Set Blasters to Question: A Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview
By Anthony Gallegos | Mar 15, 2010
Bring in the interrogation droid...
While we still haven't seen or played much of Star Wars: The Old Republic, what we have checked out is enough to fill our heads with questions. Setting aside the types of queries that only the hardest of the hardcore Star Wars nerds would care about, we sat down with Jake Neri, Producer at LucasArts, in order to find out how the demo we recently played compares to the final product that will ship next year.
GameSpy: How long do you give Star Wars Galaxies until it's dead?
Jake Neri: You know, we still work feverishly on Star Wars Galaxies. We have a team here still dedicated, SOE Austin's still dedicated, I don't see the game dying.
GameSpy: So is the plan to keep them going concurrently, to keep them going at the same time?
Jake Neri: I guess the true answer to that is, honestly, time will tell. We've always said that we'll support Galaxies while the fans support Galaxies. So I think that's probably the true answer. While there are still people playing it, we're still interested in having it going.
GameSpy: Just to clarify, in previous demos of the game, in presentations, you said that for fans out there looking for the next KOTOR, this is it -- this is KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, it's all of those games, all in one. So the content that we played today, these missions, they're for the Trooper class. Will the other classes also be able to go through this content, or is this specifically the Trooper's single-player game?
Jake Neri: You're seeing the Trooper on Ord Mantell, so there is a limited number of classes on Ord Mantell at start. We call them origin planets, this is where the player starts. Those planets are trying to get the particular class off on the story, trying to integrate them quickly into their story, and then also teach them the fundamentals of the game. So we're not bringing all classes, all groups to these planets. You will see other Republic classes here on this planet, but you wouldn't accidentally run into a level 50 Sith Warrior as you're trying to learn how to play as a Trooper.
GameSpy: What other planets are we going to see?
Jake Neri: We've announced a ton of the planets. Starting planets that you'll see... I think we've talked about Korriban, Hutta, Ord Mantell, and Tython as the homeworld of the Jedi. And so those are the sort of the origin planets as we've talked about them so far.
GameSpy: Can you tell us more about the combat system? How do the cover mechanics tie into it?
Jake Neri: One of the things that we showed quite a bit last year was the cover mechanic for the Smuggler. The Trooper is different: The Trooper is more like a run-and-gun -- just guns blazing -- type of class. We wanted it to just have a real pure, fun, DPS class, that relied on the rifle for everything from grenades to fire effects to shooting. With the AI, you're noticing that they are trying to take cover, they are trying to be dynamic, there's a lot of work in progress going there. You'll probably see some of them breaking. But the idea there is that if you're a ranged class, and you're fighting against an AI, they're going to try to act appropriately based on trying to find a way that they might have an advantage over you. They may run up on you, or they may try to take cover and let you duke it out from that standpoint. The Trooper really is just about trying to be at range at all costs. If an AI or an enemy gets up on you, that's where their weakness is, and so we're trying to balance that at the moment with the Trooper.
GameSpy: Have you had any reaction from the community about the final list of classes that you've revealed? Has every archetype from Star Wars been adequately represented?
Jake Neri: Has every archetype been represented? Probably not everyone -- I mean, there's quite a few. What we tried to do, though, with the classes, is start with what the Star Wars fantasy is before we went into, like, "Will this be a tank, or will this be a healer?" That type of "trinity" idea for MMOs. I think we talked about this a little bit last year, but if we're going to do a bounty hunter, let's make sure it lives up to the Boba Fett fantasy. If we're going to do a Jedi Knight, what do the people want in a Jedi Knight?
Once we've got that, and we feel like we're delivering on that fantasy for the player, then we'll go ahead and figure out how the gameplay works for them in terms of a group mechanic and that sort of thing. If the community is satisfied... I think they're pretty satisfied. I think almost every one of our classes has been well-received.
There are some that... I guess when you're doing eight classes, you imagine some will resonate more than others. Maybe we've been surprised by some of the ones that people are really drawn to. The Trooper, for instance, has been one that it seems like the community really likes a lot. Imperial Agent is another one that I think is new and unique. We always say, "Well, people are going to love Sith and Jedi," but they've equally loved some of the other classes in there like the Agent, which is one that we've crafted from a number of Star Wars archetypes.
GameSpy: How does the team go about balancing the ability to make players feel like they're heroes with also presenting them with an actual challenge?
Jake Neri: The challenge part is ongoing for us. We haven't nailed it all the way through the game yet. But, as a philosophy, we're trying to make the player feel heroic early. One of the ways we're doing that, and we talked about it quite a bit, is we're trying to do more cinematic, more visceral combat. We want you, at an early level, to have abilities that make you feel cool. And if you're going to do them a lot, they have an interesting payoff. Over-the-top grenade effects, for instance, at level two or three for the Trooper, might be different from what you get in other games, where you're sort of progressing all the way through to the end and then you're really a bad-ass. That philosophy for us is something that we have to balance against. We'll just consistently work at it, we're in the process of constantly going through the classes and saying, "Hey, does this work, does this need to be tweaked, what do the numbers look like here, how does the AI function here?" You're going to see, as you stick with us over the next year, and watch us evolve, you'll see this stuff get more and more finely tuned and more and more compelling. From the combat, how the characters themselves play and how the AI reacts.
GameSpy: When the game comes out of the gate, is it going to have a strong endgame that's going to keep players glued, after they hit whatever level cap is in place? Or is that something that's coming later, as we've seen some MMOs do?
Jake Neri: Well, we're fully aware of the need for an endgame. We don't have a ton of detail on what we're doing, but we absolutely want to support players who we know will be there very early on. One of the challenges for us as a unit is trying to figure out... How do you roll endgame content out, when is the right time for that, what should it look like? We've got a ton of ideas, we haven't announced anything firm, but we're fully aware of how important that is and how many players want that sort of content. We know, we're aware that somebody will be there 14 hours after launch. We get that. That's what makes it great, that's our challenge, and we're up to that challenge, I think. We've got a lot of designers that understand that, we've got a number of strategic folks that understand that. Everybody knows the challenge.
GameSpy: I would think that it's a particular challenge because you guys are focusing, more than any other MMO before, on putting story first. Fully voice-acted, this is like several sequels to KOTOR all in one, and it would seem like at some point the character's going to max out and exhaust all the story options. At that point, do you plan to just... I'm not going to say "devolve," but basically turn into a PVP-focused game, for the endgame players? How are you going to tackle the exhaustion of storyline?
Jake Neri: Well, as the player goes on, they start to branch...so, there's their individual story, and then there's the world story. As you progress you get more involved in the world story. I think maybe that's a place for us to have more repeatable content, or things that players can participate in that make sense in the grand scheme of what we're trying to do with the box. The individual stories are interesting, we think that people will probably want to play one or two of them. I think that's the pattern for people that really enjoy story, they're going to go back through and play that.
And it offers, for newer players that aren't familiar with MMOs, it's an opportunity for them to have their own Star Wars adventure at their disposal, right? With a full story. We do... The story is interesting in the sense that it's different, nobody's done it like this. And yeah, you're right, it does hit on some challenges that we have at the end. We don't want to devolve into just a purely PVP-based game, we would never do that, our story is at the forefront of everything we're going to do. So it's just a challenge that we have to deal with.
GameSpy: Have you guys talked at all about space flight, combat, stuff like that?
Jake Neri: The only thing we've said about space is that we understand that there's a desire for it. That's really what we've said so far.
GameSpy: So can we take that to mean that that's going to be there in some capacity at launch?
Jake Neri: I couldn't say what you can take that as. That would be up to you to speculate. [chuckles]
GameSpy: But you have received requests from the fans? Because it's such a key part of the Star Wars mythos, to have these epic space battles. Do you feel like an Old Republic game could be complete without that?
Jake Neri: I feel like we understand, yeah, from the player perspective, what they love about space. I think what we've shown so far is a focus on a ground game that's really compelling, so you know, anything we ever do around that, whatever the system be, would have to support that character progression and that story, and that really tight, finely-tuned experience. So we'll see.
GameSpy: If I could go back to classes really quick -- when you unveiled them you talked about how the focus was on re-creating these great Star Wars characters, without so much of a focus on the traditional tank, DPS, and healer dynamic that's in every MMO. Have you kind of gone back on that? Because I'm getting the impression that you are looking for a tank class and a DPS class, or is that no longer the case?
Jake Neri: Well, I think that one of the things that we have to do is make sure that people have compelling roles in groups, with each of the classes. Once we start with, have we delivered on the fantasy that people have about the Star Wars archetypes, then from there you're naturally going to get some of that MMO archetype pushing up into that. We're going to find that challenge of, certain mechanics do work, they are time-honored, how do we deliver that? But at the same time, we haven't shown a ton of our grouping yet, and I think that we will show that it will be different from what you have seen so far.
Again, I couldn't really talk to you as much as I'd just have to show you that. We have to work in and blend companions into the mix, which are a real compelling and interesting part of our group mechanics. And so we do have some challenges there. But you will hear us occasionally talk about, you know, DPS or tanks. It's not because we're going away from our core goal of, hey, we want to deliver on the Star Wars thing, it's just that sometimes that's the best way to describe something, and sometimes, yeah, that's naturally what's happening.
GameSpy: Have you butted heads with the Lucasfilm continuity police about anything you've wanted to do or include?
Jake Neri: Bumped heads with them? Not in, I would say, a negative way. No. They're right over there, we work with them constantly, and they've been very supportive. Those folks, this entire organization, has benefited from what we've done with BioWare in the past, right? KOTOR was tremendously successful, it created another subgenre or sub-brand of Star Wars. So they're very supportive of what we're doing, and they've been helpful.
I think last year we talked about the Smuggler, some twists to the Smuggler class, some opportunity to do some off-healing, and that was something that they brought to the table. They were looking at the classes, because all the stuff has to go over there to check through continuity as you mentioned. They said, "Hey, here's a few other things that some of these archetypes have done, are you interested in them?" We said, "Okay, yeah, that's cool." They've been very supportive, for the most part. They'll bust us occasionally on something, but it's never that bad. I haven't gotten fired yet, so that's good news.