Posted by Lethality | 4 Comments

FSS 2011: Imperial Agent Hands-On

When all of us fan site-types finally sat down to business at last week’s Fan Site Summit, Stephen Reid gave a short talk on what we’d be seeing while we were down there in Austin. He talked about how much of the information that we were going to see would undoubtedly change by launch, so there was no point in scribbling down every ability name and the percentage of healing or damage it does. Instead, he asked, that we simply play the game. Sit there, as a fan, and just play.

After thinking about what he said, this actually sounded appealing. Trying to play the game at the same time as you’re transcribing every nuance makes the play experience… unfavorable. We’ve done it before. So, while we may not have the most technically detailed writeup of the minutiae out there, I hope that these words resonate with you as a fellow player of this upcoming MMORPG obsession known as Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!

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Posted by Lethality | 7 Comments

FSS 2011: The Black Talon Flashpoint Impressions

Way back at PAX 2009, when fans got their first look at a gameplay video from Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we soon became all too familiar with the “kill the captain/save the captain” meme that served as a monument to how choices would matter in the game.

Then, back in January of this year, SWTOR.com got an official Game Systems page for Flashpoints and we learned that the actual name of the “captain” Flashpoint was The Black Talon, an early Empire-only scenario. According to the Flashpoints Game Systems Page:

The captain of an Imperial transport refuses official orders to intercept a Republic transport, and your team must seize control of the transport and carry out the mission. Will you kill or spare the captain?

Earlier this week at the Fan Site Summit in Austin, we finally got a chance to get our hands on this awesome Flashpoint ourselves… and here’s how it went down!

As we were getting ready to play, there was a bit of a debate as to wether we should go in with 4 real players (myself, Sentinel, and Zach and Evan from Mos Eisley Radio,) or 2 players with their companions. Stephen Reid thought it would be fairly hard for just 2 players with companions, but after some contemplation, that’s the way we decided to run it! Sentinel would play the Bounty Hunter, and I (Lethality) would play the Imperial Agent.

Note: There are probably some spoilers here, so tread carefully!

The Black Talon is actually a ship, so to begin the Flashpoint you have to head off to a hangar in the spaceport on Hutta. There, you speak to an NPC (Bith, if I recall) and he gives you your marching orders.

Entering the actual Flashpoint involved running down a corridor and passing through one of the now familiar green “phase walls”, and as is the case throughout the rest of the game, there is no loading screen or load time when you do.

Once inside, we talked to yet another NPC to get things going. After speaking to him and turning the first corner, we were met with our first challenge – a group of 4 soldiers, one of them being a squad leader (slightly stronger than the others.)

After a couple of pulls gone bad of this first group, which we thought would be fairly straightforward, we realized what was going wrong. Our companions would not enter the room we were in due to an invisible crack in the floor (thanks to Georg Zoeller for pointing that out!) So once we realized we needed to dismiss and summon them in the room, everything went as expected. We took out the relatively weak soldiers first, then concentrated on their superior.

Our companions did what they were set to do, and we didn’t micromanage them at all. Sentinel’s companion Mako was out “healer” and from what I could tell, concentrated on healing him the most but I also noticed the occasional heal-over-time on me going off for 36 health per tick. My companion, Kaliyo, just stuck around the perimeter and pumped whoever I was attacking full of blaster bolts. Occasionally, I would use her grenade ability, but it didn’t seem too effective.

As we marched on through the Flashpoint, we occasionally ran into the companion pathing issue, but since we knew how to deal with it, it didn’t present too much of a problem. Georg Zoeller had mentioned that of course is something that would be fixed.

Along the way, the groups we pulled consisted of a mix of solders and sentient droids… many times what would appear to be a group of 2 would end up being a group of 3 or 4 once we pulled, as the adds came in via jetpack or from behind a nearby closed door. It provided a little variety to the otherwise monotonous task of “pulling trash”. Sometimes the pulls would surprise us because the lighting would be awkward and hide 1 or 2 of the mobs in the shadows… I am sure this is probably something still being iterated on.

The first boss we came to, whom we needed to pass in order to take a boarding shuttle over to the Republic ship, started out tough but bugged out before we could identify a strategy. Luckily, Georg Zoeller was once again nearby and gave us the secret key combo to kill him automatically. Yes, I asked and no, that ability won’t be in the shipping game ;)

After that fight, we took the boarding shuttle over to the Republic ship and took down a few packs before our time ran out. So we didn’t get to finish the instance, but we got a great feel for the pacing and the general idea BioWare is going for. Here are a few other observations:

• Size – It’s huge! We didn’t finish the Flashpoint, but I would say we spent a good 30 minutes getting to where we were. I don’t know how far we were from the end, but it definitely felt like we were accomplishing something meaningful.
• Design – It’s Star Warsy! Seriously though, traipsing through the large hangars really made me feel like I was dropped in the middle of a Star Wars movie.
• Bonus Quests – All along the way, there are bonus objectives that your team can get (much as in the open world.) These objectives provide an absolute ton of rewards and experience, and according to Georg Zoeller, can even unlock different bosses to fight.

After playing Taral V at PAX East, and now The Black Talon at the Fan Site Summit, I feel confident in saying that fans of this kind of group content have all the reasons in the world to believe that BioWare is going to deliver in this area.

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Posted by Lethality | 5 Comments

FSS 2011: Group Q&A Sessions With Developers

A big part of the Fan Site Summit this week was interaction with the developers whom are all busy working on our upcoming obsession.

While each site had the chance to interview one developer in a one-on-one situation, there were also Group Q&A sessions structured where each site in attendance could ask 1 or 2 questions.

The Group Q&A Sessions were as follows:

• Damion Schubert
• Blaine Christine & Daniel Erickson
• Georg Zoeller

There wre some really great questions asked by all of the fan sites – from roleplaying to crafting to PvP to theorycrafting. In particular, the Georg Zoeller Q&A was great – Georg puts forth the same straight-forward approach he’s become known for on the forums.

Thanks to Brooks for handling the sound recording duties for these sessions, and providing us with quality audio!

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Posted by Lethality | 7 Comments

FSS 2011: Damion Schubert Video Q&A

Earlier this week at the Fan Site Summit, each site in attendance got to list their top 3 preferences for a one-on-one Q&A session with one of the developers working on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

Lucky for us, we got our first choice!

Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert originally answered a few questions on the Crew Skills system for us back in February, and due to the response and feedback from all of our readers, we really wanted to do a followup!

During our interview at the Fan Site Summit, some of the topics we covered included:

• The Archeology gathering skill
• Crafting stats to improve your chance to crate
• Breaking items down into components to gain resources
• Design inspiration for crafted items
• More than one companion on a mission?
• Rare resources vs. obscure crafting locations
• Quality of items
• Boss loot tables
• … and more!

Here at Ask A Jedi, we couldn’t be more excited for the Crew Skills system. We think it’s a truly innovative way to satisfy players who are dedicated to crafting activities in MMOs, while at the same time works for players who want some of the benefits without some of the traditional tedium. And think of the possibilities for expanding this system in the future!

Thanks to Damion for the time this week at the Fan Site Summit!

Enjoy the interview and please let us know your thoughts on the Crew Skills system below!

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Posted by Lethality | 1 Comment

FSS 2011: BioWare Austin Studio Tour

I’m sure I speak for all of the fan sites when I say that one of the highlights of this week’s Fan Site Summit was the tour of the BioWare Austin studio.

Given the situation, I felt like Charlie Bucket visiting the Wonka Chocolate Factory. There were so many things to see… so much to take in… and so many closed doors begging to be opened! The only thing missing was a glass elevator ride at the end.

The group of 30 attendees was split into two, one led by Stephen Reid and the other by David Bass.

As we wound through the maze of hallways that connected all of the workgroups, it was amazing to see works of concept art hung on the walls throughout. Some of these we’ve seen already, and some we haven’t. But all of them were printed and boarded in large-format (2×4 feet or more) and were just jaw-dropping to view in-person.

There were also a few extra-special places that we got a tour of, including the NOC. The NOC was a darkened room with more monitors per-square-foot than I’ve ever seen in one place. They keep track of the health of the game infrastructure from here, and it was quite impressive!

It was very interesting to see how the environment was set up for collaboration; the environments were very open, and almost every workstation had a whiteboard on wheels that offered any staffer to jot down their ideas and take them with them anywhere else in the building! I really hope that Alyson Bridge‘s decapitated Barbie head makes it into the game somehow…

While we couldn’t take pictures or video some areas, we hope the gallery below gives you a feel for the place and the culture of BioWare Austin. We can’t thank BioWare enough for the hospitality and for the invite into their home.

Enjoy!

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