Gino D. and I got into a debate a few days ago while we were talking about Final Fantasy 12. We came to talk about RPGs and how nowadays, most of them are beginning to feel like MMOs.

Where's the story? Where are the plot twists? What ever happened to character development? Why is it all about loot and miniquests now?

This is probably what got me interested in this piece of news. While RPGs are beginning to feel like MMOs, it sounds like the upcoming MMO from BioWare, Star Wars: The Old Republic, is aiming to feel like an RPG. The problem was pinned down by BioWare's co-founder Greg Zeschuk:

As an attempt to appeal to a broader and broader audience, consequence has left gaming. Everything is very low impact and there’s no real negative result that can occur. We’re going to start bringing that back but in a rational way, a way that doesn’t punish the player — but puts them on the spot.

You have some level of choice in who you hang out with and what quests you go on. But once you go on a quest, you don’t have a sense of a choice. Your job is to get me some of these, get me five of these and bring it back. They’re often very unabashed in their mundane [approach to player choice].

So how does BioWare plan to solve the loot-centric gameplay? Well, Zechuk wasn't really clear on that, and only hinted that gameplay will involve hard choices that, once made, you can't go back on. You probably had those kinds of moments with Grand Theft Auto IV's auto-save gameplay.

BioWare's games are mostly choice-centric - Mass Effect is a primary example - so I find this concept to be intriguing if applied to an MMO. Hopefully they'll elaborate more on the gameplay in the future.