Getting communal with Star Wars: The Old Republic
by Eliot Lefebvre 
Apr 7th 2010 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Culture, Game mechanics, Grouping, Star Wars: The Old Republic
Schubert affirms that the game's design goals are to reinforce group play and external interaction not by forcing players to group, but making them want to group. Options such as more community-oriented crafting are explored, as well as letting multiple people take part in the game's dialogue trees. After all, nothing builds interaction like a party member accidentally driving a quest contact into a rage through a poorly-timed interjection. The full entry contains more information on both design goals and their implementation in Star Wars: The Old Republic -- and even a year out, it seems the game itself is already doing quite a bit of community development.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CindyL said on 10:37AM 4-07-2010
"After all, nothing builds interaction like a party member accidentally driving a quest contact into a rage through a poorly-timed interjection."
Oh wow that's so crazy!! I love it, I really hope it's going to come out like this, but it's easy to be skeptical their goals are so out of the box for an mmo.
Wish them luck!
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BadgerFiend said on 11:33AM 4-07-2010
I love the idea and with a group of friends this could really open up some interesting prospects. However I could imagine it would become very annoying being in a random group where everyone wants to say something. I would always end up with the eejit that spammed the "send NPC in rage" button.
:p
Steven said on 10:38AM 4-07-2010
Not trying to be mean or anything, but wasn't the dev-blog that is linked in this article already written about last week?
http://www.massively.com/2010/04/02/newest-swtor-dev-diary-talks-about-designing-mmos/
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Darthkirby707 said on 11:32AM 4-07-2010
HE KNOWS TOO MUCH
Tola said on 12:29PM 4-07-2010
Yeah this is pretty old news.
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ethereal.wolf said on 1:28PM 4-07-2010
so whats the deal with all the dudes in the screenshot wearing tights. is this SW: Men in Tights?
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Cray said on 2:32PM 4-07-2010
Horrible blog entry, it basically painted every other MMO in a negative light and boasted how SW:TOR is going to be better. Sad thing about all the supposedly wonderfully game mechanics they are doing...it the middle of the road strategy which every major MMO has tried to be. Prime example is how he wants group play, but clear stated the whole game will be solo-able.
I'm sorry but his comments about how other MMOs are doing it wrong. Making a game solo-friendly while trying to encourage group play is not an easy task. It's got to be one or the other. If this game is is heavily instanced, it will turn into a single player RPG because soloing is made possible.
Don't make the WHOLE game solo-friendly, it completely goes against everything that MMOs are about community-play, ironically in he rambles on about....the community. Yet he completely misses the point.
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niakori said on 3:30PM 4-07-2010
Hmm searching for the post you read because it's not the above.