After attending the Star Wars
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Transcription of the interview after the jump.
How is your first trip to Comic-Con?
SW: It is my very first one, and it is fantastic. It is overwhelming, exciting, and really brilliant. I'm still jet lagged and haven't had enough sleep.
Do you know if Star Wars
SW: I don't know -- no pressure at all! I hope so. On the back of the game, and the magnificent trailers of the game, people's interest in the game, and hopefully interest in the book that I wrote as well... I'm hoping it will come out of the box really strongly. We'll see next week.
Your new book, Star Wars
SW: The great thing about writing both books was that they were kind of exploring areas that hadn't been really explored before. It gave me the opportunity to poke into the Dark Times with The Force Unleashed was fantastic. But The Force Unleashed was written from a script; it was a very tight story and there were certain things we couldn't talk about because of the possible canonical problems.
It was a very different experience to write Fatal Alliance, where it is a MMORPG and everybody who plays the game has their own character and their own story. The character classes have their own arcs. There is a galaxy full of worlds that the action takes place in. There was no simple story to write. That made it very hard, and we had to find the right story that captured the essence of The Old Republic for the players. But it made it very exciting because we could do anything. As long as we captured that essence, it will be awesome. If the game does well, and there is enough interest in the first two Old Republic books, I think they could publish dozens of books, hundreds of books because it is such a rich, interesting era.
BioWare and LucasArts show remarkable consistency in maintaining the vision and themes behind The Old Republic, with ships, characters, and items showing up repeatedly throughout their marketing. How did this focus on uniformity impact your writing?
SW: Sometimes we knew something was going to be in the game but there was no art yet, which made it interesting and difficult at the same time. But the wonderful thing about writing for Star Wars
Which Fatal Alliance character story or point of view did you enjoy writing the most?
SW: That is a good question. I'm asked that, and I really struggle with it because one of the great things about this book is that all the characters apart from some of the characters that appear in the game... all the point of view characters, new characters that I created specifically for this book and I love them all. Even on principle I can't say that I like the Jedi characters more than the Sith characters because I really like the Sith characters too. One thing I really wanted to do with this book is capture the journey of the player from the very beginning right through. So these characters are at the beginning of their journey as well; they are undergoing conflict, they are learning, they are changing.
Right out of the box, they are iconic.
SW: Yeah, and that is one of the complicated things writing forStar Wars
The biggest plot twist in Fatal Alliance was getting the Imperials working with the Republic against a common threat. Can you describe the writing process behind that?
SW: Isn't it terrible to say that I can't remember? I can't remember where that idea came from. I can't remember at what stage we had that idea. I know we went through several different story ideas before we settled on this one, and it isn't an amazingly new idea, but I wanted to see it happen. I wanted to write it; I wanted to put all the characters in a situation of conflict where they had to really assess everything about themselves and make Empire and Republic work together, making Jedi and Sith work together. Putting these characters into a situation they would just hate really, really appealed to me because it brings out the best and the worst in them sometimes. I don't think it breaks the idea of the Republic and the Sith being such mortal enemies; I think it demonstrates it more than anything. It was a huge amount of fun, and I really enjoyed it because it is good to screw your characters over (laughs).
What is the class you are most likely to play in Star Wars
SW: Whether I play the game or not would depend entirely on how busy I am because I know the game is great. I saw demos, and I could cheat because I know the story arcs. I know it is going to be absolutely brilliant, but I also know I wouldn't stop playing it. Once I start, it could be the end of my career. I really have to balance that out.
I love all the classes too! I will say this: the one class I wasn't very interested in at first was the Trooper class. But as soon as I read the Trooper arc, I thought "wow. That is a really great story."
They are the lynch pin of the Republic story.
SW: They are. They are the guys holding it together. And I invested so much into my Trooper character but I think I will actually play a Trooper. Unless they changed it on me, which I'm sure they haven't because we worked very closely with them to make sure the story arcs in the novel didn't give away too much of the story arcs in the game but captured the same kind of energy or essence as well. So I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed very much from what I read and it is a great story. They are all great; they are all terrific stories.
We can't wait for the next books from you.
SW: Well, you don't have to wait long for the next one; it is October for the Force Unleashed II.
Right in time for the game to come out.
SW: People will love that too. I think the game will be amazing.
Thank you so much Sean.
SW: My pleasure. It was great talking to you.
Comments
Next time, can you ask one of these insiders which class has their favorite female-PC romance and which has their fave male-PC romance? It's the sort of not-quite-spoiler question they might actually answer.
*sigh* Fuck me senseless... I certainly hope they don't bring it into the game and destroy the wonderful animosity between the factions that is _supposed_ to be there, just like Blizz did in wow.
GREAT JOB!!!