In an interview with Gamasutra, James Ohlen, Project Lead for The Old Republic, discusses the difficulties of developing a MMO and talks about the final phases of the game’s development. He goes on to divulge a bit about the uses of beta testing and the focus on polish as well as planning for future content.  While the interview doesn’t reveal anything really new it does give us a bit of perspective about the process that the developers are going through in order to bring a high quality experience at launch.  According to Ohlen it looks like they are expecting to have a very large launch crowd and are determined to make sure it runs smoothly.

Talking to Gamasutra, BioWare’s leaders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk speak about their expectations for The Old Republic, preparing for launch, and how they are handling comparisons to the biggest MMO on the market. The interview is quite lengthy and also includes talk about BioWare’s other IPs, Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

There are quite a few topics covered just on TOR, but there are a few key points. Talking about what is required to launch an MMO of this scale, the doctors admit that they do not have experience in this area. Luckily there are many members of their team who have launched an MMO before, with BioWare Mythic having launched multiple MMOs in the past. They also talk about the difference between a traditional boxed game launch, and The Old Republic as a service launch. BioWare has had problems in the past already with digital game launches, with users unable to connect and authenticate their games online such as Mass Effect 2, so they are sure to take extra preparations for such a large launch.

The Old Republic has constantly been compared to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, and while no game can match up to WoW’s success, Zeschuk says it’s “inevitable” that the games be compared. But whether TOR can overtake WoW or not, BioWare are confident. “[Once] you’ve tried it, you just can’t go back,” says Muzyka.

Last week at DICE, BioWare founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka held a presentation called “The BioWare Method” where they discussed what goes in to building a successful studio such as BioWare and some of the philosophies and ideals they follow that helped them get to where they are today.

While not directly related to The Old Republic, it’s a great watch for those interested in the behind the scenes industry efforts. Topics discussed include the importance of building the right team and having a strong company culture. My main takeaway: don’t wear a finely striped shirt on camera.

Matt Boudreaux (aka AdeptStrain), previously from the Star Wars Galaxies team, has joined BioWare to work on The Old Republic.

Matt also notes he will be working as a programmer.

Speaking in New York today, EA Chief Banker Eric Brown described the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic as “largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company.” More cash is going into this game than any other before it at EA.

He went on to say that a typical packaged game costs around $30 million, but because of the nature of MMOs, they “[cost] significantly more than that.” Brown estimated that it cost Blizzard “$100 million, perhaps more” to ship World of Warcraft in 2004. From the sounds of things, EA is looking for SW:TOR to be similarly successful in the amount of revenue earned each month from subscriptions to recoup costs.

It’s always interesting to hear about how much EA is putting into the game, but surely it is LucasArts’s largest project ever as well? The Old Republic is still aiming for a Spring 2011 release date.

SWTOR is EA’s “largest ever” project [Eurogamer]

The MMO Gamer recently had the chance to interview Blaine Christine, one of the producers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Nothing new is uncovered, but there are some interesting points throughout the interview. Perhaps the most interesting point is when the Light side / Dark side scale is being discussed:

If you look at KOTOR and how that worked out, if you played light side versus dark side, there were distinct different in the story, and distinct differences in how your character developed. It’s going to be very similar to that.

In KotOR, there were some story differences depending on your alignment, but in the end, the way the game played out relied on a single binary choice regardless of your alignment. Hopefully the system is fleshed out a bit more so that the alignment decisions you make feel significant. Some evidence of this we’ve seen already is from the GamesCom demo in which killing or saving the captain actually affects whether you will see him again down the road. Read the full interview at The MMO Gamer.

IGN sat down earlier this week with Dallas Dickinson from Bioware and Jake Neri from LucasArts for an extensive Q&A about The Old Republic.

Don’t be fooled by the size of the article though. Not a lot of new meaty info in this one unfortunately =) Worth a read anyway. Might be something in there you didn’t catch somewhere else!

Check out the interview here.

BioWare has spent the last couple of days in hot water with the homosexual community, thanks to banning certain words from their forums. Kotaku recently reported that the company locked threads dealing with homosexuality in The Old Republic, and censored the words “gay,” “lesbian,” and “homosexual.” Community manager Sean Dahlberg simply said, “As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.” Insert C-3PO joke here.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Following the controversy from the banned words, VG247 now reports that the words are usable again. Dahlberg has clarified that “no one was suspended or banned from this website for any discussions on the subject with the exception of individuals who were being derogatory and insulting to others.”

The censoring has raised the question of whether BioWare will allow homosexual relationships in the actual game. The company hasn’t shied away from these relationships before, and this controversy on the forums may have shown them that people care about being able to express themselves. We’ll have to see what happens with The Old Republic when it comes out.

Like Microsoft’s recent controversy, this was probably a well-intentioned attempt to curb abuse, and got out of hand by seeming to muzzle users. And technically Dahlberg’s initial comment is only half-right. Terms like “homosexual” are never literally used in Star Wars, but the so-called Expanded Universe does have homosexual characters, like one of Boba Fett’s best lieutenants.

Source: 1UP

Speaking to GDC, BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has told gaming site VG247 that The Old Republic’s business model will depend on what the industry standard is at the time.

“The way we look at these things is, ‘What’s the standard at the time?’ Obviously we’re not quite done yet. We’ve got a lot of work left to do. But we’ll be very conscious of how the market looks.”

Both Zeschuk and his partner Ray Muzyka stressed that the business model has not yet been announced. But it looks like you can expect a similar subscription fee of around US$15 if the current standard remains the same by the time the game is released.

Old Republic pricing will depend on MMO “standard,” says BioWare [VG247, thanks leXX]

Contrary to what most may think, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka has spoken out about the strength of the PC gaming market and feels it is in fine shape. The areas where it is doing well is different than the industry is used to however.

“I think there are more people playing PC games and more dollars being spent on the PC space than ever before, but it’s taking a different form,” Muzyka told CVG.

According to Muzyka developers have to adapt to these changes in the industry instead of continuing to use the same formula to lesser results.

“MMOs are one way that’s occurring… And there are more people playing flash-based games and casual games, even core games that are played in a casual way, so maybe [they have] a more core experience and you only play them for short bursts or for half an hour or something.”

Source: BioWare: PC gaming is in fine health (CVG).