Why not take them both? This is what Bioware has done in the last few weeks with their double shot to my gut in the form of first selling out to EA and then, today's announced rumor by Gamespot that the next Knights of the Old Republic game would be a MMORPG game. The first announcement left me stunned and depressed, in effect causing my blog to go silent for weeks. The second article, even though still a rumor at this point, was enough to make me break my silence, register, and then post the following letter on Bioware's official forums. In the last couple of weeks, Bioware has given me two punches right to my gaming gut. First was this announcement that Bioware has sold out to a half-rate publisher that churns out bad, sloppy, and half-finished games. That was bad enough, because Bioware has been my favorite game developer for years. I admit that I was crushed by the news. And now today, Gamespot posts a rumor that Knights of the Old Republic 3, one of my most anticipated games of all time, is going to be a MMORPG. Taken together I consider these two announcements to be almost a crippling blow to my previously unbreakable faith in Bioware as a company. As I watched Bioware turn out some of the greatest games of all time, from Neverwinter Nights to Knights of the Old Republic to Jade Empire, there were two things that I thought Bioware would never, ever do. 1. Release a buggy, unfinished game like other developers like Obsidian do. 2. Give up on creating moving, powerful first person games with excellent storylines and great character development. Now? Well, I am no longer certain that either of these two things will remain true going forward. EA's games have lacked heart and soul for many years. They have a well deserved reputation for churning out endless mediocre games and rushing games to release without polishing them. Similarly, even generic shooter title games tend to have more in the way of storyline and character development than pointless, level grinding MMORPG titles. I have faith that EA's purchase of Bioware came too late to impact Mass Effect and I continue to believe it will be the best game purchase that I will have made in years. But for future titles? Well, if the two recent news announcements were any indication then my favorite game developer may be breaking my heart on a consistent basis in the future. I love Bioware. I love their games. I love their consistent, proven track record for excellence and devotion to serving their fans and their customers (who are really one and the same) with excellent, innovative, beautiful games. I will be giving Bioware the benefit of the doubt and will almost certainly buy the next few games they release. However, they have moved from "preorder and buy without even bother reading any online reviews" to a "read a number of reviews and ask my friends what they thought" status. Oh, and I won't buy a KOTOR3 MMORPG for any reason. If Bioware is going for an MMORPG to have a cash cow game, then they should know that this is one lonely fan who won't even bother looking at the game. Please Bioware, don't break my heart! Jim Sometimes I feel like the gaming industry is leaving folks like me behind. I don't like MMORPG games and, sadly, these days most of the resources that used to go towards making good traditional rpg titles are going towards the cash cow subscription based MMORPG titles. I like shooter games when they contain strong, singleplayer storyline based gameplay, but sadly most shooters these days are built with multiplayer in mind first and foremost and storyline based, singleplayer gameplay almost an afterthought. Last, but not least, I'm not a big fan of "Action Roleplaying" games because they seldom contain any true roleplaying elements. Oblivion was justly hailed as a magnificent game in a lot of ways, but it lacked anything resembling character development (aside from Martin Septim) and the storyline was pretty lame. That is the hallmark of most "Action Roleplaying" games. They are beautiful and the gameplay can be a lot of fun, but they skimp on storyline and characters. That is why I am so excited about Mass Effect. It promises the best of both worlds. I get fun and challenging gameplay, and also the things like, for example, dialog trees, that make roleplaying games so great. As I said in my open letter to Bioware, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt. That having been said, I will be watching the next year or so from Bioware very, very carefully.