BioWare’s Blaine Christine Talks Heroism, Villainy, and Why You Would Play Anything But a Jedi in Star Wars: The Old Republic

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The MMO Gamer: From the beginning, BioWare has always pitched story as the centerpiece of the game. But you’ve also said that this is going to be a true, “traditional” MMO—and in a traditional MMO you spend about 99.95% of your time engaged in killing things.

So, is story really the centerpiece of the game, or is it combat?

Blaine Christine: That’s a great question, and another important point: Essentially, if we break it down, and this is really rough in terms of percentage…

We’ve talked a lot about story as we’ve delivered demos over the course of the summer, but a very important message is in terms of time spent, you’ll spend more time in story in our game because we have the fully voiced system, and we have the conversation trees instead of just getting a quest from a quest-giver that is text on screen…

But in terms of how you play the game, it’s going to be a relatively small amount of time that you’re going to spend in these conversations. Let’s say roughly 10-20%. Whereas the rest of the time, we’re assuming, you’re going to be running around.

There is exploration, there is combat, it is a wide-open world. Going to have crafting and harvesting, going to have guilds and social activities…

We certainly expect you’re going to spend a lot of time doing that.  We don’t want to mislead people into thinking, there’s been speculation out there, “It just looks like a single-player game!”

We’re trying to really get the message out, all of the other stuff is there, it’s just a little harder to demo that. Of course we want to demo the coolest stuff, and things that we feel is new into an MMO, but all of the other stuff is definitely going to be there.

The MMO Gamer: To follow up a bit on some of that speculation you just mentioned…

Word association: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “Massively Single-Player Online Role-Playing Game?”

Blaine Christine: To me, right now, it’s something that I want to try to avoid. I don’t know if people perceive that as a positive or a negative, but I want to make sure that people know this is a true MMO.

Yes, there are elements… but it’s up to you as a player, right?

You’ve seen where we show conversations with multiple group members taking part, so even when you’re in story mode you can do that within your party. To me that’s still the MMO experience, and that’s what people don’t understand yet, because people haven’t seen it in context.

The MMO Gamer: So then, can you put it in context? What’s the experience going to be for the average player, the breakdown between time spent doing essentially solo activities versus group based ones?

Blaine Christine: That’s entirely up to you. We want to cater to different play styles.

Our intent is to make the game entirely solo-able.  If you want to go through and solo, if you’re that type of player, you can play it as essentially a single-player experience.

Of course, you’re going to have other people running around you when you’re in the areas like Hutta, just like you would in any other MMO.

But if you choose to pursue the story on your own, you can do that.

Similarly, if you’re a social gamer, and your core gameplay is you want to get into the game, play with your guild, group up with a bunch of people, and either just do combat or do quests together, we’re going to have a lot of opportunities for group quests so that you can do that.

I got a question the other day, “Hey, if I’m really into more the crafting, harvesting, auction house type of gameplay, are you going to support that?” Absolutely.

If you want to spend a lot of time in the game being great at crafting—we  haven’t talked about the specifics yet, but we’re going to have an entire system like you would expect—you’ll be able to play the game of crafting, harvesting, selling things on the auction house, do that type of gameplay, as well.

The MMO Gamer: I think we’re just about out of time. I know there are a lot of things that you aren’t able to discuss yet, but before we go is there anything that you, personally would like to talk about?

Blaine Christine: We get a lot of questions about, “How are you going to make sure that players don’t just want to play as Force users or lightsaber wielders?”

To speak on that a little bit, we’ve shown gameplay with the Smuggler, shown gameplay with the Bounty Hunter, so I just want to get the message out there that we’re doing everything to make sure that each of our classes is really fun to play.

My personal favorite now, when I play through the game is actually the Smuggler. The Smuggler has that cover dynamic, and that one element, that one tweak that is different about that particular class, makes him especially fun to play.

And then in terms of tools, if you watch our demos closely a lot of people say things like, “Well how are they going to deal with a Jedi?”

What we’ve talked about here is that idea which we’ve talked about before of true heroic combat, and that you’re a hero in the Star Wars universe.

When you think of a Bounty Hunter, when you think about Jango Fett taking on Obi Wan, if you’re the cream of the crop elite Bounty Hunter, if you have the right tools… you may just have a shot.

That’s a pretty prolonged battle, he’s able to use the whip cord, able to use the flamethrower, and different things to keep the Jedi off balance.

Similarly with the Smuggler, he has many tools at his disposal. He has cover, he’s got flash-bang grenades, so maybe it’s not an inherent ability like the Force, but he has other things he can use to incapacitate say, a Sith Warrior if we’re talking about a PvP situation. He’s going to be able to deal with that situation.

Again, because he’s not just an everyday ordinary smuggler, he’s an elite smuggler.

And then Trooper, another class we’ve talked about, same sort of thing. He’s not just your every day, average Clone Trooper, this is the cream of the crop. He’s part of an elite military force that we call Havoc Squad, so he’s the best of the best.

If you think of the absolute best Trooper in the Star Wars galaxy, would he have the tools and the abilities to take on a Jedi? We think he would.

The MMO Gamer: I like to round my interviews out 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 you make games? Why do you wake up every morning, go to work, and do what it is you do?

Blaine Christine: Good question. For me, I grew up playing games. I don’t know if I was the first generation of that or not, but back to the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64.

Even before that, I remember playing games on a Vic-20 with a tape drive that a friend had when I was in the third grade or something. It’s just always been a part of my life.

When I got into college and I was like, “Hey, what are my options?” I initially went into computer science and engineering. I stopped, because I figured out pretty quickly that I didn’t like programming games, I actually enjoyed playing games.

I got a degree in acting—actually, two degrees in acting—and I didn’t know what to do with that. I moved to Los Angeles and didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, and I found out that there were many gaming companies around.

Sort of my happenstance I was like, “Oh, who’s here?”

Ended up getting a QA job, just a temp tester, and working my way over the course of about four and a half years to a producer position, and finished being the producer for X-Men Legends, the first Legends game at Activision.

For me it really was a life-long pursuit. I always knew I wanted to work on games, just my path of getting there was a little bit odd. But I eventually made it there and it’s a dream for me, I love it, I love it every day.

For me to work at BioWare, been here a little over two years now, it’s really a dream. Ray and Greg are fantastic, they have a great company. I think the message of our company, the quality of our games is fantastic. And I’m also a huge Star Wars fan, so it’s the perfect convergence for me.

The MMO Gamer: Alright, thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it, and we hope we can do it again some time.

Blaine Christine: Awesome, thank you.

Stay tuned to The MMO Gamer for additional information on Star Wars: The Old Republic in the days and weeks ahead. In the meantime, beta sign ups are currently underway, and if this interview has whet your appetite you can head over to the game’s official website at: http://www.swtor.com