Today focused on player interactions and how group play works. Earlier, we were able to see the first live demo of group play against NPC targets. Would you like to go into a little bit kind of the system and the design? There are a lot of questions about the trinity system and healing, tanking, and things like that.Erickson: Yeah. When we first started, we really wanted to make sure that we included the things that made parties work strongly together, but we didn't want to wind up locked into a hard trinity system. One of the big reasons we went for the advanced classes, and allowed people to take very different routes with each of the character classes, was to give a broader range than just the straight healer, tank. You know, "I'm going to be the DPS guy."
Today showed the core dynamics are still there, and you guys actually got to see them saying that this guy is playing tank, this guy is playing this. What you didn't get to see were companion characters coming into the mix, and companion characters can be used to amplify or soften what role you're taking. So if you're going to play your tank guy, but you're going to bring your healing companion character, it is much, much different than going to play tank and bringing another tank with you. Or if you were going to play super DPS guy, bring your DPS companion as well and to just be the massive, massive damage dealing team. Same way, I tend to be the guy that plays a lot of priests; I tend to be the guy that plays a lot of healing roles and I very much like the, "I'm going to be the healer and I'm going to go through and make myself the super healer, and I am going to bring my healing companion and were just going to be a medical ward."
In regards to what we saw with four players on a single team, one of each of the Republic classes, you're mentioning companion characters integrate into groups. Will we be able to see a one to one ratio? If there is a party of four PCs, will there be four PCs and four companions or do companions take up player slots?Erickson: No, everyone will be bringing their companions with them.
An optimal team would be four players and four companions?Erickson: Correct.
That would lead into a lot of dynamics in regards to what you are talking about.Erickson: Absolutely. A lot of discussions of "hey, we thought we were going to have a group that stacked like this," but we didn't. Maybe we don't have our healer that night, so instead, "hey, why doesn't everybody grab their healing companion. And you know what? We are probably still going to be able to run this thing."
Right, so supplementing the group composition through the companions.Erickson: Absolutely. In what you want to do personally or what your group is missing and you guys decide as a group what you're going to do.
Sticking with the multiplayer combat that we saw in the demo, just a second ago, one thing that is a little bit more class specific. You had the Smuggler being in a cover position doing a lot of covering fire and assisting. In addition, he used one of his Advanced Class abilities to heal.Erickson: Correct.
Three of the characters in the group, including the Smuggler, were Level 8. Is this purely for demo purposes?Erickson: Purely for demo purposes. Not indicative at all of where you will get your Advanced Classes or the powers you would have at that ability.
One of the things covered were the players ships. We learned a lot about how they are designed towards a meeting place and a gathering place for you and your friends and your companions. Can you go a little bit more in-depth on how it works into the game?Erickson: Sure. Well, basically we have just shown the first couple. So, we know there is a ship for every type of class; you guys got to see the Sith ship; you guys got to see the Jedi ship. There is a Trooper ship, there is a Smuggler ship, and they are all different and they are all unique inside. Very, very cool. They work very much in the Ebon Hawk model from KoTOR. Your companion characters live there. You have personal space. Obviously it is an MMO, so there needs to be an environment that you can socialize in. That is as far as we have gone so far. There have been a whole lot of other things lighting up the boards right now and a few people that have made some rather facetious announcements. Everything beyond that, at this point, is pure speculation.
Since it is a ship, it would travel with you from planet to planet?Erickson: Absolutely. This is your means of getting around. Once you've got a ship, then you've got the galaxy and you can say, "I can go anywhere I want."
You mentioned customization, and that it is a huge part of all the marketing that we see with The Old Republic. You mentioned that each class will get their own ship, and you actually mentioned it in the demo that all the ships will be customizable, so that one Smuggler ship is not identical to another Smuggler ship, in regards to the things that go with it?Erickson: No. Actually, I think that is where some of speculation got thrown out there, because we did two demos back to back. We did the demo on the ships and then we did the demo on the class customization and people merged them in their brains.
Good to know, interesting clarification.Erickson: We have made no announcements or no discussion about ship customization.
Another focus was mentioned during the EA press conference yesterday; that Alderaan is going to be the first Warzone for PvP combat. Could you go a little bit more into depth how the setup is going to be integrated into the game, like the ships were?Erickson: Unfortunately, we can't. There are a lot of different ways to get someone to a WarZone. Do you want to do it through physical space? Are we going to let people teleport in? Are we going to do all that? Those are all game design decisions that we have to have a population in there and pushing. We obviously have some ideas, but the answer that no one ever likes is we're going to go the way that works best with our game.
Of course. But then you can state that it is an independent instanced zone, like it is a separate distinct zone?Erickson: Correct. It is a distinct place that you can play this controlled experience with multiple people.
And in the same theme that goes along with that, how it is a specific instanced zone, are we going to be seeing specific game types linked to the zone? Like objective-based combat or death match or capture the flag. Or do we know if the zones are going to be focused on a single objective type game play or is it just broad PvP?
We actually do not know at this point, because again we are playing with a whole bunch of different ideas. Obviously there is a lot out there to draw from and so it is got to be a base between: how many of these are we going to have and what side of stuff works the best? And the big one is the one we are just getting into: just doing all our multiplayer testing and multiplayer fun and that is going to determine what we choose to do with our multiplayer combat.
That makes a lot of sense. The other thing that goes with that and this is kind of overarching that goes with everything we have talked about so far, is especially since we have you here. The story of the Old Republic is a key and integral part, the fourth pillar.
Erickson: We have story!
I know all of our users are going to want to hear that again. But the way that we hear about the Advanced Class choices, the player ships, the PvP combat... is there an extrapolation that you can do on how the story is integrating with that? In regards to you get your ship at certain story-based time or your advanced class is based on a story-based time?Erickson: All of our stuff, of course, comes from the story setting and concepts. So yes, your ships are going to something that isn't just going to appear. Your ships have a story basis. They are coming from an actual story point. Everything that we do with our classes, obviously, has to be presented. You know, if you look at any other role playing game, it is how you would expect it to be.
In PvP, have you guys given any consideration or any information on how that pervasive story atmosphere is integrated into the PvP at the moment?Erickson: Yes, but not anything we have talked about, unfortunately. It has to get tested a lot.
I got to do a little hands-on with the Imperial Agent and thankfully the rest of the Darth Hater team is picking out the other five classes that we got to see today. There's definitely a tactical feel with the Imperial Agent that I got to check out. There's definitely a kind of open-world feel to it, not like you're stuck on conveyor belt running through things. A video I saw of a Bounty Hunter that was running through the same area I was running through and my teammates were grouped up with me and what not. A lot of these MMO tropes we see in other popular MMOs... is it a theme park or is it a sandbox? Can we get an official declaration on what you guys consider it to be, theme park or sandbox?Erickson: Unfortunately, we are definitely not in one or the other camp. What we have always looked at is it needs to be a guided experience, and when we say that we mean that you need to know what to do next. If you log in and you are someone who wants guidance, someone who's used to playing role playing games, used to playing a more guided MMO, you always need to have something clearly defined as an objective. And that is what story is great for: it pulls you through the whole experience.
At the same time, if you don't want to do that today, you need a game that has enough features, enough fun things, and enough stuff happening that really is being created organic fun out there that you can just go screw off for the day. And you and your friends can say, "you know what would really be fun? Let's go see what is on the other side of Alderaan. Because Alderaan is huge and I've been here for hours and hours and hours and I've never gone to this area. So let's go over there." And we want to put things in the game that will reward you for that. We have so much stuff, that again, we can't talk about until we get it done. You know, we haven't talked about the crafting stuff. We haven't talked about market place. We haven' talked about trading and the economy and all of that stuff. But it is all stuff that we are hugely into. You guys have probably noticed that we stick crafting into single player RPGs. You don't really need crafting, but we love crafting. So it is going in there.
In the same regards, you mentioned the world size, how you can spend hours and hours and hours on Alderaan and then you go off and do something. During GDC, we were talking about Ord Mantell and we heard it is huge and yet, it is still one of the smaller planets.Erickson: Ridiculously smaller. The origin worlds are way, way smaller than any of our other planets, because we need to get you prepped, because we need to get you off of them in a reasonable time. So no, there is no comparison between an origin world and a standard TOR world.
So do you guys have a working understanding of scope? I mean, I am not asking how many planets there are, we got the marketing message with that. On a single planet, how much useable space for the players are we talking about?Erickson: It really does depend on the planet. I definitely wouldn't give you a kilometer size. Some planets are far more. Like a planet that is going to go up is going to be far different... like a Coruscant is going to be far different from a Tantoonie, because, it is really hard to..
Surface area is different when you have it stacking.Erickson: Correct. It is really hard to look at it. If you looked at maps of the two of them, you would be like, "Coruscant is much, much smaller than Tantoonie." But then you play it, (it is a) very different experience.
Multi-tiered.Erickson: Exactly.
People on our forums and on the official forums are very interested about getting that feeling of freedom. So are these ships going to give people this? Every planet that they go to will feel like home, but it is still going to be a different planet because they're going to have companion characters with them?Erickson: Absolutely, space is home, right? Like being able to travel the galaxy makes you feel like you are in Star Wars and you are going to come to each of these planets and there is going to be a ton of space to run around. And our thoughts are that some people are going to choose the particular worlds that they hang out in.
Gathering places.Erickson: Yeah, and they may not be the ones that we think they are, right? We are always making sure that there is enough space that people can do their own thing on each of the planets. Even if it is a backwater hell-hole desert that no one should ever want to be in, we know people are going to be like, "hey everybody! party in there!" right? So we need to give people their space and give people the ability to play where they want to play.
Is there any more information about getting from the place of one scope to another? We are going to transferring there in our player ships -- is there any information on how that is going to work? Are we going to be flying the ships? Or are the ships going to be magically teleporting there? Like is it blue screen or...
Erickson: Like, what does the actual experience feel like? No, we have not talked about that.
We can't talk to you and not get on the story thing. Of the six classes that we are talking about today, is there anything interesting that you worked on personally or anything that you have developed or anything that you extremely enjoy about those origin stories that you would like to tell to the general community?Erickson: I think the thing that is the biggest excitement for me -- and you guys will get to see when you sit down with each other and talk about playing the classes -- is how different the game feels from playing one class to another. They actually feel like very different RPGs. You pick up the Agent and it is smart and it is deep and it is subtle. The things you are talking about are actually fairly complex plot concepts and then you are going out and you are making these strategic setups for your combat. Then right past you, as you said, comes the Bounty Hunter, "WOOHOOO!" And he is shooting missiles. And he just had this discussion where they were like setting up the Great Hunt and he is like, "whatever, let me blow stuff up."
When you start one of them, even on the same world, and you start another, it feels like a very different game and the story actually let us do a Smuggler RPG and a Sith Warrior RPG and etc. And the part that people still don't have their head wrapped around is that experience, if you're playing a Sith Warrior start to finish and then you go play a Jedi Knight start to finish, you're never going to see a single repeated quest or a single piece of repeated content. That's a 100% unique experience from front to back and that's huge.
So, that is really what you guys focused on last year. This isn't just The Old Republic. This is KoTOR 3, 4, 5, 6...Erickson: Absolutely.
Do you have a class that is your favorite guy? This is the guy that you, so far, are locked onto?Erickson: Without talking about story? Because I can't play favorites on that one. Although I will say that the first world for the Bounty Hunter was written very well, that was mine. From the game play, I love the Agent. I am a sniper rifle guy, I always have been. If you say this game has a guy with a sniper rifle, I get excited and it has come together to become all my fantasies of that type of combat, which I didn't actually think we were going to be able to do in this space. When the combat guys came and had this concept, I was trying to picture that in an MMO world with a party and doing it, and I couldn't see it. And I play it now and it excites me to no end.
Thank you so much for that. As the Darth Hater representative of the Imperial Agent class, that is just about the best thing that I have heard all day and that includes being able to watch the game play. So that is fantastic, thanks for your time. We really appreciate it and we cannot wait until everyone gets their hands on.Erickson: Absolutely welcome. Hate on!
Kaynak;
http://darthhater.com/2010/06/16/e3-daniel-erickson-interview/
