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

Share | |  Print | Single Page | Discussion: 28199 Commentshttp://www.mmogamer.com/10/18/2009/bioware-blaine-christine-the-old-republicBioWare%27s+Blaine+Christine+Talks+Heroism%2C+Villainy%2C+and+Why+You+Would+Play+Anything+But+a+Jedi+in+Star+Wars%3A+The+Old+Republic2009-10-18+22%3A49%3A05Steven+Crews

Steve sits down for a conversation with BioWare Austin’s Blaine Christine, producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Read on as the two discuss matters of heroism and villainy, time devoted to story versus combat, the misconceptions of it being a “Massively Single-Player Role-Playing Game”…

And, of course, why anyone would want to play something other than a Jedi in the Star Wars universe.

The MMO Gamer: First of all, for those among our readers who may be unfamiliar, could you please introduce yourself, and tell us a little about what it is you do at BioWare.

Blaine Christine: Sure. My name is Blaine Christine, I’m a producer at BioWare Austin. My job is primarily interfacing with LucasArts on all aspects of the game.

The MMO Gamer: What does “interfacing” entail? I’m sure some of the more hardcore fans hear that and picture George Lucas sitting atop a tower, meddling with knobs and dials and playing you like The SimsThe Sims reviews.

Blaine Christine: [laughs] I wish it was that cut-and-dried. Typically it’s myself interfacing with the LucasArts producer, Jake Neri, on pretty much a daily basis for everything about the game.

It’s them essentially looking at the game at whatever state it happens to be in, looking at the artwork, anything that’s going into the game, or website, or any other aspect, and giving us feedback.

Essentially just collaborating with us on making the game great.

The MMO Gamer: So then, how does one go about making the game great?

Blaine Christine: [laughs] Well, I think for BioWare the formula is distilled down pretty well, at this point.

Our lead designer, James Ohlen, has been with BioWare for eleven plus years, he was the lead designer on Baldur’s Gate and many other games.

In terms of quality and what goes into making a true BioWare experience, I think he is the key reason we’re able to succeed, and head in the direction that we’re heading.

But really, as with any other game it’s about really great planning, great design, but it’s also about listening to feedback that comes all sources.

Whether that’s from LucasArts, from within our own company, or eventually when we get there hopefully opening it up to fans to play, and listening seriously to the fans and their feedback to help us make a great game.

In an MMO I think it’s key to get feedback from as many sources as possible. It’s such a big undertaking, it’s not quite as simple as some other games, where you can plop down a focus group and have them look at it for a short period of time.

Looking at that feedback is critical.

The MMO Gamer: Ever since TOR was first announced there’s always been a very big emphasis on heroism; you, the player, aren’t just some regular schlub who wandered in from off the street, you’re a hero! Everything you do is heroic!

But if you’re an “evil” character, say, playing a Bounty Hunter or a Sith, wouldn’t you be a villain, not a hero?

Blaine Christine: [laughs] I certainly can’t deny that.

I guess what we mean by hero is not necessarily in the good guy sense, but hero in the you feel like you’re taking on a ton of enemies at once, your storyline is impactful and meaningful… you don’t feel like you’re being sent on quests to collect ten boxes for some random vendor.

The MMO Gamer: So you can play as an antagonist, the story for the “evil” classes doesn’t just swap names and places around from the stories of “the good guys”?

Blaine Christine: I would say yes, very much. The storyline for the Sith Warrior, if you want to play a bad guy, he is a bad guy.

Your storyline as it goes through, he’s not a nice, friendly dude. You see that in the gameplay footage we’ve released, where you get the choice to save or kill the captain.

These are heavy choices, and if you strike him down, you get dark side points that are going to influence how your character develops, influence how the rest of the story goes. You kill somebody, they’re not there later.

The MMO Gamer: That morality system, the dark side and light side points, seems to be carried over directly from Knights of the Old Republic. But in the MMO, what is that actually going to do?

I would assume that with the breadth of content you’re dealing with the story can’t change all that much, even if you’re all the way light side playing as a Sith Warrior… you’d still have to be out there doing bad things and killing people by nature of its being an “evil” class.

Blaine Christine: The best answer to that is it’s going to be similar to the other games we’ve done. If you look at KOTOR and how that worked out, if you played light side versus dark side, there were distinct different in the story, and distinct differences in how your character developed.

It’s going to be very similar to that.

The MMO Gamer: But in KOTOR, it was the exact same story regardless of what you were playing. A Jedi Consular had the same story as a Jedi Guardian. Here you’re dealing with a lot more variables.

Blaine Christine: That was sort of the thing where yeah, all of the classes were bound by that one story, which is not the case here.

Each of our classes has a distinct story, but within each of those stories, if you go light side or dark side, there would be differences similar to what you saw in KOTOR.

The MMO Gamer: So you could play a fully light side Sith Warrior or a dark side Jedi?

Blaine Christine: Absolutely.

The MMO Gamer: Interesting twist. Being a Sith and going around saving kittens?

Blaine Christine: Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Continued on next page…