14 DAY TRIAL // Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO from BioWare and Electronic Arts, is set to soon get more content for Player versus Player interested gamers after the team working on it realized how interested the fan base was to compete directly against others.
The BioWare team also confirmed plans to develop and launch more events like the recent Rakghoul Plague, which was designed to jump from player to player and create a sense of urgency and fear throughout the community.
Daniel Erickson, who is the leader designer working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, has told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that, “Part of the magic of doing something like this is that it feels organic and gives you a sense that the world is changing. A surprise you’re warned about ahead of time isn’t much of a surprise.”
He added, “We definitely learned a lot of cautionary lessons [from World of Warcraft] about what to watch out for and protect against if you let your players loose with a contagion. We had a pretty good idea players would spread it no matter how hard we tried to stop them, so instead we encouraged it with rewards and quests and then ran every possible scenario we could think of to make sure it didn’t create any unintended consequences.”
Erickson also acknowledged that gamers are quicker that BioWare expected and more are closing in to the level cap so end game content is also on the list of priorities.
Those who are playing Star Wars: The Old Republic tend to spend more time with the MMO than BioWare and EA were expecting and that means that more resources are needed in order to keep up with their pace.
The two companies have recently denied reports that The Old Republic was losing subscribers, although they acknowledged that less players are logging into the MMO during peak hours.