Tyndaleon

"I always preferred smugglers and blasters (not so much Mandos, but I guess close enough), and so to me her take on it was a breath of fresh air."

You know Jef, you make a great point (perhaps without intending to make it), but I tend to agree with your mindset, and its not that I don't like/love Jedi either, but its really ironic when you think about it going back to the actual movies; people spend so much energy gnashing teeth over the prequel trilogy, which focuses on/is mired in all things Jedi/Sith for the most part, whereas the original trilogy, while we're introduced to the Force and Jedi-dom, I contend holds its original magic in focusing far less on that overall and instead more on smuggler/swashbuckling and the soldier/war side of things between the Empire and the Rebellion/etc, and then of course the epic space battles/etc (Hoth) that go along which were sorely missing overall in the prequel trilogy (with the exception of the intro to Ep III, which still wasn't nearly the same feel as you got in the ETSB asteroid chase or the ROTJ Endor battle).

I'd also contend that if you extrapolate to SWG, all the 'infamous changes' aside, even before CU/NGE ever hit, its best/most fun days by far were before jedi ever became a focus there as well, if people who played are honest with themselves. It was on a downward trend the very moment they actually revealed any inkling of how to become force sensitive by way of the introduction of holocrons and basically destroyed the original spirit/essence of the game (all arguments, legitimate as they may be, regarding the lack of real content in those early days aside). Given SWG was so much of a sandbox in both implementation and intention, the sudden focus on jedi grind/achievement completely dismantled the very heart of the game's original environment/feel from within.

Again, I don't mean to come across as anti-jedi at all, I'm not, but at least for me, the 'magic' and 'love' connected to the original trilogy and my youth has much more to do with things that aren't directly related to the Force aspect of the SW universe, and I know many others feel the same way. Heck, in terms of the EU material and that discussion, the greatest stuff that has ever been written is and always will be Zahn's trilogy and nothing really comes close in 2nd to my mind. Why? Because he recaptured the feel/magic of the original trilogy, and expounded on it to a much larger scale of detail. It still had Force elements/themes of course, but its still in tandem with the 'non-force-sensitive' side of the world in plot/focus. If I had to list my top 5 favorite Star Wars characters of any source/genesis, Talon Karrde would be in there, and he wasn't even in a movie nor, like Han, had any force powers (Han would be in the top 5 as well of course). And there are millions of Star Wars fans who of course love anything and everything to do with Fett & bounty hunters in general. I love all aspects of Star Wars including the Force angle, but I think a large chunk of everything past the original trilogy trends towards focusing more on the 'Force' aspect of the universe/mythology and thus loses many in terms of where the original 'magic' derives for them. Just my personal .02 anyway.

"Back when WoW was still months away I remember thinking the same things. It didn't LOOK that good. There were not any new INNOVATIVE features. The gameplay looked like the same old crap we were all tired of in EQ and DAoC. All we really had to look forward to was that it would be released with a Blizzard level of polish and hopefully with a Diablo inspired addictive gear system. We all know how WoW turned out."

....and therein lies the difference. The reason WoW took off like it did had nothing to do with anything special WoW in and of itself was or Blizzard in and of itself did; it took off like it did because the Warcraft gaming franchise itself was so huge/vastly popular that the initial droves ate up the crossover into MMO-dom like mad. Add in already veteran MMO-ers who grew tired of either the grind & time-fests that EQ was or else got fed up with the direction of their game in general (as was the case with SWG, the infamous changes of which took place round about the same timeframe), and it was the perfect storm of combining gamers new to the MMO world and MMO vets alike into something new and exciting, and the PvP aspects are what kept it growing from the initial firestorm

Can SWTOR capture that same kind of magic in the bottle based mostly on the IP with relatively smaller actual universal gaming roots and does it have the same quality/level of PvP to keep droves of people interested? Remains to be seen. But the fact is, as popular and beloved as KOTOR is/was, its a different series/type of game that hasn't/doesn't have most people still playing it constantly leading up to its metamorphosis into an MMO world, and to date there's been relatively little substance addressed from the PvP angle.

And for the record, I'm a huge Star Wars fan and have been a big Bioware fan as well not just for the KOTOR stuff but dating back to the Baldur's Gate days as well (in fact, before it was confirmed their MMO development was in fact Star Wars based, I myself had been hoping that perhaps we were going to be getting a BG-ish Forgotten Realms based open world MMO). But color me hesitant at best on the long term success prospects of SWTOR right now.

'...better than Vendetta Online'? Are you actually serious with that phrase? No offense, but VO is barely on the radar map at all. The only people who even know it exist are people who are seriously into classic space combat genre type games to being with, and even then it hardly gets any discussion. Mind you, I don't think VO is downright horrible either, but it leaves a great deal to be desired, particularly in the flight mechanics department, which make it feel more like a traditional 'FPS in space' with all the multi-directional full speed strafing than a proper space combat sim.

Love many things about LOTRO, but the best thing now is Moria, the new expansion is simply amazing in terms of just atmosphere/'wow' factor as well as content. And in general it's easily the most graphically beautiful/amazing fantasy-based game on the market as far as I'm concerned. Sometimes I'll take my main out and just ride around through the countryside on my horse and just enjoy all the diverse views/scenery to be enjoyed. And I seriously can't wait to do that in (the rest of) Lothlorien as well when Book 7 is live.

JGE will have both 1st person and 3rd person views, they're still working on 1st person/cockpit view though and doubt they're going to show it off until it's polished like they want. There will also be more than just laser/projectile fighting too, missiles/torpedoes and the like will be a part of the universe as well.

And for the uniformed guy mentioning EVE, other than being a space based game this is nothing like EVE. Even though it all happens in real time, EVE is still a more traditional MMO point-and-click game based on stats and skills and digital dice-rolling behind the scenes; JGE is a true space combat sim MMO and whether you miss or hit and where you hit exactly is all based on your skill as a pilot.

Just to clarify from the above, the interviewer phrased the beta question wrong....they're still in in-house alpha right now, 'closed beta' hasn't started yet, much less a 'wider access' one.

I got both the digital download and the CE as well. I got the CE for the extras as well, but that was only part of the reason; I'd originally started playing off a downloaded trial, so I've never had physical media to be able to re-install if needbe or otherwise install on another computer, which I'll probably be doing over Thanksgiving when I had back to the old homestead on my parents' PC.

And incidently, being able to play the expansion content 'that much sooner' wouldn't have been an issue for anyone ordering the CE through Gamestop at least. They shipped out preorders on Friday it appears, because my CE box was delivered about an hour ago this morning.

Correction to the above story....beta is *not* underway yet for JGE. They're supposedly getting close to beta time, but not yet.

Sorry Rational, but that's a bunch of hooey. Yes, the reason why WoW grew into the super-behemoth it is now is by word of mouth, but the reason it started out so popular most definitely ties into marketing, but really it goes beyond that. The primary reason why it had such a popularity out the gate was due to the juggernaut of popularity of the gaming franchise/IP it was built on to begin with, period. The Warcraft gaming genre was immensely populuar long before WoW was ever an idea in someone's head. If it weren't for that fact, WoW would have been like any other normal MMO in terms of numbers.

Note that I'm not going to suggest it'll be as popular as EVE is, I have no idea...but it's a completely different game than EVE. Even is all mouse driven and is at its core a turn-based MMORPG game (even if perhaps not in the strictest/most traditional of definitions), and even while much of the game is based on spaceship combat, it's more of a strategy and empire-building game than it is primarily about spaceship combat. Jumpgate is, and JG:E will be, a twitch-based space combat MMO primarily much like the Wing Commander, X-wing/TIE Fighter and Freelancer games were.