Oct. 21, 2008 BioWare announced their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic and slowly began leaking bits & pieces of info to their rabid fan base, which no doubt counts amongst it's numbers old Star Wars geeks, Star Wars: Galaxies fans and many a MMO'er besides.
Slated to release Dec. 20th, 2011, SW:TOR will be available just in time for the ultimate stocking stuffer. Back when I still counted myself among the teeming hordes of MMO gamers, I was frothing at the bit over this title as the answer to "all the modern day MMO woes". After finally prying my fat ass from the PC for a few months my addiction slowly abated and my excitement dimmed. The Star Wars nerd in me is still very interested in this game, and I dearly hope some of the early reports I've heard & read from various sources that described the E3 Demo as a "WoW Clone with a heavy story influence", were largely premature and inaccurate. Like many long-term MMO gamers, I've long since lost all hope that a game will come out that manages to capture the nostalgia and immersion of early titles (Like EverQuest).
Sadly, today's world of "Fast Food" MMO gaming and Micro-Transactions that endlessly serve up instant gratification to all the millions of people who....well, obviously want that sort of thing. For some of us old-schoolers, we remember with pride spending those 18 hours in Lower Guk to farm a Short Sword of the Ykesha and Flowing Black Silk Sash, and dammit, we fucking reveled in our achievement. Granted I can only speak for myself, but I loved the time I was forced to spend socializing with other players while we farmed XP & loot. Real communities were developed and guilds were a real family of players bound together by friendship and shared goals. But alas, I digress.
A small part of me still holds out hope for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but a larger part of me feels like my days of Massive Multiplayer Online gaming may well be behind me. The truth is, no game can possibly ever hold up to the diluted memories and misplaced nostalgia of games long since past their prime. (As is obvious by the fact I'm not still playing them)
I love BioWare and they're making some of the best RPG's on the market today (Mass Effect, Dragon Age), so there's a high likelihood this game will turn out to be exactly what they've promised. But, I've been let down too many damn times in the past by "the next big thing" and I've lost my faith, oh my gaming Brothers & Sisters. (Age of Conan, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, etc)
I'll definitely play the Free Trial in a year or so when they offer it, but unless I get some seriously luminescent feedback from some friends who have had the game pre-ordered since GameStop started taking them, I won't be there at release.
Game On, Brothers & Sisters
-Keredain-
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