Joystiq posted the above video this morning with the following screed:

Hey Star Wars: The Old Republic, want to know the best way to suck the excitement out of your upcoming space opera MMORPG? Show us a bunch of still pictures not taken from the game, while a guy who sounds like Sam Elliott’s less commanding brother, Denny, tells us a super boring story about galactic diplomacy.

Seriously, if the video was capped by a young Jack Palance playing a guitar solo while he kills a bunch of guys with a lightsaber (that’s also an electric guitar), it still wouldn’t be enough to wake us from our coma. Can we all agree to leave boring in books, where it belongs?

ZOMG NEEDS MOER SPLODEY!!!11

Wow. If there were a way for Joystiq to sound less intelligent, I’m not sure what it would be. “Don’t talk about diplomacy and intrigue… I just want more asploding! WAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

First of all, the only people in a coma over this game are the gibbering unthinking mass who couldn’t be bothered to play a title for more than 5 minutes unless it has the word “Madden” in the title. Bioware is taking an honest stab at trying to make the STORY interesting, and you’re gonna take a dump all over it because it didn’t have any action?. You remember STORY, right? Yeah, it’s that thing that happens in some games while certain Joystiq writers are trying to figure out which end of their controller is up. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your frathouse shenanigans with our plot development.

Honestly, for the kind of people they need to attract to this game, this video is perfect. Most Star Wars fans will think this is downright cool, especially if they played KotOR thinking “Gee, this would make a cool MMO.” Darth Malak FTW! These are the same kind of people that were super-hyped about Star Wars Galaxies and then were horribly defeated by SOE’s ineptitude.

Listen twerp, I LIKE DENNY!

Oh, and I should probably point out that “Denny” is actually Lance Henrikson. You might know him from such films as Aliens and the Chris Carter television series, Millenium.

ZOMG NEEDS MORE BORG!!!!!!!111one

I bet I know who else balked at this video. The guys that thought Enterprise would be SO much better if they just added THE BORG! Forget that your characterizations are shallow, your concept of Vulcans are totally broken, and your opening theme song is about as inspiring as a kick in the junk (they both make me want to chunder).

“Where are you going with this, Finster?”

Just hold on a sec. Guys, the issue with a lot of MMO’s is that the story never gets through the layers of gameplay to the player. The whole “WRITE YOUR OWN STORY” bull crap is really not going to get MMO’s anywhere these days. Mostly becuase, when we let MMO players write their own stories, that story is about “HOW I NINJA’D THAT GUYS LOOT!!1 QQ MORE! lern2PLAY nub!”

World of Warcraft doesn’t always do the best job of telling their story, but with the latest expansion, it does it right at almost every turn, from the Battle at the Wrathgate all the way to Loken, Hodir, and Storm Peaks. Did Warhammer Online underwhelm because of a lack of story-telling? I don’t know. I’m sure people that spent more time in there than I did might be able to come up with better reasons, but I can honestly say I would’ve stuck around longer if Warhammer Online did a better job of telling some kind of story… any story really. I’m sure there was some lore spread around, but it just didn’t come through in the course of leveling.

Basically, I see two possibilities: WoW is huge because it has an awesome story, or WoW has an awesome story because it’s so huge. I would love it if SW:TOR has as much depth to its story as WoW. And based on this video that Joystiq was so quick to dismiss, it really seems like it will.

Congrats, Bioware. You just won me over a little bit more. Coma averted!

So, as a WAR player, I now read Syp’s WAAAGH blog and came across this.

As someone who plays WAR but still kinda hangs out on WoW because all my friends are still playing it, I was rather dismayed to learn that Blizzard is nuking everyone’s honor points when the expansion ships. This has got to be the WORST thing Blizzard could do. For a lot of fence-sitters like me, this gives me one less reason to bother with WoW, anymore. 

Although it’s not as far-reaching, it reminds me of the SWG New Game Enhancements. “Hey, here’s a great idea! Let’s erase everyone’s hard work! No one will be angry at all! While we’re at it, let everyone transfer from easy mode servers to PvP servers.”

This is a recipe for fail. Meanwhile, Warhammer Online is fun!