Star Wars The Old Republic – Hands on Preview

Release dates have been finalized, collectors Editions announced, and the game which has the best chance of taking down World of Warcraft is just two months away.  Star Wars The Old Republic is a new venture for Bioware, being their first full MMO game, and an attempt to merge massively-multiplayer game mechanics with Bioware’s signature story-telling method of extensive player choice.  After a little hands-on with the PVE game at the New York Comic Con, our correspondent has some ideas about what gamers can look forward to.

Players will have access to the familiar Jedi/Sith classes seen in Knights of the Old Republic and KOTOR II, as well as other archetypes that aren’t strong with The Force.  The Jedi and Sith fall into an interesting MMO category because they fight well both in hand-to-hand combat and have ranged attacks using The Force to hurl projectiles at enemies.  Players can choose between focusing on Force Powers or combat skills by selecting between the Knight and Consular classes (Or their Dark Side equivalents) just as in the older KOTOR titles. Even at early levels, the Jedi feel like powerful defenders of the galaxy, and masters of their midichlorians.
 

Some will say that ancient weapons and hokey religions are no match for a good blaster at your side, and there are options to play more conventional classes.  The early levels of the original KOTOR had players leveling up without Jedi abilities, and the Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent classes (Or their Light Side counterparts) will be rather similar to Tank and Rogue archetypes.   A cover system, guns and gadgets will give SWTOR a unique feel among the crowd of MMO’s.

All of these classes will have specializations available to further differentiate players as they level up and seek to make their character a unique part of the Star Wars universe.

While gameplay and combat are a big draw, true Bioware fans will be expecting an engrossing story.  In SWTOR, the NPC interactions for main storylines are exactly what long-time Bioware enthusiasts will expect: fully-voiced conversations where the player has a chance to express their personality every time their character speaks. 

Mission structure unfortunately ends up being very similar to what is seen in many older MMO’s.  Players will need reasons to explore new areas and this means the inevitable “Go kill six space warthogs” sort of mission will be mixed in with the more entertaining story elements.
 

Players who want to treat SWTOR as a traditional single-player RPG experience will be able to play through just about all of the game by using an AI companion, according to our interview with Bioware’s Stephen Reid, however the most compelling material will require playing with a group of human players in “Flashpoints”.

These Flashpoints will be epic adventures that offer self-contained story-based missions that are each specific to one side of the war, Republic or Empire.  They will be too difficult to accomplish alone, and will have major rewards to encourage MMO soloists to seek out human contact.

As Player Affinity previously noted, SWTOR won’t have an option for romancing AI companions at launch, but there is an interesting assortment of characters to accompany players on their adventures, and each companion is designed to be a balance for one of the eight classes.  The obligatory astromech is present, as is a Wookiee, along with sexy alien girls and a few critters from the expanded universe.