As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.

Thread closed.

That, as you can imagine, caused more debate and complaints. Generally speaking, whenever you bring up a hot button issue like that, people are going to be downright irritated. There is absolutely no avoiding it, regardless of your stance. In this case, the complaining spilled out of the official forums and onto blogs and news sites around the Internet. In fact, so much as bringing it up – even without presenting any opinion one way or the other, has been enough to incite heated debate amongst forum goers and commentators on the broader issue of homosexuality- which isn’t surprising, many people have strong opinions one way or the other (heck, I’m opinionated too). As I said though, you probably already know about that – or at the very least, there’s plenty of places to read about what happened.

Instead, what I found interesting was something on Scott Jenning’s blog, even if it wasn’t the focus of his post. Should MMOs have forums long before they’re released? Before any game actually exists for players to, well, play?

I find myself pretty torn on this one, to be honest. I like online communities and I like hanging around early development forums (even if I mostly just lurk these days). It can be fun to watch games slowly develop as new information comes out, to meet other people who look forward to the game, and to start building the foundations of a community. This period can be nice for really bringing to gether your strong core audience – well, in theory. A large part of me wants to say that MMOs should have forums early in this development stage. Of course, I’m also bias.

When I really think about it, you can make some good arguments for not having a forum until release/beta (where you really should have one). It is quite true that until you reach that state, there is very little game to actually talk about. There’s speculation – but that can often lead to heated and often circular arguments. There’s discussion on possible game systems, but there’s often litle basis for them, and the discussions are often rehashed. A lot. In fact, not just rehashed from discussions on other forums, but rehashed over and over again on the official forums. Then you generally have a lot of the random off-topic threads, which basically exist on every forum.

Besides that, fansites are going to pop up as long as you have made the announcement and pump out news on a semi-regular basis. Those fansites will have forums. The type of people who get on your forum during early development are going to be the same people that would go to a fansite to chat if you didn’t have a forum. It is when the game releases/gets much further into development, that you’re going to start getting a significant number of people who won’t go to some fansite to chat, but will go to your forums. (No, no citations for this, but I’m betting it is largely true.)

As I said though, I have a hard time making a call on that one. I’m actually rather curious on what other people have to say on this topic. As a note though, if these words were censored, even post-release, this issue would have arisen anyway. However, that isn’t the point!

As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.

Thread closed.

That, as you can imagine, caused more debate and complaints. Generally speaking, whenever you bring up a hot button issue like that, people are going to be downright irritated. There is absolutely no avoiding it, regardless of your stance. In this case, the complaining spilled out of the official forums and onto blogs and news sites around the Internet. In fact, so much as bringing it up – even without presenting any opinion one way or the other, has been enough to incite heated debate amongst forum goers and commentators on the broader issue of homosexuality- which isn’t surprising, many people have strong opinions one way or the other (heck, I’m opinionated too). As I said though, you probably already know about that – or at the very least, there’s plenty of places to read about what happened.

Instead, what I found interesting was something on Scott Jenning’s blog, even if it wasn’t the focus of his post. Should MMOs have forums long before they’re released? Before any game actually exists for players to, well, play?

I find myself pretty torn on this one, to be honest. I like online communities and I like hanging around early development forums (even if I mostly just lurk these days). It can be fun to watch games slowly develop as new information comes out, to meet other people who look forward to the game, and to start building the foundations of a community. This period can be nice for really bringing to gether your strong core audience – well, in theory. A large part of me wants to say that MMOs should have forums early in this development stage. Of course, I’m also bias.

When I really think about it, you can make some good arguments for not having a forum until release/beta (where you really should have one). It is quite true that until you reach that state, there is very little game to actually talk about. There’s speculation – but that can often lead to heated and often circular arguments. There’s discussion on possible game systems, but there’s often litle basis for them, and the discussions are often rehashed. A lot. In fact, not just rehashed from discussions on other forums, but rehashed over and over again on the official forums. Then you generally have a lot of the random off-topic threads, which basically exist on every forum.

Besides that, fansites are going to pop up as long as you have made the announcement and pump out news on a semi-regular basis. Those fansites will have forums. The type of people who get on your forum during early development are going to be the same people that would go to a fansite to chat if you didn’t have a forum. It is when the game releases/gets much further into development, that you’re going to start getting a significant number of people who won’t go to some fansite to chat, but will go to your forums. (No, no citations for this, but I’m betting it is largely true.)

As I said though, I have a hard time making a call on that one. I’m actually rather curious on what other people have to say on this topic. As a note though, if these words were censored, even post-release, this issue would have arisen anyway. However, that isn’t the point!

BioWare, the developer of many highly acclaimed RPGs, is looking at their upcoming title, Dragon Age: Origins, as a platform. The Canadian-based RPG company (although they do have their MMO studio down here in Austin) is hoping to infuse some of the magic that made NeverWinter Nights work so well in the spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series. That magic, namely, is the modding tools that will allow players to create their own modules – basically gameplay campaigns – and allow others to play them.

I’ll be up front on this one: I’m a BioWare fan. I’ve played everything they’ve released – heck, I even had a copy of Mass Effect for the Xbox 360 within the week it came out, and I don’t even own a 360 (I just lived with someone who did). NeverWinter Nights has long been one of my favorite games as well, largely because of the Auroura Toolset modding tools that it came with. I was also hoping to get that same magic with the release of NeverWinter Nights 2 from Obsidian, only to find one major problem: few people really made any modules. The tools were too complex for many of the people who turned out modules in the original game.

I actually have that fear with Dragon Age as well. While I expect to pick up a solid, polished game that’ll give me many hours of entertainment, I also am worried about the amount of modules people will actually make with it. I do know that BioWare is spending time with users of the original Aurora Toolset, so hopefully these fears will be unfounded. There is even a Beta Application up right now for people to help test out, quite specifically, the modding tools.

If nothing else, BioWare has stated that they plan on releasing a full scale title, and will be releasing further downloadable content to expand on the Dragon Age Universe.

Not that I have become a writer at BioWare (as awesome as that would be), but I had a chat with a fellow who works over there just last night at the Austin Community College/South By Southwest game panel, which discussed the economic issues plaguing the country and their effects on the game industry. It was an excellent panel as well.

However, I found out something interesting. Apparently, BioWare Austin has 12 writers currently, which is much more than most game companies tend to have. Those people, after they went through the standard application process, had to go through three months of training and ensuring they were excellent writers, before they were officially part of the company. I just found this tidbit of information particularly interesting. BioWare has a long history of being well known for their top notch writing, and I suppose this sheds a bit of light as to why that is.

Microtransactions as a form of revenue for an online game have certainly been a controversial topic, to say the least. However, they’ve also been a pretty popular topic as well within the game industry. I remember back when I attended the 2007 Game Developers Conference; a ton of developers were talking about how microtransactions would take over the subscription-based model. While many games out of Korea have been making use of them for years, the first real western example is now here.

Now, I like BioWare and I like their games. I also like Star Wars and the Old Republic era. So, I certainly have had some interest in TOR since it was announced, and I still do. To be honest, the idea of it having microtransactions doesn’t actually turn me off, although it does make me very interested in seeing how they will be handled. I spent some time in the past playing a few Iron Realm MUDs that made use of this payment scheme in the past, and I thought it actually worked rather well. Yet, there is the potential for issues to arise all the same. I’m actually rather excited to see how this whole thing goes over.

… In more ways than one. BioWare has (finally) announced the game that (we all knew) they are working on: Star Wars: The Old Republic , set 350 years after the Knights of the Old Republic games. KotoR has a very high standing amongst Star Wars fans as being an amazing game – in fact, a lot of gamers tend to agree on that. There’s an awful lot of hope out there that BioWare, a well respected company, will be able to take Star Wars into a positive direction with this game.

Personally, my first online community was the Star Wars Galaxies community. It was December of 1999 when I first started to really get into online communities heavily, and it was all because of that game. I’ve been a Star Wars fan for a long time – even if I’ve been much less into it lately – and I also have a love for the kinds of games BioWare puts out. So, this is pretty exciting news for me too. While Star Wars: The Old Republic goes back far in the timeline, I almost feel like I’ve gone back to an earlier time as well, as I get to follow another MMO based on the IP through its development.

I’ve had a chance to meet – and at the very least see a few GDC sessions from – a few BioWare Austin developers, and based on what I’ve seen, I think they have the potential to do something pretty neat. Time will tell.