An Interview with SWTOR's Shawn Ketcherside [Star Wars: The Old Republic]

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When it comes to recently launched MMORPGs, while up-front content and balance is very important, it is often how a development team continues to support their product that really indicates if this is a title worth committing to. In BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, many players were worried that there wasn't enough endgame content to keep them satisfied beyond their first month of subscription. BioWare's response was to push for the launch of Patch 1.1: Rise of the Rakghouls within a month of the game launching, adding a new operation and a challenging flashpoint for players to try out.

Now players have their eyes firmly fixed on BioWare's next big update: Patch 1.2 to see if BioWare can continue to deliver the content that fans want: more content, more Warzones, a fix to faction imbalanced open-world PvP, legacy system additions, more guild support, and more. I decided to catch up with SWTOR's Design Producer Shawn Ketcherside to see if I could glean any new patch 1.2 information, as well as get some clarification on what BioWare really wants from open world PvP. Interview below!

ZAM: Hi Shawn! I'll start with a general question here; I'm curious if the team is happy with how players are progressing through the content of Star Wars: The Old Republic? I'm just wondering if the team is happy with where the general player population is, and if they'll have enough content to keep them entertained until March?

Shawn: Yeah, actually! We're one of the fastest selling subscription MMOs around, so where we're sitting is really good. The whole team is super excited seeing all these people going through our content. As far as content coming up, it's something we're always keeping our eye on, but from the reception we've gotten, people are really excited about the different levels of difficulty we have on the raids and it's providing a really good challenge for a lot of people. It's keeping the guilds busy as we're going.

ZAM: In my guild, we just finished hard mode Eternity Vault and we're planning to get into hard mode Karagga's Palace soon, which was just expanded upon in the Kaon Under Siege patch. After that, I suppose we'll look into the more difficult Nightmare modes going toward 1.2. I know you've noted that March is when we'll see the big update coming; do you have any smaller content pieces leading up to it?

Shawn: No. What we're really doing is focusing on all of the awesome stuff we learned from launch and 1.1 in order to make sure that update 1.2 is just awesome coming out the gate. That's where our attention is focused right now. Of course, this in addition to the normal exploit fixes and bug fixes we've been looking at week to week. Those have been holding a lot of our attention because we want to make sure we listen to our fans and we're really reacting to the feedback we're getting.

ZAM: And on that note, how much of your patch content from patch 1.1 to 1.2 was planned content that was on the drawing board from the very beginning, and how much was content created in response to player demand? Any examples?

Shawn: I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head, but it's definitely a general mix. We look at all of the feedback we're getting, and we'll have ideas in our minds, where we'll say "oh the fans need this or this." But there are also things that we know just aren't working so well, so we're making sure we're addressing that and fixing that. You just have to balance it all out.

ZAM: How do you feel about the feedback you're getting from players?

Shawn: People are passionate, which is really exciting. Sometimes you'll get people who want things or don't want things, and it's up to us to analyze that. One of the things that we really have going for us is that, in addition to the great feedback we get from the forums, we have a lot of really good metrics that we use to compare the anecdotal evidence we're getting on the forums with actual in-game behavior. So we can correlate those two things together to figure out the best way to go.

ZAM: Going off of your metrics comment; one of the big updates from 1.1, aside from new content, was the big change to Ilum's open-world PvP. That was probably the first time I really felt the faction imbalance on my server, aside from getting about a million games of Imperial versus Imperial Huttball in Warzone PvP. Do you have any ideas how BioWare wants open world PvP to play out in Star Wars, especially faction imbalances, and if you want to incorporate that in some way?

Shawn: We're really looking into that. We have some of the best PvP designers in the world really looking at how to take that open-world PvP scenario into the next level. We're still looking at how to make open-world PvP fun and how to make it work.

Continue to Page 2 for Open World PvP and BioWare's Design Vision for 1.2 >

ZAM: Looking at the structure of the Ilum's open-world PvP map, it looks like it would be fun with small-scale skirmishes and guerilla warfare. These days, however, with the way people just want to get their dailies done, Ilum has transformed into this giant game of siege warfare, where one side will be camping the enemy base for kills and valor, while others just rotate around the middle snagging armaments. Was there a specific vision with Ilum that you had hoped would play out?

Shawn: That's a hard question! We had some thoughts, but we're being careful with what we're doing. We don't want to just make changes for the sake of making changes. Anything we do, we want to make sure we're making it better and more improved for the player.

ZAM: Visualizing an MMORPG is nearly impossible, given the wildly creative interpretive power of players, so we can move on from this for now. Getting back to the updates, I know with 1.1 the focus was on expanding endgame with Karagga's Palace and Kaon Under Siege; is 1.2's big theme all about reacting to player feedback and expanding the general breadth of SWTOR? I know there's big expansion on the Legacy system, a new Warzone, and the conclusion to the Kaon Under Siege arc.

Shawn: Yeah, we have some in-game focuses for sure. We want to make sure we're keeping as many people as possible engaged, but we have way more than that in mind. You mentioned the Legacy system, and that's one of the huge things we really want to hit because I think it's an exciting feature for players who really aren't into raiding and are more interested in going through all the different storylines, which is a huge part of the game. So the Legacy updates will offer those players quite a bit. The other big thing we're focusing on is implementing some guild features; the guild bank is going to be a huge thing. Guilds are the social spine of our game, and we want to make sure we're giving them things to make them happy and we're making their guild experience better, so that's one of the things we're really focused on.

ZAM: Back to the Legacy system here; any more hints you can give on that? This is me being sneaky, but we've already heard things like new powers and items, and there's speculation that some cross-faction races might be unlocked. Anything a little more concrete?

Shawn: I don't want to spoil the surprise, sorry!

ZAM: Very well! I'll end this off on a general note then. This is something I've been curious about for some time now: How do you currently see natural progression for endgame content in Star Wars: The Old Republic? For a player who just hits 50, what are you hoping will be the "best" way for that player to experience endgame content, going from "casual" playing to "medium" progression, all the way to "hardcore" nightmare mode operations? How are you hoping for that progression to play out?

Shawn: We're actually focusing on that and how to integrate that into game updates going forward. One of the things that's really important to us is because of the way our game is and how important story is, we want to make sure that more casual players can see the content of the operations and the flashpoints, but at a difficulty level where they can enjoy the content, even if the rewards they're getting aren't at the level of the more progression-based nightmare mode guilds. We just want to make sure we can get everyone as involved as possible.

ZAM: This is me guessing, and you don't have to answer this but... do you think we might see easier versions of operations in the works so that less progression-focused players can experience those instances without the endgame "commitment?" I really enjoyed both Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace; they're a lot of fun to tackle with friends! Any... comments on that?

Shawn: I can tease a little bit here. Those are some things that we're looking at and there may be some things coming up to make sure that the more casual players can enjoy all the rest of that content.

ZAM: I will... leave that up for interpretation. That's perfect, thanks! That also pretty much wraps up my questions for now!

Shawn: I wish I had some better information on the PvP stuff, but it's really in flux right now and we're keeping our eye on this.

ZAM: Maybe we'll speak again when things finally settle down. Thanks for the chat!

Shawn: Thank you!

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom, Editor-in-Chief.

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