"Story coming first isn't just talk", offers SWTOR senior writer Rob Chestney
by Michael Zenke 
Nov 8th 2008 at 6:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, New titles, Star Wars: The Old Republic
The official site for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been updated with another blog entry from the game's staff. Our first look into the team was through the eyes of SWTOR community manager Amy Crider. This time it's an update from Senior Writer Rob Chestney, who will also be interfacing between the community and the development team. Chestney writes an interesting short post recounting his arrival at BioWare after his departure from CNN. He recounts his experience studying with the other BioWare writers, and describes with enthusiasm the moving experience of graduting to a Senior Writer position.Most interesting is his passionate endorsement of the 'story first' viewpoint BioWare has for all of its game development. According to Chestney, that sentiment is alive and well on the Old Republic project: "The storyline and narrative setting were the starting point of every discussion about design and even the conversations about art ... The process for creating a narrative of BioWare standards is more thorough than you can possibly imagine. And that was before we even started writing dialogue!" Click on through to the official site for the full post.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bill T said on 7:21PM 11-08-2008
It's one thing to say that you want to tell a good developer generated story, it's another thing to explain how you are going to tell a good story in a true MMO given the limitations of the medium.
The basic problem being that if you allow the world to change based on player actions, then only a tiny percentage of hardcore players will ever see your story (everyone else will only see the after effects).
But if you don't allow the world to change, then everyone gets to see the story, but suspension of disbelief gets stretched to its breaking point which ruins emotional involvement in the story (players are told that their actions have an effect, but when the players return to an area, nothing has changed).
The usual way that game designers get around this problem is to instance portions of the content (or "phasing" which is just a variation on instancing). But, as I was alluding to above by saying "true MMO", the more you instance, the less your game is really an MMO.
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Caldruid said on 8:28PM 11-08-2008
This game cannot come soon enough. This will be the most painful wait in MMO history (for me anyway). :)
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Samael said on 12:03AM 11-09-2008
I have LoTRO to tide me over till this comes out. I have been wanting an MMO by BioWare forever, and now that they are making it in SW universe is just awesome in multiple levels. This is the most anticipated MMO for me during the time that I have been playing MMOs.
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Reader said on 3:30AM 11-09-2008
I've stopped anticipating MMOs. They almost always let you down in at least a few aspects. Doesn't mean they're not good or great games, just never what you hope for.
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Dave said on 1:56AM 11-10-2008
I agree with Reader here, I've stopped anticipating mmo's. With the current trend of mmo developing, they are dumbing them down and cartooning them out... I hope they listen to the customers on this one.
ScytheNoire said on 3:33AM 11-09-2008
But will the game give you the chance to fail at being good or evil? Could your side flip during gameplay due to your actions? That would be a first in MMO's if they did do it. And they should. Allow the players actions to decide what side of the Jedi-Sith battle they may fall upon. Let them become disgraced Jedi or Sith.
I only say this from playing Fallout 3, and because the good-evil was in previous KotOR games. I find it difficult to play the evil side, which I'm trying to do for my first run through Fallout 3, and if I do too many good things, I might switch alignment.
So this is something they should look at, but I doubt they would do it, because it might be too controversial if someone wants to play Jedi or Sith and then they can't role-play that faction properly and end up flipping or becoming disgraced to their faction. How dare an MMO add in player actions that matter. That would be blasphemous.
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Jack said on 12:35PM 11-24-2008
Rob Chestney sorry to break it to you but all this is just talk... Show us something ingame to proof your point mostly looking for something high level middle level and low level samples of this "great" ways that this game will tell the story. If you thing you can pull a Age of Conan on us and just show us a starter zone and noting else forget about it...!!! Also level caps on betas are not good signs.
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