I'm going to ramble here, but gameplay is a tricky thing in an MMO to pin down. It's hard to really tell how the game will turn out without actually playing it. After all an MMO is very large so we will need to see how moment to moment gameplay feels, how commerce works, PVP? Classes? Loot? There are quite a bit of questions to ask about The Old Republic, but there are some specifics that I like to know right away. The big one for me that I have a lukewarm feeling on is combat.
What I think really drew me away from MMO's after a while was the combat. I was sick of the dice role-point-and-click-keyboard-shortcut-repetitiveness out of every single one. This is something not everyone deals with. I feel like I inherently do not love this style of gameplay. When I started playing MMO's I looked past it, and I could enjoy the rest of the game as a whole. After about 5 years of the same stuff I stopped playing them. I occasionally came back in with LOTRO and Age of Conan, but they didn't hook me nearly as much as I would like. They had all the same problems and more importantly nothing really new.
Then came the news on The Old Republic. It was supposed to be different and revolutionary. Story, Star Wars style action etc. I was really excited. Now that I've seen more of the game I must admit that the combat is not what I expected. I was expecting something more real time, more in your face, and frankly more Force Unleashed, but It is still the same stuff we all know and tolerate. But tolerate is the key word here for me. With the story, voice acting, and choices I really think I can tolerate this style of gameplay again. Enough to where I can actually love an MMO again. I seriously can't wait for this game! Perhaps I am expecting too much right now, and perhaps I am wrong. There are going to be a large amount of people who simply like this style of game, and that is fine as long as I get my stories!
Now with that out of the way what I really wanted to talk about here is what I meditate about all the time when I think of the things I would like to see in a game like this.
Storytelling/Voice Acting/Choices
This is where Old Republic seals the deal. If Bioware didn't have such a hard on for story I wouldn't touch the game (Okay I would probably buy it then stop playing after 2 months and forget to cancel my account), but it's very existence could make this game an A+ over a C for me. Even though I have become so jaded over the gameplay of MMO's over the years story can really get me back on board. If they get the idea of playing a role down right this could be pretty fucking awesome. Imagine playing that scruffy, sarcastic Han Solo type, or the next Boba Fett. Of course the Bounty Hunter class would be even more sweet if you could get bounties on real players. But I digress. Multiplayer conversation system!! That is above and beyond what they could've done. Really though what storytelling is medicine for is the style of MMO's I'm simply going to have to accept. And that is running around from quest to quest, killing monsters, getting loot, rinse and repeat. But if you provide me with a good enough context and interesting reason to slay some Womp Rats I will do it. And who knows maybe the looting and quests will actually be quite good and subvert a little what I have come to expect.
Player Housing/Guild Halls/Cities
Star Wars Galaxies was the king of this. People could actually put towns and their own houses up around the planet. It was quite the sight to go adventuring and happen upon a house out in the sticks, walk in and see the guys trophies set up. Or go to a large town and see how the people decides to set it up with all sorts of cool shops. FFXI, dark Age of Camelot and others did this to varying degrees, but that level of freedom found in SWG has yet to be matched. This also plays into the economy of a game. Setting up a system where players can setup real in-game shops would be really cool. Letting the builders customize their pieces to create this name recognition on armor etc. is quite the way to encourage people to really treat making items as an art over a chore.
Travel
This one is soooo tough especially when it comes to something like Star Wars. A series (and genre) that for me has a large amount of interest in the vehicles and travel between locations. A New Hope was basically a ensemble piece set in a ship that flies through space all day. Actually traveling through space with a group of people is an important part of many science fiction films, and so far no game has gotten that part right, and I honestly don't expect The Old Republic to. The amount of space that would need to be created might be too much. And really I don't think it's required for the game to still be good. A guy can dream though right?
Vehicles
This sort of ties into the travel. Player vehicles and transport will probably be a part of the game as mounts are such a huge deal with WoW. Plus SWG had them eventually too. But flying or space vehicles sadly seems unlikely. Doesn't the new WoW expansion have flying mounts though? hmmm...
Class Systems
I don't think this applies to The Old Republic, but I loved the Job System in FFXI. I don't know about you, but I hate recreating characters or re-specking (sp? see how I never did it so I can't spell it!). Having one character who can learn everything (and switch out jobs) is awesome. However, this idea has sort of gone the way of the Dodo with the introduction of achievements. Now there is this (maybe irrational) comfort in knowing that you have proof of something you did with your last character. But more specifically in The Old Republic every class you choose and every character you make matters. Every choice you make will change the story. So you might as well just make a new character anyways. You might want to play as a female and hear a completely different voice. I find it interesting how I used to rail on this point all the time, but now I don't really care.
There are plenty of other design choices to talk about, but those are the ones that kept me awake at nights thinking about why I was able to enjoy SWG despite its complete and utter shit of a quest system, and yet not continue to play WoW with it's quality design choices. Or maybe I didn't make sense at all. If that's the case I'm sorry. I am a walking contradiction.
Sorry I just had to get all those thoughts out.
