Many great things came out of SDCC and of the exciting news and interviews, we found one with James Ohlen. An in-depth question and answer session that answers so many questions. This Q&A posted over at Newsrama, is well worth the read. They spoke with Game Director James Ohlen about the new features, release dates, and how fan feedback affects development.
The interview starts off with a reference to and question about the incredible success of the pre-order.
Newsarama: James, obviously the big news of the convention for you guys was the pre-order going live. Were you expecting any level of the response you got from the pre-order, with Origin.com and Amazon.com selling out in one morning?
James Ohlen: The truthful answer is, yeah. Yeah, we know we have a ton of hype. Right now, we have a ton of hype and that puts a lot of pressure on us, because we want to make sure we deliver on that with a game that’s really high quality and is going to blow our fans away, and is also going to make the team proud.
And he also touches on the lack of specific release dates as well:
“That’s also why we’ve not been giving specific release dates right now. We don’t want to give a specific release date until we’re absolutely certain that when we launch the game it’ll be a smooth launch and a bug-free experience. It would be terrible if we released and the servers fell down or there was a bug that detracted from the overall experience. It’d be terrible for Star Wars fans, they’d be really sad, cause they’re excited about it as shown by the pre-order numbers, and it’d be disappointing for team members. People like myself, I’ve been on this project for six years. I want it to live up to the expectations.”
They talk about how the game has evolved over the course of development, what features were added or edited, how the art was designed and more. Some of this is pretty interested stuff that has not been revealed before. It’s long, thorough and well worth the read.
