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Yellow Posts: Hi! My name is [Master Lord Darth]

A week after the London press event, the pace has finally settled down… and so did the developer posts.

Every once in a while a thread on the official forums will surface with a member wanting the answer to some questions.  Some can be answered, others cannot for certain reasons.  In this weeks case, those questions can still not be answered.  Forum member Dayrun, made a post that highlighted concerns and questions on open beta, system specifications, and when the game will be released.

Georg Zoller came in to straighten up those concerns and answer why some things just cannot be discussed right now.

I don’t think we are avoiding these questions. We do our best to let people know that status of things, but we can’t make announcements until we know we’re ready. 

Answers to these questions are being worked out. For a project like SWTOR, with many parties involved, final answers can take time to sort out. Once everything is decided, we can talk about it. Before then, we don’t, because we don’t want to change things on people. It wouldn’t be fair for us to announce something like the minimum PC spec, have people buy new machines, and then change it on them. We appreciate everyone’s patience so far, and will keep everyone up-to-date on these questions – we know they’re important!
 
The release window is 2011. As more information becomes available, we’ll let everyone know.

 

The philosophy of not announcing certain features until they are complete or ready for public viewing has been consistent throughout development.  This is why we have not seen any official screenshots or video on feature that is very near and dear to many – character creation.  What has been seen on a few occasions is not feature complete; or it may not be an accurate representation of what we will see at release.

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Posted by Lethality | 53 Comments

Lethal Injection: The Drowning Pool

If you’re one of the TOR faithful, you’re probably aware that last week there was a press event for the game held in London. That event also included a couple of special play sessions for some lucky fans, as well as question & answer time with developers.

One of the revelations coming out of those sessions was that swimming would not be in Star Wars: The Old Republic when it ships. At first it sounded like the reports we were receiving from across the pond were inaccurate.

However the next day, Daniel Erickson made it crystal clear as part of one of his posts on the official forums:

Swimming will not be in TOR for ship. It is not a ‘free feature’ we turned off and is actually a huge amount of animation, pathfinding and AI work. Either every creature in the game needs to have water moving/fighting animations and AI to handle 3D movement or combat has to stop in the water with all the AI craziness that having safe zones you can jump in and out of entails. We have nothing against swimming but it’s never going to outrank improving combat, Companion AI or any of our other core features.

And that’s all the community needed to go off on one of its trademark diatribes… The official forums were on fire, and probably every fan site and podcast took a shot at the decision.

Now, not everyone was against the idea. There are people of the opinion that it’s no big deal that swimming isn’t in the game. And as a matter of fact lauded it, as using lightsabers or heavy armor underwater just doesn’t make sense.

But I’m here to tell them why they’re wrong.

In an open world, massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, in which “exploration” is touted as one of the pillars upon which the game experience is built, the ability for your character to swim is absolutely essential. It’s almost elemental. Right up there next to jumping. There’s nothing more immersion-breaking that traversing a landscape and having to run around bodies of water that are much deeper than your character.

Sure, the world designers will probably make sure there aren’t any significant bodies of water that the player will come across. But that’s a design direction that seems to compromise creativity. Even in World of Warcraft, It was always a very cool moment when you realized that after all of the exploring for that next step in your quest, maybe what you’re looking for is IN the nearby water. And lets not forget where Sméagol originally found the One Ring.

And it’s really not about wanting “underwater content,” but simply the freedom to explore underwater spaces. Yes, this means that ideally there’d be _something_ underwater to see, but I don’t think that’s an unfair request for game with the scope, budget and development timeframe of TOR. Some aquatic lifeforms and some basic swimming animations for player characters are all that it would take to enhance the believability. I’m not suggesting this is trivial, but the competition has it covered. And it would go a long way toward supporting role-playing.

So how will water be handled then? Georg Zoeller offered some relative reassurance that there are no invisible walls blocking you from entering water:

There’s no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.

Further, he elaborates that it’s something they may revisit later:

We’ll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it’d be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.

Great news, but that doesn’t help the first impression that players will get when the first log into the game when it ships and try to jump in the crystal-clear sparkling blue water on Tython. And truthfully, if the underwater environments aren’t currently being fleshed out, will there really be an effort to go back and do that on every planet in the future?

In the end, swimming isn’t a game-breaking issue, but it IS a core part of interacting with the environment and making it feel like a real place. One of the things that makes the world seem believable.

So what say you? Does not having the ability for your character to swim detract from your experience in any way? Or are you perhaps even glad that this is the decision they’ve made? Do tell.

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Posted by Lethality | 4 Comments

Daniel Erickson Debunks PC Gamer Class/Species List

Yesterday, there was speculation buzzing that the new issue of the UK edition of PC Gamer had revealed some new info about the available class/species combinations in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Of particular interest was the inclusion of “Cyborg” on the list of available species.

Even though it was published in a reputable magazine, something seemed amiss. Sure enough Daniel Erickson came to the thread this morning to clear things up:

The species/class combo list you’re referencing is not accurate. If it does appear in the magazine, that’s unfortunate.

My guess is that an enthusiastic member of the press wrote down everything he saw in the character creation screen which, as we’ve stated often, is nowhere near final. Occasionally we’ll have species in odd classes or in all classes because of a bug or testing.

Now, in all fairness, Daniel didn’t outline what specifically is inaccurate about the list. Does it mean that there is no Cyborg species? Or perhaps other available class/species combos are incorrect? Remains to be seen.

Hop on over to the official forum thread to catch up on all the debate!

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UK Hands-On Event Q&A

As many of you are aware, BioWare held a special Star Wars: The Old Republic press event earlier this week in London. As a bonus at this event, some lucky fans were able to get their hands on each of the classes for an hour or so of TOR goodness!

After the gameplay sessions, there was a Q&A session hosted by Stephen Reid, Daniel Erickson and Gabe Amatangelo. What was talked about, you ask?

Well, official TOR forum member JonoBradley from Doghouse Gamer has you covered!

He managed to get an audio recording of the 9pm session, and provided a rough transcript of the topics discussed. Here are some highlights:

• British accents for the Empire
• How Daniel plays games all day, and that’s it
• Rest XP confirmed!
• TOR for the Mac?
• Morality/Decisions that affect your character
• Endgame/Rerolling
• And more…

Thanks to JonoBradley for the effort, head over and check it out!

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PAX East 2011: Daniel Erickson Audio Q&A

If you follow The Old Republic, you’re probably already well aware of our next interviewee!

Daniel Erickson is the Writing Director of BioWare Austin, and Lead Writer on Star Wars™: The Old Republic, and we had a chance to speak with him at the recent PAX East gaming convention in Boston.

What did we talk about? Well, for starters:

• Light Side/Dark Side Points
• Personal vs. Group Choice and Future Story
• Re-playable Flashpoints
• Advanced Classes – Reasons & Roles
• Combat Balance & Importance of Testing
• Pure Classes – Do They Exist?
• Companions For Multi-Classing
• Instanced Planets That Don’t Exist (Taral V)
• Space Travel
• Playing a Game vs. Experiencing the Setting
• Off-line Skills

Daniel weighs in on some current hot topics, including giving a little bit of detail on how he’s using his companion, and how we should expect things to change between now and launch.

We have to apologize a bit for the audio quality. This was originally a video interview, however we ran into some “equipment” issues that compounded a bit when we went to process and edit. But, the content is still there and hopefully it’s enjoyable!

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