GDC Online 2012: SWTOR's Damion Schubert dissects story as a mechanic

Back on topic.

I'm not sure what to think of his comments but there's no doubt that there is a TON of content to go from level 1-50 in any specific class. Every play through you can do different things. Between PVP and bonus series there's so much more XP to be earned than you can ever use on one character. I just did the republic bonus series on Alderaan for the first time. I've never done the Nar Shadda one.

The question is how much replayability is in the alt model. I'm about to hit the end of what I can comfortably grind without it being tedious but I do play this game entirely too much.

My motivation for playing all these different characters is to learn how to beat them in PVP. It's amazing how much I didn't know about certain classes until I tried them.

Not everyone will roll 12 alts though, that's for sure.

Sorry but you can't, I've now done everything, up to L40 at least (so far), 2-3 times.

You basically have 1 levelling path per side (with some minor deviations for LS/DS) and then you have class story for each class which plays mildly differently for LS and DS.

That's not a lot of options, I suppose if you purposely ignore bonus series that stretchs things a bit more, but not a great deal.

And then you still hit L50 and go "hmm.... 3 PvP maps and dailys then".

The writers could not develop story choices that, as Damion put it, “burnt down the town.” As such, the group instead developed personal stories based on the character and companions. This involved an overuse of phasing to accomplish the task. In those areas, the team could write whatever they wanted.

Atleast the "fail Mythic team" theory has been officially debunked then.

Schubert mentioned that he was the first MMO designer on the TOR team six and a half years ago. The other designers had worked only on single-player games. This was new territory for the crew, and as Schubert explained, his first job was to teach these developers how to mold their skills for a online platform.

I wasn't involved with the "fail Mythic team" meme.

To your original post, after sleeping on it I think we are reading too much into a focused comment made by one person and really shouldn't take it as the direction of the game. Surely content has to be always delivered to continue any MMO and new operations and warzones are a part of that.

If his comments were taken at face value we wouldn't have had 2 hard mode flashpoints, a warzone, and 3 new operations added since launch so I'll take it to mean this is what they are focusing on beyond the expected normal content and in that context it's not so bad.

- For my derailment of the thread I support your idea for replay story value. I'm just pointing out the amount of work that would take as a potential reason they might not do it. Given their staffing limitations if nothing else getting to replay them at their original level would suit me. If they can make it level 50 content, that's a bonus. Personally speaking I'd do it for the story rather than the combat anyway.

Sorry but you can't, I've now done everything, up to L40 at least (so far), 2-3 times.

You basically have 1 levelling path per side (with some minor deviations for LS/DS) and then you have class story for each class which plays mildly differently for LS and DS.

That's not a lot of options, I suppose if you purposely ignore bonus series that stretchs things a bit more, but not a great deal.

And then you still hit L50 and go "hmm.... 3 PvP maps and dailys then".

Level 50 engagement is up to you. There's flashpoints, ops, pvp, dailies, space, etc. If you played another game what would you be doing there? Pretty much the same thing I think when you reach the max level.

It's not "just one person's comments". It's the comments of a verterine MMO designer who has been in the industry for a while. Doesn't that make his comments a tich more credible?

Nice summary on the DH site..

Excited to hear about the first expansion patch.

I'm surprised by this bit:


That's a big mistake imo. You can literary burn down a town in lotro. BW really should catch up with what's happened in the genre in the past few years.

DH: During the final segment of the speech, Damion asked the audience to participate by asking him questions. The question brought up that drew the most attention, which other websites also reported on, was if he sees the model developed over the last seven years as sustainable.

DS: “Gosh, I hope so. We are building our first major content expansion. We discovered very early on that we would not be able to put this level of content in every four-month patch. So our patches focus more on re-playable content — Flashpoints which are equivalent to dungeons, Warzones which are equivalent to battlegrounds, and we are building our bigger content into bigger updates and it needs that incubation time to build that stuff out. We’ll see how it goes.”

DH: I guess we will have to wait and see!