Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview

Click Online had the chance to talk with BioWare’s co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka about their slated-for-December MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, covering subjects such as why did they choose to go the MMO route at the beginning of development, whether they are concerned for the title’s sustainability, dialogue mechanics and more. Here’s a snip:

Click: The music in Star Wars is obviously quite iconic, but as this is such a long game, did you bring in additional composers?

RM: A bunch of them yeah! They’re ones that LucasArts and Lucasfilm works with, and they’re great composers.

GZ: Yeah, though of course the John Williams music is at the core. There’re elements of that and the Lucas guys especially helped a lot with the audio, the sound the voice, that’s obviously very important. And the chance to work with Skywalker Sound; there’s nothing wrong with that!

So it’s interesting trying to find the breath of pieces, for example there’re moments where you’ll recognize something and it’s very exciting to hear the right piece of Star Wars music, because it adds that level of emotional engagement and makes the game quite interesting actually.

Click: BioWare are known for doing Dialogue very well where most games gloss over it. Will it be a major gameplay element for The Old Republic?

RM: Yeah, yeah actually, story is the key point of differentiation and innovation in TOR from other MMOs! Every character, all players, all NPCS, are fully voiced and there’s dialogue with choice and consequence. And all the choices and decisions you make over the course of the game, choices for the light side and dark side, they really impact the story arc, your hero’s journey is impacted and it evolves on the basis of the choices you make. And the dialogue is obviously a key point for that.

It’s certainly not the only part though. TOR has features like amazing progression and customisation in your appearance and your identity, your journey in terms of exploration, story arc, etc. All this amazing over the top fluid animation lightsabers flashing, sparks flying off, there are lots of tactical choices in combat. Finally, beyond that it’s got the story which augments the whole experience