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SWTOR News
8/16/10 12:00 PM -
Interview: BioWare's Lead Concept Artist Arnie Jorgensen 
by sado
, posted August 16th, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Star Wars Celebration V allowed us to talk with multiple members of the LucasArts and Bioware teams; many of which, such as Clint Young and Hall Hood, joined us for their first official Darth Hater interview. Now we add to that list with BioWare's Lead Concept Artist Arnie Jorgensen. Read on to learn about concept art, as well as the loot and levels in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
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Feature
6/28/10 1:46 PM -
Dissected: E3 Content 
by sado
, posted June 28th, 2010 at 1:46 PM
Our dissection of the Star Wars: The Old Republic content released during E3 is now online. As in our prior dissections, we will add new content in as we find it, so keep checking back. Feel free to let us know if you notice something we missed, and we will be happy to add it to our dissection with credit. Note: If something is mentioned in a prior dissection, then we do not reiterate it again here. Low bandwidth users should note there are numerous images contained in this article.
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SWTOR News
3/21/10 4:11 PM -
Damion Schubert on Balancing Group & Solo XP 
by Zenkei
, posted March 21st, 2010 at 4:11 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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Speculation
12/18/09 6:45 AM -
Charting a Path to Class Customization 
by emlaeh
, posted December 18th, 2009 at 6:45 AM
As the news coming out of Austin continues to pick up speed, mining information is becoming much more exciting. The response to our recent speculation articles inspired us to delve deeper into what we were previously told about Star Wars: The Old Republic with surprising results. We used our recently acquired knowledge to give context to older news items, and realized BioWare was giving us hard facts all along.
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Editorial
9/23/09 1:25 PM -
PHAT LEWTZ 
by Aetheus
, posted September 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 PM
I am the kind of person who will analyze everything. When I watched the walkthrough video I was looking at every element on the screen and comparing it to other MMOs that I have already played. The most prominent in my mind would of course be World of Warcraft which I am currently still playing. In the walkthrough video I noticed that a Jedi dropped (you guessed it) loot that a Sith could actually carry.
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SWTOR News
8/25/09 9:43 PM -
G4 Interview and Insight on Leveling. 
by Zoidberg
, posted August 25th, 2009 at 9:43 PM
G4 has another review of Star Wars: The Old Republic, this one's big feature is there is at least 40 levels for us to venture through. You can read the entire feature here. There is a nice 5 minute video of the interview with Daniel Erickson. Remember, your past will come back to haunt you in this game at lvl 40 and possibly beyond.

And now at level 40, you're a pretty good and these guys come to you.
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