Star Wars: The Old Republic Previews

There are two more previews available for LucasArts and BioWare’s ambitious sci-fi MMORPG, including a piece on Gossip Gamers that calls it “the World of Warcraft killer”:

Trust me, Star Wars: The Old Republic is not just another plain MMORPG, it’s so much more. Yeah, there are standard classes such as Trooper that serves as the main tank, Smuggler, Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular as the main healer. Now when you have a party you’re ready to take your quest, and this is where the magic starts. Unlike in other MMORPGs, such as World Of Warcraft, NPCs will actually talk to you and your team through ingame sequence like in Mass Effect. Before you get a quest, you’ll enter ingame sequence that will give you all details about the current mission. It really makes you feel like you’re playing a good single player RPG with a great story that way, but that’s not all. Unlike in other MMORPGs your party members can influence your conversation with a quest giver and for the first time, you’ll have round dialog box and you’ll be able to choose several answers from it. It really reminds me a lot of Mass Effect and that’s great, because you’ll get the feeling that you’re playing Mass Effect in a Star Wars universe online.

And then we have an E3-based preview at GameZone:

After the presentation finished, we were ushered like cattle into the next room where twenty stations were jacked in to a live version of the game. After seeing countless trailers, videos, and gameplay demonstrations, the ability to finally get a hands-on with the game was almost overwhelming. I jumped on the nearest computer, which displayed the opening level for the Commando class on the Republic side, and began the story.

The inclusion of voice acting, which seemed like a minor footnote when it was revealed, helps the game’s narrative immeasurably. I found myself more drawn to the characters in the world when they actually spoke to me. I felt a connection with the captain of the ship I was on, simply because it sounded like I should. I played through a few areas of the early section of the game, picking up side-quests on occasion, not just because I wanted experience, but because I wanted to see where the story was going.