Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview and Interview
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Talking with the commander was very reminiscent of Bioware RPGs Mass Effect 2 in particular and provides several 'attitude' response options. (This same system will likely be used when interacting with NPCs in your team/ship, earning you favor or disfavor with them.)
The transport ship comes under fire and takes damage, causing several fires to erupt within. Task number one is fire detail we grab fire extinguishers from the inside of the transport and extinguish the fires. Maybe not an epic, heroic beginning, but still better than hunting 10 Womprats for pelts.
After extinguishing the fires, our ship lands and we're tasked with entering a city overrun with smugglers. The first part of the mission is to locate a stash of weapons and then communicate back with the commander.
At this point, Star Wars: The Old Republic felt a little more like a standard MMORPG. Granted, at least we weren't farming, but as we entered the city, smugglers littered the streets, more or less waiting for us to get within aggro range and begin blasting away, which we did.
Followed by an interview with lead designer Daniel Erickson on CVG:
With that in mind, do you think you're going after MMO players or Bioware RPG fans?
Ideally, it's both - and it's sort of synergy of both. If you're someone that loves everything an MMO brings to the table, loves the community aspect, loves being able to see other people and say: 'I have better shoulder pads than you do,' everything you loved about MMOs is there for you.
But if the idea of story and context really turns you off, if what you want is the just complete Disneyland experience, where you run on the rides and repeat the stuff, this probably isn't your favourite MMO.
If you are a hardcore, traditional Bioware fan - a Mass Effect or especially Dragon Quest fan - this is the dream game. It is an RPG forever. It is an RPG that at the speed and pace that I play RPGs as a gamer, five ten hours a week, I could never finish this game.
One of the things people don't ever get around is the class stories, which go through the whole game. They don't stop.
There's other content as well, which is more built towards multiplayer with your friends. But there is no crossover between the factions.
If you play as a Bounty Hunter from the first level to the last level, and then rolled up as a smuggler, you would not see one repeated piece of content. It would be an entirely new Bioware game from start to finish - that is multiple times bigger than a Mass Effect. This game is bigger than every Bioware game we've done put together. By a long shot.
