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8/18/10 11:34 AM -
by Chris
, posted August 18th, 2010 at 11:34 AM
It appears that August is interview season for those of us following Star Wars: The Old Republic. We recently had some excellent face time during Celebration V, and this trend continues in Germany with James Ohlen. In our first interview from Gamescom, James gives us insight into why there are advanced classes, who they are designing PVP for, and what we can expect from space combat.
 
8/9/10 8:09 PM -
by emlaeh
, posted August 9th, 2010 at 8:09 PM
BioWare's Lead Combat Designer, Damion Schubert, authored another insightful piece for Game Developer Magazine, and this time he focused on a hot button topic Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ fans debated long before the game itself was announced.

The following is a an excerpt from the August 2010 issue entitled The Casual/Hardcore Continuum:

Back in 1971, Nolan Bushnell of Atari said, "All the best games are easy to learn, and difficult to master," a design philosophy now treated as instinctual by nearly every designer in the industry. This describes a philosophy of smoothly escalating levels of investment. Casual to hardcore is not a binary option -- it's a sliding scale. We, as designers, want to find ways to smooth out that climb so that players increase their commitment level to our game. Good games convert casual players into hardcore ones, because these games are worth the investment.

Schubert also opines a bit about the misconception that casual doesn't necessarily mean easy difficulty. It is a good read for those who participate in these sorts of debates, so check it out if you can.
This article's tags:
 
7/25/10 12:10 PM -
by Misenus
, posted July 25th, 2010 at 12:10 PM


Star Wars™ authors were out in force at the San Diego Comic-Con, and we were on hand to pry as much information from them as we could. In addition to Sean Williams, we sat down with BioWare staple Drew Karpyshyn to learn more about crafting stories for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
 
7/23/10 3:09 PM -
by Staff
, posted July 23rd, 2010 at 3:09 PM
Darth Hater will bring you coverage of Comic-Con all throughout the day. Keep your eyes peeled and F5s stomped for incoming news on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Our Comic-Con schedule includes live blogging of the 1:00-2:00 PM PST Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story in Star Wars: The Old Republic panel, featuring BioWare developers James Ohlen, Alex Freed, and Drew Karpyshyn.

DH Comic-Con Content:

External Comic-Con Content:
 
6/30/10 10:51 PM -
by Dover
, posted June 30th, 2010 at 10:51 PM
Early today, Gamasutra revealed that BioWare and LucasArts will be utilizing Monolith Software for their IT management. They believe Monolith will provide a server monitoring solution with the customization and speed required by an MMO on the scale of Star Wars: The Old Republic™ come launch. Quoting Gamasutra's Eric Caoili:

[Monolith] says its software is a "multi-tenant, fault/event management and availability/performance monitoring solution" that collects, analyzes, and correlates data through web-based dashboards, which allows developers and publishers to visualize and monitor that information in real time.

BioWare chose Monolith's solution for its ability to manage the real-time monitoring of thousands of devices at several data centers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The developer says the solution also fits into its Linux environment and met all of its requirements, including specific customizations.

Hat tip to Chronium.
 
6/30/10 5:50 AM -
by sado
, posted June 30th, 2010 at 5:50 AM
This week's DevTracker Highlights discuss what the developers prefer to play, video capturing, hints on upcoming videos, and more after the jump.
 
6/16/10 4:20 PM -
by Dover
, posted June 16th, 2010 at 4:20 PM
We had the pleasure to interview Daniel Erickson of BioWare about companions, warzones, player ships, party dynamics, and more.


The video portion is above, and the transcription is after the jump. Enjoy.
 
6/15/10 9:03 PM -
by Dover
, posted June 15th, 2010 at 9:03 PM
We were lucky enough to be the first group to see Star Wars: The Old Republic on the E3 show floor today. Before getting our hands on time and interviews were treated to an official presentation by BioWare's Blaine Christine. In addition to seeing the new trailer, we learned all about the marketing focus during this years Electronic Entertainment Expo.
 
6/3/10 2:08 AM -
by Ascendant
, posted June 3rd, 2010 at 2:08 AM
BioWare's Daniel Erickson posted details on the dialogue system in Star Wars: The Old Republic in a thread started by Ewoky.

The Mass Effect dialogue system worked exceptionally well for keeping the game fast and action-oriented, which is always that team's target. On Dragon Age we went for a more classic RPG approach with more options and the ability to dig into all the little details. The first option in dialogue was usually the most sensible one for a reasonable person in the situation. SWTOR is somewhere in the middle. We keep the story moving (nobody wants to sit there in a multiplayer game while their party member begs an NPC for more backstory) but we present the options based on the situation and the class or faction.

So in the Flashpoint that Altyrell mentioned, the kill option was on the top because it was an Imperial quest and being darkside is the default for their big faction choices. In the same manner the top option for Smugglers tends to be funny or flirty, Bounty Hunters tend to be all business, Consulars tend to be questioning and wise, etc. Then, of course, the rest of the options enable players to do something totally different with their characters. Want to be a hardcase Smuggler? A wry action hero Bounty Hunter? A charming Inquisitor? Choices are much broader than just good and evil.

Hope that helps!

One interesting difference between the Mass Effect and TOR dialogue systems is the positioning of options on the wheel. While in Mass Effect the top (default) option tends to fit good-aligned characters regardless of the character's alignment, the default in TOR character seems to match a character's alignment. Players who found the Mass Effect dialogue choices to be too black and white may see the inclusion of a wider variety of options as a welcome change.
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5/12/10 7:15 PM -
by Zoidberg
, posted May 12th, 2010 at 7:15 PM
BioWare's Sean Dahlberg confirmed there was a press event in the UK the past day or two:

Star Wars: The Old Republic participated in the EA UK Press Event in London over these last few days. Starting 9am UTC/GMT tomorrow [That's 2am PDT, 4am CDT, 5am EDT], the embargo on this event will be lifted and you'll begin to see various updates across the web pertaining to this.

Feel free to post and discuss articles you find in this thread and I'll update the first post as often as possible.
This article's tags:
 
5/5/10 7:37 PM -
by Dover
, posted May 5th, 2010 at 7:37 PM
BioWare recently revealed a new section of the HoloNet titled Inhabitants. This section of the Star Wars: The Old Republic official site is dedicated to the NPCs and mobs we will encounter in-game, broken up into three subcategories: Creatures, Droids, and Humanoids. In addition to new screenshots and animations, each entry contains few paragraphs dedicated to the mob's defining traits and features. We took a closer look at the writing on these pages (both English and Aurebesh), picking specific statements that inspired gameplay speculation.

 
5/4/10 3:58 PM -
by Zenkei
, posted May 4th, 2010 at 3:58 PM
A couple weeks ago we were our first look at the new Blood of the Empire webcomic. As we learned with Threat of Peace, these comics are a wellspring of clues about Star Wars: The Old Republic. Always hungry for any information on TOR, we dug into the new comic to see what we could find.