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LucasArts, Bioware Announce Star Wars MMO
LucasArts and Bioware held a press conference today to confirm what has been suspected for a long time: they're working on a Star Wars MMO. It will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it will be a continuation of the Knights of the Old Republic franchise. Further coverage is available at Gamespot, and IGN has some of the concept art. An official website for the game was launched as well.
"According to the game's official announcement, Star Wars: The Old Republic is set thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader, with the galaxy divided by war between the Empire and the Sith. That's about 300 years after the events of KotOR, a time frame that, according to Zeschuk, 'is completely unexplored in the lore.' Players can take the role of either a Jedi, a Sith or other classic Star Wars characters -- and, as perhaps can be expected from BioWare, Muzyka says story will be a major component, underlying and driving all of the player's actions."
Isn't there already a Star Wars MMO?...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Galaxies
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Did stormtroopers existed during the Old Republic?
For better or for worse, it looks like Bioware is making this game instead of a KOTOR sequel. Their reasoning seems to be that they have a ton of story ideas, and they can get them into games easier in an MMO than in multiple sequels.
Failing? Didn't the game sell almost 2 million copies?
"LucasArts has already shipped 4.3 million copies of the game, but it's proved so popular they've told the factory to make some extra copies. Looks like The Force Unleashed could be the most popular Star Wars game to date - unsurprising when you consider it's one of the least rubbish"
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=243312
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I'm not saying it's impossible, but I really have a hard time seeing how story can meaningfully be integrated into an MMO.
Have a look at FF11 - it has a plot similar to single player FFs complete with long cutscenes and ominous dialogues (actually several plots - three in the original and one in each of the expansion packs). You don't need story events to include whole server, each group or an individual player can go through them without affecting the rest of the players.
Star Wars is all about the fantasy of being a hero. The problem is that playing minor characters in world where the heroes get all the action sucks. You don't get to be familiar. Hell in an MMO you don't even get to be special otherwise everyone is special just like you. What does that leave you with - unnamed wookies, droids, ewoks and storm troopers??? Yoda's dim witted 3rd cousin shlopwitt of the planet schnarf?
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Eve stayed true to itself and is quietly prospering.
Eve has hardly stayed true to it's "hardcore" self. I left EVE because they were continuously trying to mainstream the game, making PvP easier, making "large gangs" more powerful, making the universe effectively smaller (by making travel much faster)..
Why not hamper nanoships (can't afford to lose subs)
Why not ban the ISK farmers? (they don't)
Why did they axe EVE-TV? (can't afford it)
Why do they spam "power of two" offers every month? (they need the subs)
Why do they charge people from certain countries more? (because they need to?)
(also because they can)
Yes, you can be a "hero" in an MMO. The problem is it takes such a massive ongoing investment in time. When I played Dark Age of Camelot, I ended up as one of those people. The problem was, I spent countless hours in game spellcrafting, AND countless hours outside of the game working on the crafting calculator that was the source of most of my renown. I had fun, but I had to quit... I didn't want TWO jobs.
An offline RPG lets you be the hero on your own schedule.
While you certainly make some very valid points, I don't think this is a very valid statistic with which to back up your claim. Many MMOs are designed on the premise that all or most of the player base is at the maximum level, and WoW probably more so than most. Yes, 9 out of 10 players are level 70, but that doesn't mean that nobody is special, it means that level is essentially not a relevant indicator of specialness. How many people can call themselves High Warlord or Grand Marshall, or ride an armoured netherdrake? Can't be more than a few thousand, surely? Out of 11 million. I'd say those people might have something to feel special about. How many people are called Scarab Lord? A hundred, tops? That's a tiny fraction of the active player base.
And to respond to:
from that sibling post up there, I believe that WoW actually does have more than a hundred subscribers currently.
Santa's suicide mission go!
I haven't played either of them, but how is this different from what you can do in Second Life? From reading about it, it seems to have a "player driven economy", and the fact that you can transfer in and out to physical currency seems good. If someone is good at the in-game economy, they can make real money.