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Hyperspace Beacon: The crew skills story
Forgive my fanboy-ism a bit, please. Update 1.2: Legacy excites me. My friends on the Star Wars: The Old Republic live server wonder where I've got off to since the patch hit the test server. Not to worry, guys. I'm still in game; I'm just playing with the new UI and character builds. We know that the major part of this update is the Legacy system. In a system that is rarely seen across MMOs, BioWare has created a tangible connection between alts. Now, Aaron Shaddoe can be the brother of Maacus Shaddoe and the son of Ryctur Shaddoe, and the game will reward me for doing that. Aaron could be a Smuggler, Maacus a Jedi Consular, and Ryctur a Bounty Hunter, all with interconnecting abilities between them. It's an interesting concept, but I'm curious how many people are going to seriously use it for its intended purpose. Update 1.2 holds a couple of other changes that interest me more -- namely, crew skills and story content. Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller and Writer Charles Boyd spoke about the changes to crew skills and the story update in two developer blogs last week. And despite the legacy system's being the biggest part of this update, it's these two areas that will impact the greater game. [Warning: Some minor spoilers are contained within. It's been three months, so I hope they are not spoilers any more, but I should warn you just in case.]
SWTOR devs attempt to balance the Force through nerfs
It's Friday, Friday, and even Jedi got to get down with Friday... which also means a new community Q&A sent across the holonet to players eager for a glimpse of Star Wars: The Old Republic's future. However, the devs have asked that questions focus more on current features in the game, as in many cases they cannot give firm details about what's coming up in SWTOR. Today's topics begin with a discussion about why some advanced classes, such as Commandos and Mercenaries, lack an interrupt. This wasn't an oversight, the devs revealed, but "a purposefully designed weakness in their ability arsenal" to keep them balanced in the game -- especially in PvP. "Balance" was an answer to another issue as well, specifically the nerfs to some of the healing specs. Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller realized that folks were going to rail against it, but the team thought it was necessary: "I know trying to 'sell' a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it." Other questions revolved around rage timers, looping the game's music, cross-faction communication within the same guild, and legacy system specifics.
BioWare talks SWTOR's 1.2 crew skill changes
BioWare has laid its cards on the table with regard to the crafting changes coming in Star Wars: The Old Republic's 1.2 update. The tweaks are extensive, and designer Georg Zoeller has posted a lengthy summary on the game's official website. Among the highlights are a large number of artifice schematics included with the patch. BioWare is keen on allowing players to choose their weapon color crystals without regard to the stats, and artificers will also be "the first profession to gain some dedicated PvP crafting." Other highlights include various changes to gathering and reverse engineering mechanics as well as the ability for cybertech practitioners to sell any of their created vehicles on the auction house (the devs are removing the current bind restrictions). Get the full scoop at the official SWTOR website.
Epic in scope: SWTOR's James Ohlen explains plans for the future
As the Star Wars: The Old Republic guild leaders lined up to get a taste of the Lost Island flashpoint, I was at BioWare studios getting my hands dirty with deeper PvE and PvP content as well as speaking with developers like Combat Designer Georg Zoeller, Lead Writer Daniel Erickson, Art Director Jeff Dobson, and Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi. However, the best part was at the end of the day when I was able to speak one-on-one with Creative Director James Ohlen. Ohlen touches nearly every aspect of the game's development. It was important to me to find out why this game is as popular as it is and what BioWare was going to do to retain its current playerbase. The first stop was the latest game update, which should hit test servers really soon.
Hyperspace Beacon: Making sense of Legacy
Last week, I spent some time in Austin, Texas, at BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic studio. One of the many things I saw was the Legacy System. Although it's a great tool, it is far from the good storytelling device it's intended to be. But perhaps we can make some sense out of it. The Legacy leveling system begins when one of your characters completes chapter one. Without revealing too many spoilers, I can say that chapter one ends in a non-planetary quest just after the main Alderaan quest line. Based on the average, your character should be level 32 when this happens (or if you're like me, you were level 30 and a friend helped you pass the final stage). At this point, you begin to gain legacy levels, which Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert says cap at level 50 currently (that's 50 legacy levels, not 50 combat levels). Until last week, we were uncertain what the legacy levels would actually give us. Thanks to the latest SWTOR video, we now know that the Legacy System provides rewards ranging from ship customization items to species unlocks. I won't be able to talk about all the Legacy additions in this article, but I can hit the highlights.
Hyperspace Beacon: One step forward...
You might notice that the Hyperspace Beacon changed its face a bit. That's because I'm reporting from the Guild Summit in Austin, Texas -- BioWare's headquarters. Over 250 guilds and fan sites were invited to not only see the team's plans for Star Wars: The Old Republic but also voice their ideas for what they want from the game. Of course, a game carrying the Star Wars name appeals to a large diverse group of people, and not just because of the Star Wars IP; BioWare has created a name for itself with incredible story-driven games like Mass Effect 3, which released this morning. Among the pre-summit discussion was the question of whether and how much BioWare leans on the Star Wars IP for the success of the game. The consensus among the guild leaders I spoke to was an interesting and surprising one: Although BioWare certainly leaned on Star Wars for the story elements of the game, the lack of huge success for the most recent LucasArts games suggests that the Star Wars IP actually leaned on BioWare's reputation. When I jumped into Q&A with the guild leaders, I half-expected a bunch of over-enthusiastic fanboys. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, although they were fans, those invited to this summit were very level-headed and oftentimes critical of the game's development. Thankfully, during the course of the summit, the developers were equally willing to address these concerns.
Hyperspace Beacon: Roleplayer's rant
I don't like to rant. Really! Usually, ranting is full of emotionally charged rhetoric, and oftentimes it's riddled with inaccurate statements. I especially don't like to rant about something that I like a lot. For instance, Star Wars: The Old Republic has, by far, exceeded my personal expectations for any MMO; however, some missteps in production have tainted its perfection. (No, I'm not going to talk about Ilum again.) Of course, we are all looking for our version of perfection in an MMO, right? Unfortunately, no MMO will live up to that expectation. In fact, if I did find my version of MMO perfection, I would probably be the only one playing it. But I do believe I have ideas that those in my community could latch on to. They are also relatively simple. Yes, yes, I know nothing is ever as simple as it seems, but indulge me for a few moments. As many of you know, I enjoy roleplaying in my MMOs -- character creation, really. I'm not one of those roleplayers who hang out in a pub all day never experiencing any gameplay. Although there's nothing wrong with that, I find it a be a waste of $15 a month. I have complied what I believe will make the experience of SWTOR more enjoyable for those who enjoy playing the game like I do, and I think that those of you who don't necessarily like to roleplay per se but do like to create unique characters in the MMO space will agree that these are a must. I did set some personal criteria when compiling the list. For instance, I didn't want to break BioWare's general vision for the game. I also wanted to use existing items in the game so that my expectations were realistic -- no guild capital ships or image design system. And all of these items have been mentioned in print someplace before, so I'm not the only one who believes these should be implemented.
SWTOR pushes out ability delay improvements with promises of more to come
BioWare wants to let you know that Star Wars: The Old Republic is sorry it hasn't been as responsive to your needs lately, and that after weeks of counseling (and back-room coding), its fledgling MMO is prepared to make up with you. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller announced today that the infamous ability delay should be clearing up nicely, thanks to an overnight 1.1.0b patch. He says BioWare didn't want to wait until the next big patch to roll it out, opting to instead deliver it as quickly to players as possible. However, Zoeller also notes that the team "is not done improving combat responsiveness" and has several other tweaks and fixes in the work for patch 1.1.1. Other areas of improvement that BioWare is investigating include UI clarity, making cast bars more accurate, and rectifying timing differences for specific abilities and animations.
Hyperspace Beacon: Force reflection
"Always in motion is the future," Yoda reflected to Luke Skywalker in the greatest of all Star Wars movies, The Empire Strikes Back. Even for a Jedi master, the future is unpredictable and always fluid. Likewise, I made predictions about Star Wars: The Old Republic that were completely off base and some that were spot on. Of course, the ones I got wrong were part of the BioWare plot to subvert everything I do. That's right, I'm looking at you, Georg Zoeller. This week, I'm going to borrow a phrase from the SWTOR-RP website: Force Reflection. Every weekday, these roleplayers pose a question about SWTOR, Star Wars, or some sort of roleplay trope to get you to think about how you play you character. However, I'm going to use the phrase to think back on the predictions I made in this column, specifically the first article of this year. Which ideas did I get correct? Which ideas did I get totally wrong? I can't be one hundred percent correct all the time. I have to leave room for some errors or else I'd lose my secret job as a psychic-hotline operator. Jump past the break to judge for yourself.
SWTOR's Georg Zoeller salutes the Trooper class
He won't play favorites between the choice of builds, but BioWare's Georg Zoeller is remarkably open otherwise when it comes to talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic's Trooper in action. In an interview on RepublicTrooper.com, Zoeller fields a number of questions about the Trooper's capabilities in combat, especially in regard to how a ranged class can function as a tank. After struggling with these unique problems, BioWare tuned the Vanguard (the Trooper's advanced tanking spec) to be a mid-ranged tank with visual effects to show when the class was warding off melee attacks. "Statistically, their tanking ability is based more upon absorption and shielding and less about avoidance, making them the slightly more predictable tanks (Medics love that)," he wrote. "Finally, they are visually very different when in action, as most of their abilities are themed around technical attacks " Zoeller said that all-Trooper guilds are entirely possible, given the flexibility of the advanced class roles, as Troopers cover the gamut of the Holy Trinity. He sees Trooper healers as being extremely desirable: "Commandos are the only medic class capable of increasing their target's mitigation and receptivity to heals. They are also the only Advanced Class that features a 'smart heal,' an auto-response heal that triggers on the target when they take damage."
Enter At Your Own Rift: The big takeaways from GDC
After dining on enough beef brisket to feed an army of hungry cowboys, I returned from Austin's GDC Online to chip away at the Ashes of History world event quests. RIFT had a nice showing at the GDC Online Awards ceremony, walking away with awards for Best Online Technology and Best New Online Game. In addition, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman gave a talk about RIFT's pre-launch preparations and post-launch plans. GDC was dominated by a handful of common topics, like free-to-play, metrics, monetization, and technology. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few of these to see how they apply to RIFT, and then we'll look at the big takeaways from GDC overall.
GDC Online 2011: SWTOR's Georg Zoeller on analyzing in-game feedback
Star Wars the Old Republic is rapidly approaching its launch date, and questions constantly pop up about what the game will be like. Some longtime MMO veterans are even a bit skeptical about whether BioWare will be able to release a game of this scope in a finished state. At this year's GDC Online Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller demonstrated some of the tools that the team uses to analyze player feedback and data, and then he explained how, through sophisticated technology, the team can make appropriate adjustments to the game as it wraps up beta testing and prepares for launch.
Hyperspace Beacon: Find your blaster at your side
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side," Han Solo said, enlightening us on the smuggler philosophy in the original Star Wars film. (I'm fairly certain that line has not been cut from the Blu-Ray edition.) In Star Wars: The Old Republic, it's not just the blaster that gets him by -- it's all the other dirty tricks this scoundrel has up his sleeve, in his pockets, or under his hat -- that's right: hat. In past editions of the Hyperspace Beacon, we've talked about some specific abilities of the Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular. We have learned that the Advanced Class determines the role and playstyle of a specific class and that the overall class determines the story. Even more so, the specific skill trees narrow your focus. I believe that hybridization weakens your character, but there are others (including those who have played the game) who believe that hybrids are viable. Given that this game is still in beta, actual playtime has been limited to conventions and other special events. The Smuggler class is the class of the weekend. BioWare released the progression video on Friday, and as anyone who knows me can tell you, I love this class. After the break, we'll chat about some of the announced abilities of this unique character.
Hyperspace Beacon: Nuna bites
If you happened to be in San Diego this weekend then you may have noticed a large gathering of geekery known as Comic-Con. Usually, this mecca of nerdom focuses on comic book related publications. Although Star Wars: The Old Republic isn't exactly comic book gold, Dark Horse comics rose through the ranks of pulp royalty because of its vast library of Star Wars-related publications. It only seems right that TOR presents itself to this audience. Besides the panel in Comic-Con proper, BioWare developers hosted three separate question and answer sessions focusing on Star Wars: The Old Republic. As with most Q&As, the majority of questions asked have been answered already in the past. If you were hanging out in Darth Hater's Ventrilo server like I was during the live broadcasts, then you heard a lot of "We knew that already." That being said, there were some pieces of juicy meat tossed to the crowd that we had not heard before. I will call them nuna bites, and you can find your slice after the break.
The Old Republic maps out success
The BioWare developers have always talked about polish and immersion when designing Star Wars: The Old Republic. They have described some of the challenges of perfecting the game in their many developer blogs. Everything from art design to combat has been discussed. In the center of it all are the game testing metrics that everyone from Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller to Community Manager Stephen Reid have talked about. What do the metrics tell us is the most important part of the SWTOR user interface? Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert tells us in the latest dev blog: When Georg told the design team that maps were the most-opened part of the user interface in the game, our map specialists just nodded in understanding. They already knew that being able to find your way around the world was going to be hugely important to our success. Thanks largely to the enduring efforts of those on the map team who believe passionately in the importance of what they are doing, our maps system are a core, essential part of the adventuring experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Schubert tells us the details of making a proper map should not only be esthetically pleasing but dynamically help the player move about the complex environments of The Old Republic. Check out everything else Schubert has to say in the blog on the official site.
Hyperspace Beacon: Find the Force
With E3 last week, I really considered devoting this article to opinions regarding the latest news for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Then I realized that Massively already published a ton of SWTOR related articles about E3 this week. During the show itself, Dan gave his impressions of playing the game, and all four of our attendees delivered impressions yesterday. It's good to read impressions from people who love MMOs but aren't necessarily die-hard fans of BioWare or Star Wars -- you'll get a different perspective than you would reading this column. So instead, this week I'll examine the announced abilities for the Jedi Consular class. The majority of this information stems from the advanced class page, but there is a little bit that comes from MMORPG's interview with Georg Zoeller. Hop past the break as we explore the abilities of this powerful Force-user.
Hyperspace Beacon: Find your focus
Thanks to the new advanced class page on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website and MMORPG.com's interview with Georg Zoeller, we now know quite a bit about the skill tree breakdown of each advanced class. However, over the next few weeks, I want to take a look at a few of the classes and read between the lines of text. Several abilities are listed for each class, but how do they fit together? What does the complete package look like? The Jedi Knight looks to be one of the most popular classes to play. After all, what kid growing up didn't have a fantasy of wielding a lightsaber just like Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi? I'd like to give a general overview of the advanced class abilities and collate a comprehensive list of the announced abilities. Follow me beyond the cut to see how these puzzle-pieces fit together in SWTOR.
SWTOR's Sith Inquisitor shows unlimited power!
In the new video released by BioWare, we are shown that brute force is not the ultimate power in the universe. Sometimes the power of the mind carries far greater dominion over your enemies than a physical assault. The Sith Inquisitor commands the Force with a thought and defeats her foes with a wave of her hand. The Sith Inquisitor is one of the most diverse classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not only can she wield the Force to destroy her opponent, but she can also use it to heal and deflect incoming attacks, making her great for tanking. Gamespot revealed the latest class trailer from SWTOR, which you can catch after the break. Follow the journey of the Sith Inquisitor from her humble start on the Sith homeworld of Korriban to her influence over political leaders of the galaxy. Then hop over to read Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller's words about this class-that-fills-all-roles.
Hyperspace Beacon: Wonderful, we are now part of the tribe!
Last week, we mentioned that multiple fan sites took a trip to BioWare to tour the Austin studio, play Star Wars: The Old Republic, and interview the developers. It is a daunting task to sift through all that information to find the golden nuggets, but I've done my best to pull the most useful (or least-covered) quotes from different developers. This is by no means an exhaustive list! If you are someone who gobbles up every last bit of SWTOR news, then none of this will be new, but for everyone else: This is for you. Before I begin, let me send my thanks to great fans of the following sites for putting this incredible information together. I cannot wait to read and hear about your PvP experiences when you release them a bit later this week: 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.
New Star Wars: The Old Republic dev blog dishes on advanced classes
Ready for another Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday feature? Whom are we kidding, of course you are! BioWare's Georg Zoeller is happy to oblige via his new dev blog that focuses on TOR's advanced classes. His previous entry laid the groundwork, whereas today's exercise is all about the details. Players will choose their advanced class at level 10, and each base class offers two advanced class choices (i.e., the Smuggler will need to select either the Gunslinger or Scoundrel as her advanced class). Each advanced class provides two exclusive skill trees and shares a third tree with the other (non-selected) advanced class. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, since Zoeller goes into quite a bit of detail in terms of the various skills, skill trees, and even decision-making and testing metrics (and of course, it's all sprinkled with a liberal dose of pretty pictures). Devour all the details on the official TOR website.
