Friday Update: Companion Characters Blog, Part 2
This week’s Friday Update follows on from one made a few weeks ago, where Senior Game Designer William Wallace shed some light on how companion characters work.
This second instalment takes a look at companion AI, and their roles at various points in the game. See below for an excerpt.
When it comes to the amount of control over their companion, players have different, often diametrically opposed preferences. Some players do not want to manage their companions any more than they have to, wanting instead for their companions to act autonomously without the need to manually trigger abilities or actions. Others want direct control over their companions, playing them almost as a second character.
Friday Update: Companion Characters Blog
This week’s updates have focused on companions; first with last night’s developer dispatch video, and now with a developer blog post by William Wallace. Some areas that he discusses include more on companion customization, the different companion classes, which are different from player classes, and other recent changes to how companions will work in the game. See below for an excerpt.
As you advance your story in Star Wars: The Old Republic, you build relationships with your companion characters based on the decisions you make throughout the game. How you treat each companion and how you act when they are in your presence determines how your relationship with them evolves. The writing team has done a fantastic job of bringing these companions to life with compelling stories and backgrounds. They add an emotional layer to the experience in the same way that such memorable characters as Bastila Shan and HK-47 did in Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic®.
The Path to Success – a look at the Maps of TOR
This week’s update is a look at the processes and ideas that are behind the maps we’ll see in game, and how they not only look great, but are practical in terms of gameplay (by introducing ‘breadcrumbing’, for instance), while aiding and encouraging exploration of the game world.
It’s a comprehensive and very interesting read, which you can find here.
What makes a map in The Old Republic™? It’s more than lines and legends. Damion Schubert explains more.
What most players are looking for on their map are missions. We want to ensure players can find all of the cool stuff that our worldbuilders put into the world, so every mission has one or more icons on the map that show you where to go. Moving your mouse over an icon shows you which mission is satisfied in that area, your progress in that mission, and a rough area where mission objectives can be found.
Friday Update: Fan Friday, Developer Blog, and E3 Awards
This week there is a trio of updates to the official website! Unfortunately they are not the kind you’re going to get excited for. I tried.
This week’s Fan Friday showcases several artists’ work from the official forums: community members Micah_Vale, CuriousOne, and skinryder.
Ask a Jedi is this week’s featured fan site and they answer some questions on what goes in to running a fan site.
There are also two new polls on the official forums: What did you enjoy most from our E3 coverage?, and What is your favorite piece of extended universe content relating to Star Wars: The Old Republic?. Make sure to vote and have your voice heard.
Along with Fan Friday is a new developer blog, written by Ian Ryan on the topic of The Post-Writing Polish Process.
Lastly, with E3 coming to a close last week, many sites give out awards for the best games present at the show. As is becoming customary for the BioWare team, The Old Republic took home numerous awards including many calling it “best MMO”. Check out the full list of awards the game won.
STAR WARS: The Old Republic Fan Friday
Each and every month, Fan Friday highlights just a few of the many creative and talented members of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community. This month we highlight some awesome works of art from you, the fans!
The Fan Site Spotlight this month highlights Ask a Jedi, an incredible online resource for news relating to The Old Republic that is run by some truly dedicated fans.
In addition, we’ve created a new set of forum icons for you to use on our message boards. This latest batch of icons highlights the emblems used by many of the iconic factions in the Star Wars™ universe.
The Old Republic was a Big Hit at E3
Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ garnered a lot of praise at E3 and has won over a dozen E3 awards!
We showed off a lot of new and exciting material during the week, starting with our new “Return” Intro Cinematic which one viewer called “an epic video that captured so many aspects of the Star Wars™ universe I know and love.” Attendees at the show also had the opportunity to see the iconic world of Tatooine for the first time as well as an exciting group mission on Alderaan.
The Post-Writing Polish Process
Writer Ian Ryan lets us in on what the writing team is up to during the polish phase.
Writing is complete on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. The last lines of dialogue are off for recording and translation; only pickups and polish remain. But at BioWare, a writer’s job doesn’t stop at the written word…
Friday Update: Introducing the Codex
This week’s update brings a new developer blog written by Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert on the topic of the Codex. Similar to the codices from both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, the Codex in The Old Republic will both deliver story and context to the universe, and create new goals for the player to achieve. Integrated into the codex system are datacrons, which are hard to find objects that can permanently increase one of your stats. The codex’s role in this is to track the player’s progress in finding the datacrons.
Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert presents the Codex in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
There are clearly many games that have deep, engaging back stories that designers and writers have worked tirelessly to develop, but in the game, the player only sees what their character sees. Often times, the rich back story is used only for the context of quests, and players never really get the bird’s eye view of the narrative.
Friday Update: Advanced Classes Update
This week’s update is another focused on Advanced Classes. Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer on the game, discusses how the Advanced Class system has evolved throughout the game’s development and where it’s at today. We definitely get to learn some really interesting info this week that is not normally disclosed in a developer blog. This includes information on the Sith Inquisotor and Jedi Sentinel’s Advanced Class roles, and some interesting use of testing metrics. Read on to learn more!
Georg Zoeller returns with more details about the Advanced Class system.
Quote:
Hello there, I’m Georg Zoeller, and I’m Principal Lead Combat Designer on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. In my previous developer blog, I introduced you to the Advanced Classes Game System in the game. In today’s blog I’m going to explain how the system has evolved over the last few months based on iteration, gameplay testing and focus groups.
Friday Update: Building Flashpoints
This week we get another look at Flashpoints in The Old Republic from Jesse Sky after this past week’s interview on the same topic. He details what they are, how they come about and what goes in to designing one. Georg Zoeller also chimes in on designing the combat in a Flashpoint.
What is a Flashpoint?
A Flashpoint is a galactic crisis, something so threatening that even the most stalwart heroes must bring allies. The Death Star was a Flashpoint. Luke and Obi-wan spent a few minutes LFG in the Mos Eisley Cantina where they enlisted the aid of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Together, they infiltrated a moon-sized battle station to rescue Princess Leia. Things didn’t go quite as they expected; difficult choices were made along the way. That’s a Flashpoint in a nutshell.
Friday Update: Crew Skills Developer Blog, Jedi Wizard Renamed
This Friday the main update is a new developer blog featuring Systems Designer Patrick Malott discussing what went into designing the Crew Skills system.
I’m Patrick Malott. I’ve worked as a Game Systems Designer on various titles over the years, but what we’re working on here at BioWare Austin is my dream project: Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. In my current role, designing and building out the Crew Skills system is one of the biggest projects I’m involved in. As a passionate multiplayer online gamer myself, I know that crafting is a critical part of the experience for many of you, and I’m dedicated to making sure you enjoy the way it works in The Old Republic. In this blog, I want to shed some light on the design decisions we’re making with Crew Skills… and I might just drop a few new specifics on the Armstech crafting skill.
In addition, the results of fan voting to change the Jedi Wizard advanced class name are in, and the Jedi Wizard is now officially known as the Jedi Sage. Personally I voted for Jedi Adept but it’s still a good change and cool for BioWare to listen to the community.
Dev Blog: Designing the Advanced Classes System
This week, Principal Lead Systems Designer Georg Zoeller discusses what went into designing the advanced classes, details about the game mechanics, and also answers some questions the community had about them.
Why Advanced Classes?
As you know, a core feature of Star Wars: The Old Republic is that we are shipping the game with eight classes – each with an epic story, full voiceover, quests and cinematics. This creates a very unique game experience for each of them, something never done in an MMO before.
Furthermore, we wanted to ensure that we had the flexibility to support several play-styles within each of these eight classes. So we built Advanced Classes into the game from the ground up to provide us with the ability to create and support different gameplay and roles inside each class.
Read the full entry at the official site.
Bevy of Updates to the Official Site Today
This week’s main updates focus on the sound and music of the game. First, Audio Producer Orion Kellogg (that is an awesome first name) discusses the sound of the game in his first developer blog. He goes into detail about the voicing for both humans and aliens, sound effects, and music.
In addition, we are given a new developer dispatch: Music of the Old Republic, which shows us what goes into creating original music for the game and weaving that into familiar Star Wars tracks.
The last site update this week is Blood of the Empire issue 7. Check it out here.
Lastly, we are teased with a future update. As you may know, The Old Republic will have a panel at Comic-con called “Beyond Solo“. Well the team would like to make an additional announcement during that time, but for them to do that, there needs to be 200,000 “Likes” on the SWTOR Facebook page, and 30,000 followers on Twitter. So if you utilize either of these social networks and haven’t already liked/followed SWTOR, get on it if you want to hear about this additional announcement. As an aside, if the goal isn’t reached, I would guess that we’ll hear about it soon after Comic-con anyway.
