The Holocron

At some core level I’m wishing, hoping, and dreaming that the game will be awesome beyond words and I’m going to be blown away with the new Star Wars MMO. But before we cross that bridge I think it’s time to air the worst of the What if things go bad? fears. Keep in mind these are worse case nightmares, just the bad what-ifs, and I’ll show how I could be wrong:

Rushed Development

Bioware isn’t know for rushing a game out the door. But Bioware isn’t the only player in this game now. EA has stepped in as the new taskmaster and LucasArts is looking to generate hype for the project. Keeping it in the long and painful Bioware/Blizzard style development cycles can hurt the excitement for a developing MMO. However, Blizzard took their sweet time with WOW and if Brian is right the MMO has been in development secretly for years.

Delayed to 2011+

Possible. Very possible. If beta happens towards the end of the year the MMO beta cycle could run on for months. If they discover some critical issues or it becomes clear that the core game is ‘half baked’ we might see a year plus of extra development time to get it market worthy. Most of us would wait, but it could put a crimp on the fandom. As much as I’d like to get it right, it’s going to be hard to stay excited 2+ years from the announcement of the game. Then again, why would they put out as much as they have…and on a timetable if they weren’t somewhere very, very far along?

Forced Parity

Eh? What I’m talking about is that the paired up classes: Bounty Hunter/Smuggler, Jedi/Sith, etc/etc are really just good/evil mirrors of each other for mechanical balancing reasons. It would take what would be dynamic and very unique classes and boil them down to a over sized game of chess or rock/paper/scissors. Not horrible, but very formulaic. But Bioware has a lot of source material to make the classes unique. The only two I’d be worried over would be the Force User types.

Every place looks the same!

Star Wars Galaxies suffered from this a lot. The engine they used did the Star Wars city environment really well, grass lands really well, and rolling hills that looked like topography modelers set on lazy settings. ie. It got boring really face. Then again when you’ve been over the same stretches of WOW for the last few years they all begin to run together. The only thing I’ve got to refute this one is their own screen shots and concept art. If they can pull this off we might have nothing to worry about. I just hope they don’t get lazy with later supplements and *koff* reuse older environments to save time.

Garry Anderson effect

Ever watch Thunderbirds? Terrahawks? Remember the dolls they used to portray all the characters?  In gaming terms it’s when the PC’s don’t evoke any real emotion. They’re just going through prescripted motions and there is no real action on their part. WOW suffered from this until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The NPCs just sorta stood there, or walked along scripted path and didn’t seem to emote to the players. WoTLC brought in cut scenes (nice) good Voice Over acting (nicer) and a lot of character depth (nicest). TOR could stand to have a few zip-pans and movie style editing to help keep the story fresh. This could go either way and it depends on how the devs script the NPC AI.

Asian Style MMO?

Ever sat down and pay one of the free-ish Asian style MMOs? Damn they do seem to love their grind. There are levels and levels, and most of the ‘fun’ elements of a character come in after hours and days of mindless killing and resource hunting. And if you don’t grind your heart out you’ll be sitting in the newbie areas for the rest of your gaming life. Bioware does have EA’s experience with MMO building to fall back on. None of the 3 partners want to game NOT to be engaging to the players. But when I hear that they might try a micro transaction model…this was the first thing that came to mind. (As most Asian MMO’s use some micro transaction model for ‘good’ items and character advancement hikes.)

This is the first part of 3 where I talk about worse case, stay tuned for part 2 where I talk about problematic MMO’s of the past and how their respective creators either fixed or failed as turning things around.