KoTOR MMO Indeed in Development

It's not "press conference" official, but an EA suit confirmed that Bioware and LucasArts are jointly developing a MMO based on the Knights of the Old Republic time setting of the Star Wars universe.

I'm not nearly as excited about this as I was even two months ago. My patience with MMO game play structure ranks right up there with driving in rush hour traffic. The only difference is I don't have to play an MMO.

After playing Age of Conan for a month, it slowly dawned on me that all these MMOs really aren't all that different from each other. Their skin changes, but the carrot/mule dynamic remains with nearly all of them. It took me three years of intense playing to realize this wasn't' fun to me anymore. At least not as fun as it was when I first played World of Warcraft.

Time is the main issue for me, game play a close second. To level cap a toon or gear them up for raiding for any of the various MMOs out there involves a time suck that will consume a gamer's entire discretionary game time. And then some. The quality of the game play? Leveling involves killing many of the same monsters over and over again. Raiding involves killing all of the same bosses over and over again. I know people like that. Hell, I liked it not too long ago. I can't criticize anyone who still raids in their MMO of choice, I just can't do it myself. Not anymore.

Which means even a Star Wars game turns into an either/or decision for me. Either I play it and level and raid till someone carts my bloated corpse from the keyboard. Or I don't play the game at all. It seems a bit extreme, but in a weird MMO way, it makes sense. I mean, what's the point of playing an MMO casually if your NOT intending to hit the cap, run some casual instances, or all-out raid? I'm to the point now with MMOs that if I'm not committed to capping and raiding a toon, I'm not playing one at all. That attitude might change with some much needed time off from WoW and its like. Some innovative changes to current MMO paradigms would go a long way in getting me more excited too.

But mostly I suspect my attitude will harden even more in the months to come. I played MMOs for more than three years, had buttloads of fun, then stopped having fun, and now I'm done with them. I guess you could say I went through a very long fad. Time to put down the hula hoop and move on.

In the meantime, I'll watch development details of this new Star Wars MMO. Warily. With the appraising eye of a gamer that likely won't play it unless if offers a truly new MMO experience.