Posted by Lethality | 10 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Would You Attend A “BioCon”?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Today’s BM&C was seeded by an idea from Zach Lee on Twitter… thanks Zach!

Gaming conventions are always a big deal every year, and Star Wars: The Old Republic along with EA, BioWare and LucasArts attend many of them. Some are for players such as PAX or gamescom, and some are geared for the industry such as E3. These are generally huge stages upon which publishers can catch the eyes of the public, and shine the lights on their wares.

A few years back in 2005, Blizzard sort of redefined the idea of a gaming convention by holding their own – Blizzcon. Since then, they’ve held it every year except 2006 and attendance has grown exponentially. In 2005, just over 8,000 people (including myself) were there. Last year? Over 29,000. And they’ve worked to make it accessible not only on the Internet but also on pay-per-view over DirecTV.

So that got me to thinking… BioWare has plenty of franchises and some equally passionate and numerous fans. Would something like a “BioCom” be possible? A gathering of all of the BioWare games and gamers, focused on letting fans see and play the future? It’s possible that with this week’s announcement of the Guild Summit in Austin, the seeds have already been planted… come on David, 200 people is no different than 20,000! :)

Anyway, would you attend a BioCon if there was one? Would you travel to get your hands on Mass Effect 3 early? How about an early peek at the TOR expansion race? Let us know!

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Posted by Lethality | 16 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Is TOR The Last Of Its Kind?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Developing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a complex task. There are all of the creative aspects to it, it’s a massive technical undertaking, a logistical Matterhorn to manage, and last but not least, it requires large investment in the form of human and monetary resources. There aren’t many publishers or developers who are willing – or even able to – take on that burden, float the cash and shoulder the risk.

Electronic Arts/BioWare, Activision/Blizzard, maybe Bungie and some others probably can afford to, but even they have to question the status-quo when it comes to development budgets and timelines for these games. Star Wars: The Old Republic was in development for about 6 years, give or take, with a rumored budget of over $100M. Everything from record albums, movies and skyscrapers all take less time to create. Part of the reason is because there are long-tested and improved processes for doing so.

In my opinion, the only practical way we’ll continue to see games of this scale is through development and advancement of core technology and tools to assist designers and developers adopt a more rapid development cycle. In other words, things that let them focus on creating the content rather than the technology, with a simplified pipeline.

The problem is, this set of tools and technology also has to keep up. BioWare used the HeroEngine in an attempt to avoid creating some of their technology completely from scratch, but ended up customizing it so much it’s but a shadow of it’s former self. Could a game as large as TOR rely on a third party company to advance their product? Can they trust them to even exist in the future? So even with available middleware, engines and other “starter kits” to help reduce the cost (possibly) and time (maybe) to make games, we’re still not there yet.

We wanted to get the collective thoughts of everyone in the AAJ Army… we’re suspecting many of you are MMO enthusiasts, not just TOR players, so you may have an opinion. Is TOR the last of it’s kind? What can be done for these games to keep coming? Is it even a good thing if they do?

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Posted by Lethality | 3 Comments

Free To Play? Not For The Old Republic.

Joystiq has a short interview with BioWare Co-Doctor’s Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka centered primarily around the idea of the free-to-play subscription model. As before, the BioWare Co-Founders deflect any notion that Star Wars: The Old Republic is headed that way, only this time they expand that it isn’t even necessarily a good thing.

In regards to available resources for development and expansion, Zeschuk put it like this:

“I’m not saying it’s better or worse. It just doesn’t supplant the other things. ‘Cause we can do some things no one else can,” Zeschuk added. In his eyes, a free-to-play dev isn’t able to throw the same amount of resources and time at an MMO project, and that marks a big differentiation between the two business models. “The free-to-play people can’t invest to the level we can invest, and can’t create something of the size and scale of something we can create,” he said. The idea that free-to-play will take over all other MMO business models, he said is, “from a business perspective, ridiculous.”

For my money, I tend to agree with him. Lowering the price can only take you so far. Look at Dell as compared to Apple. It’s better to deliver a premium value and charge accordingly. Anyone can compete on price. Few can compete on quality. You can only cut off so many limbs before it ceases to function.

While not TOR-related, perhaps the most interested point in the piece led to the revelation that there might be an older BioWare IP surfacing in the free-to-play arena soon:

“You can re-imagine things and kinda envision them in different ways,” he said of the business model’s advantages. “We have some other stuff we haven’t announced yet coming from our play-for-free team that I’m really excited about. It’s gonna bring back some IP that people have a lot of fond memories around.”

Interesting.

Head on over to Joystiq for the full read!

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Posted by Momus | 0 Comments

Facebook Track of the Day #8

Continuing the inexorable march to release, BioWare released the 8th in their series of music tracks from Star Wars: The Old Republic today.

Today BioWare brings us a new music track from STAR WARS: The Old Republic, Dromund Kaas, The Seat Of Power, composed by Mark Griskey, Jesse Harlin & Gordy Haab. You can listen to the embed on Facebook, download the MP3 directly, or listen via the Youtube below.

BioWare is releasing one track each day from the game until launch, and it’s of note that these are tracks that are not included in the Collector’s Edition sound track! So if you gotta get ‘em all, make sure to check back every day! And don’t forget to “Like” TOR on Facebook to have them delivered right to your wall.

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Countdown To Launch: Facebook Track Of The Day #6

Marching onward toward the 20th, BioWare released the 6th in their series of music tracks from Star Wars: The Old Republic today.

Today the new music track from STAR WARS: The Old Republic is Nal Hutta, The Glorious Jewel, composed by Gordy Haab. You can download from this link or listen to the embed on Facebook, or with the Youtube provided below.

BioWare is releasing one track each day from the game until launch, and it’s of note that these are tracks that are not included in the Collector’s Edition sound track! So if you gotta get ‘em all, make sure to check back every day! And don’t forget to “Like” TOR on Facebook to have them delivered right to your wall.

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