LucasArts to announce new Star Wars game franchise

Look it's another announcement of an announcement that seems to be popular right now. If anyone recalls LucasArts was hiring for an open world game. Any ideas what it might be?

Ahead of this year's E3, GameTrailers TV will showcase a new Star Wars game in development at LucasArts. We'll first get a look at the concept, name, and team working on this project during the pre-E3 episode of GTTV which airs Thursday, May 31.

The full reveal (including actual game footage) will then take place on Monday, June 4 during Spike's "E3 All Access Live" special at 7:00pm Pacific. So many trailers, so little time. What's most interesting to me is that this is specifically being called a new franchise. No Masters of Teräs Käsi II, I take it?

Host Geoff Keighley is in full-on hype mode: "I am blown away by both the caliber of the team on this project and their bold vision for this new 'Star Wars' title. I can't wait to introduce our viewers to this game and show off the footage that left my jaw on the floor when I first saw it."

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I have the feeling as if it will be either

- Clone Wars
- SW:TOR or KOTOR related
- far into the future ("Legacy")

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I have the feeling as if it will be either

- Clone Wars
- SW:TOR or KOTOR related
- far into the future ("Legacy")

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I would love to see a legacy era game based on the comics. It would be even be better if it was an rpg but it wont.

Couchpotato said:

It would be even be better it was an rpg but it wont.

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Personally, I wouldn't rule this completely out. KOTOR has proven that RPGs could sell, and SW:TOR has an RPG-like license, too.
Well, more or less.

Given that the last good Star Wars game was 7 years ago (KotOR II) ... and that everything since has been fairly mediocre - or based on LEGOS - my hopes aren't that high.

My guess would be dance dance republic for kinect.
Possible 10$ dlc's include Wookie waltz, Rodian rumba, Jedi jitterbug, Sith salsa, Ewok electircboogie, Tattoine tapdance and more.

I don't have high hopes either, but I have to pay attention anyway - it's Star Wars after all!

txa1265 said:

Given that the last good Star Wars game was 7 years ago (KotOR II) … and that everything since has been fairly mediocre - or based on LEGOS - my hopes aren't that high.

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I have to go all the way back to Jedi Outcast for the last time I really enjoyed a Star Wars game.

Abusive relationships pay off.
It should be Lucas' official motto, the man practically makes a living by abusing his fans. They complain, they rave and they rant about it and they just keep asking for more and more.

The latest and geatest was the star wars dancing game for kinect. There is no hope.

Stars Wars Galaxies was a good Star Wars game, I think that's the last one I enjoyed (think it came after Kotor 2, if not, then Kotor 2, but they came out at around the same time I think)

I enjoyed both KOTORs. I especially enjoyed their longer quest-lines (like the trial on that water planet and dispute on dantooine, I think). There were too many fights, which didn't serve much purpose, which in turn made the games a bit too repetitive. But all in all, they're two games I've replayed (not until the end) many times.

JDR13 said:

I have to go all the way back to Jedi Outcast for the last time I really enjoyed a Star Wars game.

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Same here. The KotORs didn't really do it for me (epic boredom).
Star Wars Galaxies had a lot of promise and potential and I was subscribed to the game from day 1 in 2003 all the way to the end of 2005 hoping that the game, that was in dire need of fixing from the day of release, would eventually get better but it always seemed like for every single improvement, they screwed up about a dozen other things, all culminating in the infamous NGE (new game experience) patch that flushed the game in its entirety right down the shitter.

The only thing that SWG got right in the beginning was the Star Wars atmosphere. You had all the characters from the movies in the game (the game was set between Episodes IV and V) and it just felt like you were right there in that Star Wars universe.
For example, cruising around Tatooine and visiting all of the known POIs from the movies like the Sarlacc Pit, the Lars homestead or Jabba's Palace (including finishing the "themepark" = quest line that was associated with it)... those were the moments that allowed you to temporarily forget what a broken piece of shit SWG was at its core.
Unfortunately, and against their own intentions, they managed to make the game less Star Wars-y as time went by instead of more. Which was another nail in the coffin - out of a few billion nails...

On a new Stars Wars game: I would absolutely love to see a new Star Wars game somewhere in or near the timeframe of the OT. I'm sick and tired of Old Republic and Clone Wars crap. I hope that LucasArts understands that the problem with The Force Unleashed 1 + 2 was that the games just weren't very good and that it wasn't a lack of interest in the timeframe. I bet there are many people like myself who would love to see more games between Episode III and IV since that is still a fairly unexplored terrain and you could have nearly all of the major characters in such a game. Actually every single one minus Luke who would have to still be a farmer boy on Tatooine and Yoda would have to be in exile or on his way there... but everyone else could participate... even Leia could already be a young Senator.

Could some of you insiders please explain to me what was so bad of the NGE ?

And how do you see the game's elements in retrospctive (imagine as if I knew almost nothing about it, which is in part even correct. I followed the thing from day 1, was early in the beginnings even active in the forums, got their newsletters - but somehow my interest dropped dring the earlier days of devlopment, too - probably when it turned out that it would have a subscription. I would have LOVED it to be an offline game).

Ah, I see. Well, now that would have bothered me, too.
So much about "making wrong market decisions" and perhaps even "listening to the wrong people".
Personally, I'm kind of glad that DDO hasn't been streamlined yet - it still remains at least partially complex for me - which is a thing I actually like.
But on the other hand - I'm playing it only since last October.

It would have bothered you even more if you had just bought an expansion to the game a few weeks earlier.

The NGE was THE biggest rip off in all game history, as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of companies have released games that were junk but I don't know any game where it was released as one game then patched into a very different game.

Zloth said:

The NGE was THE biggest rip off in all game history, as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of companies have released games that were junk but I don't know any game where it was released as one game then patched into a very different game.

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I think Dungeon Lords CE would be comparable. How about simply patching a game and then re-releasing it at full price?

It's funny how many of you were fans of Kotor and haven't tried the new Starwars mmo, which quite frankly feels almost identical to those other games. You don't even have to group, which is a bit strange for an MMO....but if you haven't tried it, I suggest you do.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Could some of you insiders please explain to me what was so bad of the NGE ?

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Biff described it pretty well though the WoW reference really is a major insult to WoW because WoW is infinite times more sophisticated than the NGE ever was.
It is difficult to compare the NGE gameplay to any other game because no game out there that I know of has had similarly crappy gameplay. SWG basically became a very simplistic third person action game with very lame and boring combat and horrible special effects in combat that had nothing to do at all with Star Wars. It was completely horrible. I'm sure there are videos of it on YouTube if you really want to see it for yourself.

And how do you see the game's elements in retrospctive (imagine as if I knew almost nothing about it, which is in part even correct. I followed the thing from day 1, was early in the beginnings even active in the forums, got their newsletters - but somehow my interest dropped dring the earlier days of devlopment, too - probably when it turned out that it would have a subscription. I would have LOVED it to be an offline game).

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Well, a MMORPG is a very complex beast so going into extreme detail on all of the game's elements would be a bit too much but here's an attempt at a slim version:

- The game world: One of SWG's few redeeming features. The game had ten planets at launch, all with their own unique visual style. The planets were huge and before the introduction of mounts and vehicles it took a looong time to travel from A to B. Exploration was quite a lot of fun because of the POIs on the planets. It was also fun to head out and survey for resources or to search for (rare) pets to tame if you were a Creature Handler.

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- The professions: To have 32 professions at launch was one of the dumbest ideas ever. I have no idea how they figured to ever be able to provide sufficient patching or content for all of these professions. The entertainer profession alone was subdivided into: Entertainer (the base class) and then Dancer, Musician and Image Designer. That's four professions just to hang out in a Cantina and socialize!

It was a hopeless endeavor from day one. They never had a chance to meet the high expectations of all 32 professions. Every profession had its own specific bugs (some of which never got fixed even months/years after launch) and demands. Often times, whenever they "fixed" one profession, they made another profession nearly useless or -the opposite- overpowered.
With the combat classes this led to so called FOTM (flavor of the month) builds.

For example, at the beginning of the game Creature Handlers were at the top of the food chain because you could have three rancor pets out at once. When that was nerfed Commandos took their place because of a very strong fire/flame DoT, then that got nerfed and next up Combat Medics with their mind poisons took over, then those were nerfed and Teräs Kasi/Swordsmen dominated the battlefield thanks to their awesome defenses... and the list goes on and on. There was always a new FOTM class after a patch.

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- The player-run economy: Not a bad concept on paper but horrible execution. SOE repeatedly did not manage to address credit dupe exploits properly so the in-game economies on all servers spinned out of control. Even when there were no outright dupes there were other exploits like the so called Pubam missions. These very easy missions yielded 25K credits a pop and you could always pick up two missions per run so you could make an easy 50K credits in no time with very little effort (especially if you were an Imperial player and let your AT-ST "pets" do the work for you ).

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- The crafting system: It also suffered greatly from the 32 professions issue (one thing or another was always broken) and from the broken player economy. Still, it was one of the best parts of SWG. Surveying for rare resources and placing harvesters, building factories and then creating items manually or via schematics in your factories was quite complex and quite rewarding once you got the hang of it.

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- The combat system: Terrible. No matter which incarnation of the game we're talking about... from pre-CU to CU to NGE. Just terrible. There were always the FOTM classes (which usually also allowed you to solo content that was clearly made for groups), major exploits, broken skills, horrible lag and rubberbanding and a severe lack of Star Wars flair on the battlefield. I mean people tossing around (mind) poison packs or using flamethrowers or beating up on blaster users with their bare hands = not exactly my imagination of a SW battle.

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- The path to Jedihood: Most disappointing aspect of SWG evar!! Seriously. First it became obvious that after months of people stabbing around in the dark for the secret recipe to become a Jedi (or force sensitive) they manually unlocked the first wave of Jedi. Then it became clear that all it took was to master certain professions (out of the 32 professions). In the beginning you had to hunt for Holocrons (you had to loot them off high level mobs) and the way I remember it is you had to master five random professions. Four were revealed by using a Holocron and the fifth one you had to find on your own.

This system turned the game upside down in no time: Everyone started hunting for Holocrons like crazy including the usual kill stealing, ninja-looting etc. - Also, everyone began to leave their beloved profession and started grinding like mad on professions that they had no real interest in (which had very negative effects on the player economy, of course). The game really fell apart at that point since the community and whole guilds broke up into individuals pursuing just one goal: Jedi.

The path to Jedi slightly improved later on when they introduced the village of force sensitives where you had to go through a series of quests on your path to enlightenment but there was still massive amounts of grinding involved because the village was going through phases and you needed to turn in thousands upon thousands of XP to convert them into some other points in order to be able to advance through the village quests. In essence the grinding was a little less pointless but there was still tons of grinding required and it still sucked.

When the game launched everyone dreamed of an extremely complex quest that you needed to discover to become a Jedi and I remember how much fun it was in the first few weeks of the game to always keep your eyes open for any sign of something unusual or maybe even too usual which could be the trigger for that one epic Jedi quest.
Imagine the major disappointment when it turned out that all there was to it was mastering a few professions!

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- The space combat (Jump to Lightspeed expansion): The space combat was actually quite a lot of fun and much better than the ground combat. Wouldn't have been SWG though without a few very questionable design decisions. For example: Ship equipment/parts. The good part was that you could customize your ship to a large degree. The bad part was that it was very tedious to compare parts and find the best ones on the market. You had to extensively study your server's best resources and calculate what max quality was possible. Then you had to compare stats and prices... it was unnecessarily complex. The simple fix would have been to show the quality of an item as a "xx%" value instead of absolute values which meant absolutely nothing to the uninitiated but SOE never was about simple fixes.

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- The technical side: Pretty bad from the start and getting worse as the game got older and older. SOE decided from the beginning that focusing on new content like mounts and vehicles, player housing and player cities, and expansions was more important than fixing the base game so the inevitable happened: What was already pretty broken, broke more and more as they kept piling more and more content on top of it. This resulted in a fairly laggy and unresponsive game even when your server ping was low. It was obviously the server hardware that could not keep up with the demands (like the massive item databases and the thousands of player structures etc.).