On the last day of the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo, Bioware revealed their first ever North American demonstration of their upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. This is the company’s first attempt at the MMO genre and the second attempt anyone has made with the Star Wars franchise, but so far it seems as though Bioware has a handle on things and that Old Republic won’t be going the way of Galaxies.

The basic design philosophy behind Old Republic is to provide a “story driven” massively multiplayer experience and that philosophy was driven home to us at PAX from the first CG scene they showed us. The Sith march on Coruscant and after a fairly hefty series of epic battles, raze the cities and slaughter the Jedi. All of this is overlaid with narration from a particularly menacing Sith Lord, who declares that the Republic and the Jedi “have been deceived.” This event, apparently called “The Sacking of Coruscsant,” precipitates the narrative of the game itself. Old Republic takes place over three thousand years before the events of the movies and three hundred years after Bioware’s own Knights of the Old Republic games and you will interact with it in very much the same way you interact with any Bioware game: dialogue and combat.

The dialogue system on display is nearly identical to that of Mass Effect: a wheel of choices that offer the gist of the possible player responses. Of course, since this isn’t a single-player game, the mechanic has been tweaked a bit to have dialogue prompts move between players in a party, so that the group communicates with NPCs, rather than one chosen leader. This, the Bioware reps proudly declared, is the world’s first ever multiplayer dialogue system. And like any Bioware dialogue system, your choices are tallied in a morality system that affects the outcome of the immediate quest, NPC reaction to you and what powers and abilities you can unlock.

The choice demonstrated at the convention took place during a Sith mission to investigate and punish a captain who refused go on what he perceived to be a suicide mission. And, of course, when the developers posed the choice to the audience, it was answered with a near universal thumbs down for the poor captain. This apparently earned the characters Dark Side points – ala KOTOR – and changed how the mission itself played out. It’s also worth noting that all dialogue – PC to NPC – was fully voiced and voiced well, a not insubstantial feat for a game this large.

The combat is described constantly as “heroic,” meaning that from the first level, you will be able to tackle multiple foes it stylish ways. And how you do that depends on your class, much like any RPG. But class determines more than just fighting styles, it also gives you a specific and unique narrative path with a set of quests completely unique to your class alone. At PAX, three classes were demonstrated for us, two that have been seen before and one that was revealed there for the first time.

The Bounty Hunter is a Sith class and focuses on ranged combat with blasters and missile launchers. The demo also showed that a later level ability for this class includes using your jetpack to float above the crowd and rain down the pain. And, even though the Bounty Hunter is designed to be fast and keep enemies distant, it was still shown to have a flamethrower, just in case things get a little too intimate.

Narratively, a Bounty Hunter player starts on the Hutt homeworld of Nal Hutta, with the intent of participating in the Great Hunt to become the greatest mercenary in the galaxy. Exactly what becomes of that is still unknown, but – as you will see with the next two classes – it is clear that this Great Hunt is for Bounty Hunters alone.

The Sith Warrior is pretty much what it sounds like. This class favors melee combat with lightsabers and has an array of abilities designed to facilitate that goal. One such talent is the Force Charge power that quickly closes the gap between the player and his unfortunate opponent (similar to the force leap ability of Jedi Guardians in KOTOR). The Sith Warrior is also apparently capable of deflecting blaster fire and repelling melee attacks automatically (though, probably based on a stat-based algorithm), thus enabling him to leap straight into the fray and sort things out from there.

The Sith Warrior begins on the ancient Sith Homeworld of Korriban and is tasked with fighting for the Empire. The aforementioned mission with the mutinous captain seems to belong to the Sith Warrior.

The Trooper is a Republic class, revealed here for the first time. Dressed similarly to stormtroopers, this class is designed for rampant and unrestrained violence. Complete with big guns, grenades that stick to enemies and enough ordinance to level Alderaan all over again, this is the class for those who want to tank their way through the game.

The Trooper starts on Ord Mantell, which is suffering from several anti-Republic uprisings. Your job is to quell said uprisings with tact, courtesy and massive explosions.

 In addition to all this, the developers confirmed that Old Republic will feature PvP arenas, in-game currency and markets and NPC companions, but none of these were elaborated upon. One of the other Bioware employees at the show confirmed to me that there are currently no plans for a console release of the game. As this is the company’s first MMO (and a not unambitious one, at that), they wish to narrow the focus to revolutionizing the genre for one platform right now. While he did say they may consider a console port sometime after release, there are currently no plans in the foreseeable future.

Overall, Old Republic is an agonizing temptation, the likes of which I haven’t felt since City of Heroes (big comic geek, me). I’ll be upfront: I hate MMOs or anything multiplayer by default. I cling to my increasingly archaic ideas that videogames are generally an individual hobby. But good God, this is tempting. I mean, sure, there are some possible issues:

How does the narrative influence game length? Will we get a short story and then a whole lot of nothing or a long story with no end?

The Sith Warrior (and presumably Jedi Knight) may be too powerful, as during a fight with another Jedi, the Sith Warrior character had to take over the fight from his Bounty Hunter buddy. How will this be balanced out?

Can I be a Wookiee Jedi?

Can I be an evil Wookiee Jedi?

Can I be an astromech droid?

These are things I must know before I move into the modern age of gaming, but if it continues to look this good, Old Republic may force me to change my ways.