“In other MMOs,” Ohlen says, “a lot of the time, you just have designers who aren’t writers writing up a quest and coming up with the dialogue.” Ohlen says. “And it shows, right? That’s probably the biggest change. High quality voice actors, writers, directors, editors – those are the things that haven’t been done. It’s huge for immersion, right? It’s not just getting a text bubble that comes up, it feels like you’re part of a movie. A non-player character feels like more of a real person living in this universe.”
And it’s not just a single movie BioWare want to draw you into with The Old Republic: each of the eight classes has its own story, tailored to the role you’ve chosen to play in the world. It might take place thousands of years before they were born, but you’ll still be able to play rough analogues of Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight), Han Solo (Smuggler), Darth Vader (Sith Warrior), Darth Maul (Sith Inquisitor), Yoda (Jedi Consular), Grand Moff Tarkin (Imperial Agent), Boba Fett (Bounty Hunter) or, er, a Republic Trooper (Republic Trooper).
“I was lead designer on Dragon Age before I came here,” says Ohlen, “and a lot of the things from Dragon Age – like each origin having a separate storyline – we took that. And we took it even further: each class having their own story all the way through the game.”
So there is a main questline, but it’s personal. After all, if your mission was to vanquish the Sith, it’d make the other 29,999 players rather unhappy if you achieved it. These eight stories will give a profound new meaning to alts – the practice of starting a second character to try a different class. Here, it’ll be a different game in both play style and content.
Above: Star Wars Galaxies never made Tatooine look this cool
Something else we’re not used to in massively multiplayer games is having a computer-controlled party. As in other BioWare games, certain key characters you meet in your quest will be up for joining you. These are unique to your class: the Sith Inquisitor’s first friend is a Force-resistant warrior to help him fight Jedi, and we’re hoping the Han Solo-inspired Smuggler gets a Chewbacca-inspired chum.
“We introduce a companion character early on,” Ohlen explains. “That’s your first. But then as you adventure, much like in any other BioWare game, you’re going to meet other interesting characters and they’re able to join your party.”
Eventually you’ll have a considerable roster of superfriends, but you can only have one at a time physically by your side. “When you arrive at one world, you might decide ‘Ah, I’ll adventure around with my wookiee because I really need someone who’s really strong and can take a lot of damage. Plus, I like my wookiee.’ But then on a different planet, you might decide to go with your femme fatale character, because you like the relationship that’s developing with her and you want to see what’s gonna happen, or you like the sarcastic comments she says, or because you want a DPS (high damage-per-second) companion.”
Above: This is the droid you've been looking for
As in Mass Effect 2, your companion characters will have their own personal stories and quests that get you mixed up in them. And because they’re unique to your class, these can also tie in to your own storyline. The downside of this system is the same reason it’s not normally done in multiplayer games: you’re going to see other people running around with the same friend as you. “To take your Chewbacca example,” Ohlen says, “if you run into a Smuggler, and he’s adventuring with his wookiee Chewbacca, yes, the stories of the two companion people will be the same, they’ll be doing the same interjections in your conversations.”
This, you will notice, is silly. “It was one of our concerns early on in design,” Ohlen admits. “But you’re not going to have identical companion characters. We’re thinking of ways to make sure you can customise them so you don’t get confused, so you don’t get the Chewbaccas mixed up.”
When playing with friends of different classes, at least, it’s going to be fun jetting around the galaxy with your chosen AI pals. They’ll round out your team’s abilities and have things to contribute during conversations with NPCs. Since your real friends will also pipe up in these exchanges, they’ll start to feel more like scenes from films than the usual interview-like format of game dialogue.
