"A lightsaber is a fictional weapon in the Star Wars universe, a "laser sword." It consists of a polished metal hilt which projects a blade of light about 1.33 metres long. The lightsaber is the signature weapon of the Jedi order and their Sith counterparts, both of whom can use them for close combat, or to deflect blaster bolts..."
(from Wikipedia)
Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) is the next hype on my brain, but it's actually wasn't the first Star Wars-themed MMORPG, in 2003 Sony released Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) which an initial succesful hits, despite being plagued by 'punishment' methods such as permanent death of characters and huge time investment. SWG was scheduled to close on December 15 2011, the rumored release date of SWTOR, thus the hype thickens
The hype probably caused by the fact that SWTOR is being developed by Bioware, the original maker of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic (KOTOR), an RPG which is a huge success in late 2003, at that time Bioware is already succeeded with their other RPGs such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, Bioware's RPG always had huge worlds, great story (which is also huge and engaging), a festival of visual eye-candy and memorable characters. When I first played Baldur's Gate I was baffled and addicted by the huge amount of quest, In Neverwinter Night I was impressed by the abundance of storyline, Bioware developed RPG storyline like old school Krondor into the next level, too bad my experience with Bioware ended with KOTOR 2, after that Bioware just keep on rolling with their award-winning RPGs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
Of course it's another matter to develop an MMORPG, one of the challenge is probably to make the "role-playing" more... intriguing and enjoyable, for example: Guild Wars 2 proclaimed they will break the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG by not making a dedicated healer/tank/dps class, SWTOR didn't make comment about role gameplay but their character sheets revealed that they do have specialized class but with hybrids as base, the Operations and group play also shed some light with some asassin class tanking lasers, also trooper with medic skills. Of course some skeptic said SWTOR will become just another WOW in space and soon will be joined by other WOW clones in the outer rim of MMORPG, some fans of the original Star Wars series also expressed concern that the gamifying of Star Wars Universe will destroy the 'legendary' status of Star Wars franchise.
Well, concern will always be there, the game wasn't coming out yet anyway, I'm a Star Wars fans myself although I got sucked into Star Wars universe not by watching the original trilogy (which is great) but by playing LucasArts "static-First Person Shooter" game: Rebel Assault
I finished it like 5 times a day
At that time the simulator genre are dominating the market and LucasArts have their share with X-Wing and TIE fighter, The cute thing is: it's not their game who got me in, it's their story, you see... old school games comes up with manuals which also contains a spin-off short story beside the story of the game itself, some games also take it to the limits by publishing artbooks and fictional schematic or character sheets... well on those day programming limitations are not the reason not to create a vast and story-driven world, the music from John Williams also made a plus.
A great composer,
when all my friends credited Metallica, I credited John Williams at my psych test
Nevertheless my journey of Star Wars game geek begin, I pocketed almost every Lucasarts Star-Wars themed games, collected the Jedi Knight series dreamed of Lightsabers, KOTOR came out, immersed at the story, tried my hand on Star Wars Battlefront and Republic Commando, up until one day I hit the wall and can't play the latest of the craziest Lightsaber FPS: The Force Unleashed (1 and 2) thanks to my incapabilities to buy a new gaming spec... or indecisiveness
Okay, let's end this with a cool trailer from The Old Republic, damn that Trooper looked badass
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