Rumor: BioWare's mystery MMO based on KOTOR

Oh I do too..If anyone can pull off a decent Star Wars themed MMO, it's Bioware.

As much as I would love to see this happen.....

I would rather they just simply make a KOTOR 3 single player game and not turn it into MMO due to the associated risks that come with it. I don't question Bioware's skill, I question the skill of everyone else who would be involved in a massive project like this.

i think we should all give a big thanks to baby jesus for this.

Stop making sense, you fool! Let me have my dreams.

thinking that way ...

bioware is making a mmo ....... and bioware is making an rpglike game of the SONIC franchise !!!!! =O

so it is TOTALY OBVIOUS that bioware is actualy making .... A SMASH BROS MMORPG !!! xD

maybe this will be it? I dunno. But man, I want more kotor either singleplayer or mmo, it's a day 1 purchase. #2's combat was great (though lightning storm and force crush became super overpowered at the end) but the story sucked balls, and the level design wasn't very good either. Hopefully bioware can combine the best elements of both kotors for the new one

You can thank obsidian for that, their best skill seems to be taking someone else's awesome IP and watering it down and running it into the ground. KOTOR 2, NWN 2. They'll probably pick up jade empire and make a monkey fuck out of that next.

Galaxies was cool until all the whiny bitches wanted to be master jedi right out of the gate.

after the trash that was KoToR2 i've lost all my enthusiasm. I guess if it was made by bioware it'd be good again, right?

a turn-based mmo? doesn't sound like it would work too well, people would just do a really powerful move each turn

but there are lots of possibilities here, speeder rides to get around planets, starships for rent/buying for space travel (not sure if you'd want space combat or not...it would add a lot of technicalities and pirating would be pretty rampant). But at least it's the same guy that headed kotor, I'm very optimistic :)

Actually, it does work well, though you'd be hard-pressed to find examples. I only know of 2 turn-based MMOs: one of them is a Korean MMO based on Dynasties of the 3 Kingdoms, and which I can't remember the name, and the other one's ToonTown Online, a Disney based MMO. Added benefit: battles won't be hindered (as much) by lag in a turn-based environment.

And it's not like people don't spam their powerful moves in WoW anyway.

Actually, it does work well, though you'd be hard-pressed to find examples. I only know of 2 turn-based MMOs: one of them is a Korean MMO based on Dynasties of the 3 Kingdoms, and which I can't remember the name, and the other one's ToonTown Online, a Disney based MMO. Added benefit: battles won't be hindered (as much) by lag in a turn-based environment.

i think quite a few MMOs work on a faked turn based system like KoTOR, don't they?

It's true most MMOs follow a simulated turn-based system, but the turn-based system has very little similarity to KotOR's system. The reason MMO's follow such system is because of multiple reasons, ranging from bandwidth to processing power required to synch everything. WoW, for example, uses 0.1 second ticks: you can't have actions falling between ticks, but you can have simultaneous actions falling on the exact same tick. Other than that, what the player experience is completely real-time: unless you go into precise mathematics, people don't see their spell cooldown increase by 2 ticks, they see their cooldowns increase by 0.2 seconds.

KotOR's system however, is inherently turn based: all action goes through a preset turn order taking all units into consideration, and nothing in the battle, save for movement, can disrupt that order. (movement is the only aspect of the battle which is in real time) Haste effects, for example, increases the nimber of attacks players make in a turn, instead of making them space out their attacks in closer intervals.

Ack, I forgot about another example, which might be more interesting. Dofus Online, turn-based strategic combat (similar to FF tactics, except each player controls one character only).

ummm what? I'm pretty sure Bioware is developing it. EA's job is only to put the game out there.

but wouldn't lucasarts publish a SW MMO?

but wouldn't lucasarts publish a Star Wars MMO?

WoW is turn-based? I don't know where you get that idea, unless you consider a turn to be 0.1 seconds. (since the cool-down of spells are in those increments)

Yes, even though it may seem like WoW is "real time" you're just seeing the results of what is basically die rolls and modifiers. Everything is based on stats and there is a back and forth of attacking and being attacked. It isn't very dissimilar to an RPG where you're taking turns.

uhh...what

random damage doesn't mean turn based

if you go afk in wow, you can be killed by 1 guy just spamming an attack, he doesn't have to wait for your turn

It is indeed turn-based, however, the turns are easy to knock out of whack, what with different attack speeds on each attack and running screwing with everything. It's kinda like FFX-2's or FFXII's combat system (which both blew IMO) in the turn department, if you use the same move, you'll always go at the same time.

FFX-2 and FFXII are both not turn based. The key component for turn-based is that events are all done in regular equal-sized intervals. (even if the intervals are 0.1 seconds and not all intervals are utilized, and if some moves takes up more than one interval)

FFX-2 is more similar to a delayed real-time system, where moves are performed in the order they're given, but wait for previous moves to be completed. Essentially, this also means that the moves play out differently if they lasted for different durations, or if time travelled at a different speed.

FFXII is a pure real-time battle system. Actions performed are on their own time-basis, and can't happen simultaneously.

A major difference between KotOR and the games you mentioned: in KotOR, excluding movement, all actions are taken in a strict back-and-forth manner, irregardless of your speed or skills used. Speed effects (like force speed or flurry) only makes you attack more and provide other stat changes, in your turn.

For more information, just look up the d20 battle system (which the KotOR battle system is based on), excluding everything mentioned on movement (the only real-time factor in KotOR).

How about a challenge. You try and define a real-time battle system.

Psaakyrn, by your logic then FF4-9 are real time battles. Just because your opportunity to take an action comes up much more quickly in WoW, doesn't make it real time. If you sat on your turn long enough in FF4-9, the enemy would eventually get an attack. The same thing happens in WoW, only much faster.

So unless you're willing to call what we traditionally have called turn based combat Real Time, then you must accept that WoW is indeed turn based.

Incidently, I do consider the active-time battle system to be real-time. And you'd be hard-pressed to find any definition of real-time which wouldn't include that. Again, I challenge you to come up with a definition of real time, or turn based.

Why would you consider the active-time battle system to be turn based anyway? A menu system doesn't make it any more or less turn based.

Fair enough, but its generally accepted that those games are turn based, with a real time element. If you wanted to be really philisophical, you could boil all Real Time events down to a turn based system, especially when you're talking about a digital world (a processor can only work on 1 or 2 tasks simultaneously).

So when you boil it down, WoW is turn based, with each turn consisting of .1 seconds of available action time. Fast enought to seem real time, but still turn based at its root.

FF12 is definitely turn based, its just that the computer is taking the turns for you. I suppose its all a manner of perspective.

And therein lies my point: In terms of player perspective, WoW is real time, KotOR is simulated real-time (with a turn based basis), or pure turn based, depending on which option you chose. In terma of programming, the higher level system may or may not be turn based (but generally so in the case of MMORPGs, which I elaborated elsewhere), but the lower level system is always turn based.

In the end though, it's still the player-percieved system that counts. WoW is generally considered real-time, though hard-core players would easily consider it simulated realtime on a 0.1 second tick turn-based system (since they need to be as efficient as possible). FFXIII is pure real-time, even with the AI controlling: AI control doesn't make it any more or less real-time. KotOR has the simulated real-time system mainly for action gamers, though most players would figure that it's turn based by the way it handles attacks. The other play-mode is a d20 turn-based system no matter how you cut it.

Also: ATB (as in FFX-2) is a delayed real-time system, which because of how it's implemented, allows for strange chronological action orders (because even if character A is ready first, so long as the move being performed isn't over, character B can act first with no obvious delay. This naturally isn't possible if the previous action is performed before any other characters are ready.)

yeah, i never did like that 1 sec global cooldown in warcraft

i prefer cov's style, where each spell has its own cooldown, but you can chain a bunch together real fast if they're all ready

Technically false. Global cooldown doesn't apply to ALL abilities. Otherwise you can't get the trinket + Arcane power + Presence of mind + Pyroblast combo. (usually followed with a fireblast if that doesn't do the trick.)

You may as well give up. Practically all MMOs are open-ended one way or another. (the only exception are games based on finite stories, in which they then assume the ending never-has-and-never-will-be attained, and thus managing to keep it open-ended since you don't know if they'll follow the story ending.)

i'd love a mmo with branching storylines with finite endings. I always create alts so I can try each of the different builds anyway, so it'd be nice to use them to try different storylines

There's only 2 MMOs (and 2 MMO genres) I know of which has finite storylines.

1) Diablo 2: Granted this is debatable whether it's really an MMO, but I consider it so. (of cause, it uses "new game+" methology, in which storyline no longer plays a part)
2) Can't really remember the name, but it's about escaping an insane asylum. End-game is the actual escape, but being insane's probably more fun.

Genres:
1) PvP strategy/simulation. But only because the game goes in rounds, and at the end of the round, the group with the most points win. Technically more world than storyline based. Story is also artificially closed. In fact, the only real difference between this and games like TF2, is that a single round can last for months.
2) PvP Conquest based (e.g. Planetside). Theoretically possible for one faction to conquer everything, but practically not. Again, technically more world than storyline based.

Exception: Minigame based; Depends if you consider 100% no story to be an acceptable replacement for finite story.

What happens to Revan:

After an amazing twist, KoToR3 reaches it's shocking conclusion when [sorry, obsidian forgot to finish this plotline. please sit dumbfounded for a few minutes before throwing your controller at the screen. again.]