Google it up and you'll see the internet is rife with claims that so-and-so over at somewhere-or-other has just given official confirmation that Bioware's turning their Knights of the Old Republic setting into a Massive Multiplayer game. They've been working on an MMO for a while now, so it'd come as no surprise were it true. Still, considering how plot-, character-, and choice-driven the original game and the sequel were, it's hard to imagine how they could capture the same spirit in an MMO.

Ideally, I'd enjoy seeing a galaxy riven by secret Sith/Jedi wars. All player characters could be Force users, circumventing the otherwise-inevitible problem that any game asking you to choose between Jedi and not-Jedi has, where there are a billion Jedi and maybe one medi and a few soldiers. Dividing up the Force Using classes into guardians, sentinels, and consulars seem like a great way to get class diversity while letting everyone play the awesome Jedi or Sith they want.

I'd also enjoy it if the factional system was flexible, allowing a player to start as a Jedi but fall to the Darkside (or perhaps vice-versa), because of how central a theme that is to Star wars. Maybe they could even give everyone a Lightside/Darkside meter, allowing for "borderline" situations where a relatively "grey" Force User works with both Sith and Jedi.

As for setting, assuming KOTOR 2 was canon there's a lot to work with. Revan's a big mystery, the ancient Sith Empire and the distant war in the Unknown Regions he spoke of has yet to be explored, and the galaxy is dotted with tiny enclaves of Sith/Jedi types to get involved with. The galaxy's in ruins and there are plenty of loose ends to make use of.

I kind of went from "So I guess there might be a new KOTOR MMO, I dunno" to "OMG FANBOY MODE" pretty fast there, but the idea's still pretty interesting, and it's probably at it's most interesting point since it's too early to know a single thing about it. Any speculation out there?

Good luck to them.

Seems like nobody can compete with WoW.

I remember being super-stoked by Galaxies, and that turned out to be... ehhh...

I will be eagerly awaiting more information on this and hope it lives up to the hype.

I loved SWG...until they destoryed with the NGE...*curses SOE*

I will wait to see, and won't be caught up in any hype... or hyfe, for that matter.

Could you explain NGE and SOE, and UC or any of the other SWG terms? I simply don't understand, being as I played the game for a grand 3 days.

Certainly. Before the 'New Game Enhancement' (or as us old SWG players like to call it 'Nerfed Game Experience') used a system called 'skill trees', where as long as you have the points you can mix and match the different profession trees.

You had your basic trees: Brawler, Marksman, Medic, Artistian, Politican, Entertainer and Scout (there were three pilot trees as well, but they had a separate pool of points. There was also a Jedi tree once you unlocked it.). Once you full filled certain requirements with the basic trees, you can start training in 'master' trees and each basic tree lead up a number of master professions (some master professions requried a number of skills from different basic trees and one profession, politican, didn't lead to anything else). Here's a sight you can look at get an idea of how many proffesions there were: http://www.bafordham.com/swg/skilltrees.html.

You had enough points to 'master' two professions: for instance before the NGE I had a Master Fencer/Master Ranger (Also a master Rebel pilot) and a Master Teras Kasi/Master Dancer. You could mix and match anything so long as you had the points to do it, so the combinations were near endless.

Then the NGE happened....which reduced the number of professions down to a strict 8. Yes 8...and you could no longer mix and match. One of those starting professions was Jedi, which pissed off a lot of people as before you had to work hard to get one. Making matters worse...this game was supposed to be set between EP 3 and Ep 4, where there were only supposed to be four jedi around canon wise. (They also changed the mechanics to twitched based)

Even worse is that they were activately talking with us on revamping certain skill trees (Ranger being one of them), only to suddenly dump the NGE on us and effectively make all that talk one big lie. I didn't even bother trying it when this hit (I think I was deployed at the time as well), it digusted me too much and made what accomplishments in game null and void.

Indeed.

Seems the way of MMOs these days, sadly. I wouldn't bother picking up Age of Conan, or Warhammer, for at least another year - if not longer. As it stands, both games have promised big things, and both have been forced to dump a bunch of 'pre-release content' due to not being able to have it ready by go-day; this, in turn, has resulted in broken classes, large sections of playable areas missing, and (in War's case) resulted in classes/races being removed completely until an undisclosed time...

So, you'll excuse me if I don't get excited about this Old Republic MMO - it could be really good, or really bad.

I don't blame you and I am holding my breath on it as well. We should have a couple of years at least before it comes out and it's already been confirmed that SOE won't be allowed to get their filthy fingers in it. We will just have to wait and see.

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Eh. I've heard all that before. It's what they deliver that counts...

I hope it is good; because SWG used to be good - till that fucker named Smed killed the game and turned into a console piece of shit (no disrespect to console users naturally, as I AM a console user) now the game is very bland, it's player base small and no where near the numbers that it was before.

And when asked, Smedly said that they 'forgot' to make a backup of the data so there was no way to reverse it - 'forgot' my shiny butt.... Smedly intended that to happen because he knew it would enrage the masses that loved the game, all he cared about was following corporate rules..

Ughs... sorry for the rant =\