IGN has an intresting interview with James Ohlen about the companions in Star Wars: The Old Republic: IGNPC: Companions have been part of BioWare games from Mincs to Liara. How has the role or design of companions evolved over the years? How will The Old Republic improve on the existing companion systems? What have you learned about players’ expectations for the companions? James Ohlen: Companions have evolved a lot since the days of Minsc and Baldur’s Gate. In Baldur’s Gate the companion characters we created were limited to voice over barks and a little bit of story. In Baldur’s Gate 2 we expanded that significantly, adding the ability for players to get to know his companion through intricate conversation trees, companion centered quest lines and romances. Occasionally we wouldn’t have companions as part of our initial design (Neverwinter Nights and Jade Empire were examples of that), but we’d always add…
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GameSpot interview with Daniel Erickson
GameSpot has a intresting video interview with Daniel Erickson, taken during EA’s London Showcase: We speak to lead writer Daniel Erickson about the bounty hunter class and combat in this long-awaited massively multiplayer online game. Bioware has always been people of their word. When they say “not a shred of repeated content…” I get all wet inside. This is what i look forward to for an RPG. Not to excited about the rattataki. Not a race i took interest in. Hopefully, the Great Hunt of the Terentateks returns to Star Wars: The old republic. This would be an amazing storyline to follow through with.
Genocide and Jedi: why the Sith may be right in Old Republic
arstechnic has a great interview with Daniel Erickson about who the real bad guys are in Star Wars: “The one thing you’re never going to hear is ‘make the bad guys less interesting.’” I’m sitting in an out-of-the-way room of Lucasarts with Daniel Erickson, who keeps swinging back to one topic: why the people we’ve come to hate in the Star Wars universe act as they do. He’s given this some thought; as the lead writer on Star Wars: The Old Republic, the upcoming Star Wars MMO, it’s his job to help tell both sides of the story. In our time together we discuss the extended universe, he makes the case for Grand Admiral Thrawn, and explains how the Jedi attempted genocide… and why the Sith may just be right. While we’re on the topic of the extended universe, he brings up the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn. “Thrawn is…
GDC 2010 Wrap up
With GDC last week, even though Star Wars: The Old Republic had no specific presence, there were a number of interviews and details popping up all over the web. In particular from the off-site event that LucasArts held where the press got some hands-on time with a Trooper. Over on the official forums Sean Dahlberg made a post listing a lot of them (some of which I already reported on before): While there were no panels this year specifically related to The Old Republic during Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010, there are a few panels that consisted of BioWare developers. There was also an off-site event specifically for The Old Republic that various press and fan sites were invited to. None of this information will show up till early next week so keep your eyes peeled for that. We will be updating the list in this post as more articles…
IGN Video Interview with Daniel Erickson
It’s fairly brief at two-and-a-half minutes and has Daniel Erickson talk a little about the Trooper. “A lot more of the game, really soon” is what caught my attention most, though that’s probably referring to E3. [link] to video interview with Daniel Erickson at IGN.
SWTOR in PC Gamer UK Magazine
When I dropped by the supermarket this weekend I noticed that one of the magazines had a familiar Sith Warrior on the cover. And indeed, what I found was PC Gamer UK’s April 2010 issue, which they’ve labeled “The MMO issue”. And indeed it is, with articles looking at WoW: Cataclysm, a number of future MMOs, rating a number of current MMOs against each other, a free trial for EvE Online on the cover DVD and a number of other articles. But the main article of interest is a six-page article, titled “Tour de Force” looking at Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not that there’s much of any new information in it. Considering when the magazine was published it can’t even cover the presentation given last week during GDC. Though it’s still a nice read. I won’t include scans of the article because I’m sure they’d not be happy with…
Plans for endgame in place
Not really that surprising, but BioWare’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk noted that they have plans for The Old Republic’s endgame in place, as noted by VG247: BioWare bossman Ray Muzyka has told VG247’s US editor Stephany Nunneley that plans for what happens after you finish Star Wars: The Old Republic are in place. But speaking at GDC alongside fellow head of the studio Greg Zeschuk, the pair wouldn’t go into specifics as to what would be coming. “We have plans for end game, but can’t be more specific,” said Muzyka, before teasing: “Actually, we can, but we won’t. “But soon actually, it’s nice to be able to reveal things a little bit over time.” “It’s been a long cycle, but we knew that going in and we’ve been very thoughtful about details. People who play MMOs want details,” added Zeschuk. That said, there will be stuff in the game…
Compilation of SWTOR Developer Quotes on Companions
After compiling all I could find on SWTOR companion characters Im certain the experience will be light years beyond any Pet Character we have seen in previous MMORPG’s
Gamasutra Interviews LucasArts President
Gamesutra has an interview with LucasArts President Darrell Rodriguez “On 2010 And Beyond. They talk about all kinds of games-related LucasArts things, but there are a few bit about The Old Republic as well, which I’ll quote here: You’ve worked with some obviously strong partners to bring some of the Star Wars game in recent years, like Krome. Do you hope to continue those relationships or are you staffing up to sort of bring back control of your products in-house? [Darrell Rodriguez]: We’re doing both. So, we’re definitely growing internally, like I mentioned. And we’ll also have phenomenal partnerships. We’ve got a great partnership with BioWare on The Old Republic, one of the best partnerships that I’ve personally worked with. I love working with Ray on a personal level, Ray and Greg, and we’ll continue to look for those opportunities. How closely do you work with BioWare? They have a…
Jon Stewart interviews George Lucas!
The creator of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” reveals the secrets of the blockbuster film. George Lucas didn’t actually write a book, it’s just a doorstop so he could get on the show. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c George Lucas www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis For those of you outside the US
The Audio of Star Wars: The Old Republic
Over at Darth Hater they have an interview with some of the LucasArts guys responsible for the sounds and music in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The interview is split into three part; music, sound fxs and voiceovers. Here’s an excerpt: DH: The original score by John Williams became an integral part of Star Wars culture. How did the audio team approach creating new pieces with such iconic shoes to fill? JH: We’ve assembled a team of composers for The Old Republic who are all well-versed in the language of John Williams. Mark Griskey, whose previous Star Wars work includes both KOTOR II and The Force Unleashed, is returning as our lead composer on the project. Joining him are composers Lennie Moore, Gordy Haab, and Wilbert Roget, II. Lennie comes to us with a diverse background in games, TV, and film. Gordy recently worked with us on Indiana Jones and…
SWTOR video interview covers final two classes and more
The guys at Giant Bomb have thrown up a ten minute long video interview with BioWare’s Blaine Christine that covers topics ranging from details on the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor to how companion characters work in grouping situations. Much of the new info is blended into stuff that’s already been covered, but it servers as a nice refresher course on Star Wars: The Old Republic with some new stuff peppered in for good measure. More than anything else, it sounds like the Consular and Inquisitor are support classes with some offensive capability. The notion makes a lot of sense, considering the Trooper and Bounty Hunter likely perform quite well as ranged DPS classes. Of course, until BioWare begins revealing specific abilities of the classes the best we can do is guess.
December 3rd Information Extravaganza
And as I predicted there’s a lot more articles from the press event that BioWare held in November. But instead of quoting each one of them here I’ll just refer to Sean’s post: As some of you already know, we had two press events last month; one in Europe and one in the United States. Today, articles from various websites (and magazines) are being released based on information collected at these two events. We will keep a list of the articles and update this post as new ones arise. G4 Quote: Star Wars: The Old Republic Hands-On Preview BioWare has just released Dragon Age: Origins… Mass Effect 2 is on the horizon… but there’s a third game in development at the RPG mega-studio and it is none other than Star Wars: The Old Republic, the company’s foray into the MMORPG genre. X-Play’s Matt Keil recently got to check out the…
SW:TOR in Total PC Gaming UK Magazine
I went to buy my Christmas cards today and as I walked past the magazine rack in the store I noticed that one magazine had “Exclusive Star Wars the Old Republic” in big, bold letters on the cover, on top of an image of a Jedi that I hadn’t seen before. Picking up the magazine (which turned out to be “Total PC Gaming”) found that it had a five-page preview (not counting the title page). And since it includes the last two classes it’s definitely new. So I bought the magazine. The magazine comes with a DVD containing screenshots and videos of the game (some 45minutes worth), but it’s nothing you haven’t already seen. All the screenshots can be found on the official website as well (a number of them fairly old in fact). The videos consist of the cinematic trailer from E3, the gameplay walkthrough from CamesCom and the…
Sean Dahlberg Interview GDC
saxmaster3000 ( http://www.youtube.com/user/saxmaster3000 ) Got to talk with Sean Dahlberg about SWTOR while he was at the GDC Enjoy.
Star Wars The Old Republic Gamespot Stage Demo
Gamespot Stage Demo with Gordon Walton and Richard Vogel on the upcoming MMO The Old Republic filmed in 2009.
Star Wars: The Old Republic VIP Interview
Public interest in all things Star Wars: The Old Republic related is at an all time high. While there are some gameplay elements that couldn’t be discussed too in-depth as of yet – for example what type of crafting system the game will have (personally I’m anxious to find out if we’ll need to craft 20 lightcutlasses before moving up to lightsabers) – Blaine and Jake did their best to provide as much detail for our readers as possible. What was your biggest hurdle in making the move to an MMO? (Annache) Blaine Christine: I think really it comes down to scope. Obviously it’s much, much bigger; we’ve talked a lot about how each class has their own story and each of those stories is essentially a full game. It’s literally 100s of hours of story, questing and all of the secondary activities. So when you factor that in with…
Interview with Community Manager Sean Dahlberg
The folks over at SWTOR-Station had the chance to talk with Bioware Community Manager, Sean Dahlberg, at Gamescom in Cologne If you don’t know who Sean Dahlberg is, here is a quick heads up. Sean is the guy that looks after us every day in the official forums. I this interview he tells us about his vision of good community management, and about him self. It is a pretty interesting interview as we get an impression who the man is. A few quick points we learn about him is that he rather tends to the dark side of power, what his favourite class is, and that he loves German food. Talking about Germany, I am pretty sure the the German and French fans will be happy to hear that they get there own servers. Have fun
Star Wars The Old Republic GamesCom 2009 Interview with Lead Writer Daniel Erickson
The below tekst is a direct translation from German to English – done by google translate. So sorry about the bad gramma, I still hope you get the main points. Lead writer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Daniel Erickson, answers a few questions. In this interview he actually have some interesting information to share with us, like Whether healer class, Companion Characters, Sith-Warrior, fractions, German servers, etc. One can not stress that BioWare employees are all super friendly and Daniel Erickson has no problem to agree to our questions to answer and not just the standard answers. So now we know for example that is not yet determined whether there is a healer class or not, since it is still hard-tested, and in any case some of the Companion Characters can heal. In this context, however, is actually much more interesting that we have clearly confirmed that the crew…
Interview with Bioware’s Richard Vogel
Check out this Star Wars: The Old Republic interview from Bioware’s Co-GM Richard Vogel. Please excuse the bad audio. Transcript: I am Richard Vogel and I am the co-GM at Bioware-Austin. Basically this story, umm, takes place 300 years after the original KotOR, which is what it’s based on. Uh, Knights of the Old Republic. And, uh, 2700 years before the movies. So gives us a lot of leeway to a lot of stuff we couldn’t do if we were near the movies. So, there are a lot of Jedi, for instance, in our game. But as far as classes go, we announced the Bounty Hunter, and we announced the Trooper, and we announced the Smuggler. We have been developing for about three years. We’re, uh, not ready, still not ready to release yet. We have a ways to go. Well, basically what we did is, we did, uh, we…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Video – Diverse Worlds
Majestic forests, toxic swamplands, desert landscapes, and hazardous war zones the worlds that make up the Star Wars™ universe are unique and enriched with compelling storylines. Watch Developer Dispatch: Diverse Worlds and go behind the scenes to find out how the developers are bringing the worlds of Tython, Korriban, Hutta, and Ord Mantell to life a few of the many playable worlds in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
New Star Wars: The Old Republic Trailer Arrives
Tucked away within this “Developer Dispatch” video is our second chance to see BioWare‘s upcoming Star Wars MMO in motion, including combat and Jedi meditation. Want to keep up whats going on? make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Design Q&A – Lightsabers, The Force, and Space Combat
Exclusive SWTOR Design Q&A – Lightsabers, The Force, and Space Combat What kind of level cap do you have in mind? James Ohlen: We are going to have a level based system, and we are going to have a level cap, When we know what that is we’ll share it with you. Gordon Walton: There are a lot of thing that we aren’t going to be able to share with you simply because they’re still in development. BioWare games go through a lot of iteration before we ever settle on something. We’d rather give you real information than blow smoke up your….whatever. When we share something with the community, we’ve played through that part of the game enough that we’re confident that it’s going to be in the final game. We’re really, really committed to no overhyping the game. Rich Vogel: It’s BioWare and it’s Star Wars. Overhyping the game…