During a ComicCon panel that was held by BioWare staff this weekend, James Ohlen (the Senior Creative Director of BioWare) stated that even though the upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launched with 19 worlds and an undetermined number of smaller planets, the company is hoping to expand the number of total planets to 500 by 2025. A link to a transcript of the panel can be found after the jump.
Fan: Hi, yes. I wanted to know if you’re allowed to tell us how many planets are in the game now, and are more planets scheduled for release in later expansions of the game?
[…]
[James Ohlen]: Well, I can say that we have 19 major worlds. Then we have an indeterminate number of minor worlds. And our goal, obviously this being an online game, that we’re hoping is going to last for decades, we’re going to be, obviously, adding more to the galaxy map as the game progresses. We want to add dozens of worlds. Hundreds of worlds eventually. In 2025, we’ll hopefully have 500 worlds.
You can find the full transcript here.
So ‘meh’ I can hardly contain it. When you create a game, don’t think of it as the first of a trilogy. When you create an mmo, don’t look to the far future. It is all about the immediate, and if it gets a player base, it will thrive. Work to get that immediate player base (which I think it will have a hard time since it is up against some incredible free to play games).
Doubt they were actually thinking of the game lasting all the way ’til 2025. Most likely this is EA’s marketing department at large.
Still, disregarding the long-lasting nature of MMOs sounds like a silly idea, Korne.
I don’t know why, but I have been super skeptical about this game. I love Starwars, I really like Bioware, but I just have this feeling like everyone is going to be let down somehow.
First the game has to not flop…. and that’s a pretty slim chance looking at the game.
Nothing about that game says ‘this is an mmo you should play’ to me. Nothing at all. It looks like WoW style combat mechanics without WoW’s years of work making them smooth. Fully voiced is fine for a single player RPG, but in an MMO that you’re going to be sinking years of your life into you WILL get sick of those voices – doesn’t matter how good they are, after hearing them for 3000 hours you won’t like them anymore. The concept of building a choice based story into an MMO seems like a gesture doomed to fail – especially over the long run. I mean, WoW’s phasing is bad enough for trying to group with your friends, imagine if your friends were PERMANENTLY in a different phase from you because they let some npc die that you kept alive? And then extrapolate that over years? Just a nightmare. And there’re other things that just seem like it’s doomed to fail.