Star Wars: The Old Republic Developer Blog

BioWare's official Star Wars: The Old Republic website has been updated with a new developer blog entry written by writer Rebecca Harwick. In it, she tells us about the creation of the planet Ord Mantell:
Once the quests are designed and written, the writers' job is done. Or not. What follows are countless playtests and rewrites, and the wondrous/terrifying experience of seeing the world come to life through the efforts of our world builders and artists. Frequently, they are able to take what we've come up with and make it even more amazing. Sometimes they give us the wide-eyed look of horror that means that the idea to send one of Ord Mantell's moons hurtling into its surface1 probably isn't going to work.

In the process of playing the game and critiquing the content, we find out what works and what doesn't and determine whether the quest needs to be cut or simply rewritten. We also discover areas of the world that are underserved, significant landmarks that beg to have a story told about them and hidden places where a little bit of content serves as a reward for exploration.

Running through Ord Mantell today is a lot of fun, but we're always getting more feedback and working to make the game better. Even having worked on the game for as long as we have, there are still moments that manage to awe us or take us by surprise, and I think that shows we're on the right track.