Speculation: On the Upcoming Release of KotOR3

When I first heard that a new KotOR (that's Knights of the Old Republic, an immensely well-written RPG series by BioWare Corp.) was being produced, I was overjoyed. When I heard that the game was going to cast off the single player story mode in favour of becoming a MMORPG, I was less enthralled.

Okay, to be honest, that's putting it kindly. I was, to be frank, disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the MMORPG industry if you like the sort of boring grind that makes them so immensely popular. It is my opinion that when you try to spice up that bland but ultimately satisfying meal with deep, immersive storytelling, however, you end up with a sorry meal that leaves you with a bad aftertaste in your mouth.

Let me demonstrate what I mean. As a kid, I played a game called Runescape, which is about as grinding as you can get in terms of MMORPGs. The quests were for the most part charming and amusing even if they were very poorly written but what I liked most about the NPCs is that they knew that they were in an MMORPG and because of that you could have a larf at their silly dialogue. One quest had me pit my sword against a fierce dragon, though, and it was this epic quest which made me barf.

I was named the Chosen One, given the heroic task of defeating an evil dragon which had escaped from captivity after being held for centuries. I was the only one who could defeat the dragon (or so I was told) and the entire weight of the world was resting on my shoulders as I sought the foul beast. After a desperate battle in which I was nearly killed twice, I emerged from battle, victorious. I sheathed my sword and took a moment to view the carnage that my blade had unleashed, while a towering corpse rested at my feet.

Then, not even five seconds later, another dragon spawned and I had to high-tail it out of there before he clipped off the last of my health.

Now, either the guild master who convinced me that I was the epic hero destined for greatness was a total con artist who gets his shits and giggles out of sending adventurers to their doom or the dragon that I had just slain had a really nasty cousin but one thing was certain: I walked away from that quest having made absolutely no impact on the game world at all; the quest reset itself for the next player to come along; another dragon was spawned; wash, rinse, repeat.

I stopped playing Runescape a short time after and while I have not recently played World of Warcraft or the dozens of other MMORPGs that aspire to be it, I can safely say that these types of games are built entirely on a foundation of gameplay that's got so much grind that you could brew a pot of coffee with it. But that's all right; after all, if these games didn't have grind coming out the ass, they wouldn't be anywhere near as addictive.

But that brings me to my point. Knights of the Old Republic III, whose predecessors have previously demonstrated very excellent storytelling, promises to give us an even more epic tale this time around. That may be so for the lengthy single-player campaign that they are offering, but a single -player campaign in which you are treated as the star, the main character, is only setting you up to receive the bad taste in your mouth when you emerge into the online community only to discover that your efforts mean nothing on a global scale and, even more likely, that your story has already been repeated ad nauseam before you have even arrived.