I was a huge fan of Star Wars: Galaxies. Seriously. A die hard fan. I got into the beta really early and likely put a solid three years of my life into the game. To this day, I've yet to play another MMORPG that grabbed me as much as Galaxies did, and it was, in a large part, thanks to the universe. Sure, the game had a lot of innovative features that were far ahead of its time, but there's no denying that Star Wars branding helped a good deal. The John Williams score, the epic battle between the Empire and the Rebellion, the ability to play as different races within the universe, it was all perfect, even if the game, itself, wasn't. It's because of this that The Old Republic, an MMORPG made by a developer that I completely respect and trust in BioWare, is an obsession of mine.

At E3 2010, my entire convention was framed by Star Wars. The first game I saw at the show was Clone Wars Adventures, which was a let-down, considering I had expected something larger, and the last game was The Old Republic. After being moved into an over-packed room full of tired journalists and exhausted developers, the presentation began, starting off with the trailer revealed before the show had begun. The cinematic showed off a battle between republic soldiers and Sith on the planet of Alderaan, one of the first PVP battlegrounds revealed for the game. While it wasn't gameplay, it did a good job at showing how different classes would be able to go toe-to-toe with Jedi and Sith. Sure, the power of the Force is strong, but so is a well-placed Concussion grenade.

After the cinemtic, some developers jumped into the game, and started showing off what an average quest would look like in The Old Republic. For the most part, the battles played out like they normally do in MMORPGs, with the group using the same mechanics that World of Warcraft and Everquest players have been using for years. The tank, or, in ToR's case, the Trooper, focused on doing damage to keep the opponents occupied. While this took place, the DPS Jedi Knight went from enemy to enemy, trying to take them out as quickly as possible. If anyone's life dropped, the Jedi Consular would heal. Well, until she was out of mana (or force).  It's a holy trinity of sorts when it comes to MMORPGs, and BioWare hasn't really messed around with this formula. It wasn't until the end of the mission that their influence became obvious, when the party had to go through some dialog options and talk to NPCs. It wasn't the typical "click until the screen goes away" that most MMOs employ. Instead, it was something more akin to what is seen in the develooper's other games, like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The full voice acting made everything feel more complete, and definitely dates other MMORPGs.

After seeing this, we were ushered into another room and given a chance to get some hands-on time with the game. It played as expected, though with much more plot than traditional MMORPGs, even in the opening areas. It was still very obviously an early build of the game, with a few rough spots and glitches, but it definitely looked a lot better than most MMOs before launch. Hell, it looked better than most MMOs at launch. BioWare isn't known for shipping unfinished products, and it doesn't look like they're about to start with The Old Republic. Writing it off as "World of Warcraft with Star Wars" is insanity. BioWare has done nothing but impress over the past few years, and there's no reason to think they're going to drop the ball now. With beta testing starting soon, odds are we'll know exactly how much they plan on shaking things up in the near future.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is due out in 2011 for the PC.