Senior Designer, on Star Wars: The old Republic, Jesse Sky posted a news article on Kuar Drive Yards, last night. The article describe the new flashpoint for level 15+ players that comes with game update 2.6. This will be a new type of instance that the team is calling a Tactical Flashpoint. The main thing that distinguishes Tactical Flashpoints is that they are role-neutral – in other words, they are balanced for a combination of any four classes. This means Group Finder will match the first four players it finds, which translates into drastically shorter queue times, especially for DPS classes. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet, as I fear there will be no incentives for healing and tanking and you will only perpetuate the issue of a lack ofsupport roles in the long run. Time will tell though. Check out the full article over at the…
Jesse Sky
Jesse Sky Answers Questions From Community
Yesterday Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer Jesse Sky took on the forums and answered questions from the community. Jesse Sky was highlighted in the recent Meet the Developers post. Included in the topics answered are Flashpoints, Operations, and more. Hello everyone! Here are answers to some of the questions you had for Jesse! Thanks for participating in our first Meet the Developers feature – you can expect to see more of these in the future! Q: With an Art History degree, how did you get into the role of a gaming developer? Do you have an additional qualification which enabled you to get into that position or was it purely from interest? Jesse: When we interview a design candidate, college degrees are footnotes compared to your gaming pedigree, especially published games, mods, and independent projects that you’ve worked on. Looking around the studio, I can tell you that I work with many of the most…
Developer Spotlight: Jesse Sky
BioWare just started a new series of developer blogs called Developer Spotlight. The idea is to interview members of the SWTOR development team letting the playerbase getting to know the faces behind the game. In this first interview, BioWare interviews Jesse Sky, Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer. Here’s a snip: What specifically attracts you about Flashpoints and Operation design? Flashpoint design is a lot like running a tabletop roleplaying game with a massive audience. You get to explore a lot of different kinds of storytelling that aren’t really feasible outside of a video game. I’ve always felt that our Flashpoints and Operations were aided by the fact that you have a very personal story. You actually form a bond with your character, and then you take him on these really wild and dangerous adventures. Every time my Dark Jedi pairs up with a bunch of do-gooders for a Flashpoint, I cackle when I win the…
Developer Update – Terror from Beyond coming in 1.4
As mentioned by Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez in his forum post a few days ago, BioWare would have a new Developer update for us this week. This time Lead Operations & Flashpoint Designer Jesse Sky talks about the new Operation Terror from Beyond, that comes with patch 1.4 some time next month. Here is an interesting snip: Terror from Beyond offers five new major boss encounters that will challenge even the most highly-coordinated groups of players. In keeping with previous Operations, Terror from Beyond includes one “puzzle” encounter that really steps outside of the bounds of what you normally see in a boss fight. To defeat this new enemy, players will need to work together to repair a massive, ancient Gree computer from within the machine itself. Unlike previous puzzle encounters where the solutions were relatively easy to figure out, this one has players leveraging their particular group composition to control a chaotic situation. It’s very different…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Official Podcast Episode Two
The official podcast for Star Wars: The old republic is now live! This time the hosts Eric Musco and Brooks Guthrie interviews Jesse Sky, George Smith and William Wallace. about Flashpoints, Operations and other future content along with game update 1.3. Hte podcast also includes discussion on future content coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic, such as upcoming Nightmare Mode for Explosive Conflict and the future Operation Terror from Beyond You can listen to the full 25 min podcast here, along with the full transcript of the discussion. Posted by: Eric Musco Hello everyone! My name is Eric Musco and I, along with Brooks Guthrie are happy to bring you episode two of the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ podcast, “Nightmare Mode”. You can listen by using the embedded player, by downloading and listening on your preferred MP3 player, by subscribing and listening on iTunes or check it out on…