An MMO Tale - Part 3

Not sure what's going on? Read parts one and two.

So here we are. I’ve been terrible at World of Warcraft, I’ve been abused on a RIFT forum, but now, now we’re at the point it was all leading to. The Old Republic is in closed beta and I’ve been invited. Queue a very long download and an advanced apology to my parents and friends telling them they’ll be getting ignored for the duration. I sat watching the download bar for a good hour and then kept checking on it to see if it was any closer to letting me play. It took about 9 hours overall on my less-than-special connection, but when it hit 100%, a distinct Star Wars-y sound played loudly into my headset to let me know it was go time. I started the game. I watched the absolutely incredible intro movie. I selected a server. I entered a login queue. I would be able to play in another hour.

Now I’d guess you’re thinking when I finally got in it was all roses, given how much I’d been looking forward to this; no complaints, get on, have fun, never emerge until they physically boot me off their servers, but that’s sadly not the case. That comes later. First, I finally get to enter a server and create my character. First problem; good or bad? Bah, it’s Star Wars, the Empire can suck it! Next problem, Jedi, Trooper or Scoundrel? I would like to be like Han... nah, I’ll go a Jedi. A healer, of course. So there he was, my Jedi Sage, ready to heal the world better than Michael Jackson ever did. It all went gloriously for a few hours. I spoke to Jedi masters, learning of the force, uncovered a mystery surrounding an old corrupted master, it was wonderful. Then my friend came online on Skype and it sort of went wrong.

I talk to my friend on Skype near every day; he’s the one that travelled the Dune Sea with me in Star Wars: Galaxies. I was playing an MMO. A social game, so what’s the harm in talking to a friend while I play? My answer came after I finished my current quest and handed it in. Mid-sentence I cut my friend off with a brisk “shhh, shh! Talking’s happening!” For the next few hours we had a conversation that can only be described as ‘broken’, with me constantly cutting him off to tell him to stop talking so I could listen to these virtual Jedi talk instead. Okay! No problem, I’ll treat it as an MMO, balls to the quest text! Or.. in this case, quest speech, I guess. I’d skip it all and just read the summary on my quest log.

So starts the downfall of The Old Republic. Whether it likes it or not, it’s a part of the Knights of the Old Republic series, which is heavily story-driven. Now imagine playing the original KotOR for the very first time, excitement abound as you’re about to play through an epic Star Wars tale any fan would love. Then imagine skipping all the dialogue and not having a clue why you’re doing what you’re doing. You have my Old Republic beta experience. It has MMO quests now, but that’s to its detriment. Instead of exploring Korriban as I blend in with the Sith looking for a mystical map of the stars, I’m killing ten Flesh Raiders because the man standing in the field told me to. If I kill five more I’ll get a bonus.

Was all this wait for nothing? Had I wasted my time and got excited over nothing? Did I... Did I let hype destroy a game for me before it was even released? It actually got to the point, in beta, where groups would kick you from their party if you weren’t skipping dialogue. Colour me surprised when in my first dungeon, The Esseles, I was told numerous times to skip the dialogue because it was boring. Screw them, I wanted to listen, so I listened, telling them it was my first time here and I was interested in the story. Three or four dialogue lines later, the group had been disbanded. They had split the entire group rather than take an extra 15 minutes in a dungeon listening to what is actually very good dialogue, especially when considering it’s an MMO and especially when considering every NPC is voiced in some fashion. It didn’t matter, they wanted their loot and then they wanted to go. I deprived them of that when I wanted to learn about the game world and its characters.

This carried over into release, where I found myself searching specifically for first time players to group with. Would dungeons be more challenging with people still learning how to play? Sure. Did I care? Not at all. I was a healer, I’d happily take the extra time to heal more than usual if it meant getting to see the damn story. It took three weeks into full release for me to see every dialogue section in the games very first dungeon. I got a funny looking hat as loot, too. It was a special day indeed.

Things did get better. Things got much better, in fact. But that’s for next time.