Nintendo Okie

Star Wars is a thing.  You’ve probably heard of it.  Most people have anyway.  It has been a little over two weeks since The Old Republic went live and we are starting to get a better idea of what the game is all about.  Be advised before you read this that I haven’t played The Old Republic or any other MMORPG for that matter.  All my knowledge of MMOs comes from talking to friends and watching gameplay videos.  Now don’t start thinking I am about to write a review for The Old Republic either.  I just wanted to throw out my thoughts on the whole MMO scene.  Everybody still with me?  Good.

WOW is not the game it was at launch.  Not only did it evolve as a natural progression of the MMO business but with the latest Cataclysm expansion, it is almost unrecognizable from what it was in 2004.  A lot of MMOs have launched trying to grab a part of the WOW audience.  They succeed momentarily if only because they are the new kid on the block.  However, once people see what the new game has to offer they decide WOW has a better experience and return to Ironforge.  Whenever these new MMOs come out you will always hear someone asking if its the one that will topple WOW.  The answer is always no.  Not because of quality, not because of development but because WOW has been refined for years.  How can anyone expect a game at launch to be as good as something that has been worked on for over seven years?  It’s unrealistic in my eyes.  Not to say MMO can’t come out and do something interesting because a lot of them do.  In all fairness if WOW were released in its launch state today against what it is now, it would be laughed off as trash.

The only way most MMOs can survive against the mighty World Of Warcraft is to go free to play.  Truthfully, some MMOs are designed to be free to play from the start without even considering WOW.  Free to play is surprisingly profitable.  Heck, WOW has even gone free to play up to level 20.  One of the barriers to entry for an MMO is the monthly fee.  A lot of people don’t like paying for a game month to month.  Tony is a strong proponent of that camp and I can understand why.  On the other hand, one has to see that WOW is more than a game.  It’s more of a social environment than anything else.  The dragons and goblins are just a bonus.  It’s sort of like paying a fee to join a club.  At the end of the day, entrance fee or not you join the club your friends join.  WOW has seven years of social networking on its side.  That’s only nine months shy of Facebook and three months more than YouTube.

So the question you are probably waiting for me to address is will The Old Republic survive.  My short answer is yes.  Now here comes the long answer.  First off, if Star Wars: Galaxies was able to live for eight years I have no doubt a BioWare product will be able to do the same.  But how does TOR compare to WOW.  Well, TOR (at the moment) offers more of a cinematic experience than WOW; similar to Mass Effect.  A downside to that, or a potential downside, this is done by creating a lot if instances in the world.  You don’t want some Padawan photo bombing your meeting with that high ranking Coruscant official you have been grinding to meet.  With all the instancing, The Old Republic comes across as kind of empty from what I have heard.  Not exactly ideal for PvP.  Bottom line, if people are expecting TOR to be WOW with lightsabers they are only going to get about half of what they want, for now anyway.

WOW and TOR are both MMORPGs and thus by design have to deliver a similar experience at their base.  However, it is the layers of production value and the interaction between players that will ultimately set TOR apart from WOW, in my opinion.  How long will this take?  Will TOR go free to play?  I don’t know.  I do know that Star Trek Online offered an experience that I was considering jumping into.  And I like Star Trek about as much as I like Star Wars; and for me that means not much.  Anyway, Star Trek Online has a similar fan base as Star Wars, a similar space setting and it offers something different than WOW.  STO is going free to play next week after launching less than a year ago.  Draw your own conclusions.