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Star Wars: The Old Republic, a cautionary tale of breaking into MMOs
From a player's perspective, Star Wars: The Old Republic exceeded expectations on its launch one year ago today. Fans really took to the story content, reporting that the story content was the most fun they'd had leveling in any MMO up to that point. Things were looking great. The designers were obviously proud, and sales neared the two million mark, surpassing all previous MMOs for box sales at launch. Even before the official launch of the game, BioWare had to add new servers because of the number of people in early access. The day before the official launch, some queue times were over two hours, and at that time, there were 140 servers. Life was insane at BioWare to say the least.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's Gabe Amatangelo on 1.4 and free-to-play
It's not usual for the Hyperspace Beacon to feature two interviews in a row, but Star Wars: The Old Republic has some major changes coming. Update 1.4 promises to give us new and exciting content like a new operation and a new warzone, and after the EA earnings call, we learned that SWTOR will tackle the free-to-play market. Readers and fans voiced both concerns and excitement over this move. I couldn't just let that stand; I had to pose some questions to the BioWare developers. SWTOR's Principal Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo picked up the call. Our conversation focused on these two major changes to the game and the concerns fans have for the game's immediate future. Read on!
SWTOR's lead PvP designer answers community questions
Star Wars: The Old Republic's launch may be old news in Europe and North America, but our friends down under are just now getting a chance to partake of BioWare's first foray into the MMO space. Fan site Toroz.com cornered lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo for an extensive interview, the bulk of the questions for which came direct from the Oceanic community. The audio is spotty in a couple of places, but the questions have also been transcribed below the embed. Among the queries are bits about DPS meters, general thoughts on the state of warzones, and ongoing issues with kill-trading. Head past the break for the full interview.
BioWare's Gabe Amatangelo speaks on faction imbalance, UI customization, Ops, and more
Star Wars: The Old Republic has had a bit of a rocky time with some post-launch hiccups, and it's at that point in time when players begin to start picking on the game's flaws. Despite, or perhaps because of, this turbulence, one of the game's lead designers, Gabe Amatangelo, sat down with John Bain -- better known as Total Biscuit -- for an interview. Throughout the course of the interview, the pair cover issues ranging from the obvious (what is BioWare doing to address faction imbalance?) to the more abstract (would BioWare ever consider causing skills to act differently in PvP than in PvE?), and Amatangelo has some rather interesting answers. Bain mentions the game's bracketless PvP and asks if the studio might consider further bracketing. Amatangelo replies that BioWare "would not go to further bracketing without opening up the pools of players, and I guess you can infer what you will from that," making a rather overt reference to cross-server PvP. For all this and more, listen to the full interview after the cut.
Hyperspace Beacon: Star Wars zombies
Tomorrow, Star Wars: The Old Republic will launch its first content update, and you will most like be up to your eyeballs in Rakghouls and Hutts... or maybe you've not made it to 50 yet because you've been absorbed in the story and leveling alts. According to BioWare developers, there are 200 hours of gameplay in each class story, so even if someone were to have played eight hours a day every day over the last month, he would only have one level 50. I say, don't feel bad if you haven't hit 50 yet. It means that you are enjoying the game the way it was meant to be enjoyed and not skipping anything. That said, it's not going to hurt to learn about this new update, although I suggest that, if you're into the story as much as I am, you don't read the patch notes... spoilers! Dang, BioWare, could you be a bit more ambiguous about the PTS patch notes next time? It's like someone leaning over halfway through the first screening Empire Strikes Back and saying, "Oh, by the way, Darth Vader is Luke's father." NOOOOO! It's impossible! Being someone who is interested in the story revolving around SWTOR, I do love the continued use of Rakghouls in the newest update. Sure, some would call it an easy storytelling trope (zombies and all that). I'll admit it. I'm not going to hide behind "these are ghouls, not zombies." I love the story, but in truth these are Star Wars zombies. But I do find the history of the Rakghouls interesting. Honestly, I don't know how much of the story has been retcon'd after their first appearance in BioWare's first venture into the Star Wars IP, Knights of the Old Republic, but the roots of the Rakghouls stem from the birth of the Sith Empire. I love the way it all comes together. [Update: BioWare postponed the patch to the 18th after the column was written. The first paragraph has been changed to reflect that.]
Rakghouls and raging Hutts with SWTOR's Gabe Amatangelo
A month after Star Wars: The Old Republic began its official journey in the public eye, the developers of this game-changing MMO are ready to extend the story, which they call the fourth pillar of the MMO genre. In patch 1.1, which also brings the usual round of bug fixes, players will be introduced to a brand-new level 50 flashpoint as well as a completed version of the Karagga's Palace 8-to-16-man operation. In the official press release for 1.1, BioWare founder Greg Zeschuk notes, "A month ago when we launched the Early Game Access program for Star Wars: The Old Republic, we promised our fans that this would just be the beginning of our journey together." That's all well and good, but we want details. So we rang up BioWare's Gabe Amatangelo to discuss the new flashpoint, Karagga's palace, Ilum, and the future of SWTOR PvP. Be aware that there will be some minor spoilers, but we'll warn you in advance!
SWTOR goes bug hunting with 1.0.2 and prognosticates PvP improvements
With the abundance of bugs and glitches in Star Wars: The Old Republic, fans are looking to James Ohlen's promise of weekly patches to shore up the faults. Yesterday we saw patch 1.0.2 go live with some -- but certainly not all -- of these fixes, as well as an increase in the PvP lockbox rewards and allowing players to emote while mounted. In addition to yesterday's patch, today BioWare plans to roll out an emergency fix to address a few important issues: players crashing to desktop at character select, a problem with the chat channels in which they would stop functioning for some people, and the now-infamous /getdown bug. PvP Lead Gabe Amatangelo also emerged from the BioWare fortress to chat about plans for the future of the game's PvP combat. According to Amatangelo, the team is working on level 50 brackets for warzones, vastly improving open world PvP on Ilum, a new same-faction vs. same-faction warzone, team vs. team queuing, ranked warzone matches, and more. He says that to date, over a million warzone matches have been played, with 39% of those matches played being Huttball and the Empire winning 53% of every match fought.
SWTOR's Outlaw's Den is a hive of scum, villainy, and all-out PvP
There's open-world PvP, and then there's open-world PvP that puts hair on your chest and then rips it out with a vengeance. Tatooine has the latter. At the recent fan site summit in Austin, TX, Star Wars: The Old Republic's Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo revealed nirvana for PvPers with Outlaw's Den. Outlaw's Den is a PvP free-for-all (FFA) area on Tatooine for players crazy enough to risk certain death to congregate, fight, and struggle for rewards. Because there are no rules in the area, members from the same faction can harm -- and kill -- each other, and there are no restrictions on what goes on in that space. Apart from the excitement of "anything goes" PvP combat, Outlaw's Den sports several attractive elements that make it worth visiting, including top-tier crafting materials, vendors that sell rare mounts and social gear, an auction kiosk, and a pit reserved for to-the-death duels. One of the most interesting aspects of Outlaw's Den is that even NPCs are susceptible to being killed, opening up the possibility for individuals and guilds to kill vendors in order to keep them out of others' hands. However, nobody can capture the zone, so the fighting will extend indefinitely.
BioWare devs talk SWTOR combat animations, answer PvP questions
Grab yourself a tall glass of blue milk, Star Wars fans, as BioWare has released a lengthy new edition of its Studio Insider feature to carry you through your Friday afternoon. The update features principal lead animator Mark How talking about -- wait for it -- animation! To be more precise, How tells us all about The Old Republic's combat animation, and he even tosses in an interesting video clip that features different stages in the development of a Jedi force leap and a Republic trooper full auto firing animation. How also gets into the challenges inherent in melding the lightsaber battles from the Star Wars films with the design limitations of an MMORPG. "Players do not enjoy having character control taken away from them because of an action or animation," How explains. "It was particularly challenging to develop animations that allowed for visually appealing combat while still allowing the players complete control over their characters." How successful were BioWare designers in this regard? That remains to be seen, but you can get a feel for their approach by reading How's blog. Finally, this week's Community Q&A feature continues the combat focus, and lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo has the answers to a few burning questions from the TOR faithful.
Hyperspace Beacon: More nuna bites
Like just about everyone else watching the PAX coverage, I was expecting something big to come from Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, aside from a release date, I really didn't know what the team could give us that everyone would find important. At this point, you either like what you see or you don't. Nothing short of actually playing the game is going to make a difference. This oversaturation of information is a direct consequence of starting a marketing campaign three years ago. This long campaign results in news being regurgitated a few times over, as if it were new info. Take for instance the same-gender romance arc -- that was a topic we covered two years ago. As I did in the last nuna bites segment, I'd like to take a moment to discuss some of the smaller bits of news that you may have missed. At the same time, I would also like to weigh in on the same-gender-romance-arc subject because it is important, and I would like others to feel comfortable about expressing their personal viewpoints on the subject too.
SWTOR lead spills the beans about the Eternity Vault raid
At Gamescom this past week, Star Wars: The Old Republic concentrated on showing off endgame to prove to players that it is indeed an MMO. At the press conference just prior to the convention, Lead Designer Gabe Amatangelo demonstrated the very first part of the Eternity Vault raid content you will find in TOR. The demonstration group wiped on the second encounter, but we were assured that there was more. But how much more? Thanks to The-Force.eu, we now know. Amatangelo explained the encounters to the German fansite as follows: "The Eternity Vault has five. It has five encounters. 'Bosses' is such a loose term. One of them, you have to hack this puzzle. You've got to split up the group, and you've got to fight back a bunch of different waves while people are trying to solve a puzzle in tandem." This information should comfort some fans of the game; there is more to this dungeon than a simple tank-and-spank. More SWTOR information is headed our way as we gear up for PAX. Stay tuned this weekend as we give you the latest information from our reporters on the show floor in Seattle.
E3 2011: BioWare shows off The Old Republic Belsavis raid
Are you curious about endgame in Star Wars: The Old Republic? GameTrailers has a couple of E3-related videos that you'll want to check out, both of them focused on raiding content in a galaxy far, far away. First up is a 10-minute clip featuring an interview with BioWare's Gabe Amatangelo as well as various bits of new footage. Amatangelo tells us about a raid that takes place on the outer rim planet of Belsavis. The clip centers on a prison facility in an icy environment, and we get a good look at the approach as well as some combat inside the complex. Amatangelo also talks a bit about raid difficulty levels before reiterating that SWTOR will release in 2011 (though no firm date is given). The second video expands on some of the snippets in the interview clip, and BioWare shows us a minute and 20 seconds of action from the Belsavis raid. Check out both trailers after the cut and let us know what you think in the comments! Massively's on the ground in Los Angeles during the week of June 6-9, bringing you all the best news from E3 2011. Whether you're dying to know more about Star Wars: The Old Republic, RIFT, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!
SWTOR reinvents the tank role in PvP
Tanks have often suffered in PvP. In many games, there's not much of a role for them. Frequently, they must dual-spec or at the very least have a completely separate set of armor to remain competitive. Supposedly, in Star Wars: The Old Republic, this will not be the case. Last month, fans of TOR were invited to BioWare Austin for two days. During this time, players not only were able to play origin worlds (as we reported last week) but were also the first players outside of testing who were able to try out PvP. Darth Hater spoke to Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo about Warzones and character roles in PvP. He had this to say about a couple PvP tanking abilities: If I taunt a player, they are going to do less damage to everyone except for me. And that less damage that they end up delivering -- that difference is going to be tracked on the scoreboard for me. When I guard a player, fifty percent of the damage they receive is redirected to me. And of course, all my heavy armor and avoidance is going to come into play, helping them to survive as well as myself, and all the damage I take on their behalf will be tracked for my rewards at the end of the Warzone. All the fans sites are busy posting about their experiences in SWTOR PvP. Next week, the Hyperspace Beacon will take a comprehensive look at the whole fansite experience at Austin. In the meantime, visit Ask A Jedi, Corellian Run Radio, Darth Hater, Fureur, Gamona, InGame, Mos Eisley Radio, SWTOR.EU, SWTOR-FR, SWTOR Life, SWTOR-UK, TOROCast, TOR-Talk, TORSyndicate, and TORWars for their impressions of SWTOR PvP.
Hyperspace Beacon: Rockin' the Roleplay
I once asked, "What is roleplay?" in Massively's IRC channel. My intent was to define roleplay in its simplest terms. After all, the majority of us play RPGs, even if they are MMORPGs. I was surprised that, once you added "game" versus just the word "roleplay," the context changed astronomically. For instance, roleplay taken by itself could be defined as taking on another character. We all know that LARPing (live-action roleplay) is dressing up as character and performing the actions of a character who is not you. If you ask someone who considers herself a roleplayer in an MMO, she would define roleplay similarly: taking on a character in that particular setting. But ask a group of gamers what defines an RPG and you'll certainly get a wide variety of answers. Some define it as leveling. Others say it's telling a story in a game. Some define it by the DIKU-type playstyle. Some go so far as to say that you have to have a gamemaster, rules, and story for it to truly be an RPG. Our Senior Editor Brianna Royce suggested in the interview with Star Wars: The Old Republic Community Manager Stephen Reid that BioWare is "putting the RPG back into MMORPGs," to which Reid replied in general agreement, "I think that's part of it. It's really about allowing you to experience real choice in a great story." The phrase "putting the RP back into MMORPG" (or something very similar) was used a couple of times in "booth chat" with developers of SWTOR. It was good to see a developer respond to that phrase. But is it true? Does SWTOR put the RP back into the MMORPG? What makes an RPG an RPG? Does SWTOR fit that bill? How will it will work with traditional MMO roleplayers? Join me past the break to find out.
Massively interviews BioWare on SWTOR's crafting and PvP
This past Wednesday, I had the opportunity to head down to LucasArts in San Francisco to check out the current build of Star Wars: The Old Republic and chat with some of the BioWare developers. While my hands-on with the game won't be out until next month, we can deliver a couple of smaller interviews on two of the recently revealed systems in the game. And I think you'll want to hear what the interviewees have to say! Join me past the cut as I ask lead writer Daniel Erickson and lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo all about the Alderaan Warzone, the PvP reward system, avoiding battleground design pitfalls, companion tradeskilling, player-made gear, and hardcore crafting in SWTOR.
Games Day '09: Lands of the Dead design discussion with Gabe Amatangelo and Jeff Skalski
After saying goodbye to Paul and Josh, I soon found myself sitting down with Gabe Amatangelo, the senior designer on Land of the Dead, and Jeff Skalski, the RvR team lead, with the task of getting inside the Land of the Dead development process.What I got were some great insights into how testing and development works at Mythic Entertainment, as well as some inside facts on Land of the Dead and some great reasons for why players should come back and try out some WAR. Interested in what sparked the movement to an action RPG dynamic? Wondering what features may not have made the final Land of the Dead cut? All of that and more is inside this Games Day interview.
Games Day '09: Lands of the Dead design discussion with Gabe Amatangelo and Jeff Skalski pt. 2
Now you guys have a really interesting design going on with Warhammer, regarding the City Siege system. You've basically built in your own cap on the game's system, which is very different from other MMOs in the market. What's it like designing something like Land of the Dead with that restrictive cap in mind? Jeff: It's challenging. Sometimes it feels like we're splitting hairs, but we planned to do this type of stuff earlier on, so we left some space to design in. We wanted to make sure this was a free expansion that all players had access to that runs parallel to the tier four campaign... Gabe: It compliments many different areas of our content. It compliments many types of players with many types of gear and gives them new objectives to achieve. But the top end, yeah, it's definitely a challenge, and that's the one campaign. We have three campaigns. The Warhammer world just has so much stuff in it. There are so many other armies and other things to be inspired by to make new content. With all of that other stuff in mind, where would you like to take Warhammer if the decision was solely up to you? Gabe: There's alot. You know, when we explored the RvR gated "Darkness Falls" dungeon, we explored a bunch of different things. We explored Mordheim, we explored Skavenblight, and then we fell across the Tomb Kings. This was perfect for us, as it allowed us to explore a bunch of different gameplay dynamics. But still, I think Skavenblight is a very cool element. Then you have the whole Vampire Counts dark world... Jeff: We still got Sylvania and getting out there to do. Personally, from a visual standpoint, I'd like to see Lustria. I think it's an environment we just don't have in the game at the moment, which was one of the reasons I was really excited about Tomb Kings. I like having a completely new environment and it's a setting we don't have at all in our game. Gabe: And it also really depends on what we want to get out in regards to content. Is it a dungeon, is it a new open zone? That affects where we go with it. If it's a dungeon, oh well then we should go to Skavenblight as it's a underground thing over there. If it's a whole new mini-zone, then maybe we go to Lustria. Of course I'm talking in broad general terms, but that's the stuff that directs where we take it. Is there anything that got left out of this expansion that you wish would have made it in? Jeff: We accomplished alot, but there is that one thing we had to cut back on, as we needed to get moving with production, and that was being able to bring the Tomb Kings in as an ally in the RvR siege. In the early days of the design, we were thinking about giving the assistance of the Tomb King and his army out during city sieges. Gabe: There were several ways we strayed away from that and one was certainly production issues, but another was that we wanted the campaign system to be the campaign system. Land of the Dead is gated by the campaign, but it doesn't hinder or affect the system in any way and we wanted to leave it like that. The one for me was that we wanted people to be able to access Land of the Dead from level one. But, well, we just couldn't do that. We pushed it back to level 25. Jeff: But the majority of our players meet that requirement anyway. The other other thing that we wanted was for instances to be able to let more players in. So there's six man runs right now, but there was this "other one" where we wanted to get that number higher, but we didn't get that in. Gabe: *evil laughter* Not yet. Now one of thing some of our commenters are going to point out as a problem is the power leveling. You can be level 25, then get bolstered to level 36 in Land of the Dead, and you gain level 36 experience at level 25. Why did you guys decide that? Gabe: Well Darkness Falls was very successful as an alternate spot for power leveling. So we went and followed that form and put it into Land of the Dead. The other thing to note though is that you can lose control of the Land of the Dead, and that will cause power leveling to spike. It's another carrot on the stick for players to gain control of the area. So I don't think it's going to be a problem, I think players are going to enjoy it. Jeff: It gives you another track, an accelerated track, and it happens right at 25 for a reason as it's in that lull between tier three and tier four. It's going to be that extra push that will get people into tier four. We've done many things to help ease that lull, like new epic questlines and boosted quest experience, to get people into tier four. So, ok, let's pretend I'm a newbie to Warhammer. Why should I come and play your game? Jeff: If you want PvE content, we got the public quest system which is a trendsetter in the industry and I know we're going to see more of it pop up. Oh yeah, Runes of Magic already jumped on that. Jeff: Oh yeah, we know, and it's cool. It's just a good system because it helps get people together. From an PvP standpoint, our game was built for realm vs. realm combat. You can do it from rank one in our game. There are scenarios, there's RvR areas, they're dynamic, there's a lot of variety. We slowly introduce the player to harder and harder mechanics as they advance through the tiers, like keeps, and outer walls of keeps, and city sieges. To me, that's why players should come. If you want PvP then there's no other place to go. Gabe: With Land of the Dead specifically, it's the pyramids and the necropolis. There's no other setting like that in modern MMOs. It's the action RPG elements and working together to overcome them as a group as well as individually. There's just nothing like it. You like Zelda, you like God of War? Then check this out. The sands of the Tomb Kings are coming as the final release in the Call to Arms live expansion, the Land of the Dead approaches! Massively has your back with coverage from Mythic Entertainment at Games Day '09, so get your WAAGGGHHH ready for RvR mayhem as Massively re-arms for WAR!
More Land of the Dead details emerge from WAR dev
We've been hearing a slow trickle of details from Mythic these past few months about the new Land of the Dead zone in Warhammer Online. In his recent developer diary entry, Gabe Amatangelo, Senior Designer, Dungeons & Encounters Lead, shares new information about and inspirations behind the new Tomb Kings area.We learn that Gabe was given the go ahead to conceptualize the zone in September 2008, shortly after launch and that it will come in two forms: The Necropolis desert, which is an open, non-instanced zone and The Tomb of the Vulture Lord dungeon.Control over this dungeon will depend on a new Expedition Resource system, which will come as a blend of zone control and open RvR kills. Not only will you fight over the new dungeon, you will fight in it as well and the only safe spot will be the zone-in spot. The dungeon will have instanced encounters, but players will actually be able to storm instances and chase after enemies.As a PvE expansion to their newly announced RvR token system, monsters in The Necropolis desert will also drop tokens, which can be used to purchase powerful gear and crafting materials. If any of this sounds interesting to you, keep your eyes peeled for the April newsletter.
