Interviews// Star Wars The Old Republic Lead Writer Alex Freed

SPOnG: So, what it is like writing for a universe that is, for want of a better word, “pre-created”? You said that previously you were a freelance writer, you've written your own stories but when somebody comes to you with this huge universe like Star Wars and you've got this order to create a story from scratch amongst all of you. How do you even begin to approach that?

Alex: It helps to have at least the philosophical groundwork laid out by the original Knights of the Old Republic. I didn't work on that but many of the people with us did and – at least early on – it was the touchstone of how we wanted to do Star Wars storytelling.

What really made KOTOR work was it found a way to take what people were excited about with Star Wars and reconceptualise and reimagine it just enough that it was still something new and exciting to explore while still being "Yes, this is Star Wars, this is what I want to be exploring!".

One of the things that makes Star Warsexciting is that sense of wonder, it's walking into a cantina and seeing thirty different alien species you've never heard of or seen before.

But you can't just invent 30 new species and toss people into that world because then it's not Star Wars any more – the genius of KOTOR was, "Let's move all the Star Wars stuff and put it in a different setting so it's all fresh and new but it's still familiar".


SPOnG: I take it there's this massive resource that you can draw upon? I mean, is there this, almost like a Star Wars vault that you can visit and get information from?

Alex: There really is! We very rarely create anything entirely new because there is so much Star Wars stuff out there.

There are so many novels, there are so many comics, there's the movies, there's the cartoons, the old Ewoks and Droids cartoons if you remember those!

There's so much stuff to draw from. Whenever we decide, "We need a planet that fits this general role", we'll always go hunting to see if there's something that already fits what we're looking for. Then we'll either nudge it in the direction we're going, or sometimes our direction changes.

Sometimes we look at it and say "Wow! That's a fantastic planet, it was used in some interesting way in a Marvel comic from 1982, let's play on that, let's see what we can get out of it".


SPOnG: I imagine it must be a bit of a nightmare making sure that everything fits into canon as well? As you say, you didn't come up with much in the way of "new" stuff, but when you do develop new ideas, actually making them fit into the Star Wars universe would be a challenge. Not just in the game itself, but getting people who are very hardcore fans to accept that as part of the actual Star Wars universe.

Alex: Yes. There is so much stuff (that) there's always the question of, "If we put this in, is it going to send ripples throughout Star Wars continuity and make these half-dozen novels not make sense any more?"

We do spend a lot of time researching and we are concerned with that sort of thing. Being in a time period that is so far from everything else that happens means that we've got some padding in there.

There's a lot that can happen in the 3,000 years between our game and the films! We've got a bit of a buffer, we've got places to make mistakes and, of course, Lucas takes that stuff very seriously as well. They review everything we do for continuity issues and give us their stamp of approval or gently let us know if we have made an error.


SPOnG: What of whole George Lucas Seal of Approval. He had to have signed off on pretty much every detail in the game, I assume?

Alex: Everything we do goes through Lucas. That isn't to say George himself is sitting down and reading every word we type up. He might be, I don't actually know! But everything goes through his people and they look at it in great detail.

It's a good relationship. They respect us as game designers and as story tellers. They know that we know what we're doing and we respect them as the Star Wars vision holders. No-one is more concerned about the sanctity of Star Wars – not just the continuity but also that things feel "Right" for a Star Wars story.


SPOnG: Everything in an MMO lives or dies by the story. I take it you guys are still working on stuff for the future, working on new updates, DLC, that kind of stuff? What's the plan – if we're allowed to know anything – for the future of the Old Republic?

Alex: Well, I can't talk in detail about that...


SPOnG: It's OK, vague things are fine!

Alex: I can do that! In as vague terms as I can muster, you're absolutely right, MMOs do live or die based on the expansion of content, the development of new systems, the refinement of old systems and we know that.

We're not planning to put this thing out then not have anyone hear from us for a year.

We've got progressive post-launch plans, we've got many people on many teams furiously working on all of that and I'm sorry I can't go into greater details because there's some neat stuff coming down!

SPOnG: Thanks for your time, Alex.