Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR), the new Star Wars MMO, is out. While it has a superb new questing system with real story development and the ability to have companion avatars help you along the way… it surprisingly does nothing else to advance the MMO genre.

Certain elements from the last Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, that we also saw in Second Life that weren’t in World of Warcraft or SWTOR are:

• Pure roles/classes that don’t involve fighting (dancers, musicians, crafters)
• Houses and virtual items for sale, earn, or trade (SWTOR has ships, but eh…)

SWTOR has crafting, but you actually outsource that job to one of your companions. WoW has crafting but most people add that onto another class. In SWG you actually could be a crafter or musician… and that’s all you did. These things actually led to gameplay that was creative and outside of what the creators had developed. Uber geek confession: I once hosted a speeder bike race for about 20 of my guild friends in SWG where we raced from house to house, purchasing cheap vendor items as we went to mark progress. The winner had to turn them all in at the end. This was MMO user generated content at its best – and we had a party at the guild hall when it was over!

Other things that are easily going to make any new MMO stand out are:

• Classes you can play for free (like a dancer, musician, crafter, etc…) without playing the monthly fee – just to get you in the door; let you see and explore the worlds. This type of class would increase the social features and player set of the MMO. Diversity – imagine that!
• Mobile content – like puzzle games that could actually be played to craft items. I mean, Club Penguin has this!? Why doesn’t a major MMO? Players should be able to interact with the world from an iPad, smartphone, etc…

SWTOR does have space battles which look really boring and don’t look like they cost a lot on the processing power. I’m guessing they might actually have plans to push that onto a mobile platform. Now that would be cool.

Final gripe: Travel. SWTOR looks like a giant and spacious world. This is cool – BUT it means that the majority of game time is NOT spent questing, engaging in stories, or otherwise playing the game. The majority of game time will be spent running or traveling by speeder bike or spaceship from one place to another. BOOOoooRING! I still have nightmares in which I run from place to place in SWG, EQ2 (now free by the way), or WoW. Who wants to play something in which the majority of time is spent traveling? I know I don’t.

For some videos on the new story-driven experience of STOR see here and here. Below is a video of the space battles.

Last weekend I attended the Second Life Community Conference 2010 with my colleague and BGSU Virtual Campus Co-Administrator Bonnie Mitchell. Below you can find all 4 of the presentations we gave hosted on Slideshare.net and links to the Google Docs.

This summer I am teaching Art 101: Intro to Art online in Second Life. It took about a week to get the students up to speed on how to use Second Life. I am using some of the info at the main SL wiki, but mostly my own tutorials at the BGSU SL Help Wiki. My students are keeping blogs to reflect on what they see/do in class, document what they discover on the web and in Second Life, and also as a place to display what they create. Our second week, most of them blogged about our trip to the Sistine Chapel re-creation on Vassar Island (SLURL).

Last week the students were given an assignment to research an artist from a list I had presented them with. Then, they were asked to modify their avatar to look like that artist or one of the artworks that person had created. Finally, the students roleplayed those artists in a conversation in front of the class to present their findings. Click here to read the assignment. Watch two example videos below or see more examples here.

Jackson Pollock & M.C. Escher

Sol LeWitt & Henry Moore

Overall, I would say that the assignment was a success! Some students were able to modify their avatars better than others but the creative choices was easy to spot. Some students were unable to use voice chat and therefore held conversation in voice chat. This made the exchange between the two avatars move much slower and the immersion felt by the audience less present. However, students were still able to present their information in a timely manner.