The Holocron

Greetings once again.  You have accessed Council archive record designate RP Cantina 002: “Fundamentals continued.”  Contents include a continued discussion on barriers to entry in MMO Roleplaying.  Read on, and remember, the Archive assistance droids are not here so that you can insist they continue to look for a nonexistent log entry, providing amusement for [...]

Greetings.  You have accessed Council archive record designate RP Cantina 001: “Fundamentals.”  Contents include an introduction to in-character roleplaying, a discussion on roleplaying in a massively-multiplayer online virtual environment, and a brief explanation of why one might become involved in the roleplaying community.  Read on, and please, be curteous to other temple visitors by keeping [...]

Over on the SW:TOR forums today Damion Schubert (one of the Devs) chimed in on a thread about character advancement, leveling, and The Grind. There are multiple ways to build an advancement system in an MMO. We did indeed choose to go with a level-based system for SW:TOR. It seemed to be the best system [...]

http://kotaku.com/5302069/ea-combines-mythic-and-bioware-into-a-giant-rpg-robotin-what In what is an interesting move EA has merged Bioware and Mythic Entertainment into one company. This new layout brings Bioware management over Warhammer Online AND the upcoming Star Wars MMO. This could be a cost saving movement on EA’s part allowing for one management team and a combined server/support system. Smart or strange, [...]

At some core level I’m wishing, hoping, and dreaming that the game will be awesome beyond words and I’m going to be blown away with the new Star Wars MMO. But before we cross that bridge I think it’s time to air the worst of the What if things go bad? fears. Keep in mind [...]

For those of you not in the know, Simutronics is the company that developed the HeroEngine being used by BioWare to develope Star Wars: The Old Republic. Simutronics founder and CEO David Whatley sits down with Steve to discuss the finer points of HeroEngine, as well as some updates on the status of their upcoming [...]

Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be a Theme Park. Basically the game will have predefined elements that you will interact with. The key definition of a true Sand Box game is user generated content. The Grand Theft Auto series is often mislabeled as Sandbox, but it is not. It is a Theme [...]

This is a response to a post on our forums which you can read here: Speculation has been pretty rife in the Sandbox vs. Theme Park debate. In some ways I think the debate is kind of pointless. You can claim sandbox, with it endless explorable vistas, open ended game play and player control of [...]

There are 3 big ways you can handle player housing. Lets explore a few of them. Open World- We’ve experience this with Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online. It’s interesting and offers the change of having a player based community just about anywhere. But problematic players can drop houses down on quest zones. Or a [...]

Fiddleback posted the entry on the Warning: Dates on Calendar are Closer than they Appear from a perspective of game readiness.   Given this, plus the hero engine’s flexibility for design on the fly, he is of the opinion that this thing is a little further along than we think. Although my intent is not to [...]