As curious gamers in this bright technological age, it isn’t always enough for us to know what decisions game developers make. Sure, knowledge is good. But more knowledge is better. We sometimes want to know how developers come to these decisions, what data they use, and what exactly they do with player feedback. The answers to some of these curiosities lie in metrics.

BioWare has been amazingly upfront in sharing some of their development philosophies and processes with their fans. During the Fansite Summit this past week, Georg Zoeller, Principal Designer, held a fantastic Q&A session with our fansite crews on game metrics and how BioWare uses data to design Star Wars: The Old Republic. The audio for that Q&A session can be found here, along with the other Q&A sessions held during the summit. It’s a fascinating interview.

Last Thursday, Electronic Arts released its financial earnings report for the last fiscal quarter that ended on September 30, 2011. The company also talked about expectations for the next quarter, during which Star Wars: The Old Republic will grace PC screens everywhere. For one, Electronic Arts actually raised its earnings outlook for the full fiscal year up from expectations of $4.1 billion to an expected range of $4.05 billion to $4.2 billion, based on increased digital revenue from games like TOR.

Welcome to Don’t Drink and Force Push, a brand new column by Jason Dodge, a/k/a/ Draegan, that will hopefully bring you something worth reading in the days ahead. What I’m going to attempt to do here is bring you some community news, musings, and whatever I feel like on a (mostly) daily basis. Now you might be wondering why I titled the inaugural post “Wookies and Cream”, and it’s a good question. Unfortunately I don’t know why, but I thought it sounded funny.

In any case, the news of the previous few days is that BETA! is starting this weekend. I’m sure everyone who got invited for the first time are extremely excited and those who got left out are cursing their names even as I type this. I’ve BETA! tested many MMORPGs to date, and I’ve always loved doing so. You get your hands on the game early, play for free, and generally see what the heck everyone is talking about. Most people who do get to try it out make their final decision on whether or not they’re going to buy the game as well.

I think Star Wars: The Old Republic’s BETA! is in a different category. The game is extremely story-centric as we all know and a lot of the gameplay and enjoyment is going to be derived from that if KOTOR is any sort of guideline. Does testing early ruin the game for anyone? Heck, even the different leak sites out there spoiler the NDA breaking infoz. I can safely say that playing and viewing the game at PAX 2011, outside the gameplay, almost everything ties your character to the story, even killing 10 womprats.

Now I’m sure all gamers just want to play and I don’t blame them at all since I’m one of them. However, does the fact that the game is fully story drive affect the way you’re going to play the beta if and/or when you get in?