Cinematic Design
When I started work at BioWare as a cinematic designer, I had no experience in video game development. I’d spent my entire life playing games, even done some simple modding in my teens, but never anything serious. I quickly learned the toolset, then spent the ensuing two years dedicated to creating the highest quality content I could produce. I worked on several of the class stories, including the very highly regarded Imperial Agent storyline.
I am incredibly driven to always improve, to always build upon what I have done before, attempting to never diminish tomorrow’s potential. I constantly refused to accept anything as just “good enough”, and strove to bring every scene I worked on to life. Working on The Old Republic, I found a fantastic balance between my hobbies as a gamer, computer enthusiast, Star Wars fan, and filmmaker. Working in a growing, constantly evolving virtual environment offered a number of benefits over traditional film making, but also came with a laundry list of challenges unique to the project that always pushed us to be more creative with what we could do.
If you’d like to know more, or view selected scenes in their entirety, read on!
Single Player Content
In Star Wars: The Old Republic, one of the very first choices a player makes is which of eight available player classes they want their character to be. This not only dictates their faction, skills, and general gameplay, but also the story they will experience while leveling their way through the game. Each class has its own unique story that is fully voiced by a wide array of voice actors. The classes whose stories I worked most on in Star Wars: The Old Republic were Imperial agent, bounty hunter, smuggler, and Republic trooper. I’ve included a few scenes featuring single player, class content below.
Multiplayer Content
In addition to the player’s epic class adventure, we also created multiplayer content where as many as four players could participate in a scene, with each player voting upon which dialogue option to select. Of course, players could also play through much of the multiplayer content solo, but participating in scenes as a group ended up having a very endearing dynamic. Playing with other people is always unpredictable.
Some of the multiplayer content was more brief, and limited to a specific area, but some multiplayer content featured stories that lasted through the entire time a player was visiting the planet. I worked on a large amount of multiplayer content on such planets as Dromund Kaas, Balmorra, Taris, Corellia, Voss, Coruscant, and Belsavis. I felt that even though these quests were often short and generally minor interactions, that they deserved every bit as much love and care, especially since they often offered some of the biggest challenges in terms of design, film making, and technical limitations. Here are a few examples of my multiplayer work, including two scenes from Corellia’s Imperial World Arc, a storyline I was responsible for which carries through the entire planet.
