Oct 15, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Should Light/Dark Decisions Change Your Character’s Look?

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!

Yesterday during the Star Wars: The Old Republic panel at New York Comic Con, James Ohlen confirmed that your morality decisions will affect the appearance of your character if you go extreme. This was something that has been talked about for some time, but without any recent confirmation, fans weren’t sure whether if would make it into the game.

Then later during the Q&A sponsored by MMORPG.com, Ohlen revealed in response to a question that only Dark side appearance changes will exist:

No light side appearance change. We toyed with a “wisened old” look but scrapped it. You don’t grow angel wings.

This difference will no doubt cause controversy among some players. While I don’t think anyone wants angel wings, it would be nice to have something if you go completely Light side as well!

On the other hand, I’m not sure if I want something changing the physical appearance of my character beyond what I do in the character creator. What if I don’t like the look of the changes?

What do you guys think? Should morality decisions change the look of your character at all? Would you like to see Light side too?

Should Light/Dark morality decisions change the look of your character?

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Should there be Light side changes as well as Dark side?

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Oct 13, 2011

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NYCC: Interview Triple-Play At Newsarama

If you’re looking for some live coverage of TOR at New York Comic Con while it’s happening this weekend, look no further than Newsarama! They have not one… not two… but THREE live interviews scheduled with some of the folks we know and love from BioWare!

The schedule is as follows, all times Eastern:

  • Thursday, October 13: Senior Community Manager, Stephen Reid – 3:00PM
  • Friday, October 14: Game Director, James Ohlen – 5:30PM
  • Saturday, October 16: Writing Director, Daniel Erickson – 11:00AM

All of this live content (and others from Newsarama) can be viewed right here! Tune in, because you just never know what they might say!

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Sep 23, 2011

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Gamasutra Interviews James Ohlen

Gaming industry blog Gamasutra today published a new interview with Game Director James Ohlen, otherwise known as the man in charge of building Star Wars: The Old Republic!

In the piece, Ohlen talks about where the project is at, the polishing that’s being done, and what his days are like at this stage of development:

Gamasutra: When you go back to the office now, as the project director, what are you doing?

James Ohlen: There’s a lot of different things. There’s obviously the post-release stuff that I have to be working on, because all that stuff has to start much earlier in the process. I look at all the feedback that’s coming in. I play the game a lot now. So one of my jobs is to kind of sift through all the feedback I’m getting, both from the internal team and external sources, and figure out what to do with that. So I like to make sure that I’m playing the game a ton so I’m not just taking someone’s word for it that a part of a game needs fixing.

James also talks about the necessity of delegation when building an MMO as opposed to previous BioWare games:

Gamasutra: It seems like the BioWare philosophy is that everyone is on top of the game, but it seems like you have to spread yourself a lot more thin on an MMO and learn to delegate.

James Ohlen: Yeah. I have to trust my lieutenants. I have senior designers underneath me, and basically my management style now is I give my guys freedom, as long as they feel that they’re going the way I want them to go, then I don’t get involved. Even if I don’t totally agree with something. There’s no way for any one person to be able to be controlling a project this size. And the fact is, there’s elements of the projects that I’m not going to be as knowledgeable about.

Anything with James is always a good read, so head on over to Gamasutra to check out the full interview!

 

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Sep 22, 2011

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Companion Developer Dispatch And Q&A At GameSpot!

GameSpot has scored an exclusive preview of an upcoming Developer Dispatch (presumably, part of tomorrow’s update!) We haven’t had a Friday Eve update like this in a while :)

The over seven minute video, with an entire cast of BioWare developers, designers and writers, takes a deep dive into the companion creation and customization process. For fans of companions, this is the update you’ve been waiting for… romance, story, customization, it’s all here:

James Ohlen: Players are able to customize the appearance of their companions in two ways. Because companions are full characters with inventory slots, players can change the equipment their companions are wearing. You can give your tough-as-nails Mandalorian warrior companion some badass Mandalorian armor. Or you can put her in clothes reminiscent of Princess Leia’s famous gold bikini. Players can also change the skin color, hair, and facial features of their companion characters. We wanted players to have more freedom than in any previous BioWare RPG when it came to companion customization.

The video is embedded here for your convenience, but be sure to head over to GameSpot for the Q&A as well!

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Sep 6, 2011

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PAX 2011: G4TV Interviews James Ohlen

Even though convention season is more or less complete, we’re still getting some info drops out of PAX Prime that haven’t yet been published! Today’s fix comes to us from G4TV, where they interview Game Director James Ohlen.

In the piece, they talk Huttball, Eternity Vault and more. There’s not a whole bunch of brand-new information, but it’s always interesting to hear the captain speak. Enjoy!

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