A Weekend with The Old Republic – Part 1

Please note: this blog post contains minor gameplay and story spoilers for the first 20 levels of The Old Republic.

My subscription for Star Wars: The Old Republic was pretty much guaranteed when, after my character greeted his Jedi Master during the interactive opening cinematic, I realised he was voiced by David Hayter, the voice of Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. Of course, since its announcement in 2008, EA and Bioware’s joint MMO venture has been met with accusations that the game would basically be World of Warcraft with lightsabers and fancy cut-scenes; a direct and calculated effort to topple Activision and Blizzard’s juggernaut through the marketing force of the Star Wars licence.

During my beta weekend with The Old Republic I came to understand that while these comments are true to a degree, they’re kind of missing the point. From a financial view, EA is certainly betting a lot on The Old Republic’s success, yes. But to look at things more positively, The Old Republic is also a chance for Bioware to use its story-telling prowess to finally flesh out the fan-favourite Knights of the Old Republic timeline, while drawing the built-in Star Wars audience into “almost anything goes” pre-Anakin Skywalker lore. And yes, it’s timed almost perfectly to pick up any World of Warcraft fans who love its formula but have become bored of that world or are worried about the incoming panda expansion down-playing any serious narrative elements.

So, what makes The Old Republic stand out from other WoW rivals, such as Warhammer Online, Star Trek Online and Lord of the Rings Online? Undoubtedly, one of the most attractive elements of the game is its uniquely crafted story-lines – one for all eight core character classes – each playing out much like a classic Knights of the Old Republic adventure. During my beta weekend I spent the majority of my time playing a Jedi Knight, who began his quest on the Jedi safe-haven of Tython. Here, I underwent a lengthy tutorial that taught me the basics of gameplay (force-leaping and slamming into the ground is cool!), allowed me to do a bit of group-play (two padawans are better than one) and make some important story decisions (the Sith are bad… or are they?). This being Star Wars, the force plays a pivotal role in shaping your character, regardless of which class you’ve chosen in either the Republic or Sith Empire faction. Want to roll a Dark Jedi who gets the job done for the Republic, but role-play a good-natured Sith Imperial Agent? You can do either, and for the most part it’s handled well. For contrast with the Jedi, I also played the early stages of the Bounty Hunter class, which as expected hit very different story beats and was quite different in tone.

But this is still an MMO, and there are inevitably quests. That said, it really can’t be overstated how much difference fully-voiced cutscenes make to the tasks you undertake. It also helps that The Old Republic’s Team Fortress 2-like graphics shine for the most part. While there are sure to be questers who want to power through and ignore dialogue, forcing the player’s interaction through the use of a Mass Effect-style response-wheel ups the immersion considerably, even if you do run into the odd “kill three sabre-cats” quest. There are real choices to be made, and not just in conversation; some quests have different turn-in points, allowing you to assist different NPCs for different items, titles (“Deklaine the peace-keeper!”) and light and dark side force rewards. In one instance, I had the opportunity to help a local politician who was doing real good for the lower-class citizens on planet Coruscant. After discovering she was working with a local crime-lord to try and control gangs through fear, however, I had to make the choice to turn her in to the press or let it slide for the greater good. Although exploring the massive planet quest areas was a pleasure for a Star Wars geek like me, it seemed entirely possible to follow the core storyline, ignore the side-quests and make up the experience gap with the game’s variety of PvP modes, if that’s your thing.

That’s all for now, but join me for my next blog where I’ll really dig into the gameplay of The Old Republic before it launches worldwide on 20th of December!