Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/57248
Special Gaming Section is pushing MMO game graphics to a new universe—and one that is familiar to players. Star Wars: The Old Republic By John Gaudiosi veloper BioWare is nothing like Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts' Star Wars Galaxies of the same genre, which, after more than eight years, officially shut down this past December. And for fans of everything Star Wars as well as MMO gamers, that's a good thing. Electronics Arts-owned BioWare has redefined the role-playing game (RPG) genre with each new title it rolls out. Starting in the early days working with the Dungeons & Dragons license, the game studio obliterated the need for pen and paper by immersing players in that fantasy universe with Baldur's Gate. In fact, BioWare has a strong history with LucasArts and with Star Wars, having worked with George Lucas' games division on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the console space several years later. While the devel- oper has expanded more recently into original IPs, such as Mass Ef- M ake no mistake about it, Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) from acclaimed de- fect and Dragon Age, the game maker has shown that it understands licensed material. And there's no bigger license out there than a certain galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader and 300 years after Knights of the Old Re- public. The Republic and Empire have signed a tenuous truce, but they're at each other's throats. It's within this volatile setting that BioWare allows players to take center stage and become a hero. Because this is a BioWare title, the MMO game has been designed to tell emotional stories involving evolving characters. To bring these ambitious goals to life, BioWare turned to new technology. One of the impressive developments actually enables all the characters, even the player character, to speak, making The Old Republic the first fully voiced MMO title ever created. The game features several hundred thousand lines of dialog and several thousand unique characters with which players will interact. February/March 2012 27 St ar W R epublic ar s: The Old