Hello gentle readers. Let’s step into the way-back machine and journey all the way back in history to the golden age of  2002.  Lets re-live a moment of Star Wars mythology that to me at least, was so awesome and anticipated, I have to say it was my single favorite scene in the movie.  In case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about which piece of awesome I refer to, it is: The minute Yoda went all Toshiro Mifune on Dooku.  If there was such a thing as getting pimp slapped by the force, that would have been the definitive example.

Yoda was a Rogue you see.  Seriously.   He was fast, used little shoto saber(s), did lots of spinny, flippy shit, and tried to basically turn Dooku into some force inspired origami meat-swan. That’s what rogues do, right? Fast agile attacks meant to inflict maximum damage with minimum exposure?  I’m pretty sure that is right, and if not, Sorry.  I’m rusty.  I just couldn’t help but think “WoW, that’s how I fight with my rogue in WoW!”  Are mmo’s borrowing from the movies and lore, or are the movies and modules borrowing from mmo’s these days?  Can all my Iconic Star-Wars Classes be broken down and classified with mmo standards?

There was a great disturbance in the force when BioWare announced the classes and some of the advanced classes that all but confirmed we would be seeing a “Trinity-like” setup for grouping and endgame.   One of the big worries was the newly verified scientific law called “WoW in space” or simply “Whiner’s law”, which states:

Part 1

With all games being equal, World of Warcraft will always rank exponentially lower on the innovative scale, and higher on the casual fanboy scale than any other game it is paired with.  Therefore, any game who makes any decisions based on the success of WoW or it’s business model is doomed to utter failure as it will be too similar and / or too different than WoW, and as no two identical / opposite things can occupy the same mmo-sphere, the larger of the two (Being wow) will consume the smaller of the two (being everyone and everything else) and eventually remove it from the time stream as well. If it is like WoW it is a horrible idea, only because WoW was so successful. We love WoW so much it’s like Diabetes.

Part 2 of the law states:

Bibbity bibbity boo.  There is a God and his name is Celery.

Because it’s like WoW it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Doesn’t mean it’s a brilliant idea either.  My concern personally (other than dying before the game actually launches) is that I will be playing a rogue with a lightsaber, or a paladin with a lightsaber or a hunter…. with a lightsaber.  Will my Jedi, I have waited so long for, play like every other button spamming raid donkey or will it be a unique and new play style.  Do I want that comfortable feel of long played and tested mechanics or that totally new type immersion?  At this time I have to say I just don’t know.  I trust BioWare to make great games, but this idea of going further than imitation into flat out cloning of another game’s mechanics is something I didn’t expect.  I’m not sure if it is going to turn out well for them along a critical reception point of view. Until some widespread people get more hands on time with the game, we just don’t know. An hour here or 15 minutes there is nowhere near enough time to form an opinion.    Just remember folks,  If it looks like a rogue, and stabs like a rogue, well hell….  It might be a Jedi, and I think i’m ok with that.