In this interview, Gabe’s favorite answer is “I can’t tell you that.” Nice.
When we attended BioWare’s recent Fan Site Summit in Austin, Texas, we were given a list of questions to avoid asking, and topics to avoid when interviewing developers. This kind of list is essentially a community service to the fan sites; it tells us up front all the things the devs cannot discuss at this point in development. The idea is that we, the interviewers, won’t waste our time asking questions that won’t be answered.
After we’d interviewed BioWare’s PvP senior designer, Gabe Amatangelo, and squeezed him for all the details about PvP that we could, we had a couple of extra minutes to spare. We decided to ask Gabe for one more quick interview, and he agreed. We then proceeded to ask poor Gabe every single question on the “Do Not Ask” list. His responses were…well, they were entertaining.
Here, check it out for yourself:
And thanks to Gabe for being such a good sport about the whole thing. 
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Ah, loved this! Hilarious! You guys are fantastic
I knew it. I’m not surprised to learn that they have been funneling their questions since almost EVERY news media site stopped asking them important or hard questions around summer of 2009, but it’s nice to get it out there in the open.
This kind of control over what is supposed to be third party media actually upsets me a bit, even if I understand the reasons why.
It turns into a “I rub your back, you rub mine.” kind of thing where both sides win, but none of the really pertinent questions get asked. That’s disappointing.
I don’t blame you though, getting spoon fed softball answers IS better than getting no answers at all. I’m just a little angry at Bioware.
PS That was a really funny interview. I’m glad you asked the questions. It does my heart good to see news, even in its small independent format, still doing its job.
[...] Alderaan / Consular PvP Audio: Q&A w/ Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amantangelo (+full text) Video: Q&A w/ Gabe Amatangelo Video: Gabe Amatangelo Discusses PvP Part 1 / Part [...]
The BioWare guys and gals were very cool. As a company, they simply don’t want to talk about anything until it’s almost ready. They want to know it’s going to be in the game for sure and that it’s polished and fun. This was mentioned to us a few times.
Also you want to maximize the media exposure when you do release new info. so it tends to drop in big chunks.
To some degree, most of us at the summit felt BioWare answered some questions we didn’t expect they would and made some new reveals (ie: letting us choose any character in Origin Worlds, all this new PvP info., etc.)
Just wanted to clarify:
The “forbidden questions” thing is a courtesy extended by BioWare to us. It’s not a negative thing at all. They just advised us, in advance, that the devs aren’t permitted to discuss X, Y, and Z quite yet. The questions are all “Hey, how about revealing the release date?” kind of thing. BioWare doesn’t even know, much less are they ready to publicly discuss, that kind of thing yet.
I’m not in any way portraying them as being secretive, or that this was negative at all. They were extremely positive, nice, and open throughout the entire Summit. They were also extremely good natured about this interview. What you can’t see is that there were a couple of devs in the background, laughing their heads off, while we were filming.
So what you are saying is that this is the Lambada of SWTOR Interviews
There is an expression that is something along the lines of “Sharks are always smiling.”, or if we want to get more musically inclined, “Don’t ask me, no questions, and I won’t tell you no lies.”
However you may feel about the symbiotic relationship that media sites and Bioware share with each other, it does hurt the spirit of journalism in its purest form even if we do get more specific EXTREMELY targeted information that Bioware wants to talk about.
It is subversion, even if they do it with a smile.
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