Purkake

@Gfted: You really don't know your history, man. Galaxies was mismanaged to hell and back. For years after launch you had to master a bunch of classes and do some really hard end-game stuff to get the opportunity to be a jedi(because it was the original series time frame). Then at some point they updated it and allowed everyone to be a jedi from the start, totally pissing off all the older players. Galaxies was doing great before they started messing with it and by that point it was getting a bit long in the tooth as well. The difference is that Galaxies was riding on Everquest's coattails, TOR is riding on WoW's.

@Vir: You're right, but think how much deeper Obsidian could delve into what it means to be human, unlike say, ME2 where you can look like the Terminator's stunt double and no one will blink an eye...

Seems like some obscure artsy troll. I'm probably not educated enough to be trolled by such a high class master of the art.

It's great. A highly under-appreciated game that combines a host of different gameplay types. When you installed the xcom games from steam did you have to do any configuring to get them going ot was it just install and play? Gamersgate, not steam (I'm not a steam fan). Install. Click on desktop shortcut. Play That's how all the DOSBox wrappered games on Steam work as well. Not sure if X-Com Apocalyse goes under that.

That was "at best", at worst he'll have the rest of his life

The WoW audience consists of multiple complex parts. At the very bottom you have people who just play WoW and no other games, be they MMOs or otherwise. They might quit, but they won't be picking up a new MMO. Then you have the normal players who play a little bit of this and a little bit of that, possibly multiple games at the same time, you might lure them away, but it'll take quite a bit of critical mass. At the very top, you'll have the crazy people who will flock to any new MMO, complain that it isn't WoW and go back to complaining about WoW a few months later. There's a good chance they're subscribed to a bunch of different MMOs, none of which they actually play.

It's still a 90% standard MMO fare under all that voiced dialogue and light sabers. I think you'll need to radically rethink the genre conventions to kill the grandmaster.

There's no hurry, at best you'll have ~10 years until the series is done.

2mil is certainly doable if they don't screw up the after-release content/support. Bethesda has been pretty nice for a company lately. I wonder what happened.

that would appear to not be the current paradigm of AAA game development though. WHich is try to make more money by spending obscene amounts of money on a game and needing to sell x million copies just to break even. The obvious way to make money developing game is to develop niche titles and plan your budget accordingly and not back yourself into a corner in regard to having to sell a ridiculous number of copies. But that's not the way the AAA publishers are going about it. My guess would be that anything less than a siginifcant percentage of WoW numbers will be a failure. You can make obscene amounts of money and still not come close to WoW's numbers. When will they measure the numbers against WoW? As I said it took them years to reach the very top.

One would think that they've done some research on other MMOs and set reasonable expectations for their product.

Hey, don't steal my questions, brah.

Yeah, you'll just have force your way through the first 1/3 or so if you want to get into it.

Obviously, it'll be in the AAA category of MMOs. My point is that no sane company/person should set "kill WoW" as their goal, it has an ecosystem with its own ebb and flow. The only semi-realistic way to compete with WoW is to get enough new players to rival them.

Wanting things and achieving them are two different things. WoW didn't get its 11 million subscribers overnight or in a year.

"Downing" WoW shouldn't be anyone's goal since ~4 years ago. The trick will be to be profitable and maintain a decent playerbase. WoW will be "downed" by Blizzard's next MMO.

It took me at least three tries as well. The beginning is very slow and confusing.

What kind(genre + setting) of a game would you like to make if you could freely choose your next project? Oh and what's up with the void/emptiness theme(no memory/mortality - PST, wound in the Force(+ Nihilus) - KotOR II, empty soul - MotB)? Do you have a guy who's fascinated with that or what?

The launch conditions of TOR are nearly perfect, with WoW's last expansion being some time ago and no other big MMOs lurking around. If this fails a few months into launch EA will have screwed up big time. Knowing Star Wars fans, they might as well have included Collectible Lightsabers(collect all 7) at $499 and still have it sell well. Actually, I'm surprised that there isn't a super nerdy edition ala the Halo 3 cat helmet or Modern Warfare night sight goggles.

There was also Septerra Core, the exceedingly rare western JRPG...

And the Steam version is technically DRM-free to boot!

Failure has never stopped other people from trying and failing in business.

Square have just gone mad with the marketing of this game, they must feel like they're on a money maker. HR is looking more and more like the next successful franchise resuscitation after Fallout. That's some mad money in that trailer. Looking forward to Deus Ex: Robodog Revolution by Obsidian.

Buut is there anything more awesome than tracking down your ex-buddies in afterlife and eating their souls? Think about it. Think very hard.

The turrets are the best. "I don't hate you"