It seems long talked about rumors of a KOTOR MMORPG are true, as an executive of EA hints around their newest project in this interview for the Tech Observer:
N. Evan Van Zelfden in Los Angeles warns, watch out World of Warcraft. In an interview at E3 this week, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said that EA is working on the next version of Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic, and it will most certainly have a massively multiplayer online component to it.
"We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development," said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. "And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about -- in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it."
Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? "Yes," he said.
Star Wars fans, rejoice! The MMO genre is giving you another opportunity to live the fantasy with KOTOR online. Many of you may have played Star Wars Galaxies, and still may have the bitter taste in your mouth left by what Sony Online Entertainment (aka satan) did to the game. I still will never understand how that one company managed to take so many good games and bork them up after a period a time.
Ever since the insane success of World of Warcraft it seems as though more and more companies are jumping in on the MMORPG bandwagon. But the big question is: can WOW's success be replicated? Back in the baby days of the MMO genre, Everquest reigned supreme. But even at it's peak in subscribers, it only boasted 500,000 players, which is about 1/20th of the WOW playerbase. Since WOW, a number of big named titles have released, including Vanguard (which SOE touched and it died) and Age of Conan... neither of which have managed to reach numbers even 1/10 that of WOW. And it makes you wonder why. What is so freaking special about WOW that caused 10 million people worldwide to pick this up and stick with it? Not before WOW and not after has the genre seen anything nearly as successful.
I think post WOW success bork-ups are stated quite clearly in the quote from Riccitiello when he says "Watch out World of Warcraft." MMO creators need to stop viewing what they are making in terms of "will it destroy WOW? " and start making games based on "ok, this is the niche we are going for, what can we do to draw them in?" The world is capable of having more than one successful MMORPG... we're just waiting for another company to do so.
Will it be Bioware and it's elusive KOTOR?
