Posted by Kraevin | 0 comments

A Path to Success: Maps, and their Making

As our game testers play The Old Republicâ„¢ and we track their characters, they produce a lot of data – on everything from how long it takes them to move across a planet, to where they stop and look at the scenery. We bundle all this data together into what we call ‘metrics’.

Our design team loves metrics.

We love them because when designing a game, it’s one thing to say how things should be, but it’s quite another to see how things actually are. When we see metrics, we see exactly how the game is being played in pure numerical form. Getting this level of insight into what you’ve designed is often vindicating, invigorating and sometimes even humbling. Of course it can also be panic-inducing at times, too!

Let me give you an example. Some time ago, resident metrics enthusiast (and Lead Combat Designer) Georg Zoeller posed a simple question to the design team: “Which part of the user interface is opened more than any other when playing Star Warsâ„¢: The Old Republicâ„¢?” It was a simple question, but the answer wasn’t any of the UI parts you might expect: not our character sheet, inventory or the Crew Skills window. No, the winner was the World Map. And it won easily – by more than an order of magnitude. Let me tell you why.

To read the full article click on the Read More button below.

Posted by Evel | 0 comments

27 Bottles of Beer on the wall….

Put on your tin foil hat folks – you’re in for a looooong ride!

<Begins to sing slurring>

27 bottles of beer on the wall.. 27 bottles of beer.. Take one down, pass it around.. 26 bottles of beer on the wall!

<Ends singing>

We are just over halfway through 2011 and we officially have 27 Friday’s left in the year for BioWare to release information on Star Wars: The Old Republic.  This is my “speculation” into what we may see in some of these Friday Updates and I don’t believe we will be using all 27…

Update 07/01/11: After reviewing all of the past trailers we are actually missing quite a few “Armor” Progression Trailers and of course the Jedi Consular class trailer.  I have updated my list below to compensate for these missing trailers.

July 1 - Jedi Consular Class Update (Actual: Bounty Hunter Character (Armor) Progression)
July 8 –  Developers Blog (A Path to Success: Maps, and their Making) ✔
July 15 – Fan Friday | Studio Insider (w/ Audio Q/A) ✔
July 22 – San Diego Comic Con Reveals (Reveals: Jedi Consular Class Update/Trailer, (Remaining) Crew Skills, War Zone – VoidStar, (Low) Pre-Order, Box & Collector’s Edition details)
July 29 – San Diego Comic Con Recap & Jedi Consular Armor Progression
August 5 – Developers Blog
August 12 – Fan Friday | Studio Insider
August 19 – GamesCon Reveals (Reveals: “Train Horn” AKA Countdown to release date announcement for PAX, Last HoloNet Tab Revealed (speculated Legacy system) & Guild HQ Phase 2)
August 26 – PAX Reveals (Major Reveals: Release Date, Sith Inquisitor Armor Progression)
September 2 – GamesCon & PAX Recap | Expanded Game Testing Details Revealed via Pre-Orders
September 9 - Developers Blog (Character Creation) | Removal of the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for Game Testers
September 16 - Fan Friday | Studio Insider (Guild HQ Phase 3*)
September 23 – EUROGAMER EXPO Reveals (Reveals: Imperial Agent Armor Progression, Smuggler Armor Progression, Head Start Details**, Server Lists & Website Update: Advanced Class Skill Tree “Calculators”)
Tuesday, September 27 – Star Wars: The Old Republic is Released!

*Guild Phase 3 could likely happen the Wednesday (September 21) before the EUROGAMER EXPO.
**Depending on the number of days they will be offering a Head Start the details could come earlier in the week

Posted by Evel | 0 comments

PC Gamer May 2011 Issue

In this months (May 2011) PC Gamer Magazine BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic was featured with a plethora of information about the Imperial Agent.

Article Summary (Credit EMHologram)

- Bioware manages to differentiate the Jedi starting area from the Agent starting area.
- Bioware has done an impressive job of replicating the lifestyle of a secret agent.
- There are still a lot of kill-and-deliver quests, but there was usually a more in-depth class quest which added more meaning to the area.
-Example: “When I was sent to sabotage the power factory…, I ran into a small outpost of downtrodden locals. If I was headed into the facility anyways, why not earn a few extra credits by stealing some power generators and stomping a few bad-guy faces for ‘em”
-”Tales of TOR’s focus on story have not been exaggerated: it’s immediately apparent that this is a BioWare game. ”
-Kaliyo reminds the reviewer of Morrigan: “dark, sexy and disapproving of everything I did”
-Cover activated by holding Shift. This highlights cover locations; you can tap R to roll into the one you’re looking at.
-Cover is NOT a flat percent-damage reduction. If you’re behind it when someone shoots at you, it misses completely. If you’re shooting, you’re going to get hit. Cover degrades as it gets shot, and some abilities are designed specifically to shoot over cover or knock you out of it.
-Cover-exclusive abilities (like Snipe- “a high damage ability with a long cast time”, Suppressive Fire- “a channeled spray-and-pray technique that hits all targets in front of you randomly”, and Explosive Probe- “Sends a small probe to the target that explodes the next time they’re hit”).
-”Fighting is all about rhythm”
-”Solo Conversation” mode, which allows players to enter conversations alone, even when grouped.
-Kaas City is interesting- “it takes a very interesting twist that involves rival Sith Lords, terrorist cells plotting to destroy the city and a cult of Revanites”
-Crew Skills- Archeology (Gathering skill, able to mine crystal nodes and three rotating missions that the writer could send their companion on- example is a dead Sarlacc), Underworld Trading (spices), and Treasure Hunters (previously announced).

Find out more about the Imperial Agent Skill Trees and PvP by pressing the Read More button.

Posted by Evel | 0 comments

Friday Update: Crew Skills

This Friday’s Update elaborates on the new Crew Skills system that was announced recently at the EA Winter Showcase in Europe.

Alyson Bridge said:
The galaxy is full of resources and opportunities for your character to benefit and profit. The Crew Skills system allows you to gather those valuable resources, craft a wide range of useful items, and send your crew out on their own missions to retrieve rewards. With Crew Skills, you’ll be able to do all these things while your character stays in the action or even if you have to log off!

Crew Skills are a unique approach to a crafting system, built to suit the tastes of a broad range of players and to maximize your time spent adventuring and experiencing your character’s story while still earning useful benefits. Put your companions to work and get the most out of the galaxy’s myriad opportunities!

Learn more details about the inner workings of the Crew Skills Game System on the new Crew Skills System page.

Posted by Evel | 0 comments

Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills

Our friends at Darthhater.com recently spoke with the Lead Writer Daniel Erickson for Star Wars: The Old Republic after last weeks EA Winter Showcase about the Crew Skills system.

The crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic we call Crew Skills is something we worked on literally for years trying to solve some of the big puzzles. There are a lot of us who are big crafting fans, including myself, but we really wanted to make sure we preserved some of the core concepts around SWTOR such as you play a hero of Star Wars. You are doing big, heroic, and exciting things. You are not sewing. You are not making shoes. You are not hanging out trying to get some thread together.

We went through a lot of versions of how we work with this, and one of the things we kept coming back to was companion characters. One of the issues with companion characters in past BioWare games has always been that you have a limited set of who you can bring in your party at one time. For most people, they pick the couple of companions they really like, and everybody else ends up back on the ship. These came together into a great kind of synergy for us and became the Crew Skills system, which is a combination of wanting crafting, but we don’t want to make your character mundane and we need something for your crew to be doing. So alright, we have a perfect match.

Full Interview (Darthhater.com)