Darth Hater

Star Wars: The Old Republic News, Interviews, Media & Podcast

The Massive World of The Old Republic

By now, folks who've been following the game have had a chance to take in the latest Developer Dispatch from BioWare on the making of the planet Coruscant. Like many others, I was impressed at the six minutes of explanation detailing how the developers plan on making Coruscant meet the expectations of the players who are eager to get their hands on it and experience what it has to offer. The Coruscant presentation brings up an interesting point regarding the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and how large and massive Bioware plans to make the various areas of the game.

spacious


Don't get me wrong - I think the multi-level society BioWare is putting on Coruscant is a great thing and it will give players a chance to explore tons of architecture as they go through the game's story. However, Coruscant is simply one planet among the many we will see in The Old Republic. With an entire galaxy in front of us to potentially travel to, how many places will be too few? How many will be too much?

It's impossible to know how large of a subscriber base Star Wars: The Old Republic will ultimately retain, but this is something that must be considered when creating and establishing areas like Coruscant. Other MMOs out there have taken a bit of a hit for having too many areas, or instancing copies of the same area, which results in spreading the population too thin. It's an interesting balance, as BioWare must establish enough areas in the game to give the players a feeling of a "massive" world, but still be designed intelligently so as not to silo the community into segments that mess with the feeling of "multiplayer".

concept1

It appears that BioWare is aware that The Old Republic, with an established IP like Star Wars, needs to have areas reflective of the epic experience they want players to have. If Coruscant is any indication, they'll end up meeting expectations and then some. I'm kind of looking forward to future updates, to see how they plan on handling planets with other types of terrain. Still - I'm curious about what others might think about the world of SW:TOR and whether or not its scale should be larger (to create a more epic feeling of the Star Wars universe) or smaller (to encourage greater pockets of players and population density), after all, this is a world many of us will be spending a lot of time in.

Comments

  • Logun's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #10 Logun Posted 12/31/2009 4:42:33 PM
    I do think its possible to make a MMO “TOO” big the worlds do need to feel alive with players and too large a game space can be a detriment to your game design. Hitting that just Big enough to feel epic to the players is a hard target to hit its easy to go overboard and end up with vast wastelands with nothing all that interesting happening.
  • Master Queequeg's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #9 Master Queequeg Posted 12/29/2009 6:08:31 AM
    Personally, I'd like to see a HUGE scale for planets. If it becomes impractical, get a swoop, take a shuttle...they can always add faster travel speed. With massive environments the exploring experience will feel very real. Imagine Corussant, enormous...you can never possible explore it all in a lifetime...but your missions will send you to places that you would never have found. And expansion content could take place in already existing environments that you "might even know the place".
    Or Tattooine, Endor, or other wilderness planet; some players would actually become master navigators through endless harsh terrain, know the secret paths...
  • Anubis's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #7 Anubis Posted 10/14/2009 1:42:09 AM
    here's hoping that the sith can enter Coruscant
  • RogueJedi86's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 3099
    #8 RogueJedi86 Posted 10/14/2009 2:01:29 AM
    Only if my Republican(Republic Trooper) can land on Korriban! :D
  • TaboriHK's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #6 TaboriHK Posted 10/13/2009 9:58:35 PM
    I want Coruscant to be so massive that I get lost in it for hours the first time. That would be pretty sweet.
  • Hewo's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 312
    #2 Hewo Posted 10/13/2009 4:36:09 PM
    Hero engine can allow for many many many more players on one server than some of us were us to which should allow for bigger areas and no since of solitude.
  • Hewo's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 312
    #3 Hewo Posted 10/13/2009 4:36:37 PM
    sense not since
  • JimtheJedi's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #1 JimtheJedi Posted 10/13/2009 3:39:43 PM
    I think they should take the Guild Wars approach to servers, allow people to select what server they go to in a specific zone.
  • Lethality's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #4 Lethality Posted 10/13/2009 5:11:31 PM
    Nooo... no splintering the playerbase. Guild Wars ended up being less of an MMO than Diablo.
  • Revix2k9's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 153
    #5 Revix2k9 Posted 10/13/2009 7:12:04 PM
    Guild wars isnt a mmo , its a kiddie fake verison of mmos.
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