out to EA, I assume you mean "I have faith that a good developer like _EA_ can come up with a balanced system"

Re:By "BioWare" I assume you mean EA?

[Endo13]

Since BioWare cashed out to EA, I assume you mean "I have faith that a good developer like _EA_ can come up with a balanced system" Yeah... I keep trying not to think too much about that. Hopefully EA will keep their grubby little fingers out of the pie.

So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[SmallFurryCreature]

I like MMO's and I liked SWG. For a while and then something happened. Through various design choices AND player actions the game got ruined.

To explain I have to tell you how SWG worked. Like most MMO's you picked a race, sex and apperance, and a class. HOWEVER that last choice had little meaning as you could pick up all the classes with just little bit of money at the start. Unlike the rigid class structures of the Everquest clones (Ultima Online is a seperate beast) in SWG your character could advance in any skill set if he/she used it. If you wanted to advance in pistol class, you had to buy the skill class of pistoleer, and then just use pistols to kill something.

The precise arrangement was a little complex but it allowed you to combine several skill sets together to make your character. Want to be a robot building sharpshooter? A medic with a big sword? A bounty hunter with passion for cooking? A jedi... ah well we will get to that. But more or less, you could.

You had the base skill set of ranged combat (pistol, carbine, rifle (and something I forgot)), melee (unarmed, sword etc) (It has been a while cut me some slack) and support skills like medic, crafter and scout.

The idea was that you would pick those skills that most suited your style of play. For a short time in the games history it worked. A lot of players had a bit of scouting skill to help with gathering resources, some had some medic skills to help with healing even if their main intrest was combat. While others took on the role of pure fighters, secure in knowing that others in their party could heal them in exchange for taking the brunt in a fight.

It more or less worked, skills sets were varied and most were of real use.

What you have to remember was that SWG had far less of the rigid level system that other games have. If you wanted too, and could afford the modest fee you could go straight to fighting rancors, sure you would be eaten, but you could.

SWG did NOT have the quest system, instead you got generic missions of the level of your party and went out to kill spawns. While it sounds less intresting then quests, it helped with one thing. Finding a group, I never had a problem. Granted this was because EVERYBODY hunter naff's but at least you didn't spend an hour LFG. NOR because of the mixed skill sets did you have to beg for a healer to join you.

Once in a while, a group would form to hunt rancors. There were no uber elites back then, just ordinary playrs with varied skills sets seeking fame and glory. A rancor group was a time to prepare, to get your best medicine from stall, repair that armour and get all your equipment checked out.

Once ready, you left, to arrive on a dark world where EVERYTHING could kick your ass. The only way to survive was in a group and to use ALL the skills you had. The best time I had in game was doing deep into rancor valley with a small group, taking shelter among friendly animals (who if a rancor came near would attack, yes my friend MMO critters who have fights amongst themselves) and hunting. Camping out, a small lighted area under a night sky while the trader tried to find some resources so the medic could make some more stimms.

Ah yes, SWG was FUN. It was adventuring.

And then, the doc buffs. SWG had some unusual systems and one was that armour reduced your recovery rates to the point where you wouldn't heal or even were simply unable to wear the armour. To counter that, there were buffs in the forms of food, but the doc buff was introduced to allow the heaviest armour to be actually used. And sony miscalculated. Because resources were dynamic in their quality, the quality if the doc buff depended on the materials players combined. THe results were far more powerfull then intended, with a decent quality doc buff, costing 20k you could walk up to a rancor nest, tap it and just area attack away, spawning rancors until the nest was destoryed and you were surrounded by half a dozen dead beasts. Who needs a jedi now?

The doc buff

Re:So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[Joe U]

Very well written and thought out. You're right on pretty much all your points, except that CU and NGE didn't help kill SWG.

When the buff/armor fiasco started Sony could have simply nerfed the features and lost about a quarter of their userbase, instead they redid the entire game, twice. So they lost over three quarters of their userbase.

Not well planned.

Personally, I think if they re-introduced the original game today, people would play it. But it would have to start from scratch, and that's more work than SOE would ever put into a game.

Re:So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[Endo13]

That's what I really like about Guild Wars. Yeah, ArenaNet has made some changes in the past that upset a lot of players (never enough to cause anything close to a mass exodus) but now their policy is that any changes they're considering on the actual skills (powers, spells, moves, etc. for those who've never played GW) are tested live first to get feedback. Yes, actual live testing over the course of a weekend, not testing on some obscure test server that only about 5% of the players ever use. And even after live testing and subsequent implementation, they're not afraid to revert those changes later if something unforeseen results.

Re:So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[Kingrames]

I played a Dancer/Bioengineer.

The game wasn't ruined with doc buffs for me, as I was completely unaffected. It was ruined when there were 50 other dancers competing for "views" in the same cantina and in a different group.

It was nice when I had the option to "allow" people to benefit from my healing skills (by blacklisting them before they walked in and choosing manually to unlist them) and could buff them, and they actually began tipping.

Then the next week it seemed like, it was popular knowledge that everybody had to master a bunch of classes to become jedi and so I was no longer reputable, respected, or even acknowledged. I was street trash, just like everybody else.

I abandoned my combat skills at that point and began to seriously play my Bioengineer, which was lots of fun. I could even set up a vendor with my custom-created pets and sell them to other players. it emptied daily. I had found ways of creating little cats that spat acid long-range and were extremely tough to kill, and kept my first one for my own. It wasn't hard to create vicious beasts, but players wanted them to be a specific level so that they could be tamed by anyone. you got more if they could be mounted. A critter that did both went for more than a landspeeder - everybody had one of those.

Then I shelved the game for a while and promised to return, but when I heard that they'd completely removed the Bioengineer class from the game, I vowed never to return.

Re:So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[aztektum]

And sony miscalculated. That line right there speaks to pretty much Sony's entire handling of that game. Yes the profession system was interesting, but horribly unrefined, as was just about every other system. And they took a "fix it on the fly" approach, which would unbalance the game in an entirely new direction.

It really did need a fairly extensive over haul like was implemented in the first CU, minus perhaps some of the more intriguing mechanics being yanked.

But it wasn't just balance that screwed that game over. It was performance problems as well (I'm told the rubber banding can still be a huge issue.)

Mediocre (at times almost completely broken) gameplay + Shoddy performance and stability = Increasingly unpopular game

Re:So, Star Wars Galaxies 2.0?

[servognome]

SWG wasn't anymore flawed then anyother MMO I seen

SWG had one fatal design flaw, the HAM system. Most of the combat problems were the result of kludgy fixes to try and deal with a poor design. Doc buffs to allow heavy armor were a kludge to accomodate the fact that armor reduced your HAM. By shoving the effects of armor, weapons, special abilities, and the damage you abosrb all into the same pools of points, it made the game a nightmare to balance. Raph Koster overthought how combat should work. For decades "hit point" based systems have worked and been refined in all sorts of RPG settings (table top, CRPG, MMO, P&P, etc). Why then would you scrap the tried and true and instead create a system that makes absolutely no logical sense? I get hurt more concentrating on a shot than by getting hit by a rifle blast!

What is frustrating is all the other aspects of the game were great. I haven't found another MMO that offers as much variety in role playing, everything else is kill->level->kill and the NGE just decided to clone that.

Wake up, Gabe

[PriceIke]

Cool! Tycho's dream comes true!

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT" **

[Anonymous Coward]

just tie fighter with updated gfx and engine please.. pretty please... dont have to change the story line or anything

maybe extra dream of supporting assignalbe axis so i can use all of them on my joystick...

please give us at least an updated rerelease

*begs*

Well, think of it this way

[Moraelin]

Well, think of it this way:

1. Blizzard also wasn't known as a MMO company, heck nor as a real RPG company either, before WoW. What people wanted Blizzard to announce at the time was Starcraft 2 or maybe Diablo 3. People were actually massively disappointed when Blizzard announced a MMO. (For an admittedly extreme reaction, see the VG Cats strip where Aeris mugs the Blizzard guy that announced they'll make a MMO. I'm sure a few people fancied doing that.) It sounded like something they'll surely botch, and a waste of manpower which could have been better used for something they were good at.

Needless to say, it currently has about 20 times more players than Everquest at its peak, and EQ2 peaked even lower.

2. Actually, WoW is very much playable as a single player RPG too. It does have about twice as many quests for either faction than is needed to get a player to level 70, it has more story and actually better texts than, say, Morrowind, and has more content than 10 Oblivions or so. It's certaily not _the_ best single-player RPG, but it's better than a lot of stuff we were perfectly content with, and even with the monthly fees still it's more content/buck than most.

In fact, that's my main problem with it: over time it's become increasingly difficult to find a real group for anything else than an endgame raid. Oh, you'll find a level 70 guildmate who'll be happy to run your latest alt through the Deadmines. Or even a perfect stranger if you ask nicely. (God knows I too have ran perfect stranger newbies through a ton of low level instances just because they were polite and well behaved and said "please".) But that kind of group does nothing to me. I want to feel like I actually contributed something to that group, and not like, say, may support-character priest was twiddling his undead thumbs while a level 70 mage was nuking the NPCs in wholesale.

Anyway, it _is_ used as, basically, a semi-single-player game by the majority of the population. They group when they really have to, then bugger off back to playing single-player as soon as it becomes possible. (Let's just say that even 90% of the people who were swearing that the massive level-60 MC raids are the meat of the game, went back to soloing 60 to 70 as soon as the portal to the Hellfire Peninsula opened.) The average WoW player _is_ playing a single player game with some multi-user chat channels built-in. Sorta the same as Unreal Tournament included an IRC client, except this time it's available right during the game.

So basically, even if you're a SP player, don't discount it yet just because it's MMO. A MMO can also be a good single-player game, and I wouldn't be surprised if Bioware gets that part even better done than Blizzard. In fact, if anyone can dethrone Blizzard in that one aspect, Bioware is probably the safest bet.

3. Well, allow some of us SW nerds our moment of hope, will you? Some of us awaited the launch of SWG like it's the second coming of Obi Wan. Some people kissed their wives, said goodbye to their friends, and expected to never be seen again in RL once a SW MMO opens.

And, frankly, it only appealed to a minority in the first place and disappointed everyone else. Yes, the (old-style) SWG fans will point out that it had its advantages over other MMOs at the time, such as allowing more customized characters. And I'll concede that. It had some damn good idea. But the rest sucked more ass than the vaccuum toilets on the space shuttle. It was a SW game launched without spaceships _or_ jedi, for a start. And on the ground it was a baren sandbox that made some of us look back on even the old UO more favourably. It was a DIKU with graphics and a lot of computer-generated terrain. _Empty_ computer-generated terrain, where Raph Koster expected players to just create content by role-playing with each other... without even being given much tools or props for that. Add the constant bugs and heavy-handed dev/support team, and it wasn't much fun except for a minority of the most hardcore SW fans.

A

Re:Well, think of it this way

[heinousjay]

It's definitely a pipe dream. The Star Wars world is full of insane inconsistencies and lead by a madman. It will never make a good game because it has a weak foundation. And of course, the Jedi problem that the rest of this thread beat to death.

Re:Well, think of it this way

[ichigo 2.0]

In fact, that's my main problem with it: over time it's become increasingly difficult to find a real group for anything else than an endgame raid.

The problem is that many people just want to reach 58 so they can get to Outlands. Running the low-level instances probably feels like a waste of time when you'll dump most of the gear for greens in hellfire peninsula, and they only go to the instances to complete their quests.

Re:Well, think of it this way

[mu22le]

see the VG Cats strip where Aeris mugs the Blizzard guy that announced they'll make a MMO. Link, please :)

Re:Well, think of it this way

[tonymercmobily]

Hi Moraelin,

I love your comments on Slashdot.
I was wondering if you'd like to write for us (Free Software Magazine).
If you do, please contact me: t.mobily And then AT and then freesoftwaremagazine.com

Thank you!

Merc.

Re:Well, think of it this way

[Moraelin]

Hmm, I can't seem to find it on VG Cats. I think it was one of the "old" comics, before the author changed styles, and thus no longer on the site. A couple have been redone in the new style, and include a link to the old one, but I think not all.

Or, of course, it's also entirely possible that my mind is playing tricks on me, and I saw it on a whole other comic. It's been a couple of years, so...

What we'll get: Prequels

[Anonymous Coward]

If Lucas puts out a new X-Wing what we'll really get is a Prequels infested version of it.

The Prequels are like a prison bunkmate, and they'll be staying around a raping your Star Wars memories for a long long time. There will be no F'ing way to ignore those, and Lucas will make damn sure of that.

X-Wing 2008 will be Pod Racing Extreme.
You'll have to deal with whatever proto-X-Wings Obi & Aanakin used in the prequels. You'll fit droids and clones not the Empire.
It will be all anal raping all the time.

Yeah, I loved X-Wing & Tie fighter.
How do you think I feel about the Prequels and Lucas now?

Pre CU, Pre NGE system killed swg

[unity100]

The very flexible boxes system was good, but it provided BIG TIME exploitation due to template stacking.

people just got all possible bonus points for something and then created uber templates. like fencer templates that got stuff from pistoleer, fencer, teras kasi to form +120 dodge, and become unbeatable. at one time, the same toon had won an online pvp tournament of 160 people, FIVE TIMES over, WITHOUT being hit JUST ONCE. then they tried to nerf the stackers, but, what difference would it make - they just changed their template trees and got uber again.

the pre cu, pre nge state of the game, ie the initial state alienated MANY sw fans. imagine, you are going into a sw game, but EVERYONE is walking with rancors or grauls or panthers behind them, the game looks like a zoo. then, suddenly it goes away with patch, this time you see that bare hands outdo blaster wielders, totally making it a medieval setting instead of star wars.

many quit at that time.

Boba Fett can beat Darth Vader???

[G Fab]

Not to be a geek, but what?

In other news, Jedi can just fight Jedi. Yeah, you aren't so unique. OK. this mostly fails.

I think there is a need for hybridization here. Same for GTA style games. You don't want a MMOG GTA game beacuse it would be chaotic. Why not have servers of ten players and 1000 NPCs actually rendered in combat areas, though in a way where there is a still massive amount of people in the economy and in social areas.

Re:Boba Fett can beat Darth Vader???

[moderatorrater]

Wikipedia has the details. But, if you remember, Jango Fett deals with jedi in the movies without getting killed.

But can I edit it?

[tepples]

The closest thing to those oldies but goodies is the new Wii Adventure by Capcom: Zak and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. But can I edit this Wiki? That's one of the problems with console games: publisher-sanctioned game mods are rare to nonexistent.

Re:But can I edit it?

[HazMathew]

*Shrug* there are 'problems' with everything.

TIE Fighter II?

[tepples]

just tie fighter with updated gfx and engine please.. pretty please... dont have to change the story line or anything So you don't want Super TIE Fighter II Turbo, I take it?

SWIPO

[tepples]

1. Buy domain www.biowarelucasarts.com
2. ????
3. Profit!!! Might the ???? be "Get the domain SWIPO'd" and the "profit" be for EA and Lucasarts?

Re:SWIPO

[dintech]

Get the domain SWIPO'd

Yoink!

Well, player lore-master in Lotro

[SmallFurryCreature]

In Lord of the Rings Online the Lore-master and Captain classes both heal at expense of their own morale (health). So you can still seriously deplete yourselve, most combat moves of the lore-master cost morale as well, so even if you are not attacked in a battle you still end up damaged.

The HAM system was different but could have worked, I just think that you were never meant to wear the heavy armour in the way that it ended up. Perhaps it was supposed to hamsting you and have you in constant need of a medic because the Star Wars universe is not one of heavy armour. None of the heroes wear it. Only the baddies and they die like flies.

The HAM system did make it that if you were hurt, you were less effective (because you couldn't afford to keep spamming the heavy hitters moves), this is far more realistic then 99% of games were you can be at a sliver of your stats and fight as if you were fresh.

What I think was fatally wrong was not any specific design in itself, but rather the handling of it. HAM meant you could not just wear heavy armour without a medic to then heal you (it was possible to shift your stats enough to wear it). Heavy armour was supposed to be rare. Then SOE decided against this original design and instead of reworking it completely released a kludge of a fix that broke the whole design.

But not all blame lies with SOE. How many Terra Kasi did you know that fought in heavy armour. That exploited the armour bugs with some parts not being needed? Why couldn't players simply play the game as it was, before the doc buff I never had need of heavy armour. You just made sure to fight in a decent group and stayed alive that way.

Re:** Crosses fingers and chants "XvT" **

[mako1138]

There's a TIE Fighter Total Conversion that uses the XWA engine. I don't know how good it is, still working on XWA ...

It wasn't even slightly like the movies.

[arthurh3535]

SWG immediately failed my "Star Wars Geek" criteria when one of the starting classes was medic, something that not *one* of the main characters was within any of the movies. It did not have mainstays of the West End game archetypes like noble.

Then it failed the 'fun combat' system, when the tutorial failed by having the 'combat NPC' have to kill himself, as you couldn't.

Then it utterly failed by having my beginning character run out into the wilderness and thrown my body in front of womprat to be killed easily.

If they had reskinned the animations and attacks with "bow" and "Sword" it would have been a crappy fantasy MMO too.