With the recent announcement of the preorders for The Old Republic laying waste to social network sites, I have started to think more about my views on the game. There are some things that I am really excited for, and some things that I am a tad nervous about.

So let us start with the things that I am excited about.  The first, and main draw, is story.  This game appears to be something massive.  With EA throwing around an alleged “200 hours” for each class, there is a LOT of damn story.  The story is something that people who enjoyed Bioware games have to be excited about.  I can see myself playing every class in this game purely for the story.  This pretty much guarantees that I am going to be playing this game for a long time, much longer than any recent MMO I have tried.  When I think about questing in other games, I picture accepting repeated quests, and then getting my bearings on what the hell I am supposed to do and where to go.  I don’t think that will happen much in Old Republic.  I doubt I am going to be skipping much of the dialogue, because I have never done that in any other Bioware game.  This may end up as a “cookie cutter MMO”, but that story draw is going to have me playing like crazy.

The second aspect that I am really looking forward to is the combat.  Class videos that I watch have progressively gotten better looking.  That cover system that the Smuggler and Imperial Spy use looks like hella-fun.  The choreography look of the lightsabers looks like pretty immersive, especially compared to KOTOR’s ultimately unsatisfying look of combat.  Actually, the whole look of the game really appeals to me.  I wasn’t sure when they first unveiled the art style, but I am now sold on this look.  This game should age pretty well.  Having great looking combat, combined with interesting and surprising story-telling sounds like a GREAT combination to me.

Now, there are a few things I am wondering about.  The biggest is the player versus player.  We have heard about Warzones, and they sound like fun.  But historically for me, they only entertain me for so long.  I dug scenarios in Rift and War, but I like open field pvp more than anything.  There have been some rather vague details about it, but we haven’t heard anything concrete. Mainly just, “It’s in there”.  Does this just mean anyone is free to flag on a PvE server? Or are there going to be “pvp lake” areas that are designated for this? I really hope it’s the latter, I want a place that I know has some shit going on that I can go to whenever I get the itch to kill someone.

The other main concern I have goes back to the first thing I mentioned, and that is story. Does our “200 hours” get stretched out until max level? Does it feel like I am too restricted in what I do and where I go, like other Bioware games? There has to be some amount of freedom for us to move around the world, and I hope that balance feels right to the player. I also wonder if they are going to be constantly adding more story for each class. Wouldn’t that be a nightmare for contracts with the voice actors? Are they committed to years of contributing to the story? Even with 200 hours of story, people will consume that rather fast, and they will want more.

In the end, I feel confident that I will enjoy this game for a long time. Much longer than any recent MMO. Now if we could just get a release date…………..

Any thoughts? Other things that you are really looking forward to or concerned about?