People are pumped up about SWTOR and while we wait for the anticipated MMORPG to finally be released, people are talking about what it will be like- both positive and negative. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert talks out in the SWTOR forums about the Companion Character mission system and how they will work with alts as well as while you are actively playing the game. One forum poster asks if he was logging in playing one character, if he could have another character’s companions out collecting resources at the same time. Schubert’s answer was yes, which stirred up some more questions about farming and exploitation of Crew Skills. Is it possible that people could farm with their Crew Skills and exploit the economy of the game? Schubert answers this by saying: “There are some preconceptions about the missions system, such as that it’s an infinite money machine. Quite the opposite:…
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The Old Republic Forums “Walkthrough” Episode 1: The Phantom Dumbass
The SWTOR Forums are a dangerous place, a murky place where men fear to tread (and rightly so) and trolls amble free through the threads. As with any online community, there’s a lot of drama to be had in there, and there are moments of genius hidden in amongst the more banal of conversations. Taking advantage of that mine of good material, Youtuber RussellW218 (or Russell Wilson, AKA Spikey on the forums) has added some simplistic animation (via XtraNormal) to one such conversation, to quite wonderful effect. So here we have it. A battle of wits, between an increasingly disgruntled, and ever-s0-slightly sarcastic Forum Moderator/BioWare representative, and his arch-nemesis – an infuriating n00b who sways between ludicrous questions and idiotic suggestions as to how the game could be all sorts of genius. Rather wonderfully, the n00b has literally no idea about the essential fundaments of RPG playing, criminally, and hilariously…
Moral Issues in SWTOR and more Tidbits from the Forums
The Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums were abuzz yesterday with talk about dark/light side morals and choices, rumors of a release date and more. Damion Schubert stepped in to add more insight to the topic as well. Zoeller talked about questing and how it will operate within SWTOR and explaining that there will be some repeatable quests/content within the game but that the game won’t rely on it completely. Zoeller also discussed where we will be able to fly within the game: “Once you have your ship, every planet in the galaxy can be flown to. Of course, flying to a level 40 planet at level 12 might not be the greatest idea, but still, you can do that.” Then Stephen Reid also talks about morals and light side/dark side choices: “The Light Side / Dark Side symbols only appear when using a mouse to hover…
Replayability of SWTOR
Georg Zoeller spoke on the official SWTOR forums this weekend about the replayability of SWTOR and same class replay. Many have questioned this and the issue of mob grinding in relation to SWTOR. MMORPGs are famous for grinding and mindless quests telling you to go here and kill x number of ___. This mindless, repetitive gameplay is what BioWare says they are trying to avoid in SWTOR. The discussion that ensued on the forums was an interesting one on this topic. Orcron posted: “Well thanks for clearing that up. But why is it you made the class quest far more richer with goodies so to speak then taking side routes to level up? Such as flash point running or random mob killing an so on.” Zoeller came in to answer the question: “I wouldn’t say richer – after all Flashpoints, PvP and other activities have…
Stephen Reid clarifies on EA Origins
If you had questions about EA Origins and how it relates to getting your own copy of SWTOR, Stephen Reid has made a lot of clarifications on the official TOR forums. We’ll save you the trouble of hunting and sum it all up for you here. Q: Do I have to install Origin to play the game, get updates and more if I purchase a boxed copy? Reid answers: “No, you won’t. While Origin will be the exclusive digital retailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic (in other words, if you want to buy it online and download it, you’ll do so through Origin) that does not mean that Origin is required for you to access or play The Old Republic. Origin is a digital storefront, and the desktop application is there to give you quick access to Origin exclusives and deals. However, you won’t need to launch…
Damion Schubert: Story Does Not Kill Community
Damion Schubert takes some time out for a long post on the official forums about community and how story does not kill it. The TLDR version: “What is going to be good for any particular MMO’s community is going to be wildly divergent between MMOs, depending on each MMO’s focus and feature set. We’re continually keeping an eye on our community to be sure that they remain healthy, but for the most part, there are some really neat interactions going on.” This is a great post to read over although commenters have varying opinions on how they feel about the topic. Some people feel the forum moderators and staff do not have the interest of community as a top priority but others feel strongly about the positive SWTOR community, stating it as a big reason they want to purchase and play the game. Schubert says they want it to be…
Cross-Faction Chatting
One question going around the forums this week was in regards to cross faction chatting in SWTOR. While there are obvious reasons why it might not be good to have cross faction chatting, there are also some reasons why it would be beneficial. Many of the RP elements of the game would be taken out if players had no capability for cross-faction chat at all. So some fans are asking if there will be cross-faction chat in certain local chat or in shared towns and cities. Many believe that local chat should be open to both sides. Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Manager addressed this issue on the forums stating, “That’s one of the options that’s being looked at right now. As I said, a final decision hasn’t been made, and this is a feature that’s in testing. Your opinions on the topic are welcome, as long…
High Scale Beta at the end of June?
A conference call on June 14th between William Blair and company analysts and CEO of Electronic Arts John Riccitiello discussed beta testing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Certain information had players questioning the betas and what this means for a launch date. Daniel Erickson already previously confirmed there will be no open beta before launch so what exactly does “high scale beta” mean? John Riccitiello stated “we’re in mid-scale beta, we’ve got a high scale beta at the end of June.” Riccitiello added “and only the foolish assume they know the outcome of a beta in terms of whether it’s a six week hit or not.”” Stephen Reid responds to John Riccitiello’s comments on the official forum: “Take a deep breath, everyone… Game Testing is currently ongoing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn’t news – it’s been ongoing for quite a while. At different…
Daniel Erickson goes into detail about the number of Companions
Players have been asking a lot of questions about SWTOR companions, including how many we will be allowed to have per character. Recently Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for SWTOR, shed some light on this situation on the official forums. Erickson says, “There will be, at launch, five unique companion characters per class. Plus your resident butler/crafting/welcome home droid on the ship which is different per faction.” In his post, Erickson goes on to explain how since you will get five unique companion characters per class, plus a resident butler droid on the ship, you will have over forty companions within the game that can have more than a dozen romances, intricate plotlines and hundreds of hours of development. The possibilities are endless to what your companions can do. The storyline of SWTOR is really what makes or breaks the game so all of the staff…
Self-Rez in SWTOR: The Great Debate
Ever since the topic of self-rez was introduced for SWTOR, there has been debate over how it will impact the game. Georg Zoeller popped into several posts on the official forums to talk about the concept, answer questions and clear up confusions. He says: “Let’s give you some details, since it’s E3 and we’re being generous The reason we added this system is that the worlds in The Old Republic are huge and a travel death penalty turned out to be much more punishing than initially planned. Our testers were quite vocal about that. Our testers also commented that they liked the more challenging content compared to other MMOs (no, Daniel’s demo wasn’t showing that, since running harder content and talking and answering interview questions is a bit much to ask of a writer).” He goes on to describe that the system was added to…
Choreographed Combat…sometimes
SWTOR will have choreographed combat… at least sometimes. But just what exactly this entails has many gamers confused. Can attacks be parried by moving out of the way? Is the combat already sequenced with the viewing of the “scene” shown once a character is already determined dead? Georg Zoeller attempts to clear up some confusion about this on the forums: “Ability. These kinds of abilities have multiple segments, each of which can hit or miss (which may give the target a window to escape…). That said, some of these abilities can be upgraded to root or stun, or the player can use other abilities before hand to set up the kill and make sure the target is not going anywhere. The whole system is rather complex and we’ve spend significant amounts of resources and time to balance visuals and gameplay – we don’t want to lock the player in place…
Tank’n’spank and Game Tactics
Those of us anxiously awaiting the release of SWTOR have many questions about gameplay and tactics. One issue that has come up after videos of the gameplay have been released is in relation to the apparent tank n’ spank nature of some of the bosses. Some worry that the game will be too easy or that there does not seem to be any mechanic involved in tanking the bosses. Georg Zeoller, Principal Lead Combat Designer, explains how this is not true and why more information cannot be released at this time on the topic: “This has been discussed before, but to re-iterate: The Old Republic uses a wide palette of mechanics for the harder boss fights, it is not just ‘tank ‘n’ spank”. When it comes to videos, there’s a number of reasons why you haven’t seen anything more complex: (a) Throwing people who have never played the game at…
Gear swapping in mid-combat? – No Says Georg Zoeller
While many MMOs have gear-swapping or weapon-swapping in combat, Georg Zoeller says that SWTOR will not. This has some fans unhappy but Zoeller explains the reasoning behind it: “Switching weapons to maximize stats is not the kind of gameplay we want to encourage. It’s tedious and not fun for the overwhelming majority of players, and since some players would feel compelled to engage in the behavior if it offered a benefit, regardless how tedious and unfun it was, we just disallow it, period.” Some are worried about what would happen if say, you were caught in combat without a weapon. Zoeller answers this as well: “It’s pretty much impossible to not have a weapon equipped. You’d have to work for that. Sure, you can unequip a weapon and not equip a new one, but there’s no compelling reason to do so .. even less outside in the wilderness…
Will SWTOR players be separated by language?
Language is important in an MMO where players depend on communication with others to make the game fun and enjoyable. But with a large game like SWTOR that gathers a varied fan base of multi-cultural fans, it’s no surprise that language would become an issue. Some are calling SWTOR racist and to say the issue is of importance would be an understatement. The available languages and in what manner they will be available is important to gamers, particularly those of the English, French and German languages. Players are very concerned that they will have to be grouped together in one large multi-language server where everyone speaks in their native tongue. Stephen Reid explains that there are not concrete plans as of yet on how the servers will be set up but like most other MMOs there will be servers dedicated to players who speak one common language. “While we can’t…
Georg talks about Smugglers and Cover
Are you hanging desperately onto every new word about SWTOR and stalking the forums for yellow posts to give you a little more insight into how rocking the game’s gonna be? Ok, maybe you’re not quite as pathetic as me but the good news is, I get to pass the interesting details on to you so you can go on and… I don’t know… have a life! Speaking of interesting details, Georg “Observer” Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer for SWTOR posted recently about Smugglers and cover on the forums. According to Georg, “All Smugglers have access to cover, but depending on Advanced Class and Skill set, cover plays a less or more important role for your gameplay.” He goes on to explain the differences with a Gunslinger and a Scoundrel. For example, “A Gunslinger with lots of points in the Sniper tree will have made cover a…
Gabe Amatangelo on SWTOR’s PVP matchmaking system
The PVP system in SWTOR has been very hush, hush until lately when the hands-on reports started coming out. Gabe Amatangelo sheds a little more light on how exactly the global PVP system is going to work. Many other MMOs have tried to conquer the PVP system by allowing massive combat to take place cross server or realm. SWTOR doesn’t seem to want to take on this idea. Their thinking pattern behind having server-based PVP systems is to create cohesion between players of the same faction and rivalries from the opposing faction. When PVP is done cross-server it doesn’t make it as personal as having someone from your own server take you on. This will breed not only a better storyline for those who really enjoy it but it will take away from the anonymous feel of killing someone you’ll probably never see again. Now the biggest problem with doing…
Georg Zoeller Clears Up SWTOR Combat Confusions
With everyone talking about SWTOR and few of us actually able to try out the game for ourselves, there have been some questions, confusions and misconceptions about certain aspects of combat. Principal Lead Combat Designer, Greg Zoeller addresses some of these on the official SWTOR forums. One issue was enemy behavior. Are those mobs just going to stand around waiting for us to kill them? Actually, they’re not! Zoeller says, “Enemies will definitely not just stand around waiting to be attacked, even though, in the end, that’s kind of their purpose in an MMO (they are enemies, after all).” He goes on to give some specific examples of what we can expect from enemy behavior: · They engage in a variety of activities when not in combat, which include patrols and overwatch over areas where that makes sense. · When traversing through hostile territory, it is usually a good idea…
SW:TOR Meet and Greet in Los Angeles during E3
David Bass, Senior Community Coordinator posts on the official forums about the “meet and greet” for SWTOR fans in LA: Hi everyone, Since E3 isn’t open to the public, we’re considering holding a meet and greet in Los Angeles during the expo so that fans who are in the LA area can meet up with us one night and chat with the developers. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to have the game playable at this meet and greet, but you’d get a chance to chat with those of us who’ll be at the show, and hear about some of the cool things that are happening inside E3. We’d like to get a better idea of the size of group we’re looking at for an event like this, though. If you’d be interested in coming downtown one night between June 6-9 to meet up with the SW:TOR team, let us know…
How Much Storyline will SWTOR Have?
Here’s an interesting topic for SWTOR fans, especially those who also played KOTOR. Daniel Erickson speaks out on the forums about the length of the chapters for the classes of SWTOR. This was mentioned briefly in the interviews from the fan site summit and left many of us confused about what it actually meant. First, you have to understand what BioWare mean when they talk about “length” of the game, as this can be defined in different ways. Erickson says, “The whole critical path of the game is the length. The walking, the combat, the travel on your ship, world quests, everything you’d have to do to come out the other end the right level. When we say the story of Chapter 1 is X long we do not mean if you somehow took all the conversations and ran them together.” He goes on to clarify: “So all the content…
No Addons for SWTOR at launch
It’s been asked before, back when we were discussing the SWTOR UI and now it’s been officially stated by BioWare, there will be no addons for SWTOR at launch. Georg Zoeller popped into the forums to clear up confusion on the matter, stating: “What we’ve said is, regarding the question ‘Will there be addons at launch’ is “no, not at launch”. This statement indicates nothing more than that there will not be addons at launch. Nothing more, nothing less.” So there you have it, the official word on addons at launch. So as a gamer, this brings up some interesting questions for me. I wonder what features that could be potential addons will make it into the initial launch of the game. As a long time WoW player (since beta), I saw many addons eventually become implemented into the UI itself. Scrolling combat text was an early one and quest…
Unofficial Q&A with Damion Schubert
Many of us assumed the thread would go unanswered but much to our surprised, Damion Schubert decided to answer in full, thorough details what a typical day is like for him. In case you missed the thread, here are some highlights of the impromptu “interview”: So I was wondering, at this stage in development, what’s a typical day in the life at Bioware Studios? “The answer to this question is going to vary wildly and dramatically based on who you ask, so I’ll answer only for me – keep in mind that my role and position is pretty unique in the team, as I both manage a team of systems designers who do itemization, maps, crew skills and other features, as well as act as a primary liaison from design to several programming teams (yes, that’s plural). So for me, my day is usually a combination of: Meetings, and lots of…
SWTOR Forums “Off Topic” Section Gone Forever
On April 22 the “Off Topic” forum was closed at Star Wars: The Old Republic. While some might not consider this breaking news, there are others who beg to differ. Some forum regulars are in a huff over the takedown of their Off Topic forums; even going so far as to threaten to unsubscribe. The official notice of the closure of the forum states: Hello Everyone! As of today, it is no longer possible to create posts in the Off-Topic forum. We know some of you may want to preserve old discussions or posts, so the forum will be viewable until 4/22. After this date, the Off-Topic forum will no longer be available.Post all discussion about this topic in this thread. Please remember to follow the rules when posting about this subject! Thank you! As you might imagine, it didn’t take long before posts of complaints over the decision…
StarWars.com forums closing down
It’s official that the StarWars.com forums will be closing down. At the end of this month, they will become read-only so it’s time to save, copy or print anything that you deem important information because come Friday, June 3rd, it will disappear from cyberspace forever! An official announcement by Pabawan reads as follows: At StarWars.com, we are always evaluating the various features of the website in order to provide the best experience to our users. As we review new community-based interactive features for the future, we have decided that the Official Message Boards at forums.starwars.com will no longer be part of the site. April 2011 will be the last month of active message boards on StarWars.com. On Friday, April 29 the forums will be locked into a read-only mode, so that users can look through older posts and copy any they may wish to keep for posterity. On Friday, June…
SW:TOR -Will Darth and Lord Be Player Titles?
A long awaited question was finally answered; will Darth and Lord be player-achievable titles and if so how rare will they be? Yes. And fairly rare from what we can tell. Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic answered the anticipated question on the official SW:TOR forums just a few days ago. The post reads: Hey Folks, Darth and Lord are ranks in the Old Republic time period and while they represent an increasingly smaller percentage of overall Sith, they are clearly not at as rare as only having one or two running around in the galaxy. There are already numerous Darths (Baras, Malgus) we’ve seen who are not on the Dark Council. It will likely not come as a surprise to most people that the titles of Darth and Lord are story-based rewards (one does not become a Darth by grinding frog-dogs) as are Master, etc….