The Old Republic Not Being Given Its Fair Shake?

As the date for Bioware's big project Star Wars: The Old Republic slowly creeps forward the hype is building and inevitably as the hype builds people are going to start looking to World of Warcraft in comparison to TOR as Blizzard's game has basically become the starndard to anything that even resembles an MMO. A lot of critics seem to be expecting (and hoping?) that the game will stumble right after launch then turn over and die. This is not fair.

Now I'm going to say first that I am a huge Star Wars fan but so you guys can't hold that against me I also realize that a franchise can only carry you so far. The newest Star Wars movies are proof of that as they sucked despite being long awaited and directed/writen by George Lucas himself. So while the Star Wars franchise will bring people to the game I don't think it will be enough to keep the game floating by itself. However I still don't think you can count an MMO as a failure before it launches just because its not WoW.

The first thing a lot of critics seem to jump to in their damning of The Old Republic is that Blizzard has already cornered the market for MMOs. While it's true that the monolithic company has yet to be challenged by anyone I think that Bioware's title can still thrive in the dark shadow of Blizzard. First and foremost this is because Bioware has built a really sturdy reputation for itself. Pretty much everyone has atleast heard of Bioware if they are even a little more than a passing gamer. With AAA titles such as Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, and Neverwinter Nights under their belt they have seen their share of successes. I think that Bioware has earned a place in the pantheon of companies such as Infinity Ward and Bungie that their name alone can bring as many people to a game as the game's title. On top of this they already have their feet wet in the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: Kights of the Old Republic so they are working with familiar material rather than having to learn certain aspects for the first time.

One thing that Bioware really knows how to do is weave story into games and that's what they are planning to do with TOR creating the first ever story driven MMO. I can't pretend to be well versed in World of Warcraft but to the best of my knowledge WoW can not be called story driven; the new Cataclysm seems more so than any other part of it but I haven't played the new expansion to be able to tell. As most gamers really only are able to pick only one MMO to back because of subscription fees and such I think this new dynamic to an MMO could be enough to bring new players to TOR over WoW if they haven't picked a game to play yet.

This brings us to arguement number two: that WoW will simply steal all TOR's subscribers and the project will starve. In this article Kotaku interviews John Smedley who is the president of Sony Online Entertainment about the new Cataclysm update and what it could mean for Sony's MMO Everquest. Smedley stated that he wasn't worried about the new instalment saying that they don't see "big dips" in profit and subscribers but "tiny dips for a little while". In other words the two games don't intensely compete for players and the same will likely ring true for WoW and TOR. It was never said that the distribution of players was even and it likely isn't but Everquest has its own following that supports it and most of Bioware's followers will likely come from the field of people new to MMOs rather than people migrating over from an already existing franchise. Given the previous two arguements I don't think that TOR will have too many problems drawing people in. Add to this number the Star Wars followers and the SW: Galaxies players that are looking for a revival of their game and things start to look a little more hopeful.

Call me an optimist but I think that The Old Republic is going to be a really good game and I don`t think that it will have too many problems once the ball gets rolling. I for one am certenly going to pre-order my copy and am already scoping out the Bounty Hunter class. Feel free to jot down any thoughts or predictions in the comment section!

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