I don't like that they are calling them "Imps"

That is some pretty slow-paced multiplayer action.

I always get a little nervous when an introduction to a class involves "This is our main tank" followed by a single-sentence explanation of "he holds the attention of the enemies". I seriously hope they have/include some new ideas for ways to break the traditional MMORPG class mold, because there are plenty out there to choose from that don't follow the norm.

Glad the Bioware "Make your own adventure book" dialogue interface is implemented, at least!

Yeah, I'm a little amazed that they didn't deviate from the typical archetypes. I really thought a Star Wars setting would be the ideal place to get away from the ideas of "tanks" and such, but...I guess not.

If you guys were to take a stab at some new and unique archetypes, what would they be?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I was thinking more of the idea of abandoning most archetypes altogether.

You've got to figure that the Star Wars setting - where you're not already pigeon holed into the standard sword and sorcery "guy with shield", "girl with healy glowy hands", "guy with fiery glowy hands" stuff would have been a great place to try it.

At the very least they could have dropped the idea of "tanks" and tried having more dynamic battles where each class plays to their strengths from the movie setting in larger scale battles. I just can't see a Star Wars game where the point is to send 25 Jedi and Bounty Hunters up against the Lich King.

I mean really, can you see a Star Wars cinematic or movie where a guy in a Stormtrooper suit with a big gun is standing there soaking up hits from some other guys while force-users are hiding behind him shooting lightning and sneaking in lightsaber DPS rotations.

In fact, I would have thought that something a little closer to a FPS/MMO hybrid would have fit this sort of setting well. Not exactly another Planetside, but not exactly a WoW-Clone in space, either.

I'm not in favor of getting rid of the archetypes because they work. Why try and be a delicate and unique snowflake and ruin a formula which works? Wanna try FF14's system where what gear you wear is what class you are? Newsflash, the system is shit and people hate it.

Another thing to consider is that we know very little about how Advanced Classes are going to work aside from what has been revealed about the Sith Warrior. Each Class starts off as a base class with a set path of skills, than (at some yet to be announced level) they are allowed to break off into an advanced class. The Advanced Class then has its own talent tree (so to speak) for it plus access to a central tree which both Advanced Classes have access to. Lets assume the advanced classes breakdown thus:

Jedi Knight (Tank/DPS) = ??? (Single Lightsaber Tank) or ??? (Duel Wielding Lightsaber DPS)
Jedi Counselor (Healer/Ranged DPS) = ??? (Pure Healer/Buffer) or ??? (Support/Ranged DPS)
Trooper (Ranged Tank/Ranged DPS) = ??? (Main Ranged Tank) or ??? (Pure Ranged DPS)
Smuggler (DPS/Support) = Gunslinger (Pure DPS/CC) or Scoundrel (Support/Buffs/DPS but less dps than Gunslinger). Note the names of the Smuggler advanced classes were leaked by accident as were an idea of what their roles would be.

Sith Warrior (Tank/DPS) = Juggernaut (Single Lightsaber Tank) or Marauder (Duel Wielding Lightsaber DPS)
Sith Inquisitor (Healer/Ranged DPS) = ??? (Pure Healer/Debuffer) or ??? (Debuffer/Ranged DPS)
Bounty Hunter (DPS/CC) = ??? (Pure DPS/CC) or ??? (Support DPS and possibly Ranged Tank if the formula stays similar)
Imperial Agent (DPS/Support/CC) = ??? (Pure Ranged DPS/CC) or (Support/DPS with minor buffs)

Assuming that my prognostication is correct, the Holy Trinity is still there but there is enough innovation just in the subtleties. What games has Ranged Tanks, as an actual class not just on a per encounter basis or as part of a raid gimmick? The Inquisitor is supposed to be similar to a Drain Healer, I think like the Disciple from Warhammer Online. And Smuggler is a ranged/melee hybrid type dps plus has that new cover mechanic.



I can point this one out right now. They have already said that this won't happen. Word for word "We do not think 25 players going up against 1 NPC is epic and we don't have it in our game". I think even the low level group video above demonstrates part of this. Yes, remember it is LOW LEVEL (i.e. NOT HIGH END CONTENT). The Trooper is tanking the large elite while the Counselor is healing him and dropping HoTs on the rest of the group, the Jedi Knight is Off-tanking and DPSing the adds while the Smuggler CC's/DPSs the adds while throwing out the occasional minor heal.

To his credit, the dude's explanation of the action going on in the video is for the layman...IE NOT the MMO player 90% of the people who post here are. We think the explanation is a bit stupid because we're 10-15 years into playing online games but to someone who maybe has played WoW for a year or so it probably answers basic lingering questions.

On that note. We know absolutely nothing about what the game will be like at the high end, and Bioware are keeping it that way for a reason. If you all remember, Blizzard did the EXACT same thing when WoW was in original alpha/beta. We didn't know shit about what the raid content would be until shortly before released. And even then what did we end up with? Onyxia and Molten Core. So I think as of right now is a little early to be jumping the gun as to what to expect. Again, the video shows low level shit and a bit of group play.

The game has been in Alpha stages for well over a year and this is the first stage of Beta. They have one year according to their own time table to get the game ready to go. This Summer will be very telling as they plan on releasing more and more information at each convention (most notably, they dropped the bomb last week that PAX West will be their biggest event). There hasn't been a single negative review of the game from E3, everyone who touched it has loved it and can't wait for more to come.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, I refuse to believe that Blizzard is the ONLY company that can release a blockbuster MMO and I think Bioware (with EA and Lucasarts backing) have the ability to at least make a playable product. It doesn't need 12 million subscriptions nor does it need to BEAT WoW, it just has to offer the gameplay experience.

And ironically enough, Furor himself wants it to succeed because he thinks it'll give Blizzard a reason to be more innovative...

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This is perhaps the most frightening news I have heard about the game so far. If I could count the number of games that have been massively overhyped at E3 that turned out to be complete piles of shit. 90 percent of the people that attend E3 have little to no taste for gameplay, and having been there a couple times I can vouch for the level of idiocy present at the event.

You talked about changing archetypes being a huge risk if you decide to change the formula. I couldn't disagree more, because there are varying levels of risks to take. You can completely overhaul the system, which is the most risk. You can use the same formula and copycat everything good from every other MMO for arguably the most minimal risk. You can change the archetype hierarchy just enough so that it is fresh and new but not a massive unrecognizable deviation. Making it so you can tank 30 yards away or implementing a "cover mechanic" doesn't meet that criteria.

As for judging WoW from the alpha content, one could have easily gleaned at least a few things from what we saw(and we did, in some circumstances). It was obvious that it was going to be faster-paced gameplay than EQ. It was obvious that there would be fewer classes with more abilities per class. It was obvious that the quest system would provide more stream-lined leveling with less grind. It was obvious that there wasn't going to be a massive shift from EQ in terms of basic MMORPG gameplay. It was obvious that there would be an attempt to appeal to casuals. We can see many of these things looking at SWTOR now, but without even some of the most basic ideas(or rather... refinements) brought forth by WoW(even if they weren't really new, at least we could define something concretely different about the game's structure compared to other MMORPGs).

We've been trying to tell you that for 9 years and it all came down to you admitting it yourself!

You mean I wasn't in the 10 percent minority? /sadface

Uhh.. I guess that video looks awesome. I try to imagine it the way I'd really play it though... Skipping the cutscene and without the music, listening to folks on vent, and it looks a lot more static and boring than literally dozens of wow 5 man dungeon fights.

I guess why I see the video and think of it a bit more objectively is because it is low level content. Basically its the equivalent to mixing together the first few hours of Mass Effect (because of the conversation system) with doing a low level WoW instance like Wailing Caverns or Shadowfang Keep back in the old days.

As I said, the video does a pretty good job at establishing what players of 'that level' are capable of doing. Now, if for example, the higher end of the game is EXACTLY the same as this I could be a bit concerned. I can only theorize that it won't be because two things are missing; companion characters and the advanced classes...both of which add a bit more depth to gameplay.

As for your comment Venen about how everyone whose been to E3 hasn't said a bad thing about the game and that concerns you, I agree with you that having someone from 'any' gaming site with a little more of an objective opinion would be nice but at the same time it is possible that even if someone had something negative to say about it the positive possibly just outweighed it enough to bother.

Added to that, E3 is only the first of the Summer conventions and hasn't exactly been the best place for PC games within the last 5 years or so...Comic Con/PAX/Gamescom/Leipzig are all coming up. Plus, Bioware has not only stated that PAX will be their biggest event, they plan on announcing something new at each show. So it isn't like they're going to hop from 1 convention to the next with that same demo video while talking about player ships (houses) and blah blah blah.

Oh, and on a side note...this game lacks 1 thing WoW has which gives it +++ in my book...ranged attacks do not have a deadzone, so you can shoot bitches IN THE FACE.

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I don't see how or why they would want to move away from tank/dps/healer archetypes. Granted it is always fun to see new twists on them and personally I'd like to see a new game bring back crowd control as a main archetype.

The problem with the tank/heals/dps is that it dumbs down PvE. At some point the boss that is smart enough to take over/destroy/enslave the world should be smart enough to ignore the guy in impenetrable armor getting continuously healed and start killing off the people actually killing him.

I understand you have to suspend your disbelief and I don't know a better way to structure enounters without making them either impossible or trivial, but that's the issue I've always seen with the trinity structure.

What Drajeck said. But after a while, everything will become trivial once people learn to master the fights.

While I agree about the tank not doing anything other than holding aggro seems stupid, if you make it differently that's exceptionally hard to balance.

For instance, if everyone can tank, heal, and dps all at once, then what would a raid look like? Not only that, but, why group? If I take the damage of a tank, do the dps of a dps, and heal myself, why bother even running group content? Likely I can solo non group content faster and level up quicker that way.

If you don't want that, and you do want grouping, then develop your own system and show us what you mean. Simply saying "They could change it and be fine" without giving any example of how they could change it and not make low level group content pointless isn't helping. You're trying to fix a system that isn't broken.

I do agree with the CC archetype though. I wish they would bring back primarily CC classes like the enchanter. I also wish debuffing was again a primary role. Maybe not slowing, but, debuffing in general like the rest of the shaman debuffs and such.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

Yep, I admit I don't have a solution to that. Hopefully one of the new games will have someone exceptionally brilliant working on it that comes up with an answer to this.

If everyone can tank/heal/dps without the need for others, you get Diablo...

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It doesn't necessarily have to be the "Everyone can do everything" idea. You just don't create fights where the idea is that there's one giant dude that hits for 1,000,000 and only one person in the raid has 1,000,001hp.

Yogg-Saron phase 2 is a pretty cool example of that (Although there were the crusher tentacles, I guess.) Fights where coordination over the whole raid is key. I could imagine a fight like Putricide designed to where Putricide himself is actually wimpy and doesn't demand tanking, but there's more slimes and malleable goo and such instead.

Crowd-control and debuffing classes could also be key to this idea. Instead of one giant mob that gets tanked, many encounters would be based around groups of mobs that get controlled by the CCers and the debuffers nerf uncontrolled mobs so that they're not one-shotting everyone.

Anyway, just idears.

Didn't they already say that the high-end stuff wouldn't be 1 mob vs. your raid? That being the case, wouldn't it make sense to think that the high-end encounters would end up being "based around groups of mobs"?

Yes, I mentioned this a few posts ago. Bioware feels that in the SW Universe, the 25 vs 1 formula isn't viable because it doesn't exist in the universe. Think of all the character battles from the whole Saga...not once as there been anymore than 3 major character fighting a major villain. Even in the KOTOR games, your party size being what it was, you never had anymore than 3.

From what we understand of the system thus far, 4 Players (plus their companions) vs Many Many Mobs will be the standard for Group play...while 8 or 12 players (the exact number has not been made public) vs Many Many Many Mobs with raid style mechanics will be what raids are like. There was a post on the Official forums (and I'll dig it up) where they said that AOEing everything will not be an option, largely due to it not being Star Wars like but also because not all NPCs can be rounded up like that. The game AI allows ranged based mobs to move back to range if they're forced into melee. This is where classes actually have to use their CC abilities.

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It's possible that my expectations are low, but after years of playing Bioware games, if they just manage to successfully pull of a version of Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age or KOTOR that I can play with 3 or 4 friends instead of controlling everyone in my party, I'll be a happy man. What I mean is this - I love Bioware games for their story and gameplay. If they can truly figure out a way to turn out a classic Bioware product in a way that allows a small group of friends to have the same quality of experience playing together that they do currently with a single player RPG, I think it is a winner.

I really don't care one way or the other about raid or PvP content in the context of this particular game. It's the single-group experience that matters to me.

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Hope is the new black.

I wonder if they will incorporate EQ's Mercenary feature so you could have your own group supplemented with friends online. Has another MMO tried to add mercs?

Agree with ya Could not say it better myself

DDO and Lord of the Rings Online have merc systems. DDOs is alright. You can hire pretty much any archtype except a pure thief. LotRO ones aren't near as cool. They more often than not get in the way and tend to make shit harder overall.

This is exactly what the companion character system is all about. The game, like the previous Bioware games, has support characters that you meet throughout your travels and recruit to your cause. They hang out at your personal ship when not in your party, and they all have their own classes. From what has been released, you'll only be able to have 1 companion character at a time...so in other words everyone gets perma-pets.

One of the interviews gave an example of how companion characters will work. Say you have a normal crew of 4 dudes, 1 of each class. Your healer can't make it for the night, so what you do is the remaining 3 people go to their ship and grab a Companion whose able to Heal...thus replacing the player Healer in essence. They might not be able to do EVERYTHING a player could, but they work as a replacement solution.

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Cathar officially announced as a playable race...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cathar

And

Space Combat is confirmed

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=173964

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and my interest in this game as a serious mmo just died a little.

the Star Wars vs Star Trek battle has reached teh intrewebz

I don't know. Space combat is a huge part of the Star Wars universe is it not?

That is one of the parts I loved about STO...different elements of combat helps keeps things fresh in my eyes. Like having two games in one.

I'm reserving judgment as much as possible.

Space combat 'is' one of the pillars which makes Star Wars great, but its more from the dog fight perspective and less from the Enterprise Class Ships just firing forward phasers and torpedoes back and forth like Star Trek.

The basic understanding I have as to why they've decided to incorporate space combat is because they want to use it in all 4 'Major MMO Pillars' (Exploration, Combat, Progression, Story). For example, some planets in the game aren't going to be accessible via the Hyperspace Map (on your ship) so you'll actually have to physically fly to them the first time to get the...lack of a better term flightpath.

Another example is that the Smuggler class will have part of their Class Story Arc (the game long story of being a Smuggler) where they have to 'race' through a sector with some precious cargo and not get caught.

Your ship will basically have an inventory/equipable slots to upgrade its misc parts, just like your character does...and ship parts come from all places, just like other loot.

We'll have to see...just like with the rest of the game, we'll just have to see.

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I just worry they are doing it to sell copies. Good space combat is hard to master, and adding that to a balanced mmo seems like they are splitting their focus too much.

If it is implemented like Wing Commander, I don't like it.. we'll see. I just worry it will be implemented kind of like a lame mini game and without much depth.

If they actually have space combat like Eve, along with ground play like WoW/KOTOR, I'll be happy

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Are you talking about more recent versions of Wing Commander? The last one I played was Wing Commander II and I remember that being really good. Also X-wing and Tie Fighter were absolute staples of the genre, were they not? It seems as though the wheel has long since been invented and it just needs a bit of Armor All.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

In a world of finite resources... I'd rather they spend time on a traditional MMO, balancing and creating content around that, than twitchy space combat.

To each his own. I'd rather it have the space combat, assuming they can do it right. This probably just means the release date will be pushed back to 2013 now.

I dunno...from the way they word it, it sounds a lot like some mini-game that you can just goof around in.

According to them...Space Combat has always been an intended feature, but they had to decide at what point it was going to be important to mention it. It could be full blown like EVE (at least in terms of combat, not the mind-numbing boredom of EVE) or a Mini-Game.

Bioware did mention prior to this years Summer Gaming Convention Season that each convention, more shit would be revealed/released...as opposed to the standard 'This is what we have this year, lets show the same thing at each show'. I think each of their announcements is meant to feed off each other.

E3 we learned about Battlegrounds and Player Ships. The question immediately became "will we fly these ships somehow or are they basically (like the Ebon Hawk) stationary ships which serve more as player houses and less as ships?" I think their info from SDCC pretty much summed up that part of the question, leaving more detail to an obvious exclusive on the feature to be shown in Oct's issue of PC Game.

Based on this, I'm assuming that they already have a lot of the content either planned or implemented for Space Combat.

On the side note, if Space Combat was the big reveal for SDCC...hopefully for Leipzig we get some more details on the Advanced Classes or more info on how Battlegrounds will work. Most people know I'm not a HUGE PvP'er, but I'm curious to know if a lot of their PvP is based on lessons learned from DAoC and WAR since Bioware snipped a lot of the DAoC/WAR devs and put them on TOR.

They also say PAX will be their big event this year...so anything truly epic I'm sure they have saved for that.

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Have they explained how a class without use of the force could ever stand up to a jedi/sith, from a lore perspective? I keep struggling with that...

How can a Warrior compete with a Wizard? I keep struggling with that.

The force isn't all powerful. Many Jedi/Sith in the books were taken down by people with no force sensitivity whatsoever.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Unlike most fantasy lore, which is filled with warriors defeating wizards, there aren't a whole lot of examples of people like Han Solo or Boba Fet defeating a jedi / sith.

In terms of the "Official George Lucas Canon", you are correct.

I guess that is the overall point Jox. I don't know 'exactly' how much you know about the Jedi or Sith of this era, but unlike the time-frame of episodes 1-6, being that force users are (relatively speaking) everywhere...people are trained on how to handle them.

Sadly, you can't think of the Smuggler class as a Han clone because Han didn't live in a universe of Jedi. Boba Fett is a bad example because his father trained him on how to handle Jedi and after the death of his father he perfected his art. On a geeky side note, there is a really funny bit of dialogue which occurs between Jaina Solo and Boba Fett in one of the far later books in which Jaina Solo flat out says "You've killed Jedi, that's why I want you to train me".

Jedi and Sith of this time aren't all Yodas or Anakins or Palpatines or even Starkillers (plug TFU while I'm at it). If you want to be a retard, think of the idea of 'Power Levels' from Dragonball/DBZ/DBGT...the Jedi of this particular area are basically of an average power level with their ability to wield or manipulate the force, where as in the Saga era (or the Movie Era) Yoda/Anakin/Palpatine are your Goku/Vegeta/Freeza's. And scarily enough, according to EU materials/sources, those three aren't the strongest force users either and several others throughout the Universe have been vastly more powerful. Although in an interview with GQ, apparently Lucas believes Luke to be "The Chosen One" and thus the Strongest Force User ever...since its his world I'm ok with giving him that. Luke in the later books/comics/etc isn't a pussy...although in Legacy he's a ghost.

This is one of the reasons why I'd like to see more info on the Advanced Classes. As I've prognosticated before, I can see the direction they're aiming to go and I understand all to well how a Trooper could take out a Sith Warrior or an Imperial Agent could take out a Jedi Consulor...I just want to know the details.

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Like was said earlier...the Jedi/Sith in this game are probably supposed to be like the extras in the movies that get blasted by one stormtrooper while fumbling with his lightsaber.

In WoW, just because you're a shaman, you're not automatically Thrall and in Star Wars, just because you're a Jedi, you're not automatically Yoda. =D

I can accept that, thanks

Not every Jedi is a Yoda or Lord Hoth

Not every Sith is a Darth Sidious or Darth Bane

Average Jedi and Sith existed in the old republic era, Sith warriors who were nothing more than force attuned grunts and vice versa for jedi. So I can see a trained commando/assassin/etc who is non-force sensitive able to take on and defeat a Jedi or Sith here and there.


edit: Kham's post owned mine, next time ill read all the replies before my inner nerd wants to run to reply.

Hmm, the last good space combat game I played was Tie Fighter.

Freelancer wasn't bad. But not the calibre of Tie Fighter or Wing Commander...

Give me a Wing Commander with a campaign playable in Co-op where your buddies can be wingman / gunners damnit!

Tie Fighter and Freelancer were both great games.

X3 is really good too, but the learning curve is damn steep.

Privateer!

Strange, I was about to make that exact same post!

I dual boot dos 6.2 with every machine I have ever had just so I can play xwing, xwing vs tie fighter, tie fighter and secret weapons of the luftwaffa.

Nothing comes close to these games for flight sims.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Wow DOS 6.2 have not seen that for years now haha

While I'm inclined to agree, that's pretty hardcore. Though I might make a VM...

or DOSBox.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

And you guys call ME a Star Wars Nerd?

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Well you ARE brothers...

Playable Races Update:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rattataki

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Chiss

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Twi%E2%80%99lek

Sith Pureblood
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sith_%28species%29

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Miraluka

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mirialans

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zabrak

Along with Human, there may be at least 2 more races: Mon Calamari and Kel Dor

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ooo, I want me some Chiss!