Free to play, and it breaks my boycott.

That describes all MMORPGs. You either like the gameplay or you don't, and if you do like the gameplay, you can't find anything better than WoW, and in fact, WoW is so vastly superior to all other current MMORPGs that it's no contest. There's WoW all alone at the top, then there's the 2nd tier consisting of games like EQ2 and LOTRO that are very good, but nowhere near being in WoW's league.

KOTOR was a great game and even though it was a Star Wars setting it was generic enough to support a huge and believable campaign. So, if they manage to nail down solid gameplay it could be a nice offering. KOTOR actually played a lot like an MMORPG. The fact that Sony isn't involved is another plus for them.

I hope it works out. I'm still enjoying WoW and the expansion is coming, but it'd be nice to have an entirely fresh MMORPG to explore. LOTRO was the last MMORPG worth spending more than the free month in away from WoW, IMO, and although it's very solid it is simply lacking in features or content compared to WoW (which is how you can describe any MMORPG compared to WoW).

"can Bioware/EA be the one to beat Blizzard at their own game?"

WoW would seem to be a freak of a game - since it blew the doors off the MMORPG genre and radically altered the landscape and expectations for the genre. But Blizzard has had similar success in other genres, especially with Diablo.

Love or hate WoW it's hard to deny that Blizzard has an incredible knack for nailing it when it comes for designing fun and addictive games that appeal to huge numbers of players.

So anyways - I seriously doubt anyone will "beat Blizzard at their own game" anytime soon. Make a good product? Yes - that's possible. Do unto WoW what WoW did the the rest of an entire genre? Very, very unlikely.

Has anyone here played 'Age of Conan'? I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on that MMO. It got good reviews and if I was gonna play a MMORPG that would be the one I'd 'want' to play. I don't really know if it's really any good though.

Any thoughts?

Instead of an mmo, they should make a movie of KOTOR instead of that Clone Wars junk that's coming out in August. That would make fans happy.

First of all, I'm very excited to hear about a new Star Wars MMO. If it's halfway decent I'd be willing to try it for at least a few months, just for being Star Wars. Blizzard did something good for the MMO genre by being so successful, but also at the same time it's bad in that now big companies are going to look at this section of the PC market and say "Hey, me too(for $$$)."

That brings me to Age of Conan (in response to FrostMage asking if this is a worthwhile MMO to try out). I think FunCom said "Hey, me too" after looking at Blizzard's success and pushed out a potentially great game way too early to make it in before World of Warcraft's Frozen Throne expansion- and Warhammer Online's release. What you have now is a pay to play Beta game! After playing for 3 weeks I had decided to quit my subscription. The changes they are making to the game (like balancing classes on the fly, because apparently they did not bother to do this during 5 years of production or in the beta), make it very much feel like you are helping to pay FunCom so that they may polish the game for the console market(the XBox 360). Add to that how easy it was to level, a lack of content (after lvl 50+), a very skeletal crafting system (you cannot craft until lvl 40 and then at lvl 70 you cannot craft anything unless you are part of a large guild that has created a guild city + the workstation, i.e. a forge for weaponsmithing, a costly endeavour) and a large amount of bugs added weekly to every game patch you can see how frustrating it is to justify paying monthly fees for this game. The Age of Conan general forums are swamped with I quit posts, angry cries of things being broken/nerfed and delusional fanboy defending posts. The game was fun for awhile and the look and the feel of Hyborea makes World of Warcraft look silly. It is just that FunCom released too early and are now fumbling to complete the other half of the game, but really it had potential - if it can retain enough of a player base to justify doing that.

Hopefully Bioware will take their time in making this new Star Wars MMO - if it's 4 years later I'm sure I'll still be looking forward to it.

I hear a lot of negative things about it but on the other hand I hear some good things as well. I've been keeping an eye on it at www.mmorpg.com and the user review/ratings keep dropping.

It's no longer:
1) Most voted (development)
2) Most voted (released)
3) Most popular (today)
4) Most popular (1 week)
5) Most popular (1 month)

Infact, Hello Kitty Online now has a higher score based on Most Voted. AoC's user rating has dropped a quite a few points since release. Never trust the "our-rating" reviews (the reviews that the websites give, ect). User reviews tend to be the most insightfull.

As far as I'm concerned I hope they officially UNconfirm it! Please do not destroy a good franchise for the sake of making a buck!!! (like that's ever gonna happen)




Thanks for the info Casw and Somedeadguy. I kinda figured that it would be that way. That's why I said AoC is a game I would 'want' to play, not a game I'm actually gonna buy and play. It's really a shame 'cause I was quite hyped when I heard that they were making a MMO based in Hyboria... but like usual these days, it's just a lot of fancy graphics with no substance.

And that is EXACTLY why I don't want KOTOR to become an MMO. Although, you know... if Bioware were NOT owned by EA now I would be doing backflips about a project like this. But that's not the reality of it. *sigh* It's a bloody shame!!   

Cheers

name one game that has been released that got 'offical' confirmation just from a person saying so. When games are confirmed they do it properly.

I like SW but.... I want my KotORs as single player games.
And as i'm WoW player, i'm not going to pay for KotOR too.
And WoW is here to stay, it's not going anywhere 'till WoW2 comes, if it comes...

Heh, as a long time SWG player who gave up in disgust after they introduced NGE, I remember how everyone kept saying "they should have placed the timeline in the Old Republic era and just make Jedi as another skillset, not some uber-pwnage crap..."

Loved KOTOR, would love to see what Bioware comes up with MMO-wise. Kind of doubt they will make something so grand and so "sandbox" as the original SWG.

Player run economy (I roleplayed a trandoshan hunter and could actually make deals with player traders for skins), skill-based character build (a bit of vibroblades, a bit of blasters... why not throw in some survival skills to boot), absolutely huge (albeit somewhat empty) worlds... and the best roleplay community I ever had the pleasure to spend nights with in a virtual cantina.

It took guts to put somthing so unorthodox on the market, and of course the corporate bigwigs got greedy when they saw what WoW did, so they made NGE... basically a cheap, ugly WoW clone. Which failed miserably.

So I hope Bioware takes a more original and innovative road. Though as sandwitched as they are between the two commercial giants LA and EA, I sort of doubt that.

Time will tell I guess.

Bioware didn't make KotOR2, that was made by Obsidian. They were rushed by Lucas Arts to get the game out in time for Christmas.

Obsidain (black isle guys, the real spirit behind the Baldurs gate stuff) also did NwN2 which was what NWN1 should have been. Obsidian is better a making games than Bioware, Bioware just have more money to make high buget games (which arn't good enough from the gameplay prespective imo). (As in Mask of the Betrayer was more fun and longer than Mass Effect - even though I prefer guns and sci-fi games in general).

Eh, Dragon Age looks a lot more like the BG2 I knew and loved than anything Obsidian's made. Don't get me wrong, I like NWN2, but we've had an expansion, they're working on the second and still very basic flaws and bugs remain in the game.

Modders have done far more for it than the official guys who were paid to release a smoothly working final product.

I want my KotR 3   (:( not an mmo, unless that profit ends up to make better games then I don't like the KotR mmo.

I'm gonna place the blame for the bugs on Atari (Formerly Infogrames, horrible publishing company). They forced Obsidian to release before it was ready.

it will happen my fellow fan it will happen.