Another game that will own me...first DragonAge, now this!
BIOWARE!

And mass effect 2 hits january 26.

I loves me some BIOWARE.

I was refering to PVE not PVP, I don't PVP much.

A Paladin shouldn't be able to be a better healer then me, tank and do insane damage. While shadow priest absolutley suck balls right now when it comes to damage.

But I blame the arenas for this mess, Blizz is finally owning up and admitting that arenas were a mistake.

NEW CLASSES:

Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor

http://www.swtor.com/?sourceid=eag1058

Star Wars: The Old Republic Hands-On - New Character Details and Playing the Sith Inquistor

By Andrew Park, GameSpotPosted
Dec 10, 2009 5:35 pm PT

We try out this upcoming massively multiplayer game based on the Star Wars universe first explored in Knights of the Old Republic.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, game developer BioWare, a studio founded by two medical doctors on the foundations of nerdy swords-and-sorcery role-playing, made the jump to deep space with Knights of the Old Republic, a Star Wars-themed role-playing game that told a story that predated the events of the motion pictures by several centuries. Some years later, the developer is now working on a massively multiplayer online game in the same universe--a game that will let you play as a Boba Fett-like bounty hunter, a Han Solo-like smuggler, or a Mace Windu-like Jedi knight…among others. We recently had a chance to get a bit more insight on the game from its developers, and we also had our first chance to play the game using the Sith inquisitor profession, which we'll discuss shortly.

For starters, all eight playable professions have now been revealed for the game. Previously, we'd revealed the Republic trooper, the smuggler, the Sith warrior, the bounty hunter, the Jedi knight, and the Imperial agent. The studio has now revealed the final two professions: the Sith inquisitor, an evil Force-powered character reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine who is capable with a lightsaber but possesses an array of even-deadlier Force powers; and the Jedi consular, which is patterned after the Knights of the Old Republic profession and is also good with a lightsaber but is better with light-side Force powers and tends to look for ways to resolve conflict with words, rather than with a fight.

The development team reiterated its commitment to deliver an enjoyable Star Wars experience above all else and suggested that this outlook also influenced the game's character design. Rather than focus on standard online role-playing game archetypes such as healer, tank (frontline fighter who soaks up damage from enemies), and DPS (or damage per second, a combat character that focuses on dealing as much damage as possible), the team is focusing on creating characters who are fun to play and provide the kind of experience you'd expect from playing such a character in a Star Wars game.

However, in the interest of game balance, the studio is adding several game features that will help make the game enjoyable to play without having lopsided character classes or forcing players to group with certain other professions to have any kind of chance. For starters, each class is being designed around a number of different themes that can apparently be specialized in to customize your character around your playing style. The example given was the smuggler profession, whose general themes include luck, recklessness, opportunity, and cowboy. These themes contributed to designing the class around two different archetypes: a gunslinger archetype that uses such skills as taking cover in combat and using a "dirty kick" attack in melee, while carrying dual pistols into battle and using smooth-talking skills to get out of sticky situations; and a scoundrel archetype that focuses more on stealth and critical headshot hits, as well as unconventional medical skills--reminiscent of the way Han Solo rescued a frostbitten Luke in The Empire Strikes Back by gutting a tauntaun and shoving Luke's body into the beast's warm carcass.

In addition to this open-ended character design, the team will add computer-controlled "companion" characters that your character will meet and join over time, and can call upon as needed. Two examples shown by the developers were Khem Val the Dashade, a Sith inquisitor whose powerful lightning-based abilities provide excellent ranged damage, and Xalek the Kaleesh, a Sith apprentice who deals heavy bursts of damage with his lightsaber attacks.

The presentation ended with a hands-off demonstration of the Jedi consular character in motion on the Jedi home planet of Tython as the character did battle with squat humanoid "flesh raider" enemies. The consular seems to be pretty handy with a lightsaber but is even better at using Force powers, including mind maze, which is an ability that temporarily stuns a group of enemies and prevents them from attacking, and Force slam, which is a telekinetic power that lifts an enemy in the air and then smashes it down into the ground. The consular also has a meditation skill that briefly incapacitates the character but quickly regenerates spent Force powers--a much-needed feature that would have been welcome in Knights of the Old Republic and will probably make the lives of Jedi characters much easier in The Old Republic.

We then moved from our hands-off demonstration to hands-on time with the Sith inquisitor profession on the starting planet of Korriban. Korriban, as you may recall from the Knights of the Old Republic games, is the homeworld of the evil Sith--effectively, the dark Jedi of the Star Wars universe. In both of those previous games, Korriban was a world in transition--while the Sith have established a home base and training ground on the planet, they also run an active excavation outfit in the Valley of the Dark Lords, a series of deserted desert tombs where mighty Sith warlords, and their mighty Sith secrets, lie entombed.

In the Knights of the Old Republic games, players ran missions for the Sith to explore these tombs in search of artifacts, escaped slave laborers, and treacherous rival Sith students. In the Old Republic, as a Sith inquisitor you'll end up with similar tasks, though you'll also take on new quests and find yourself working for, and against, numerous Sith academy trainers in short order. Our session began with our character's initial meeting to speak with our first Sith instructor. Once we did, the game initiated a dialogue sequence reminiscent of those in Knights of the Old Republic, complete with branching dialogue options (including straightforward answers and wise-guy remarks) and quick camera cuts between different characters. The instructor, who addressed us simply as "Slave," made a few casual death threats before sending us out to the Valley to retrieve a set of holocrons (basically, data discs) from the tomb of the fallen Sith lord Zash.

Eager to explore Korriban and zap as many people, places, and things with lightning as possible, we made our way to the shortest possible route to the valley entrance using the onscreen minimap, but not without passing by another quest-giving Sith trainer, who demanded we assist her with a different mission--that of smuggling a captured and brainwashed Jedi off the planet to help spread confusion and chaos on Tython. While the trainer very much seemed like a coldhearted Sith and repeatedly threatened us when we did not immediately accept the mission, it raised an interesting question: Who exactly had been brainwashed, the captured Jedi or the Sith trainer who demanded we smuggle the prisoner safely off Korriban? We pondered following through on the quest but decided that it might not offer as many opportunities to zap things with lightning, and we instead made a beeline for the exit.

The Valley of the Dark Lords in The Old Republic looks like a much huger, more-detailed version of the preliminary dig sites from the Knights of the Old Republic games. The entire area is still an inhospitable desert but, in this case, is bathed orange from the intense heat of the sun. The valley opens up into a series of huge dig sites laid out next to each other, and the central walkway is cluttered with metal girders, digging equipment, and other industrial debris. We made our way down to the valley and headed to the tomb to which we were assigned--which was helpfully marked by a waypoint on our minimap--to meet an archeologist character waiting on the outside. The character, who was not a Sith warrior but was still seemingly as cruel and impolite as any Sith, demanded we seek out something called the "Red Engine," essentially a multiple-location puzzle that could be fully activated only when each differently located fragment was anointed with the blood of a slain enemy. That was all we could stand, so we went running headlong into the tomb in search of something, anything, to start zapping.

Fortunately, the ruins were full of living things to make dead. On entering the tomb, we found a separate holocron left by a dead Sith initiate that claimed that rebellious slaves had turned on their captors and reprogrammed the local maintenance droids to attack Sith. So we not only had a reason to destroy escaped slaves and mutinous droids, but we also had a quest to do so. In addition, the tomb was infested by giant caterpillar-like monsters known as "K'Lor Slugs," which, to our delight, turned out to not be immune to lightning bolts.

Our character was apparently built up to be a few levels higher than a character in this area normally would be and was equipped not only with a deadly lightsaber, but also with numerous special abilities. Like in all massively multiplayer games, these abilities are bound to hotkeys on your keyboard, expend a certain amount of energy (in this case, your character's Force energy), and require a certain amount of time to "cool down" before they can be reused. However, unlike World of Warcraft and EverQuest, and more similar to games like City of Heroes and Champions Online, The Old Republic doesn't have a basic auto-attack that will automatically make your character repeatedly whack away at your currently targeted foe. Instead, our character had a basic "saber strike" melee attack and various lightning-based and telekinetic Force powers, such as a simple damaging blast known as "shock"; a powerful stunning attack called "overload," which caused our character to leap upward and strike the ground with his lightsaber while stunning all nearby enemies; and "whirlwind," a telekinetic power that incapacitates a single foe by lifting it off the ground with a gust of wind.

These powers helped us easily carve our enemies into mincemeat as we activated the first few parts of the Red Engine by slaying enemies nearby while picking up the first few holocrons for our main quest. Sadly, time flies when you're destroying enemies you have completely outclassed, so we were unable to complete any of our main quests within our allotted playtime. However, we had plenty of opportunities to crush our enemies and found that while the inquisitor class seems to have limited lightsaber skills, its Force powers more than compensate and definitely make you feel like you're playing a very powerful and dangerous character.

The Old Republic seems like it has much to offer--powerful character classes built on Star Wars fiction rather than stodgy old massively multiplayer archetypes; playable Jedi and Sith characters from the outset; and did we mention the lightning? Though we've finally had a chance to play, we can't help but feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what seems like a very deep game. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more updates.

I'll have to say that I'm fairly impressed with the planning on this so far. At first, I thought that you'd just end up with everyone playing sith or jedi. By having two force classes for each side, I think they'll cut down on that tendency.

Can't wait.

I was concerned initially with the idea of the AI companions, although they've always worked well in Bioware games, but after playing skirmishes in LotRO for the last two months, I think it's going to be great. I know in LotRO it's introduced a great mechanic and gives you yet another OCD MMO thing to do (raising your soldier's skills). There are times now I wish I could use my soldier in the world outside the skirmish instances, and that sounds like what TOR is going to do.

This game's going to be huge I think. And not just because it's Star Wars. Because it sounds like it's going to be good.

How are they going to keep everyone from choosing the high-level, more power-endowed classes?

The galaxy needs ditch-diggers too, so to speak.

My experience in MMOs has always been that the majority of players have tendencies or roles they fall into regardless of what the best classes are in min-max terms. Although on the other hand you have players (like me) who randomly change from game-to-game. I know in EQ I was a bard, in WoW I was a tank and in LotRO I'm a lore-master.

That's actually something that concerns me a little about TOR in that they're trying to get away from the Tank/DPS/Buffer/Healer mindset as they mentioned in the article. People are going to have to find their way in a world without traditional MMO roles. There's probably going to be a lot of kicking and screaming while it happens, too; folks are resistant to change. "THAT'S NOT HOW WOW DOES IT!"

My guess is though they'll be doing a lot of tuning in beta. Although it also sounds to me like they're not making any classes more powerful than others, they're just giving them different ways to do the same general things. Several of the classes have crowd control, several do ranged damage, several have melee skills, and as the article mentioned (first I'd heard of this...) each class will have its own skill trees that allow them to specialize in different areas.

It'll be interesting to see.

Well, I ask because they're going to have soldiers on both sides, and this is SW we're talking about; who the hell wants to be a grunt with a blaster when you can choose to wield force-powers and a lightsaber?

When I was a kid out playing with my friends in 1977/78, I don't recall anyone fighting over "who gets to play the Republic soldier in the goofy helmet who gets his ass shot off by Stormtroopers before Vader enters stage-right"?:D

There were plenty of people who wanted to be han solo, and more than a few boba fetts.

Well of course there were. But bounty hunters and smugglers are more desirable than being trooper#32 or soldier getting choked.

Sweet video on the two Sith classes:

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This was my major concern as well. After watching videos of the gameplay with the various classes... and seeing them make two difference "force" classes for each side... I think this is less of a concern.

If there was one jedi class per side, then I think everyone would flock to it. Since there are two jedi classes per side, I think you'll see people feel more free to explore the classes outside of the jedi.

Who is the Imperial Agent?

The Imperial Agent is the ghost inside the Empire who ensures the people’s loyalty. She could be your neighbor, your lover or your superior officer. When rebellion stirs, she silences or discredits those who commit treason. She’s always alert, always watching for signs of dissent, and with a word, she can consign you to a dark cell for the rest of your life.

The Imperial Agent is the undercover spy who’s earned the trust of powerful individuals inside the Republic. She attends all the best parties, steals the plans of Senators and generals, and knows just what to sabotage and just who to kill to bring whole fleets crashing down around her. When she’s discovered, she’ll disappear with a smile.

The Imperial Agent is the special operative who cleans up the messes made by Sith Lords who can’t see the big picture—or who further their own agenda at the expense of the greater good. Without anyone realizing it, the Imperial Agent keeps the Empire from falling apart by arranging backroom deals and undertaking secret missions into the underbelly of the Empire.

The Imperial Agent is the Intelligence officer who hunts down enemies no one else ever hears about—conspiracies, rogue Jedi, ascendancy malcontents, black ops groups inside the Strategic Information Service, and worse. No one will ever know about her victories, but the secrets she collects make her powerful… and that’s the way she likes it.

Long story short? The Imperial Agent is an expert at infiltration, seduction and assassination. She’s part of Imperial Intelligence. And she’s whoever she needs to be to get the job done.

Creating a New Class

One of our goals for the Imperial Agent was to take a fresh look at the Star Wars™ universe. We know what life is like for Jedi and Sith, smugglers and bounty hunters—but what does it mean to be a citizen of the Empire, charged with protecting its people and bringing glory to its Sith rulers? What does it take to be part of a military machine—not as a soldier on the front lines or a scheming Grand Moff, but as a player in politics and espionage? What sort of person navigates a galaxy of superweapons and superhumans with only his training and his wits, knowing that one wrong word could mean secrets exposed and wars lost? What’s the ultimate goal for such an individual? Power? Thrills? Or simply an Empire safe from its enemies?

The Imperial Agent is an unusual class in that it doesn’t neatly fit a specific Star Wars movie archetype. Oh, espionage clearly has a role in the setting—in the original trilogy alone, we see stolen Death Star plans, mysterious cloaked informants, good-hearted businessmen blackmailed into betraying old friends, infiltration teams flying salvaged enemy ships, and more—but the operatives themselves are rarely front-and-center. In a game with the scope of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, however, creating a class to deal directly with this setting element seemed natural.

That addresses the “agent” part of the class. But why “Imperial”? We see a lot of loyal officers of the Empire in the films without getting inside their heads. Grand Moff Tarkin is the only character Darth Vader ever treats as an equal—he can stare Darth Vader down even as Vader violently chokes people around him. But why? How does an ordinary man like Tarkin come to “hold Vader’s leash,” and how would a lower-ranking officer ever survive a Sith’s wrath? Is it by proving yourself invaluable, or by having a secret edge your superiors can’t beat?

There’s also a lot to be explored in the role of the defender of a despotic nation. The Sith Empire has done terrible things, yes—but trillions of ordinary Imperial citizens believe in its cause. The Empire isn’t mired in the chaos and mediocrity of the democratic Republic. The Empire promises that great men will rise to the top, and lesser men can be proud to serve. Many Imperial Intelligence officers are genuinely patriotic, believers in the system… and others are jaded, self-serving or idealistic reformers. If we were going to create a game where half our stories take place from the Imperial perspective, we needed a class that dived deep into the Imperial story.

Secrets of the Imperial Agent

That’s enough background and context. Let’s talk specifically about what you’re going to see and do in the Imperial Agent class story.

It all starts on Hutta, where XXX XXXXXX is trying to XXXX the XXXXXXXXXX of XXXXXX the Hutt. After XXX XXXXX XXXXXXX, the Imperial Agent XX XXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX on behalf of Darth XXXXX. He’ll work alongside a genetically enhanced XXXXXXX, encounter double-agents and triple-agents, betray XXX XXX XXXXXX or perform atrocities in the name of the Empire. The Imperial Agent will need to determine his own loyalties and the loyalties of those around him, and survive the attentions of XXXXXXX successor, the Sith Lord XXXXX XXXXXXX.

The Republic military, the SIS and the Jedi will all have a part to play as well, and that’s just the beginning—enough to give you a taste without spoiling what’s to come.

Conclusion

Playing the Imperial Agent isn’t for everyone. He’ll never be out front with a Lightsaber or torching Droids with a flamethrower, and he’ll never receive fame and recognition for his successes. The Imperial Agent lives in the shadows and, when he does his job right, no one ever realizes he was there. His best weapons are a sniper rifle, his gadgets and his ability to charm or lie his way through any situation. He works for an Empire that places little value on an individual operative’s life.

It’s going to be rough. It’s going to be fun.

For those of you giving it a try, one last word of advice: Whatever you do? Don’t trust XXXXXX.

Alexander Freed
Senior Writer

This game is going to be awesome. I'm pumped to play the inquisitor as well as the Imperial Agent.

This actually isn't too awfully far off from my 'holiday 2010' expectations:And a specific spring 2011 statement from a dev on the tor forums:

BOOOOO!

Sweet Dick want MMO sooner, goddamnit!

Didn't you lose a bet or something?

Not yet I haven't, and piss on anyone who thinks otherwise.

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New developer video, this one ties directly into the events of Knights of the Old Republic (spoilers if you never played it!):

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Going back to Taris...

Thank God I have a job, because I'd have a difficult time finding a job once this thing finally comes out. That Sith video has me pumped.

Yep. KOTOR with real-time combat = WOOD.

i hope this is a real mmo not just a ****ing solo mission until your max level then go the WoW route. I want a real mmo where you group and its a ****ing bonus to group.

One thing i hate in most games now is that its more efficient to level by yourself. These are ****ing MMO's!!!!

Yes and no. Rarely do I have 8+ hours to play a video game at one time. And spending 2+ hours assembling a group, getting everyone in position, and then finally start playing only to have one of your group mates drop out because it turns out he's 11 and his dad needs the computer to send a last minute report to work really pisses me off.

Grouping is fun and all, but I don't want it to be the only option.

This is why I three box in EQ when I play MMOs. I bring my own group.

Just get into a good mid-size guild and you be aight. Goddamn, this is making me reminisce about the World of Warcrack days. Before Blizzard ruined the game, those 20/40 man raids were fun as hell.

Set Blasters to Question: A Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview

By Anthony Gallegos | Mar 15, 2010

Bring in the interrogation droid...

While we still haven't seen or played much of Star Wars: The Old Republic, what we have checked out is enough to fill our heads with questions. Setting aside the types of queries that only the hardest of the hardcore Star Wars nerds would care about, we sat down with Jake Neri, Producer at LucasArts, in order to find out how the demo we recently played compares to the final product that will ship next year.

GameSpy: How long do you give Star Wars Galaxies until it's dead?

Jake Neri: You know, we still work feverishly on Star Wars Galaxies. We have a team here still dedicated, SOE Austin's still dedicated, I don't see the game dying.

GameSpy: So is the plan to keep them going concurrently, to keep them going at the same time?

Jake Neri: I guess the true answer to that is, honestly, time will tell. We've always said that we'll support Galaxies while the fans support Galaxies. So I think that's probably the true answer. While there are still people playing it, we're still interested in having it going.

GameSpy: Just to clarify, in previous demos of the game, in presentations, you said that for fans out there looking for the next KOTOR, this is it -- this is KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, it's all of those games, all in one. So the content that we played today, these missions, they're for the Trooper class. Will the other classes also be able to go through this content, or is this specifically the Trooper's single-player game?

Jake Neri: You're seeing the Trooper on Ord Mantell, so there is a limited number of classes on Ord Mantell at start. We call them origin planets, this is where the player starts. Those planets are trying to get the particular class off on the story, trying to integrate them quickly into their story, and then also teach them the fundamentals of the game. So we're not bringing all classes, all groups to these planets. You will see other Republic classes here on this planet, but you wouldn't accidentally run into a level 50 Sith Warrior as you're trying to learn how to play as a Trooper.

GameSpy: What other planets are we going to see?

Jake Neri: We've announced a ton of the planets. Starting planets that you'll see... I think we've talked about Korriban, Hutta, Ord Mantell, and Tython as the homeworld of the Jedi. And so those are the sort of the origin planets as we've talked about them so far.

GameSpy: Can you tell us more about the combat system? How do the cover mechanics tie into it?

Jake Neri: One of the things that we showed quite a bit last year was the cover mechanic for the Smuggler. The Trooper is different: The Trooper is more like a run-and-gun -- just guns blazing -- type of class. We wanted it to just have a real pure, fun, DPS class, that relied on the rifle for everything from grenades to fire effects to shooting. With the AI, you're noticing that they are trying to take cover, they are trying to be dynamic, there's a lot of work in progress going there. You'll probably see some of them breaking. But the idea there is that if you're a ranged class, and you're fighting against an AI, they're going to try to act appropriately based on trying to find a way that they might have an advantage over you. They may run up on you, or they may try to take cover and let you duke it out from that standpoint. The Trooper really is just about trying to be at range at all costs. If an AI or an enemy gets up on you, that's where their weakness is, and so we're trying to balance that at the moment with the Trooper.

GameSpy: Have you had any reaction from the community about the final list of classes that you've revealed? Has every archetype from Star Wars been adequately represented?

Jake Neri: Has every archetype been represented? Probably not everyone -- I mean, there's quite a few. What we tried to do, though, with the classes, is start with what the Star Wars fantasy is before we went into, like, "Will this be a tank, or will this be a healer?" That type of "trinity" idea for MMOs. I think we talked about this a little bit last year, but if we're going to do a bounty hunter, let's make sure it lives up to the Boba Fett fantasy. If we're going to do a Jedi Knight, what do the people want in a Jedi Knight?

Once we've got that, and we feel like we're delivering on that fantasy for the player, then we'll go ahead and figure out how the gameplay works for them in terms of a group mechanic and that sort of thing. If the community is satisfied... I think they're pretty satisfied. I think almost every one of our classes has been well-received.

There are some that... I guess when you're doing eight classes, you imagine some will resonate more than others. Maybe we've been surprised by some of the ones that people are really drawn to. The Trooper, for instance, has been one that it seems like the community really likes a lot. Imperial Agent is another one that I think is new and unique. We always say, "Well, people are going to love Sith and Jedi," but they've equally loved some of the other classes in there like the Agent, which is one that we've crafted from a number of Star Wars archetypes.

GameSpy: How does the team go about balancing the ability to make players feel like they're heroes with also presenting them with an actual challenge?

Jake Neri: The challenge part is ongoing for us. We haven't nailed it all the way through the game yet. But, as a philosophy, we're trying to make the player feel heroic early. One of the ways we're doing that, and we talked about it quite a bit, is we're trying to do more cinematic, more visceral combat. We want you, at an early level, to have abilities that make you feel cool. And if you're going to do them a lot, they have an interesting payoff. Over-the-top grenade effects, for instance, at level two or three for the Trooper, might be different from what you get in other games, where you're sort of progressing all the way through to the end and then you're really a bad-ass. That philosophy for us is something that we have to balance against. We'll just consistently work at it, we're in the process of constantly going through the classes and saying, "Hey, does this work, does this need to be tweaked, what do the numbers look like here, how does the AI function here?" You're going to see, as you stick with us over the next year, and watch us evolve, you'll see this stuff get more and more finely tuned and more and more compelling. From the combat, how the characters themselves play and how the AI reacts.

GameSpy: When the game comes out of the gate, is it going to have a strong endgame that's going to keep players glued, after they hit whatever level cap is in place? Or is that something that's coming later, as we've seen some MMOs do?

Jake Neri: Well, we're fully aware of the need for an endgame. We don't have a ton of detail on what we're doing, but we absolutely want to support players who we know will be there very early on. One of the challenges for us as a unit is trying to figure out... How do you roll endgame content out, when is the right time for that, what should it look like? We've got a ton of ideas, we haven't announced anything firm, but we're fully aware of how important that is and how many players want that sort of content. We know, we're aware that somebody will be there 14 hours after launch. We get that. That's what makes it great, that's our challenge, and we're up to that challenge, I think. We've got a lot of designers that understand that, we've got a number of strategic folks that understand that. Everybody knows the challenge.

GameSpy: I would think that it's a particular challenge because you guys are focusing, more than any other MMO before, on putting story first. Fully voice-acted, this is like several sequels to KOTOR all in one, and it would seem like at some point the character's going to max out and exhaust all the story options. At that point, do you plan to just... I'm not going to say "devolve," but basically turn into a PVP-focused game, for the endgame players? How are you going to tackle the exhaustion of storyline?

Jake Neri: Well, as the player goes on, they start to branch...so, there's their individual story, and then there's the world story. As you progress you get more involved in the world story. I think maybe that's a place for us to have more repeatable content, or things that players can participate in that make sense in the grand scheme of what we're trying to do with the box. The individual stories are interesting, we think that people will probably want to play one or two of them. I think that's the pattern for people that really enjoy story, they're going to go back through and play that.

And it offers, for newer players that aren't familiar with MMOs, it's an opportunity for them to have their own Star Wars adventure at their disposal, right? With a full story. We do... The story is interesting in the sense that it's different, nobody's done it like this. And yeah, you're right, it does hit on some challenges that we have at the end. We don't want to devolve into just a purely PVP-based game, we would never do that, our story is at the forefront of everything we're going to do. So it's just a challenge that we have to deal with.

GameSpy: Have you guys talked at all about space flight, combat, stuff like that?

Jake Neri: The only thing we've said about space is that we understand that there's a desire for it. That's really what we've said so far.

GameSpy: So can we take that to mean that that's going to be there in some capacity at launch?

Jake Neri: I couldn't say what you can take that as. That would be up to you to speculate. [chuckles]

GameSpy: But you have received requests from the fans? Because it's such a key part of the Star Wars mythos, to have these epic space battles. Do you feel like an Old Republic game could be complete without that?

Jake Neri: I feel like we understand, yeah, from the player perspective, what they love about space. I think what we've shown so far is a focus on a ground game that's really compelling, so you know, anything we ever do around that, whatever the system be, would have to support that character progression and that story, and that really tight, finely-tuned experience. So we'll see.

GameSpy: If I could go back to classes really quick -- when you unveiled them you talked about how the focus was on re-creating these great Star Wars characters, without so much of a focus on the traditional tank, DPS, and healer dynamic that's in every MMO. Have you kind of gone back on that? Because I'm getting the impression that you are looking for a tank class and a DPS class, or is that no longer the case?

Jake Neri: Well, I think that one of the things that we have to do is make sure that people have compelling roles in groups, with each of the classes. Once we start with, have we delivered on the fantasy that people have about the Star Wars archetypes, then from there you're naturally going to get some of that MMO archetype pushing up into that. We're going to find that challenge of, certain mechanics do work, they are time-honored, how do we deliver that? But at the same time, we haven't shown a ton of our grouping yet, and I think that we will show that it will be different from what you have seen so far.

Again, I couldn't really talk to you as much as I'd just have to show you that. We have to work in and blend companions into the mix, which are a real compelling and interesting part of our group mechanics. And so we do have some challenges there. But you will hear us occasionally talk about, you know, DPS or tanks. It's not because we're going away from our core goal of, hey, we want to deliver on the Star Wars thing, it's just that sometimes that's the best way to describe something, and sometimes, yeah, that's naturally what's happening.

GameSpy: Have you butted heads with the Lucasfilm continuity police about anything you've wanted to do or include?

Jake Neri: Bumped heads with them? Not in, I would say, a negative way. No. They're right over there, we work with them constantly, and they've been very supportive. Those folks, this entire organization, has benefited from what we've done with BioWare in the past, right? KOTOR was tremendously successful, it created another subgenre or sub-brand of Star Wars. So they're very supportive of what we're doing, and they've been helpful.

I think last year we talked about the Smuggler, some twists to the Smuggler class, some opportunity to do some off-healing, and that was something that they brought to the table. They were looking at the classes, because all the stuff has to go over there to check through continuity as you mentioned. They said, "Hey, here's a few other things that some of these archetypes have done, are you interested in them?" We said, "Okay, yeah, that's cool." They've been very supportive, for the most part. They'll bust us occasionally on something, but it's never that bad. I haven't gotten fired yet, so that's good news.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Updated Hands-On - The Republic Trooper

By Andrew Park, GameSpotPosted Mar 16, 2010 12:01 pm PT

We suit up with the Republic trooper profession in this upcoming Star Wars-themed online role-playing game.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a studio named BioWare developed a single-player role-playing game called Knights of the Old Republic. It took place in a unique version of the Star Wars universe centuries before the events in the motion pictures. Now, BioWare has returned to this setting with a highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game that will attempt to combine the addictive hack-and-slash nature of massively multiplayer games with the intimacy and in-depth story of single-player games. In The Old Republic, you'll be able to choose a profession that is associated primarily with the plucky Republic, or the growing Sith Empire. This time out, we played the Republic's trooper class--a heavy-duty assault class that doesn't use lightsabers but, instead, suits up in heavy armor and carries heavy blasters and grenades.

We began our session with a rookie level-six trooper (made significantly more powerful for the purpose of the play session with the help of some substantially overpowered weapons and armor) on Ord Mantell, a planet split by civil war. It seems that the Republic's control of the planet is slipping away to a separatist guerilla movement, and our job this time around was to infiltrate a separatist base, meet up with our commanding officer, and get debriefed on the real mission: locating and disabling a force field protecting a powerful bomb that must be defused. However, along the way, we also picked up a side mission from a local journalist who offered a bribe in return for our recovery of certain holodiscs containing exciting footage of separatists--footage that the news networks would love.

We began our mission by not-so-subtly making our entry into the separatist compound, which was casually guarded by various separatist soldiers (including commandos armed with blaster rifles, separatist brawlers armed with melee-range vibroblades, pistol-toting propaganda officers, and security robots). Fortunately, our somewhat overpowered test trooper character didn't have much trouble dividing and conquering each small cluster by engaging each enemy individually in combat and generally blasting the enemy to bits.

The trooper is considered to be an "action point class," in that it has a basic blaster attack (currently called "hammer shot") that not only deals some ranged damage to a target, but also stores up two action points in the character's meter (the trooper can store up to 10). These action points are used to power most of the profession's other abilities, such as "rifle grenade," which launches a single-target explosive that knocks its targets off their feet; "sticky grenade," which launches a different single-target explosive that causes its targets to panic (what with a live grenade being stuck to them and all); and "full auto," which can potentially use up all your character's action points by unloading your blaster rifle on your target in a damaging barrage. Troopers also have a close-range melee attack with the butts of their rifles that can send their opponents sprawling. Clearly, these abilities make the profession crucial not just for dealing damage, but also for controlling crowds of enemies by making sure priority targets are knocked off their feet...and stay off their feet.

We tore through the first few separatist troopers on the map quickly while seeking out our contact; she was staked out in a nearby control room clearly located on the game's minimap. After speaking with her and getting our orders to deactivate the bomb's force field, we headed out to the base's entrance. Again, it was clearly marked on the minimap, and we fought the occasional skirmish with nearby separatist troopers. Interestingly, The Old Republic will actually custom-tailor hunting quests based on your play patterns, so if you happen to repeatedly slaughter, oh, let's say, Ord Mantell separatist troopers, the game will craft a miniquest for you that will reward you for killing a few more of them (in this case, a total of 20). Fortunately, our powerful character had little trouble patiently isolating individual targets and filling them with holes like interstellar Swiss cheese.

Because of our powerful character, we didn't have a great deal of trouble dealing with the base's defenses, which were primarily separatist colonists and robots. Thus, we soon got on the trail of the bomb. On our way to the center of the base, we found a small party of injured (and terrified) separatists, who begged for their lives. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and let them escape. At that point, LucasArts producers informed us that we'd normally receive light side points (this wasn't implemented at the time we were playing). Soon, we found our main target--a control room where a frightened separatist soldier claimed that the bomb had been moved and that Republic scum like us would never find it. At this point, we entered into a three-sided dialogue with the soldier and our commanding officer--who had also tracked down the target--and gave us an order to pull out our weapon to shoot the man on the spot. Rather than take the dialogue option of agreeing to the order, we chose to refuse in favor of interrogating the man thoroughly (which would probably have earned us more light side points). He folded and revealed that the bomb had been moved to an unknown location and his separatist commanding officers had fled.

With our quest log updated to locate the fleeing separatist officers, we tracked them down in a nearby room and entered into a two-sided dialogue. We did our best to come to a peaceful resolution, though the panicky fugitives refused to listen to reason and opened fire. We gunned them down in short order, completing our primary mission. This left us to complete our side quest to hunt down the missing journalist and his holodiscs. We found the idealistic young man soon afterward, modifying the content of the discs to suit the separatist's agenda since he had become swept up in the movement. We engaged the young man in dialogue and decided we'd had enough of going after light side points and demanded the discs on pain of death. The journalist revealed that the discs were stolen by separatist propaganda officers. We ventured back out to the base to locate some propaganda officer spawns and summarily executed them, picking up the discs as loot. We then left the base to find that the main bridge going from the compound to the outside world had been completely destroyed. We hopped down into the ravine below to find our journalist contact to hand off the discs for our reward, hightailed it back to the main base to collect our reward for the main quest, and picked up several new ones from needy settlers and military officers.

Though our time with the class was short, we can tell that the Republic trooper is clearly a tough customer who can dish it out, as well as take it. We'll continue to bring you updates on this highly anticipated game as soon as we can.

Not me. I won't even play it if I have to rely on others to pass the game. I'm a one man wolf pack.

I want solid PvP with some ****ing balance. Also, sounds like they don't really know what to do with endgame, so I guess we'll be seeing expansion packs every 3 months?

That's the way I've played every MMO I've been a part of for the last 10 years, from EQ to SWG to WoW to LotRO. If I group it's because I want to, not because I have to. It's certainly become easier to solo with the most recent games, but it's always been possible.We'll be seeing expansion packs every 3 months regardless, I'll bet.

As far as endgame, they're still more than a year away from release. Although I'd be surprised if they don't have a lot more figured out than they're sharing at this point. They seem to be following a specific plan for meting out informaion.

Yeah, but considering it's a massive MMO with unique stories and quests for different classes on top of everything else, they'll need at least 6-7 months of playing through it to fix bugs, so I'm betting the game itself is pretty much complete.

I'm not buying this if there's no real PvP, though. What's the point of getting "phat lewtz" if you can't own people with it?

No doubt. My guess is they have their endgame, they just aren't at the point in their marketing where they're talking about it yet. Plus the interview was a lucasarts guy, not a bioware guy.

You know, speaking of development timeline, I don't even know if (external) closed beta has started yet. We signed up in, like, December, wasn't it? But I haven't heard a word about beta since then.I couldn't care less about PvP. The last time I PvPed was probably 5 years ago (Illidan was actually my original WoW server).

I grew out of it. I'm exclusively a PvE player now.

I've been keeping up on the updates and I really feel this one might give WoW a run for its money.

All the other MMO's have tried and failed miserably but this one feels different.

I can't wait for this game.

I really hope Bioware can do it, but it honestly sounds to me like they don't have the MMO formula quite figured out. I have no doubts that the game is going to be amazing for a while, I just don't know how it's going to be sustained to have the longevity of WoW. I'm also wondering what Blizzard has up its sleeve with their brand new IP MMO.

As far as the perfect MMO formula goes, I'm not entirely sure even Blizzard knows what made WoW as big as it was.

The question for me, from the moment it was announced and BioWare started talking about adding the story pillar to the MMO genre, was just how successful that approach would be. Because that's something that many of the MMO gamers I know have actually looked at as a negative. Even me to a point. Most of my time talking to NPCs in WoW, and in LotRO now, has been tabbing as quickly as I can through tedious walls of text to get to the next monotonous grind the game has to offer. And in that light I'm not sure that, at the end of the day, your average WoW player gives two shits about story. MMO's, so far, have basically been about giving players a never-ending supply of braindead clicking, and not about following a storyline or doing anything else that requires thinking.

I hope it works, though. It would be nice to have a little more meat in the genre.

I did some digging and found some additional recent endgame discussion:And then some lucasarts comments on those comments:So it looks like they maybe have a better idea than came across in the other article I posted.

Not a surprise, but apparently they're going all-out at E3.

I dont like PVP much myself. I want a game thats built for PVE. I like raiding. I like killing big bad meanies to get my phat lewts. For me its not about the phat lewts. Its about killing a meanie with 24- whoever many ther people. Back in Everquest doing certain raids liek Xegony, Rathe Council and Ralloz Zek The Warlord required 65-80 something people and sometimes even more.

I want a PVE game that isnt all that focused on PVP. I dont need the game to be a WOW killer. I just need a fun game that has a healthy population and i am set.

Here is an Everquest raid i frapp'ed about 3-4 years ago. This was a 54 man raid. This shit was fun. I died at the end cause he asshole tank pulled a rampaging mob toward me when i hit lifeburn. He did it on purpose. lol asshole.

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You guys completely lost me.

Official forum post from a TOR developer on group versus solo xp:

They may be close to testing.

http://darthhater.com/uploads/blog_i...swtorlogin.png

That's a screenshot of the page you get if you login to https://launch.swtor.com/.

Which I have done. And seen that page for myself.

Mmmm.....REAL video game; aaaaarrrrrgghhhh......

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oKrPoBRkgc...712749_gif.png

WANT. NOW.

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Sumbitch doesn't want to play. :deevee:

I just do not see this game being predominantly pve unless you are talking about leveling up.. After watching some videos, it seems to be going the eve route.. Which there is nothing really wrong with that.. Most of starwars is sith vs. jedi.. Which there is nothing wrong with that..

I have a feeling they will use updates for storiy arcs to further the pvp aspect, in doing so you will have to pve to get items to further the story along.. Basically it is going to make you pve to pvp..

So much for STO. Wow.

I dont think this game is for me. Not quite sure yet, but it seems like a solo player game in an open world.

I like to raid and kill big bad monsters. I was hoping this was going to be something like that, but will wait for more info before i decide if i am going to buy it.

I would say "wait and see". They've given us almost zero information about raiding, about PvP/PvE and/or about their endgame philosophy. Any kind of perception about what the game will be at this point is coming from you, rather than from them...

That said, nothing is confirmed, but they have inferred that raiding is in. Although the "big monster" part of "big bad monsters" doesn't really fit the star wars mythos in a general sense, rancor or krayt dragon aside. So I'm not sure I'd ever expect to see anything like Ragnaros in Molten Core. Although maybe you could find yourself fighting something like a spirit of Naga Sadow in a temple on one of Yavin 4's moons. Who knows.

I'd wait and see...

the amount of raid bosses they can make on korriban should be endless also I cant find the article but one of the dev's said some time after e3 that they wanted there raids to be like the Raid on the death star in a New hope.

I'm really not feeling this game right now. More excited for Final Fantasy 14.

Asian MMO grind no thank you.

Yeah, as I understand it, at least some members of the TOR team believe that the current raid philosophy is backwards, that many people attacking a single boss is not "heroic" at all, that the bosses are actually the 'hero' philosophically-speaking in that situation, and that raids should really be the players facing insurmountable odds like, as you mention, Han, Luke and Obi Wan rescuing Leia.

We'll see what they come up with. One of the raid skirmishes in LotRO that I played this weekend is called "Survival in the Barrow Downs" and it's basically unending waves of undead attacking until they finally kill you. I really hope they're not heading toward something like that. If they can find a creative way to re-create that Death Star sequence to where it's not "raid group fights enemies non-stop for 60 minutes", it could be good. Fighting wave after wave of enemies gets old very quickly.

Either way, as I mentioned, they really haven't shown anything at this point. All our speculation is built out of snippets from interviews and articles.

Well, enjoy being ghey then...:)

Keg, can you turn off the autoplay on that video you posted?

Post 176?

Wish I could. That's beyond my technical skills, unfortunately. I'll see if I can't find a youtube link to replace it.

Hey clay, you have a quote with an autoplay vid in it, post #34. I changed the original (going back through the thread and fixing them all - looks like the direct links from bioware autoplay).

There may be some significant info coming out tomorrow morning:

I don't know, figuring out patterns and bringing down the big bad boys in WoW was incredibly fun. Towards the end of my playing time, to bring anything worthwhile down in the end game took immaculate team work and felt pretty rewarding. WoW raid bosses felt epic and I hope the KOTOR end game has something similar. Going into an instance situation by yourself sounds really ****ing awesome too, but they should def. have some huge bosses with epic loot in the end.

I hope this game is good, i need a new mmorpg.
Daoc is the last game i played for years.
WoW just got boring
SWG i liked until they redid it and now its crap
I tried numerous others but they just don't have the appeal

I just doomed this game with what i hope it becomes

All kinds of new information is starting to leak out today. They've confirmed the first non-human playable race (Rikkitaki) and that each of the 8 core classes will have two subclasses (first two announced are Sith Warrior subclasses Juggarnaut and Marauder). Hands on demo this time was Bounty Hunter:

Another hands-on article:

And another, this one more bloggy:

Sold.

Newly-announced planet...


...



Hoth!

Where is the Wampa?

I was hoping for some new Hoth stuff today, but no dice. Their official announcement was the same screens as yesterday. Although there is a vidlet that looks pretty cool.

I like the online comic-book over there.

Yeah, the new one is really good so far. Much better than the first one.

I think it just hit me how huge this game is going to be (dimensionally-speaking). They're a year away from release and they've already announced 13 planets.

(Tython, Korriban, Hutta, Ord Mantell, Coruscant, Balmorra, Alderaan, Tatooine, Dromund Kaas, Taris, Belsavis, Voss and now Hoth)

What, are they in competition with Halo 2, Episode 3 to see who can drag the release date out longer?

Which doesn't really mean much to be honest.

There are well over 50 planets in STO. Most of them have one tiny area where you can beam down.

Now if they pull off SWG-style environments over 13 planets, I'll be impressed. Exploring in that game was FUN.

Holy shit. Well, I know where $14.99 of mine is heading per month starting in a year.

I don't think there's been official word on planet scale, but there was a mention in a Coruscant developer dispatch many moons ago that you can see for "miles and miles" on the surface of the planet. Being Coruscant, it's many levels deep, as well. So my guess is that the planets are quite large...

I believe there's already more planets in TOR than there were in Galaxies (although my brain's fuzzy, that was so many years ago...). One thing I do remember from Galaxies was a lot of empty, unused space. I don't think you're going to get much of that in TOR, because they're said to be designing every inch of every planet by hand, in typical BioWare fashion.

Just thinking logically, if you're going to have 8 classes with 200 hours each of class-specific story content, and (according to them) none of the content is going to be used across classes, you're going to need a lot of space in which to work.

As far as the STO comparison goes, this game's the polar opposite of that one in that they haven't even announced (or rumored) space combat yet. Everything to this point is taking place on the ground.

I could honestly live WITHOUT space combat. I think adding it to SWG made it needlessly complicated, and they should have focused more on making what was already there BETTER.