Can BioWare Put The RPG Back in MMORPG?

Ten Ton Hammer has kicked up a new editorial that examines BioWare’s goals for Star Wars: The Old Republic and their previous track record to determine whether or not the company “can put the RPG back in MMORPG”.

With story based MMOGs, I had hoped games would give us direction and purpose without losing the ability to make choices. Alas this was not to be–most current quest-based games give you little more than a choice between taking a quest or not taking a quest. I want to take a quest to kill a target and then be faced with the decision whether to actually kill them or let them go. Either way, there could be consequences for my actions. Let me piss off an NPC and have to face him or his minions later. Let me refuse to take a quest from an NPC vendor and then be forced to pay higher prices from then on. I want the quests I do to have some impact. It doesn’t have to be some world shattering impact like in single player games, but let me make a choice that affects me. In most MMOGs right now, nothing I do affects anything other than my XP bar.

BioWare has promised that in TOR we will be able to make choices, take choices, and decide how we want to accomplish our quests. This sounds exciting and is exactly what I want to see in game. However, this is a monumental task for any developer to accomplish and, call me jaded, but as the old proverb goes, (Talk is cheap.) Still, BioWare has piqued my interest with their video showing 2 players inside a starship on a quest. During the quest, both players got to make decisions that affected how the quest played out–decisions that had consequences for the players! This was exciting and had me hooked. This was was a glimpse of the game I had longed for.