Bioware has rolled out yet another promotional video, spilling more details on Star Wars: The Old Republic. This time it is about the combat, a key element of any MMO and the part that worries at least those who are still scarred from the most recent public example of "How Not To Do MMO Combat" - Star Trek Online.
Pulls, leaps, charges, blocking, shields, line-of-sight, cover... Yet it all reminds me quite a bit of the 2169combat seen in City of Heroes - mostly due to the whole concept of putting one hero against many weaker opponents. The only "innovation" apparently is that, "Hey, repeating same single light saber swing over and over again looks really crappy, so there should be some fancy saber animations for autoattacks". Yay!
The basic bits of combat appear to be still the same - there are still "rounds" of combat, special moves, cooldowns, status effects and ultimately it is mostly about people standing around and pummeling each other. Instead of innovative, it seems that SW:TOR is going for the safe option, basically doing the exact same thing as everyone else. At least the animations appear competent, even if the video seems to go to great lengths avoiding blending of animation sequences - moving while simultaneously performing an attack, getting hit while performing an attack and so on - something that very few MMOs have done convincingly.
I'm still quite interested, I still haven't seen anything that would put me off from trying the Old Republic, but this constant stream of hype trying to pain The Old Republic as this revolutionary game just isn't working for me. Instead, it appears to be a competent Star Wars reskin of World of Warcraft level-up experience, with a major question mark on the endgame still lingering. Please, Bioware, oh please, don't screw this up.
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