Star Wars: The Old Republic

It’s official, there’s a new Star Wars MMO coming and it’s called Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s being developed by Bioware, the company behind Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). KOTOR is one of the most popular Star Wars games of all time. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be set in a time period 3,500 years before the Star Wars films. It’s a time where Jedi and Sith are abundant and the Republic is at the peak of its power. In short it’s the perfect setting for a Star Wars MMO made by a company that really gets the Star Wars license.

We don’t have many details at this point, in fact the details are so few I almost didn’t post this. However there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about which are promising. First of all it sounds like this is going to be a role playing game first. There’s talk about an emphasis on the personal story, in fact it sounds like it will have a strong solo aspect, since they talked about companion characters which are customizable. It sounds to me like this may be a very non-traditional MMO. Other than that all we really know is the only in game footage they showed was a pre-alpha build. That means we’re probably looking at a couple of years before release.

I’m worried that letting this cat out of the bag so long before release could be a problem. A long wait like that often sets players up for disappointment. Also any details they do release are subject to change and over reaching is common in MMOs. Still it’s too early to worry about any of that really. Hopefully we’ll see some screenshots soon, it sounds like the game will have a striking visual style, concept art come to life was one of the terms used.

Anyway, I followed Star Wars Galaxies for 3 years, I’ll definitely be keeping up with SW:TOR.

Tags: Gaming, News and Updates

Maximum Geek Vol. 2 Ep. 28

Hey it’s us, we’re still alive and there’s a new Max Geek, we even kept it under an hour. Here’s what we covered.

• Comicbook movie news
• McCain vs. youtube
• Google, evil or no?
• New Macbooks
• Netbooks
  • Jeff loves him some 2133
  • $300 EeePc
  • Netbooks for kids
• Touch HD rumors

 

 Standard Podcast [56:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (588)

It’s Not For You To Decide

Remember that Apple debacle with the software kill switch? The one that was hidden. The one that Apple claimed was to remove malicious software. Well Google just fessed up to having something similar in Android. Now even I cut Apple some slack because I could see it being used to remove malicious software. Google however is a little more vague about what they’re going to use it for. Here’s what Google said.

“Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement … in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion”

Wow, that sounds a lot more ominous. I mean this doesn’t sound like it’s about viruses. Frankly I don’t trust Googles agreements. Google is a big fan of quietly slipping in things that are consumer unfriendly in those agreements and while I haven’t read the agreement (not for lack of trying, all I could find was the SDK license agreement) it worries me. I’m sorry but the software I want to run on my device is my damn choice. This is one thing Microsoft gets right, they don’t forceably remove software, you don’t have to run the malicious software tool. I mean this is an open source OS, isn’t the point to be able to run whatever we want. I can understand Apple, but Google?

I should mention that Google has promised to attempt to recover your original purchase price from the developer. Actually that part worries me more than anything. I paid for software and they want to remove it?  None of their damn business. If they want to check for viruses and social engineering scams great, give me the option to opt out of their interference. Frankly I don’t need their help and I don’t want it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Google has abandoned their original mission statement, do no evil. Now their goal seems to be to do no evil as long as it’s convenient and doesn’t limit our control over everything. Google is rapidly becoming the new evil empire. While Microsoft is trying (although not always very successfully) to correct their past mistakes, Google has embraced their power we all know power corrupts.

Tags: News and Updates, Technology