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Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be causing quite a polarizing effect amongst MMORPG players with every new bit of information that is released about the highly-anticipated title.First, was the news that the Imperial Agent can stealth like typical MMO rogues. Second, was the confirmation that 50 percent of the classes would be force-related. And now, the idea of companion characters has heated the discourse about the game.
The recent news was revealed during an interview with the minds of Giant Bomb with Bioware's Blaine Christine, producer for SWTOR.
Since the interview was posted yesterday, bloggers have been feverishly debating the topic.
SWTOR will allow you to have multiple companions to choose from, but you can only bring one of them along with you at any one time. Christine said this will allow people to not have to wait around social hubs looking for groups. Instead, they can take their companion character and get right into the action.
My initial thought was that this makes every class a "pet" class, so to speak. However, Christine explained that the companion character can actually have a role in your character's story when it comes to dialogue and actions.
It certainly looks and sounds like Bioware wants players to have the freedom to either play through the game solo — with a companion character — or by grouping with other players. And for the first time ever, I am going to defend this option in MMOs.
In the past, I have been staunchly opposed to the idea of soloing in a massively multiplayer game. Having cut my teeth on Everquest probably had a lot to do with this mindset.
However, something that was said in an interview with G4 last night put a different spin on it.
In the interview with X-Play, Daniel Erickson, lead writer for the The Old Republic, said that all eight classes will have unique content that no other class will have, as well as unique companion characters.
"Not one single word, not one single quest," he said.
Bioware is doing something that no other MMO developer has done and that is to create a dynamic story where each character class has a story throughout the entire game. We aren't talking about a handful of quests — such as the Death Knight in World of Warcraft — but an entire game focused on your chosen character class. Beyond that, the player will have multiple choices throughout the adventure — a la Mass Effect — to make their journey with their Jedi Knight, for instance, different from someone else playing the same class.
Oh, and just in case you wanted to know about the greatness that is Mass Effect, click here. Seriously, why didn't you click already?
By the sound of Erickson, if I am playing with a friend and we are both in the same area, neither of us will be able to choose the same exact missions/quests because they will be tailor-made to our chosen class.No more asking, "Do you have quest A or quest B? Can you share it?"
Because of this, I can see why the inclusion of companion characters is important and a vital — and optional — tool in The Old Republic universe.
Did Luke Skywalker need Han Solo to accompany him to Dagobah to seek out a deeper understanding of the force? No, he took his companion character, R2-D2. Likewise, why should Han Solo and his companion character, Chewbacca, be the only ones in the fight on Endor? Instead, bring along a friend in the form of Leia to heighten the adventure, with her Ewok companion character, Wicket, of course.
We have never seen anything like SWTOR in the MMOsphere. No MMO has ever attempted what Bioware is attempting. Making story the driving factor, instead of levels and loot, is untested waters with players of the genre.We'll have to wait until next year to find out if the waters are indeed warm or an empty abyss.
I'll be the first to tell you that SWTOR has my loyalty wavering, but perhaps I've had it wrong all along. Maybe the paradigm shift isn't supposed to come from the developer. Maybe the shift is supposed to come from the players.
Maybe those fighting the idea of companion characters aren't ready to challenge the conventional wisdom surrounding the genre? Maybe, they aren't even aware of the chance to do so?
As far as the ideal companion character for me, I'll take HK-47 for the win.
I have always chosen to play as a solo player, despite the penalty of not being able to experience much of the game's content because of it. I've always wished that developers would do a better job of making your character be singled out, special and important in their own specific way instead of being just another portrait in the 40-man raid.
ReplyDeleteI'm very interested to see what Bioware can accomplish towards providing the kind of story-driven uniqueness that they claim to be pursuing in SWTOR.
For years, I've been a person that challenged the conventional expectations of an MMORPG player. My desire has been to complete as much content as possible, solo. I've focused especially on content that is labelled as group content, because completing it says that I was able to do more than what was expected or intended for my solo character by the developers.
I have to say, though, that in creating a game that gears every characters progression on their personal story line, there is almost surely going to be a lesser sense of community among the player base. I believe that the only way to avoid that in a MMO is to create Non-Combat Player characters... where you can become a Senator of the Republic or one of the "Diplomatic" leaders of the Rebel Alliance. But, maybe at that point, the game starts to be too much like Second Life, and no one wants that.
As for me, I'm definitely more of an R2 Unit kind of guy... and I'd love to play as a Jedi Knight of Yoda's Species (though I know that will never be possible).