GDC 2013 is coming up soon and word has it the BioWare founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk are getting a very special recognition- the lifetime achievement award. Personally, I’m happy to see them be recognized since the docs have really contributed a great deal to the gaming world, including SWTOR. BioWare founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk have been responsible for the formation of one of the top RPG studios in the world. That creation has led to some truly fantastic games such as Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect series, Baldur’s Gate, the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, and many more. Suffice to say, BioWare has crafted some of the greatest RPGs in gaming history, and at this year’s Game Developer’s Choice Awards at GDC, the founding doctors will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for their contributions to the art and…
GDC Online
BioWare Wins four out of its six nominations for Star Wars: The Old Republic
BioWare won 4 out of six nominations for Star Wars: The Old Republic at this years Game Developers Choice Online Awards. This is the third annual award ceremony, and the awards spanned from live services, technology, game updates, online game design,” etc etc etc. After all the votes was counted, BioWare took home four out of its six nominations for SWTOR: BEST NEW ONLINE GAME Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin) BEST ONLINE TECHNOLOGY Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin) BEST ONLINE VISUAL ARTS Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin) BEST ONLINE GAME DESIGN Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin) I guess we can finally stop the debate about what the best online game – ever – is 😉
Behind the Scenes of Star Wars: The Old Republic from PC Gamer
There was a lot of great information coming out of GDC this year and much of it was in regards to SWTOR. A talk given by director of production, Dallas Dickinson and BioWare executive producer Richard Vogel brings us some interesting information about the game. First, building it was hard. There’s no real surprise there, right? Making a game of this size and caliber is certainly difficult with many, many hours put in by various team members. That’s just to launch- there is still behind the scenes workers every day to keep it running as intended. PC Gamer brings us the full story on this talk at GDC: In an hour long session, the pair took us through the production and lessons from a long and gruelling development process that saw Bioware Austin hire huge numbers of developers, outsource much of their art, completely rebuild how their team was integrated,…
GDC Online 2011: SWTOR’s Georg Zoeller and Game Feedback
We’re getting closer to the SWTOR launch and we’re trying tokeep you updated on everything relevant and interesting about the game. At this year’s GDC Online Principal Lead Combat Designer GeorgZoeller demonstrated some of the tools that the team uses to analyze playerfeedback and data, and then he explained how, through sophisticated technology,the team can make appropriate adjustments to the game as it wraps up betatesting and prepares for launch. Massivelycovered this story and it’s nearly 1,000 words of info on the game, much of itstraight from Zoeller himself. Massivelysays: He detailed what content creationinvolved, starting with assets, including creatures (which can take up to manyyears of work), static geometry, dynamic objects, special effects, visualeffects, and animations. Testing has gone on for more than a year, and BioWarehas gone through several iteration cycles. Each time the devs test, they gainfeedback and make necessary improvements. This is interesting to anyone currently…
GDC Online: Collaboration Key to Effective Storytelling
Gamasutra gave us another update from GDC Online in Austin Tuesday morning and this one contained the writers at Star Wars: The Old Republic who stressed the importance of collaboration with other non-writing disciplines when it comes to SWTOR and even just to games in general. “”BioWare writers are very different from other writers in the games industry,” said Hall Hood, senior writer at the studio. “”BioWare writers come on very early in development.”” As a writer (and as someone who has met BioWare writers), I cannot agree more. In the video game industry, we writers often get contracted on to close up some dialogue after the game is deep in development, as Gamasutra explains in their post. However, with SWTOR, this was not the case. When this happens, the main story hooks are already set in stone. Writers are often used to working alone (don’t I know this one)…
GDC Online: Taking Your Game Everywhere
GDC Online officially kicked of yesterday in Austin but today was the first day at the industry conference where Bioware developers were scheduled for sessions. One session that was especially interesting was “Taking Your Game Everywhere”. This panel featured BioWare’s Erik Olsen, Curse’s Donovan Duncan, ZAM’s Cody Bye and Red 5′s Mark Kern and was led by former BioWare Austin Co-Studio Manager and current Playdom exec Gordon Walton. This session addressed the idea that gamers want to be able to take their online games with them, outside of the game itself. Make sense, right? I mean it’s like a handheld but where you can still check in to your online game. It combines the appeal of games and apps for our smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices. This popular trend is something that game studios will want to get in on. Gamasutra has a summary of the panel which gives…