Not sure how these flew under my proverbial RSS feed radar, but they did - three really in depth interviews from Tentonhammer on The Old Republic.  The entire articles are worth reading, but I’ve picked out the choicest and best parts for your viewing pleasure:

Design Q&A - Lightsabers, the Force, and Space Combat

What kind of level cap do you have in mind?

James Ohlen: We are going to have a level based system, and we are going to have a level cap, When we know what that is we’ll share it with you.

…

We’re really, really committed to not overhyping the game.

Really commited to not hyping the game, eh?  At least Paul Barnett won’t be involved with TOR - at least, not yet….

Is there any space-based aspect to the game?

James: We can say that we’re going to have different worlds for you to explore and that you’re going to have a method of travel from world to world. But again, we can’t go into any details on how you go from world-to-world. I know it’s a little disappointing, but it’s something we definitely can’t talk about at this point.

This is the second or third time I’ve seen a quote like this - “yes, Star Wars has vehicles, no, we’re not talking about it yet.”

Are you prepared for a world where there going to be hundreds of people clamoring to be Jedi and Sith? Will you be encouraging players to take a look at other classes besides those two?

We also definitely want to encourage players to try other classes. We have a system in place to do that, but - again - we can’t talk about it yet because it hasn’t been finalized. It’s pretty exciting.

Gordon: One thing that we should cover about this, and it’s one of the challenges, is this idea that all the other classes are wimps and that the Jedi rule. But if you actually think about it, the Jedi are getting popped by people that aren’t Jedi all the time. That and not everyone’s fantasy is going to be to play a Jedi.

Can you talk about the leveling system at all? Will there be innovations beyond killing monsters all the time?

James: Our leveling system does use the classic experience point type leveling system. There are some innovations that we working on, but we can’t talk about it.

I can talk about companion characters, and they’re going to be a big part of that system. They are going to be leveling up and geting different equipment with you.

The Dark Side and the Light Side are also going to be a big part of the game. You’re going to be making decisions in your stories that are going to be bringing you towards the Light Side or the Dark Side. You can also try to go down a more “gray” path, much like Qui-Gon Jinn. All of those paths are acceptable paths in which you work to travel down. I don’t think we’ve really seen that sort of system in an MMO before.

So companion characters gain experience and such just like your character will - almost like having a pet all the time, only the pet doesn’t suck and is (presumably) a sentient creature.  I love this idea - having a customizable non playable character would certainly be an innovation to the MMO gamespace.

Will PvP be in the game? How are you handling that system?

James: There will be PvP in the game There’s a reason why we decided to build two factions into the game,

So, more confirmation.  I just like to know that it’s there….

You’ve talked about the companion characters quite a bit. Do they disappear when you’re playing with other people? How do you prevent ending up playing with a small mob if you’re playing with three friends?

James: You only ever have a single companion character at a given time. You may have collected more than one companion character but you can only have one with you. You can switch them out because the companion characters have different strength, weaknesses and personalities.

One companion, but choices of many, eh?

Are there any plans for a mentoring / sidekick system?

James: Yes, we have a plan for that sort of system. There are certainly different ways to implement that, and, although we can’t say which system it’s going to be, we are investigating that.

Gordon: We always want to make sure people can play with their friends as soon as possible rather than capping them so they can’t. That’s part of the social experience, no matter what level a player is.

How are you incorporating vehicles into gameplay? Will there be ground combat and space combat?

James: We can’t talk about it, but Star Wars definitely had a lot of vehicles and we’re certainly looking at it.

One of my favorite features of any MMO was from City of Heroes/Villians - the sidekick system in that game was probably one of the best innovations they had made at the time, and I’m happy to see that it is going to be adapted for TOR.

Will there be instancing in the game?

James: Yes. There will be instances in the game, and it’s improtant for a lot of reasons. We want to be able to do storytelling and have players experiences that aren’t disrupted like they are in public areas.

Rich: But we are balancing the instanced areas with the public parts.

NEED INSTANCE!

Writing Interview

So what’s this about Typhon? What occurs on this planet?

Daniel: Tython is actually where the Jedi will train and start out in the game. The Jedi Order actually opposed the signing of the treaty with the Sith Empire, because they thought that it was an obvious trap and something awful was going to happen.

After the events occurred with the treaty, the Jedi pulled back to Tython so they could do their own thing.

Are you looking at putting some of the expanded universe characters into the game that weren’t really mentioned in KOTOR I and II? Individuals like Exar Qun, Nomi Sunrider, and Ulic Qel-Droma?

Daniel: Absolutely! It’s really one of the areas that’s important to us. Outside of the guy at Lucasfilm that keeps track of the Holocron - the repository of knowledge that is “true” in Star Wars - we probably have the largest group of experts on the Star Wars history. We never want you to have  quest where you listen to a librarian for two hours, but we know that it’s very important to the people that are familiar with the IP. Even the things that contradict other things in the expanded universe, we’ve tried to iron out.

FUCK YEA!  Exar Qun was a bad-ass.

Finally, you haven’t talked about Mandalorians yet. Are they in the game and are we going to see Mandalore again?

Daniel: We can’t talk about this yet, but I can say that I love Mandalorians. I’ll leave it at that.

I love Mandalorians as well.  I’m torn between what class/race I would play if given the choice - a Mandalorian is certainly badass, but a Wookie or scoundrel type would be as well.

Art Interview - Tweaking the Lightsabers

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.

Are you trying to make the environments of the time period look “older” than what we see in the original trilogy? That was one of the big complaints from Episode I - III and we were wondering how you were going to approach that.

We definitely think that Star Wars is all about that “lived in” and “gritty” feeling that you get with the original trilogy. It’s a dirty sci-fi; it’s not a polished and clean sci-fi. It definitely draws people into the world.

I love how the Bioware guys hardly ever reference Episodes I, II, or III - it’s almost as if they don’t consider them worthy movies as well….

Lightsabers look REALLY big in the screenshots…

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.

Good to know, the lightsabers look rediculous.

In one of the screenshots, it looked like a Sith Lord was choking a Jedi and the girl had a colorful animation ring around her neck. Is that something we’re going to see on all the abilities? Typically in the movies you can’t really see the Force being used….

I think we’ll have to do some sort of animation effects, but I’m not entirely satisfied with that particular screenshot. This is one of the areas that we do want to innovate, because the Force shouldn’t be “magic” but it can’t be like the movies either, because it didn’t really show anything… it was all about the action. We can’t cut the camera and stuff like that.

What we do do with this, will be innovative and it will probably be different than what you see in the screenshot.

Other than the movies, do you use pieces from the comic books and/or novels for inspiration?

One of our bigger inspirations is actually the original 2D Clone Wars mini series. We definitely drew a few things from there, including the clone trooper armor over the Jedi robe. You look like a Jedi, but you look intense at the same time, it was perfect.

Will companion characters have the same sort of options and variants that are available for player characters?

There will be customization options, but we can’t say too much about the companions at this point.

Are you working on the user interface?

Yes! We spend A LOT of time on the user interface. It’s something that’s really really important to us. We definitely want it to have the Star Wars look and feel. It’s a challenge because we want players to just be able to sit down and play the game. We want it to be comfortable and intuitive and at the same time we want it to be as streamlined as possible. We’re really happy with where we are right now with the UI. We think it’s very very usable.

So, some more on companions and the UI.  Bioware UI’s have always been nice and usable, so I expect TOR’s to be as well.

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