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Inside The Old Republic
By Edge Staff
December 4, 2008
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“This is a faster-paced system that focuses on making the player feel like a hero – four players all beating on one enemy; that’s not what you think of as heroic. It’s usually the heroes who are outnumbered, and that’s the kind of feeling we’re going for.”
Star Wars, BioWare, LucasArts and the magical money-spinning acronym MMORPG. It's a dream combination.
This sort of brand synergy is what gets game industry execs very excited. The Old Republic is going to be “ground breaking” says Ray Muzyka, CEO of BioWare,. “it’s a whole galaxy, it’s a galaxy of Star Wars”. One thing that is clear is that Star Wars has a host of reasons for being prime MMOG material, even though the less-than-stellar performance of Star Wars Galaxies means there should be no complacency about the licence. It is perhaps the most visually iconic science-fiction setting that exists, and one with incredible mainstream awareness.
The game takes a few visual cues from the new Clone Wars aesthetic introduced by the recent film and TV series: characters have simplified body structures, bright flat colours and the odd exaggerated feature. Each asset is hand-painted rather than using photo-sourced textures, giving everything a slightly unreal and highly distinctive sheen.
Bioware making an MMORPG. Such wasted talent...