14 DAY TRIAL // We've known for quite a while that BioWare and LucasArts were working on a Knight of the Old Repulic MMO. After all, the biggest man at Electronic Arts, John Riccitiello, said so in an interview. But the official unveiling of the game only took place recently, with the two companies holding a joint press conference during which they provided some details while also talking about the current state of the MMO.
While answering questions asked by the press, Gordon Walton from BioWare took the opportunity to make a few remarks regarding the way the MMO market is structured. He said that all MMOs had taught the development teams something but that the medium is “crying out for novelty, for something new you can't get anywhere else” while observing “medium that isn't really developed yet”. He also pointed out that most of the MMOs that exist nowadays suffer from having too many options which make the gameplay diluted and offer experiences that are not compelling enough.
The idea is that the Knights of the Old Republic setting will offer the developers a chance to create a game which delivers full fledged features that are solid and based on the experience of Star Wars and of being a Jedi. BioWare even appears to suggest that one player can make his way through the entire storyline of the game with other mechanics used to provide the social aspect that players will be looking for.
It's always fashionable for a new MMO project to emphasize how different it will be from the run of the mill games that are already present on the market. But, as the experience of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has showed us, games which pitch themselves as being revolutionary can end up being merely innovative because they must achieve commercial success.