Star Wars: The Old Republic

Hey everyone. Another post about an MMO, but this one isn't out yet, and rather than being based in a fantasy world with elves, orcs, dorfs, and the usual other elements found in your average MMO (not to seem like I'm trash talking fantasy MMOs, I'm just so much more excited for Star Wars: The Old Republic than any other MMO out there that, well, it's necessary to show the contrast...wow this is a really long parenthetical...anyways, back to what I was saying), Star Wars: The Old Republic is based in, obviously, the Star Wars universe.

The game is set in a time long before that shown in the Original Trilogy, when the Republic was still strong and the Sith Empire has only recently shown it's true power. As in all MMOs, the setting is highly contentious, allowing for Player vs Player content that is justified in the lore. The reason I and so many other MMO gamers are excited for this game over others, though, is because of the immense amount of work that has been put into it. The entire game...let's rewind...the ENTIRE game (at least according to advertisements, let's not get too carried away here) is voiced over. This means any character in the game that you interact with will respond in their own voice, and rather than the standard MMO quest system with two options: Accept or Decline, you will be able to choose from a variety of dialogue options, allowing your character to be good, evil, or any combination of those two options.

Another reason why this game has me so excited: it's made by Bioware, who brought the gaming community such masterpieces as Knights of the Old Republic and it's sequel (notice the similarity in titles?), Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins, along with countless other games. Bioware is arguably the best company in the business at making RPGs, and they will certainly be bringing that experience to the table.

Finally, this game has huge potential in terms of who it could attract. Not only will it attract fans of MMOs and the previous RPGs made by Bioware, it also taps into the fan base of the Star Wars universe, perhaps one of the largest communities of nerds (let's be honest with ourselves here) in existence! Now I realize that every MMO that comes out is hyped up to a degree that is generally unreachable in practical terms, but I do believe that this MMO could be the "WoW killer," a term used too often by the marketing people behind just about every MMO that has come out since WoW beat out the competition.

I'm not naive enough to think that this game will live up 100% to what it's creators say about it, nor do I think that it will truly "kill" World of Warcraft, but what I do see is a game that has extraordinary potential. In fact, when I think back over all the MMOs I have played, the only one that seemed this promising pre-release was World of Warcraft. So whether you enjoy MMOs, played a KotOR game back in the day, or even just enjoyed watching the Star Wars movies, do yourself a favor and take at least a glance at the soon-to-be-released Star Wars: The Old Republic.

What do you guys think? Will SW:TOR be as great as I hype it up to be, or will it be a flop? What other MMOs are you looking forward to? I remember seeing a comment about Rift, but I'm going to be honest, other than that and SW:TOR, I haven't really been keeping up with the MMO scene.

Lord of the Rings...Online?

Hey everyone. For those MMO addicts out there with nothing to play, I'd like to bring to your attention (if you didn't know already) that Lord of the Rings Online is now free! The game has a reasonably sized community full of helpful people, as well as a variety of classes that,  though they resemble standard MMO archetypes, all have their unique twists. For example, instead of the traditional healer class who uses divine power or whatever else you want to call it, LotRO has the Minstrel, who uses his music to heal and buff allies. There is also an interesting take on the standard MMO crafting system where you choose a pre-made set of three crafting abilities of various types (gathering, crafting, etc etc).

Despite being free, a trait that would often speak of a lack of quality in video games, LotRO is a very well-polished game. And hey, since it is free, it's not like you'll lose anything by giving it a try!