Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs?
The MMO Gamer: [to James] I feel as though I’ve been neglecting you this whole interview, talking about story the entire time.
Is there anything that you, personally, would like to talk about?
James Ohlen: Hm… what to say about the game…
Daniel Erickson: He’s going through his list of things we’re not allowed to say. [laughing]
James Ohlen: I don’t know, for me, this is the dream Star Wars game. In my mind, once you play this game, [redacted]… well, I can’t really say that, I guess! [laughing]
We’re creating the ultimate dream, you’re going to be able to play every single fantasy from Star Wars you had as a kid. If you love your Boba Fett action figure, and you have the Slave-1 ship, and you want to be that guy, you can be that guy.
If you had the Millennium Falcon like I did, and you were like, “I dreamed all my life of being Han Solo and travelling the galaxy,” you can be that.
If you were a Luke Skywalker fan who always wanted to be a Jedi, you can be that too.
If you love Darth Vader, and you wanted to run around the galaxy and crush your enemies, you can do that, too.
All of the heroic characters from the movies, you can play in our game. And you can have an epic story that evokes the fantasy of those characters.
And it’s all done with high quality, cinematic, movie-like storytelling. So you have full voiceover, and great camera work, and emotionally engaging characters.
It’s essentially that you have Star Wars movies based on your favorite characters that you get to control how it unfolds. That’s kind of my dream.
The MMO Gamer: It was mentioned during the demo that even the combat is trying to be tuned to reflect more of that “heroic” tone. That you aren’t out there fighting rats and bunny rabbits, but you’re engaged with numerous humanoid opponents at once.
James Ohlen: I’ve always had a hard time enjoying myself in combat in MMOs. Mainly because I’m kind of an action/violence junkie, I like my fast-paced action, I like to be cutting enemies down by the boatloads.
MMOs are very slow-paced, it’s you versus one enemy, and you hit him fifteen times until he dies. That’s something we’ve consciously moved away from in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
You’re fighting against multiple enemies, the action is fast-paced, there’s a lot more animations going on.
We’ve gone out of our way, we hired a combat designer who had a huge amount of experience with fighting games, who really knows the secrets of making your combat abilities really feel powerful.
That’s something I think has really been missing from the MMO genre: Combat has always felt like an MMO, not like other games.
Daniel Erickson: There’ve been a couple MMOs that have attempted it, but none that have really broken through the big pieces.
The MMO Gamer: So you hope to break out of that mold of “Press 1 to cast Fireball, wait, press 2 to cast Frostbolt, wait.” Rinse and repeat?
Daniel Erickson: And preferably to get rid of the “Fight one guy for a minute and a half, then sit down and eat bread.”
James Ohlen: The thing is, I don’t think we’re revolutionizing combat. We’re just trying to take… we want to appeal to MMO fans who like the strategy and tactics involved in MMO combat, where you have the different character types, the guy who’s a tank that jumps into battle and everyone focuses on him while you have your ranged DPS guys.
We still want to have that.
We also want to have a game that someone who’s not great at first person shooters, who doesn’t have great hand-eye coordination, who doesn’t like that kind of game style can still play. We just want to take the MMO combat and make it much more fast-paced, and make it feel much more action-packed.
And it’s really simple decisions, like fighting more than one guy, having a lot more animations in combat, having things like combat music being a big part of it.
There’s all these subtle things that as you layer on to combat it becomes what you saw in the demo in there.
It’s not revolutionary, it’s just a whole bunch of evolutions that have brought us to that point.
The MMO Gamer: The danger there, and why most games go either full FPS or “Press 1 for Fireball,” is you run the risk of trying to take the middle ground and in the end appealing to no one.
How do you address that?
James Ohlen: We test. We are very much about testing our stuff.
We bring in cohorts of people, MMO fans, we sit them down and we have them play our classes for like the first eight levels.
Then they fill out forms, they give us feedback, we videotape them, then we take a look at it.
So far, MMO fans, they sit down, they get into the game the easiest because the controls have the typical WASD drive scheme, and you have an action bar at the bottom where you can switch your abilities in an out, and use them with the num pad or click on them with your mouse.
It’s something that any MMO fan is instantly going to be able to pick up and be able to use.
We also have, most of our combat team consists of people who are very familiar with the MMO genre. So it’s not like, I don’t think we’re going to have any problem getting MMO fans to like our combat system.
Daniel Erickson: Very rarely have I ever heard anyone who was into MMOs say, “You know what I really like about the combat? The fact that it feels slow.”
James Ohlen: I can understand some of the concerns. It’s been very difficult, and it’s taken a lot of effort to get our combat system right.
It’s a very complex system. You’ll notice when you get into a battle, there’ll be classes with lightsabers deflecting, and we have to have all sorts of animation blending, and state managers, and all sorts of tech that allows the characters to do what they do when they’re in combat.
It’s much easier to just say “I’m going to play this animation when I attack something,” but we didn’t want to go down that way.
[said in a joking tone of voice] So we just got boatloads of money and we did something else! [laughing]
At this point we were asked to wrap things up.
The MMO Gamer: I like to end my interviews on a more philosophical note, as opposed to “What is your game, when is it coming out, and how many exclusives are you going to give me?”
So, why do the both of you make games? Why did you get into the industry, why do you get up every morning, go to work, and do what it is you do?
James Ohlen: Well, since I was ten years old I’ve basically played role-playing games. Pen-and-paper role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, I played it, and played it, and played it. It was my life.
It was basically my dream to create role-playing games for the rest of my life, and luckily, I was able to get in at BioWare on the ground floor, and now I get to live that dream, building worlds.
Daniel Erickson: James was the lead designer on Baldur’s Gate 1. He’s been around a long, long time.
James Ohlen: Role-playing games have always been my life, essentially. I’m a giant RPG nerd, and I love the idea, what gets me off is, helping to create worlds and stories that people love to play through.
Daniel Erickson: I’ll take a little bit different tack on that, and I’ll answer “Why did I come to BioWare?”
I was actually working for a different company, and I was playing Knights of the Old Republic.
I decided to go down the evil path, to see what it looked like, and I did something-and fans of the game will understand-I did something with Mission that made me feel real empathy, and regret.
Which was a completely different emotion than had ever been imparted on me from a game. I pushed myself away from my monitor and I was like, “Whoa! I can’t believe I just did that!”
And then, there was this glee, as I was like, “I can’t believe I just felt that about a game!” I realized at that point that we were at the cusp of real emotional storytelling in games, and I had to be there.
The MMO Gamer: Alright, well thank you both very much for joining us, we appreciate it, and we hope we can do it again some time.
James Ohlen: Great, thank you.
Daniel Erickson: Thank you, sir.
Stay tuned to The MMO Gamer for additional coverage of Star Wars: The Old Republic in the days and weeks ahead.
In the meanwhile, you can visit the game’s official site at http://www.swtor.com for additional information and pre-release discussion boards.
These guys practiced their bullshitting and doublespeak like politicians. "Oh we have all this shit other games have done, but we wont be like those dirty games, we're bioware, we shit quality and twilek sex"
story story story nah nah… the entire group waiting for the smuggler to do his story quest wont be any more revolutionary than Age of Conan's destiny quest lines, and you know, AOC did it first. Maybe Bio can do it better. Or nah, they haven't done anything mindblowing since KOTOR. Jade empire and Mass Effect were weak efforts in comparison, particularly when they moved away from making anything you did in their whole game-long morality system meaningless by letting you choose your ending with a dialogue pick before the final battle in both games, irrelevant of your choices until that point.
These guys have had so much smoke blown up their asses about how good they are that they really believe it.
We are pavlov's geeks barking on command whenever we see a lightsaber.
And nobody forget: Star War has ALWAYS been aimed at 13 yearolds, from the first movie to the blatant present CGI toons where Anakin battles alongside a pubescent twilek jedi girl.
RT @TheMMOGamer: #mmo Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs? http://bit.ly/3JPHhH
Star Wars: The Old Republic sounds more appealing every day… http://bit.ly/P3OMM
RT @TheMMOGamer: #mmo Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs? http://bit.ly/3JPHhH
Will you shut up you imbecile.
Please try to keep the comments civil. This isn't the VN boards.
Called it. We can't have even have simple interview with standard PR treatment without some jaded manchild who thinks he's got it all figured out shitting up the comments section.
Nothing like cry baby SWG vets still crying over SWG and complaining because TOR isn’t the crapbox they always wanted. Guess what? Go play Second Life if you want a sandbox. Oh and I keep hearing the SWG emu is the best thing ever from some of you, so why aren’t you guys playing that instead of boo-hooing all over the interwebs over a game you will never play?
Incredible interview about @swtor. The stuff they say, it’s like a dream come true. I know that makes me a huge nerd. http://bit.ly/3JWYZQ
FANTASTIC interview.
Absolutely great. Got a hell of a lot of insight into a hell of a lot of things, and sadly just made me more anxious to see TOR come out asap.
I'm really not much of a gamer, and actually find 99.9% of all games out there mindnumbingly boring. The list of games I've thouroughly enjoyed is short indeed, with Bioware's KOTOR 1 poised at the very top. Later, Blizzard managed to suck me in to the World oW, and I enjoyed that too for quite some time. Sure, it had severe flaws, and it eventually ended on a sour note for me, because nothing you do really matters, and you're actually more bored than entertained most of the time.
But even so, playing WoW actually taught me a couple of things:
(1) Multiplayer ROCKS! Never again could I see myself playing a single-player RPG, no matter how great. I'd just feel isolated and alone. Cooperating with real people is unbeatable (especially when those people are real-life friends as well).
(2) PVP is a lot of fun! Whooda thunk? Surely not me, big pseudo-pacifist chicken as I used to be. But WoW taught me to fight to kill, and enjoy it! I actually skipped military service in the real world because of my wussy ways, but my lvl 29 priest twink topped 10,000 kills!
But the lack of IMMERSIVE STORY eventually made the WoW experience bland. I quit playing, and have been looking for an alternative MMO to play ever since. Nothing has really piqued my interest until rumors of this one came along.
I was caitiously positive in the beginning, but I'm getting more eager to play this game every time a new scrap of info hits the street! In my opinion, these guys seem to be doing EVERYTHING EXACTLY RIGHT with SW:TOR. No more, no less.
You can't really beat that.
Oh RunOnSentence, you thrust a cruel dagger twixt my ribs! Hurt me more!
Jade Empire was a flock of bad design choices and Mass Effect was the same bad ideas with more money behind it. It wasn't good, it just lacked any similar games available to compare it to. The ugly girl at the party is still going to be ringed by suitors if she's the only one there. High Budget SciFi RPGs are that kind of sausage party. We're desperate.
TOR devs saying there will be voice acted story quests ( just like AOC) and instancing (just like a number of mmos since Anarchy Online and WoW) is really all these guys are saying.
The rest are just triggers people have been conditioned to salivate in response to over the years. Lightsaber duels, Darth Vader is your dad! Han solo! I'm amazing they didnt bring little tape players to tweet out the Imperial March or the main theme anytime they spoke just for further effect.
You are indeed right we sci-fi fans are often prepared to accept whatever crap comes our way, just because it's sci-fi, and we desperately need our fix.
But this is different.. If you actually read the info on TOR that's out there by now with an open mind, all of it, you'll find we have a pretty good sense of where this baby is going. And it's actually going the right way.
Guess what. Just as you stand there looking at that ugly girl, wondering if you should go for it for lack of choice, a real beauty just entered the room. She's the girl of your dreams, and amazingly enough she stops in her tracks and smiles right at YOU! You're wondering if it can really be true.
THAT girl is SW:TOR.
Sometimes even a sci-fi nerd gets lucky. You'll see.
exited as hell.i played kotor four times,played as sentinel then guardian,evil,good all combinations.i really enjoyed it.Its true Dangling tht all came up with ending dialogue pick,but it was all the way.i dont think tht last pick is soo important becuase if u had fun playing 4 days,ending dialogue is like crown on all tht.if wht this two say its true then im for this game.who knows how more days of fun,and small funny dialogues like a)i will help you b) get out of my way and c)you are boring,i will have to kill you sounds pretty good to me,plus mmo playing with thousands of people,plus bioware and SW,i think many people will stop playing wow,and many will start playing SWtor
BTW Great article, one of the best yet!
Thank you, good sir. I do what I can.
Where's the shacky-cam footage?
Filming and photography weren't allowed during the demo. I did get the audio on my voice recorder, but MMOs are not exactly a non-visual medium.
Did you get a sense of the scale of the worlds? One thing that really bugged me with AoC (which did have some good story elements early on), felt really confined when you eventually aquired a mount. Are the worlds they're designed these "small zones" or big continents ala WoW?
They only showed a few areas, one of which was entirely on board a spaceship, which is by its very nature confined, and the other two both seemed to show somewhat close-quarters areas, with a clear path to follow.
Could have just been the things they had the most polish on to show off in the demo, not an indication of the game as a whole… but I would have liked to have seen some wide open country, myself.
Too much open dpace is bad too. Let us not forget the empty cities and planets of SWG too soon ;p
Cannot wait for Bioware/Lucasarts Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG. http://bit.ly/P3OMM
Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs? [via feedly]: Steve had the chance at E3 to sit down with Jam.. http://bit.ly/vujuz
So how do players interact in this game with purpose? It sounds like its single player with the options of having friends tag along.
I loved(past tense) swg when it came out. I would do anything to test swtor.
Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs? : The MMO Gamer: "And then, there was this glee, as I wa.. http://tr.im/ovSb
Star Wars Old Republic interview: http://bit.ly/P3OMM
Sounds promising…
Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For MMOs? : The MMO Gamer: "And then, there was this glee, as I wa.. http://tr.im/ovSb
Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope For #MMO s? #SWTOR http://is.gd/12DRF @gamerdna @myen
Halp I no see ansers. Can we have butt sex on are companyen
I'd love to hear more from Bioware on how they'll support our random/spontaneous exploration and a player's freedom to move through their class story at their own pace. This may (or may not) have alot to do with the more general 'common' story of the war and how the galaxy will allow us to make our own side-plots within the context of the war.
How much freedom will I have to take a break from my smuggler plot to go and RP my own adventure for a while? How compelling will it be to do so? Can we then seamlessly pick back up with the developer created story line again when we're done with our little tangents?
I'll be sure to ask them that in the next interview.
Interesting interview with the Lead Designer and Lead Writer of Star Wars: The Old Republic #MMORPG from Bioware: http://is.gd/12ruP
SW:TOR interview http://bit.ly/3JWYZQ I expect the story, presentation to be good and the combat mediocre. Exploration’s an unknown still.
[...] across a great article or interview that I flag for future dissection when I have the time, and this four-page interview with The Old Republic’s devs is worth some serious crunching, chewing and digestion. If you haven’t read it, make some [...]
[...] MMOgamer.com: Daniel Erickson (Lead Writer on The Old [...]
[...] to Syp from Bio Break, I managed to devour a long-ass article from MMOGamer interviewing James Ohlen and Daniel Erickson about story in Star Wa…. If you haven’t read it, you definitely [...]
DanglingParticiple
Obvious Troll is Obvious
[...] up with additional classes will open up activites for other characters to drive grouping, from this article from MMO gamer. While they might not have the same quest, it's an interesting leap for you to [...]
[...] Companions will be in game, tradeable, “and you can romance, and befriend or betray.”-James Ohlen (link) [...]
i wonder if they will have space combat, SWG had excellent space combat. Will this play into effect do you think?
[...] got the first hint of how The Old Republic will use the Trinity (Tank, Healer, DPS) in an interview done by MMO Gamer with Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Jame Ohlen, [...]
[...] Star Wars: The Old Republic – A New Hope for MMOs? [...]