Sat, Jun 19, 2010 | 21:48 BST
SWTOR’s single-player is “far, far bigger” than any game BioWare’s ever done
BioWare has said that the single-player storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be massive.
Just how massive? How does “far, far, far bigger” than any game it’s ever made grab you?
According to SWTOR’s writing director Daniel Erickson, each character choice for the game has full conversations, context, and choice – making for a rather huge storyline.
“One of the really interesting things about doing the game this way is – because we were pushing for replayability, pushing for people to be able to have very separate experiences – we got to do something we’ve never been able to do before, which is fully individualized stories,” he told VG247 at E3 this week.
“So if we’re talking about a Baldur’s Gate or any role-playing game, you have to do a kind of general story. We don’t know if you’re a mage or if you’re a warrior. We just kind of have to make it work. Now, with the backstories, we have a smuggler-specific RPG. You can roll a smuggler, and he’s got a crazy story. And it’s funny, and he’s got ridiculous lines, and he’s always in over his head, and everything’s always going wrong, and you can flirt with everything that moves. And then you go and roll a bounty hunter, and it’s much more serious. He’s sort of a gunslinger, and he’s one man with a gun making his way in the world.
“They’re like completely different RPGs that you would have never gotten to see. And the big one of course – that people are still trying to get their heads around – is that if you played that smuggler RPG, and you played that from the beginning all the way to the end, and then you decided ‘I want something new,’ and you played the bounty hunter all the way to the end, you would not see one piece of repeated content.
“But no quests, no quest-givers, no NPCs, and not one line of dialogue. It’s massively massive.
“One playthrough is far, far, far bigger than anything we’ve ever done before”.
Sounds huge, and Yoda knows there’s plenty of lore for BioWare and Lucasarts to play around with in terms of expansions and alternate storylines in the future.
You can get the full interview through the link.
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Posted in: EA, Hot, Interview, Lucasarts, MMO, PC
Tags: bioware, Daniel Erickson, star wars, Star Wars The Old Republic, swtor
15 comments
#1
YoungZer0
19/06/10, 10:01 pm
Wait, i don’t get it. I thought it was supposed to be a MMORPG. No mentioning of singleplayer.
#2
Elven_Star
19/06/10, 10:06 pm
#1
Same here.
#3
Nathan Grayson
19/06/10, 10:08 pm
It is an MMO, but there are NPCs and conversation trees and stuff. It’s a fusion of BioWare role-playing sensibilities and an MMO’s size and, you know, multiplayer.
Part two of the interview – which is going live tomorrow – delves further into how multiplayer functions alongside the story portion of the game. On paper, it sounds awesome. I’m still skeptical, though. Wish I could have played more of it during the show.
#4
YoungZer0
19/06/10, 10:19 pm
Oh, okay. Won’t waste my time with it then. Can be the best game ever, I’m not paying for playing.
#5
Stephany Nunneley
19/06/10, 10:54 pm
@1 – You can play SP in an MMO. I do it all the time. Not all quests involve running around with 3-12 people, and some of us are a bit anti-social too. :p
#6
Phoenixblight
19/06/10, 10:55 pm
As my friends put it, Its KOTOR 3: Online.
#7
The Hindle
19/06/10, 11:06 pm
Boo hoo i want KOTOR 3 not this i couldnt care less about a MMO
#8
Bulk Slash
20/06/10, 12:49 am
Does the game actually have lots more content than any previous Bioware RPG or is it a typical MMO where everything takes 10x as long to do so that you don’t finish the game quickly and stop paying the monthly subscription?
Will I have to spend a week mining for lightsaber crystals just to level up my crafting ability by +1? Basically if this game has all the grinding of a typical MMO I’m totally not interested. Although to be honest Mass Effect 2 has raised the bar so much I’m not sure I’d want to go back to the old turn based KOTOR combat system…
#9
LordCancer
20/06/10, 1:36 am
I wanted kotor 3 too. I won’t be playing this.
#10
Pelt Hunter
20/06/10, 8:31 am
My mind is blown how any of you are on the fence about this. Disclaimer: The only MMOs I’ve ever REALLY played are Guild Wars and City of Heroes for 2 months. However this sounds phenomenal and I would have gone bounty hunter had he not just explained the vast difference in tone between that and the smuggler class. A wise-cracking light-hearted jokester is the story line for me.
Also, I know you said MP will be in the next interview but wont your party members be online if you want them to be? Or is it all SP like you said in the header? If so the billing becomes more confusing. Lets hope they come up with an untraditional structure.
#11
Demiath
20/06/10, 9:28 am
This is the first I’ve heard of this schizophrenic singleplayer/MMO hybrid part to SWTOR, and I wish Bioware had chosen to do something on the lines of what most shooter developers do instead – i.e. clearly separate a (comparatively short but focused and meticulously detailed) singleplayer campaign from the sprawling MMO tedium. That way, MMO-averse SP loyalists such as myself would be able to enjoy a dedicated, stand-alone game mode which appeals to us and not have to bother at all with the multiplayer crap…
#12
Amored
20/06/10, 9:45 am
This is just wrong. It’s an MMO! I don’t mind a story in MMOs, but it just feels wrong with “single-player”.
Sure, SWG had the Legacy quest, but that was awesome with friends.
I’m looking forward to SWTOR, but I’m a bit disappointed with how they created the world and this single-player talk.
#13
Stephany Nunneley
20/06/10, 2:36 pm
OK – let me explain this a bit. The single-player portion is like any MMO – it is the solo questing portion. So your solo bits will be your own story. So, instead of everyone having the same storyline – like say in LOTRO where when you are finished, the quest giver says ‘Thank you Barnaby Axeman from Dale’, or “you are a great hunter, Haggorthiel” it will be part of your very own story.
This does not mean you won’t have quests that require more than one player or a pal can’t go with you. It’s sounds to me like any other MMO out there, only with a story for each class instead of the basic one with the name changes.
And if the soloing bit is “far, far, far” bigger, just IMAGINE how big the multiplayer bit will be? I might as well call my life off right now
#14
robmlufc
20/06/10, 4:24 pm
Just bring back SWG with nice graphics and everything, then ill be a happy bunny.
This doesnt sound too bad though. Like people have said, I dont want a monthly fee for a single player game with poor MMO content.
#15
Zurtech
20/06/10, 7:29 pm
@13
Couldn’t agree more. Is exactly the reason I’m looking forward to OR so much. Proper stories, not being forced to play with some of the rudest and egotistical players going and I also can’t wait to take use of the companion feature. Which unlike WoW won’t mean standing around for hours waiting for an instance only to have really bad players ruin it and dump the party. Oh and not to mention the who class stories in OR actually make it a proper MMORPG as opposed to the rest which are really MMORPG lite.