Star Wars: The Old Republic

The newest project from LucasArts and BioWare, much to my chagrin, is not the Knights of the Old Republic 3 RPG that I, along with thousands of others, was hoping for. Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMO RPG set in a time period thousands of years before the birth of the infamous Darth Vader. And this game is an MMO in every way possible. According to developers, you will be able to join different guilds, craft different items, go on raids, harvest resources, have multiple classes, the whole nine yards. And if you can do half of the things in the game that they show in the trailer, then this game is going to be worth playing.

The game follows the playing style of most RPGs. There is a circular conversation system much like the one used in Bioware’s other hugely popular title Mass Effect. To control your character, you use either the “A” “S” “W” and “D” keys or the arrow keys like you do in most games. To initiate an attack or command you use the number keys. Each number key corresponds to number icons on the bottom of the screen. Each character class has different benefits from attacking or handling things in different ways. For example, if you play as a Sith, you build up action points for each melee attack. Once you gain enough action points you can unleash a special attack. One example is after landing enough hits on enemies, you can unleash a stun attack, which stuns all surrounding enemies. Another special attack is the infamous choke attack as seen by Darth Vader in Episode IV: A New Hope. But this is a special attack so you can’t go around force choking everybody you see. Another feat of note is a leaping attack that resembles the one seen in the newest Wolverine game. If you are far enough away from an enemy then you can hit the corresponding key and leap across the room and attack him. One of the key points the developers made at their E3 press release for the game was that Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be the first ever fully voiced MMO RPG. This means that ever individual class and character will have their own unique voice.

Just like in KOTOR, you do not automatically start off as either a good guy or a bad guy. You choose a faction in the beginning, either Sith or Republic, and you go on from there. Your character is essentially in the gray spectrum, moving either towards the good side or the evil side of the of the line. The story takes place 300 years after the events of the first KOTOR game. So here’s the story: 2 Jedi got exiled from the order. They then went into deep space and ran into the Sith. Bad stuff happened and the two Jedi were sent back to the Republic as Sith Emissaries. The Sith then beat the crap out of the republic and then pulled back almost immediately. The Sith demanded a bunch of random planets for their control in exchange for calling it even with the Republic. The Republic said “deal” and now there are these two powerhouses sitting uneasily in the galaxy, waiting to take the other one over. Your job is to choose a side, and help lead them on to victory.

The last Star Wars MMO RPG , Star Wars: Galaxies wasn’t that big of a hit with gamers. If this new one does really well, then we could see Galaxies phased out with LucasArts focusing all of their attention and resources on The Old Republic. Being made by BioWare, who knows how to make an RPG, I think we can hold The Old Republic with high hopes. Being a major fan of the KOTOR games, and being extremely pissed and disappointed to see this game instead of a KOTOR 3, I was totally against this game. But I am slowly being turned to the other side, especially after the games great E3 production.

By: Zack Duncan