Unique Classes & Class Experiences Drive The Old Republic

Now that LucasArts and EA have made their much-anticipated Star Wars: KotOR MMORPG public, it's time to dissect and savor each tidbit of information as it's released. Today we get a bit of insight into the thinking behind Star Wars: The Old Republic's unique but as-yet-undetailed character classes, from lead writer Daniel Erickson:

"We want people to play this game and say, 'Wow! I never thought there would be story in an MMO, and there is and I love it and I'm going to play this story forever.' That's the big exciting part, right?

"We have all these classes, and all these classes have their own content, and all this content connects together as you're playing through the different classes. Now, you're getting to see and understand different parts of the world that you might have not understood previously.

"So, by the time you're playing the third class, you can say, 'Oh, I get that! That's because of such and such.' And you feel smart and you understand the mythos and the world. And hopefully, it will create something that just amazes people and they've never even considered before."

Without more information on the nature of these classes it's hard to opine - if, like Star Wars Galaxies, The Old Republic removes an easily-accessible Jedi/Sith experience from the game, that would be a deal-breaker - at least for me. On the other hand, if the game offers a unique and diverse selection of Force-related character classes (which I suspect is the case), then color me excited.

Erikson continues:

"...you would go and start talking to somebody and they would tell you something about the galaxy that you had no idea was true.

"They would tell you something about the way the Sith Empire was structured, the way of what's really happening behind the Jedi Council, that you'd be like, 'Whoa!' And, in fact, once you knew that -- the same way that once you know the moon landing was faked -- it changes your whole perspective on everything else you hear.

"Again, it's why I go back to playing the different classes. It gives you this great cumulative effect of uncovering what the bigger overarching stories are and what's happening in the large power structures. These are also things that you'll be getting involved in later on."

It sounds like they're designing this MMO for the long-term: making character classes unique is one thing, crafting a story that only begins to take shape after experiencing several classes sounds like a terrific way to hold onto an audience, as opposed to some recent MMORPGs like Tabula Rasa and Age of Conan, which not only don't offer much variety in terms of the story, but don't even give players the benefit of multiple starting areas and the like, all of which seriously hampers replayability. It's hard to suss out what class you want to play when you have to repeat the same five-hour starting quests each time!

BioWare's Erickson: Unique Character Class Experiences Key To The Old Republic [Gamasutra]