Star Wars: The Old Republic and why MMOs are so difficult to review

This article was originally posted last week as a prelude to our Star Wars: The Old Republic 'review diary'. Then the site suffered a near-critical meltdown. But we're back now, so here it is again. And you can read part one of our Star Wars: The Old Republic review diary here.

MMOs are curious beasts. They don't really fit the traditional critical mould reserved for every other game because, simply put, they demand more.

In response to this I've decided to review Bioware's first MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, using a diary method with two updates a week, lasting roughly a month. These journal entries shall detail my exploits and thoughts about the BioWare's new MMO as I go along, with a great big conclusion piece at the end to condense my ambling consideration into a focused piece of scrutiny in order to make sense of the twisted journey I shall be documenting.

But what is this 'more' that an MMO demands? It seems simply to just say 'oh, it needs more because it's huge', and that is true...

Never Enough Time
Because MMO games are huge they ask for ask for more time. You'll finish Modern Warfare 3's campaign in about six hours and sure, Skyrim is huge, but most of its gameplay elements make themselves more than apparent in the first 20 hours of play. Put a similar amount of time into an MMO and you're often lucky to have seen a fraction of its content. Many argue that some MMOs don't even 'start' until you reach the maximum level, but I'm not even going to start going into how much of a rubbish excuse that is - the inimitable Robert Florence sums that up over here. These are life-consuming beasts that people will devote days, months and years to exploring but will still leave some rocks unturned.

So perhaps the issue is that MMO games ask for more patience. Gameplay in an MMO is often quite like a snail compared to the snappy, cheetah-quick progression and gameplay of the popular modern man-shooter. Quest progress is slow, as is usually the narrative progress. while the essential caveats to making the world feel real mean modern conveniences such as quick travel are most definitely out. If you think Skyrim is huge then you've never tried to run from one side of Azaroth to the other - it's a trek that would have Bear Grylls doubting his bladder.

Gribby bug man versus plasmo death sword. Yeah, that's fair.

Another big 'patience factor' is that you're often playing as part of a group, meaning you might unintentionally partner alongside someone with a weak bladder who calls for loo breaks every two minutes. Or how about almost beating an hour-long dungeon only for the youngest member of the party to go to dinner and leave you all up a creek without a healer. Then people drop out as they get annoyed, meaning you have to start all over again after 40 minutes of 'will they won't they, screw it I'm leaving' moaning. Human nature is a fickle thing...

Or is it simply this; MMOs ask for more effort. Numerous classes, factions and gameplay styles (PvE, PvP etc.) demand that the reviewer delve far deeper into the experience than other, more one-note experiences require.

Hack through Dungeon Siege III once, for instance, and you've got a pretty good idea of how it will play for everyone. Star Wars: The Old Republic offers unique, choice laden stories and different play styles for all eight of its classes, each with two key combat specialisations, across two warring factions in a game world spanning multiple planets. Ouch! Then what about dungeons? Is it as fun to play the healer type as it is to deal the damage? How balanced are the player vs. player arenas at maximum level? What about the Role Play scene - is it popular? To try every aspect of an MMO to an acceptable level is a frightening task that makes climbing Everest seem like a fun Sunday afternoon stroll.

The Question of Who
Thing is, I'd say all of the above are par for the MMO reviewing course. Anyone stepping up to evaluate Star Wars: The Old Republic knows about how big and demanding the game will be. I think the real issue is that an MMO game demands a reviewer to be far more open-minded.

I'm not talking 'open minded' in the respect of making excuses for 'patches' and 'improvements' to service a higher review score. That's wrong. What I actually mean boils down to 'who should review the game?'

Terry, the sports game guy who has no allegiance to an existing MMO but that surely makes him unqualified to offer an educated breakdown. Terry has no preconceptions about the genre but will likely hate the game simply by principle of not enjoying MMOs. A great review for other sports game fans but not really a fair stab.

The Old Republic hands out quests with Mass Effect style conversations. Already a big plus.

Then there's Bill, the guy who's been playing EVE for five hours a night every evening for the last six years, except every third Wednesday as that's pizza party rom-com sleep over night at mine. Okay, Bill has the knowledge. Great. But the issue here is that he has a prior allegiance - he's already married and has five kids with EVE, can he be trusted to give this new kid on the block a fair analysis? As a professional you'd hope so, but we're all naturally defensive of the ones we love.

While I was a World of Warcraft player I found myself summoned to try rival products over the years and every time it felt like another betrayal. Thirty minutes in Turbine's online recreation of Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, and all I could think was 'does Dala, my Blood Elf, hate me?' a few hours twatting dwarves as a Goblin in Mythic's Warhammer Online and my guild mates were already nagging me to return to Azaroth.

Moving MMO is like moving school. All the teachers seem to frown at you and the new children aren't as friendly as Jimmy who you used to trade sandwiches with at lunch, or Clive who was your closest POGs rival. This new place is scary and the walls are a different colour and the toilet smells of rose petals. Which is nice but you'd grown used to that musky stench in your old lavatories. It's all a similar idea, it does very similar things but it just doesn't feel right for one so used to what they had before, and many pine for what they had before without offering the new much chance to appeal.

Playing an MMO game - I mean really playing it - means you're devoted to ploughing hours and hours into it, which means it becomes hard to muster the will to apply a fair breakdown to another even if you are the most qualified hack around. Favouritism works against the new game, you don't really want to move away from your well developed character in the established game. So this is the main reason why I've settled on this diary initiative when it comes to The Old Republic - it will encourages deeper play and will gets more across to those who want to know about the game.

Mission Possible
These diaries are my aim to counteract the common issues of MMO reviewing while giving a broader, and hopefully more human analysis of my entire time in that well known galaxy far, far away.

I mean, it's not that bad this time. I've not played WoW seriously for a while (I explain that over here) and I've not found a replacement since, so The Old Republic has fertile ground in which to grow. A clean slate in which to impress. But that said, I'm naturally going in with preconceptions and hopes.

The Old Republic's Republic and Sith split is quite pleasantly good versus evil after Warcraft's moral ambiguity.

I hope the quest lines are more interesting than a typical MMO. I hope the combat is slick and entertaining. I hope that the world design is top of the class. And yes, many of these hopes are born from playing WoW for so long, but that's only natural considering Bioware think they've got the next big thing, and considering this game is being released 6 years after WoW set the benchmark you'd hope that progress has been made. I will not settle for Warcraft with a Star Wars skin.

MMOs demand more, so I will give more. There's a long road ahead of us, one likely full of fetch quests, hopeless players and creepy personas. But rest assured that by the end we shall know for sure whether or not The Old Republic is worth playing or not, and hopefully have a few laughs along the way.

Join Made2Game later today when we will be starting our online saga.

Words by James Bowden (@Dalagonash)

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