So the Old Republic is up and running now! What’s going to go wrong in the coming weeks?
5. Too man Jedi’s
While the appeal of playing as a Bounty Hunter or a Smuggler may be high, it doesn’t come anywhere near close to the excitement of finally getting to be a Jedi. As children, many of us would have wanted to pretended to be Han Solo, and there would always be that one social reject who wanted to be Boba Fett (*sniff*), but on the whole we were jumping around with sticks making the Jedi light-sabre noise (badly).
So there will be a bajillion Jedi’s, and thats a bajillion-5 more than there were in the original Star Wars MMORPG. The alternatives are just so dull though! Trooper? Imperial Agent? Who pretended they were one of those on the playground? Those guys were the cannon fodder, the metaphorical butter that we cut through with our gleaming blades of light. Old Republic exacerbates this problem by having different TYPES of Jedi and Sith. For this reason, there will be more glowing rods in Old Republic than you would find at a 90’s rave.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR3PT5E0XDo&feature=related
4. Too many WOW players/WOW players will freak out
If EA are going after any demographic, it’s the lapsed or bored WOW players. They could get by on regular gamers who played Mass Effect and the original KOTOR games, but what they really want is all those gamers who never play anything but WOW. Why? Because WOW is an old game and Old Republic is new and shiny in comparison. Is you put Old Republic up against something like Skyrim or Mass Effect it looks dull, limited and dated, but against the positively ancient WOW it looks rather spiffy. The stilted cut scenes and average dialogue won’t impress mainstream gamers, but they will positively blow the mind of the WOW faithful.
This will bring its own problems though. Every criticism, every complaint, every nit that is picked will be related back to WOW. Why can’t they track the quests like in WOW? Why won’t the camera move like in WOW? Where do I buy an axe? All of these stupid complaints and questions will be rife in the first weeks. The irony is that Bioware have copied WOW aggressively to make an experience that is comfortable for those players at the expense of originality and innovation. Like pampered children though, a portion of the WOW faithful will drive the rest of the playerbase mad with their ignorance.
3. It will go free to play, and the players will get pissed
This is just common sense. If you are buying the game and paying a subscription now, you are taking a calculated risk. You are hoping that when the game goes free to play (in 3 months), the rewards that Bioware will give those that purchased at full price and that paid a subscription will be worth the money. In truth, I am sure they will be if you plan to continue playing the game for a long time. They will handsomely reward those early adopters who got them the initial income to justify the enormous expense of creating the game.
The only people who will get burned are those that think Old Republic could sustain a monthly fee. News flash: it can’t. No MMORPG’s can. WOW can’t even do it any more (its free till you reach a certain level), so no new title can manage. Once it does go free to play, there will be much consternation and teeth gnashing. Better to just accept the facts now. You won’t have to pay for this game (except via micro-transactions) in the future. The near future.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc
2. People will be disappointed, loudly disappointed
And those people will be the ones who didn’t play the beta and haven’t read about the game. And the will love KOTOR. And they will think this is like KOTOR. And they will buy this. And they will quickly see its not like KOTOR. And they will be sad. And their whining will make others sad.
Look, I actually quite like The Old Republic from what I played of the Beta, and I normally hate MMORPG’s. But……. and it really is a huge but, its not very much like KOTOR. At all. Its far more like an MMORPG. And by that I mean it is EXACTLTY like an MMORPG.
Look, let me just explain it like this. You will go to a man to get a mission. He will ask you to collect ten space-tiger teeth. You will need to kill fifty, as only every fifth space-tiger will drop any teeth. The Old Republic is full of space-tigers who will gum you to death. Does this sound like KOTOR? It does not. It does however sound a lot like….. well you get the idea.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBjxiUVJsu4
1. Technical Problems
Some sort. I don’t know which. Just don’t be surprised. When your credit card details get stolen or the servers melt or suddenly all Sith Lords have their heads on backwards or some Chinese gold farmers make a million dollars on black market bantha meat, some scandal will happen. That’s just modern MMORPG’s.
Don’t expect a drama free launch. MMORPG’s are so complex its a miracle they work at all. They are a result of hard working programmers, engineers and artists working till near exhaustion, most of whom probably haven’t seen their families for over a year. These men and women work their asses off. Don’t be too hard on them when you have to queue for 20 minutes to get into a server on the day of launch, or when your heavy blaster pistol gets nerfed in a patch released two hours after you find it.
Anyway, hopefully that didn’t sound too negative. If you can accept all of those problems, I am sure you’ll all love The Old Republic!….. Well I’m not actually SURE you will, but, you know, you might. I sure like it!
May the force be with you, always. *Schwim, whvwim, svwiiiiiiiimmmm!*