Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview

Ten Ton Hammer brings us a Q&A with BioWare art director Jeff Dobson about the visuals and general art direction they're taking with Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Are you going to be taking locations from any of the first two games and putting them in SWTOR?

Obviously Korriban is in the game already. In the previous game, the characters were just starting their digging on this world, and now all the equipment has been cleared away and buildings have been found. Of course the statues are still along the walls and all of the tombs are still there, but now there's a spaceport and a giant pyramid at the end of the valley.

So yes, there will be a lot of places from the other games in SWTOR. That's one of my jobs as Art Director, taking things that exist and putting our own spin on things; reinterpret the visual and put it back out there.

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Lightsabers look REALLY big in the screenshots. Is there a way to scale them up and down?

We're actually still tweaking that. That said, we do want the weapons to feel just a little bit oversized. We're always trying to think about that "show off" factor. We definitely don't want to make them too small and miss out on that show-off factor.

For those that are concerned about the screenshots, I think the lightsabers look bigger in those pictures than they actually are. But without a doubt we want to have that "oversized" weapon feel in the game for the guns and the lightsabers both. By making the weapons a little bit oversized, it makes you feel cool to have that giant gun in your hands.

However, I do think the size needs a bit of tweaking from what you see in the screenshots.