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SWTOR News
3/21/10 3:11 PM -
Damion Schubert on Balancing Group & Solo XP 
by Zenkei
, posted March 21st, 2010 at 3:11 PM
A post from Star Wars: The Old Republic's Damion Schubert gave some insight on balancing XP gains for solo and group players:

We increase the XP pool for each group member in it, and then divide that pool. I don't have the number in front of me, but its something we'll be tweaking as we play anyway.

The general gist is that we want to reward grouping, but not so much that grouping is the only way to play the game (something that is very easy to do if you tilt the table too much, and then balance the levelling curve to that rate gain). That being said, as some have mentioned, grouping with another person increases your killing efficiency and reduces your risk of death substantially, to the degree that being in a group of two is vastly more efficient than 2X killing efficiency (this is like most MMOs). Still, you want to reward grouping enough to help ensure that you overcome the friction associated with grouping (finding groupmates, getting to them, tolerating idiots, etc).

Other notes:

Yes, we have anti-twink measures. Yes, high level players get shut out if they kill creatures too far below them. This is a fine line - you want to let high level players help their new friends, but you really don't want high level players hunting in low level areas, as that can be disruptive to the lowbies.
Yes, compared to other MMOs, we give you more XP for completing quests and less for killing creatures. These numbers will also likely be continually tweaked.
Yes, harder things give more experience.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Xavior
Group of 5 level 10's killing a level 10 mob: 100 xp each
Group of 3 level 10's killing a level 10 mob: 100 xp each
Solo person of level 10 killing a level 10 mob: 100 xp

no one gets screwed, no one is forced to group and everyone is happy.

Balancing it's not that easy. Instead, you need to look at XP gain per hour. A group of 3 can kill (let's say) 5X the creatures than a solo player can in an hour, which means that if you give everyone the full XP value, grouping is 5X() more efficient than soloing. If you balance the curve to that, the solo player gets screwed.

In our curve, we push that towards being closer to 2-3X. Still a significant advantage, but the grouper has to deal with all of the inertia of forming a group.
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SWTOR News
3/19/10 10:44 AM -
Star Wars: The Old Republic Confirmed at E3 
by emlaeh
, posted March 19th, 2010 at 10:44 AM
The events page at the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website updated today and confirmed E3 attendance for 2010:

Have you been wondering where you can get a glimpse of Star Wars: The Old Republic in person? We have some exciting news We have confirmed the first event that we will be attending this year: Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on June 15th to the 17th. We will have updates available to the community on the official website.

Darth Hater plans to attend with a full contingent to cover all the related activities.
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SWTOR News
3/19/10 9:10 AM -
Friday Update: Fan Friday & DevTracker Highlights 
by Zenkei
, posted March 19th, 2010 at 9:10 AM
This week's update is a Fan Friday. As Sean Sean Dahlberg said:

In this Fan Friday, we are highlighting various items from the Star Wars: The Old Republic community, dishing out exciting content from the Development Team, following up on GDC 2010, and confirming our presence at this years E3.

If you're looking for more opportunities to voice your opinion, you'll be interested in the new polls we posted up. Also, we added new avatars to the forums, so try them out.

The Developer Corner section includes is an amazing video of the Sith Inquisitor showing off some of his lightning abilities with booming sound effects.

Also included is some fan art by Hazaz and some by Daennika, some fan fiction by terminalpleasure, a Sith History Guide for Noobies by Danik_Kreldin, a few new pictures of customizable female faces, new avatars, new polls, and a wrap-up on GDC 2010.

In addition to Fan Friday, Daniel Erickson posted a few comments on the official forums this week. Details on his posts after the jump.
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Podcast
3/18/10 9:18 PM -
Darth Hater Episode 26 - Live Q&A 
by sado
, posted March 18th, 2010 at 9:18 PM
This episode covers the live Q&A we held on March 15th. It contains only the Q&A and is not a regular podcast episode. We hope you enjoy this special episode of the Darth Hater podcast. Thank you to all that attended and participated.

Feel free to give us your feedback on the Q&A and we will try to address some of it during the next podcast.

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SWTOR News
3/15/10 3:03 AM -
GDC: Trooper Hands-On & TOR Game Play Impressions 
by emlaeh
, posted March 15th, 2010 at 3:03 AM
Last week, LucasArts & BioWare extended an invitation to Darth Hater for another round of Star Wars: The Old Republic hands-on game play at the beautiful Presidio campus in San Francisco. Eager to take another look, Meg and I left GDC and made our way to Lucasfilm where we were treated to playing Level 6 Troopers on Ord Mantell, and also spoke in depth with Jake Neri of LucasArts and Daniel Erickson of BioWare.

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SWTOR News
3/15/10 3:02 AM -
Interview: Story In-Depth With Daniel Erickson 
by emlaeh
, posted March 15th, 2010 at 3:02 AM
While attending GDC last week, Darth Hater was fortunate enough to be invited out to the LucasArts office in San Francisco for a hands-on demo featuring the Trooper class. After finishing our time with the game we spoke with Daniel Erickson, Star Wars: The Old Republic's lead writer about the classes, their stories, and a few of the choices players will be facing in game.
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SWTOR News
3/15/10 3:01 AM -
LucasArts' Jake Neri on BioWare's James Ohlen, Endgame & Intertwining Pillars 
by emlaeh
, posted March 15th, 2010 at 3:01 AM
While talking with Jake Neri about the Trooper, we decided to use the opportunity to gather more information about Star Wars: The Old Republic. The LucasArts producer offered what limited insight he could into BioWare's James Ohlen and his recent comments on endgame.

First, we have to address James Ohlen. First off -- he is a total badass. He probably did more really amazing RPGs than anyone around, so he is allowed to say things like that. He is allowed to think outside of what us, the rest of us normal humans, are allowed to think about.
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SWTOR News
3/14/10 2:23 PM -
BioWare's Ben Cloward on Facial Animation 
by Ascendant
, posted March 14th, 2010 at 2:23 PM
A thread on the official forums highlights a lecture by Ben Cloward, Senior Technical Artist at BioWare. The session, entitled Automated Emotion: Facial Animation in Star Wars: The Old Republic, goes into detail about the methods used by BioWare to generate facial animations for the huge amount of dialogue in The Old Republic. Calithlin, who attended the session, shared his experience with the community.

There were a lot of topics discussed, but the main focus was on getting all the facial animation for the dialogue to be generated by software, rather than completely hand-keyed. (If done by hand, it would take four animators TEN YEARS of work around the clock, 24/7, no breaks, solid work to get it all done for every bit of dialogue.)

More after the jump.
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SWTOR News
3/12/10 9:54 AM -
Friday Update: Belsavis, New WebComic, GDC Info 
by Zoidberg
, posted March 12th, 2010 at 9:54 AM
Today revealed more tidbits about Star Wars: The Old Republic. First up, a new planet:

Since before the Great War, the ancient Rakatan prisons of Belsavis have been maintained by the Republic and used to incarcerate some of the galaxys most dangerous Sith lords, Mandalorian warriors, and ferocious aliens. Having recently discovered the location of this Republic super prison, the Empire is determined to see its allies released.

Access the HoloNet to learn more about the ancient prisons of Belsavis, and the horrible secrets contained within its vaults. View the glacial world of Belsavis in this video and visit the media section for never-before-seen screenshots, concept art, and wallpapers depicting the setting and the struggle of Belsavis.

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SWTOR News
3/12/10 7:30 AM -
GDC: BioWare's Walton on Adding Space Combat to Star Wars Galaxies & Customer Retention 
by emlaeh
, posted March 12th, 2010 at 7:30 AM
One of larger portions of BioWare Austin's Co-Studio Director Gordon Walton and consultant Scott Hartsman's GDC session, "MMO Retention -- Learning From The First 25 Years," highlighted some of the game change management issues MMO developers encountered trying to retain existing customers. Although we plan on issuing a more comprehensive article on how some of the topics discussed in this session may relate to Star Wars: The Old Republic, we decided to release this very telling quote about Walton's experience with introducing space combat in an expansion for Star Wars Galaxies.
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Site News
3/12/10 4:00 AM -
Darth Hater Live Q&A Monday, March 15 
by emlaeh
, posted March 12th, 2010 at 4:00 AM
Join us for a Darth Hater Live Q&A session on Monday, March 15 at 6PM PST / 9PM EST. The Q&A session will last approximately one hour, and take place on our TypeFrag-hosted Ventrilo server.


The server settings are:

Hostname: vent.darthhater.com
Port: 26166

After you successfully connect, please do the following:

1.Join the DarthHater.com channel
2.Turn off all TTS/WAV binds in your Ventrilo client
3.Click the "Chat" button in your Ventrilo client

For those who cannot attend, please note we will make the recording available within a few days.
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SWTOR News
3/11/10 9:09 PM -
Dr. Ray Muzyka on Content Updates And Sequels 
by emlaeh
, posted March 11th, 2010 at 9:09 PM
BioWare co-founder and CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka participated in a GDCSF session yesterday entitled "Fireside Chat: Building a Blockbuster Franchise," along with Bungie Creative Director Joseph Staten. We had the opportunity to ask Dr. Muzyka about his views on content updates versus expansions or sequels.

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