BioWare released a number of new screenshots.
They're looking pretty good. The lightsabers definitely look better (thanks for listening, childre... I mean BioWare). Though I'm still not happy with the "heroic proportions" of the characters, I'm sure I'll live.
Now, let me see if this image embedding actually works...
A Kel Dor
Fight Amongst the Ruins
Sith Academy
Jedi Strikes Down a Nexu
A Sith unleashes Force lightning
Dark and Light Clash
Jedi Enclave on Tython
There you go.
[EDIT] Changed the width of the preview images. Looks a bit nicer this way I think.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
Adjust Your Thinking: Story Comes First
I already quoted this bit from Rob Chestney’s BioWare Blog entry in a previous post, but let me quote it again:
The important lesson here is that, for BioWare and here specifically in Star Wars: The Old Republic, story comes first. As such we have to adjust our thinking to keep that in mind. When we talk about game design or anything really we have to keep in mind that story comes first.
Let me give an example of what I mean.
A lot of the discussion in the community at the moment seems to be, understandably, what classes are going to be in the game. And often these discussions centre around what gameplay mechanics people feel the game needs to have, like ‘needing’ classes for tank, damage-dealing and healing. For instance when people talk about there needing to be several Jedi classes the ones they suggest tend to be Guardian (in a more tank-oriented role), Sentinel (in a more rogue/dps-oriented role) and Consular (in a more healer/crowd-control oriented role), taken from KotOR.
What people seem to tend to forget is that for BioWare story comes first, and classes that people suggest tend not to be that indicative of story. Those three Jedi classes I mentioned above all are likely to have pretty much the same story. In fact, that is how it worked in KotOR; no matter which class you pick you get the same story. But BioWare have said that each class gets a unique story, so doesn’t it make sense that the classes themselves suggest to the player what kind of story and background you have?
Instead I prefer to look at the movies and see what classes those stories might suggest. One story is that of Luke Skywalker, which could be a Jedi class (all the way from clueless moisture farmer to Jedi Grand Master in the expanded universe). Another is that of Han Solo, something like a Smuggler class perhaps. These two stories intertwine and even share significant segments, but they’re still separate, particularly in the second movie where Luke is going to Yoda and Han is trying to escape the Empire’s pursuit. Or in the last movie where Luke is off to face the Emperor and Han is trying to deactivate the shield generator on Endor. Add some more classes for the other characters and their stories (like Leia who could be a Republic Soldier or such) on both sides of the fence as well as the prequel movies and you’ve got a solid set of classes.
That’s not to say that there won’t be tank/dps/healer archetypes, but the gameplay needs to work within the story and not the other way around. As such if you have the general classes story might suggest then you can look if those generally fit those archetypes. If not then you have to look for other solutions, like making each class flexible enough to take different paths. There might only be one ‘Jedi’ class (and there could be more, but it seems to me that they’d be story-centric like “outcast Jedi”, “redeemed Sith”, “rookie Padawan”, etc), but within that class one could specialize as Guardian, Sentinel or Consular. Think of it like the entirety of KotOR is really just a single class. I think that is the scope BioWare is talking about.
Classes aren’t the only place where keeping story in mind is important. Some people have been clamouring for a strongly player-driven economy with lots of player crafting for most mundane items. But while I’d love to see something like that the question one has to ask themselves is: what does it contribute to the story? Sure you could tell the story of a moisture farmer on Tatooine, but is that the kind of heroic story BioWare is looking to tell? Note that Luke’s story pretty much starts when he stops being a farmer. Instead let crafting be heroic itself and add to the story. I think learning how to craft your own lightsaber, having to gather rare parts in dangerous places, and learning to customize your own outfit to establish your character more would fit the bill, but not this endless clicking of buttons that crafting usually is in most games.
Another place where one might need to keep story in mind is when talking about things like instances. Instances are often considered a dirty word by MMO gamers these days, which is a shame since they are one of the strongest tools MMO developers have at their disposal to tell stories. It gives them unique control over the area, allowing them to change it for a specific player depending on the circumstances. If you’re asked to get rid of a certain boss and that boss just respawns then that automatically takes away from the story. After all, in the end you’re not really changing anything and stories are all about change. Even more, with instances the developers can make changes to the world, destroy part or add new parts, etc. Imagine going over a bridge to get somewhere, but when you need to get back the bridge has been destroyed and you need to find another way. You can’t do things like that in a shared environment where others still need to cross that bridge.
I can probably come up with a dozen more examples and I’m certainly not saying that story is the only thing to keep in mind. After all, it still needs to be a solid game as well and it still needs to feel massive to players. All I’m saying that in all our discussion and thinking about the game, thinking about how it might work, we need to keep in the back of our minds that for BioWare story comes first.
So adjust your thinking: story comes first.
What blew me away more than anything in those first few months was that this whole idea of story coming first… it wasn’t just talk. The storyline and narrative setting were the starting point of every discussion about design and even the conversations about art.As I said before I think that there’s an important lesson to learn in that, but I didn’t say what I thought that was last time, so I thought I’d make a post about it.
The important lesson here is that, for BioWare and here specifically in Star Wars: The Old Republic, story comes first. As such we have to adjust our thinking to keep that in mind. When we talk about game design or anything really we have to keep in mind that story comes first.
Let me give an example of what I mean.
A lot of the discussion in the community at the moment seems to be, understandably, what classes are going to be in the game. And often these discussions centre around what gameplay mechanics people feel the game needs to have, like ‘needing’ classes for tank, damage-dealing and healing. For instance when people talk about there needing to be several Jedi classes the ones they suggest tend to be Guardian (in a more tank-oriented role), Sentinel (in a more rogue/dps-oriented role) and Consular (in a more healer/crowd-control oriented role), taken from KotOR.
What people seem to tend to forget is that for BioWare story comes first, and classes that people suggest tend not to be that indicative of story. Those three Jedi classes I mentioned above all are likely to have pretty much the same story. In fact, that is how it worked in KotOR; no matter which class you pick you get the same story. But BioWare have said that each class gets a unique story, so doesn’t it make sense that the classes themselves suggest to the player what kind of story and background you have?
Instead I prefer to look at the movies and see what classes those stories might suggest. One story is that of Luke Skywalker, which could be a Jedi class (all the way from clueless moisture farmer to Jedi Grand Master in the expanded universe). Another is that of Han Solo, something like a Smuggler class perhaps. These two stories intertwine and even share significant segments, but they’re still separate, particularly in the second movie where Luke is going to Yoda and Han is trying to escape the Empire’s pursuit. Or in the last movie where Luke is off to face the Emperor and Han is trying to deactivate the shield generator on Endor. Add some more classes for the other characters and their stories (like Leia who could be a Republic Soldier or such) on both sides of the fence as well as the prequel movies and you’ve got a solid set of classes.
That’s not to say that there won’t be tank/dps/healer archetypes, but the gameplay needs to work within the story and not the other way around. As such if you have the general classes story might suggest then you can look if those generally fit those archetypes. If not then you have to look for other solutions, like making each class flexible enough to take different paths. There might only be one ‘Jedi’ class (and there could be more, but it seems to me that they’d be story-centric like “outcast Jedi”, “redeemed Sith”, “rookie Padawan”, etc), but within that class one could specialize as Guardian, Sentinel or Consular. Think of it like the entirety of KotOR is really just a single class. I think that is the scope BioWare is talking about.
Classes aren’t the only place where keeping story in mind is important. Some people have been clamouring for a strongly player-driven economy with lots of player crafting for most mundane items. But while I’d love to see something like that the question one has to ask themselves is: what does it contribute to the story? Sure you could tell the story of a moisture farmer on Tatooine, but is that the kind of heroic story BioWare is looking to tell? Note that Luke’s story pretty much starts when he stops being a farmer. Instead let crafting be heroic itself and add to the story. I think learning how to craft your own lightsaber, having to gather rare parts in dangerous places, and learning to customize your own outfit to establish your character more would fit the bill, but not this endless clicking of buttons that crafting usually is in most games.
Another place where one might need to keep story in mind is when talking about things like instances. Instances are often considered a dirty word by MMO gamers these days, which is a shame since they are one of the strongest tools MMO developers have at their disposal to tell stories. It gives them unique control over the area, allowing them to change it for a specific player depending on the circumstances. If you’re asked to get rid of a certain boss and that boss just respawns then that automatically takes away from the story. After all, in the end you’re not really changing anything and stories are all about change. Even more, with instances the developers can make changes to the world, destroy part or add new parts, etc. Imagine going over a bridge to get somewhere, but when you need to get back the bridge has been destroyed and you need to find another way. You can’t do things like that in a shared environment where others still need to cross that bridge.
I can probably come up with a dozen more examples and I’m certainly not saying that story is the only thing to keep in mind. After all, it still needs to be a solid game as well and it still needs to feel massive to players. All I’m saying that in all our discussion and thinking about the game, thinking about how it might work, we need to keep in the back of our minds that for BioWare story comes first.
So adjust your thinking: story comes first.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Allakhazam Interviews Sean Dahlberg
Allakhazam has an interview up with Bioware Community Manager in charge of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Sean Dahlberg.
The Old Republic Interview with Sean Dahlberg
It's a nice read, but there is not a lot there. In fact, the only thing of note there, to me, is how often Sean uses "he" and "him" for Revan. Since she was female in my game this is very worrisome as something like that could collapse their fourth pillar (story) for me and possibly bring down the game with it.
Let's just hope that it was a slip-of-the-tongue (it's not easy to keep from referring to a character by gender).
The Old Republic Interview with Sean Dahlberg
It's a nice read, but there is not a lot there. In fact, the only thing of note there, to me, is how often Sean uses "he" and "him" for Revan. Since she was female in my game this is very worrisome as something like that could collapse their fourth pillar (story) for me and possibly bring down the game with it.
Let's just hope that it was a slip-of-the-tongue (it's not easy to keep from referring to a character by gender).
Friday, 21 November 2008
PCGamer Article at GamesRadar
I already posted the text of the PCGamer article on Star Wars: The Old Republic before, but now it's up at GamesRadar (the online home of PCGamer). You can read the article here.
Thanks to darquenblade on the official forum for posting the link.
Thanks to darquenblade on the official forum for posting the link.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Couple of Updates
There have been a couple of updates over the last week or so; nothing too spectacular. A short news message has come to my attention stating that, apparently, George Lucas is throwing his full weight behind Star Wars: The Old Republic. The general consensus on the forums over this seems to be “great… as long as it is sideline support”. It seems that people don’t want him to get directly involved in the story and gameplay decisions, and I can’t really blame them considering how the prequel movies turned out. BioWare can do this just fine without his involvement.
There has also been some news that LucasArts in optimistic about the game. Not that surprising, but it seems that they are literally aiming to be a WoW killer, which causes me no end of concern. At least it seems Blizzard thinks that it could happen, though to me that sounds like they are just covering their bases (and it gives them stronger grounds to make themselves seem even better when it turns out, yet again, that people just go back to WoW again; which is what they did with WAR).
And of course BioWare released some new concept art and added a couple of new avatars to their forums. The concept art is nice, but personally I’m more interested in seeing ingame graphics as what we’ve seen so far has been decidedly underwhelming. I suspect that they’re not showing more ingame shots precisely because of the negative feedback, having decided to wait until the graphics are more polished. I hope so at least, because judging from the screenshots I’ve seen so far I’m not sure I could stand playing the game. Odd considering how nice the concept art looks.
I also noticed a BioWare Blog entry where Rob Chestney gives us a bit of background on how he came to be a senior writer for BioWare. It is odd how I missed that before and only noticed it as I was gathering the links above. Of particular interest to me is the following quote:
There has also been some news that LucasArts in optimistic about the game. Not that surprising, but it seems that they are literally aiming to be a WoW killer, which causes me no end of concern. At least it seems Blizzard thinks that it could happen, though to me that sounds like they are just covering their bases (and it gives them stronger grounds to make themselves seem even better when it turns out, yet again, that people just go back to WoW again; which is what they did with WAR).
And of course BioWare released some new concept art and added a couple of new avatars to their forums. The concept art is nice, but personally I’m more interested in seeing ingame graphics as what we’ve seen so far has been decidedly underwhelming. I suspect that they’re not showing more ingame shots precisely because of the negative feedback, having decided to wait until the graphics are more polished. I hope so at least, because judging from the screenshots I’ve seen so far I’m not sure I could stand playing the game. Odd considering how nice the concept art looks.
I also noticed a BioWare Blog entry where Rob Chestney gives us a bit of background on how he came to be a senior writer for BioWare. It is odd how I missed that before and only noticed it as I was gathering the links above. Of particular interest to me is the following quote:
What blew me away more than anything in those first few months was that this whole idea of story coming first… it wasn’t just talk. The storyline and narrative setting were the starting point of every discussion about design and even the conversations about art.I think there’s an important lesson to learn in that, but I’ll talk about that in another post. For now I’m just happy to file this one under “blog” and leave it at that for now.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Wheel of Time MMO
Alright, so this has nothing to do with Star War: The Old Republic, but it's something that caught my eye (and at least has relevance as in being MMO-related) so I thought I'd post it.
I noticed at Kotaku that apparently there seems to be all kinds of plans in the works for the Wheel of Time. This popular series of fantasy novels by the late Robert Jordan is apparently getting a movie (or several) and games related to the movies. Now while that news in itself is interesting, what really caught my eye was that they're apparently planning to also make a Wheel of Time MMO. From BigDownload:
Now, as I understand it they don't even have a developer for the MMO yet or anything and it'll likely be far in the future (if it ever comes to fruition as we've seen more MMOs been canceled). But personally I think this could be absolutely awesome. Though the books could drag on quite a bit I quite loved the characters and the world Robert Jordan painted. And yes, I would love to play a Green Ajah Aes Sedai with a small flock of Warders. I also quite loved the old Wheel of Time FPS (which was the most strategic FPS I've ever played and quite original with its myriad of different abilities) and used to run a clan for that game, but always felt that it really should've been a roleplaying game as the setting is just ripe for it.
But I'm probably getting way ahead of myself here. At the moment they're just plans and they haven't event started development in any way, shape or form (as I understand it anyway) so if anything it'll likely be many, many years in the future (so much so that I'll likely long be tired of SW:TOR or any other MMO I might pick up in the coming years).
It's nice to dream though.
I noticed at Kotaku that apparently there seems to be all kinds of plans in the works for the Wheel of Time. This popular series of fantasy novels by the late Robert Jordan is apparently getting a movie (or several) and games related to the movies. Now while that news in itself is interesting, what really caught my eye was that they're apparently planning to also make a Wheel of Time MMO. From BigDownload:
In yet another game announcement out of left field, VentureBeat reports that a Hollywood production company called Red Eagle Entertainment is getting into the game business, starting with an MMO based on the Wheel of Time fantasy novel series created by the late Robert Jordan.VentureBeat has a bit more on the movies and other games.
Red Eagle has the movie, TV and game rights to all 11 novels in the best selling series along with the rights to the upcoming and final Wheel of Time book (currently being written by another author based on notes by Jordan who died in 2007). Games are planned to be tied into releases of movies based on the Wheel of Time novels with VentureBeat reporting that Universal Studios may pony up as much as $150 million to make the first novel, The Eye of the World. An Wheel of Time MMO is also planned.
This won't be the first time that a game based on the novel series will be released. In 1999 the now defunct Legend Entertainment released a first person action game based on the Wheel of Time series. Published by GT Interactive (now renamed Infogrames/Atari) the game got good reviews but was overshadowed by the release of Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament at the same time and did not sell as many copies as anticipated.
Now, as I understand it they don't even have a developer for the MMO yet or anything and it'll likely be far in the future (if it ever comes to fruition as we've seen more MMOs been canceled). But personally I think this could be absolutely awesome. Though the books could drag on quite a bit I quite loved the characters and the world Robert Jordan painted. And yes, I would love to play a Green Ajah Aes Sedai with a small flock of Warders. I also quite loved the old Wheel of Time FPS (which was the most strategic FPS I've ever played and quite original with its myriad of different abilities) and used to run a clan for that game, but always felt that it really should've been a roleplaying game as the setting is just ripe for it.
But I'm probably getting way ahead of myself here. At the moment they're just plans and they haven't event started development in any way, shape or form (as I understand it anyway) so if anything it'll likely be many, many years in the future (so much so that I'll likely long be tired of SW:TOR or any other MMO I might pick up in the coming years).
It's nice to dream though.
Massively Links
Hadn't noticed Massively.com before (and I'm sure there's a load of other gaming news websites that I haven't seen before), but came across a link to one of their articles which led me to explore and uncover a whole load more link to articles.
Originally I just thought to edit my original links post, but then wouldn't that be defeating the purpose of a blog? Besides, with the links label you can find all posts with links anyway, so I decided to just make a new post.
Some of the more interesting articles:
Originally I just thought to edit my original links post, but then wouldn't that be defeating the purpose of a blog? Besides, with the links label you can find all posts with links anyway, so I decided to just make a new post.
Some of the more interesting articles:
- Announcement Liveblog
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Overview, space combat, and Star Wars Galaxies
- The Lore of Star Wars: The Old Republic
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Classes, Jedi, and Crafting
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Combat, PvP, and Heroics
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Setting, Sith, and Empire
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Companion Characters
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Leveling, Sidekicking, and Questing
- The Old Republic Unveiled: Classed-based storytelling and tales of heroism
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