Variety Friday: SWTOR is the WoW Killer...?

There’s lots of talk over Star Wars: The Old Republic being the WoW killer, but I have news for you, it’s not.  The sheer idea of a WoW killer is as fantasy as Dwarfs and Elves (as cool as they may be).  World of Warcraft has a user base of over 13Mil members and is known by pretty much everyone.  Because of WoW’s near cult following, nothing short of Blizzard going out of business would kill WoW.  The Old Republic may take a chunk of WoW’s user base, but that’s just like taking the change out of Blizzard’s couch cushions.

But the reason it’ll be able to take some of WoW’s user base in the first place is due to the similarities and improvements over traditional MMOs.  The Old Republic’s gameplay will end up similar to WoW in that it still has the class roles of Tank, DPs and etc. it still has skills and loot and all that.  The reason it could keep some of WoW’s user base is because it improves over what WoW does.  First off, story, there is over 1000 hours of unique story gameplay within The Old Republic, what the player does will hold more meaning because what they do affects the later parts of their campaign, as in all Bioware games.  This will really appeal to people like me who dislike the pointless quests and lack of story in most MMOs.

Another reason is that the classes are more different, they use different weapons and all have different ways to play them, much more than the classes in most MMOs where you have different skills but the core mechanics are the same.  If you’re a smuggler, you will be playing the game a lot differently than a Jedi, partly due to the cover system and your ranged focus.  There will be more of a variety in ways to play, which will appeal to people who may not like the slow paced combat of WoW.

But one thing that almost all MMOs that compete with WoW don’t have, is the world recognition; nearly everyone has heard of WoW, but everyone has also heard of Star Wars.  This name recognition for The Old Republic puts the MMO on a new competitive bar alone, since everyone will flock since it has Star Wars in the name, and that is backed up by how the Pre-Orders were record breaking in the first day, even though it cost $60 for the normal edition, and even so, the $150 Collector’s Edition was sold out within 8 hours.

From what we’ve heard, The Old Republic will actually appeal more to people who prefer single player than WoW does.  Since the game has a personal and unique story, as well as companions which you can program in similar fashion as you could in DA: Origins, you can be much more “anti-social” in the game than in other MMOs.  Bioware is appealing to a large audience, which will help them gain more players, even if they tend to be loners in game.

The final thing is simply how being a Clone Trooper or Sith Warlord sounds much more entertaining than a Smelly Dwarf.  The Old Republic will allow people to live the fantasy lives they have always dreamed within the Star Wars universe.  It is simply more fun to be playing a Bounty Hunter or Intergalactic Smuggler than a class in WoW, because you feel more important.  In WoW at low levels you are pretty much an unimportant pawn with your main goal being to level up to reach the legendary end game content and PvP battle, which is a long and boring process.  The Old Republic will grab on to people in the first moments, because it’ll start with the beloved scrolling text, and put you right into a story, in which your actions have outcomes.  Feeling important from the beginning is ultimately one of the biggest things The Old Republic has over WoW, because I doubt I will get bored in The Old Republic within 15 minutes like I did in WoW.

The Old Republic has story, diverse classes and gameplay, and worlds that everyone has wanted to explore on their own for a long time, but it still won’t be a WoW killer.  But, it doesn’t matter, The Old Republic will probably build up its own following of fans, so WoW will continue to be successful, and hopefully The Old Republic will as well, they are their own games, and thus, will have their own fans.  Then Both MMOs will live on in peace forever and ever…until a clone army comes and invades Azeroth.

Variety Friday: Mixing Medias

Just because a game is a game, doesn’t mean it can’t incorporate aspects from other media.  Actually, they may do this more often than you think.  When I say other medias, I can mean anything from anime to movies, to books and comics, to even some of the less obvious ones such as music and even lifestyles. 

Now movie games are a type of game well known, for them simply being bad.  These can range from the Tron Legacy and Thor games, to the, actually good, Star Wars Battlefront and Knights of the Old Republic games.  Now, games based on movies are finally starting to go in the right direction, game companies are starting to directly copy the movie story into a game less often, which is good, really good actually.  It really works in games like Star Wars Battlefront and KOTOR, in which the games are based on, not the movie’s story, but the world it takes place in, these games really show how it can be done good.  Though, that doesn’t directly relate to success, in cases such as Tron Evolution, in which the story fit itself between the first and second movie, but was ruined by bad controls and uninteresting gameplay.  The problem with most movie games are that they are rushed, which is always bad.

When you hear the term music game, you probably first jump to Rockband (or Guitar Hero if you still live in a world before Rockband stole their thunder) but you probably don’t think of Brutal Legend, which is a much better example of a game actually based on music.  Another example is the newer title, Child of Eden.  In the future of the industry, I believe that we will start using great and different genres of music to supplement gameplay.  Sure most games have soundtracks, but having a soundtrack is different from crafting your world around music as Brutal Legend did, or directly linking sound with gameplay as Child of Eden did.  If the industry starts crafting games around music (but not all mind you), we can really deliver some much more rich and fulfilling experiences.

Now another form of media that can influence games, which gave me the idea for this article in the first place, is anime.  I’m talking specifically about Catherine.  Catherine is a very…interesting game, but in a good way.  It takes risks in the way that it is designed as a story and psychological puzzle game.  Honestly, it is similar to Portal in many ways, yes you do get to know much more about who you are playing, but it is still a puzzle game, with psychological elements mixed in.  Most anime games are just fighting games, but this one is different in that it tells a story.  Honestly, a lot more games could take inspiration from an anime and do well in the market, if they tell a story with it, and have interesting gameplay, something I believe Catherine has done, just from playing the demo.

As far as books are concerned, there aren’t a lot of games based on books, but if there were more book based games instead of movie based games, it would probably be much better as far as the market and industry is concerned.  Because books are very good at explaining a world, which is the core of any game, the world in which it takes place.  Taking that world and making a game out of it is a great way to make a great game, as long as you don’t make the game based solely on the book’s story, that is.

The last type of game influenced by something else may not be an actual media, but it is close enough so that it still shows my point of how games are now affected by more and more outside sources of inspiration, this one being lifestyle choices, specifically, parkour and Mirror’s Edge, and even Brink.  This shows a way of how outside sources can fully create gameplay experiences for games, parkour in a game was a great innovation when Mirror’s Edge came out, and still is because it has barely been expanded on.  Parkour games are just a small step in our industry, which is taking more and more inspiration from life itself.  Another quick note is the Sims, because the game is based on life, which may not seem like anything special by now, but it is still a good innovation and continues to show my point!

Now those were just a mere few examples of how games are affected by other media, and on a large scale.  Sure tons of games have minor details based on other media as well!  But to simply show how the industry is expanding I used big games with big ties to other media as examples, because as games expand to other media, it can only get better for the industry, because not only will games be more different, but more widely accepted.