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Playing KOTOR makes we want SWTOR even more

Sunday Jul 4,2010 01:24 AM
By Keen
In Uncategorized

I’m playing through Knights of the Old Republic for the first time after having only watched Graev play it. I’ve always known that the game is a rather linear RPG and conversation heavy. I also knew that the game was about choosing how to respond to people in conversation and relying upon those decisions to loosely determine some of the outcome of the game. What I didn’t know was how much I would like the game once I was actually at the controls or how much I would think “yeah, this could work” with a MMO like SWTOR.

Bioware is touting SWTOR’s story and narrative. I think they have every right to given how their past games have turned out. We know that SWTOR will have this same hefty dialog content which itself is a nice thing but not necessarily a guarantee of any sort of successful MMO. Putting in the same type of story and narrative would at best make it a true Bioware RPG. Even with the text and how people respond to me it’s not really a true … how to explain it… I guess there’s just more of a feeling you get that what you’re doing is having an effect rather than actually experiencing it or seeing it.

In SWTOR I think they’ll take this storytelling and hit a home run if they use their ‘world’ and content to allow the player the opportunity to make decisions with visual/physical and dynamic consequences. If I choose to kill a character or to rob from someone then I need to see that played out in the world. If I choose to be good or evil then the world and the characters within the world and story need to truly change and react to me. The use of phasing technology would be perfect.

Playing KOTOR shows me the least that they could do with SWTOR. My imagination is cranking out all these ideal ways that Bioware could take the foundation and expand upon it to fit a MMO and a more hands on approach from the player rather than it being an experience that we sit back and watch. I want to actually go out and do the evil or good acts rather than just feel like I’m doing them because I’m following a story — to an extent greater than that which is available in KOTOR.

On a somewhat different note, the people who were invited to the very small SWTOR closed beta have not all been entirely tight lipped about their experience with the game. I’ve received way more information than I thought I would and let’s just say that my interest in the game has more than doubled.

P.S. I hate Carth.

Read the original post on http://www.keenandgraev.com