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Cutting Edge - What do the Most Anticipated MMOs Bring to the Table? Part I

  • Date: 01-27-2010 Views:

    KeyWords: Cutting Edge, Most Anticipated MMOs, Part I, SWTOR, APB, Stargate Worlds, Star Trek, Global Agenda

  • Summary: A look at the various innovative and unique aspects of the upcoming and highly anticipated mmo games. This article aims to look at the upcoming online games and what they have to offer in terms of inventive features and refreshing gameplay. Thus, the games will not be analyzed as a whole but only in terms of the standalone aspects mentioned above.
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Vasily Tedeev

Cutting Edge - What do the Most Anticipated MMOs Bring to the Table? Part I

By Vasily Tedeev
V is happy that he took up writing again, something he had dreamed of doing ever since he was nine years old. Being a nonconforming combination of a social party animal and a gamer, he realized that his life amounted not to just games and women, but that he had to pursue his passions and self-development in other areas as well.

Cutting Edge Part II – What do the Most Anticipated MMOs Bring to the Table?

There have been a lot of complaints about the staleness in the mmo genre. The developers can't seem to break away from the old tried and tested gameplay and design elements in order to offer players a different kind of adventure. The avid gamers are crying out for innovation and originality in a world stickmanwhere the majority of the market is dominated by rehashed game dynamics with updated graphics and over-used concepts. Online games have a great opportunity to create truly immersive and unique experiences yet some gameplay attributes like Health and Mana have been present for ages without any change whatsoever. The same can be addressed towards quests which force players to kill ten monsters of some kind game after game with relatively few noticeable changes when playing one mmo or another.

This article aims to look at the upcoming online games and what they have to offer in terms of inventive features and refreshing gameplay. Thus, the games will not be analyzed as a whole but only in terms of the standalone aspects mentioned above. Since there are quite a few games to present, there will be a follow up article soon. I did not include IP (Intellectual Property) and lore which, despite being at times quite appealing, are present in all games to a certain degree. Hopefully you will find this commentary useful in comparing the various games that will be soon available for gamers to try and play. You can spot quite a few emerging trends by reading this feature but I will leave it up to you, reader to draw your own conclusions. Let's begin.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The Old Republic takes place in a time period defined by the events in the Knights of the Old Republic series. Almost 3,500 years before the story told by the Star Wars films and the rise of Darth Vader to power. According to Ray Muzyka (vice president of BioWare), Star Wars: The Old Republic will tell us about the most interesting and dynamic period of history in the Star Wars universe.
BioWare has announced that there is more content in the online game than all currently released BioWare games "combined".

Full SizeStar Wars: The Old Republic

How is it different?

  • BioWare has stated that every NPC in the game will use a voice over. Heralded as the world's first fully voiced MMO with 'hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue' and every encounter having a voice component, ST: TOR will truly immerse its players in the Star Wars universe.
  • The importance of storyline and the difference between factions will be present and felt throughout the game. Each class will benefit from its own back-story as well as branching storylines which are affected by players' moral choices.  BioWare is traditionally known for creating engaging storylines for its games and the company has decided to stick to their roots and do the same for the Old Republic. The game's story promises to impress even those people who hate online games precisely because of the lack of any real narrative.
  • By ditching the notion of strict functions, BioWare allows any class to fill a particular role for the duration of a party. On-the-fly class customization will ensure that players are not stuck in their predetermined class roles as well as allow for groups to be more flexible when forming up.
  • The game will make use of NPC ‘companions' which follow a player within the game and are able to be customized. There will be a wide selection of the types of companions available to a player as well as deeper customization and interaction (such as potential romance) options should a player decide to stick with a particular companion for an extended amount of time.
  • The spirit of travel and adventure remains strong within SW: TOR as players will be able to visit and explore dozens of planets such as Korriban, Nal Hutta, Tatooine, Coruscant and others.

    Full SizeScreenshot
    SWTOR Gallary





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