Speaking to CVG last week, Bioware’s Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer on Star Wars: The Old Republic, discussed the poor track record of existing MMORPGs when it comes to really living up to those last three letters, declaring that early MMOs to current MMOs offer “no point” and possess a marked “lack of fun”.
“In the early days when they first announced that there were MMOs, like the existence of them, I knew in my head what that meant – because I played Role Playing Games. It was just giant Role Playing Games.
“And then MMO [games] showed up, and it wasn’t that. It was the ruleset to an RPG: There was combat, and there were areas, but that was all. Someone had left out the module. There was no story, there was no point. You just kind of wandered around. And that hasn’t really changed all that much over the years.
“We’ve always had that thought in the back of our heads: That Old Republic should be all the things we thought an MMO would be in the first place – which is all the parts of an RPG. Which means – and this is the most radical idea – it should just be fun. Like, just fun to play. You shouldn’t be trying to ignore all of the content to get to the end as fast as possible.”
Things aren’t completely bleak, however, as Daniel does note that a few of the more recent MMOs have been offering better content, albeit only in the early or “first 20” levels, though, at least to Daniel, it’s still not up to snuff.
