Old Republic vs. the old MMOs

As a lot of you probably know a new MMORPG has been released.  It’s name? (read the title I mean really?) Star Wars the Old Republic.  I know what you are saying.  “Another pay to play MMORPG that is just a big rip from all the old ones.” Well fear not, today I will be putting this new MMO up against old stars.  If I were to compare this game to all the MMO’s ever made this article would never end as there are hundreds out there.  So I will only touch on the top ones,  Everquest, World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Final Fantasy XI, and Guild Wars, And we will see who is the master. But first a brief history on where MMORPGs began.

Back in the 90’s people loved playing their home entertainment systems.  And computers were beginning their push into the average person’s home.  The electronics age and video game age had begun.  But as games evolved and advanced people began to want more, now we could use our wonderful phone lines to use the World Wide Web!  All you had to do was tie up a phone line and pay AOL about 20 dollars a month and you were online chatting away.  So now with all that we wanted more, we wanted to play games with or against other people.  So games like Doom answered the call and had multiplayer online play.  But not everyone likes First person shooters and Sony Online Entertainment released a game like none other, a titan of a game that would push home PC’s to their limit and allow hundreds, not just 8-16, players interact and work together in an RPG Called Everquest.  The first of it’s class, the game supported high-end graphics not seen by too many home users. People began buying the best video cards available to play this game.  The recommended ones being Voodoo graphics cards that ranged in the 200-400 range depending on how pretty you wanted the game.

So how do the epic old school MMORPGs hold out against the new challenger The Old republic?

For it’s day Everquest pushed home computer’s boundaries in graphic power, meaning that unless you built your own computer you would have had to fork out a lot of cash to get a computer that would even be able to run the game at low end graphics. The game play held out really well with a large selection of character races and classes, and allowed for multiple combination’s of playable characters.  Controls were easy to use and memorize.  The world had a decent story that you could follow some what but you never really felt like you were part of the story.

Dungeons and Dragons online had superb graphics for it’s day, but most computers could handle the game when it was released and it wasn’t pushing boundaries like other MMOs for it’s time, but it still had great graphically capabilities at high end graphics. Game play was perfect for what they needed everything ran smoothly and the world was dark just like Dungeons and Dragons should feel like.  You really had fun delving deep into dungeons to find treasure and so far is the only game with traps that really kept you on your toes and would literally kill you if you took a wrong turn. There was no need to memorize a slew of special abilities unless you were a spell caster, then all you had to do was keep an eye out for bad things. Character customization was ok, but most people looked the same.  Story wise the game kept you going with constant little quests and the occasional long quest chain but the story never really enthralled you.

World of Warcraft shot everyone in the foot when it came out.  The Cartoonish video quality was very rarely seen but it still held it’s own.  Landscapes were beautifully rendered and people with high end systems could see some amazing colors on Their monitor. It was hard to believe how wonderful this game looked when it came out and how character animations felt fresh and real.  The story was fun to play through and once you were in the end game stuff you really felt like you were part of the story.  The world was fun to explore most times and you came to love your character as you played through the game.  Blizzard did an excellent job at keeping things fresh and customer support was very good for a game.

Final Fantasy XI had it’s great character visuals and had amazing graphics for character rendering I had ever seen in an MMO.  But it’s downfall is that other than a couple cities and zones, the landscape was very bland colors and looked like you were running in front of a moving picture screen compared to a real world. Combat was fun at times but the fact that once you hit a certain level, there was no way you could solo your way to mid levels, let alone higher ones. Like in Everquest, death has a penalty and you lose experience, but in Final Fantasy it is even worse.  In higher levels you could spend hours getting experience only to die 3 times at the end of the day and be worse off than when you started. The story was very Blah and it was hard to feel like you were important in the world at all.

Guild Wars had amazing Video for it’s day and had very little lag problems when it came to moving around like other games did when they were over populated.  Character designs were great and the ability effects looked great.  You really saw the arrows fly and magic explode very well.  Landscapes were greatly done and each one was unique in it’s design. The innovative design to have all outside worlds unique to a person or group was a great idea.  No more did you have to worry about kill stealing or a random rogue backstabbing you. The downfall to this game was it simplicity.  You easily could get to max level and then your only option was to group up with random people to get gear or just PVP.  I admit having your own guild was fun and having your own guild area was great. But PVP was usually very one sided.  The story was good but seemed to end too quickly.

As for Old republic it still pushes alot of boundaries with it’s graphics and is extremely beautiful in 1080p.  But this is not as ground breaking as most newer video games already pushing graphics higher than this one. But combat animations and space content make this game look great no matter where you are or what you are doing.  The story to the game is the best I’ve ever seen.  You really feel important and part of the universe, you feel good when you make dark side decisions, you feel good when you make light side decisions.  And unlike many other games you don’t even have to worry about anyone else, almost all the group missions are side missions and you can go through your story at your own pace just like a regular RPG.  There really isn’t much i can say that is bad about this game other than the lack of co-op space combat.  Which I hope to see in the future.

All in all every game has had it’s hay day and they all had great things about each of them.  But, I believe the time has come for the Old Republic to take the reigns of the best MMO for a while.  It is innovative, fresh, fun to play, and who doesn’t want to rule the galaxy with a glowing Lightsaber? eh?

As much as I’m sure you hoped I’d give a winner to this battle I’m NOT.  Every MMORPG has had a successor to take over when it has had it’s fun and the age of the Old Republic is at hand.  What is your favorite?

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Rob Carter aka. The Duke signing off…..

Don’t forget to visit my fantasy Facebook character Lahan Farlance. And see what is going on there.