As
MMOGs have gained mainstream popularity and proven to be a viable
product for game companies, patterns have begun to develop that
continue to shape the landscape of second generation...As
MMOGs have gained mainstream popularity and proven to be a viable
product for game companies, patterns have begun to develop that
continue to shape the landscape of second generation multiplayer
gaming. While many developers continue to put out new worlds or
reinvent old ones, most realize similar results in their offerings;
their games become either moderate successes or overhyped failures.
While the mega-hits have been few and far between it appears that the
secret to their success appears to include deep pockets, strong
development and an accurate read on the pulse of the gaming community.
With the recent launches of several AAA titles this year, and another
slated for early next year, the results have been more of the same:
strong box sales followed by modest subscription rates after the
initial free month of play time. One title currently in development
that looks to recreate the success of the MMOG frontrunners is
style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars: The Old
Republic.
While this isn’t the gaming industry’s first
attempt at a Star Wars MMOG, it is the first attempt by a company known
for its ability to deliver amazing role-playing experiences, BioWare.
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style="font-style: italic;">A view of the Gold Dome
of The Explorartorium from the LucasArts cafateria.
BioWare and LucasArts recently hosted a
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preview for members of the gaming press
at the LucasArts HQ in San Francisco. Tucked into a pristine business
complex in the historic Presidio, the surroundings were as visually
appealing as the new game turned out to be, and provided the perfect
backdrop for a conversation with game producer Jake Neri.
Join Ten Ton Hammer as we share a beverage and conversation with Mr.
Neri, under the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, and gain some insight
into the development of SW: TOR, the relationship between the BioWare
and LucasArts, and the vision for where the game will take us.
Ten
Ton Hammer: How has the relationship between LucasArts and BioWare been
for the development of the game?
Jake
Neri: One of the
best things about working with LucasArts/Lucas Films in general is that
Star Wars gives us a chance to work with a lot of really cool partners
and we tend to like to work with those which we have had success with
at one point in time. KOTOR [the single-player RPG, Knights of the Old
Republic] was a huge success for both parties, so BioWare was a
no-brainer partner for us to work with on this game. The relationship
is great, it’s a big project and there are lots of layers of
relationships going on there and all of them are very healthy and
collaborative.
Ten
Ton Hammer: So it is a unified mindset?
Neri:
I think that’s the big thing isn’t it? When the
companies are trying to do the same thing problems can be easily
overcome. We all have benefited by agreeing at the outset that we
really wanted to make an amazing game for people who are into it.
Ten
Ton Hammer: How has the response been so far?
Neri:
It hasn’t even launched and we have a tremendous following
for it which energizes both companies and makes us want to do our best
for those fans.
Ten
Ton Hammer: What is the makeup of the teams between the two
companies? Is distance any hindrance at all?
Neri
: We have a number
of production folks, publishing and PR people here,
[and] much of the audio is recorded here. BioWare has their folks in
Austin and Edmonton working on this. Lots of the heavy lifting in
production is done in Austin. We don’t have any real issue
with distance as we benefit from video conferencing and constant
communication. Blain and I spend two hours a day on the phone together
working on what we have scheduled and our marketing folks are much the
same. Would it be better if they were right there across the street?
Yeah, sure, probably…but we are definitely making it work.
And we fly a lot!
Ten
Ton Hammer: So you get to rack up the frequent flier miles?
Neri:
Oh yeah (laughs), tons of them.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Both Lucas Arts and BioWare are known for their
story telling, it’s been a cornerstone of many of the games.
Do you find adding the MMOG element to be a hindrance or a boon to that
aspect?
Neri:
For us, yes it’s a challenge; telling multiplayer stories is
absolutely a challenge, but it is one that we took on right out of the
gate and have been working to make a reality. We have shown, in some of
our early releases, the multi-player conversation system which allows
players to group, have a conversation, influence that conversation and
have a good time. We test it constantly so we can work out those edge
cases of griefing while maintaining the player’s ability to
do what they need to do and add certain things they can’t do.
I really think the stories being told here take what BioWare does and
push it to the next level, not just simply because of the
volume of lines and permutations, but we have fully voiced
NPC’s and player characters; you’re hearing your
voice and that makes a huge difference.
Ten
Ton Hammer: This is the first MMOG to go fully voiced isn’t
it?
Neri:
Fully voiced, yes. People have used voice in MMOGs before of course,
but not end to end. Every encounter will be able to have a voice
component and we are very proud of that.
Ten
Ton Hammer: That’s a very ambitious project in and of itself.
Neri:
It is very ambitious, yes. But that speaks to the dedication of both
companies; there is a lot of energy, effort and money that goes into
something like this but when you are committed to doing something great
they will make decisions like that and that’s what we have
done. We sat down and said “How do we blow people
away?” Story is really important to us; it’s a
focal point of BioWare but also here at Lucas Arts as well. We are
committed to our storytelling heritage and it comes from the top down,
from George himself. He is always wanting to tell new and amazing
stories.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Combat is equally important to the game?
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style="font-style: italic;">Combat is action packed
and exciting. .
Neri:
A lot of what we are talking about here today is combat. One of the
things we hear is everyone saying, “All you’re
talking about is story; what’s combat
like?” and that’s one of the things we are here
today to show you with the play test is that combat is just as
important. Let’s start at the top with our philosophy on how
we develop the classes and characters and then as time goes on we start
to reveal more and more detail to the players. We know the folks that
read Ten Ton Hammer are tired of hearing about story and want to know
more about combat. We want to give them that, and give them the
information they can dream about and theorycraft about at all hours of
the night.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Do you think this game will appeal to the theorycrafting
set?
Neri:
Absolutely! I was fortunate enough to work on Star Wars Galaxies for a
number of years and we saw it there; you just can’t help but
have that happen when you have a large number of passionate people who
play our games and think about them in their spare time. A lot of
people who play our games are brilliant; they are mathematicians beyond
compare, whether they are introverts or extroverts, these are brilliant
people who often times know your game better than you do. Our
games benefit from that sort of passion, you know? What makes MMOGs
what they are is the people who live it, breathe it, think it, dream it
and even write about it, and hopefully we can serve that passion.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Is there going to be any space combat in the game?
Neri:
(chuckles) We get this question a lot, all through the summer we heard
this. We understand people’s desire for space combat but we
just haven’t released any information about that yet.
Ten
Ton Hammer: X-wing vs. Tie Fighter was an awesome game!
Neri:
There are a lot of passionate space fans out there for sure, but
nothing I can comment on at this time.
Ten
Ton Hammer: What does this game bring to the table in terms of group
composition that differs from other games of the genre? You mentioned
briefly in the presentation something about on-the-fly character
customization?
Neri:
We know that not everyone has
the benefit of a 25 player guild that is on at all hours of the day so
we recognize that there are a lot of situations where you need to get
in and out of certain specs and we want to support that. We
have interesting paths for classes to customize themselves and then
move into them quickly once you have them unlocked.
Ten
Ton Hammer: There has been talk of all classes being able to summon a
companion which will be a viable combat pet. Can you expand on that?
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Neri:
The companions bring another element to the earlier question of group
make up, they are more than just classic pets, and they will be able to
round groups in different ways. The challenge for us there is that not
everyone will want to play with them so we have to make classes
successful with and without them. We are really big on the
idea of playing the way you want to play and lots of us are frustrated
with the scenario of trying to get a 5 player group and “Man,
I can’t get a healer!” and that scenario becomes
really frustrating. So, one of our goals way back in the beginning was
to make sure that the barrier to enter into groups is simpler than it
is in other games. Let’s just make is so the pace is faster
and players don’t have to rely on the three main
parts of the triangle: you don’t always have to have a tank,
and you don’t always have to have a healer. Maybe there will
be a situation, and I’m not committing to this, but maybe
there will be a situation where you’re a pure smuggler group
and there will be flashpoint that supports that style of play and you
can get in and do that, and that’s just you and your buddies
and it’s really rewarding.
Ten
Ton Hammer: How will solo vs. group play be balanced? Will both be as
compelling in terms of story and combat?
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style="font-style: italic;">Both group play and solo
play will be compelling parts of the game.
Neri:
We are trying to make soloing compelling; the discovery that all of us
who have been making MMOGs now for a while is that a lot of people like
to solo these games and you have to be able to supply them with the
gameplay they need. Now, on the other side you have folks who
want to group on everything. Myself, I have a group that I play every
single MMOG with and all I want to do is get with them and them only
and a lot times I can’t; I have to find the extra person I
need to round it out, which stops me from experiencing what I want
because of certain limitations. We want to make sure that you can have
a solo experience, a small group experience and a large group
experience and we want to deliver that as balanced and fun as possible.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Have you disclosed what the group sizes will be yet?
Neri:
We haven’t talked
too much about specific sizes but we want to have groups from two
players up to what the traditional raid size would be. We are slowly
rolling out this information over time and we will get very specific
with group sizes. We haven’t shown people group play yet and
we are starting to get more questions about it. We’re talking
more about our philosophy of combat first before we get into the more
specific group make up and mechanics.
Ten
Ton Hammer: In the demo we saw today, enemies were dispatched rather
quickly. Was that just for demonstration purposes or is that how the
game will play live?
Neri:
That’s a live environment. Now, it’s not tuned and
the UI is not all there and running, but it’s indicative of
the pace we are trying to go for. Each class has a different pace based
on their core skills and also certain areas will be faster than others,
but we are trying to go for a faster pace. Pace has always been
important to us. We talked a lot in the beginning about delivering
action packed heroic Star Wars combat, and you may ask, well, what is
that exactly? And what it is…is faster paced and more
visceral with more over-the-top particles and physics-based abilities,
such as lifts and throws for example, and trying to recreate memories
that people have from the movies here in our game.
Many thanks go out to Jake and all the folks at Lucas Arts and BioWare
who made this interview possible It seems the future of MMO gaming is
looking brighter with each day this game draws closer to
launch. We look forwarded to seeing more from the team. Keep
checking back with Ten Ton Hammer for all your Star Wars: The Old
Republic information.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Page.
