BioWare's Doctors: 'We have an aggressive post-launch plan'
With the question of "When will Star Wars: The Old Republic ever launch?" finally answered, inquiring minds have turned to the future of the as-of-yet unreleased MMO. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk covered many topics, including the studio's plans following December 20th. "We have a really aggressive plan post launch to build content and take the feedback to heart that we're getting from players and what they want for continued expansions, and use that feedback to build new content," Muzyka promised.
The conversation also included a probing question about the decision to limit initial sales of the game. Muzyka says that stability and service are high priorities in the company: "You have to build the infrastructure to support a certain size launch and we're also thinking really long term at Bioware EA for this, there are going to be many, many consumers coming to the game over time and we're going to be expanding it out."
Other topics covered include the funny exploits that players have discovered in beta, the challenges and joys of working on the Star Wars IP, and the issue of free-to-play business models versus subscriptions. In regards to the latter, Zeschuck isn't worried that SWTOR decided to go the sub route. "The trend for free-to-play doesn't supplant great top quality premium games that support a subscription," he said, while going on to laud the flexibility of F2P formats.
