Wild Space: Fan Site Summit Post-Mortem

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

With the Second Fan Site Summit having come to a close, I thought I would take this opportunity to point out some information that you can check out about what the fansites who attended saw and learned.

First up, TORWars posted two great photo galleries of the summit. Not so much information about the game, but you get a cool glimpse inside the BioWare studios and into the office where the magic happens! Developers, office decor, concept art, workstation setups, and fan site personnel are all on display.  Check out the photo galleries here and here.

TORWars was also able to score the first un-boxing video of the SW:TOR Collector’s Edition! Check that video out here.

Over on Darth Hater, they managed to transcribe the Q&A session that Gabe Amatangelo, Lead End-Game Designer, gave to the assembled multitudes regarding PvP, Flashpoints, and Operations. Some of the more interesting tidbits were:

Q: How long would it take to maybe go through one Operation if you have a successful run?
A: Three hours.

Q: As far as Ilum [the open-world PvP zone] goes, did you say it was going to be persistent like constant?
A: It’s constant. It’s not a timer. It’s always going on. The timer is when you destroy the other vehicles, and your vehicles are able to fly in, it’s five minutes before your vehicles are vulnerable to attack, that’s the only timer. But other than that, if you want to wake up at 3 AM and take it from the Empire, who seems to be dominating it, and you’re Republic, by all means you can do that.

Check out the full Q&A transcript on Darth Hater.

The ladies of Corellian Run Radio posted a nice summary of the Q&A with Game Director James Ohlen. Of note:

• Guild banks are the first feature to be added for guilds post-launch.
• The designers intend for light/dark conversation choice to be mostly about RP concerns and don’t want you to be concerned about your stats when making those decisions.
• Not many people are skipping through the fully-voiced dialog.
  Most gear is modifiable. For example, you could take your starting lightsaber all the way to level 50 just by changing the mods to keep up with the stat increases.
• There are no abilities that only work inside or outside; all abilities work everywhere(!).

Lastly, Mr. Ohlen was asked why he thinks other MMOs fail? He said that a terrible launch, security issues, and a tendency to go too far either to the MMO side or to the single player side all contribute to why MMOs fail. Rest assured that BioWare is working hard to avoid all of these pitfalls. For the full summary of the Q&A check out Corellian Run Radio.