Hints Dropped About Level Cap
Recently there has been talk about what the level cap will be in The Old Republic and how relative the characters we’ve seen in the developer walkthrough are to that cap. Well both Sean Dahlberg and Daniel Erickson have given us something to discuss on the matter. On the SWTOR official forums, Sean Dahlberg had this to say:
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Yes, there is a bigger difference between characters that are Level 3 and 8 than you will see at the “high” levels. That’s because the first few levels are there more to teach you general game mechanics and then we start showing you how “your” character plays. (source)
In addition to that, Daniel Erickson talked about the game in an interview with G4 at GamesCom.
“We have this very long story arc that we can bring things back to. You may have completely forgotten that when you were at level eight, that you killed this guy you didn’t need to kill. His family hasn’t forgotten it and they’re going to find you 20 hours later and hunt you down, and you’re going to have to deal with the ramifications. One of the really fun things there is that you may be a completely different person at that point. You might have decided to give up your crazy ways from when you were a kid. And now at level 40, you’re a pretty good and these guys come to you. You have to decide, ‘Okay, am I going to cover that up? How am I going to handle it?’ These are the things that really make the galaxy feel alive.”
So now we know the game will have at least 40 levels. What the max level will be is up to speculation for now.
Developer Blog: Creating the Bounty Hunter
A few weeks ago we got a sneak peak at the first official Star Wars: The Old Republic class: the Bounty Hunter. Bioware Community Liason Sean Dahlberg posted an article to his blog giving us an inside scoop into the creation of the Bounty Hunter. The amount of thought and detail that went into the planning of the different SWTOR classes is very impressive and makes me want to see the rest of the classes ASAP! Here is a snippet from Dahlberg’s blog:
“There were a few decisions we made early on. First of all, there would be two distinct factions. This was Star Wars™, not Star Neutral Guy’s Adventure. When there is a war that spans an entire galaxy, nobody can stand on the sidelines. Sure Han is unaffiliated for about six minutes of the movies, but that doesn’t last long, and even if he’s not with the good guys he sure doesn’t like the Empire. The war affects everyone, even if they’d rather it didn’t.”
Visit Dahlberg’s Developer Blog for the rest of this great read.
-RoxStar
Community Focus on The Old Republic
PC.IGN has gotten Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager for Star Wars: The Old Republic to discuss the aspects of community management and how it has changed over the years and become a pivotal position in the development and continued support of an MMO. The position is often overlooked so it is interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes that really makes a community manager a vital part of the team.
“It will be interesting to see where we go. While the field has evolved since its inception, it is still in its infancy. Companies are increasingly learning how beneficial it can be to their products to have strong, healthy communities.”
Head over to IGN to read the full article.
Interviews with Sean Dahlberg
Sean Dahlberg, the community manager for The Old Republic, has been a busy man recently. First off, he answered some questions in a web interview for Allakhazam. He discusses how the community has responded to the game, PvP, and the storyline.
Next, Limited Edition Podcast got a hold of him to be a guest and discuss how he got involved in the game industry, what a community manager really does, and other discussion on The Old Republic. Listen to the entire interview here.
