Tag Archives: James Ohlen

BioWare’s James Ohlen admits that free-to-play is as valid a business model as subscription, but seems cautious about whether it could work for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

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BioWare hopes to follow up on the success of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Rakghoul Plague event, which launched without fanfare to great popularity.

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“There is a place for subscription-based games and if you’re going to build a subscription-based game it’s got to be huge in scope. People have to feel that it’s worth paying a subscription fee every month, so the scope of the game has to be much bigger than the free-to-play games. The quality, the polish has to be very, very high, and then you need to have a plan to continue to deliver free content on a regular basis. If you do those things, I think you can succeed as a subscription-based game. Obviously, there can only be a few subscription-based games. There is a limited MMO audience and not a ton of that audience is playing more than one MMO, but I still think there’s room for more than just one really successful online game. I think Star Wars: The Old Republic can coexist with World of Warcraft and other successful games like Rift. You can have multiple MMOs with a subscription being successful as long as those games fulfill the requirements of high quality, good polish, lots of content, and continuing to do high value updates on a regular basis.” – SWTOR director James Ohlen to IGN.

Bioware has released a video discussing the plans it has in place for Star Wars: The Old Republic over the next few months. As previously promised, UI customization, more Flahpoints, Warzones, and an updated Legacy system are in the works, along with Guild features such as a Guild Bank The storyline introduced with Update 1.1 storyline will also be concluded in the March update, and it will bring with it ranked Warzone matches, abilities earned through the Legacy system and more. Check out game director James Ohlen discussing the changes and upcoming content below.

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BioWare has significant, immediate plans for the future of Star Wars: The Old Republic – and an even bigger strategy beyond that.

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Bioware has announced a few details regarding upcoming additions to the Legacy System in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which allows users to create relationships between their characters, and develop a family tree of sorts.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic’s director, James Ohlen, has said he disagrees with the “unfair” assessment that the MMO is an adequate effort, but one lacking in innovation.

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James Ohlen, game director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, has said that some of those playing the MMO have gone to great lengths to reach max level on their characters.

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Purely neutral Star Wars: The Old Republic players will eventually have access to exclusive sweet loot, just like their hardcore light and dark side brethren.

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James Ohlen has said SWTOR players can expect patches to fix bugs and exploits found in the newly launched MMO “almost every week”.

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“We had backup plans. In all, the design team was like three of us at that point, in total. So we were looking at doing a Lord of the Rings MMO, a Silmarillion MMO, a kind of a Gunslinger-esque Dark Tower MMO, a Game of Thrones MMO. When we were first were deciding on what kind of game we were going to build, I really wanted to do a story-based massively multiplayer game because hey, it hadn’t been done before. I thought: ‘hey, good way to innovate’ – that’s what Bioware stands for and that’s what we’re good at. We had an in-built fanbase with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In fact, when you ask our fans ‘what kind of MMO would you like us to build?’ they almost always say ‘how about Knights of the Old Republic massively multiplayer game?’” – SWTOR director James Ohlen to PC Gamer.

SWTOR director James Ohlen is featured in the developer dispatch below discussing how companion characters in the MMO were designed, as well as their customization and mechanics. Ohlen called companions “a significant innovation to MMORPGs,” and explained what features to expect in relation to them at launch. Check out the video featuring the design team courtesy of Gamespot.

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Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic Project Lead James Ohlen has said that the company is working hard preparing for what could be the largest scale online launch gaming has ever seen for the Star Wars MMO.

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BioWare said over the weekend that it intends to have Star Wars: The Old Republic to keep going for “decades.”

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During a Star Wars: The Old Republic Comic-Con panel, game director James Ohlen, executive producer Rich Vogel, and community manager Stephen Reid, with senior content producer Dallas Dickinson chatted with attendees about character classes. personal story, exploration, and confirmed the slated release window of holiday 2011 for the MMO.

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BioWare’s James Ohlen has hinted to IncGamers that a level cap increase may be part of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s end-game.

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