Star Wars: The Old Republic Community Q&A
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1200
Sindorin: When you're discussing a new planet, what sort of criteria do you guys lay out for the design process? How do you determine what's in or out, and what sort of backstory or lore goes into it?
Alex Freed (Lead Writer): Any new world needs to feel different from the worlds around it (in game terms, the worlds with level ranges just above or below its own), and it needs to push the overall themes of the story forward. So we might start with basic requirements like "We want to show the Republic going on the offensive," and "We want a wilderness world, since we've done a lot of urbanized planets lately." Defining these basic requirements isn't too difficult--they can usually be determined with an hour or two of group discussion.
After that, it gets more difficult. Figuring out the details of the world (including whether we want a canon planet to fill the role, or if we want to create a new planet altogether) takes much longer, but the basic criteria stay the same: Does the backstory fit the requirements outlined? Does the planet sound fun to play through? Is it practical? (If the art department can't build a planet full of, say, 90-foot-tall giants who use buildings as melee weapons, then that idea isn't practical, no matter what writing may want). Elements that contribute to the overall goals of the planet are retained; elements that don't get put to one side.
Writing, art and world design work together closely during this process, and if all goes well, we get a planet that has a clear purpose while being broad enough to support a wide variety of interesting missions.
