He also torpedoed BioWare’s ”nice/nasty dialogue tree” with NPC notables as being ”bolted on”, and Creutz feels it’s no ”major step forward” as promised.
”We got hands-on time with the game, and were largely unimpressed,” stated Doug Creutz. EA and BioWare had hands-on demos of the highly anticipated Star Wars MMO at E3 last week. It seems one number cruncher judges it ‘WoW with lightsabers’.
”Despite promises from EA/Bioware that the title represents a major step forward in MMO design, what we saw was essentially a World of Warcraft clone with Star Wars character skins and the Bioware RPG nice/nasty dialogue tree mechanism bolted on for non-player character conversations.” Chosen dialogue is said to alter your characters galactic story.
The visuals of the game were ”competent but hardly breathtaking,” but acknowledges that the demo took place on the desert world of Tatooine. ”Granted, we were playing in a desert area, so other areas may be more impressive-looking… on the other hand we question why EA chose a desert level to showcase the title,” continued Creutz.
The analysts firm did at least praise Battlefield 3 as it ”looked impressive and was the clear leader in positive buzz at the show”. Fortunately for fans of BioWare and Star Wars these are the words of a business analyst, so don’t let them get you down just yet.
BioWare have made it no secret that World of Warcraft has heavily influenced design decisions in the making of Star Wars The Old Republic as they acknowledge Blizzard has had the time and community to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Are you confident that BioWare can deliver their rich narrative and feel to this ambitious Star Wars MMO? Check out the developer diary below for a mission walkthrough.
