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Massively: Will it suffer the same fate as other SW games?
Obraik
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261
Dear Obi-Wan Massive,
Is BioWare going to fall to the Curse of Lucas and release yet another crappy Star Wars video game? They beat the curse once with Knights of the Old Republic, but can they evade Lucas and his creative death touch forever?
- Laura T.
Well Ms. T, I have some good news and some bad news for you.
If anyone can deflect the curse of George F. Lucas (his actual middle name is "Walton") it is BioWare. BioWare has managed to make D&D games that don't suck, and a Star Wars game that doesn't suck. Given the history of these two franchises and the multitude of terrible games released in their name, that is no mean accomplishment.
That said, MMO's face a unique challenge. Lore matters. Lore is what drives continued game development. Lore is the engine that drives a game and gives players a reason to play. While Star Wars has a rich vein of lore to mine from, Lucas and Friends have an annoying tendency to exercise rigid (and harmful) creative control over outside projects that result in games like Rebel Assault or Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. Or, to put it more bluntly, LucasArts tends to do to their games what LucasFilm has done to their movie franchises over the last decade or so.
There are only so many times that you can give someone a(nother) second chance. If anyone can beat the odds and make a good Star Wars MMO, it is BioWare. However, if Sony has problems dealing with the Lucas "creative team", I can't imagine it will be any easier for BioWare. At Dragon*Con several years ago, a "very senior member of Sony's team" flatly stated that Star Wars Galaxies was "Lucas's problem, not ours". It is hard enough to create a good MMO without having your creative teams shackled by intellectual property owners who don't know and don't care to know how to make a decent role playing game.
I want to believe that Old Republic will be a good game, but experience dictates that I remain skeptical until I see the results for myself.
http://www.massively.com/2008/10/23/ask-massively-i-feel-a-disturbance-in-the-force/
Comments
BioWare being involved gives it a shot at not sucking.
But the sad truth is that most Star Wars games suck bantha weenie. Lucas, frankly, does not care as long as they sell. He's really a pretty mercenary guy. I have very little respect for him, because it's so painfully obvious that he's in it mostly for the money.
LEC has been about packaging bantha poo doo in a box, stamping Star Wars on the box, and knowing it will sell regardless of any merit it has.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I don't think it's the IP that 'puts a curse' on these games at all.
I'm of the belief that it's the the people companies hire to find out what potential players want (the term escapes me this morning).
As someone said a few days ago (and I'm in total agreement with), mmos were better when they were made for geeks, nerds, and techies. The introduction of the 'cool' factor isn't actually something that players generally want. If it was, then you wouoldn't see anywhere near the amount of whining on sites such as this because people would be happily playing their games instead of opting to talking about them on forums.
Knowing Bioware and their penchant for creating simple single-player games, then yes, I do think SWtOR will suffer the same fate as other Star Wars games.