What does the announcement mean to me?

Before last weeks announcement of KOTOR MMO, I had heard the rumors of the BioWare / Lucasarts new project (originally announced back in October 2007 with this press release: http://www.lucasartsbioware.com) and couple that with BioWare’s MMO project statement back in March 2006 (http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/press_releases/2006_03_15_Austin). Like a lot of people, I had my fingers, toes and any other extremities crossed that it was the aforementioned game.

Funnily enough, I was conceptualizing the game just a couple of weeks ago during my 1 hour long car journey home from work and even mentioned it to my non-gaming wife when I got home. As I prattled on about the game, its predecessors and how the force might work, her eyes glazed over in boredom and I gave up. Since that day, it’s been running around in my head every now and then. Last week, when I read that all the wonderful rumors were true, I decided that for the sake of our marriage, I needed another listener and so now all you unfortunate soles get to listen (or in this case read) about my thoughts.

I’ll talk about my ideas in another blog, so for the sake of official chronology, I’ll carry on with the announcement…

I remember a couple of weeks ago watching the Blizzard teaser homepage melt the ice toward space which eventually led to the Diablo III announcement. I have played a little Diablo and thought it was pretty decent but the hype on the interweb was crazy! All these die-hard fans cheering, screaming, critiquing, signing petitions and wetting themselves they were so excited.

Well the KOTOR MMO announcement was a little like this but without the details. We’ve had no screenshots, no story, no classes, not even a stinking name. Nevertheless, the excitement has been insane. Why do some developers announce games half done and others with merely a single line of code? Maybe some of the hardcore Diablo fans who were complaining about it looking too pretty and WoW-like wouldn’t have been so pissed off if they hadn’t seen screenshots and videos of it?

I only hope that BioWare do half the job of advertising and releasing information that EA-Mythic have done over the past 3 years in regards to Warhammer Online. I personally thing WAR is going to be huge because 1) they have worked bloody hard on making a kick-ass game and 2) because they’ve done such a fabulous job of giving us just enough information each week/month to and keep us hooked and gagging for more. If BioWare gave us just a couple of pieces of artwork and maybe the game name, that might be enough to hold the heaving masses at bay for a while.

Already there is a buzz in the community about the game and what it could become. Will it become the infamous SWG? Will it be the next WoW killer? More than likely, it’ll fall somewhere in the middle. Over the next few weeks I’ll be covering the following topics:

* KOTOR 3: Single Player vs MMO
* Why I am interested in KOTOR MMORPG
* Will everyone become a Jedi (or will other careers/classes be available)?
* What attracts a player to the Light / Dark side of the force (or more commonly, play as the good guys or the bad guys)?
* How KOTOR MMO will take into account the Bartle test
* I’ll give my thoughts on a potential leveling path (adapted from the original KOTOR games)
* Would it be lore breaking to have Light, Dark and the Grey area in between (3 factions rather than 2)
* How is BioWare's past history going to affect KOTOR MMO?