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Sith Warrior Marauder Choices

Written on December 11, 2011 at 8:46 pm, by

Since I’ve settled on rolling a Sith Warrior Marauder, I spent some time figuring out what to do so far as core stats, crafting, and resource mechanics. Here’s what I’ve found/decided:

Crew Skills (Professions)

Out of all the crafting choices, the one that seems to be in line with the Sith Warrior’s needs is Synthweaving. Synthweaving is the profession which can produce armors for force sensitive characters. Another choice would be Artifice, the profession that deals with lightsaber crystals, but it sounded less interesting to me on its face.

From what I’ve read on the various TOR wikis (SWTOR Wiki and Wiki SWTOR), the best Mission Skill pairing for Synthweaving is Underworld Trading. I’ll want to do some more research on why this is the case, but for now I’m satisfied that it’s been recommended from multiple sources.

For Gathering Skills (of which I can now have 2 of left over from the choices above), I’ve chosen Archaeology and Slicing. Archaeology provides materials that Synthweaving requires, and Slicing is a good credit source.

Companions

Each companion has a bonus to a particular Crew Skill or to multiple Crew Skills. With that in mind, the companions that are most valuable to me with the choices I’ve made above are as follows:

  • Vette gives a +5 bonus to Underworld Trading
  • Jaesa Wilsaam has a +5 crit to Synthweaving
  • Jaesa Wilsaam has a +5 bonus to Archeology

Resource Management and Lightsaber Forms

The Sith Warrior has a rage mechanic similar to a Warrior from World of Warcraft, but with a twist called Fury. Fury builds and stacks up to 30, and can be unleashed with various abilities.

There are a set of lightsaber forms that can be chosen from. Only 1 can be active at a given time, which implies you should choose the form that is applicable to the task at hand:

  • Ataru = + 3% accuracy (hit)
  • Shien = + 8% damage (short term damage)
  • Juyo = stacking damage increases up to 10% (long term damage)
  • Soresu = +rage +defense (tanking)
  • Shii-Cho = +3% dmg out -3% dmg in (balanced)

It seems that during the leveling process it would be valuable to both limit incoming damage as well as enhance damage output, so perhaps Shii-Cho is appropriate? On the other hand, an argument could be made for choosing Shien, since most battles are short lived and could be dealt with quickly followed by your out-of-combat regeneration ability. It also feels like once you’re at max level, and you’re playing the DPS Marauder in a Flashpoint/Operation mode that Juyo would become important for the longer fights and external incoming heals.



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Game Mechanics

Written on December 11, 2011 at 3:21 pm, by

I’ve been doing some research about how the game mechanics are setup. The forums over at SithWarrior.com have been pretty helpful and remind me a lot of WoW’s ElitistJerks.

T7 is theorycraftingSo here’s what I’ve learned so far. If anything is incorrect please leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll fix the post.

Attack Roll System 

The Old Republic uses a 2 roll system.

  1. The first roll determines whether the attack hits or misses by comparing the attacker’s Accuracy attribute to the defender’s Defense attribute. A miss is defined as either a Parry, Dodge, Deflect, Resist, Cover, or outright miss, but the differences are purely for visual effect.
  2. The second roll determines whether the attack was a crit, shielded, or a standard hit. The first check makes compares the attacker’s crit chance vs. the defender’s shield chance. If the attacker wins this comparison, the damage is adjusted up based on Surge rating. If the defender wins this comparison, the damage is adjusted down based on Absorbtion rating. For this reason, it is not possible for a crit to be shielded, since it is an either/or scenario. An attacker with high enough crit can push the target’s shield chance off the table, but it’s impossible to reach those kinds of numbers (except for short term buffs).

Damage Calculation

Defended or avoided attacks do no damage. Attacks that are shielded are calculated by taking the damage that would have been done and subtracting the amount of that damage that corresponds to the defender’s Shield Absorption %.

Aggro/Threat

This works almost identically to how World of Warcraft and other games have implemented it.

Aggro Theft occurs at 110% over top threat for melee.
Aggro Theft occurs at 130% over top threat for ranged.

1 damage = 1 threat, ignoring other modifiers.
1 healing = 0.5 threat, ignoring other modifiers.

All threat modifiers are +50% additional threat.

Damage Types and Armor

There are 4 different flavors of damage in TOR: kinetic, energy, elemental, and infernal.

Armor mitigates Kinetic and Energy, but does not mitigate Elemental or Infernal.

Armor mitigation caps at 75%.



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Update

Written on December 10, 2011 at 9:56 pm, by

I’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front lately because I was in the beta and didn’t want to risk violating the NDA. Now that the NDA has been lifted and the game about to be launched, I’ll continue.



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Planets in The Old Republic

Written on December 1, 2011 at 5:00 pm, by

Alderaan: An independent planet located within the Core Worlds. It seceded from the Republic in protest of the Treaty of Coruscant. Currently under civil war.

Balmorra: Leading planet for advanced droid and weapons manufacturing. Currently under Imperial occupation.

Belsavis: Icey planet with unnatural tropical rifts. Location of ‘The Tomb’, a super prison for mandalorians, sith lords, etc.

Corellia: Loyal Republic planet. Center of galactic business enterprise, and strategically important.

Coruscant: City planet. Center of the galaxy. Seat of the Galactic Senate. Skyscrapers are kilometers high, with crime increasing at the lower levels.

Dromund Kaas: Home of the Sith Empire and the Dark Council. Covered in electric storms.

Hoth: Icey planet. Graveyard of Imperial and Republic starships from a past battle.

Ilum: Resource rich planet, source of Adegan crystals for lightsabers. Under siege from the Sith, who inexplicably have dedicated large resource to take it.

Korriban: Homeworld of the Sith. Lost to the Republic, but recently retaken by the Sith.

Hutta: Crime and pollution ridden planet controlled by the Hutt. Formerly home to the Evocii.

Nar Shaddaa: Dangerous crime ridden cityscape planet, dominated by the black market.

Ord Mantell: A planet in civil war between the crime syndicate backed local government and the Republic forces.

Quesh: Polluted with environmental poisons and resource rich. Producer of adrenals to enhance healing, reflexes, and concentration.

Taris: Post-apocalyptic swamp world, destroyed by the Sith. Undergoing recolonization by the Republic, but hindered by the Rakghoul plague.

Tatooine: A dusty, hot planet. The Czerka Corporation did secret weapons testing, but abandoned it. Imperials have a presence to explore the facilities, not far from the Anchorhead community.

Tython: The planet where the Force was first discovered by scholars. Controversy among the scholars led them to flee and form the Jedi Order. With the attack on Coruscant, the Jedi Order have returned and made Tython their home. The Jedi Temple has been rebuilt here.

Voss: A planet in turmoil between the Gormak and Voss.



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Jedi Knight Early Look

Written on November 20, 2011 at 4:53 am, by

The Jedi Knight is a class for the Republic faction. The two Advanced Classes are Guardian and Sentinel.

Guardian (Tank)

The Jedi Guardian is the main tanking class of the game.

Skill Trees

  • Vigilance
    • Single lightsaber damage tree.
  • Defense
    • This is the tanking tree.
  • Focus
    • This is the shared tree for Guardian and Sentinel, focused on Force techniques and lightsaber usage.

Sentinel (Melee DPS, Control)

The Jedi Sentinel is a melee DPS class.

Skill Trees

  • Watchman
    •  Increasing melee damage over time.
  • Combat
    • Quick burst damage
  • Balance
    • This is the shared tree for Guardian and Sentinel, focused on Force techniques and lightsaber usage.


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PVP Early Look

Written on November 16, 2011 at 5:30 pm, by

The Old Republic will have a mix of PVP options available, but quite similar to those modes seen in WoW. Unlike other games where each class typically gets pigeonholed into a specific role (such as the tank being a great flag carrier), this is less true in TOR. In TOR, continuing the tank example, they are able to redirect damage to themselves to save squishier classes. This redirection as protection mechanism may apply more generally than PVP for certain tanking classes, but that remains to be seen.

Open World PVP

The typical free form PVP will be available on contested planets (I don’t have information on which planets are contested at the moment).

Warzones

There will be 3 instanced PVP warzones at launch. A warzone is the same idea as Battlegrounds from WoW. These are specific scenarios, such as capture-and-hold, a football/rugby sort of game, and a bunker invasion.

Voidstar

If you played the Isle of Conquest in WoW, Voidstar will seem somewhat familiar. This is essentially the 2 sides taking turns attempting to invade an indoor facility. There’s some new information and a trailer up on the official site.

Alderaan

The Alderaan warzone is a capture-and-hold scenario. In the middle of the map there are 3 turrets and the goal is to hold the most of them for the most amount of time. Capturing a turret is done by clicking the turret controls, which triggers a channelling cast. This capture process can be interrupted. Upon death, a player can return to the battle quickly via speeder bikes at the spawn point. The center turret is blocked on all sides by a wall. The side turrets have an underground path that connects between them. There is little chance of performing sneak attacks on this map.

Huttball

This is probably the warzone that has received the most buzz. Basically Huttball is similar to football, in that the goal is for your team to cooperatively move the ball across the map into a goal line near the enemy spawn. The map is multi-tiered, making it easy to knock players off catwalks. Killing a ball carrier gives the ball to the killer. The ball carrier can throw the ball to another player, or to a spot on the ground. There are a lot of obstacles along the way, including a pool of acid in the center where the ball spawns. It’s not possible to carry the ball straight across to the goal; The goal is only accessible via raised catwalk. The raised catwalks also have dangers, such as shooting fire. Using crowd control and healing to protect the ball carrier on this Warzone is critical.



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Smuggler Early Look

Written on November 12, 2011 at 4:55 am, by

The Smuggler is a class for the Republic faction. The two Advanced Classes are Gunslinger and Scoundrel.

Gunslinger (Ranged DPS)

The Gunslinger is a ranged dps class, with long range and fire from cover.

Skill Trees

  • Saboteur
    • Explosives and advanced tech.
  • Sharpshooter
    • High damage, high accuracy shooting from cover.
  • Dirty Fighting
    • This is the shared tree, and contains tricks and utility.

Scoundrel (Medium range DPS, Healing)

The Scoundrel is a mix between stealth attacks and healing.

Skill Trees

  • Sawbones
    • Heal allies using supplies.
  • Scrapper
    • Stealth attacks, close to medium range.
  • Dirty Fighting
    • This is the shared tree, and contains tricks and utility.


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Flashpoint Decision Mechanics

Written on November 8, 2011 at 8:19 pm, by

With the dialog system in TOR being similar to BioWare’s other games (Mass Effect, Knight’s of the Old Republic), I was initially confused about how this would work in a party during a Flashpoint.

According to some of the early reports, it seems like if you are grouped with others you still pick conversation options, but a roll determines which choice is put into action for the group. You still get the dark/light side adjustment for your own decision, but the consequences during the Flashpoint are determined by the group choice.



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Planetary Progression

Written on November 4, 2011 at 5:38 pm, by

Progression in TOR is fairly linear. Here is the planetary progression order for the Republic players (there is some variation allowed, but this is a general rule):

  1. [starting world]
  2. Coruscant
  3. Taris
  4. Nar Shaddaa
  5. Tatooine
  6. Alderaan
  7. Balmorra
  8. Quesh
  9. Hoth
  10. Belsavis
  11. Voss
  12. Corellia
  13. Ilum

[ Update 12/11/2011: This appears to only be relevant for Republic players. Previously this was not indicated. ]



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Notable NPCs

Written on November 4, 2011 at 4:59 am, by

The Empire

Darth Malgus: Led the attack on Coruscant, including the destruction of the Jedi Temple.

Darth Jadus: Cold, calculating, controlled. A brilliant and enigmatic sith. Controls the Imperial Intelligence spy network.

Grand Moff Kilran: Imperial Military Strategist, nicknamed the “Butcher of Coruscant”

Keeper: The man codenamed ‘Keeper’ is the head of Imperial Intelligence.

The Republic

Diab Duin: Pessemistic diplomat with remarkable insight.

General Garza: Commander of the Republic special forces.

Satele Shan: Jedi Master, voice of the Jedi Order.

Supreme Chancellor Janarus: Leader of the Republic.

Independant

Bouris Ulgo: A former decorated Republic general on Alderaan. When a house suspected of being a pawn of the Empire gained strength, he declared martial law and declared himself King. He has started to go mad.

Bowdaar: A 100-year undefeated underworld Wookie gladiator.

Jewl’a Nightbringer: A widely feared bounty hunter from lower Coruscant.

Kaliyo Djannis: A rattataki criminal thug for hire.

Mako: A computer slicer with a bounty hunter code of honor.

Mandalore: Warlord king of the Mandalorian clans, well paid by the Empire.

Nem’ro the Hutt: Crime king of Jiguuna on Hutta.

Vette: Former slave and current treasure hunter.



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Tanking Options in TOR

Written on October 31, 2011 at 5:30 pm, by

Tanking in TOR can be accomplished one of three ways. Before we dive in, let’s take a 101 course on TOR’s different types of ranging.

  • Long range
    • Long ranged combat in TOR is considered 30m.
  • Medium range
    • Medium ranged combat is 15m.
  • Melee
    • Melee range is < 4m.

There isn’t really any ranged tanking going on, despite what gets said about the Trooper advanced class Vanguard. In all tanking specs, most abilities are restricted to melee range, including Vanguard.

Tanking Shields

All tanks get an offhand shielding slot, which is affected by Shield Rating (% chance to proc) and Shield Absorb (% damage absorbed when proc occurs).

Powertech

The mechanic for the Powertech Bounty Hunter is flame abilities and Ion Gas Cylinder. These generate the most threat amongst the Powertech’s abilities, and are melee ranged attacks. Most of these abilities are DOT in nature. There’s also a fair amount of utility abilities, such as Rocket Punch, Interrupt, Heat blast, and Oil Slick. In terms of distance closer, the Powertech has the Jet Charge ability, which is on a 15s cooldown.

Assassin

The Assassin is the various ‘charge’ stances that can be taken with the double bladed lightsaber. Dark Charge is the tanking stance for added armor and extra threat. The fact that the Assassin wears light armor is irrelevant at this point, since the bonus is high enough to have the same mitigation as heavy armor. I should point out that the ‘charges’ aren’t actually stances, but rather buffs that you stick on your lightsaber, which you then Discharge. Currently there is Lightning Charge (DPS), Dark Charge (Tank), and Surge Charge(Armor pen). When you hit the target with a Discharge, it causes high threat and a lightning damage DOT. The distance closer for the Assassin is Force Speed.

Jedi Consular: Shadow, Jedi Knight: Guardian, Trooper: Vanguard, Sith Warrior: Juggernaut

These are some other tanking specs available, but I don’t have very good information on them just yet, so stay tuned.



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Jedi Consular Early Look

Written on October 30, 2011 at 4:51 am, by

The Jedi Consular is a class for the Republic faction. The two Advanced Classes are Shadow and Sage.

Shadow (Stealth, Melee DPS, Off-tanking)

The Jedi Shadow advanced class appears to be a melee DPS force heavy class who can stealth. Initial impressions place it very similar to the Rogue from World of Warcraft, except that it is possible to tank with this class.

Skill Trees

  • Infiltration
    • This tree focuses mostly on stealth and surprise.
  • Kinetic Combat
    • Defensive double-bladed lightsaber tree, for off-tanking.
  • Balance
    • This is the shared tree for both Shadow and Sage, and deals with enhancing basic lightsaber and Force abilities.

Sage (Healing, Ranged DPS)

The Jedi Sage advanced class is a healing class that can remove negative effects on allies, but has ranged DPS abilities as well.

Skill Trees

  • Telekinetics
    • This tree uses Force power to distory reality and move waves of energy, for damage.
  • Seer
    • Healing and protective tree.
  • Balance
    • This is the shared tree for both Shadow and Sage, and deals with enhancing basic lightsaber and Force abilities.

Also of note for the tanking Jedi Consular is the ability Force Pull. This allows them to pull a friendly character to them and reduce their threat. This seems to be on par with the WoW warrior ability Intervene, except instead of you going to them, you bring them to you. Also quite nice for quick vertical plays in Huttball.



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Classes, Advanced Classes, Roles

Written on October 29, 2011 at 10:02 pm, by

Over at starwarsmmolevelingguide.com there is a nice infographic showing the mapping of Classes, Advanced Classes, and Roles. Here’s the breakdown:

Classes



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Bounty Hunter and Trooper Resource Mechanics

Written on October 29, 2011 at 9:51 am, by

As long as we’re on the topic of both Bounty Hunter and resource mechanics (see previous posts), let’s touch a little on what the resource mechanic is for the Bounty Hunter and Trooper.

Bounty Hunter

The resource mechanic for the Bounty Hunter is heat. Each one of your abilities generates heat, with the heavy hitting ones generating more. Heat does decay slowly over time, but you also get an ability called ‘Vent Heat’ which is an instant abilitiy on a 45 sec cooldown which brings heat down rapidly.

Trooper

At the time of writing this post, the resource mechanic for the Trooper is exactly the same as the bounty hunter, except the direction of the bar is reversed, and it’s called Ammo. Each ability requires ammo, with the heavy hitting ones costing more ammo. Ammo regenerates slowly over time. The ‘Fast Reload’ ability is on a 9 sec cooldown and restores 6 ammo, with a maximum of 12 ammo (at least thats the way it is to start with).



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Bounty Hunter Early Look

Written on October 29, 2011 at 9:38 am, by

Bounty HunterThe Bounty Hunter is a non force sensitive class capable of either tanking or DPS with some healing capabilities.

Powertech

The Powertech advanced class is the tanking flavor of the Bounty Hunter. The talent trees are as follows:

  • Shield Tech
    • Focuses on defensive abilities, to soak up damage.
  • Advanced Prototype
    • Allows for high technology driven attacks.
  • Firebug
    • The shared tree, which enhances burning and rockets.

Mercenary

The Mercenary advanced class of the Bounty Hunter is the DPS variety, allows for dual wieiding of guns, and has some healing capabilities. Here are the talent trees:

  • Arsenal
    • Bursty DPS and rockets.
  • Body Guard
    • Skills and technology for healing.
  • Firebug
    • The shared tree, which enhances burning and rockets.


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Resource Management and Healing

Written on October 28, 2011 at 11:34 am, by

Healing and resource management in a game like WoW was just mana and pre-casting, but it appears as though TOR will have a widely varying set of resources and play style between the various advanced classes.

HealingThe Bounty Hunter is very slow at casting, but has bigger heals, and include short term buffs when heals land. Sorcerers are less focused on replenishing health and more focused on mitigation of damage with shielding. There are cast heals for Sorcerers, however, some of which include short HOTs. Sorcerer’s also have some utility abilities that either increase healing effectiveness or provide a free heal.

The Bounty Hunter and Sorcerer have similar resources, except that one increases and the other decreases, and isn’t too dissimilar from mana systems, with a static regeneration rate.

The Operative on the other hand uses Energy. Energy is an odd one, and doesn’t map cleanly to a WoW concept. Here’s the break down:

  • Max energy is 100
  • Between 60 and 100 energy, regen is 5 per tick
  • Between 20 and 60 energy, regen is 3 per tick
  • Between 0 and 20 energy, regen is 2 per tick
The summary is that the more energy you have, the more it regens, which seems to imply that you don’t want to drain the energy dangerously low, lest you risk not having abilities available fast enough.


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Sith Inquisitor Early Look

Written on October 28, 2011 at 4:51 am, by

Sith InquisitorThe Sith Inquisitor can branch into either a ranged-DPS/healer or a melee DPS/tank character via Advanced Classes.

Sorcerer

If you take the Inquisitor down this path you get the option of being a ranged damage class with some healing ability. There’s lots of lightning involved and some WoW Warlock-esque drain abilities. At a high level, you’ve got the following 3 talent trees:

  • Lightning
    • This is the ranged damage tree, with lightning attacks.
  • Corruption
    • An odd name for the healing/protection tree.
  • Madness
    • This is the shared root tree between Sorcerer and Assassin, and is all about force mastery and drain abilities.

Assassin

The Assassin advanced class provides a combination of melee DPS with some tanking/protection abilities. The Assassin uses a double-bladed lightsaber/saberstaff. As with the Sorcerer, it shares the Madness tree, so that means it can perform drains and force abilities as well. Here’s the breakdown on the talent trees:

  • Deception
    • If you enjoyed the rogue from WoW, this is your stealth melee class.
  • Darkness
    • This tree is all about protection and some avoidance-based tanking.
  • Madness
    • This is the shared root tree between Sorcerer and Assassin, and is all about force mastery and drain abilities.


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Armor Class

Written on October 28, 2011 at 4:30 am, by

The following is the preliminary information available on the mapping between Advanced Class and Armor Class available. This might change before launch.

  • Jedi Knight
    • Guardian : heavy
    • Sentinel : medium
  • Sith Warrior
    • Juggernaut : heavy
    • Marauder : medium
  • Jedi Consular
    • Sage : light
    • Shadow : light
  • Sith Inquisitor
    • Sorcerer : light
    • Assassin : light
  • Trooper
    • Vanguard : heavy
    • Commando : heavy
  • Bounty Hunter
    • Powertech : heavy
    • Mercenary : heavy
  • Smuggler
    • Gunslinger : Medium
    • Scoundrel : Medium
  • Imperial Agent
    • Sniper : Medium
    • Operative : Medium


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Hyperspace Beacons: Planet locations

Written on October 26, 2011 at 5:21 am, by

Massively has a couple articles up about the various planet locations.

Massively: Hyperspace Beacon: Core Worlds and the Outer Rim

Massively: Hyperspace Beacons: Imperial Space, Hutt Space, Unknown Regions

 



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Collector’s Edition Unboxed

Written on October 25, 2011 at 3:49 pm, by

According to the official site the following is what you will get with the Collector’s Edition of Star Wars: The Old Republic:

  • Color Stone
  • Flare Gun
  • Training Droid
  • HoloDancer
  • HoloCam
  • STAP
  • Mouse Droid
  • Collector’s Edition Store
  • Early Game access
  • 30 Days Game Time included
  • Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
  • Game disks collectible metal case
  • The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural as annotated by Satele Shan
  • The Old Republic galaxy map
  • Custom Security Authentication Key
  • Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
  • High-quality Collector’s Edition box

There’s also a video up of the unboxing, if uh, you’re into that sort of thing.

Somewhat related, MMORPG.com has a write up of the preorder bonuses that come with the digital edition:

“All pre-order players will receive a color stone that can be applied to lightsabres, blades or blasters. Those who preorder the digital deluxe edition will score a flare gun, a droid training dummy, a holodancer, a holocam and a STAP (single trooper aerial platform), a vehicle that will be accessible once players gain the ability to pilot vehicles.

Lastly, folks purchasing the collector’s edition will get all of the above plus a mouse droid pet and will have access to a special collector’s edition store that will feature social items for yourself, and unique appearances for your companion. The store will also have regular updates to give players incentive to keep coming back.”



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Raiding in The Old Republic

Written on October 25, 2011 at 6:00 am, by

Some information about raiding in The Old Republic is starting to become available. Somewhat interesting to note is the size of raiding. Everquest raids started at 72 players, WoW started at 40 before ultimately dropping down to 25 or 10. Rift raids are 20. Contrast all of these with The Old Republic, which has 8 or 16 players. The smaller player count should make for some interesting dynamics, hopefully with each individual contribution becoming more vital to the success of the raid, similar to how the 10 man raid experience in WoW has shown a flashlight on the individual.

Eternity Vault

I find myself in the camp who believe that raiding should be hard. Really hard. When WoW toned down the difficult starting in Burning Crusade, I found it diminished the reward of defeating raid bosses, and it only went downhill the more expansions were released. The release of hard modes for raids was a welcome addition but having the easier mode around wasn’t quite the same, since the prestige factor of having downed a particular raid boss was lost. I hope The Old Republic provides very difficult encounters, and doesn’t spend as much effort trying to cater to the casual, at least for raids.

Unfortunately from the sounds of it, Eternity Vault, the first raid in TOR, appears to have an incredibly easy tank-and-spank first boss, but we’ve still got 2 months to release so maybe we shouldn’t judge too much yet.



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Comic-Con Reveals 15 Flashpoints and 2 Operations at Launch

Written on October 25, 2011 at 3:56 am, by

At New York Comic-Con this week it was revealed that there will be 15 Flashpoints and 2 Operations in the game at launch. That’s not bad if you compare it to what WoW had at launch back in 2004.



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Press Embargo Lifted

Written on October 21, 2011 at 4:40 am, by

Stephen Reid, Senior Community Manager for The Old Republic tweeted on the 20th:

“As others have noted, we have a press embargo on #SWTOR dropping tomorrow. We’ve had press in for a while. Testers are still under NDA.”

After the press embargo was lifted on the 20th, a flood of new information started to hit the web. Here’s some of the information we’ve seen so far:

 1UP: Star Wars: The Old Republic is World of Warcraft With Lightsabers

The tone of Ryan’s article is quite negative towards MMOs in general, but there is some good information here.

Ars Technica: Playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta

Casey Johnston, in my opinion, correctly identifies the Jedi Knight as having the potential to be the most popular class. I suspect BioWare will balance the classes, but let’s face it this is the star role for all the movies and most of the books.

IGN: Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Info Hub

While mostly vague and lacking in specifics, they do make reference to the ‘slot machine like’ nature of the crafting system, which from the sounds of it so far consists of a similar system to WoW’s flask-proccing, in that sometimes your crafting can produce special items, or multiples of the item. Also interesting is how your companion characters are the key to your crafting, as you send them away to go perform the crafting tasks.

Ten Ton Hammer: Class Preview: Jedi Knight

 TTH does a pretty thorough job of introducing us to the Jedi Knight class. The interesting parts are that the 2 advanced classes mirror the roles of a Warrior in World of Warcraft, in that you’ve got a tank or a dps (or a hybrid I suppose).

    • Guardian: Single lightsaber wielding tank. This is likely going to be the main tank class for the game.
    • Sentinel: Dual lightsabers, melee DPS class. Probably similar to an arms warrior in WoW.

The combat resource system for the Jedi Knight is called ‘focus’, which works just like ‘rage’ did from WoW, in that it builds by using abilities, and is used to power other attacks.

So far as companions go, you get T7-01 (a droid) and padawan Kira Carsen. T7 appears to be all about threat and control, whereas Kira appears to be DPS heavy. It seems the grappling-hook ability that T7 provides, while nice, can be a nuisance since it will frequently pull enemies away from you (for example, immediately following a force leap).

Massively: Jef’s Hands On

Jef’s review of the beta comes off as extremely negative, owing to a personal bias against MMOs I guess. There’s not much here other than complaining, which I found to be a statistical outlier among other articles. Still, worth a read for completeness sake. There is some reference to how the game runs really well on old and new hardware alike.

Massively: Larry’s Hands On

Larry is much more objective than his counterpart, and brings a lot of good information to the table. According to BioWare’s propoganda machine, the “Three Pillars” of MMOs to date have been Combat, Exploration, and Progression, and that they’ve missed the “Fourth Pillar” of Story.

The profession system of The Old Republic is called ‘Crew Skills’, as other sites have reported, and are carried out by your companion characters.

 



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New Beta Build

Written on October 21, 2011 at 4:30 am, by

Looks like a new beta build is on it’s way to the servers.

Beta testers had to uninstall TOR on the 21st and the servers went down for an indefinite amount of time. No information is available on whats changing or when the servers will be back. Testers were advised to remove the game and content from their machines and watch the official forums for word when things are ready again.



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Developer Posts, 10/20/2011

Written on October 20, 2011 at 5:33 am, by

Allison Berryman says:

“Hello everyone! Characters created in the Game Testing Program (any testing group) will not be carried into the live game. Characters created during Early Game Access (which you get for redeeming your Pre-Order Code on SWTOR.com) will persist when we launch. Hope this dispels any “rumor” about characters in testing carrying over to the live game.”

Allison Berryman says:

“Hey everyone! We’re glad to see that you’re all so enthusiastic about dark side corruption, but wanted to clarify just a little bit about it. At this time, dark side corruption is an option that you’re able to toggle on and off yourself. We’re excited to have the feature in the game, but currently the plan is to allow you to use it if you want to.”

Georg Zoeller says:

“All tank specs in the game are designed to function as a main tank. There are no ‘off tanks’ by design in the game, that would involve players intentionally choosing such a role by speccing hybrid.”

Georg Zoeller says:

“At this time, we do plan on having “racial” abilities, but they will be cosmetic in nature. Think of them as “social” abilities or actions that your character is able to do based on their species.

We wanted to give you something special for your character based on species, but we did not want it to influence your choice in the sense that you would feel “I have to be a Twi’lek Consular because they get +5 Willpower.”

So, active “racial” abilities are planned, but they won’t affect your combat gameplay in any way.

We’ll elaborate more in the future.”

Georg Zoeller says:

“Adding fun abilities like new dance moves, or special emotes, maybe even “Crafting” preferences to some races that would let you do certain crafts a little faster (not better, just a little faster), are fine. Adding performance enhancement is opening a can of worms. Even worse is adding combat-related class specific abilities.

Keep race selection based on aesthetics, not performance.

My team put them in, so yeah, it’s true.

We are all sick of mails touting performance enhancing products , so we wouldn’t want to put performance enhancing racial abilities in the game”



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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Written on October 18, 2011 at 4:27 am, by

Star WarsHello and welcome to The Old Republic at Ben’s. Here you will find updates and information on the upcoming MMO game, The Old Republic. The goal here is to aggregate and summarize the latest happenings in the community and the game. The motivation for creating this site is, at least at the moment, entirely self-serving, as a place for me to gather information in preparation for the game launch. If you find any inaccuracies, please point them out. With that said, let’s go!



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