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SOE Also Making a New Star Wars MMOG?
Hand Solo writes 'Ten Ton Hammer has an inside scoop on SOE making a new browser-based MMOG based on Star Wars. Rumor is that it will be run on the Free Realms platform. This is generating a lot of buzz around the net. Quoting: 'Former and current Star Wars Galaxies players can still remember the sting of the 'New Game Experience' that changed the face of that game for everyone. SOE has repeatedly said that they have learned from their mistakes, and plan to not repeat them. If SOE isn't expressly targeting the hardcore segment this time around, they (unlike BioWare) won't have quite the same initial level of expectations to deal with. Don't let us give you the impression that SOE plans to take on BioWare, and their highly anticipated MMOG debut, The Old Republic, particularly given the engine the game is rumored to be based on. More plausible is that it will be based off the Clone Wars CGI animated film, offering a more stylized approach to the universe. "
I just don't see how a browser based MMO would ever succeed. There would have to be so many limitations, its like handicapping yourself out of the gate!
Sony Online Entertainment
"they have learned from their mistakes, and plan to not repeat them.......Again."
FTFY.
They've said it before, and they might just say it again. This company is near the top of awful companies I've worked for - promoting some terrible people into management, and promoting terrible business practices. I played SWG the night before it came out, and TWO of ten quests worked...Good luck, you'll need it!
By contrast, a MMOG has elements of both Mman and Dog. They are, allegedly, their own best friend.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
The poster seems to claim that Star Wars The Old Republic is going hardcore, but that just seems to be a wish from a lot of WoW players, there is little indication this will be true.
For those who are lost, hardcore has become term in the MMO market to describe those players who like World of Warcrafts end-game raiding system. In this system there are a series of dungeons populated by though bosses you fight with a group that drop 1 piece of armour each time. You need said armour piece to stand a chance in the next dungeon. Since only one piece drops for a group, you either got to be very lucky or repeat the dungeon multiple times. Say it is a 24 man raid, then you need to do the raid 24 times for everyone to get it. To support this, complex point systems have been created (Suicide kings and others) to arrange who can win what and when.
Some would call this a grind, doing the same thing over and over for a piece of gear that will just enable you to do the same again in another dungeon. Other call this hard. The idea is that hard and a lot of work are the same thing. Hardcore for some means "though challenge" for others it is closer to "spending lots and lots of effort". Gear in WoW is "special" because it would have either cost you a lot of time or you been very lucky on the rolls. Sadly, for some, this is translated into skill.
The debate on hardcore vs "easymode" then becomes that certain gamers who are willing to spend a lot of time into a game get upset if EVERYONE gets that special item just by completing a quest. It is not the thougness of the quest that is the issue but that in quest mode EVERYONE gets the reward, not just one person. There for in quest mode if a special item is rewarded, you only need to do it once.
Some people (like me) claim that the people who can sink a lot of time into a game are kids with little else happening in their lifes. They get upset when normal people with jobs and responsibilties can get as far in the game as them. If everyone can achieve the same, then they are no longer special.
For an MMO developer it is a though choice. There are a LOT of kiddies out there (and please note, being a kiddie has NOTHING to do with your real age) but there are also a lot of carebears out there. Ideally, you want both to pay for your game but that is unlikely to happen. So, you got to make a choice and it doesn't matter what choice you make, the other side will claim that you are failing because of that choice. Yes, some people claim WoW has failed because it only attracts the "kiddies". I wish I had a failure like that.
Almost every new MMO forums will be overrun by basically two groups. On the one hand the people who think the sandbox MMO's like Ultima Online and (especially in this case) SWG should make a comeback and on the other hand the WoW kiddies who think WoW is so great every game should be a carbon copy.
Bioware has "competed" against Blizzard before. Baldur's gate vs Diablo. Yeah really, both are RPG's so obviously they compete against each other. Read some players posts on the subject. Plenty a diablo player slams the heavy talking in Bioware games and many a Bioware player calls Diablo gameplay an endless boring hack&slash. In reality, the games are of course completly different and will generally appeal to different people. Only the true gamer, the totally cool and fantastic (like me) will play both games and enjoy them for what they are and not for what they are not. Yes, I am that good, worship me.
But when Kotor came out, many a diablo player posted that it should have less talking and more slashing.
And the exact same thing is happening right now with SWTOR.
Bioware has not been extremely clear on exactly what the gameplay is going to be like in SWTOR. But what they have told so far is that there is going to be a LOT of story and the you make choices similar to the ones we have come to expect from Biowares single player RPG's. Raiding often forms the endgame in an MMORPG (well, it does in WoW and WoW is
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.