Star Wars: The Old Republic Previews/Interviews
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First up is Destructoid, where you'll find a preview with plenty of commentary from lead writer Daniel Erickson and producer Jake Neary mixed within:
Another element the teams really had to address was what makes a good Star Wars experience. Both made it clear that The Old Republic was a Star Wars game first, then a Old Republic game second. This means that anyone who comes into this after watching the movies should feel comfortable right away. They should want to come right in and feel like they are in a place they know and recognize. KOTOR players should not be alarmed.
(There are planets like that that are sort of super-sized and amazing version of the things you loved, and then there are planets that have radically changed in the 300 years since Knights of the Old Republic.) says Erickson, (You'll get to go back and say 'hey, what are some of the things that I did do to make an impact on history? What are the outstanding questions? What happened to those stories major characters?' For fans of all that stuff, it's all there, but again, it's new content first, it's Star Wars first.)
This philosophy applies to their character design. Some fans have may object to the idea that there is two Jedi classes and two Sith classes, something that may seem redundant. BioWare has declared that the classes were chosen to fulfill certain fantasies, not typical MMO tropes. Thankfully, according to Neary, each character class has a depth that is not immediately obvious.
And then we head over to Digital Spy for a preview and an interview with creative director James Ohlen:
A big part of MMOs is expansions. Do you have any plans already?
"We want to have a content release strategy that really keeps people's interest in the game after launch, so yes we have been looking at all kinds of different post-release content strategies, whether it's paid-for expansions or free content releases between expansions."
We imagine that's the sort of thing you'll have to wait until the game is out there, right?
"No, we kind of have to plan up front, because one of the things about doing an MMO where story is so important is there is a long lead time, because to get a fully localised, fully voice-overed game over there means you have to write the scripts much earlier in development, and those scripts have to be placed into the game, you have to test them, make sure they're okay, they have to go through an editing process, then voice over for English, then localisation for French and German, and so on. It's a long process, so we're going to be probably working on any kind of expansion content before release - no, we will be for sure."
