<\/td><\/tr>But then, this attitude makes perfect sense \u00e2\u20ac" for Bioware. Of course, every developer wants their game to be unsinkable, but for Bioware, there’s more to it. The Old Republic<\/i> is not just their flagship product, and it’s not just their biggest project ever \u00e2\u20ac" it’s the most expensive project EA has ever attempted<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n This is EA Games here, folks. The only reason they’re number two is because Blizzard shacked up with Activision. They’re a giant among giants. And The Old Republic<\/i> is their most expensive project ever. I’d say that puts its budget in the ballpark of at least 100 million dollars, if not much more than even that. This figure is supported by what EA’s management expects from the game: two million<\/i> subscribers<\/a>. With a “mere” one million being absolutely required to break even.<\/p>\n The Old Republic<\/i> isn’t something that Bioware just doesn’t want<\/i> to fail. It, quite literally, can’t<\/b> fail.<\/p>\n But here I am, ranting on about what The Old Republic<\/i> might be, and I haven’t even gotten to what it actually is.<\/p>\n So then, what is The Old Republic<\/i>?<\/p>\n Of course I can’t truly answer that question based on my very brief stint at the Bioware booth at PAX \u00e2\u20ac" I think I played the game for a total of ten, maybe fifteen minutes at most. But even a short glimpse can tell you important things about how a given game works, and I think I got a pretty good idea of what the basic mechanics were.<\/p>\n The Old Republic<\/i> quite simply is, from everything that I could gleam in my short demo, World of Warcraft.<\/i> Sure, it’s a Star Wars game, and it looks much nicer, but once you look beyond the visual surface of the game, you begin to see very clear similarities. The combat mechanics are share stark similarities \u00e2\u20ac" I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between the two games’ combat systems at all. Likewise, the rigid class system is also present, and along for the ride are racial class restrictions \u00e2\u20ac" only certain races can be certain classes.<\/p>\n Really, I couldn’t see much of a difference between WoW and ToR when I played the demo \u00e2\u20ac" I think it’s fair to say that it certainly felt like I was playing a reskinned version of WoW. Granted, there was the dialogue system, complete with fully voiced NPCs giving quests through multiple-choice dialogue trees very similar to those you find in Mass Effect. And while it was an interesting and certainly more immersive variation on the standard quest text-box, I get the feeling it may grow tedious as you play through the game \u00e2\u20ac" especially considering the one side-quest I picked up was the quintessential MMO “kill ten rats” mission.<\/p>\n Now this stark similarity to WoW is not necessarily a bad thing. World of Warcraft<\/i> certainly didn’t get 11 million subscribers by being boring, and I doubt The Old Republic<\/i> will be either. <\/p>\n But that’s the problem. Bioware doesn’t need The Old Republic<\/i> to be a good game. It needs it to sell millions of boxes and build a subscriber base of at least<\/i> one million players. That’s not a small number, and its this ambitious goal that has me so worried. <\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr>No, that’s not actually me, I had to hold the camera.<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n