SWTOR: Catch-All

Damion Schubert Interview from the fan summit. Crew Skills and other non story and non combat goodies.

typical day at Bioware.

One thing about working in game design is that there is little 'routine'. Every day is different. It is both awesome and stressful at the times, and certainly not for everyone.

Here's a random sample day from the life of the Principal Lead Combat Designer on The Old Republic.

0900. (+/-2h) I pull my landspeeder up in front of the office, cursing the already almost unbearable heat before remembering my time on Echo Base Alpha at BioWare Hoth (aka Edmonton).

My sights quickly acquire a prime parking spot within line of sight of the main door, but just as I am about to zoom in, William Wallace rides past me with his trained bear and claims it. Remembering the last time my speeder argued with his hipster bear, I withdraw and make a mental note to leak William's character name to the test server to the people that complain most about his classes, so they can 'ask him for advice'.

0915. After stopping at the concentrated Jawa liquid dispenser (They say it's unhealthy, but I say the only unhealthy part about them is inhaling the smoke from the Jawa bonfires behind the office where they roast the stuff), I make my way to my office, a nice property in the center of a building surrounded by a construct of heavy, blaster safe whiteboards.

0930. Quickly scan incoming communiques, mails, spam, alternating between the 'delete' and 'remember to look at later' options. How is it that I can search the internet faster than my inbox?

0945. Design Leads Meeting with Emperor Ohlen and Darth Lusinchi. Senators Amatangelo and Erickson are in attendance, along with various ambassadors from the Engineering, Quality Assurance and Production departments.

After going over the usual deliverables and pressing issues (Apparently the fansites are at the gate, demanding entrace), Moff Schubert complains about how his team got slaughtered trying to finish their group quests on Tatooine last night and how that is somehow my fault. After unsuccessfully trying to deflect the issue by shouting 'story' and pointing at Senator Erickson, I concede that intelligence reports indeed confirm that those Jawas somehow got their hands on rocket launchers that were marked as 'Task Force JT, Coruscant' and that there's increasing pile of dead testers in on Tatooine - enough to stop regular traffic to Alderaan apparently. I claim to have one of my guys call Schubert's guys (who all died on Tatooine anyway) and manage to escape the meeting.

1030. Another meeting. The Minister of Live Production, Blaine Christine wants everyone to be up to date on the latest developments from testing. Apparently there's been limited testing traffic on Alderaan since the last patch while intercepted forum communication shows an extremely increased volume of the words 'Jawa', 'Frack', and 'moisture farming'. I feign ignorance about these things and suggest we should send the community team with a white flag onto the hostile forums to identify the cause of the disturbance. Sadly, the suggestion is deflected - the community team apparently is herding around fansites in our building today, which is described as 'similar to nerf herding'.

1100. I pull up the defect tracking holonet and study the latest issue, broadly organizing them in 'fix now', 'fix by end of day', 'fix by end of week' and 'will not fix' - the latter one being my favorite, they need to increase the size of that button. I also scan the holo projections of vital metrics for various planets, including Tatooine.

1145. I briefly assemble my combat team for status updates on tools, work assignments, deadlines and casually mention that the introduction of high tech weaponry on Tatooine is a great success so far, almost no tester has made it past them. However, I had noticed earlier that Smugglers and Imperial Agents somehow seemed to be able outwit the Jawas and demand it fixed.

1200 - Lunch. On the way out, I nearly get trampled to death by a horde of fansite nerfs charging for the catered BBQ. Well, at least Texas found a good use for otherwise unproductive animals. Nothing bad ever happened from feeding animals to other animals.

1300. Ambassador Reid informs me that I am to be interviewed by some of the fansite people in an hour and scolds me for wearing a Republic shirt today. Something about 'The forums', 'favorite factions' and 'Jedi bias'. Not really sure what this is all about, but I tell him I'll wear an 'Empublic' shirt once we make one.

1315. I meet with the combat engineering team to triage work on game features for the next two weeks. It looks like we've made great progress and some parts of the new Emergency Protocols feature that is designed to make testers less frustrated after defeat. I decide on a few other features and a number of fixes we want prioritized for swift delivery and get dragged off by Ambassador Reid's minions to the fansite interview rooms.

1400. Interviews. Apparently we just let fansites ask almost any question these days. The topic of swimming comes up and I recall the tale of when our office got flooded years ago (apparently having a giant parking lot drain into the entrance of your building is a common design feature in modern Texas infrastructure) and how that left the Artists traumatized and unable to work with deep water.

1415. More interviews. Those Correlian Run Radio people. They seem nice, but try to trick me by saying 'answer these questions fast, just yes or no'. I can't remember what I told them, some kind of Jedi Mind trick. Curse you Kathy.

1430. More interviews. That Musco guy from that podcast, I think I remember the voice. Auto facing. Auto Attack. Companions. Tons of hard hitting questions. Maybe I should bring Mr. Wallace's bear next time to answer those questions. Cornered, I have no choice of telling them the truth about these things. I just hope we have some assassin Droids...

1445. More interviews. SWTOR-EU. They try to make me speak German, but it makes Mr. Reid uncomfortable. I suggest everyone get to their chopper instead, but am rebuffed. More questions I have to answer. Where will it end.

1500. Phew, this is done. I catch some breath behind the secure whiteboards of my office, and work through a long list of emails and requests. The lead technical artist jumps me to discuss 'optimization efforts', which is an euphemism for 'Do you guys really have to use all these visual effects?'. I manage to appease him by getting my data analyst to create a report on visual effect usage.

1600. Another meeting. Animation Sync. My guys show the animators how their work is being incorporated in various high level abilities.

1630. I briefly talk to my designer in charge of creature combat and casually mention that it'd be great if R2 units could be fit with a flamethrower. Surprisingly, he agrees. I then find spawning team leads to discuss several new heroic quests that have been added to Hutta and identify how we're going to approach those.

1700 - PvP Test. Testing that fancy new scenario about [bleeeeep]. I chose to not play today but observe my guys play. Notes are taken and converted into issue reports and requests for investigation.

1730. Pete, the class designer on the Bounty Hunter and Trooper classes informs me that the latest iteration of the class with changes from testing and internal feedback is ready. I get a short demo and we send the changes off for more QA testing and into the server publish pipeline.

1800. More emails. Reminders to review people, invites to attend interviews for prospective hires, technical discussions about issues with various game systems, mock ups for new UI screens and heated discussions about Jawas.

1900. Just as I am about to leave, an email from Lord Muzyka himself, containing the words 'Jawa' and 'Rocket Launcher'. I agree to investigate and escape the building.

2000. I get home. My phone tells me there's about 30 new emails that need attention, including one from Mr. Reid pointing to interesting comments on our forums. I decide to jump in and address a bunch of them before turning off the phone.

I'm not a big fan of this kind of PR. I might have to stop paying attention until this releases. If I try to keep up while they provide weekly bites of info, I'm going to quickly become disinterested.

Wembley wrote:

I'm not a big fan of this kind of PR. I might have to stop paying attention until this releases. If I try to keep up while they provide weekly bites of info, I'm going to quickly become disinterested.

I like this better than being completely in the dark. With the chance of getting in beta so slim its nice to see something.

ranalin wrote:
Wembley wrote:

I'm not a big fan of this kind of PR. I might have to stop paying attention until this releases. If I try to keep up while they provide weekly bites of info, I'm going to quickly become disinterested.

I like this better than being completely in the dark. With the chance of getting in beta so slim its nice to see something.

I like seeing new things about the game, but I feel like they just keep rehashing stuff we've already seen because they don't feel like talking about the stuff we don't really know about yet. We've seen the inquisitor shoot lightning at people before, and that's really all that's in this trailer.

I just said similar things in the DE:HR thread, at times far from release I wish the marketing people would learn to be quiet for a while, but it seems they must make work for themselves to keep their jobs and must keep the hype train fueled. Personally it just tires me out and dampens my enthusiasm for a game.

Wembley wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Wembley wrote:

I'm not a big fan of this kind of PR. I might have to stop paying attention until this releases. If I try to keep up while they provide weekly bites of info, I'm going to quickly become disinterested.

I like this better than being completely in the dark. With the chance of getting in beta so slim its nice to see something.

I like seeing new things about the game, but I feel like they just keep rehashing stuff we've already seen because they don't feel like talking about the stuff we don't really know about yet. We've seen the inquisitor shoot lightning at people before, and that's really all that's in this trailer.

There's a few more new abilities shown and Geonosians! I am disapointed that they didnt show the progression like they did the previous classes.

ranalin wrote:
Wembley wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Wembley wrote:

I'm not a big fan of this kind of PR. I might have to stop paying attention until this releases. If I try to keep up while they provide weekly bites of info, I'm going to quickly become disinterested.

I like this better than being completely in the dark. With the chance of getting in beta so slim its nice to see something.

I like seeing new things about the game, but I feel like they just keep rehashing stuff we've already seen because they don't feel like talking about the stuff we don't really know about yet. We've seen the inquisitor shoot lightning at people before, and that's really all that's in this trailer.

There's a few more new abilities shown and Geonosians! I am disapointed that they didnt show the progression like they did the previous classes.

I think the class trailers and the class progression trailers are separate things.. either way, I'm even more excited to play one of these guys as my first character

Also updated today:
One of the Sith Inquisitor companions
The Sith Inquisitor ship

Both are t3h hawt

Badferret wrote:

Sith Inquisitor trailer.

UNLIMITED POWER!

ranalin wrote:

There's a few more new abilities shown and Geonosians! I am disapointed that they didnt show the progression like they did the previous classes.

Good point on the Geonosians. That was a little surprise I wasn't expecting.

Tanglebones wrote:

Also updated today:
One of the Sith Inquisitor companions
The Sith Inquisitor ship

Both are t3h hawt :)

I really hope they plan on releasing more variety for player ships after it launches. I really like the designs they have, but one of the things I've always enjoyed about Star Wars is the feeling that it's a whole vast universe of cultures and styles all mixed together. Having each class have one choice of ship kind of kicks that ideal in the junk. Especially when you're considering classes like Smugglers and Bounty Hunters that traditionally were portrayed as having a random assortment of ships in use at any given time.

Dev comment to the folks on the official forums also fussing about seeing nothing but lightning.

The Advanced Classes... all they do is build upon the abilities of your primary class. So it isn't like youre losing the abilities you get up until then. If youre Palpatine, you still have a lightsaber, and you still use it like in Episode 3. You just prefer to use lightning and it is probably the better route to engage in combat.

If youre going the Darth Maul route, then youre going to be much more close-combat. Yes, you still have some lightning and other dark powers, but youre much more effective when you leap right into combat and engage in melee.

Geez people need to take a chill pill.

The true name of the dark side of the force is haterade!

Whenever I think I want to make a full career around game development I remember the internet and it quickly passes.

Don't tell me you couldn't afford to hire more community managers =P

ranalin wrote:

Dev comment to the folks on the official forums also fussing about seeing nothing but lightning.

The Advanced Classes... all they do is build upon the abilities of your primary class. So it isn't like youre losing the abilities you get up until then. If youre Palpatine, you still have a lightsaber, and you still use it like in Episode 3. You just prefer to use lightning and it is probably the better route to engage in combat.

If youre going the Darth Maul route, then youre going to be much more close-combat. Yes, you still have some lightning and other dark powers, but youre much more effective when you leap right into combat and engage in melee.

Perhaps in true GWJ fashion, I couldn't get past how big her chest was in the trailer. So between that and purple glowy eyes, I didn't see much lightning.

I tell ya, the dark side just isn't fair. If you're a guy you lose your limbs, lower jaw, become massively scarred and eventually turn into a shriveled prune of a man. If you're a woman you get some white makeup, glowy eyes and a comic-book perfect figure. Where's the justice!?

Of course it's not fair - do you not think that it's called the Dark Side for a reason ?

I can't imagine the business cards say "The Dark Side, an Equal Opportunity Employer Since 1977".

And hey, if I am going to run the risk of turning into a 'shriveled prune of a man', I am still going to sign up if I get a female apprentice who is going to look like a supermodel, even if she dresses like a goth and ends up trying to kill me.

Someone's going to get kicked from the closed beta: http://www.justin.tv/archive/archive...

I'm not really sure what to think of it, as I doubt it's a brilliant representation of TOR, there's only so much that can be shown in 1h30 of normal play (rather than Big! Exciting! Battles!). It seems like a low level area, so I don't think everything is meant to be great yet, but I also think that most games front-load the best content to draw people in. At face value I can't help but feel a little bored of what appears to be cookie-cutter MMO gameplay. I'm wondering where the awesome is that's meant to make me excited about this game, that they've got Bioware making something so generic.

I don't care what any early preview, ect say. I'll buy the game, get my free months worth and then make a decision on whether it is worth the extra money for a sub. Some people weren't fond of Rift, I was able to put 300 hours in before I got burnt out.

I know I'll play any new MMO more then the 8 to 12 hours most single player games run nowadays.

Any MMO, because of the type of game they are? I guess it's getting into the discussion from the angle of "more playtime = better", than good games are good, which can lead to all sorts of buying discussions.

That said, Rift looks like a generic MMO if you were to just look at a video of it, but it's the large rift/zone/world events that make it special. Bioware are touting their storywriting and character interaction as a major point of TOR, but all that's shown in that video is one choice-of-three when doing a quest hand in, and it's impossible to know if that's representative.

Scratched wrote:

At face value I can't help but feel a little bored of what appears to be cookie-cutter MMO gameplay. I'm wondering where the awesome is that's meant to make me excited about this game, that they've got Bioware making something so generic.

hehe thats been out for awhile now. Saw it posted on another forum along with some other older leaks but I was afraid to watch it till someone else sent me the link. Figured was safe then.

As for the cookie-cutter part. I dont think Bioware said they were doing anything different except more focus on story. If anyone was expecting something to just change the way they looked at mmos then i'm afraid they're going to be let down.

Just talking personally, what 'does it for me' with MMOs is the world, and how much is going on in it. Looking back on what has excited me, and what I look forward to, it's world events that grab me, either from a game system or things players are doing. TOR looks like a fairly static world, but then 1.5h is a blink of an eye timespan in MMO terms so hopefully they do something with using their stories.

I watched it and liked what I saw, and while it was 90 minutes in length we probably only saw 75-80 minutes of actual game-play as the player seemed to go AFK quite often.

A couple of other observations.

The player went straight from objective to objective seemingly passing up a lot of explorable geography in the process.

He never really panned the camera around to give you a good sense of scale, and I don't think he showed us the sky once. Personally while I am playing a MMO I am always fiddling with the camera angle looking for scenic vistas to take screenshots from.

The overall graphical polish looked nice, comparable to the Rift and the character animations looked very smooth.

I think those who were hoping that Bioware would fundamentally change the genre beyond their stated goal of emphasizing story and voice and who are tired of established MMO norms might be disappointed.

However, I found a couple of the dialog choices from the leak extremely interesting and I could see myself struggling to decide what to do with the Twi'lek encounter and the encounter at the Forge, especially without the safety net of a save game, and those choices occur within the first 10 levels, just imagine how long you could think on a plot critical point at level 45.

Personally I'm sold as I see a polished MMO set in the Star Wars universe, with Bioware dialogue and plot points.

Oh, and PvP scenarios that are designed to quickly launch and will auto buff low level players and reward tanking.

I'll definitely give them that it looks 'solid', with things looking as they're supposed to look. It's nice and clear which is something I like. However while it's well presented, I'm not sure it's beautiful and interesting to look at in a similar way to how WoW's landscapes (in an expansion zone, often from the air) or some of the Guild Wars2 zones look. Time will tell though.

I would share your concern if I was only basing the scope of the zones based on this snippet of the starting zone if I hadn't already seen:

And if the Devs hadn't said that planets like Alderan would be 6-8 times larger than the largest WoW zones.

OK so they're planning a meet and greet for the E3 event. One of the dev comments struck me as interesting.

Well, it could be all of the above, or none of the above. So far we're just trying to figure out if we should do it at all.

For those of you who can't make the trip to LA, don't despair. As I've said before, we'll be at plenty of shows - before and after launch - in a number of different places.

The bold part is the interesting part. What cons do we have left this year? This could help narrow down the launch time frame.

Gen Con
Dragon Con

are there any others? Only other one i can think of is GDC and that's next year.

ranalin wrote:

OK so they're planning a meet and greet for the E3 event. One of the dev comments struck me as interesting.

Well, it could be all of the above, or none of the above. So far we're just trying to figure out if we should do it at all.

For those of you who can't make the trip to LA, don't despair. As I've said before, we'll be at plenty of shows - before and after launch - in a number of different places.

The bold part is the interesting part. What cons do we have left this year? This could help narrow down the launch time frame.

Gen Con
Dragon Con

are there any others? Only other one i can think of is GDC and that's next year.

Penguincon?

/crosses fingers
/calls Bioware

Edit: I did, in fact, write them an email =) Worth a shot, I guess.

How about a Biocon, set up their own.

Scratched wrote:

How about a Biocon, set up their own.

Biocon sounds gross.