Massively: Obviously Star Wars represents a setting where both ranged and melee combat are viable options. What were some of the goals for your combat experience and would you consider some of your classes to be more difficult to play than others?
Blaine Christine: The key thing was it's about archetypes, we want to take archetypes from the movies and so that's where a lot of our classes are based off of -- both in combat and story-wise. But if we look at the Smuggler, he's an interesting one because he's got this cover dynamic and that's different than the other classes that we've shown. So combat has to be fun and look and feel like Star Wars.
Jake Neri: In general, we're focusing on each class being unique. So each one will have its own challenge. We're constantly playtesting and balancing the game, but we're still implementing in new powers. Once we have a fully fleshed out character from top to bottom, it seems natural that some of those classes might be a little more challenging [to play], but each one of them has a unique mechanic.
Like Blaine is talking about with the Smuggler. Well, we have our Sith Warrior which is sort of an action point class where you're building up points and then you're able to trigger other abilities. We have others that are more traditional, like force powered -- or mana powered, for lack of a better word -- characters. So each one has its own challenge, it's own unique deal, but we're certainly trying to make sure that there's no overly difficult class and we don't want the "I Win!" class either.
At the core of all this, balance is tremendously important to us. Our process says that we iterate on these classes constantly. We're endlessly tuning them, refining them, trying to make sure that they're fun and that's a tenant that we'll take all the way up to when the game is live and into ten years from now.
"-but ultimately we know that, with hardcore MMO players, you don't want to keep it too simple."
Blaine: Also, we're very sensitive to all the current MMOs out there and different people's style of play. I think, personally, the goal of any game is to have a very easy barrier to entry but ultimately we know that, with hardcore MMO players, you don't want to keep it too simple. So it's always a fine balance of making sure that we cater to casual players as well as hardcore players, but it's something we take very seriously. We want to engage all of those groups.
Jake: And one note on our combat. So, to date, I'm not sure we've shown anything beyond level eight, and I think a lot of those abilities are really exciting. They're pretty interesting, they're cinematic and unique. We're really trying to push that fun early. It doesn't mean any of the classes will be easier or harder, it just means that one of our key goals with combat is to make it as visceral, exciting and action-packed as possible from the beginning of your experience to the end. We don't want you to have to feel like you've gotta play up until you hit the level cap until you have the fun. We want that combat fun there from the beginning; to be tuned and to be awesome.
Especially since you've got such a strong singleplayer element in the story and choice features, how important is grouping to Star Wars: The Old Republic?
Blaine: I think it's a very important message we want to get out right now, because there's a lot of questions out there. People are saying, "Okay, we see it, we get it. It looks like a BioWare game and that looks like a singleplayer experience." We really want to make sure that it's clear that it's not [a singleplayer game]. Obviously what we've shown so far are the new things we're trying to bring to the MMO space, but grouping is going to be very important.
The closest demonstration we've had so far is where we show the flashpoint where we've got the the Sith Warrior grouped up with the Bounty Hunter. That's a grouping experience, and that includes your story experience, which is something we want to be sure people are clear on. When you're grouped, it doesn't impede the story whatsoever, so you can still progress the story as a group. It's not a singleplayer experience in any way, shape or form.
That said, if you want to do solo play that's something that you can do as well. It's a goal of ours to make sure that we cater to all those play styles. It someone is like, "I don't wanna group, I wanna play a BioWare game. I wanna go through the story and do things on my own." you can do that. You're gonna see other people running around the world, as you would in any other MMO. On the other hand, if you want to group you're gonna be able to go through the game that way as well.
What were some of the inherent challenges in getting the multiplayer dialog system to work in a natural way?
Blaine: Well first of all I just want to clarify that the system is not finalized yet. But in terms of the intent behind it, basically when we play the game now and when you see the demo live or online, what we've kind of discovered is this really great dynamic between the players.
When you're confronted with a key decision like: Do we kill or save the captain of this particular ship? It becomes a very competitive mini-game in-and-of itself. You might say, "Jake, dude, I wanna kill him!" and he's like, "No we're gonna save him!" and you don't know what your teammate's gonna do next! Especially right now when we're playing right next to each other, but if you've got your Ventrilo on and you guys are duking it out trying to figure out what's gonna happen in this situation, it becomes a really fun meta-game.
So if Bob is a Sith Warrior and he's doing the mission with the captain and his friend Abe is playing a Bounty Hunter, is the decision to kill the captain ultimately up to Bob, or can his friend intervene?
Jake: I think some of that depends on you guys and how you wanna play it out. If you're coordinating and you're on the same page, then you guys'll probably be able to move towards the same decision. Like Blaine said, the system is totally under development as we speak and there's so many edge cases of weird scenarios that we're working through. The main thing for people to understand is our goal is to make it fun, awesome, balanced and prevent any sort of griefing or dissatisfaction. Those are the things that we're working towards right now.
What we see right now is that it's fun to just participate in a conversation -- that's new, that's unique. We wanna take that to the next level and for it to be fully awesome when it comes out.
Blaine: So the biggest thing there is the intent behind it, as Jake was saying, is to provide a better mechanic for storytelling and it goes back to your earlier question about grouping. So we had to sorta ask ourselves. "How do we deal with grouping and storytelling?" and we just sorta said, "Why not allow everyone who's in the group to participate in the conversation?" so that's what we're working on.
Star Wars is a universe that has a plethora of races, humans obviously being the only one we've seen fully voiced so far, but are we going to be playing and hearing alien races?
Blaine: We have let slip that there will be playable alien species -- we haven't talked about the details on that yet.
The other thing I'll just point out is the example that we have so far if you watch the gameplay footage is: We have the initial conversation with the Bounty Hunter, it's the first conversation we see as a Bounty Hunter in the game, you'll actually see a Nikto named Jory speaking in his native tongue as it were, in the demo. So that's the little tidbit for those that watch closely.
All MMO zones get more fantastical as you progress, but Star Wars offers some especially unique locations. Will SWTOR's zones emphasis this advantage?
Jake: Yeah, we're trying to make everything unique and true to Star Wars as possible. So I think you'll see our environments reflect that. Second to that -- whether their grandiose at a low level or not -- in our Sith Warrior demo you're on a the desert work of Korriban, however it's not just an open plain. It's amazing academy shots and ships flying in and crazy large creatures running around. So we're certainly trying to push that Star Wars art and feel. We want you to always feel heroic and in the distinct world of TOR. But yeah you'll see a lot of native Star Wars elements as time goes on, sure.
Blaine: It's one of the beauties of the license, as you're pointing out. We'd be foolish not to take advantage of that.
We're sure you've seen this rumor floating around, so we've got to ask. What are your thoughts on player housing? Do you think it's worth pursuing at an MMO's launch or later down the line?
Jake: We have seen the rumor on that, and all I'll say is that is a rumor. Player housing is an interesting feature in an MMO, but we haven't talked at all about that. That's been just pure speculation. We do have player housing in Star Wars Galaxies, so I think we've seen how popular that can be for a number of people, but that has nothing to do with SWTOR. That's just truly my experience on galaxies.
I do get what you're asking there about the passion players have for it. I have a daughter who's a huge Webkinz player and she has houses and rooms and things -- I totally get that. But as far as TOR goes, we've talked nothing about that.
Tabletop gaming has been one of the many avenues of ways to explore the Star Wars settings. So will you be facilitating SWTOR roleplayers in any way?
Jake: Without a doubt Star Wars itself, at the highest level, would be nothing without its fans. A number of these fans celebrate the IP with their own twist on it -- showing their love. You see a lot of people in costumes here. We have the 501st, which is an organization that goes around the world for charity dressing up at events and we see that fall into almost all of our Star Wars games. So do I anticipate that there will be roleplayers in our game? Absolutely. People love that, they want to assume a role in the Star Wars world and we're better for it. So I think that we will absolutely see it and we'll be excited to have them.
Blaine: From a BioWare perspective, obviously traditionally- hopefully known for our RPGs.
Neverwinter Nights!
Blaine: Yeah yeah! Those are our people, that's who we want to cater to. I think that bringing RPG into the MMO space for the first time is a great opportunity and that it allows us to hopefully facilitate that to an even greater degree than what's come in the past.
There's a lot of emphasis on each class having its own story and experience. Will there be a binary story path for each class or something more nuanced and dependant on your myriad choices?
Blaine: So I think there's two things we can talk about there. So one, obviously you can expect each one of those class storylines to be similar to what you've seen in Knights of the Old Republic or traditional BioWare storytelling. Obviously we like to put twists into those storylines, as people know. We like to allow choices that do have impact on the story in some fashion, and so that certainly carries through into our game.
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