Star Wars: The Old Republic Will Actually Ship This Year

@Guyzea: Man, I wish.

@Guyzea said:

Kotor 3

I agree

From the picture we can infer Jeff both hates and loves the doctors, loves from Samuel L Jackson, hates from the inclusion of Haden Christiansen, and a prequel trilogy press photo.

@smikey said:

Actually why don't you just put up videos of you playing STO? Let people see what the recent changes in the game are actually like.

Definitely. Seems like this has been a rough summer for STO because of corporate shenanigans which their pr hasn't kept up with, but at the same time they've added a lot of features and it seems like there's a lot more on the way, some of it soon. The duty officer system should add a lot more non-combat gameplay. They should maybe have Brad go back when that launches. Their criticisms were valid at the time, but it's changed so much that continuing to treat it like a running joke isn't really fair.

Awesome! :D

@Buckfitches said:

@Meowshi: You are assuming a lot of things. People want the exact same, but not, but they do, or don't, maybe.

I'm not trying to insult you, but you are spouting just as much wishful thinking nonsense as all the "TOR haterzz" on this site.

It's not really "wishful thinking". I don't actually wish for the game to be successful or unsuccessful. I don't really care one way or the other.

I just don't know why everyone is acting so nonsensical.

Lots of us hoping to play it with the rest of us a bit annoyed by know pacific server information. It still amazes me that they will as everyone else does get a lot of complaints to have them, eventually get around to it and have to offer things as as sorry for waiting. See it all the time with these sorts of games. I would have thought companies would learn that there are people living this side of the world too.

That's cool, I guess.

@Meowshi: You are assuming a lot of things. People want the exact same, but not, but they do, or don't, maybe.

I'm not trying to insult you, but you are spouting just as much wishful thinking nonsense as all the "TOR haterzz" on this site.

That's no MMOon!

People sure like to complain a lot.

Well I preordered about a week ago, and I'm excited. I'm not expecting the second coming of MMOs, I'm expecting a story driven MMO with companions in space, so I doubt I will be disappointed.

I played WoW for quite a while and enjoyed it so if the combat is similar, I'm cool with that. Plus I don't have time for WoW endgame anymore so the idea of just rerolling and having a whole new story is pretty exciting for me.

All in all I'm just excited to make a smuggler and shoot first, with a wookie by my side.

In a TotalBiscuit interview on YouTube, Daniel Erickson was asked about the length of the storylines per class and stated that chapter 1 is longer then the original KOTOR (which if memory servers me well, was around the 50+ hour mark) and that there are 8 chapters per class... so yeah, that's a lot of freaking content if it turns out to be true.

A mate of mine as been part of the beta for a while now, hasn't said much due to the NDA though so don't know how well it's been going. Would love Giantbomb to do something similar for SWTOR like they did for STO, though I recommend they do it in January 2012.

@Xeirus said:

@CL60 said:

@blueduck said:

@CL60 said:

@blueduck said:

@Meowshi said:

@Benny said:

Too bad for them that they started making this when WOW was at its peak, only to have interest in WOW begin to wane since cataclysm was released.

Quality aside, when guild wars is released; the subscription based model will be completely irrelevant to new games post-WOW, if it isn't already.

With a monthly fee, a developer can churn out patch content at any rate they like and still get money regardless, whereas with guild wars, the onus is on arenanet to get high-quality content out as fast as possible so people can pay them for it. In my opinion, a much better model.

Interest in WoW is dying because the game has been out for years, not because people are tired of the style of gameplay. They just want that style in a shiny new wrapper. What the mass market wants is basically WoW in a brand new setting. That's essentially what this game is offering.

You're insane if you don't think it will be successful.

GW2 is innovative and will most likely be a more engaging game, but it won't sell anywhere near as much as The Old Republic. Quality does not equal sales.

Is that why Rift did so well? It was Wow in a shiny new rapper.

Uhh, Rift is doing well.

Yeah for its budget its doing well but if you took the amount they spent to make TOR it wouldn't be looking so hot right now.

EA has stated they need 500k subs to do good enough, Rift was Trions first game, and it sold around 1.2 million and has a very solid playerbase and is growing. A bioware starwars game with the knights of the old republic name will do just fine..most of the MMO playerbase wants MMOs that play similarly to WoW.

"good enough" won't be enough, I hope the game is great I really do because I want to play it and enjoy it. But from the video they showed (I know, I know, it's not much) this game looks awful. It'll do very well at launch but I promise it will drop off or go f2p after a year. But who knows, to each hsi own.

The game looks like an MMO. People who are disappointed in it are either people who aren't fans of MMOs in general or people who expected something that differed from your standard MMO. Either way, your problem is with the genre, not the game, and it's you're own fault for building up expectations based on nothing. From day one the developers of this game have been honest about what it is.

"We are not re-innovating combat."

"Our game is all about gear."

"We respect the trinity system."

Only way you could have been confused is if you weren't listening.

People still think that a game needs to do WoW numbers to be successful? EA has already said they only need a million subscribers to break even. Even SWG managed to sell a million copies, and it was a steaming pile of shit. If you people want to ignore Bioware's name recognition, Star War's franchise appeal, and the massive amount of hype these games have; then be my guest. Just don't pretend like your predictions of dumb are based on any sort of logic.

@Buckfitches said:

@Meowshisaid:

What the mass market wants is basically WoW in a brand new setting.

I don't think that's what the market wants, at all. Why do you think this, if I may ask?

WoW is basically delivering exactly that in every expansion. I don't think that dipping WoW in a space theme will do much in terms of gathering interest from people who are already invested in a game like that.

I'm sure it'll be very successful on day one, but I can already hear the servers merging in the distance.

Expansions are not a brand new setting in the same sense of an entirely new game. People eventually get bored of playing the same game year after year, even if they are addicted to the particular play-style and aesthetics. So far there hasn't been a fully-fledged MMO to offer a competently similar experience. The Old Republic is that game.

The fact that it is science fiction, instead of fantasy is just a bonus.

The fact that it is Star Wars, is just a bonus.

The fact that it is Bioware, is just a bonus!

People want to pretend like their preferences determine what will and won't sell, but that's nonsense. If it was up to hardcore MMO fans on these forums, WoW would have never sold 2 copies.

I was at the bioware session at eurogamer, they gave out beta access to everyone in attendance!

@wompa421 said:

I still don't know about this game if it wasn't an MMO I would definitely buy it but since it is one I'm going to wait till giant bomb does some coverage and a review on it to see if its worth me sinking a lot of time into it. The only MMO I've played was City of Villains and I played the shit out of it I did play WOW for a week and got bored hopefully this game is worth it because there are a lot of games coming out late in the year that I'm interested in.

That is an incredibly silly decision. Giant Bomb is not the place you go for MMO coverage or reviews. None of the main four even like MMOs, and they've already stated they have no interest in the game several times. If you're relying on this site to determine whether or not to buy an MMO, you might as well use it to determine which JRPGs and EA sports titles you want as well.

@blueduck said:

@Meowshi said:

@Benny said:

Too bad for them that they started making this when WOW was at its peak, only to have interest in WOW begin to wane since cataclysm was released.

Quality aside, when guild wars is released; the subscription based model will be completely irrelevant to new games post-WOW, if it isn't already.

With a monthly fee, a developer can churn out patch content at any rate they like and still get money regardless, whereas with guild wars, the onus is on arenanet to get high-quality content out as fast as possible so people can pay them for it. In my opinion, a much better model.

Interest in WoW is dying because the game has been out for years, not because people are tired of the style of gameplay. They just want that style in a shiny new wrapper. What the mass market wants is basically WoW in a brand new setting. That's essentially what this game is offering.

You're insane if you don't think it will be successful.

GW2 is innovative and will most likely be a more engaging game, but it won't sell anywhere near as much as The Old Republic. Quality does not equal sales.

Is that why Rift did so well? It was Wow in a shiny new rapper.

There was nothing "shiny" about Rift. It was just another fantasy MMO. People want another WoW. Something with a franchise that they recognize (Warcraft, Star Wars, etc.) with the cartoony, easily-accessible graphic style. Rift could boast none of those things. It wanted to meld science fiction and fantasy, create its own races, and essentially make something that what never going to have mass market appeal.

Despite the "Azeroth is dead" trailers, Rift was never competition for WoW. In fact, the game is doing fine with its current subscribers. It didn't have the budget of WoW or ToR.

Jeff: "We'll have to see how that goes, because a December 20 release date puts it pretty close to our crazy Game of the Year process as well as, you know, Christmas and stuff."

I'm offended that you would ever mention Christmas. Oh wait I celebrate it. Okay, I'm offended you would ever bring it up around people that may or may not celebrate it and may or may not be offended by its existence. There we go.

@ptys: Yeah, I was hoping with the failure of the Clone Wars movie that maybe people were smartening up to Lucas' BS tactics, but no. And I say that as a Star Wars fan.

@CL60 said:

@akiz_jack said:

Disappointed how Australia would miss the launch of The Old Republic. It'll probably be months before we get our hands on the game.

You could import a copy, it's not IP locked.

That is one option, but I'm worried about latency issues.

@ozhenson said:

As long as ME3 lives up to expectations, bioware is safe in my eyes

I have a feeling that Mass Effect 3 will be good but not great. As a fan of the Mass Effect series, played both games and read all the books, I am tempering expectations. EA is pushing multiplayer too hard in all of their games, like Dead Space for example although I would've liked a horde mode type mode, when no one really wants it. Even the very thought of paying for a Mass Effect game where a potion of the disc is some kind of multiplayer puts me off. Plus all this talk about bringing new people into the trilogy and seeing some of the character designs clearly be influenced by that has me worried, this might be Dragon Age 2 all over again. I'm expecting Mass Effect 3 to be good and if it's a crap I'll forget about it and continue to love the lore that has been established up to this point.

Not sure if want.

As long as ME3 lives up to expectations, bioware is safe in my eyes

@Rawson: I played as a Trooper so I had a different story from you but I found it pretty entertaining myself. I'm really interested to see what happens with my squad can't wait to confront the enemies I'm trying to track down. I can't wait to get further into it.

There were definitely lots of "get or kill this amount of this" quests but I like having those kind of quests to do along the way to the primary story quest. There were actually some pretty cool side quests that involved a decent short stories as well and your decisions had an affect on the characters involved. The controls and combat felt like WoW and many other MMOs but that's actually the way I prefer them to.

I guess what it comes down to is that you didn't like it and I totally did. I think the conversation system while limited to the simple 3 choices is great to keep you engaged in the story. I've never been so pulled by a MMO's story before. The story in MMOs is usually few and far between. Yet, in SWTOR it's constantly going on and your involved with your personal squad, higher ranked officers, spyies. politicians in the senate etc. It's just huge and awesome and your decisions however simple they are do make a difference in the story.

That something that's never really been done in an MMO. All this focus on story kept me engaged in the game more than any other MMO I've played.

If you've wanted more story in your MMO then you should totally check out SWTOR. Obviously, if you're a fan of the Star Wars universe then that will help.

Plus, flashpoints and operations are fun. Space combat is fun and a nice change of pace from the normal MMO gameplay every now and then.

There are a bunch of choices out there for MMO players now but after playing it I think SWTOR is definitely a good one.

This makes me happy because A) I don't really have time at the moment to dive into this anyways, B) I preordered the stupid edition and don't really have the funds to pay for it just yet and C) My computer is very old and hopefully by the time this comes out I will have built a new one.

The only thing I'm bummed about is that my old WoW guild that I'll b e rejoining decided to roll sith...no wookie for me ._.;;;

I'm in the beta, personally. The game is not fun at all, unless you seriously want WoW circa 2006. Some people may claim that it sounds fine, but ask yourself this: Do you really want to start over in WoW all over again, from level 1? To make matters worse, the design decisions reek of laziness.

Examples:

The first quest I found, as a jedi knight no less, was to kill 15 "flesh raiders," which are basically space orcs.

It took about 6 hours from starting that jedi knight before I actually got a lightsaber.

There was another quest to collect 6 cat teeth. Cats would only drop 1 tooth each.

The gameplay mechanics are carbon copies of WoW's gameplay mechanics.

In the hours I played, I never saw more than 3 conversation options available. The conversation system was limited to half of the Mass Effect sphere, with clearly-indicated "good," "neutral," and "evil" options. I never saw a quest conversation, save the instances, where what you said had an actual effect on the outcome of events. I also never saw a quest that was remotely interesting in terms of story.

It's like they took the standard couple of paragraphs of flavor text you find in regular MMO quests, but made you either listen through it or mash the space bar to get through it quicker, sprinkled in with the occasional bit where your character either says something nice, normal, or nasty.

Like I said, Bioware took the laziest routes possible with the game.

@somethingdumb said:

@Jumanji said:

From what I hear from NDA people, SWTOR has major issues and isn't ready for a prime-time WoW-killing (or even Rifts-competing) launch. This is related to quarterly performance bonuses for management to ship by holiday/biz wanting the holiday sales window. Whether they lose money from lack of polish is up in the air i guess, but you really have to put your best foot forward with MMOs...

I've been in the beta for about 6 months and I've played every class to at least level 25 and i can say that the game is pretty fucking on point. At certain points there have been lag issues, there was a side quest and a story quest that didn't complete right but i was able to restart the quests and lost about 15 minutes on each, and bioware claims some of the endgame maps are inaccurate but i haven't seen it. It seems that all these things are beta problems and from what I've read in patch logs, the two quests I've had issues with have both been fixed.

I'm sure, though, that there will be problems during launch. It's an MMO. All the beta testing in the world can't prepare you for what happens when thousands and thousands of people launch your game at once (which is probably why they're giving people who preorder early access).

I can say that some stories are better than others. Even though I'm a light side guy, I prefer the Sith Warrior story over his counterpart, the Jedi Guardian. I prefer the Smuggler's story over the Bounty Hunter's.

Stories and launch bugs aside, though, playing each character is exactly as fun as you want it to be. And how fun is that? A bit more fun than WoW, just about as fun as 15 bucks a month.

as a fellow in the same situation (4 months instead of 6) i concur!

@Undeadpool said:

@ptys said:

It's a shame they left it this late considering the whole Star Wars Blu-ray debacle could be the final nail in the franchises coffin, LOL. Not sure how many people... who aren't crazy or 5... still love Star Wars?

Two words E.A. Mass & Effect ; )

Uh...much as I love ME, maybe you wanna take a look at this before you pronounce SW "dead": http://www.gigwise.com/news/67207/Star-Wars-The-Complete-Saga-Breaks-All-Previous-Worldwide-Sales-Records

Remember: The internet, especially enthusiast sites, represents a minuscule amount of the population. And it's highly likely with these numbers that the people screaming "BOYCOTT" the loudest were the ones there on day 1 complaining about how they were purchasing it.

Damnit! I knew that was coming... LOL. Well I guess it was more what I was wishing rather than the actual reality of the situation. In fairness though this release has been a long time coming, much like the Star Wars DVD so it's always going to come strong out of the gate. I definitely think though, being an former HUUUUGGEEE! Star Wars fan and hearing opinions of other loyalists, the franchise is losing alot of it's core audience due to poor decision making at the hands of George Lucas.

@Norusdog: Unfortunately you can't fix people's stupidity with a sharp comment reply.

@Jumanji said:

From what I hear from NDA people, SWTOR has major issues and isn't ready for a prime-time WoW-killing (or even Rifts-competing) launch. This is related to quarterly performance bonuses for management to ship by holiday/biz wanting the holiday sales window. Whether they lose money from lack of polish is up in the air i guess, but you really have to put your best foot forward with MMOs...

I've been in the beta for about 6 months and I've played every class to at least level 25 and i can say that the game is pretty fucking on point. At certain points there have been lag issues, there was a side quest and a story quest that didn't complete right but i was able to restart the quests and lost about 15 minutes on each, and bioware claims some of the endgame maps are inaccurate but i haven't seen it. It seems that all these things are beta problems and from what I've read in patch logs, the two quests I've had issues with have both been fixed.

I'm sure, though, that there will be problems during launch. It's an MMO. All the beta testing in the world can't prepare you for what happens when thousands and thousands of people launch your game at once (which is probably why they're giving people who preorder early access).

I can say that some stories are better than others. Even though I'm a light side guy, I prefer the Sith Warrior story over his counterpart, the Jedi Guardian. I prefer the Smuggler's story over the Bounty Hunter's.

Stories and launch bugs aside, though, playing each character is exactly as fun as you want it to be. And how fun is that? A bit more fun than WoW, just about as fun as 15 bucks a month.

@ptys said:

It's a shame they left it this late considering the whole Star Wars Blu-ray debacle could be the final nail in the franchises coffin, LOL. Not sure how many people... who aren't crazy or 5... still love Star Wars?

Two words E.A. Mass & Effect ; )

The way I see it, those movies are less star wars than swtor is, at this point. They really don't have anything to do with each other.

Huh. Never knew Ray was black.
 
On topic: I'm not going to get this game. As reductive as it sounds, this is WoW gameplay with a Bioware story and Star Wars furnishings on top. WoW's gameplay equates to tedium for me, if I want a BioWare story I can play Mass Effect, and Star Wars... well... I'm not huge on giving that franchise any more money. And then there's that $15 sub fee, which barely seems maintainable these days.

From what I hear from NDA people, SWTOR has major issues and isn't ready for a prime-time WoW-killing (or even Rifts-competing) launch. Causes for early launch: quarterly performance bonuses for management to ship by holiday/biz modeling that says holiday sales window>shorter tail from crappier game. Whether they lose money from lack of polish is up in the air i guess, but you really have to put your best foot forward with MMOs...
 
Anyways, they need to do big, big business to break even. Production estimates are around $300m...

I have two friends who are hardcore Star Wars fans. They've been waiting for this game ever since it was first talked about years ago. They were lucky enough to be able to beta test it and neither of them can shut up about how awesome it is.

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Ares42 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Ares42: (and again, Guild Wars and GW2 make money solely by selling the game at retail, expansions and cosmetic items in an online store).

Oh, so it does micro-transactions......

No more than World of Warcraft does (and Old Republic will have them too).

Doesn't really matter, it's the same thing re-branded. It's just the newest marketing thing, and getting people to call it "free to play" as if that's something new and exciting is just the cherry on top. The service is still dependent on getting regular payments from the costumers. If you prefer paying for overpriced fluff rather than having a monthly fee, that's your prerogative. But don't think for a second that those games can survive (or would continue with those systems) if they didn't end up with as much or more money than the alternative pricing structures. It's been proven time and time again, micro-transactions = people spend more money. Maybe not you, but people do.

EA and BioWare really must not care about their employees to launch this over Christmas. Guarantees those people will be pulled away from their families to monitor the launch and iron out server issues.

@holybins said:

@Tom_Shaw said:

Wow, what a terrible date.

...

3) When the servers melt down on Days One-Ten, Bioware-Austin's employees will either all be on call for the holidays (or more likely, all but unable to even leave work).

I think this is the most important point concerning the repercussions of this release date. I'm sure "the business" and/or pride were the main factors in the release date, so I guess it's not so surprising. Impacts Bioware AND lots of EA staff too - who knows, Origin may also buckle under pressure!

Yeah, 2 years of beta and competent well paid engineers are no match for a mmo launch in 2011

@Tom_Shaw said:

Wow, what a terrible date.

...

3) When the servers melt down on Days One-Ten, Bioware-Austin's employees will either all be on call for the holidays (or more likely, all but unable to even leave work).

I think this is the most important point concerning the repercussions of this release date. I'm sure "the business" and/or pride were the main factors in the release date, so I guess it's not so surprising. Impacts Bioware AND lots of EA staff too - who knows, Origin may also buckle under pressure!

Delay in 3... 2... 1...

@ptys said:

It's a shame they left it this late considering the whole Star Wars Blu-ray debacle could be the final nail in the franchises coffin, LOL. Not sure how many people... who aren't crazy or 5... still love Star Wars?

Two words E.A. Mass & Effect ; )

Uh...much as I love ME, maybe you wanna take a look at this before you pronounce SW "dead": http://www.gigwise.com/news/67207/Star-Wars-The-Complete-Saga-Breaks-All-Previous-Worldwide-Sales-Records

Remember: The internet, especially enthusiast sites, represents a minuscule amount of the population. And it's highly likely with these numbers that the people screaming "BOYCOTT" the loudest were the ones there on day 1 complaining about how they were purchasing it.

It's a shame they left it this late considering the whole Star Wars Blu-ray debacle could be the final nail in the franchises coffin, LOL. Not sure how many people... who aren't crazy or 5... still love Star Wars?

Two words E.A. Mass & Effect ; )

Hopefully this does well. Bioware's reputation has taken a hit in the eyes of some after DA2.

It'll be nice playing this game over Christmas.

However, do you reckon they'll bother with the traditional MMO holiday decorations being so close to launch?

Wow, what a terrible date.

1) It's too late in the year to get proper boxed sales for Christmas presents (unless the goal was "Consumers should purchase at Origin.com!").

2) It's so late in the year that boxed pre-order customers will have issues actually getting their copies before the New Year's break is over (unless the goal was "Consumers should purchase at Origin.com!").

3) When the servers melt down on Days One-Ten, Bioware-Austin's employees will either all be on call for the holidays (or more likely, all but unable to even leave work).

Why not simply rename the article to "EA is 'The Grinch That Stole Christmas' for boxed purchasers and their employees".

and it will go F2P next year.

Well color me excited, well not really. I'm cautiously interested, but I'm not convinced yet EA.

@Ares42 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Ares42: (and again, Guild Wars and GW2 make money solely by selling the game at retail, expansions and cosmetic items in an online store).

Oh, so it does micro-transactions......

No more than World of Warcraft does (and Old Republic will have them too).

@jmrwacko said:

I'm excited for GW2 too, but this news article is about SWTOR. Go hype GW2 in the GW2 forums, bro.

I felt it was relevant to the discussion. It's a prime example of how modern MMO's can have exciting gameplay without relying on the standard formula everything else is using and how payment and development costs, etc can be covered by other means than just a flat subscription.. Which is exactly what we were discussing. I can't really point to any other games doing anything similar, or else I would.

Also, name calling is a poor defence for any argument.

I need to know how this whole thing turns out.