Agreed.  I want to know what happened to Revan when he went into the Unknown Regions to fight the "True Sith."

Me too. They sort of left it hanging.

I'd have to say that the second knights was my favorite, although the first was great just for the laughs.

"Down you go!"

I'd have to say that I like KOTOR1 better than the second, though the second was still stellar.  The second one would have been a lot better if it hadn't been rushed.  I hear that a lot of stuff got left out (a whole sidestory about HK-47, for instance).  This MMO could royally muck it all up...

The MMO is set 300 years after those events... so how can it muck it up?  I don't see how you are comming to this conclusion.

It can muck it all up the same way SWG managed to do it... you ended up with the "A New Hope" setting where you couldn't move from all the lightsaber fights breaking out in the streets.

It was the Force Sensitive fiasco which ultimately ruined SWG, not NGE. New Game Enhancements came only after Sony tried to bring back subscribers by opening the Jedi/Dark Jedi class to everyone... but prior to that the same unbalanced profession was the main source of complaints about the game. First it was too hard to unlock, then it was too easy and you had too many Jedi around, then they were underpowered because they couldn't kick everyone's arse in two moves, then they were overpowered... gah.

So the good thing about TOR is that at least it is set in an era where you really couldn't move from all the Jedi and Sith prancing about. They can still muck it up though. Plenty of ways to do that. They could box the player in too much, the storyline concept could cause an unintentional "moving on rails" effect, there could be the Mythic "ping-pong" effect with game classes, where the nerf/buff bat strikes classes in turn and never manages to make them balanced. And lets not forget that Jedi/Sith are going to be THE most numerous class... to the point of making it hard to find other classes for grouping.

I can already see the flamewars between the Jedi/Sith and the rest of the community over balancing. That, at least, is going to be fun to watch.

Agreed.

I don't know how you can make these judgements when you haven't seen the game in action yet.  Don't you think that Bioware is thinking about all these things as well.  Most of their games are really well done.  I think you should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this game.  Hopefully they are studying all the pitfalls that occured in SWG and they are trying to find ways of mitigating them.  I know you probably think I'm just some Bioware fanboy, but really, the main problem with some of these MMO's isn't the game design.. it's the people playing them.  *sigh*

I'm gonna try to be positive about this project and have faith that the guys at Bioware are aware of everything you have pointed out and are trying their damndest to make the game as fun as possible.  But it may be true that the game will only be as good as the people playing it.  Lets hope that the community is half decent at least.

FM

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I make judgements based on my previous experience as a gamer and based on my observations on how the AAA title production works.

No, I don't think that the Bioware folks are stupid... game developers rarely are, its a creative job after all and you can hardly mix creative with stupid. But I don't think they are the ultimate masters of their title. There are bigger "pencil-pushers" above them who call the ultimate shots.

Now they can be stupid. From a game design perspective. From the "earn truckloads of money" perspective I am sure they are quite competent. Most of the time. If you don't believe me, just take a look on how many AAA titles turned out to be mediocre slushjobs lately... I sort of doubt it was the game developers behind that.

I will bring SWG as an example again, because its such a good illustration of what happens when a businessman tells a game designer what to do.

SWG was a good game. It had some drawbacks, but at the height of its "game" it was fun, engaging, diverse and very "Star Warsy". It was also pretty unique with its sandbox approach to character building and fully player driven economy. I can tell you, that was the most fun I had from selling things in a game ever.

Then WoW came and the Businessman saw the green. And He beheld that SWG was not like WoW. So he went to the Designer and said "Let it be a WoW Clone". There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but ultimately the will of the Businessman prevailed.

And SWG died. Because It Does Not Do To Plagiarize Other People's Work - a lesson which every designer knows, but one which is totally lost on the business people, who do it all the time and usually get away with it.

Will Bioware escape the trappings which ultimately turned a good MMO into a cheap, half-dead ripoff without a soul? I hope so. It doesn't look that way from the available info, but I'd like to have a good SW MMO available to play, so I hope.

But as I said, I am more excited about Mortal Online than TOR, because MO guys seem to be bent on going with an original vision and approach (and are technically better equipped to pull it off than the available Darkfall). TOR guys unfortunately have to listen to LucasArts and EA honchos who are undoubtedly breathing heavily down their necks, all turned on by the prospect of potential dollars.

Hmm...well, I sure hope they bring in some other new elements, cause there's this little game called World of Warcraft that's been telling a story, too.  Blizzard no longer makes Warcraft RTS games as they want to tell the rest of the story in an MMO.

One thing about story in MMOs...it's kinda hard to appreciate it when the hero is named "Jedilegolaslol"

LA LA LA LA LA LA

What's the point of designing an MMO? To make shittons of money by people stupidly paying a monthly fee.

How do you maximize this profit? Keep people playing for as long as humanly possible.

Where in that equation does a fulfilling storyline with a conclusion fit in there?

Ugh that blatant recycling of contend kind of puts me off. It just shows the devlopers would rather be cheap instead of creative.

As far as reused tech is concerned, it really isn't out there.  The reason Tech from the old and new trilogies differs so much isn't because of advancement, it's because of cost-to-benefit comparisons. Moreover, it is clearly stated that star destroyers are based on ancient designs to cash in on the psychological impact of seeing one of the things.

You can always use an old chassis and stick some new parts in it.  Look at hotrod cars today if you want a good example.

Technology doesn't necessarily always advance either.  In our society we have this belief because we just happen to be smack in the middle of a spurt of advancement.  Look at the Roman era to the 16th and 15th centuries; they actually LOST tech, aqueducts and all that.

Is it not possible even in a galaxy far far away?  I would say it's impossible for this fluctuating line of tech NOT to exist.

But, then again this is all fiction so who cares?

Incorrect. Starfighter combat is planned to be in at release..

SWG died they moment they signed on with SOE...

They needed 1.5 years to get starfight combat into the game.. epic fail..