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Post Info TOPIC: Lucasarts IGN interview
Jibblett


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Date: Oct 25, 2008
Lucasarts IGN interview
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Star Wars Galaxies

We interview LucasArts about the current state of Galaxies and the impact of BioWare's upcoming game.
by Steve Butts
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US, October 24, 2008 - This week we've been focusing a lot of attention on the new BioWare and LucasArts MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. For our final day of coverage, we're going to check in with the industry's current Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies. LucasArts producer Jake Neri and senior director of the online group Tom Nichols were nice enough to sit down with us last week to chat about the potential impact the two games may have on each other and what's next for Galaxies and its associated trading card game, Champions of the Force.

IGNPC: What do you think the impact of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be? There's obviously a lot of overlap in terms of the communities of Star Wars fans and MMO players. How do you see the games being differentiated and how do you think the success of The Old Republic will affect Star Wars Galaxies?

Jake Neri: Well, I think there are a lot of differences between the games, from the obvious differences in the timeline and the setting and, as you learned down at BioWare, the focus on story, character and dialogue. Those really are key differentiating features between The Old Republic and Galaxies.

I think there is definitely going to be an impact but I think you'll find that a lot of Star Wars fans will still want to play Galaxies and a lot of them will want to play both games. Time will tell. When we launch the game we'll see exactly what will happen. Nobody has a crystal ball. I think the games are clearly different enough that the market can support both of them together. We've seen that with some of the other MMOs out there such as EQ1 and EQ2. Although similar, both of them have been able to carry on successfully.

The Galactic Moon festival is just one of many game events.
IGNPC: They've also benefited a lot in terms of their different system requirements. EQ1 has a much larger potential market. Are you considering that as well?

Jake Neri: That's an important point. We haven't finalized our system requirements for The Old Republic yet so I can't tell you for sure what the differences are going to be between that game and Galaxies in terms of system requirements. But considering how old Galaxies is and how much PCs have changed over the last five years, I think that's a fair point.

IGNPC: Let's talk a little about the vitality of Galaxies for a bit. I was one of those players who gave up on the game after the New Game Experience. I know there are still plenty of people playing, but when I log in, there are definitely fewer than there were pre-NGE. What have you done to maintain the vitality and relevance of the game over the last few years?

Jake Neri: I think we can talk about the last couple of years when Tom and I have been here. What we really tried to do is take a hard look at what the player base is asking for, and what we can and can't do, and then deliver the features they're looking for, within reason. We've been able to deliver to the community a number of high quality things, things like the beastmaster system we put in and the collection system people had been asking for.

We're very much focused on the current player base: what they're in to, what they want to be playing and we've seen that work out. We have a healthy subscriber base and we have a happy community for the most part. We're pretty proud of the people that have stuck with us and the efforts that we've had in the last couple of years to give them the type of game they're looking for.

Galaxies and the Old Republic are different enough in setting to stand apart.
Tom Nichols: We had a very good reaction from our trading card game that we launched a couple of months ago. We've been talking to the community about a new encounter called Hoth, reliving that battle from Empire Strikes Back. That's going to be launching in short order. The Galaxies community is energized and excited about the new content we have brought up and talked about bringing out to them. They're still excited about the game.

IGNPC: That seems to be one of the main differences between Galaxies and The Old Republic, that you can rely on those iconic moments from the film. What do you think the best lessons are that BioWare can learn from the way that Galaxies has been run over the last few years?

Tom Nichols: I think there are a couple of things. The key one is listening to the community and being sure to understand what your fans are telling you about the game and addressing that as best as possible. I think there's a lot to learn there. I think a lot of the criticism of Galaxies when it launched is that it didn't feel like Star Wars. Some of the things the game offered weren't consistent with the brand. Delivering that heroic, "I Want to Be a Jedi, and feel like a powerful person in the galaxy," just like the movies had. I think there's a lot of learning there. When you talk to the BioWare guys they certainly recognize that.

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Jibblett


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Date: Oct 25, 2008
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IGNPC: The BioWare team has talked about this game in terms of doing the things that popular MMOs are doing correctly and then putting their own spin on it. Is there an opportunity for you guys to adapt their new ideas into Galaxies? Is that a priority at all?

Jake Neri: I think that's not on our priority list. MMOs in general are always inspired by one another so there could be something in the future that would inspire us in a certain way. We're certainly not looking to build identical experiences. We're pretty proud that they're both different and unique and we're feeling pretty good about that. We want to maintain that as much as possible.

IGNPC: What sorts of activities are your players primarily involved in? You mentioned that you've responded to their requests by adding in certain features. Can you give me an overview of what motivates the Star Wars Galaxies player?

Jake Neri: We have a number of different types of players. We're seeing players that have built strong allegiances. They like to socialize and have things to do together. They like to adventure and participate in high-caliber content. We've really focused on our heroic system. We have a tremendous roleplaying community that likes to set up and create and control their own events. We've built a storytelling system that people have really responded to.

We're constantly looking at what players are doing, checking out inventory logs. We know that our folks love to collect so we've built collection systems that really support that type of behavior as well. Of course, combat is a huge part of the game. We have a number of people who are participating in PvP or PvE, so we're always looking at professions and how to balance them best. We have a very diverse group of players there, but they've all been very helpful and responded well to the stuff we've been doing over the last couple of years.

Even his card is scary.
Tom Nichols: I'll just add to that the TCG [Trading Card Game] as well. We've seen that a significant amount of the subscriber base tries the TCG, which is exciting.

Jake Neri: Yeah, people really responded to that and it's cool. We're definitely looking for ways to integrate that further into what we're doing.

IGNPC: Can you put that into context? How does the TCG relate to the other experiences of the game?

Jake Neri: The TCG is basically an app that sits on top of the game that you can play outside of the game. The first round of cards that we did, the lore is all based on Galaxies. So it's all things that the players are familiar with, whether it's skills or items or quests from in the game. It's essentially an application that allows you to go head-to-head with other players or play against the AI. You might do that in the middle of playing Galaxies. You might decide you're going to play that game while you're waiting to hook up with some friends. It's there for you whenever you want.

We're able to allow players to gain loot and things like that through purchasing of the booster packs and then we're also giving those packs away for free and allowing players to get some of those cards in game as well. So the whole thing feeds itself. We're on our first release and looking into the future of what we're going to do with that. We're looking at how we can expand the back and forth between the TCG and the core game.

The new trading card game offers some in-game loot.
Tom Nichols: You want to talk about some of the new cards and how people have been showing them off?

Jake Neri: Yeah, we have a number of really cool loot cards, things like pod racers, that you can drop in and drive around the world and it's really exciting for our players. I can't stress enough how much people have been really inspired to go out and get those things because they're really cool items that make them feel that much better about their experience.

When you purchase a booster pack, you're opening up a pack of 15-plus cards. One of those might be a loot card. There's a UI that converts that into the virtual item for your character. It's a pretty cool experience. If you haven't seen that we should definitely get you hooked up with that because I think you'd probably enjoy checking it out.

IGNPC: It definitely sounds interesting and like it adds a new level to the game. I wonder, what's next for Galaxies? You guys obviously are at a point where the game is still profitable for you. What are you looking to do to maintain your player numbers down the road?

Tom Nichols: We've touched on some of them already. We've mentioned the Hoth heroic instance, which will be coming out soon. We've talked publicly, at least with our community, about the droid commander release coming down the pipe. Our development team is focused on major new content releases as well as ongoing enhancements to player classes and professions in the game.

Jake Neri: Honestly, we're heading into the time of the year where we start to look forward as well. We have a number of events going on. We have a Halloween event that's live, the Galactic Moon festival. Our Life Day celebration is always a big deal for our community at the end of the year. We'll be talking about what's next after that next year. Right now, those are the things that are on deck for us.

IGNPC: Thanks for the update.



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