Rob Cowles: So one of the things we wanted to do is rather than be on the show floor, we wanted to actually, you know, have a place where you guys could meet the fans and hang out. This is sort of more one-on-one time. That's why we have a Cantina. And so for part of each day, we wanted you guys to have the opportunity to come together and meet the developers and ask a few questions and basically in a kind of more laid back way. So first of all I'm going to let these guys introduce themselves, and then I have a few questions, and then if you guys have questions, Ill give you a chance to ask a few too.
Jake Neri: I'm Jake Neri, I'm a producer at Lucasarts, and I would be one of the (unintelligible Dark Sith Overlord?) as we like to call it.
Blaine Christine: And my name is Blaine Christine, and I'm a producer at Bioware Austin.
RC: So were just going to start with the basics. So why don't you guys give us a little bit of what The Old Republic is about?
BC: So what is Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is a story-driven, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, and well get into the setting a bit more, but its set about 3000 years before the events of the original movies and about 300 years after the events of the original Knights of the Old Republic game. But really, the key there is when we were looking to partner up with Lucasarts and create something new and exciting in that space we felt that story was an area where we could innovate, given the fantastic story-telling history of Lucasarts and Bioware's mission to bring the greatest story-driven games to the world.
JN: You think its gonna be cool?
BC: I think its gonna be really cool.
RC: So great timeline, awesome game. So what are some of the challenges with bringing Star Wars: The Old Republic together?
JN: So, I think the challenge is really the expectation that everybody has. I think everybody is really fired up about the game and were passionate when we go to the office I mean Blaine and I are calling each other and were yelling and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Its a huge team, its coordinating I don't know, how many people, hundreds I think? I think that's really the challenge, coordinating the team, making it fire, making it work. What about you, what do you see?
BC: Obviously we have the incredible Star Wars legacy to live up to, and that's something we take very seriously. And of course its our core mission of delivering fantastic, high-quality games as well at Bioware, and so taking on an IP of this size that is this important to all of us as fans, and to all of us as developers, publishers, etc., and making a fantastic game out of that. So its obviously not a small undertaking, and that's sort of the daily challenge as we go into work.
RC: Awesome. So we've had a couple announcements recently. One of them was Sith Warrior was announced at GamesCom. Give us a little insight into the Sith Warrior.
BC: Well obviously the Sith Warrior is a real exciting class for us to reveal, because its the first lightsaber class we've had a chance to talk about and demoed and again, if you saw the video you saw some of that. But what is the Sith Warrior all about? Hes all about going out and kickin ass with a lightsaber. Hes all about fulfilling you know, if you want to play in an MMO world and a Bioware/Lucasarts game with a fantastic story hes the class that really embodies the Darth Vader of our world in both story as well as action. So Jake can fill you in a bit more.
JN: Well I think the Force Choke says it all, right? So just being able to lift a dude up, and just hang him there, while your boys rock on him that's pretty sweet. I think the thing about..if you'll notice and pay attention when you're watching the videos or you see the demo tomorrow. Our lightsaber our choreography is really impressive, I mean even if you just spam 1, its really fun. So I think that you know, that alone just what you were talking about, just being able to be Darth Vader just rocking people with a lightsaber and having it be choreographed, being able to dodge blaster bolts. Hes pretty cool.
BC: And that's why its fun actually watching these guys because when we actually do the demo you'll see them talking through the demo, and these guys Jake, and Tim, one of the Associate Producers from Lucasarts will be playing the game. And the cool thing is actually watching these guys play and its fun. Its fun to watch them play and its fun to watch it play out, and we have specific moments where we call out words like they're running through our Flashpoint of this Imperial ship, and you get those true Wow, this is what it would be like, if Vader and Boba Fett were running down a hallway together taking on a bunch of Republic troops, and it looks fun, it feels fun. It is fun.
RC: So tell us a little bit about the Sith class. So is this the class that just goes cleaning up after all the players and gets no appreciation? laughter Kidding, kidding. So another big announcement don't write that down more laughter. I keep waiting for that Sith Housekeeper its not happening. So another big announcement fully voiced MMO. Its a huge undertaking three languages, length of eight movies or something like that. Tell us a little bit about, fully-voiced MMO why?
BC: So I think again, going back to the original talk about what is Star Wars: The Old Republic? Well, you know with the way Bioware tells stories in games and they way Lucasarts tells stories in movies and games, you know when we came together that was the natural way for us to tell a story in a game. So regardless of whether its an MMO, which is a massive, massive undertaking, we like to tell people when you play through one of our classes, which is a Smuggler, which is a Republic class, and its literally hundreds of hours of gameplay and story, and then you play through Bounty Hunter, which is in the other faction, that's an entirely different experience you don't have the same quests, same voiceover or anything. So if you stop and think about that it literally is what we talked about whats out there we have 8 classes, and when you have 8 times that amount its a huge, huge undertaking. But why fully-voiced? When you see the demo, when you see the way it plays out, it looks and feels like a Bioware game, and it should be true to the spirit of the old game, Knights of the Old Republic, and it is.
JN: Its a lot of work too. But I think one misconception about the story, too so everyone thinks you're gonna sit around and watch a story. I don't think we know exactly what it is, but we think it is about 5% of your gameplay is spent in the story. Were emphasizing really cool combat and action. The neat part about that is the story. So you're participating in an amazing storyline, and now you're doing something heroic with really cool combat and having a good time. We have a huge team recording this, as you can imagine. Were doing English, and were doing French and German as well. Its a big job, and we have quite a bit of people working on it, but its coming out real nice, so hopefully everyone will enjoy it.
RC: So why don't you give us an idea of what's your favorite part of the game so far? But remember, PR isn't here so do not reveal anything, thank you. laughter
JN: Lets see, my favorite part. I think I definitely like the Sith Warrior a lot. Just the fact that what you see in the movies, you see Darth Vader were sort of delivering on that promise and its a whole lot of fun, so we just announced that, its low-hanging fruit, so that's pretty easy. Other classes are cool too the Bounty Hunter with the flame is even funner.
BC: I think combat for me as Jake pointed out, is really good. Its extremely fun in our game. It just that I find that playing our game, playing through as the Sith Warrior or the Bounty Hunter, etc, I mean it truly feels like a Star Wars experience you have blast bolts flying around, you've got the Sith Warrior deflect blaster bolts with his lightsaber, you see some of that in the demo as well. So it looks active, it feels active and engaging, the combat is. And in addition to that, the story is truly fantastic, and again, fully-voiced means that even your player has voiceover. So when you play through and you see both sides of the story play out and you see your character it really helps to engage you and really starts to take on that movie-like quality.
RC: So at this point does anyone here have any questions they'd like to ask? Lets start with a Ninja Turtle laughter
Audience Member 1: Is that Malak at the beginning of that trailer? Because it looks a lot like him.
BC: Its actually not Malak. Its a character that we haven't discussed yet but I have a feeling you're going to see him.
JN: Think he looks cool?
AM1: I think Revan looks cool. laughter
BC: Hes got a point, hes got a point.
RC: There's some questions we cant answer, because were not at that point yet, but well answer what we can.
Audience Member 2: Thanks for coming out guys. Quick question when are you guys going to be able to show us some other aspects of the game, like PvP?
JN: So we have talked about the fact that we will have a really amazing PvP system I mean we have Jedi, we have Sith, so you can imagine whats down the line. With everything included, with PvP, we don't have a tremendous amount of detail to share. I think the best way to get that information is the site hopefully everybody is signed up well be continually giving more detail there as it comes out. I think we know right out of the gate some people are frustrated, we hear that a lot, I think there's a thread somewhere, maybe where people are frustrated with that. And you know, just bear with us and well give you everything we can.
BC: But the bottom line its gonna rock.
RC: And seriously you guys every Friday we publish brand new content on SWTOR.com, so given the size of the game, we have lots yet we have to share with you, so check in on Fridays.
Darth Hater: Based on the eight classes, how many are Force using, two or four? We've heard mixed reports from the devs on this one and some hints that there might be multiple Force using classes. Can you clarify on any of this?
JN: Can we clarify? Short answer, no. laughter
RC: Sign up for the website
JN: Well you started out asking how many classes?
DH: Whether there would be two or four.
JN: And then you went into whether there would be multiple Force-using classes, and I think we can safely say yes.
RC: PR's gonna be all over us laughter So losing my job.
Audience Member 3: I'm a former WoW player. Im a little tired of the zergfest. Whats that going to be like in The Old Republic? Is it going to be 25-mans, 10-mans, 5-mans, or none at all?
BC: Again, we've only talked a little bit about our late-game content. We haven't gone into details about that yet. Its not something were prepared to talk about. Sorry to have to give you that answer.
JN: But the one thing you will see of our video the gameplay that we just put out shows a high-quality experience about level 8 or so. But what you will see is two people going through there. And so I think we understand what you're talking about. First off its hard to get 25 people together and then swarm around a mob. I think we understand that were trying to make the game as accessible as possible for the way you want to play it. So we would like to support giant raids, but wed also like you and your bro on Friday to just log on to do what you want to do. Were trying to play with all of you.
Audience Member 4: Thanks for coming out again. The setting that you are dealing with, you have JEdi and Sith spread out across the galaxy. They're magic-using, backslashing ninja monks. How are you going to balance the desire of you were just wowing about how Sith Warriors are to play the other stuff that you're going to be offering?
BC: So I think obviously the key to a great MMO like this is balance. But its not just about balance, you want to make the classes exciting. And if you watch the video you see some of those exciting moments. So when Jake and Tim are playing, Tim actually takes control of the Bounty Hunter and there's a fight at the end where they're taking on Jedi Knights. And you actually see that the Bounty Hunters able to use those attacks to stun that Jedi you see the flamethrower that stuns him and you just see some of the other amazing abilities like Death From Above, where hes able to fly up above the enemies and fire down using his jetpack. Bounty Hunter is cool there's others we've talked about there's Trooper, we've talked about Smuggler.
Now Smuggler, the cool thing about that guy and again, watch the demo is that weve put in the element of cover. So he can take cover. So playing that class takes on a whole new dynamic where its like this is awesome, right, and of course were gonna balance so that it'll fun to play in PvP as well.
JN: Yeah, we've heard quite a bit. I totally get the question, but do you think that wed make it so that the Jedi could one-shot everybody? laughter So the bottom line is what everyone is worried about is will the game be balanced? and the answer is absolutely. If you wanna play a Trooper, and you're gonna duel a Warrior, we want the Trooper to obviously have a way to be successful. Yeah were with you, the game will be balanced.
BC: So the other element there is of course as you say, the Jedi being all powerful. But you have to realize that the way the story plays out in our game, and the whole idea of any of the classes in the game is to make you feel heroic. So when we talk about the Trooper, hes an elite member of a Republic squad, so its not like hes some random Clone Trooper out there hes the best of the best. And so you as the player, we want you to feel like you're the cream of the crop. And the same thing with the Bounty Hunter, you're quest is to find out how to get into the Great Hunt, which is sponsored by the Mandalorians to find the greatest Bounty Hunter in the galaxy. So its all about, if you're the best Bounty Hunter, you're Jango Fett taking on Anakin no wait, not Anakin anyway, you know. laughter He really doesnt know Star Wars, what? more laughter
RC: Ok Blaine, Star Wars card is being taken away. laughter
Audience Member 5: Will you be hiring a composer for this game, or is it just going to be old Star Wars music being thrown in there?
JN: So were doing original music, and with anything Star-Wars related we have a vault of stuff. But were gonna do some original stuff as well.
BC: Its gonna be all trance, all the time. laughter
Audience Member 6: We see in some of the demos and some of the things that for instance it uses the Bioware conversation system, or the cover system, we've seen other games. What other types of Bioware traditional gameplay are going to make it into this game? Or what games will have influence on The Old Republic?
BC: So I think going back to one of the greatest things working on this game for me is not just the game itself. Our Lead Designer is James Ohlen. Hes not a very public figure, but if you dig into Bioware history hes been the key lead designer on many many games including Baldurs Gate, the original Old Republic. And so he sort of brings all that experience, 11 years plus, on the game that were creating, and so hes there every day overseeing that vision. And so yes, youre correctly identifying some key elements of Bioware history, and other Bioware games so I think youre going to see that throughout the influences on character advancement, or whatever. Its all true Bioware gameplay.
Audience Member 7: On your website you have a vast roleplaying community. What sort of systems are you going to implement, like master-apprentice, guild housing, to accommodate your huge roleplaying community?
JN: So I don't think we've been too specific exactly on roleplayers. I mean, it is an MMO, we want to have guilds, we want you to have multiple ways of socializing the way you want. We don't have a lot of detail on how you will master-apprentice or whatever you said, but rest assured, we understand that roleplayers are out there, and were definitely going to look to support that. Are you a roleplayer?
AM7: Yeah. Like one of the guilds Im in you guys have a huge guild base and Im in one of the roleplaying ones.
JN: Thats cool.
BC: Well definitely be there for you.
Audience Member 8: I was wondering, whenever I see the demos, theres only Humans. Are there going to be any other races?
Audience Member: Everyone plays an Ewok, all the time laughter
JN: laughs So at Comic-Con we accidentally slipped and said there will be species, but I don't think they'll be that deep. That's all I got for you.
BC: I think the Ewoks are the Sith Housecleaners, aren't they? laughter. But I think the other thing that youll notice in the demo is that there's maybe one alien in there in the conversation with the Bounty Hunter in the very beginning is speaking Nikto, to Jori. So again, we have revealed there will be other species but we haven't talked about what they are yet.
Audience Member 9: Just a quick question are Sith only gonna have red lightsabers or will there be other lightsabers?
BC: Hes re-writing Star Wars lore. Ok. laughter. All I have to say is see the demo. At the very end we say Not one but two and he actually whips out a purple lightsaber. So there's red and purple we know about so far.
Audience Member 10: Are the planets sandboxed?
JN: Our worlds are alive, our story is linear, are you asking about gameplay a sandbox or is the world a sandbox?
AM10: Can I go on a tour?
JN: A tour?
AM10: Can I walk out in the middle of nowhere and kill stuff?
JN: Of course. All the planets are giant and vast and with exploration opportunities and all that.
AM10: Were not gonna turn a corner and run into a wall and think (unintelligible). Inside of a boundary, a sandbox.
JN: Well, I dunno, you cant go on forever.
AM10: Well that's what a sandbox is.
JN: Well then no, were not doing a sandbox.
BC: I think the proper answer is does it have boundaries? Sure. I dont think any game has endless terrain.
AM10: Its more along the lines of is it open, free exploration.
BC: There's lots of free exploration, so yeah.
JN: Exploration is a key pillar for us, for sure.
AM10: I don't want to go down that trail, complete that mission. I want to go see whats around that corner.
BC: No, no, no. Very wide open.
Audience Member 11: Space Combat, will there be any of it?
BC: Obviously we understand that space is a big part of Star Wars. We understand that its very important to the fans. That said, were not ready to talk about space at this time.
Audience Member 12: From everything we've seen so far in the demo it seems you guys are pretty far along. How long do you think we can expect til a beta and will it be open or closed by invitational?
BC: Beta is 8am, tomorrow. laughter We haven't announced when beta is gonna be. You guys that are on the community, you'll be the first to know. The community has access to information that regular general public doesn't have, so that's the best way to find out.
Audience Member 13: One of the things I haven't been able to find out on the site looking around is I notice there's a lot of focus on NPC party members as well. So how much of that is party-based vs. me playing with a human? So if everyone is gonna have their own little NPC parties, how is that going to affect somebody elses game going on?
RC: Sorry, can you refer to the specific part of the demo that you were watching? Are you talking about the Bounty Hunter or the Sith Warrior running around?
AM13: Like at the beginning it talks about how the player character has their NPC party member that's with them.
BC: That may be either a mistake in the video but that's actually two people. So when we do the demo, thats not an NPC. So the Bounty Hunter and the Sith Warrior are both being controlled by so its a party of two players. And so when we do the demo tomorrow.
RC: Is he talking about the Companion characters?
BC: Ah, ok. So whats the question?
AM13: So if you got a bunch of Companion NPCs running around with say player 1, if say player 2 comes in and he has his own Companion characters, is that a way to say, make it a party of 6 right there?
JN: So I guess the concern is will Companion characters get in the way of you grouping with other people? and the answer is no. Were trying to make Companions a nice accent to your experience, but its not going to prohibit you by any means from getting together and going and doing your thing. Companions are there to enhance your experience, period. And of course, if you dont like them, turn them off.
Audience Member 14: In the trailer you had the sacking of Coruscant, is that going to be playable at all, like as a mission, quest, or something like that?
BC: So the sacking of Coruscant is actually a moment leading up to our game, in the history of the game. And so beyond that, there are no details. But if you wanna find out more, we have a website, and we have a webcomic that tells the story after the sacking of Coruscant leading up to our game. We have some timeline event pieces that talk about our game from as far back in the Star Wars history and lead up to the sacking of Coruscant. But the playable question remains unanswered.
Audience Member 15: Now as far as alignment goes, you've got the dark side/light side. But in previous games, like KOTOR II by Obsidian, it was fairly cookie cutter. Are you going to do a little bit more with that, is it going to be a little bit more grey areas, or is it just going to be light/dark?
BC: I think traditionally, Bioware games are about difficult choices that are difficult to make. So without going into great detail on how the system works, I think what you can expect is what Bioware would traditionally do, which is make choices that are difficult to make, whether that is in your character advancement or the choices you make in the story and how they affect your character. So I think ultimately our goals always lead us towards making those decisions more difficult so therefore more shades of grey.
Audience Member 16: Hi. On the developer walkthrough online, the conversation system when it was the Bounty Hunter and the Sith Warrior, when they were choosing what to say, there was a number by their picture that would appear it seemed to be a timing thing. Does that decide which character gets to say?
BC: So again, we have to begin with the caveat that were not revealing details about the multiplayer dialogue system. What we are saying though, and you'll see this live in the demo, is that there is a system being developed which will allow whoever is within the party to interact within the story. So there are active voices being made by both players, in the case of that demo, and there's a system behind that were just not discussing the system.
RC: PRs gonna love you. laughter
Audience Member 17: Think well ever see any actual dismemberment in this game? laughter Maybe an adult section or something? more laughter
BC: ESRB. Mmmmm. laughter
JN: Yeah, I don't think you will. I think dismemberment in Star Wars are reserved for George. If he decides to do it, cool, but I think the rest of us are dismemberment free. Plus we know we have young folks that are going to come and play the game, so there you go.
Audience Member 18: With regards to the voice acting, is your voice going to be something you select, or is it going to be tied to a specific gender, or class, or can you even answer that?
JN: What we can say is each class..every class and every gender will have its own voice, and I think that is the extent of what we can say.
Audience Member 19: What sort of visual customization will I have for my character? Will I be able to use the stats from one item and skin from another? Will I be able to dye my stuff? Or what would you like to put in your game?
JN: I think we understand the importance of customization, and you can rest assured that were putting a lot into that. I think customization is something that were looking to push as far as we can. And I would say its still sort of that push and prod phase to see where its at. So details? Not really, but rest assured, customization we know it exists out there and people love it.
Audience Member 20: So you said that PvP is gonna happen. How are you going to differentiate if there is 20 Jedi out on the field how are they not going to be cookie cutter all the same looking characters, doing the exact same things?
BC: Its a good question. In a couple different ways one way goes back to the customization, but that's more of a visual look do I have a purple lightsaber or do I have a red lightsaber? Which is all we can reveal so far But beyond that, I think we have an incredible animation team that works incredibly hard to make sure that you don't get bored as a player when you're playing our game. So for instance when you use a certain ability -basically you'll notice if you look at the gameplay footage, that with the Sith Warrior you see a lot of variety in his animation even when hes doing his basic attacks. So were doing everything we can to make it visually appealing and that it doesn't look like everyone is out there doing the exact same moves.
JN: Well I would like to say is up until now all we've shown is up to level 8. And I think as you start to see more and more of the game that would be less of a concern. Again, though, back to this customization thing, its not just the visual, that were trying to push, there's other areas that were trying to push with customization and that's definitely an area were looking at.
Audience Member 21: So it seems like in a lot of MMOs, the issue of the economy comes up. On one hand you don't want to make entirely player-based in Galaxies it can get incredibly inflated and not matter after a certain point. You don't want it to be too NPC-based because it doesn't feel like a persistent system. So are there steps being made to balance that or how that's going to unfold?
BC: Did somebody tell you about my offshore gold farming business that I started? laughter
JN: So balancing the economy? Yes that's super important to us for sure. I think were going to see how it goes when we get all of you in. But before that? We're definitely working on it, for sure.
BC: And obviously its something that we put a lot into, we have an army of designers that are ready and waiting for whenever that moment may come when we actually get more people in to test and that's a part of the process, right? So the more people that get in there that's when you start to flesh that stuff out.
RC: So I'm gonna go for 3 more questions.
Audience Member 22: You are obviously following in the footsteps of another MMO, which has its own complicated history and its own fans and its own detractors. Is there anything you say that you learned from the many years of Star Wars Galaxies existence that you may do or not do based on its successes and/or failures?
JN: You know, Tim and myself still work on Galaxies, so its a constant learning experience, I mean what can you say? I think Galaxies has taught many people in the MMO business how to make an MMO. So for us, what were taking away is what do those fans love about Star Wars, whats the expectation there, how can we bring that over, how do we make sure we do our classes right, what behaviors we see. You know Galaxies has been going on for so long now there's people making up their own game in there, so were looking at hey, what are they doing, and whats cool about that, and why are they spending their time there, and then we can bring it over to these guys and say this is something these players love, these Star Wars fans love. So were always looking at it and always looking to emulate, and that goes for all the other games in that genre, for sure, not just Galaxies. Tim, do you want to talk about Galaxies?
Tim: Well just through (unintelligible), and feedback, and community polls
BC: Lessons learned.
RC: The other thing that I have to add for these guys, for both the Lucasarts team and the Bioware team huge group, talented bunch of people. They've work on many other MMOs, and they're bringing about this amazing amount of experience? Its awesome all this knowledge brought together under this one game. It is pretty cool.
AM22: I think everyone here has a tremendous amount of faith that you'll do a good job.
RC: Thank you were trying.
Audience Member 23: Our friends are completely divided on which factions to play for. These two idiots are playing light side laughter and I'm going to have power, so.when they make the decision to come over, if they can, how is faction-transferring going to work, and how extensive is the quest chain going to work if it is a quest chain going to be? Or is it going to be just straight up paying for a transfer?
JN: We have to get factions in your hand first before we can talk about faction-changing. Our priority is to get it out to you and get it going, and so were not focusing on the change part right now. Were focusing on the how can you rock your boys on the server, while on vent laughter
RC: This will be the last question.
Audience Member 24: So on the Smuggler demo that we saw, not only did the Smuggler but his opponents took cover. So if we can run with that, as far as the NPCs having some decent AI, how much can we expect the environment to affect NPCs, such as on Nal Hutta, when you are looking at them together. How much can we expect them to have maybe a gang war that has nothing to do with you? Or is that even way beyond our wilder dreams?
BC: I actually have a slick answer for this one. So in the Flashpoint, you will notice that there is a war going on between the NPCs. So you actually see the Imperial troops fighting with the Republic troops as you're running through there. So there are definitely going to be elements of that where and when it makes sense.
AM24: Would it be akin to say, two rival Hutt gangs having a fight?
JN: Maaaaybe. laughter
Credit to
OverlyPositive for making the transcript of our Q&A audio coverage.
