Darth Hater

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

SWCV: Saturday SWTOR Panel Live Blogging

Darth Hater's live blogging from Saturday's The Art and Writing of Star Wars: The Old Republic direct from Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, FL after the jump.

UPDATE: Regarding the Felucia and Endor controversy, we have it confirmed from on site that both planets were used as an example of how things are designed larger than life in the Star Wars universe to give a reference point of scale, not that anyone should think that either planet was in the game.

  • 4:01 - Introduction by Proxy (David Collins)

  • 4:03 - Hope trailer

  • 4:10 - Arnie Jorgensen, Lead Concept Artist, creating the concept art today

  • 4:11 - Arnie: Might meet the person in The Old Republic, not going to say what class it is

  • 4:15 - Each panel member describes their role in the game's development

  • 4:15 - Character concept looks male

  • 4:16 - Character concept gains hood

  • 4:17 - Hall: Amount of dialogue in this game equates 240 Empire Strikes Back

  • 4:18 - Drew: We call the smuggler dirty kick internally "the nut buster"

  • 4:19 - "How do you balance these classes?"

  • 4:20 - Hall: Chuck Norris will never be as powerful as Han Solo. Cries himself to sleep at night.

  • 4:21 - Hall: All of the classes have their own unique tricks (the non-Force users) that will make lightsaber users look bad.

  • 4:21 - Drew: Oh, my deathballs!

  • 4:22 - Character concept looks like a dark Force user with dark patches under eyes, black robes, lighter set of clothes that aren't heavy like the Warrior's stuff. Concept is still black and white.

  • 4:23 - Drew speaking about the time period: You might set off a spark that causes this great galactic battle (war)

  • 4:27 - Hall: The idea is Luke Skywalker gets into big adventures from the very beginning...we want to tell those big heroic stories and have you feel like a hero right out of the gate.

  • 4:28 - Discussion on moral choices and their impact on classes; similar replayability comments as from yesterday's panel.

  • 4:30 - "How do you keep this stuff from not looking similar?"

  • 4:30 - Clint: I go to a point of reference and make sure I'm hitting those marks (from the films)...and make sure that I have reference marks and take earth type elements and making them larger than life.

  • 4:31 - "Where do these creative sparks come from?"

  • 4:32 - Drew: There is so much material out there already, so you have to go out there and read it, watch it, and immerse ourselves. But the problem is we have to take things that are hinted at and dig deeper with that because that's what I think the fans want, it's what I want.

  • 4:34 - Hall: I realized early with the Smuggler that I couldn't just copy Han Solo's story. The Smuggler class story is just full of these outrageous larger than life characters, so I am always draw from outside sources to help make that story great.

  • 4:35 - Clint: We talk about this stuff all the time and it's very reminiscent of talking about this stuff before class (as a kid) as geeks, we love it. However it is very serious.

  • 4:36 - Clint: I am always watching the boards looking for comments on the concepts that we do, specifically the ones I do, and take those comments into the next concept I do.

  • 4:38 - Character concept is a Sith with different face paint than we saw before. Possibly armor underneath.

  • 4:40 - Clint: When Arnie and I first sat down and tried to think of the shapes of the Republic and Sith, and we went with hard angles after watching the films (the Sith) and the Republic had nice rounded edges. Warm colors for the Republic, Cold for the Sith, as well as down to the colors of the blaster fire.

  • 4:42 - Character concept has blue face paint for his tattoo.

  • 4:43 - "What are you guys doing the enhance the roleplaying elements in this game?"

  • 4:45 - Drew: It is your character that has this major revelation during the game, the story will address the roleplaying issue.

  • 4:45 - Concept character has a blue lightsaber, so possibly a Jedi.

  • 4:46 - "If you're invested in the story will there be enough endgame past the story to remain interested?"

  • 4:47 - Hall: We're never going to force you to roll an alt. We're going to provide you with more to do no matter if you reached max level.

  • 4:48 - Drew: We're going to have all of the endgame content you expect, raids, expanded content. You're never going to get bored with that original character but you'll hear hints of other things mentioned in your story that will be interesting to play through if you choose to, but we want you to be able to play that character forever.

  • 4:49 - Smoke emitting from lightsaber in character concept.

  • 4:49 - "Starships, any info?"

  • 4:50 - Drew: There's space combat. Every class gets their own ship. The ships are customizable.

  • 4:50 - Hall: Your ships are not just player housing. You can go blow shit up with them.

  • 4:51 - Drew: This month's PC Gamer will reveal more details.

  • 4:51 - Clint: (LucasArts) Never held us back in that sense. The time period allows us to play free in that.

  • 4:52 - Drew: If we don't do anything stupid they wont get upset, we dont want to disrespect or invalidate anyone's work.

  • 4:52 - "Could you post online the creation of this concept art online from time to time, like a work in progress?"

  • 4:53 - Drew: BioWare likes to respond to what the fans want, it's hard to come up with new updates and this looks like this would be something.

  • 4:53 - Clint: If the fans want it, maybe we'll make it happen.

  • 4:54 - Playing Deceived trailer.

  • 4:59 - Panel ends.

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