Nah, Cognus was canon before book 3 hit the shelves. It's over for Bane.

There can be only two.

I guess she took on his shaky hand then after the battle. That was the part that threw me.

Well, he was trying to enter his spirit in to her body so there may be some residual.

New planet today. Err, well, new moon today: Nar Shaddaa!

Video too

First real disappointment for me thus far: apparently the "space combat" is a rail shooter, a la Star Fox, and not a space flight simulator.

I'll give it a shot, but I don't expect that it'll be a mini-game I'll be all that into.

The PC Gamer article compares it to Rogue Squadron:

Last two pages:

Pretty cool screenshot (no idea where it's from) of what is probably the pc smuggler's ship:

Like 3rd person? Meh. I liked that about SWBF. It was my favorite part actually.

I don't have any idea whether it's 1st person or 3rd person. I never played battlefront (or rogue squadron, or star fox for that matter).

I'm more disappointed that it sounds like an arcade-style game. Just not my thing.

I was hoping for a space combat sim, along the lines of x-wing vs tie fighter, and it's not going to be that. I'll give whatever it is a fair shot, though.

Jeez, how much can you ask for?

It's more a reaction to the way they came out at comic con and vaguely said "space combat is in!" I interpreted that as a space combat sim, which as it turns out was a mistake.

Personally, I'd be perfectly fine if there was no space element at all to the game. The only reason that I'm disappointed at all is the fact that I probably won't be all that interested in what they do have if it's an arcade mini-game, which is what it sounds like right now. But it doesn't temper my enthusiasm for the game at all, it's just a matter of getting my expectations in line with reality. I'm not one of the reeruns going ballistic today on the tor forums or anything like that.

I agree with you. I was a little dubious of their claim that "space combat" was done. I sort of thought it was going to be a mini-game/sidegame from the get go. I just thought that space combat and travel (in the tradition of a flight sim or Eve online) would be a little beyond their scope. It would have been way cooler if that's what it was, though, imo.

Oh ok. I gotcha. And LMAO at the last part.

I always had this voice in the back of my mind saying the same thing, but I was hoping that wasn't what it was.

A part of the disappointment for me is that my one and only complaint with BioWare games to date has been their mini games. I hated the turret minigame and pod racing in KotOR. I hated the flight minigame in Jade Empire.

Part of me is wondering if the hammerhead in mass effect 2 wasn't sort of a dry run, technologically speaking, for whatever they're going to do in SWTOR.

It's been awesomely entertaining, the amount of bitching going on:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=182698

So were those mission any fun at all? I agree about the minigames with you, BTW. It's a good thing the main games are so ****ing epic.

The firewalker pack? It's not bad, although it's insanely easy to kill everything with the Hammerhead. It's basically duck and cover just like the main game. Find a safe spot, pop up and shoot a few missiles into the geth, then lather, rinse and repeat. It's worth it for Overlord, though. There's a little more variety there as far as the vehicle goes. You have a larger wide-open area that you can drive around freely in, and there are some puzzles involved instead of just straight shoot-em-up.

But it's still basically something you get through as quickly as you can so you can get back to the ground combat...

Hmmm. Welp, I think it's going to be more about twitch shooting than duck and cover from the looks of it. I mean you're flying really fast through outer space, right? Maybe dodging debris, shooting it and the enemies around you... that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, the shooting mechanic would have to be completely different. They'll obviously have blasters and missiles.

I don't think they necessarily have to be limited to space, though, or to wide-open combat missions. They could have assaults on targets located on planetary surfaces, or trench runs on capital ships or stations.

There was conjecture in the pc gamer article about possible pvp and co-op play, as well.

Anyway, my thinking was more along the lines of level design and so forth. The hammerhead levels are linear, unlike the mako in the original ME.

Either way, while I'm not wild on the idea of an arcade mini-game, I am curious to see what they do with it. I hope they surprise me, and it turns out to be something cool enough that I want to do it.

I enjoyed the hell out of the space battles within Empire at War, so it would be fun to take that same dynamic to the space combat portion of Old Republic. You would pick your spacecraft with its own set of strengths/weaknesses. Like bombers are great for planetary bombing runs and torpedoing capital ships but worthless against other fighters, where fighters would be responsible for dogfights and covering bombers/capital ships. There is a ton they could do but it would be a lot of programming in addition to everything else.

I am almost through the first Old Republic novel, and it's pretty good. The Sith are some real ghoulish bastards in the book.

It's interesting being introduced to an entirely new set of characters. I have been reading all of the Clone Wars-era books so I have pretty much overdosed on Anakin, Obi Wan, Yoda, Windu, etc.

Space Combat Video!

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/space-combat

My life is pretty much over.

looks similar to battle front II space combat, which means that it's awesome.

Oooh yeah, that's not bad at all. Not a bad rail shooter at all. This game is seriously going to revolutionize MMOs. When WoW came out at first, it was just a shade of what it has grown to be through endless patches, add-ons and expansions. One can only imagine what BioWare will do to the game if it's successful at all in the first year.

Full-on ****ing REAL TIME squadrons! "Suit up Red 6"!!! WOOT!

I'm definitely more excited about the space combat than I was. It may not be what I wanted, but it looks like it could be fun.

FYI, all the advanced classes are now out:

Smuggler

* Scoundrel (Stealth/Medicine; Burst ranged damage or healing)
* Gunslinger (Dual pistols, Quick draw, Ranged DPS)

Sith Inquisitor

* Sorcerer (Single saber; ranged damage class; Healing)
* Assassin (Double bladed light sabers, a lot of melee damage)

Jedi Knight

* Sentinel (dual saber, melee DPS)
* Guardian (single saber, tank, party buffs)

Trooper

* Commando (ranged tank)
* Vanguard (dps)

Imperial Agent

* Operative (blaster rifle/energy blade, burst ranged damage, stealth)
* Sniper (sniper rifle, dps)

Bounty Hunter

* Powertech
* Mercenary

Jedi Consular

* Shadow (double-bladed lightsaber, dps)
* Wizard (healing; single lightsaber)

Some not-so-clear gameplay vid from gamescom is up here: http://www.youtube.com/user/swtorfriend

No idea how long it'll last until EA nukes it.

I'll give them this much: the game looks better (graphically) every time out. It looks even better than it did at E3, and that was just a matter of weeks ago.

Ranged tank? What the ****?

If you watched any of the group combat videos from E3, they featured a trooper range tanking, and a jedi knight off-tanking.

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Can't say I did. So is the mob chasing the trooper around while everyone else wails on it? (Sorry, can't watch videos at work). I know that was sometimes necessary in certain encounters in WoW, but those were very special and tricky. I can't imagine it being a normal thing in TOR?

The flashpoint videos from E3 featured breaching droid bosses with blasters, so it was ranged enemy on ranged tank. No chasing anything around...

Basically the jedi knight was darting around picking up all the adds while the trooper handled the boss droid. I would imagine you'll see a lot of that. Probably much less melee v. melee type of tanking than in WoW. More blaster v. blaster. Although obviously there are melee tank advanced classes with Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior to go with the ranged tank advance classes of Trooper and Bounty Hunter.

Just a guess of course...

Makes 100% sense. I'm thinking I'll be a dual-wield Jedi DPS machine. No gimp DPS and healing for me this time around. Are you going with the Sith?

Jedi Consular/Wizard.

I think all the kiddies are going to be going Sith at release, so I'm going to wait a while to play as an Imperial.

This was the E3 gameplay when you can watch it later. I think it might have been removed from earlier in the thread:

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Something to remember watching the multiplayer video is that flashpoints are designed to be run by groups with companions, so they actually gimped themselves during the demos they were running at E3.

Apparently they wiped a few times on the show floor. LMAO

These were also low level vanilla characters, not advanced classes yet.

Err, I meant to say Jedi Consular/Shadow.

Ain't no healer...

Awesome. You said you're going to be rolling on whatever server your old LOTRO guildies are going to, right?

Couple of pretty wicked screens:

That was gonna be my plan as well... thief.... :D

That's the plan, although who knows; still 8 months off...

I feel like the CP people who end up getting TOR should roll their toons on the same server. Obviously, if you have prior agreements with your guilds, you won't want to and that's cool. But for people like me who are going to be jumping into this thing solo, it would be cool.

I mostly play solo in MMOs. I know it sounds stupid (why play an MMO if you play solo?), but none of my friends play MMOs, and I'm a very casual player that just plays for a few hours here and there. I've recently gotten back into WoW and am trying to make a conscious effort to group more.

But I'll definitely be playing Old Republic. So when it comes out, post your server and we'll see if we can get something going.

I would be down for this, if I end up playing this game. Right now it's a toss up between TOR and Rift: Plane of Telera. I'm generally a high fantasy type of gamer, so I'm leaning towards Rift, but I will definately at least check TOR out as it does look bad ass.

This is my first MMO, so I'd be down with starting a CP guild. Can we make two? A light side and a dark side?
Being a Sith all of the time in the world of KOTOR can be kind of drag because you have to be such a complete ****ing jack-wagon to everyone you meet in order to increase your power.

That's not unusual at all. I've played solo since EverQuest, through SWG, WOW and LotRO. 'course, I'm admittedly AvPD. But I've run into lots of loners online over the years.

Hey guys, wanna grief ROR? J/K.

And yeah, I pretty much soloed WoW all the way to endgame. I didn't even know some of the low level instances existed until way later in the game (I would help out random lowbies by running them through an instance real quick). It was also cool just to go back to all the instances and just enjoy the events for what they are instead of worrying about survival and gear drops.

Having said all that, once I joined my guild (which was freaking awesome) the camaraderie and the excitement of downing big bad mobs were just too much fun. Let's face it, there's not much to do at end game besides PvP and raiding and you can't really do either one successfully without a committed group. I'm not too fond of rolling and maxing multiple characters, I'd rather make one badass that's designed to pwn.

Definitely should to a cp guild, but sith blah

If you want to roll with Sith, you should do it and you can be our PvP action spy.

I'm kind of the polar opposite, I love rolling alts, and I generally try to be as completely self-sufficient as I can in every game. On my LotRO account (which I haven't been on in 6-weeks, got bored...) I have 9 characters, all of them are above level 20, all but one of them are level 40 or higher, and I have 5 toons at the cap of 65. I have 7 supreme master craftsmen, one for every craft in the game, and each one of those have capped rep with their respective crafting guild. I raid sporadically, although when I do, I'm good at it. What I don't like about end game raiding, however, is that if you want to be "serious" about it, you have to do it on a schedule, at which point it starts to feel like a job for me. I'm of course the kind of guy that starts to get bored when the word "work" appears, so I have a tendency to say "**** it" at that point and start another alt, or another game. Because I just don't like doing the same exact thing every week for months or years on end.

Although, ironically, that's exactly what I'm doing when I roll an alt.

Go figure.

Anyway, LotRO is the first game I've stuck with for more than a year. And I'd probably still be playing it right now if they had introduced more new content in the last 12 months.

I get the sense that I may have a slightly different play-style with TOR, though, because I believe that grouping is going to be rewarded (don't ask, it's just a feeling) and because I think that there will be reasons beyond gear acquisition to do flashpoints and raids - the story part of the game is really the most attractive thing to me.

Although I do fully expect to have one of everything in that game, too. But I also fully expect that it will take me a very long time to do that, if they're being legit about each class' story taking upwards of 200 hours to complete. It won't be the regular rush to the cap that leveling alts has been in every other MMO that I've ever played. It's going to be like playing a new game.

And I find that to be a very attractive proposition.

Official advanced class descriptions. I may be a Jedi Wizard after all; it looks like the Wizard tree may have a force damage branch, whereas the Jedi Shadow looks like melee damage. Although a stealth jedi is an interesting concept.

Trooper

Commando

* Heavy Blaster Cannon

* Grenades

* Ranged DPS

Vanguard

* Blaster Rifle

* Energy Shields and Defense

* Tank


Smuggler

Scoundrel

* Blaster ‘Shot Gun’

* Stealth / Medicine

* Burst ranged damage or Healing

Gunslinger

* Dual Pistols

* Quickdraw / Fast Attacks

* Ranged DPS


Jedi Knight

Jedi Sentinel

* Dual Wield Saber

* Saber fighting specialist

* Melee DPS

Jedi Guardian

* Single Saber / Heavy Armor

* Leadership / Party Buffs

* Tank


Jedi Consular

Jedi Shadow

* Double Bladed Saber

* Stealth

* Burst melee damage

Jedi Wizard

* Single Saber

* Powerful Telekinesis / Healing

* Ranged Control / Damage or Healing


Bounty Hunter

Powertech

* Flamethrower

* Defense / Energy Shields

* Tank

Mercenary

* Dual Wield Guns

* Missiles

* Ranged DPS


Sith Warrior

Sith Juggernaut

* Single Saber / Heavy Armor

* Fear and Darkside Auras

* Tank

Sith Marauder

* Dual Wield Sabers / Armor

* Saber fighting specialist

* Melee DPS


Imperial Agent

Operative

* Blaster Rifle / Energy Blade

* Stealth

* Burst Ranged damage

Sniper

* Sniper Rifle

* Cover, Ambush, Orbital Strikes

* Ranged DPS


Sith Inquisitor

Sith Sorcerer

* Single Saber

* Force Lightning / Force Drain

* Ranged DPS or Healer

Sith Assassin

* Double Bladed Saber

* Stealth

* Burst Melee DPS

A very familiar face makes what is I believe his first official appearance. Assuming it's who it appears to be, of course...

(larger image: http://cdn-www.swtor.com//sites/all/...FF_CA_full.jpg)

Is that HK?

Ha ha... looks like HK...

That's awesome... meatbags..

Just heard an interesting thing in an interview. As you guys may or may not know, EA put Mythic under BioWare on the org chart. And apparently guys from Mythic who worked on Warhammer are now working on SWTOR's PvP.

There was also a mention of the rumored legacy system right at the start of the interview, that race/class combinations that aren't available from the start can be unlocked.

Gamescom vids are beginning to leak out. First up is some Sith Warrior run by a dude who apparently absolutely sucks at MMOs. No sound, unfortunately, they had everybody on headsets, but it's the first real good look I've seen at gui elements like the map and inventory and mission log.

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Bounty hunter.

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Trooper:

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(best quality so far, with audio)

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Smuggler.

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So is Warhammer officially dead? Their PvP was top ****ing notch, not going to lie.

Nice!

Agreed. That was one of the few things it had going for it, IMO. That and the quest events were pretty cool.

Are you planning on giving TOR a shot?

And yeah, I think where Warhammer failed is that it was too busy. You're always trying to hit the right stage of the group quests and always something to do (like attack and defend keeps) with no real "home" spots. I think that's where WoW succeeded it was a much more relaxed environment and had much better pacing both with leveling and questing. You could always go chill in the big cities as well. Just perfectly balanced.

I will probably play TOR, just depends on how invested I get in Final Fantasy XIV.

**** FF. Roll with the badboys in TOR. You like PvP, right? I know you wanna rape face.

It's final ****in fantasy. Gotta pay it it's dues.

Oh. Shit. (Watch until the very end)

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JIMP

Corellia is official. And very interesting:Some very cool screenshots, as well: http://swtor.com/media/screens

And video:

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Wow - the beta for Final Fantasy XIV is absolute, complete dogshit.

Even if it wasn't buggy as hell, it's not fun.

I'm all in for Star Wars: ToR

I've been reading through a ton of reviews from people who played the 15 minute demo at PAX and I have yet to come across anything negative to any serious degree. It seems to have been universally loved. A lot of people say they were wowed by the dialogue, and that it's been difficult for them to go back to playing their regular MMO(s) with the text-boxes. A few of the people who mention this were players who say they had no interest in story to begin with but that the cinematics and voiceacting they experienced were so good that now they are. I've seen very few negative comments about gameplay or class play, either, mostly things along the lines of "smuggler seemed to start slow compared to imperial agent or bounty hunter, but it looks like a class that gets amazing later on looking at the skill tree". Apparently combat is as fast-paced (and fun) as advertised and so far I haven't seen a single complaint about the lack of an auto-attack.

Speaking of smuggler, hot new video:

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New developer dispatch, and this one is a dooooozy. Jedi!

I'm putting it in a spoiler window so it won't autoplay whenever somebody clicks on the thread...


Man, I think this is going to change my plan for the game. Initial playthrough as a Knight, then Main play as a Consular. Because if knowing more of the story might make me change decisions, I want the Consular to be the toon that gets it right.

So many glorious options...

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Man, I love this shot. It really gives a sense of scale to the ship.

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Oooh, like this one, too:

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I'm grateful that I will have graduated IT classes before this game comes out, or there could be a serious conflict of time/interest otherwise.:evil:

There's a really interesting developer blog out today for their Friday Feature regarding advanced classes. Each class will have access to two advanced classes, which each have two unique subclasses, and you'll be able to dedicate your points to a third general subset. I've never encountered an MMO advancement setup anywhere close to this intricate. Basically each class can be played four completely different ways using four completely different sets of skills (in other games you can build your character to do things differently, say tank or DPS, but your skillset doesn't actually change...). And you can hybridize within an advanced class.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing here except the bits about how it works for smuggler. It's worth taking the time to read the entire blog: http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20101001