... KOTOR MMOG

A KOTOR MMOG. The holy grail of Star Wars roleplayers. Touted as the SWG-Killer since years. Usually, but not exclusively by jedi fans. Recently the rumor got another boost after the layoffs at Lucas Arts caused some ex-employees to post more rumors.

I doubt the game will kill SWG, even if it gets made. And not because I think KOTOR was a bad game - on the contrary. but a good single game doesn't make for a good MMOG. Part of the problem is the "chosen syndrome" - in KOTOR, and most single-person games, you're the hero. You're the focus of the galaxy, the most important person in the story. Everything revolves around you.

That's not a feeling you can transport over to an MMOG. Being the chosen one loses it's glitter really fast once one realises that everyone else is the chosen one too. At least some of those lauding KOTOR Online as the SWG killer may be players who were disappointed when they discovered that jedi were a dime a dozen in SWG, and remember the glory that was KOTOR. However, in a KOTOR MMOG, jedi will again be a dime a dozen. That's the nature of an MMOG - class alone won't make anyone special, it takes personality and effort to become more than a faceless clone - and I am not talking about getting items and levels.

If a KOTOR MMOG is launched, I bet a lot of people will be disappointed because it won't, and can't serve the KOTOR feeling of being the hero.

But even then, to kill SWG, they would have to make a lot of changes to the KOTOR system. They'd have to make KOTOR a lot more diverse to kill SWG. There would have to be a solid crafting system (not the usual "tacked on" idiocy), a solid space system (aka "Twitch", from X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter), and multiple professions. And unlike KOTOR, you would have to be able to play a non-force sensitive.

And to make it a good game to roleplay in, to draw in and keep roleplayers, they'd have to make even more changes. All those superb quests and storylines? Those harm MMORPGs, at least for roleplayers. "Saving the galaxy twice a week" gets damn old damn fast no matter how nice the story is the first time. Usually, the quests are only doable IC with a small set of characters, or by ignoring the story altogether and replacing it with something else - you can't really use your original questline for interacting with other player characters if they just saved the galaxy from the same menace as well, without you.

Also, the more PvE you have to do, the less rp there is. People will pick the path of least resistance, so why roleplay if you can do quests? Why run events and storylines if you can run a raid? The achievers will be busy leveling anyway, and then item hunting, and then raiding.

A good MMORPG (as in "good for roleplaying") would have to drop all the quest stuff, all the "You are the chosen" ego-boosting quests, all the "we've ripped this off the latest movie/novel" NPC dialogue, and just provide a world. Get some places, some monsters, some NPCs, and fill the rest of the game with tools. Storyteller tools, housing, crafting. Then watch people either PvP, or roleplay, and watch their creative energy turn to interact with each other, not with NPCs. This would be a perfect spot for roleplay because it would be a world, not a game. And it would be a world exactly because it lacks all the stuff people like from KOTOR - mainly, good quests and storyline.

Unfortunately, that's just about pre-CU SWG combined with story teller tools. And as we found our, such a game would be perfect for roleplayers, but not exactly a big draw with the players, especially the non-roleplaying players. So the odds I give of KOTOR Online killing SWG are slim to none - LA wants to serve the gamers, not just the roleplayers.