Quote:
Originally Posted by mmarsh  There is a rumor circulating today that Star Wars KOTOR 3 (Knights of the Old Republic 3) will be the new super top-secret MMORPG Bioware is working on. Bioware is known for its quality RPGs including Baldurs Gate Series, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, KOTOR, and the soon-to-be-released Mass Effect.
Its probably no coincidence that both Bioware and Pandemic studios (of MERCENARIES fame) were purchased last week by EA for $845 Million. The founders of Bioware had no comment about the new MMORPG, but they did say that the game was already in a playable form.
The other bit of evidence that supports this rumor is that Star Wars Galaxies (which was always a disappointment) is waning have fewer that 20000 active players. With so few players and such a popular franchise its obvious LucasArts is interested in adding new juice to the series.
Nothing is know about the game except that it will take place during the Old Republic and that is currently planned for a 2009 release date. http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_bl...stnews;title;0
My thoughts...
Oh please be true, Oh please be true, oh please be true, oh pl...
Galaxies was a disappointment. And the game itself was poorly managed, leading to a very ill-advised restructuring, that pushed away veteran players. In fairness, it was a very early MMORPG and didnt benefit from the easy gameplay styles of WOW and other games. The Star Wars Francaise...well there is simply no other franchise as lucrative, it only makes sense they make a new game as thats a huge market liable to peel off players from WOW.
The have been many good STAR WARS games, but there are only two that are truly exceptional. The X-WING series, and the KOTOR series. So the recruitment of BIOWARE (the authors of the original KOTOR) probabaly the best RPG makers in the business) is a no-brainer. |
There is a slight problem...
1) This neither Lucas Arts nor Bioware have stated that they are making an MMO although it isn't an unreasonable assumption given that Bioware has built an MMO studio, they have only claimed to be working on some "ground breaking new project".
2) Bioware were effectively purchased by Electronic Arts in January of this year and Electronic Arts make Sony look competent.
EA has built and shut down more MMO's than any other company out there, Ultima Online 2 and Ultima X Odyssey, both of which had a fan base in the RPG world to rival Star Wars and both were developed to Beta stage and then canned.
3) Isn't the Online Star Wars gaming license owned by SOE?
I have little doubt that Bioware can produce a brilliant game KOTOR is excellent however I have no faith in EA managing it.
On top of this unless the game has the complexity of SWG in terms of space,combat and crafting then I think it will flop, the market for generic hack and slash MMO's is already owned by WoW the player base that is left actually want to think while playing and if they can not provide that then they are screwed.