Info-Thread zum Game

[Parth]

mhh.. auto-facing?

[Ecid]

[quote="Georg Zoeller | Principal Lead Combat Designer on 'Swimming in The Old Republic' ""]

I completely disagree with this. An easy fix to not break the world designs is to add a fatigue system. You swim too far out, you become fatigued and must turn back. It's a wall to keep you from going too far, but at least it's not so rigid of a wall in not being able to swim at all.

There's no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.

In order for swimming to be actually worth the implementation and time, we'd want to do it right - meaning content built around it, maybe a water centric planet, etc. Absent that content - there are no water worlds in this game - we've decided to focus on other things that are more important to us.

I can definitely see why people like swimming (or any other feature for that matter), however, the decision to put a feature like that in the game cannot be solved with a simple yes/no poll. In reality, the question is more like “Do you want swimming or 'feature X'”. In this case, we chose feature X (or Y, or Z) for a number of reasons - one being that just adding a very basic version of swimming without building proper content around isn't something we wanted to focus on for launch.

We'll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it'd be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.
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[quote="Georg Zoeller | Principal Lead Combat Designer on 'Swimming in The Old Republic' ""]

This sounds like a very carefully worded way of saying "You walk along the bottom of the water as if the water isn't there, until you either turn around and walk back out or until the game eventually kills you". This is the kind of thing that makes people go "Wow. Can you believe they released the game in this state? That's just plain unpolished."

Which is why you will not be able to walk on the bottom of the sea. You can wade through waist deep water slowly getting deeper and at some point you start freezing/drown/etc.

Additionally, since this is a design decision made a long time ago, there is no reason for you to endlessly walk into the water as well. There's just no content out there that would require you to do that. We don't want you to run around in the deep water, it exists as a soft planet boundary - not as adventuring space.

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[quote="Georg Zoeller | Principal Lead Combat Designer on 'Swimming in The Old Republic' ""]

its not an obsession with swimming, its an obsession with immersion.

Realism does not necessarily equate immersion. Sometimes it can help it along, but sometimes it can fight it, and there are definitely different ways for players to get that goal.

A sense of immersion often comes from a sense of flow, from a sense that players are in the experience fully and totally. You certainly can be immersed in the realness of, say, the lush islands in Crysis. You also can be immersed in the pure action of Quake or even a really good run in Tetris. It’s all about how smoothly the experience feeds into itself and into your own perceptions.

My experience with swimming in most MMOs (and in fact, most other games) has not been particularly immersive. They are usually along the lines of "Where am I getting shot from? Why is my map useless? How far away is my target, really? Can I escape this fight swimming at this pokey speed? Why do my combat moves look so janky? Why does my pet look janky? Why is pathfinding janky? Why is navigating my character around tight spaces so difficult? Why does the game let players use jumping in and out of water to exploit? Where is there a designer I can punch in the throat?”

When you’re having experiences like that, you’re not in the game, you’re instead an angry and frustrated person staring at a keyboard. Failures in these areas don’t feel like challenges you couldn’t overcome, they feel like places where the game robbed you. When you start having these reactions, you are not immersed.

Doing swimming poorly is hard. Doing swimming very well (i.e. solving all of the problems above and then building the content to really take advantage of it) is very hard. BioWare is not a company that prides itself on halfway solutions typically. We’d prefer to swing for the fences - if we decide to take a feature, do it well. We don’t always succeed, mind you, but that’s the intent.

However, why is it that other games are able to do this, but not TOR?

We’re not other games. And none of those 'other games' have the same feature set as each other, anyway. Each of them has had a different design philosophy, a different focus, a different set of problems to deal with, etc. And ours will be different still.

There are a lot of features that these games have that we don’t have. There are a lot of features we have that they don’t have – and likely never will. Features have a substantial cost – not just a cost to develop, in this case, but a cost to design, worldbuild, build art for, QA and support for years to come. The senior design leads spend a lot of time comparing the various features, and figuring out what will make the best package of combined features – i.e. the experience that we call the game.

Because really, no feature exists in a vacuum. It’s all good and well to say “This game must have Baby Seal Clubbing because game XXX had Baby Seal Clubbing 10 years ago and so this game is going to be like one built by primitive cavemen designers who had no idea of the magic of Baby Seal Clubbing!” But the MMO genre is so established now that the possibility space for features is very large, and no, not all of them will make it in. For every feature, there’s a lot more discussion that happens amongst the designers. Does this feature support or fight the other features in the game? Does the feature highlight what we’re trying to do, or elevate the IP, or serve part of the populace that is currently underserved? Put shortly, is this feature right for the game? Or is there a better place we can spend all those resources to make something truly magical?

Because at the end of the day, we’re not trying to make 'just another MMO but with lightsabers'. We don’t want to blindly include features because some of our competitors are doing so. We want SWTOR to be its own experience and its own identity, and this occasionally means doing things differently and taking some chances.

Does this mean that Baby Seal Clubbing will make it in? Well, I fought for it, but no.


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[Ecid]

[quote="Georg Zoeller | Principal Lead Combat Designer on 'Advanced Classes Update' ""]

Amazing update! But I do have a question for Georg:
From the supplied list, it is easy to fortell the two AC-specific skill tress that accompany the shared skill tree, except in the case of the Imperial Agent Sniper, Jedi Knight Sentinel, Smuggler Gunslinger, and Sith Warrior Marauder.
Every other Advanced Class seems to have two distinct roles that could easily correspond to two skill trees, but the four listed above seem to only have one role.
Do these four ACs only have potential for the one combat role? If so, I am curious as to how their skill trees will be divided.
Thank you for today's blog and your continued forum comments Georg!

I've seen this question a few times now, so I'll try to explain.

First - we are not under any illusion that there will be parity in class distribution. There will be more Jedi Knights than Smugglers and there will always be more Sith Warriors than Agents. That is fine - we designed the game with that in mind. Certain fantasies are more popular than others after all.

There is a good number of people that only ever play damage dealing classes. Regardless of what choice you give them, when it comes to the core role of it, they want to go in there and make a difference with damage.

By having some Advanced Classes dedicated to pure damage, we are creating options for these players to experience different gameplay variations of damage dealing gameplay and mechanics within their class.

The Marauder / Sentinel skill trees allow for some great variation in gameplay (tactical vs. in your face, burst vs. sustained, different levels of mobility, Area of Effect vs single target) to give players that have a strong preference for the damage dealer role more variation that what is possible on ACs that fill multiple roles already.

So we really don't look at this as 'The Marauder only has one role available, therefore it must be significantly better at it than other ACs that have a DPS option', we look at this as 'The Marauder has one role available to it, and several very different (and full) ways of putting it to effect'. Plus, you get to wield dual blades - I hear some players really like that too.

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[Parth]

gemixte infos:

buch: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/11/the-ar ... -republic/ (streetdate vermutlich november. solche bücher erscheinen i.d.R. immer erst nach launch)

concept-idea von dh zu guild/capital-ships: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/13/guild-ships/

cyborg-implantate sind confirmed. evtl wird "cyborg" auch eine eigene "rasse" (dann aber nicht für alle "klassen")
dazu ein aktueller artikel auf torocast: http://www.torocast.com/index.php/edito ... kin-babies

[Parth]

ich hatte die dessection von DH hier gar nicht gepostet, oder? http://darthhater.com/media/gallery/tar ... issection/

kam da heute noch mal übers off-board drauf. in einem poll wird gefragt, wie lange man wohl bis lvl50 brauchen könnte; jedenfalls hat die gruppe im taral 5 dev walkthrough 2/3 xp auf lvl32 gemacht..
http://darthhater.com/media/gallery/tar ... image/3767

[Parth]

Dev tracker Highlights letzte Woche:

http://darthhater.com/2011/04/14/devtra ... l-14-2011/

[Parth]

FF heute:

Studio Insider: http://www.swtor.com/de/nachrichten/artikel/20110415

Fan Friday: http://www.swtor.com/de/nachrichten/artikel/20110415-0

[Parth]

FF:
neues Buch: http://www.swtor.com/de/nachrichten/artikel/20110422-0

In der nächsten Woche wirds neue News geben (mehr als "neues Buch"), da einige Podcasts ab heute zum SWTOUR Fan Site Summit (April 24 - 26th) nach Austin eingeladen sind: http://www.torocast.com/index.php/news/ ... il-24-16th

Hat sich wer eigentliche die aktuelle Ausgabe des Buffed Magazins: http://www.buffed.de/Buffed-Magazin-Bra ... sk-820588/ besorgt?

Reißer daraus:

Schluss mit den Info-Häppchen! Bioware gab uns zwei volle Tage Gelegenheit, ihr erstes Online-Rollenspiel in Austin, Texas ausgiebig zu spielen und einem Kopfgeldjäger durch die ersten Kapitel der Großen Jagd zu begleiten. Dazu hatten wir erstmals Gelegenheit, ein PvP-Schlachtfeld anzutesten!

Edit self: Nach einem Scan zu fragen wäre illegal und wurde daher geändert



Klargestellt wurden Äußerungen in einem Interview bei Gameinformer unter anderem in den dev tracker highlights: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/21/devtra ... l-21-2011/ und auch hier:

SW:TOR – So When’s the Open Beta?

About a week ago GameInformer got to sit down and do a Q&A with Bioware’s Dr. Greg Zeschuk, and Dr. Ray Muzyka about Mass Effect 3. Lots of questions were asked about what they have planned, and also how they are taking the responses to Dragon Age II as well, but what stuck out were two questions which Dr. Zeschuk answered. If you want to read the whole article, then you can read it here. I figured I would go ahead and cut to the part about SW:TOR for now.

What have been the exciting and challenging aspects of getting into the MMO business with The Old Republic?

Zeschuk: Obviously, MMOs are an enormous undertaking. There are a lot of technical challenges that you have to accomplish. It’s just the size. Historically, Bioware’s been known to make a lot of big games. Now working on an MMO, it’s very eye opening to see just how big they are.
There are some really successful ones out there. You have things you need to do to reach the bar. But it’s really rewarding though. We’re at the stage right now of doing a lot of internal and external testing for Star Wars and it’s really shaping up. It’s exciting. There are so many moving parts and it’s an interesting challenge, but we like that.

A lot of people around the office are excited to play it. Are there any plans coming together for a public beta?

Zeschuk: You’ll have to watch our website and see. At this point we’re still in more of a closed beta period. We’re definitely making great progress on it. The feedback’s been great. There’s always lots to do, but it’s really really shaping up. Before too long you guys will get a little crack at it. Keep an eye out for that.

(Just to clarify) So, what do we get out of this? Well, the way I see it is that they definitely aren’t ready for an Open Beta at the moment. I mean look, this is their first MMO, and frankly they want to get things right as much as possible before they release this behemoth. They are making good progress in the Closed Beta, but it is a huge game and it needs more revision. However, when they are ready to set up Open Beta, then they will let you know so keep checking their site.

quelle: http://leakerz.net/wp/2011/04/20/swtor- ... open-beta/

[Parth]

Dev-Tracker Highlights der letzten Woche: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/devtra ... l-28-2011/

daraus:

kein dual-spec im game

You can change your skill point distribution by paying credits at a vendor on your capital world. That has not changed.

You may or may not be able to change your Advanced Class, we haven't decided on this one yet. If you can, the cost would be significant. That has not changed.

There is currently no plan to add dual spec (the ability to swap almost instantly between two skill point configurations) for launch. At this point, it seems not necessary for us, but we're not opposed to add it at a later point / patch should we feel that the game would benefit from it.

Hope that helps.

Item Variationen und bindings

About the quality of the objects we have so far shown the following: Low quality (gray), standard (bronze, a sort of dull orange), premium (green), prototype (blue) and artifact (purple).

Here's a little info: Initially we used a schematic of metallic colors (bronze - silver - gold - platinum) because everyone is familiar with the values of these metals. It was a good theory, but in practice it ended with a variation of gray and yellow, one that did not really so great! After many trials and some errors, we ended up using more or less like the standard MMO players are already familiar with it.

About linked objects, we showed "Bind on Equip" and "Bind on Pickup" We had some discussion about the mechanics of the binding of objects and how this could work in our settings the game we ended up use these two types of binding because even if these concepts are somewhat artificial, they are very useful to keep a balanced economy game. We also ended up creating a new system, about which we are confident that gamers will really enjoy and they will find appropriate in the Star Wars universe. This is something we are not yet ready to discuss.

[Parth]

DH Fan Site Summit:

Black Talon Falshpoints Impresions: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan-si ... pressions/

Bounty Hunter Impressions: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan-si ... pressions/

Imperial Agent Impresions: http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan-si ... pressions/

Q&A Audio Session (Transkript folgt dazu... knapp 2h audio): http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan-si ... ion-audio/


General Information Learned

Carefully examining and dissecting content for Star Wars: The Old Republic is the keystone of our work at Darth Hater. This meticulous approach is seen throughout our articles, but it becomes even more pronounced when we are actually playing the game.The following is our list of new general notes from our multiple hours of game play at the Fan Site Summit earlier this week.

• Crew Skills available for training in Kaas City: Cybertech (Reverse Engineering Tech which leads to creating Tech), Underworld Trading, Slicing, Bio Analysis, Bio Chem, Diplomacy, Investigation Mission, Treasure Hunting, Synthweaving, Archeology, and Artifice.
  
  Galactic Market Kiosk is the name of the Auction House, and encountered first on Dromund Kaas.
  
  Mailboxes seen in game. Can send items, credits, COD, text message.
  
  Trainer icon on the minimap is an upward facing caret (^). If there are new skills you can learn the icon gains a plus symbol under the caret. If you mouse over the trainer symbol it will also tell you if there are new abilities available.
  
  Bonus quests now show up alongside the parent quest on your map and minimap as soon as you pick one up.
  
  Lightsaber Enhancement, Armor Enhancement, and other Stations/Benches seen on Hutta.
  
  Idle banter can be heard by NPCs throughout the game. These conversations normally pertain to local events and are regularly heard from NPCs that don't offer any other dialogue.
  
  Cantina music heard in the palace of Nem'ro the Hutt cycles after each song. Some of the music sounds very familiar while other pieces sound completely original.
  
  We were unable to see the character creator, but we were told the random name generator was crafted by Daniel Erickson and is species specific.
  
  Estimated time to completion seen on phased areas when you mouse over the green doors. This does not appear to be accurate in this current build, because all instances were marked with estimated five minutes regardless of actual length.
  
  Estimated time to completion also seen when mousing over the black dialogue bubbles over players currently involved in a dialogue sequence.
  
  Evocii Model seen in game for the first time.
  
  Lore Objects are throughout the world and give you a codex entry when clicked on. These also yield a small amount of experience upon gathering.
  
  Class specific long duration buffs, such as Coordination for the Imperial Agent, stack. If you are in a party with four of the same class you can all buff each other, effectively giving each player a buff four times more powerful than normal.
  
  There are long duration buffs that are specific to Advanced Classes and these do not replace the basic class buffs. This means Sniper Imperial Agents can cast both Coordination and a special Sniper buff on themselves and their fellow party members.
  
  Companions start with four different abilities. The first two are Attack and Passive with the other two being a unique companion ability and a kit. The companion ability is togglable and will allow the companion to use that ability at will. The kit is an equipable companion item that adds an ability to their bar that can be swapped with other kits. The kits are not currently togglable.
  
  Mako starts with a Healing Mode and Concussion Round Kit (deals damage, knocks down lower tier enemies).
  
  Kaliyo starts with a Plasma Round Mode and Grenade Kit (deals AOE damage).
  
  Companion characters will taunt you if they get close to death with unique lines of dialogue.
  
  Some items are only equipable by companion characters. Kaliyo's Jacket is acquired during a class quest and can only be equiped by Kaliyo.
  
  When a companion wants to speak with you, a small dialogue bubble will appear above their picture on the companion ability bar. You can only talk with the companions in private areas like your ship and special cantina rooms.
  
  Companion Affection Points are added or subtracted during cutscenes depending on your choices. Notification pops up in a small blue box on the bottom of the screen.
  
  Companion Affection can also be increased by giving the companions gifts. This system was described as similar to the system seen in Dragon Age. We were also told that in the current build one way to get these gifts was by using the Treasure Hunting crew skill.
  Aim stat added; modifies critical chance and damage.
  
  Character titles can be gained by your character. Some of these titles appear to be class dependent (Agent x) while others appear to be universal (Friendly x, x the Merciless, x the Outgoing) were x is your character name. These titles appear to be connected to your dialogue choices and may also be connected to any and all other game systems.
  
  Social points are added whenever you win a roll in a group dialogue scene or achieve a specific objective while grouped. These appear in a small blue box on the bottom of the screen. Social points accumulate to give you new social levels or tiers
  
  Can join party members in group conversations from far away via Holocom. Absent players join the conversation as a hologram. You can also start the quest conversation without party members if you do not want to wait. You are given a count of how many group members have joined in until it reaches the number your group has, at which point the conversation starts automatically.
  
  In the cases where you see a cut scene while on a shuttle to another location, you can press escape (same with the way it works in every other cut scene) to stop the transition to the new area.
  
  Player ship hangars are separated by class. For example, there's one for Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, etc. It should also be noted that the hangars appear on Dromund Kaas.
  
  PVP vendors are separated by class.
  
  Mako has a minor bonus to Cybertech and significant bonus to Slicing.
  
  Current rarities listed as Legacy, Legendary, Artifact, Prototype, Premium, Standard, and Cheap.
  Banking Terminals are available on Kaas City.
  
  If you are bound to another flashpoint and did not complete the flashpoint you can then synchronize your flashpoint instance id to your new group's. This allows players to join up with a new group at the beginning. This does not work the other direction though; we were unable to sync someone forward in a flashpoint they did not participate in.
  
  Guild tab seen during the play session. Must visit Regional Administration Office to create guild.
  You can currently only run each Flashpoint once per day.
  
  Disconnected icon is a Lightning Bolt.
  
  You can expand your inventory. First time costs 15,000 Credits.
  
  There is a conversation mode option for solo or multiplayer when you right click your character's portrait.
  
  You continue to earn experience in Flashpoints while dead as long as you don't click "Return to the Med Center."
  
  The optional color matching uses the primary color of your chest piece as the color to apply elsewhere. You are currently unable to use any other piece of armor to change the color of your chest piece, but this can be toggled off.
  
  Planets have heroic spaces that are non-instanced areas with harder then normal mobs and quests. We saw these before in isolated dungeon-like areas on Tython and Hutta, but we also discovered a large open air heroic area on Dromund Kaas.
  
  Mobs do not respawn in Flashpoints.
  
  Datacrons appear on the minimap when you are near one. They do not show up on the large map.
  
  The Bounty Terminal mentioned in past coverage no longer exists in the same place it did on Hutta, replaced by an NPC droid who gives you quests.
  
  The automated taxi system currently doesn't allow for final destination travel; possibly a bug.