BioWare interview at Comic-Con

Gaming site Ten Ton Hammer pulled off an interview with a bunch of the BioWare team at Comic-Con over the weekend. There’s lots of the expected “we can tell you that” featured but also some good insights into development to date.

You can read it in full here, but here are some of the more notable comments:

1. On combat mechanics

I mean, we haven’t even shown anything to the public yet past level eight. We have really, really exciting character classes that each feel totally awesome. If you’re a guy that just wants to power through a bunch of those and just have a really compelling combat experience at the top of the game, that’s an option for you. We’re already proving that to ourselves, and if folks just want to fight – and that’s the pillar that they love – they’re going to be very satisfied.

Interpretation: World of Warcraft tanks, come on in, we love you and want you.

2. On combat (again)

We really just wanted to emulate the cinematic, action-packed Star Wars combat. The decisions that Jeff [Dobson]’s combat team makes are based on those (sic) tenants – that it needs to be full of action and visceral. It needs to feel like it has an influence on the game, and it needs to be reactive in that the enemies are reacting to what you’re doing.

Interpretation: you’ll be able to hit things, make then hurt and it’ll be obvious they’re hurtin’

3. On what will make the cut

There wasn’t anything in the game that was implemented just because “it fits.” The bounty hunter needed to go in simply because it was a major part of the universe and was vital to almost every element of Star Wars.

That said, there are areas of the expanded universe that we could take and run with if they fit every part of our game. But we’re not going to look at pieces and just include them in the game simply because they exist.

Interpretation: We don’t care how much you want Gungans in SWTOR, it’s never going to happen, even if it costs us plush toy sales. (See, there was a reason for the Jar Jar Binks pic that may have made you vomit in your mouth a little).

Flippancy aside, there’s obviously some big efforts being out into making combat something different from current MMOs. This was a difference touted by Age of Conan‘s developers – things can only go up from there for BioWare you’d think.