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Game Tester feedback and waiting for PAX

February 27, 2011 by

This week’s update from Bioware is a Developer Blog from Blaine Christine, the Live Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. As he puts it: “I work with the development team to ensure that anything released to our fans (read – you!) meets the quality standards that are so important to any BioWare product. That means any time a new build of the game makes it into our Game Testing Program, I need to ensure that any content or features that we specifically want to have tested meet the designers’ needs and don’t contain any major bugs.” He also insures that the design team is getting the proper feedback from Game Testing (real players) to balance and build up the game itself.

Christine also confirms that Game Testing has begun. Blaine’s comment on testing so far is “We have received valuable and actionable feedback from the players that have participated thus far. Much of this feedback has already been incorporated into the game and we’re going to continue testing to validate the changes that have been made.” Rather than give actual bugs and fixes as examples Christine gave more info on what it’s like to play Star Wars: The Old Republic.

BioWare asked its Game Testers to give them some of their thoughts on the game – all Testers names have been changed to meet their NDA requirements) The first opinion I’ll post is from Game Tester JA:

“I’ve been waiting years and years and years for an MMORPG experience like this. The combat is incredible and never gets old. The grind is gone. I am so happy the grind is gone (so, so very happy). The stories are fantastic, well written, well acted, well animated, incredibly immersive, and the inclusion of choice takes it into territory that other MMOs have only dreamed of. Lastly, this game makes you feel like a bad***. The entire time. And I love that.”

Just one more because they’re almost all the same thing in different words – this one is from tester IV:

“This is the Jedi game to end all Jedi games. If you’re a gamer and you don’t throw your hands up in triumph when you get your first lightsaber, you’re not really alive. This game is, bar none, the best interactive Star Wars experience ever.”

Christine is also involved with SWTOR’s launch team, and insuring that BioWare’s customer service for the game will be far above standards. He also confirms that the closer to release they get the more Game Testers they will be needing, so keep your eyes on your emails.

Below the update post from Bioware as always is a long lists of posters from the SWTOR community. Over the last month, 80% of the posts are about how bad the updates have been. I would like to remind everyone that PAX is coming up very soon, so don’t be disappointed if the next couple Fan Friday updates are similar to what they’ve been because I’m sure that most of the stuff you want to know is gonna be released at PAX. Hopefully we get a release date and the Bounty Hunter update the community has been begging for.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Sith Temple concepts and community Q&A

February 19, 2011 by

Bioware’s Concept Artist Diego Almazan takes us inside the process of creating the concept art for a Sith temple. Almazan Starts with a basic idea on the mood he wants to set for the temple. “I wanted to keep in mind that this temple is as much an ancient prison for the dead as it is a tomb or necropolis. It’s dark, eerie, and foreboding, so I started with some basic shapes and colors that work in those ideas.“

Almazan goes into how he uses large shapes and organic details to further create the mood he wishes to bring to the temple. Diego’s task is more than just designing a temple or building; his design goes straight to the level creation team where they take them and turn them into reality. Almazan then adds details and a color change to the Sith temple to simplify the transition from design to creation. Diego says, “Up to this point the material had been a bit ambiguous, so I proceeded to add chips, cracks and discoloration to show how the stone has aged over time. I made the sculpture at the top a bit more faceted to push the stone look, while the pattern on the overhang was changed to be more decorative. The pillars add a nice aggressive touch, and function as a lock for tombs that should not be opened.” Diego Almazan then adds spider webs, both old and new, to show age and that critters still lurk the halls of this Sith temple. He adds yet another color change to bring back more of that dark feeling in his final cut of the concept art for the dark and ominous Sith temple.

This Friday Bioware also releases it’s monthly Q&A, questions from fans answered by executive producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic and Vice President of production, Bioware Austin, Rich Vogel. (It’s fair to say the response from the community, as evidenced by the comments on the Q&A, was rather lukewarm – Ed).

The first question asked is will force users be overpowered in comparison to non-force using classes. Bioware answers that whether your playing Warzones or Flashpoints, “there will be good reasons to play every class – it’s our intent that no one feels punished for playing the class they love. “ says Rich Vogel.

The next question asked concerns the treatment of the Consular, “Will Consulars be pigeonholed into one role? “ asked by Brian. Rich Vogel answers by bringing up the multiple roles each class can take and reassures the community that the role your hero takes will be that of your choosing.

Community member Benjamin asks ”How friendly will this game be for solo players in the endgame? “ Vogel replies that there will be plenty to do for soloers, even if they do not wish to participate in Flashpoints or Guilds, Bioware wants every play style to have plenty to do at endgame. Another question asks if player choices will affect faction alignment, Vogel says “At this time, we don’t plan on allowing characters to change faction as part of the class story. One of the main reasons for this is that it would interfere with your class story’s continuity.” Kes, a member of the SWTOR community, asks what range of hardware SWTOR will run on. Rich says “It’s important to us that The Old Republic can look great and run well on a wide variety of hardware configurations. To that effect, we’ve done as much as we can to create a compelling, detailed world that can scale easily based on your hardware’s abilities.”

The last question is one that I have been curious about myself and was asked by community member Philip “Is there a jump button?” Vogel replies “Absolutely! If you can’t jump, that takes away a lot of the “realism” of exploration.” For the full Story and the Fan Friday update, which included new concept art, smilies, and forum avatars, go here

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With: ,

Building Flashpoints and EA’s quarterly results

February 7, 2011 by

This week, Jesse Sky, world designer for The Old Republic walks us through the art of building, designing, and combat in Flashpoints from Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Bioware’s team of writers must work very closely with the world design team to get through the painstaking process involved with creating a Flashpoint in The Old Republic. Starting with an idea, the writers then go through a gruelling process of peer reviews and rewrites until they have a solid and entertaining story for the flashpoint. This is where Jesse Sky’s team come in. The world design team then starts on a dry erase board tossing up ideas about how the feel of the Flashpoint progression should be, moving the player’s party from spacious outdoor or large indoor scenery to tight claustrophobic hallways and caves.

Sky says “Once we’ve decided on the structure of the mission, we start building. At this point, we become concerned with your visual experience. It would be a shame if the whole mission took place in a series of identical hallways, right? We strive for a lot of visual diversity in the environments. For example, the Taral V Flashpoint takes you through a jungle, an exterior outpost, and then deep into an Imperial research facility.”

Another focus of the world design team will be the combat in the Flashpoints, bosses and mini bosses seem to be plentiful in these story-driven instances. “The real challenge of building a Flashpoint is balancing momentum with storytelling,” says Sky, who also talks about not just having endless amounts of  “Yard Trash” enemies standing around waiting to be slain in the middle of your path to bosses and loot but to have a compelling reason to keep pushing against enemies. “The combat experience in Flashpoints can differ radically from combat in the open world. We aim to tightly integrate the story with the types of enemies the Flashpoint calls for, their AI behavior and their abilities, creating unique scenarios seen nowhere else in the game,” say lead combat designer for The Old Republic, Georg Zoeller, who Sky brought in to elaborate on combat design in the Flashpoints.

Zoeller says “Flashpoints also feature some of the toughest combat challenges in the game. Flashpoints in The Old Republic will require a full group of players to succeed.” Zoeller goes on to talk about how a full team of players won’t be enough to get you through these epic instances due to the difficulty of the enemies and the coordinated teamwork it will require to conquer these intelligent and deadly foes.

What sets Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Flashpoints from a standard “Instance” or “Dungeon” in other MMO’s is the immersion and character development involved with these difficult trials. Sky points out that you shouldn’t feel like a part of a loot machine, instead like the Republic Hero or Sith Champion you are. It’s also been said that Flashpoints will have a play through time of 90 to 120 minutes for a party complete from beginning to loot-rewarding end.

Be sure to check out the full article here.

EA held its quarterly meeting on February 2nd and talked about costs, subscription quotas, and release date time frames. EA CEO John Riccitiello denounced the rumor of $300 million in development and production costs of The Old Republic. Riccitiello says that with 500,000 subscribers at launch the game would be substantially profitable, and anything north of 1 million would be very profitable for EA. EA CFO Eric Brown says the game will drop in 2011 but after EA’s fourth quarter of 2011, which ends March 31st, so we’re looking at April 1st through December 31st.  I personally think The Old Republic will drop on the 34th anniversary of A New Hope, May 25th.

You can get more info here at GameSpy.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Flashpoints review and release date rumours

February 5, 2011 by

This week’s article reviews Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Friday update of last week on the new Flashpoints, story-driven instances that require a party to undertake the mission. They are much more difficult than your average solo quest, but will produce greater loot and rewards. Bioware released a new video for the Taral V Flashpoint along with a new Flashpoint page addition for the game systems area of it’s website.

Taral V is a mid game Republic only Flashpoint where teams must recover a navigational computer on the planet. The navigational computer will allow the Republic to navigate the dangerous Maelstrom nebula where the Emperor’s space station sized prison is holding a Jedi who is critical to the war effort.

The new game systems page also lists several other Flashpoints. The Esseles and The Black Talon are both early game Flashpoints, Esseles being Republic and Black Talon being Imperial. Republic players will be defending the Esseles from Imperials, as the Imperial players will be assualting the Black Talon to regain control from a rouge captain. They will both have important choices for the player character’s story to be made at the conclusion. Mid game Flashpoints will be Taral V for the Republic and Boarding Party for the Empire. In Boarding Party the team of Imperial players must track down and capture an escaped high-level Republic prisoner and prevent a bold attack on the Empire. Directive 7 is an end game Flashpoint for both the Republic and Imperial factions. In this Flashpoint, insubordinate droids have created a technology that could bode destruction for both the Republic and the Empire. Both factions are sent to a remote moon to quell the droid rebellion before it is too late. All the info and details on the flaspoints can be found here on SWTOR’s game systems page.

More rumored than news, The Old Republic will not be released in the spring of 2011, but in the fall. Specifically September, while Bioware is maintaing that it will be released in the spring. The gaming industry website MCV says “Devlopment sources” from SWTOR have told them it will be September before the game drops. A September release will put TOR into the social life ending period of fall 2011 which is already heavily stacked with games from the industries biggest players. Bioware will most likely denounce or confirm this rumor at Pax East in March. Fans may get the info sooner, when EA’s Q3 FY 2011 shareholder meeting is held. This is where they will release their quarterly schedule of major titles.


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