So, for the last few weeks I have been playing a sizeable amount of SWTOR. The newest Star Wars game is a double successor. It's the next Knights of The Old Republic, but it is also the replacement for Star Wars Galaxies, the previous Star Wars MMO.
TOR is very much the same as KOTOR, except with more players. Unfortunately it is also WoW.
For most people, WoW is the pinnacle of MMOs and with a peak of over 11 million players, one can safely say that it is. But the design of WoW is extremely straightforward and therefore has a ton of clones, andhas lost all sense of innovation.
TORs only real advantage is this regard is voice acting and Star Wars, the design is simply a copy-paste of WoW. It's a solid game, don't get me wrong, but it has very few things going for it beyond that. WoW is simply too big to be beat on it's own playground and I suspect that once the main bunch of TOR players play out the end-game content, then just like Rift, the game will be tossed into the trash and people will return to WoW.
This is my biggest gripe, and fear, with regards to TOR - A game that is so incredibly similar in design with very few real improvements, will likely not last once the glamour of "fresh game" disappears.
Could it be done better? Possibly so, but perhaps better is the wrong word, differently is more fitting.
It may not be the best solution, but if this line of design is to survive, then it is absolutely vital that it is either improved, rather than hijacked from WoW/Everquest, or done in a very distinct manner.
So, that is it for my rather messed up post - I will delve deeper into the topic of SWG vs SWG at a later date.
See ya all on the bounce!
