Will Star Wars: The Old Republic be the first misstep for BioWare in a long time? Seems so. While considered a strong World of WarCraft contender by many gamers, it might not be so bright on the press side of things. BioWare let some press play recent version of the game and guess what - it doesn’t seem to be that great.
There is a nice summary in Mike Nelson’s preview over at 1UP:
“Great ideas wrapped in an aging design.”
Great ideas are not enough
Embrace the other side! If it turns out Nelson is right, BioWare and EA might be in trouble. And that is not good. That’s definitely not good if you going against juggernaut like World of WarCraft, which is updated like hell, most recently by Cataclysm. I assume it’s safe to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be targeted at pretty much similar audience that World of WarCraft is. And this audience will be expecting something much more than “great ideas” and “aging design.” Star Wars: The Old Republic must be bursting with great content and plenty of options for players - good PvP, end-game content, battle grounds, and tons and tons of other things. Great ideas are just not enough. Not these days.
Look at Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa. That game was packed with great and innovative ideas and it totally flopped. It may be possible that BioWare saw this failure and they decided not to be bold, but to just copy Blizzard’s money machine. I know, Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa may have flopped for a hundred different reasons, but the big innovations were certainly a factor in it’s demise.
I don’t think you can compete with World of WarCraft using “the old MMO model” - and by that I mean rushed buggy release of a largely broken game with only fifth of promised content. Almost every big MMO was released more or less like this. Even World of WarCraft’s launch was far from perfect. But now? Now you just can’t afford to do that. You get couple hundred thousand subscribers at launch, then half of them will get back to World of WarCraft after first month and the others will leave at some point anyway. And what’s left after one or two years? Only a few subscribers and very angry publisher.
From Tython with love
Now back to Nelson’s preview. Let’s elaborate on that “aging design.” By that Nelson meant bad quest design. Here’s the quote:
Let me reintroduce you two: Flesh Raider meet Jedi, Jedi meet Flesh Raider.
“From the opening moments of the starting zone on Tython (the Jedi's starting area for SWTOR) as a Jedi Knight, my first couple of quests revolve around killing x-number of Flesh Raiders (hulking slimy beasts resembling something out of The Last Starfighter ), or tracking down a series of Padawans who are trapped by said Flesh Raiders in the surrounding area. After some experience progression and then grinding through some similar quests, it all culminates with a showdown against an evil Sith apprentice who has taken up a residence in the nearby Gnarls Cavern. After dispatching more Flesh Raiders and eventually the Sith apprentice, I report my findings to a nearby Jedi Master Orgus -- who senses great promise in me and decides to take me under his wing to teach me more about the ways of the Force. Thus the adventure of my character begins, but not before I continue to carry out a series of rudimentary quests in the surrounding areas of Tython."
Seriously BioWare? I know it must be probably very hard to fill huge MMORPG game with hundreds or thousands quests and keep them unique and interesting. Hell, it is probably impossible. But to make early game questing so boring, unimaginative and grindy is really very bad idea. The rest of the game might be super awesome and the end-game might be brilliantly original, but everybody will have to do these starting quests. And I can’t imagine how many players will be turned off by that. It’s not 2004 again, when these quests did get a pass from the press and players in World of Warcraft. Since then, World of WarCraft has evolved.
Of course it’s just a starting area for one class, so the press saw very small portion of the game. But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would BioWare show such thing to the press? We all know they can do great quests, so what better place in the new hyped Star Wars MMO would be for them, than in the very beginning? True, other starting areas might have awesome quests and Tython starting area might get reworked. But it’s definetly not a good sign. I know there might be million different reasons why developers should include some sort of grind in the game (good podcast on this subject here), but it should be at least covered in some clever way, especially in starting areas.
Size matters... Not!
If that wouldn’t be truth, nothing would ever beat World of WarCraft. I just want to be crystal clear - I’m not saying that Star Wars: The Old Republic (or anything else) must beat World of WarCraft to be successful. No way. World of WarCraft can be taken down by time and by a ton of other games, probably. In time. It doesn’t matter how big The Old Republic will be, but it absolutely must have things gamers expect from AAA MMO these days. And it must be polished. And above all, it must be great game in general. And that might not be truth, not just according to Nelson’s preview.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with EA Louse. If you are not, read this. Sadly, EA Louse might have been right. Lets just quickly recap his main quotes about Star Wars: The Old Republic:
“They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?”
And this one: Like this, but with sound. A lot of sound.
“And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they’re panicking, and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.”
It is not confirmed if this is true, but we know that Star Wars: The Old Republic is EA’s largest project ever. EA’s CFO Eric Brown confirmed that, as reported by Eurogamer. It’s also nice to know the publisher is aware of competition. Eric Brown again, this time reported by MCV:
“Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven-digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels.”
Ok, they don’t need millions of subscribers, good for them. But can they really operate this game for years and have e.g. 500k subscribers? Now bear in mind that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be probably micro-transactions based MMO, although it wasn’t officially announced yet (EA’s CEO John Riccitiello hinted that, but according to ShackNews, he might have been misunderstood. Poor John.).
May the Force be with you
I was extremely excited for Star Wars: The Old Republic. But now, after the most recent wave of hands on articles on the web, I lowered my expectations from super-excited to very cautious levels. I hate to admit this, but I’m pretty disappointed. I know it might change and the rest of the game might be super awesome, but you know... I somehow doubt that now.
It is fair to say that those previews confirmed the strengths of Star Wars: The Old Republic - the dialogue wheel, choices, music, impressive audio, funny instances, etc. That’s great. And I’m still looking forward to it. Just more cautiously now. Because this is not what I would expect from BioWare.
17 Comments
