Only a ”free beer and pizza dispenser” would keep any MMO going that long, said Erickson. Analyst’s ‘derivative WoW clone’ comments from an ‘outsider’.
”That was James Ohlen and he was making a joke that got misquoted and misconstrued. Always watch what you say at a con!” said Daniel Erickson, referring to EA James Ohlen and his little dialogue about Star Wars: The Old Republic going on for decades.
”Some sort of free beer and pizza dispenser connected to said game?” joked Erickson, about what it would take to keep any subscription MMO alive for so long.
What about an analyst’s comments that BioWare’s MMO is just a ‘highly derivative WoW clone’? ”It’s an odd notion that we’ve seen before in the industry when dealing with outside analysts,” responded the MMO lead writer.
”RPGs are more similar to each other than they are to FPS games. FPS games are more similar to each other than to racing games. If you’re not playing something or a fan of the genre, the games inside that genre look fairly similar.”
”If you’re looking from 30,000 feet up and making comparisons then you could see the argument that Diablo and Baldur’s Gate were the same game, as were Quake and Half Life but I can’t imagine many player ever saw it that way,” explained Erickson.
The Old Republic already breaks from the traditional MMO mould, so why did they stick with action-bar style combat? Was it a marketing decision to draw in the crowd?
”It wasn’t a marketing decision at all. We make RPGs and we use the best RPG interface we can put together. Not only did we not depart from action bar combat, the Dragon Age series adopted it right from the start for its single-player game,” he said.
”It turns out to be the easiest way to organize a complex series of powers. What we did bring was synchronized animations, more dynamic and movement-based combat (Force-push, explosions that send people flying, etc) and far faster fights.”
Unlike in previous BioWare games, there will be no room for companion character deaths although they were included at one point but removed for balance purposes.
”Companion deaths were one of the very last things to get cut from the game. We had some interesting plot lines we really didn’t want to see go but the risk to game balance was just too huge,” continued Erickson.
”Testing quickly showed that people would do things in the heat of the moment (and to see if they could) and then instantly suffer game-crippling remorse or would be fine with the decision until they ran into a situation where they really needed that companion.”
”For gameplay differentiation it was important to us that each CC had a clear and distinct combat role that works with the character class - which means being a tank and realizing you’ve killed your healer companion right before the Chapter boss fight… it wasn’t something we could defend without a reload button for people who were going to have these characters for years.” A valuable lesson - don’t kill your healer chums, NPC or not.
Star Wars: The Old Republic releases on PC later this year. A beta is expected to run at some point this September but details remain scarce. BioWare’s MMO has shattered all previous EA records a title pre-order. Are you ready to spend your credits?
