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TB: Ladies and gentleman, my name is Total Biscuit For www.CynicalBrit.com
At Euro Gamer Expo 2011. I am here with Daniel from Bioware, and we're going to be talking
about the idea of storytelling
in the Star Wars: The Old Republic. Welcome to the show
Daniel: Thank You Sir TB: Fantastic, Now
You said so yourself you've been on this project before this project even
existed. So before we start why dont you give us a background into your current role, and
what you've been doing up until this point.
Daniel: Sure, I am the writing director for Bioware: Austin and lead writer on this game
So my job is basically to corral in a very large writing team
and make sure everybody's point at the same direction
Be the one guy who sort of knows the overall arcing story and where everything is going.
all the content stuff, we interface obviously with art and say
this with stuff actually is world design ect...
we also do a whole lot of
the broad stuff for the game
trying to educate make sure everybody understands schmatically what's going on
What the time period is, What is appropriate for it and all that stuff.
TB: Yep, always very very important to avoid making "Mistakes" in that regard
considering the tenacity of the fan base! Lets just put it that way.
Daniel: They are an active and enthusiastic fan base. TB: That thay are, and extremely knowledgeable
I might add, dignified charismatic people ...
Right..... So....Yeah..
The question I first Want to ask is:
How do you approach telling a story in an MMO as opposed to a triditional
Single-Player Game?
Daniel: So when we first get into it, it's kind of interesting because
When weannounced: "Hey!, we're going to bring story in. and we're gonna do the same sort
of storytelling we do in an RPG" A lot of the early reactions were:
You can't do that!!!
TB: You're not allowed, it's against some unwritten law!
Well, what it actually is...
that I think is interesting, is a restriction that really came from tech
and resources TB: Yep
Daniel: early in the Genre
then became an accepted norm of the Genre
and then sort of a rule.
whereas we were kind of taken aback.
Bioware tried a little bit with Neverwinter Nights games like that,
but we come from the pen and paper background.
RPGs are supposed to have your friends there! TB: Yes they are
Daniel: That's the whole point. so for us there wasn't really a big separation when we thought about it
uh... there were some
technical and
creative hurdles...
i did the first test for multiplayer dialogue
far far back before we got the project off the ground, because I knew that was going to be
biggest single thing. How do you get a whole party together? to talk an NPC!
uh... once we got over that
if really just flowed. It is actually
much more natural to have your friends to play off of
than to be there by yourself
and it's great to have the different classes
they're different class characters TB: yeah
Daniel: so you're trying to be very proud and very noble when you're playing your
Jedi Knight
and your smuggler buddy in the party's consistently hitting on the NPC you're talking to.
And you know you can be like they don't listen to this guy!
It brings some of that old around the table dynamic.
TB: Yeah, I suppose it would, and that does remind people of old Pen & Paper RPGs.
in regard where the clashes between the role play characters are actually
what made the whole story interesting!
Daniel: One of things that I thought was a a very interesting that I did not expect
in fact we had a lot of discussions around
uh... the chatbox TB: yeah
Daniel: uh... and what happens to the chat box when you are in Dialogue. So we turned it off
By default
uh... but then we realized alot of people turned it back on when their fellow "Earnie"
is playing and then it actually does Feel like
pen and paper games
because people will be having "Both: A meta discussion about the conversation"
Daniel: Correct whereas we used to do that in the old pen and paper games where
we sort of froze time
and were like "Hey, whar are we going to tell this guy"
TB: Lets talk about Dice Roll Mechanics chance and probability and "Oh Good Sir!" Daniel: Exactlym then you would
see these uh...
people in fact would win the roles and often the chat box would be: AHHH!
I cant believe you won that again!
You Jerk!... Graahhh TB: Haha. Yeah, take exactly what you want and
you were talking about the mechanics and the idea about the chat box being on
and some people like it some people don't
You were talking about the idea of how
to get people together when they're different locations and its a perfect
chance to watch the little system that you've put in place.
how would you gets people in different locations into the same in-game cutscene
conversation. Daniel: So that was one of the early things we had was uh...
the testers said
we love multiplier conversation
we love to play with our friends but were us eto the MMO...
We drift, around on our own,do errands and our own things especially when we hit town.
so we feel like we're missing a lot!
uh... so what a great things about star wars is whatever it's the past but it's the
future we have Tech uh... we've got phones, we've got holo communicators
so somebody can start a conversation and it instantly tells you that they are in a
conversation
if you don't want to run over to where they are
you can literally phone in
and you appear as a blue hologram in the middle of the conversation
uh... there are some options you cannot pick
TB: Right Daniel:If the option shoot him
comes up it will be Greyed out the TB: That would be a little tricky.
you would throw menacing gestures in his direction... Daniel: You could threaten
but he mightnot take you very seriously.
TB: But not really, I cant imagine that would work so well.
So the thing about Knights of the Old Republic and the legacy that you're
to live up to with the old republic in MMO form is that
knights of the old republic was a Single Player Game and it was a very well-received
single player game.. now do you anticipate that some of your fans are going to try to
treat the
Old republic as
knights of the old republic and how exactly do you support that playstyle?
Daniel: uh... we absolutely do think so in fact
our hope in our dream it is that
all the bioware guys, all the RPG folks out there
who have not played MMOs
are going to come play this.
are going to start to treat it like a single player RPG and you can you can
play at all the way for all the classes
one to fifty single-player
but there's some great multi-player stuff out there there we're gonna come
tempt you with.We're gonna say Hey! you know other people aren't so scary
are they are but they're still on the side shoot 'em
TB: but you can shoot them
Daniel: uh... you can hang out with them. There are alot of cool
things that you get only from doing this
Sweet...
Ideally we're gonna take those people bring teach them to play with other
people
and enhance their experience a bit
and any time you don't want to, there's tons of solo content for you
TB: Excellent... sounds really really good in terms of the way the story is presented
so you can
you can really dip in and dip out of someone else's story can't you.
So how does not work from your perspective?
Daniel: uh... one of things we always have to be thinking about is
what does this look like when somebody else is there? Not the extreme version of
"You know what does this look like when somebody has his pants off and is
dancing on the mailbox next to you?!?!"
uh... it's we really just can't deal with that one! TB: Well, but this is a case
if you turn around and say well there is just some weird people in the world it happened in real life
and it happens in the far future and indeed in the far past
Daniel: uh... as far as storytelling goes
we make sure that the classes that we have classes that we have....
We have class stories and world stories. And the class stories you own so other people can come with
you that watch what's going on. they can do all that but they can't actually
change your decision...
Ht the end of the day you know
Han cant come in and just tell Yoda that he doesn't want to be a Jedi
but in the world stuff
we really go out of the way to say what's gonna be different about this
if the different classes are there. What options are you going to have because
the Sith Inquisitor as there
that maybe he wouldn't if the agents there
One obviously being a Sith in the empire
you get the highest level of respect from anybody's not Sith, all the time
so the way they come about you
compared the bounty hunter which is treated very much like a hired gun and
kind of *** a lot of the times by the military is a
very different feel
One of the questions we have very early with the Sith Inquisitor is:
if you have the ability to shoot people with lightning out of your fingers
how often with that show up in conversation
answer turned out to be a lot! Ha ha ha ha!
so very often you get these you know like
Negeotiate, Threaten, and Shock Him!
and it's very hard to be light side when that's constantly an option on your
bar
TB: yep it all morality thing is really interesting because I suppose alot of
people think Well
you picked Sith that means you automatically evil but that's not the case is that
there is this Morality system within the game
Lets take Sith as an example because that is the more obvious one
for instance is as a Jedi falling to the dark side is a classic story theme
within the universe going the other way not so much! So how do you handle that?
Daniel: the classic sort of anti-hero pieces is the bad guy....
the good guy
in a bad world
yeah right so
the Sith empire is
very very nasty in the way it's run and their ethics and all of that.
but that doesn't mean that everybody
born becomes Sith
because of the empire if you are force sensitive you have two choices
become Sith or Die
so it makes sense you're gonna have variations on those of you know people
who achieve everything they'd have to to become Sith
but the training the brainwashing whatever is not going to stick
and at that point you've been told you are now A Lord,
you can now do
anything that you want
unless someone else could stop you
you can be a Light Side Sith
who is a man who is trying to make this country a better place
TB: Yeah, I suppose that the very idea of the sith is not to do evil, its to do what you want
To wield power and to gain more of it and yes you can I suppose you can technically use that for good?
Daniel: That the rightness of power comes
as it has to go back a little bit even to some of our historical concepts
that if somebody has power somebody is King
that means that the universe
wanted him to be King. In the same way i am force sensitive and more
powerful than you, it is my right to rule and my right to make decisions.
the really nice contrast that is very fun in their is
the Jedi are not just good.. they are extremely restrictive!
there almost Monks. They don't like relationships They don't
like
connections, so
as people start to play the Jedi and the first time they see themself getting a
dark side point from a flirt line or something
Ohhhhh!!
you know
i didn't expect actually be restricted TB: Somebody should have read the Jedi code manual
obviously! Daniel: Yes where as the Sith are like PARTY!
They like art and
craziness and have no problems with romance and
murders inside romance. TB: They are suddenly more interesting than everyone else huh?
Daniel: Absolutely
Excellent, right and uhh I suppose the last thing that I would like to say about
the story in general really is just how long do you think it's going to take
for someone to work all the way through as a single average run-of-the-mill player...
to work through their class story?? A Ballpark Figure... Daniel: So we don't have
the numbers for all the chapters because we don't have enough testing on
chaper three. We do for chapter one so
uh... each class has Full Star Wars Trillogy
and it's not
three.... we say chapter one two and three but it's like the movies are
Each one is full, Its own piece. so you're going to finish dealing with
the bad guy
have time pass deal with your companion characters and then start a new piece.
Chapter one
is longer
by quite a bit than the average play through of the original Knights of the old republic
And there's eight of them
TB: Eight! There you go folks there’s some nice little numbers for you to chew on!
Daniel thank you very much for talking to us Today.
We'll see you next time!