This time next year, we will have the choice between playing in a galaxy far far away, or exploring space, the final frontier. And as fun as Star Trek Online is right now (yes, even with the bugs), most sci-fi MMO fans are aware of the powerhouse that is Star Wars: The Old Republic. After all, BioWare's making the game, it's Star Wars, and did we mention that BioWare is making it? As rocky as Star Trek Online's start has been, it looks to contain one facet that won't be in The Old Republic: having your own starship. Though, that looks like it'll be STO's only real draw (besides the license) once The Old Republic ships early next year. Even in its in-development state, TOR is sporting quite a few features that STO will have to play catch-up to between now and TOR's release. BioWare is working on adding a whole new method of storytelling in an MMO (via NPC interactions, branching dialogue trees, a morality system, etc.), and is looking to reclaim the crown of "franchise sci-fi MMO" from the final frontier, thanks in no small part to the already-well done features below.
Story Driven Experience
When playing a story mission in Star Trek Online, it's all text
delivered through a little dialog box. More times than not, it's usually
an alien race harassing a Federation colony, and you need to step in
and blast them out of the stars. From the little that we've seen of The
Old Republic so far, this much is certain: you will have many different
story arcs available to your character available out of the box on day
one. Recently we saw some of this in action as we got a taste of the
Trooper's story arc, and what it was like to be a part of Havoc Squad (a
mercenary group, essentially). The mission assignment itself was
simple: infiltrate a base on Ord Mantell and obtain a secret weapon
known as the ZR-57. Though, during this mission, we interacted with
other members of our squad, talked with the locals to pick up
side-missions along the way, and even decided the fate on some of the
guards in the base -- all with spoken dialog for every character (even
ours). Adding that level of immersion in an MMO is huge; it felt like we
were playing Knights
of the Old Republic all over again (that's a good thing).
Click the image above to check out all The Old Republic screens.
Ground Combat That Works
While Star Trek Online excels in space battles, the ground combat mechanics end up feeling lazy and uninteresting -- we usually try and avoid beaming down to the surface whenever possible. The Old Republic, on the other hand, features western RPG combat that can be found in Dragon Age or the KOTOR. Coupled with a variety of different techniques and weapons, ground combat has the potential to keep the game's early grinds interesting, and the later portions tactical.
Interesting NPC Interactions
As we mentioned earlier, every character we encountered in The Old Republic so far had spoken dialog, along with a variety of moral choices for our character to make along the way. The moral dialog tree, and overall presentation between our character and the NPC, is similar to that of other BioWare titles in that you have a good, neutral, or a bad response. Deciding on what to do with prisoners, or how to get information out of characters, during your story mission will open up unique side-missions that will only unlock based on your experiences and choices with the NPCs.
Click the image above to check out all The Old Republic screens.
Having a Defined Character
The character for Star Trek Online is pretty much the starship. Yes, you have created characters, but unless you're seriously into fan-fic, you won't have much of a bio to write up for how your character fits into the overall scope of the galaxy. The aforementioned morality system in The Old Republic helps players define their characters further than the usual questlines and dialogue tress -- giving them a developed sense of identity in the Star Wars universe.
Admittedly, in all of our coverage so far with The Old Republic, we have
only seen a single player experience in an online world -- of course
this can be attributed to the fact that The Old Republic isn't finished
yet. And really that's the last big thing we have yet to get some
hands-on time with: interactions with other players, and how the shared
world grows around these players (especially in light of the morality
system); as much as we like what we played so far, seeing all this in,
well, a massively multiplayer online world is something we can't wait to
see in action.
Originally published on 1UP.com.
