I don’t know about you, but when I think of Star Wars the first thing that I think of is not Jedi whirling around lightsabers and using crazy force powers. No, the first thing I think of is ships – the Millenium Falcon, Tie Fighters, X-Wings, Star Destroyers, etc., etc.
Ships to me are an iconic part of what makes Star Wars unique. It’s also the first thing I look for in a game about Star Wars, ships are such a personable thing in this universe – almost taking on a personality of their own. Who can forget the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, always giving Han a problem when he needed it least but never really failing him.
So when I heard about SW:TOR, the first question that entered my mind was, “Will there be space ships in the new Star Wars MMO?” So far – we have no idea. And the feeling I’m getting from reading the thoughts of other Star Wars fans is that not everyone is sure they belong in the game. Some people feel it’s to story driven, about the ‘ground’ life of the characters that there is no room for ships. Most of these people argue that combat in space could not be as story driven as combat on the ground. I personally don’t understand why they think so, but this isn’t really what I’m writing about.
I am more of a social MMO player. I love things like crafting, player housing and player owned items like ships. I enjoy combat as much as the next guy – probably more so even, I’m also big into PvP. But when I’m not busy pwning the other guy, I like to relax in my house or work on customizing my ship. Or my personal favorite, hang my combat trophies on my wall.
That covers two things that we have no idea are making it into the game, ships and housing. And that made me wonder, why couldn’t we kill two birds with one stone? Have your ship be your house – your base of operations if you will. You can own it, take it anywhere with you, decorate it and customize it – and the best part? It won’t clutter up the scenery in the game world.
When you aren’t in the ship, it could easily be stored away in your backpack (though I personally hate storing things like ships – kills emmersion for me) or the developers could force you to land and dock it at a starport, so folks aren’t leaving them parked all over the terrain – which would undoubtedly be a bad plan and would defeat the purpose of using ships in this way. That’s assuming that they aren’t planning for player houses.
What’s your take on housing and ships in SW:TOR? Do you think they belong?
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7 comments so far
Space flight / combat is integral to Star Wars for me. I’m a 30 something ex-TIE Fighter addict and it was always the ships and ship-tech that appealed to me over anything Jedi or Force or Ewok. Seeing the Star Destroyer go on and on and on at the start of ANH was all kinds of awesome for me as a young lad seeing Star Wars for the first time. Playing games featuring Star Destroyers, SSD, Interdictor Cruisers, Nebulon-B Frigates, Correllian Corvettes… is what I have always wanted to do. For this reason I was the only person who ever admitted to enjoying Star Wars Supremacy
Ships need to be in this game. Otherwise, it just isn’t Star Wars.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Actually I loved that game! The only down-side is it used to be resource intensive during major fleet battles, at least on the system I used to play it on. My brother and I would play games that lasted for days on end usually ending with a system crash as we went for our final massive fleet battle. Star Wars Empires at War was a close match but didn’t have all the features that Rebellion (as it’s known in the states) had. I forgot all about that one.
I’m also a 30 something SW fan, and I guess it may be different for the generation who grew up on the new SW trio of films, which focused much more on Jedi. But for me, it was always the ships that made me watch over and over.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I was running it on a P133mHz with 256mb RAM and an integrated card. I think if I tried it now the machine would fail to play same as it failed when I tried KoTOR II recently.
Often thought about getting a Win 95 partition for things like Dark Forces, Supremacy, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter.
They just don’t make games like they used to, eh? Here’s hoping SWTOR changes that.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Well in case you haven’t played the origonal bioware and lucas arts knights of the old republic, you do obtain a ship; this is also such in mass effect. and well in mass effect the SSV Normandy happens to be pretty big and important. However, yes, space ships is something that is essential in star wars. You will no doubt, 100%, get a ship in this game (or else how the hell would you go to another planet, and let your other party member npcs stay). I would not worry about this subject, but something to look into is how much the feature is accessable; like(bringing along other characters or actually having space fights by controling your ship)
August 28th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Amazing, just five minutes before i googled for “spaceships” and “Kotor” I had exactly the same thought. There would be so cool opportunities like huge spaceports, where thousands of Playerships can dock. In Areas, where a Spaceport wouldnt make Sense, like Outposts or outer rim Worlds, they could just replace it by a entry/exit by dropshuttles. Inside your Spaceship would be everything you expect in a Player House – it would make even more Sense, if you could store your Stuff there (would make much more sense than travelling the whole Galaxy to grab an Item back from Home)
In that sense, /signed – absolutely!!
October 10th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Regarding SWG, space combat is the most enjoyable aspect of the game and I really hope it’s introducted into The Old Republic MMO.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
when i hear someone say it doesn’t belong, I just want to slap them. After seeing a vids for the star trek beta, star wars will be a small game of diehard fans with little else to keep it afloat without a competitive space concept to show its competition.
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:17 am
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