14 DAY TRIAL // The leading executives at developer BioWare have said that they are planning an aggressive schedule of content launches for their MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will begin just after the official launch of the game.
Ray Muzyka, who is one of the co-founders of BioWare, has told GamesIndustry.biz that, “It’s a long term commitment, that’s the way we’re looking at it. It’s definitely not a fire and forget but more of a… we have a really aggressive plan post launch to build content and take the feedback to heart that we’re getting from players and what they want for continued expansions, and use that feedback to build new content, so we’re releasing regular content drops and regular expansions after launch, and really accommodating what the players are asking for, dependant on what they find most fun in the game.”
The launches of many recent MMOs were hobbled by the fact that players were able to get through the initial content too fast and then abandoned the game before developers were able to deliver more of it.
BioWare has said that there's a lot to do in The Old Republic at launch, with just one planet of the 17 included offering more creatures to slay than all of Dragon Age: Origins.
The company is also opening an entire studio in Ireland which will be tasked with maintaining and, presumably, delivering more content for the Star Wars MMO.
Greg Zeshuck added, “The two really big expectations from users are one, that really good reliable service and number two, is constant content. So we’re asking for them to stay with us for years, so we reciprocate by giving them stuff to do for years, and that’s a fair trade and that’s very important.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic is set to be launched on December 20 in North America and two days later in Europe.