A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away…
That’s what the opening line is to every film, and pretty
much every game am I right? Yeah I am right. Probably. I can’t speak for the
Clone Wars animated series, but I would have thought that for 20-25 minute
episodes that they might forgo that one line that has become so synonymous with
Star Wars it may as well just say “HEY LOOK IT’S STAR WARS!!!”
Well an earlier blog post that I put up on here told you all
about the Top Ten Games from 2003, with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Being set so far back in the universe’s timeline gave the
developers a lot more freedom to put their spin on a story, to not have to
include as many things that needed to be approved by LucasArts – for they are
famously protective of their storylines, and Star Wars Canon. However, Bioware
and in particular Drew Karpyshyn, were given a lot more creative freedom to
create their own Star Wars epic that wasn’t anything to do with the Rise and
Fall of Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.
Anyway I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, or behind
myself, I can’t think which. To cut this long story short – for a KotOR review
post will be coming in the weeks ahead – KotOR finished, then Obsidian picked
up the pieces and made KotOR II: The Sith Lords, which was panned by a lot of
people and loved by a lot as well, but the more I play through KotOR the more I
want to sink my teeth into the sequel which I personally loved. KotOR2 was
another phenomenal game – rushed in places yes, with a shit load of cut
content, but still a brilliant game that improved a lot on some of the aspects
of the first game.
Anyway for years, I – along with thousands of others –
searched and digged for news of KotOR III, we had to have more. MORE! MOAR!!!!
We craved the trilogy, it’s Star Wars for shitssake! It’s an
epic story for gossake! Give us No. 3!!!!
But no. Nothing, for a while hope was there with LucasArts
confirming that a 3rd game was on the way, then Lucasarts had some
money problems, and couldn’t finance it.
Hearts were broken, mine included. You might think that
sounds a bit melodramatic, a bit much? It’s a computer game right? Well what if
you said to one of the millions of horny housewives that the much loved 50
Shades of Grey wasn’t going to have its 3rd book. That after the
second one, EL James said “Well, I was going to do the third one, I even had
the storyline kinda figured out, but I just can’t commit myself to it” and then
never spoke of it again. How would those women (my wife included) feel? I’ll
ask her shall I?
“No ending??? No bum-flogging, arse-melting cane-whipping
panty-ripping bra-pinging ending??? Seriously? If they had told me I had sat
and read two books full of Sunday tea-time Grey porn, ‘cos lets face it, its
only shocking the first time he ties her up in his Red-Room o’ pain and gets
down to the kinky fuckery by eating her nipples and caking her bum in Nutella
and sprinkling jelly babies on top, after that I was skipping ahead to see if
he died a big sexy dramatic death!
“Anyways, forgetting all that, to be told that the trilogy you’re reading is mentioned, dangled like a carrot to be cruelly snatched away without so much as a by-your-leave, would be Hell!
“I want answers, and I want endings! because that’s why we
love our books and our games isn’t it? As unlike in real Life, we actually get
to see where our final decisions take us and leave us. We fall in love with
characters in books and games, make them a little extension of ourselves, in
books we give them life, we give them faces, and in games, we ARE those people,
we are the ones fighting the battles, and to be told you have come this far
with a character you love, for the writers to cruelly say ‘Nope, end of the
line bud!’ is plain n simply like being ditched by a lover! Best thing to do
when this happens, start shagging around, or in other words, play summat else
and forget the cheating bitch!”
Shit isn’t it?
Well that is what basically happened to me and a whole lot
of others. We were shat on.
Then hope. BioWare and LucasArts started stirring things, as
did EA (who in the meantime had purchased BioWare). Things started
circulating…was No. 3 in the pipeline?
YES! And no. YES in that BioWare were developing a new Star
Wars game. YES in that it would be set in the “Old Republic
No in that it wouldn’t be Knights of the Old Republic III.
No in that it wasn’t to be a direct sequel per se. No in that it wouldn’t be an
RPG as we have been used to from BioWare.
It would be an MMORPG. You see, EA have been keen for quite
some time to tap into the vast resource of devoted online gamers, much like
with World of Warcraft. WoW have around 10million monthly subscribers, each
paying around £9 a month to play the game with full access (you can play free,
however you’re quite limited to the things you can do). Let me put it into
context for you maths style. Let’s say that 9 million of the 10 million players
pay their monthly fee, and don’t just go for the half access of the other
millions. At £8.99 a month that equates to a monthly income of £80,910,000. No
wonder EA wants a slice of that pie.
Anyway, with that The Old Republic was born. Promises from
BioWare that the game in essence would be KotOR 3,4,5,6,7 and more with the
amount of content. Reported the most expensive game ever made, with estimates
placing the cost of development at anywhere betweem £150-200 million. It was
always too much to hope that it would be F2P from the start.
“F2P” to those who don’t know stands for “Free to Play”.
Focussing on micro-transactions in game to get by as opposed to a monthly
subscription. Players will still have the option to pay monthly, if they play
enough and get as much use out of the game as possible then why not? But if
like me you don’t get all the time in the world to sit and play, then it’s a
waste of money.
The Old
Republic
EA had to take action, people were switching off in record
numbers. I haven’t played the game yet, but from what I’ve read it’s not got
enough about it to warrant people paying monthly for it. DLC is set to come
periodically (the latest due to include HK-47 – meatbag killer
extraordinaire!!) but will it be enough? Some people saying the game is too
short to warrant paying monthly for it. Even if you can play through an
entirely different storyline depending on whether you’re a Jedi or a bounty
hunter or a Sith or a soldier or whatever. So EA has made the decision to go
F2P from November 2012. And in November 2012 I will be getting my copy of The
Old Republic – or I’ll wait for Christmas! I think Christmas. Read that WIFE!!
This has led to some bold predictions, with some theorising
that TOR could attract as many as 50 million gamers. However, there is quite
the caveat involved with this F2P…
Some might have gotten the impression from what I’ve written
that the game will be free, much like Battlefield Heroes. Well no, you’ll still
need to buy a copy like most other games, but to play it you won’t need a
monthly subscription. Well you won’t if you only want to get to level 50 and
have restrictions on some player features and new content.
With F2P comes Cartel Coins. Something that monthly
subscribers will get 150 of a month, and that lowly F2P players will only get
when they want them and pay per coin – I assume (I haven’t yet found a pricing
structure, however I’m sure it’ll be lovely). Cartel Coins will be the virtual
currency of TOR and will let players unlock in-game items and “convenience
features” – whatever that will be.
Now I personally think that this is quite an unfair way of
doing things, by all means enable the 150 Cartel Coins for the fee paying
players, but to confine the higher levels
to those who pay monthly? Is that their way of sucking you in, only to say “oh
yeah, if you want to reach a higher level to advance your charcter, we need
your dosh.” I would hope that levels higher than 50 could be purchased maybe
using the Cartel Coins, but even that makes me feel a bit desperate. The player
would have paid out for the game, and shouldn’t be punished by having to pay a
levy to play the game in full. Micro-transactions should be the only way they
play it – you want this special lightsaber crystal? That’ll be 10 Cartel Coins.
You want the ability to make grenades? That’ll be 15 Cartel Coins. You want
this special armour? That’ll be 20 CC. Surely this would be the way to go,
people will purchase these things. Some observers have predicted that using F2P
for TOR, would result in such a higher number of gamers, that the losses they
would make from the £8.99 a month subscription, would be more than offset by
the millions of pounds going into the game from the Cartel Coin transactions.
Ever better though, I know – for a fact – that people buy characters.
As in people will pay real money to buy an in-game character that is already a
high level. An old friend of mine from college used to do this – not buy
characters, but sell them! He’d level up characters to a nice high level, then
put them up for sale, and he’d make quite a bit of dosh!
Why don’t EA/BioWare do this? You want to start the game
with a Level 30 Jedi? That’ll be £xx please. The character itself could be
whatever you wanted it to be, looks, personality the whole sha-bang. But would
start at Lvl30 instead of Lvl1.
Anyway I’m rambling quite a lot.
The point is – SW:TOR from November 2012, 11 months after
it’s world-wide release, will be F2P. However there will be restrictions on
play and it could lead to some wanting to pay the sub fee after playing for
free version for a while. By November/December time, TOR should be pretty cheap
to buy anyway so should be well worth a punt.
More details should be forthcoming from EA and BioWare in
the coming weeks and months. For more information, go to www.swtor.com.
Toolbox 24
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