It’d take a cataclysmic explosion at Yellowstone to knock World of Warcraft off its perch atop MMO Mountain, but if there’s one game that will give it a run for its money it’s BioWare’s The Old Republic. Two reasons for that: one, it’s BioWare, and two, it’s Star Wars. Star Wars in the capable hands of BioWare = goodness. And I write that knowing absolutely nothing about Star Wars—I only saw Episode I and Episode III! Anyhow, a video!

This here video shows BioWare kingpins Dr. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, and others, explaining why The Old Republic will takes MMOs to another level, primarily by improving the combat.

Hopefully BioWare shows off a bit more at E3, which I do believe we’re planning to attend in some capacity.

Disney turns its Monorail into huge Tron light cycles
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http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/11/the-playstation-move-everything-old-is-new-again-if-you-ask-sony/
Sic semper tyrannis: motion control in video games

What’s it going to take to dethrone World of Warcraft? One of two things, I’d say: one, an asteroid smashing directly into the planet, with Blizzard at the exact location of impact, or two, Blizzard releasing World of Warcraft 2. The asteroid is more likely at this point. So you can imagine the time and money EA is putting into The Old Republic, the only MMO with a chance in hell of taking away even a fraction of WoW’s subscribers.

At some fancy financial-type meeting in New York, EA said that BioWare’s The Old Republic is the “largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company.” Considering the amount of money that Ea throws at its games these days, yeah, you can assume the company has high hopes for the game. I do.

The game is currently scheduled for release spring, 2011. I don’t know a damn thing about Star Wars, but I’ll at least give the game a shot. It’s gonna take the jaws of life to pry me away from WoW full-time, though. I wish I could put that in a resumé.

I’d be lying if I claimed to know anything about Star Trek Online, but I do know that it went into open beta today. That’s good news, yes?

The game, which has been developed by Cryptic Studios (the same guys who brought you City of Heroes), is an MMO, one that presumably takes place in the Star Trek universe. And if there’s one universe I know next to nothing about—even less than Star Wars!—it’s Star Trek. I’ve seen all of one episode, and that’s only because The Rock made a special appearance.

What I wonder is, will there be a big feud between proponents of Star Trek Online and The Old Republic? (The WoW fans will be all, “Pfft, where’s Arthas?”) And if so, whose side should I bet on?

via Rock Paper Shotgun

Those crazy Star Wars types. Always like to make a scene. The music came on with no warning so I missed the first part of the fanfare, but I sure didn’t miss the two dozen lightsaber-bearing eunuchs (I think) that accompanied the Bioware and LucasArts dudes on the stage. They announced that The Old Republic will be the first-ever fully voiced MMORPG. That’s a lot of voice acting, and they say it might even be the most in any single project ever. Aside from that we got to see the first cinematic trailer, which gives literally no idea what gameplay might be like, yet is totally awesome.

Why can’t the movies be like the Star Wars games?