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Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert has unveiled the Codex in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it's basically a story-based achievement system. Here are some of the highlights:
back stories that designers and writers have worked tirelessly to
develop, but in the game, the player only sees what their character
sees. Often times, the rich back story is used only for the context of
quests, and players never really get the bird’s eye view of the
narrative. The ‘big picture’ can become even more confusing and
incomplete if the player misses a quest or discovers key plot points out
of order. A lot of times, what ends up happening, is that the player
just gives up on understanding the overarching storyline, and just
focuses on enjoying other parts of the gameplay experience.
Obviously, this was a matter of some concern to us. Star Wars™
is one of the richest, most engaging fictional settings in all of pop
culture. We have an exceptional team of writers working hard to build
and expand the Star Wars universe in the Old Republic era. As
you may have heard, story is kind of a big deal to BioWare and to The
Old Republic™, and that story is a lot better if you understand the
context for what’s going on around you and how your actions fit in.
The Genesis of the Codex
When we encounter design problems in The Old Republic, we like to
first look at other BioWare games for a solution. In this case, we
really appreciated the codex used in Dragon Age, which allows
players to collect pieces of the story that eventually coalesce into a
collected whole. We also looked at the codex in Mass Effect. The focus was slightly different, instead providing an encyclopedic view of the universe as a whole.
For The Old Republic, we took the best of both systems, using our
codex to not only elaborate on the settings you fight in and the
creatures you kill, but also to plant seeds of knowledge relating to key
personages and concepts from your class story and long-lost lore meant
to give more feedback at large. We sketched out what we wanted, and
told the writers to get to work.
How much work? Current estimates of our codex are around 120,000 words of text. By comparison, the average Star Wars novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
The Mechanics of Discovery
This feature isn’t just about being another way to deliver story to
the player. As Lead Systems Designer, I’m mostly concerned about
bringing the fun. Delivering story and context isn’t enough for me – I
also want to be sure that we add new activities for players to do and
goals for him to achieve. In particular, we saw the codex as a way to
reward exploration
Long-time players of MMOs are probably, on some level, familiar with the work of Richard Bartle. He wrote what is considered a seminal work on MMO design, describing the types of players that play in virtual worlds (wondering what sort of player you are? Take one of the many Bartle’s tests
out on the web and find out). He divided up the player base into
killers, achievers, socializers and explorers, allowing for the fact
that most players are actually some mixture of the categories. He
posited that, in truth, games needed to appeal to all four quadrants to
be successful. Building off his work—we see the codex as a way to
enhance the gameplay for explorers.
We give away some codex entries for free. For example, we think that
it’s important that players have basic background about the locations
they are visiting, and key people in their class story arcs will almost
always merit a codex entry. For the rest, though, we want people to
explore the planets a little more, and take on some challenges a little
ways off the beaten path.
Wandering to distant locations on the map will unlock codex entries
about those far flung corners of the globe. Unlocking the codex entry
for the k’lor’slug, for example, involves killing a hard to find,
tougher k’lor’slug deep in one of Korriban’s tombs. Additionally,
exploring the artifacts in the Academy’s library can reveal ancient bits
of lost lore, and doing quests for various alien species can unlock
their entry in the codex.
Currently, none of these are locked behind a serious challenge – our
codex unlocking k’lor’slug is a challenge for its level, to be sure, but
not a ‘OMGPWN3D go bring back 3 friends in epics!’ challenge – and
that’s intentional. Explorer gameplay should, first and foremost,
reward exploring.
The Datacrons Challenge
That’s not to say that some codex entries shouldn’t be challenging.
Quite the opposite, we want some codex entries to be worthy challenges –
but we want those challenges to be centered on exploration. Enter the
datacrons. In-game datacrons will be a sub-set of the codex entries.
The world builders had been kicking around the idea of these little
world gizmos for a while now. These unique objects are placed
throughout the world for the player to find, usually in hard to reach
places. If you successfully reach one and interact with it, one of your
stats will be increased -- permanently. The codex gave us a way to
increase the visibility of these devices, and offer a player an easy way
to track his progress finding them.
www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/db/codex/db_codex_05_535x300.jpg" alt=""/>
While most codex entries can be obtained with the players stretching
their legs (searching the whole map, killing obvious targets you don’t
normally need to kill), finding datacrons typically requires a little
extra exploration and a even little ingenuity. While some are hidden,
many are in plain sight – the trick is often in figuring out how to get
to that datacron that you see on a ledge off in the distance.
The inspiration for datacrons comes from a similar game mechanic in
one of my earlier projects. These items spawn in predictable locations,
but are only usable by each character once. Over time, the locations of
these become known, and shared lore. In this other project, the unique
nature of finding these items resulted in an interesting social
dynamic, where intrepid explorers, eager to prove their world mastery,
organized hunting parties for groups of new players to explore these
worlds and find these hidden nooks and crannies. We would not be
surprised to see a similar pattern emerge in The Old Republic.
Wrapping Up
All of these features combine to make a nice little collection game
for the player, where the reward for the act of collecting is more lore
and context offering insights and depth into the world of Star Wars:
The Old Republic. In the codex user interface, players can not only
see the entries they’ve discovered so far, but also the progress they’ve
made towards finding all there is to find on a planet or in a category.
Overall, the codex system has been successful at meeting our two
design goals of providing more fictional context to the player, and
providing an explorer mini-game with meaningful rewards. One nice thing
about the system is that it’s also designed to be easily expandable – an
important consideration when building a game likely to have a long
lifespan through patches and expansions. We expect the codex to become
continually richer and more involved throughout the life of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Damion Schubert
Principal Lead Systems Designer
- The team had two design goals: providing more fictional context for
the player, and providing an explorer mini-game with meaningful rewards. - It was inspired by the codex systems in Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
- Current estimates of the codex are around 120,000 words of text. The average Star Wars novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
- Some Codex entries will be given away for free. Others will require exploration or killing various monsters.
- Datacrons are unique objects you can find throughout the world that will increase one of your stats permanently.
- The system is designed to be easily expandable.
back stories that designers and writers have worked tirelessly to
develop, but in the game, the player only sees what their character
sees. Often times, the rich back story is used only for the context of
quests, and players never really get the bird’s eye view of the
narrative. The ‘big picture’ can become even more confusing and
incomplete if the player misses a quest or discovers key plot points out
of order. A lot of times, what ends up happening, is that the player
just gives up on understanding the overarching storyline, and just
focuses on enjoying other parts of the gameplay experience.
Obviously, this was a matter of some concern to us. Star Wars™
is one of the richest, most engaging fictional settings in all of pop
culture. We have an exceptional team of writers working hard to build
and expand the Star Wars universe in the Old Republic era. As
you may have heard, story is kind of a big deal to BioWare and to The
Old Republic™, and that story is a lot better if you understand the
context for what’s going on around you and how your actions fit in.
The Genesis of the Codex
When we encounter design problems in The Old Republic, we like to
first look at other BioWare games for a solution. In this case, we
really appreciated the codex used in Dragon Age, which allows
players to collect pieces of the story that eventually coalesce into a
collected whole. We also looked at the codex in Mass Effect. The focus was slightly different, instead providing an encyclopedic view of the universe as a whole.
For The Old Republic, we took the best of both systems, using our
codex to not only elaborate on the settings you fight in and the
creatures you kill, but also to plant seeds of knowledge relating to key
personages and concepts from your class story and long-lost lore meant
to give more feedback at large. We sketched out what we wanted, and
told the writers to get to work.
How much work? Current estimates of our codex are around 120,000 words of text. By comparison, the average Star Wars novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
The Mechanics of Discovery
This feature isn’t just about being another way to deliver story to
the player. As Lead Systems Designer, I’m mostly concerned about
bringing the fun. Delivering story and context isn’t enough for me – I
also want to be sure that we add new activities for players to do and
goals for him to achieve. In particular, we saw the codex as a way to
reward exploration
Long-time players of MMOs are probably, on some level, familiar with the work of Richard Bartle. He wrote what is considered a seminal work on MMO design, describing the types of players that play in virtual worlds (wondering what sort of player you are? Take one of the many Bartle’s tests
out on the web and find out). He divided up the player base into
killers, achievers, socializers and explorers, allowing for the fact
that most players are actually some mixture of the categories. He
posited that, in truth, games needed to appeal to all four quadrants to
be successful. Building off his work—we see the codex as a way to
enhance the gameplay for explorers.
We give away some codex entries for free. For example, we think that
it’s important that players have basic background about the locations
they are visiting, and key people in their class story arcs will almost
always merit a codex entry. For the rest, though, we want people to
explore the planets a little more, and take on some challenges a little
ways off the beaten path.
Wandering to distant locations on the map will unlock codex entries
about those far flung corners of the globe. Unlocking the codex entry
for the k’lor’slug, for example, involves killing a hard to find,
tougher k’lor’slug deep in one of Korriban’s tombs. Additionally,
exploring the artifacts in the Academy’s library can reveal ancient bits
of lost lore, and doing quests for various alien species can unlock
their entry in the codex.
Currently, none of these are locked behind a serious challenge – our
codex unlocking k’lor’slug is a challenge for its level, to be sure, but
not a ‘OMGPWN3D go bring back 3 friends in epics!’ challenge – and
that’s intentional. Explorer gameplay should, first and foremost,
reward exploring.
The Datacrons Challenge
That’s not to say that some codex entries shouldn’t be challenging.
Quite the opposite, we want some codex entries to be worthy challenges –
but we want those challenges to be centered on exploration. Enter the
datacrons. In-game datacrons will be a sub-set of the codex entries.
The world builders had been kicking around the idea of these little
world gizmos for a while now. These unique objects are placed
throughout the world for the player to find, usually in hard to reach
places. If you successfully reach one and interact with it, one of your
stats will be increased -- permanently. The codex gave us a way to
increase the visibility of these devices, and offer a player an easy way
to track his progress finding them.
www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/db/codex/db_codex_05_535x300.jpg" alt=""/>While most codex entries can be obtained with the players stretching
their legs (searching the whole map, killing obvious targets you don’t
normally need to kill), finding datacrons typically requires a little
extra exploration and a even little ingenuity. While some are hidden,
many are in plain sight – the trick is often in figuring out how to get
to that datacron that you see on a ledge off in the distance.
The inspiration for datacrons comes from a similar game mechanic in
one of my earlier projects. These items spawn in predictable locations,
but are only usable by each character once. Over time, the locations of
these become known, and shared lore. In this other project, the unique
nature of finding these items resulted in an interesting social
dynamic, where intrepid explorers, eager to prove their world mastery,
organized hunting parties for groups of new players to explore these
worlds and find these hidden nooks and crannies. We would not be
surprised to see a similar pattern emerge in The Old Republic.
Wrapping Up
All of these features combine to make a nice little collection game
for the player, where the reward for the act of collecting is more lore
and context offering insights and depth into the world of Star Wars:
The Old Republic. In the codex user interface, players can not only
see the entries they’ve discovered so far, but also the progress they’ve
made towards finding all there is to find on a planet or in a category.
Overall, the codex system has been successful at meeting our two
design goals of providing more fictional context to the player, and
providing an explorer mini-game with meaningful rewards. One nice thing
about the system is that it’s also designed to be easily expandable – an
important consideration when building a game likely to have a long
lifespan through patches and expansions. We expect the codex to become
continually richer and more involved throughout the life of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Damion Schubert
Principal Lead Systems Designer
Last edited by Shu on Wed May 11, 2011 9:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
