The document analyzes responses from Star Wars: The Old Republic forum users and in-game chat participants to questions about their gameplay experiences. There were stark differences in how the two groups experienced and engaged with the game. Forum users actively sought out social interaction and collaboration, while in-game participants preferred solo play. However, both groups were satisfied with the questing experience, indicating the game caters well to varied playstyles. The game's design allows players freedom in their narrative and how they experience the game, solo or with others. This universal usability is key to SWTOR's engaging quest system.

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Alexander Rose
Convergent Media
Professor Schrier
14 February 2011
Designing For The Audience: Star Wars: The Old Republic
In order to study my audience, I decided to look at the two most used forms of
communication in the game community, which were the two Star Wars: The Old
Republic Forums, and the in-game chat in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I asked four
main questions to both the forum group and in-game chat. My questions were:
1. How has the success of Star Wars: The Old Republic affected your game so far?
Have you felt that there are a great number of players around in the game while you
are playing? Does having more people around while doing quests make it feel more
or less authentic?
2. Do you feel that having more people in the game makes for a better playing
experience while questing?
3. How has the outside community (places such as Forums, Guild Sites, and Fan Sites)
affected your game play experience?
4. How well has the questing experience lived up to your expectations of what the
questing experience would be?
To elicit responses from the game community, I decided to post a thread on the
forum asking players those four questions, and I used their responses as a sample of
what the forum community felt up to that point in the game. Next, in order to obtain my
results from the in-game chat, I decided to take 12 players randomly from in-game, and
asked them those four questions individually.
One challenge that I had in taking this information was that when asking the players
in-game what they thought of the different mechanics of the game thus far, was that I
had only asked people from one server. Then, realizing that this would not be an
accurate portrayal of the entire community, since there are different experiences on
different servers, I decided to take three people from four different servers; each of those

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servers had different populations and different game styles. One server was player
versus player (PvP); one server was player versus environment (PvE); one server was
role-playing (RP); the last one was role-playing player versus player (RPPvP). I did this
in order to obtain different opinions from not just one group of people, but from
individuals with varied game playing styles, and different sized populations. I also had
to make sure that the people I spoke to in the game were not normal visitors of the
forums. I had to do this to make sure that the two groups interacted with the game
differently, since the people I spoke to in the game could also be people that frequented
the forums. These were the only major issues I had in obtaining and collecting my data.
My findings were varied more than I thought they were going to be; the responses
I got from the community while in-game as opposed to the ones I got from the forums
were, in some cases, polar opposites of one another. For the first question, the in-game
test group felt overall that the success of the game had not really affected their gaming
experience in SWTOR. The majority of them felt that they still did not see many players
in game even though the population of the game had already reached nearly two million
subscribers. Many of them felt that the game felt more like a single player game to them
rather than an MMORPG, at least while questing. They felt that they had not been in
many situations where they needed aid from other players or even really saw other
players. They did not believe that the game was bad in itself, they just felt that there
were not many players around while they were playing. The answers I got from the
forum users were a bit more mixed. More than half the forum users actually felt that
their experience had been affected by the number of people who were playing. The half
that agreed said that they found many more people out in the world while they were
questing. They saw players killing the same enemies they needed to kill and they asked
for help or helped those players out with whatever they were doing and worked together.
The other half of the group said that they didn‟t actually see too many people, but they
didn‟t feel like the game was completely empty either. Everyone from both groups felt
that they enjoyed their experience regardless of the success that the game had already
had had.

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Question number two also had very varied responses. In the in-game test group,
most of the players felt that having more people in the game would not really affect their
experience. They indicated that while having others play through quests with them
might add a different aspect to the experience, it would not fundamentally change their
experience in the game. The players felt that they had the same feeling from playing
with a group of people as they did playing alone. If anything, they felt that playing alone
was better because this made their character seem more unique and as if he or she was
the only hero in the universe of the game. The forum group felt that having more people
in the game made for a more intriguing experience. They liked that the game had
enabled them tosee the affects of different players‟ responses in a certain situations. This
added a much more social experience to their game, one that nearly the entire forum test
group agreed was beneficial to their individual experiences in the game.
For question three, the in-game test group explained that none of them actually
visited other websites such as guild sites or fan made sites. Most of them were in small
guilds made up of friends they had in real life or they did not have a guild at all so they
never had the need to visit guild websites. Some of them explained that they visited sites
that were item databases for the game, which allowed them to find information about
specific quests or items in the game, but they never actually went to any sites to enhance
their in-game story experience. They used these database sites strictly to find weapons or
to make money in the game; there was no outside social interaction. The forum group
once again had a completely different response. The entire forum group had, and still do,
visit guild specific websites that they use to enhance their social experience in the game
and they had visited some small fan made sites but the SWTOR website was still the
best website for players to use. I asked the forum group if they also used the database
websites that the in-game test group used, and they all said that they do but they
themselves frequently add information and comments to those sites, not just go to them
to get more information about in-game items.
The fourth and final question was the only question I had that I received nearly
unanimous responses to. Both the in-game test group and the forum group felt that
while there could be more quests available in the game, the questing experience had

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lived up to what they were expecting of it, and in some cases it had even surpassed
what they were expecting. All players felt that the questing mechanics in SWTOR made
for a completely unique experience unlike anything in other MMORPGs on the market
today. None of them felt that the game was lacking in content relevant to questing, and
their individual storylines.
I thought the responses to these questions were intriguing. I noticed that the
people who were part of my in-game test group were those whom I actually had to reach
out to in order for them to take part in my test, as opposed to those in the forums who
freely posted their opinions in my forum thread. This, combined with the responses I
received to nearly all of my questions, made me realize that people who frequent the
forums seem to be people who are more likely to interact openly with others, and are
looking for interaction with other players. I noticed that the people whom I had to find
in-game kept much more to themselves and they were happy playing alone as if the
game was single player. Neither group felt that the game was bad when it came to
questing and they both felt satisfied with their game experiences. I found this odd since
they both clearly enjoyed two very different ways of playing the game and had very
different views about how the game felt. To me, this meant that the game developers of
Star Wars: The Old Republic had done something fantastic. They had made it so that the
user could still feel satisfied with his or her experience while questing, even if he or she
decided he or she wanted to play alone or with a group, and there was no didn‟t sacrifice
on either side to make one more exciting than the other.
In SWTOR,the player can enjoy himself or herself while playing alone and never
feel as if he or she ismissing out on something or he or she could play with a group of
people. These playersdo not feel as if they are missing out on something they could be
doing alone. They made the questing experience fun and exciting no matter how they
decide to experience it. The designers must have had this same concept in mind when
they decided to have extensive forums available to players. While having forums for a
game is a common thing today, this clearly was a good choice by the designers because
it allows players who are looking for a more in-depth interaction with the game to have

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that, and it does not prevent others who just want to play the game alone from enjoying
the game by themselves.
The design of questing in Star Wars: The Old Republic, as detailed in Designing
the User Interface, definitely seems made to “Cater to universal usability”(qtd. in
Shneiderman”49). The designers did not want the user to feel like there was one way of
playing the game or that playing it alone was better than with a group of players or vice
versa. They wanted users to have the freedom to choose what they wanted, and feel as if
they were playing the game correctly and not missing out on anything. This shows
tremendous consideration for the audience during the design process. The designers
knew that not everyone would enjoy the game the same way, and that players would
want to play the game their own way and not be impeded by rules of the game. By
allowing players to make their own choices in the game, they can choose to do things
with a group of people or alone and never even feel remorse for not having done things
differently, which is not usually seen in MMOs. It is apparent that every aspect of the
questing experience in SWTOR was designed with the audience in mind. Instead of
designing a game that would force the user to follow one strict narrative, they designed
the game so that users could have their own self-made narrative.
In conclusion, I think a large part of what makes the questing of SWTOR so
successful and exciting for everyone is that no matter what you do the game flows really
well and as Raph Koster says “When there‟s flow, players usually say afterward, “That
was a lot of fun… When the balance is really perfect, people often zone out”(2). What I
found was that many players whom I spoke to said they did not even notice other players
or they did not feel like they were missing out on anything. Because they game flows so
well, no matter how you play it, you do not even notice the other aspects of the game
that you take part in since it is so easy to be completely entranced by your own
experience in the game. Designing the game this way is really why the SWTOR quest
system works so well.

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Works Cited
Coster, Raph. “Book Excerpt „A Theory of Game Design – What Games Aren‟t.‟”
Gamasutra.com. December 3, 2004. Web. p.2.
Shneiderman, Ben. “Designing For Fun: How Can We Design User Interfaces to Be
More Fun?” Interactions. September/October, 2004. Web. pp.48-50.