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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Following the Blazed Trail
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a speech given at today's DICE Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain), BioWare's Greg Zeschuk called Blizzard's World of Warcraft the "touchstone" for Star Wars: The Old Republic and for Bioware. WoW has "established the standards" for MMOs today and breaking those standards is "pretty dumb", according to Zeschuk.
"Bigger does work. Big has worked and frankly, WoW is the biggest. On a pure revenue basis it's probably the biggest game ever by a country mile. It generates so much revenue it's an incredible international business unto itself. How do we compete with that? It's an interesting challenge.
"In some ways they [Blizzard] cracked this market wide open. Obviously Star Wars is a very big licence and it's something that when done right - and it's something we did right with KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) years ago - it's an incredible force multiplier on your efforts. We've added things so that anyone that plays it knows it's a BioWare game.
Read more at GamesIndustry.biz.
Comments
/facepalm
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
If your planing to comment here, i suggest you take a look at this thread as well
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4072992/If-you-were-hoping-SWTOR-would-being-something-new.html#4072992
So that way your not bringing up stuff that was already said there.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
WoW clone...
It is real easy to get your panties all tied up about this but that would be rushing to conclusions in my opinion.
Look at this picture:
{Mod Edit - please keep photos less than the width of a post}
Both bikes have two wheels, handlebars, a combustion engine and a saddle. Same with SWTOR: two factions, wide open world(s), certain stylized art direction and probably many similar, typical mmorpg mechanics. Does that make SWTOR a clone? Nope. I don't think so.
There are a lot of additions as well; player housing/spaceships, emphasis on personal storylines while leveling, a sci-fi setting with multiple worlds, wholly different classes / gameplay, companions who'll craft and do chores for you, etc, etc. There are a million of aspects in which they can be very different games and still share a similar typical MMORPG core.
As long as they they take the essentially good things from WOW there is nothing to worry about in my eyes, as WOW DID do a lot of things good in my book. At least back in the days.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I swear, if BioWare said that SWToR is crap, fanboys would shout that crap is actually nutricious and NoFat .
I'm shocked to hear those words come out of Zeschuk's mouth. I know a number of my friends and I are all sick and tired of playing "WoW clones". Some of us have even discussed retiring from MMO's because we're just fed up with it. WoW is one of the worst role playing games that I've ever played. I know that Bioware is big on story and role playing, but the model doesn't work, it hasn't worked since EQ, which is what WoW is originally based off of conceptually as far as it's core mechanics go.
Funny I keep going back to games like City of Heroes/Villains and and D&D Online because they are different, and not more of the same. I remember back in the day when you could buy a game and it would be different from other games. I'm tired and fed up of playing games that are just reskinned versions of games that came out before that I've already played, and in thise case, already know I don't like the games.
Speaking of which, I remember when DAoC, AC, and CoH all launched. One of the things that lead to their success was one universal point shared between all the games.
It was something different.
This is part of what makes Bioware or at least made Bioware unique. They were something different. I guess you could say they've finally gone over to the darkside.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
I know right?Just like if every other developer played it and said it was great and they wish they'd of made it,Haters would say ti was a vast conspiracy to facilitate the accpetance of our new Alien Overlords...of who I love and support fully oh great and magnamious masters!
Bad move. It is obvious how WoW is a source of inspiration, as it should be, but the MMO community is screaming for innovation. WoW hasn't made any standards and if this is a shared opinion then truly this genre is dying. There's nothing wrong with 'clones' as long as they are fun, but the use of the same core features will eventually result in what every gamer fears the most... boredom.
WoW is a brilliant game and every company should aspire and dream to achieve the same level of fame, high numbers of players and amount of income. Otherwise there would be no reasons for any developer to produce MMORPG'S. However, to believe the only road towards these goals are achieved through copying every aspect of WoW is simply wrong and sadly the trend nowadays.
Don't get me wrong. It's necessary for this genre to have 'clones' as it is a tool to improve those features considered fun by the playerbase. Furthermore, it also serves to weed out those elements players find boring. However, it is also necessary to implement new ideas and bring this genre forward. I believe we are getting closer to the day, where developers will finally realize what is required to maintain a healthy playerbase.
I'm looking forward to SWTOR. However, I fear this game will be the final drop of water... Perhaps it will bring about much needed changes to the genre? Perhaps it will be the final nail in the coffin? Speculations, of course... Who knows what will happen. I hope for a brighter future
THis made me chuckle!
I think it would be more appropriate to show something else. Like.....
Jango Fett - All the MMOs that WoW took inspiration from
Boba Fett - WoW
Clone Troops - Anything that wishes it was WoW
Han Solo- Innovative
My theme song.
So basically the darkside fails? And do all the clone troopers really want to be Boba?
Is anyone surprised?
"Revenue" is the key word here.
These guys are a business and they want the same teet to suckle from that World of Warcraft has found.
But I believe World of Warcraft is a massive fluke that can never been replicated. Ever.
No matter how much you steal from it.
WoW Clone...
Guess i'll pass this game.
We still have Tera and GW2.
I think by releasing that statement they are going to lose a % of potential subscribers. No one wants to play a "WoW Clone" they say (some won't admit that they do want to play one) and by publicly saying what they said, it is going to turn many players away.
But with that said, it also will bring many players in, as many people like the simple online games versus complex. People like 2 sides, not 3, people like cookie cutter quests. Most people hate change, and this game probably wont bring any change.
I think thats why a lot of people dislike President Obama, he is attempting to change some things. People don't like change. (They like 100$ bills) hehe.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
As time goes on, Guild Wars 2 has a lot of pressure building on it to perpetuate the genre. This may be a bit over the top, who knows, but IMO...if GW2 is a flop, this genre is going to stagnate and collapse under the weight of it's own monotony.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
I get the impression Titan will still keep it afloat. And if it's casual and fun and easy and huge and so social like WoW can be AND they make it just like that for consoles too....Well.....The Magnetic Poles switching will have nothing on Titan.
The only thing I find interesting is the ones crying for 'innovation' 'something new' truly believe they are the vocal majority. You are a vast minority you probably don't even make up 3 % of the MMO gaming community, but I by golly you are the loudest. If you really want to make a comparasion take whats going on in Egypt....250,000-300,000 protesters screaming for change in the streets yet they only make up less than 3% of the pop. of Egypt, yet they claim its what the 'people' want yeah all 3% of the pop. Same for the sandbox/innovate/make something completely different crowd on this website. You do not speak for the majority but you can continue to believe that you do.
I can't see Blizzard releasing Titan until around 2013 or so, but I think GW2 will have quenched the thirst for uniqueness among MMO gamers. GW2 looks incredibly promising.
So many games have too lol. Just saying.
And about the Egypt thing, there was only that many people willing to do that to make change happen. That does not mean ONLY that many people wanted change. If ONLY that many people did, all of egypt would call for them to stop.
Am I the only one that things this is a good idea?
How many MMOs bragged about being completly different from WoW and so innovative only to fall on their ass?
Answer: Everything post WoW.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
How can a game with no autto attack be a clone of WoW?Clone means exact.
It's obvious to anyone with a brain, that saying they set the standards and to ignore WoW is dumb , is talking about certain feature sets, mechanics and content and how to go about it.
You can take all those things that make WoW so successful and then put your own spin on it and add things just for your game. WoW did this, guess what GW2 is doing the same thing, every game does.
No game is truely revolutionary, they all take what works and is pretty much a standar, then put thier own spin on it.
This games are not failing because they do standard things, they are failaing due to execution of certain standards, failure to even have certain standards and/or deblitating bugs/exploits/preformance problems.
We all knew EA/Bioware admired Blizzard and were incorporating many of WOW's design concepts into SWTOR, but I didn't expect such blatant ass-kissing in a public forum. Best if he had just kept that to himself.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Thumbs up for bio wares honesty.
Along with features from WoW , they are also bringing lots of new stuff minions,ships, space combat etc and the best thing is i always wanted to try a sci-fi mmo, so far so many dissapointment. hopefully Swtor will be the King of sci-fi MMO.
I hope this doesn't go terribly terribly wrong for Bioware. With the masters of the MMO market Blizzard having a new MMO in the wings being worked on with no doubt a limitless budget I think they are likely to do WoW Clone very very well. Only they are saying they want to make the new MMO shiny and new so will they be making WoW 2.5 while ToR is WoW 2.0?
I can't see the future but lately infomation about ToR has not been good, the guys at EA laughed at the bugget that was ment to be spent on ToR. So rather than this monster it may turn out it was more hype and expectations than real substance. And now finding that they don't want to change the WoW forumal a game that is a good few years old would be unheard of in the single player market. You don't get fps games saying well we think Doom got it right and we don't see why you would want to change.
One of the main reasons WoW is so popular was because it was well Warcraft. I thing Blizzard is shooting themselves in the foot by not using StarCraft or Diablo as a theme.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.