Darth Hater got a tip from one of their forum visitors that May issue of UK PC Gamer has released what they claim to be an entire list of species and compatible classes in Star Wars the Old Republic. Here’s the list:

Humans: Can play every class.
Zabraks: Can play every class.
Miraluka: Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular
Sith Pureblood: Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor
Chiss: Imperial Agent, Bounty Hunter
Rattataki: Imperial Agent, Bounty Hunter, Sith Inquisitor
Mirialan: Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular
Twi’lek: Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler
Cyborg: Trooper, Smuggler, Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter

This is a great piece of information to speculate on. We first see there are no Cathar on the list (which is going to disappoint a lot of furry fans …) and then there are the Cyborg. For me, a huge sci-fi geek, the prospect of having a Cyborg character is dream fulfilling. I can’t decide which would be more cool, Cyborg light saber wielding Sith Warrior (ala general Grievous) or a dashing Imperial Agent whose cybernetic implants are all the talk among the ladies. Prospect of having such character almost makes me change my mind and play Empire at start. My Trooper and Smuggler Cyborgs would have a dark backstory as to why half their body is metal and not flesh. I wonder though why they didn’t do Jedi Knight Cyborgs. I mean, Luke Skywalker could be imagined as cyborg with his robotic arm and all.

To prove that his list is just speculation and nowhere near final we have Daniel Erickson posting on the official forums. You can check what he had to say on our Dev Tracker page (I am just linking there to show off how you can now link to single posts on our Dev Tracker page) or you can just read his post bellow:

Hey Folks,

The species/class combo list you’re referencing is not accurate. If it does appear in the magazine, that’s unfortunate.

My guess is that an enthusiastic member of the press wrote down everything he saw in the character creation screen which, as we’ve stated often, is nowhere near final. Occasionally we’ll have species in odd classes or in all classes because of a bug or testing.

Hope that helps!

Daniel

I’m so glad the SWTORGB event went ahead, and we got some tips of information from it, for I was kind of stumped on this weeks article.

The announcement that Darth and Lord Titles, would indeed be used in-game got me thinking about, well, mini games and other titles that could be available.

Of course, these titles are down to the individual players to choose, Darth Chocolate and Lord Of-The-Dance, would turn most of us into a crazy nerd rage, and rightly so. But lets think about the non player generated titles that  may be available.

First and foremost, in-game titles can come from a number of events as you play through the game.

For instance, killing 200 Womp rats may give you the option of using a “Womp Rat Slayer” Title.  Ok, this may not be the greatest title to have, but it’s a start at least. Killing X amount of mobs as well as players is one of the most common in-game title achievements, that MMO’s have used over the years. Continue Reading »

If you ever visit the Official Swtor Forums, you know that there are many, many discussions going on relating to what is known and what is still unknown in relation to the game. We all see these posts and probably even read some of the pages to see what everyone is talking about. One that I find interesting is a discussion on the General Forums talking about The Appearance Tab.

What this post, started by member Horeon, is about is whether or not there will be a system in place similar to the Outfit system currently used in Lotro and other games. This post deals mostly in how it works in relation to the PVP system in the game. Here is the original post:

Question: With the appearance tab we have two groups of players: Those who are well informed about the enemy’s weaknesses and those who are practically going blind. How will the a-tab manage to overcome such a serious and very important PvP issue?

For a person to “gimp” himself by using the a-tab system (keep it on during pvp), it means he will be able to see the a-tabs of ALL the players he encounters in his screen.

If the opposing team does not use a-tabs (which means have the a-tab off and thus see their opponents’ actual gear), then they will -by default- show their actual gear.

So in this case you have:

A-team: uses a-tab, sees all players’ a-tabs of those who have a-tabs on
B-team: doesn’t use a-tab, sees everyone’s actual gear and at the same time they show their actual gear.

This means that even though A-team chooses to see their opponents in the “wrong” gear, the opponents simply cannot be wearing it, unless they, too, choose to see their opponents “wrong gear”. Through this, it is impossible to hide your own gear, without hiding that of others. This completely solves the presented PvP “issue” of recognition and gear-identification.

I would love to see an appearance mechanic worked into Swtor. Just for those times you want to pull a Princess Leia and make everyone think you are a Bounty Hunter looking to claim a reward for the mark on a certain Wookie. It goes with the Universe. Not everyone is who you think they are or what they appear.

In regards to the forum post, most of the discussion is about its implementation in a PVP setting. In PVP, if using this system, how do you tell what class you are going up against to prepare yourself for the fight? Couldn’t the system be abused by some to give the false impression of being a certain class but in fact be another, thus trying to initially tip the outcome of the fight in their favor? sure it could and would most definitely.

This isn’t another character sheet to give you more gear options or anything like that. It is a feature that would let you keep the cosmetic look of gear that you find appealing on your character, while still being able to use better gear for stats and other features that outweigh the look of what you are showing everyone else.

Personally, even though I highly approve of the system itself, I don’t think it should ever be allowed in a PVP setting just because of those that would go out of their way to abuse it for their gain. For a game of this setting though, I think there should be something in place in case you want to look like how you want AND still PVP at the same time.

I’d like something to to make it so that you see your appearance look on your screen, but others could see you in the natural state of what your class is and what you are really wearing/equipped with. Exactly what is also stated in the thread:

We don’t want to look unique – we simply want to decide how we look.

We don’t want to appear with sexy sleeveless shirts while in fact we are wearing massive armor – we want limitations based on class.

We don’t want to enforce the appearance tab – we want everyone to be happy, so if you don’t like them, there should be a toggle available.

We don’t want people posting in this thread without reading the entire OP.

I think most people agree that an appearance tab on the Character Sheet would add massively to what already looks to be a huge game as is. Add another Appearance Tab to the Companion, and you would truly have something. Find the way to have it in PVP without it giving advantage to either side and I think you have a winner.

Forum Friday is a new weekly posting regarding the posts from the Official Swtor Forums. If you find a post you find interesting and would like to see it discussed here, then Contact Swtor Life with your idea.

I do tend to be kind of random on my thoughts when it comes to TOR, and again this post will be well removed from my last.

This time I would like to air my thoughts on the music, and how it will effect us in game.

Well before I get into it, I’ll share with you how this random thought got hold of me.

While playing  Rift and listening to the latest PodCasts, and also chatting with guild members in vent. I had to switch to another channel, as I did not want to miss something that may be important. Now, this is not a first for me by any means, but this small act, coupled with the fact my game music was turned way down, it kind of just hangs there in the background so i can notice if I’m getting blindsided in PvP.

This, believe it or not, is just a small glimpse into my random thought process, when it comes to things related to TOR. Continue Reading »

So recently I, like many others, purchased the Deceived novel by Paul S. Kemp. Mainly I did this to read more on the Deceived trailer and some of the back story into that trailer, as well as the game  while waiting on the actual game to come out. While getting into both the novel and the trailer, I started thinking on each character as a class in the upcoming MMO. This led to some interesting thoughts on game-play and of course thoughts on the only Bounty Hunter in both.

First, let’s talk about the Bounty Hunter Shae Vizla. In the trailer, you get a glimpse of Shae watching Darth Malgus as he approaches the temple,  in which she then  jetpacks up the temple and enters through what appears to be a ventilation shaft. She then appears to kill off two guards as she enters the inside of the temple itself. We lose track of her there and then later reconnect when she pops in the main temple hall to blast some guards that are coming to join the fight. Aside from a flamethrower attack, this pretty much concludes our over-whelming joy of seeing the Bounty Hunter in action.

In the novel, our glimpse into Shae isn’t so greatly portrayed. The events pretty much play out the same as the trailer but in a much less diminished role. this isn’t to downplay the Bounty Hunter or Shae’s role, but more of the need to tell the larger story than focus on one character who plays a small part in a larger story. So what to take from both the trailer and the novel? What could be possibly gleamed from what we see and what we read to maybe give us thought on what may be possible in the actual Swtor game once it is released?

Let me start by saying that everything I say now is purely conjecture on my part, but what I hope may be partially true as it relates to Bounty Hunter game-play. Let’s start this with the fact that the Bounty Hunter is able to infiltrate into a major building that is full of guards and Jedi. All of this undetected. Now, while not expecting to do this in game, I do think we may play a bigger part in how we bring abilities that let groups by-pass secured areas of a Flashpoint or other areas of the game. We have all seen the Bounty Hunter trailer where the door explodes and the Bounty Hunter comes barging in with guns blazing. Imaging that door with no Bounty Hunter? What does a group have to do then to get the door open? Slice a console somewhere else in the area? Find an NPC to get the code to open it? Who knows, but blowing the door might have saved some time.

The Flamethrower and Gauntlet Missiles have pretty much been verified through the class trailer as is. In both the class trailer and Deceived trailer, these abilities are used in conjunction with large groups, so we have our AOE abilities. Throw in some blaster shots and we have standard game mechanics we pretty much know will be our standard fare. The one I think might be a surprise if it plays out would be something along the lines of Infiltration.

Shae achieves this through getting into the temple without setting off alarms or getting caught. Bounty Hunters are known to use a number of tricks to reach their marks the easiest way possible. So maybe this is something we can look forward to? I am not talking about stealth and creeping around in broad daylight 2 feet from an NPC and never being seen. More like a distraction technique that could be used to divert attention or lower the aggro range of NPC’s so that you can sneak around without getting caught. It is a fun thought on what could be an interesting mechanic if it is actually in the game as such.

We won’t really know if I am close to something or way off target until later once we all get into the game, but it’s fun to sit and think about things like this while we wait.

All of us have played single player games at some point, and in games produced by BioWare, we all know how choice matters to your overall playing experience.

This is all well and good in that single player game, but how does this effect us in the MMO space. Not having to think past the end boss in these games, is something we’ll be very weary of in the MMO world. After this end boss (1-max in an mmo), some will say, that the real game begins.

Lets say that you know a little about TOR, and that you have not just clicked on a random page on the interwebs. You will all know that SWTOR will have story driving it forward. This is the major difference along with the Voice Over (VO) that sets TOR above all those other games out there.

Now, I am not going to suggest that story is a bad thing, and I’ll say right now, that “I, MrWarlock, do say that TOR will be the best playing experience from start to max level” and you can quote me on that.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

You need months of different flavors of beta testing before making a product generally available

Several major gaming news outlets have reported that EA’s CFO Eric Brown hinted during today’s Lazard Capital Markets Technology and Media Conference that Star Wars the Old Republic will not be releasing before July 1. Here’s the transcription of what he said that made people conclude this:

So we said it’s going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11 … So that basically pens down between, you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year.
…
It’s also reasonable to infer that it’s not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non-gap revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it’s not unreasonable to infer that it’s not included in that 90 day period.

Darth Hater has a full transcript of all the things said at the conference pertaining to the Old Republic and you can read it here.
The more important things to note are:

• You need months of different flavors of beta testing before making a product generally available (closed beta, semi-closed beta and open beta were mentioned)
• We’ll talk more about Star Wars at the coming E3 event
• Paraphrase: they want to cater to both experienced MMO player as well as newcomers to the genre (non-gamer Star Wars fans)
• We have nothing ruled out, in terms of intent or design future micro-transactions because some interesting opportunities is there. The key is you know, what to include in a base monthly fee versus what do you charge extra for? So that requires some pretty careful decisions making.
  but
  For now we’re focused on the more traditional monthly subscription model but

News was also reported by Massively and vg247 and it seems that TOR Legends were the first to report the story.

Although this should not come as a surprise to anyone we can’t think of a better comment to this than point you to this website here. Feel free to push the button several times.

Game business site MCV reported a few days back that “development sources” told them that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released worldwide this September. In the comments section of this very brief and unsupported news item we see Michael@MCV (supposedly chief at MCV) repeating several times that their source is not EA Louse and that their source was credible enough for them to publish this. Here’s a quote from the comments:

We heard a date. We added context around what is looking like drawn-out, perhaps challenged, production. That’s it. You’re just reading too much into it, and being strangely defensive over the suggestion that it might be later than Spring, or delivered earlier than the end of EA’s FY2012.
September may well change, yes. But currently, that’s the target.

Just a day later Tyler Rowe of Bioware wrote on the official forums that Spring 2011 is still the target. You can read the thread this was posted in here.

Personally, I am a big fan of release when it is done philosophy of game development. If this means that the game needs more time to be completely done I am all for delay and do not find it a bit disturbing – fanboy or not. I think MMO gamers are sick and tired of rushed out releases.

I am guessing that Pax East will be the place to be at to hear next big news about SWTOR anyways. Until than this is just heresay speculation, but we had to report on it since a lot of major news outlets have also reported on it.

Machinima released a video interview with The Old Republic’s Lead PvP Designer, Gabe Amatangelo. They discussed in detail some of the PvP mechanics and what they’ll bring. Here are some highlights:

• There will be experience awarded for PvP
• There will be token awards to get “identifiable” gear (so you get recognized as PvP player)
• There are different levels of PvP gear (level 15 and level 50)
• Alderaan warzone usually lasts between 5 and 15 minutes
• Next warzone (derelict starship one) will have Assault type game mechanics

At the point of talking about whether there will be “seasonal updates” of PvP gear (so that it gets upgraded once first set of PvP gear gets “outdated”), Gabe Amatangelo mentioned that: “Yes there will be multiple level 50 PvP sets“. This leads us to believe that Level 50 is the max level we will be seeing in The Old Republic.

You can watch the interview below and the “multiple level 50 PvP sets” bit is around 2:22:

(Thanks @Adaram on Twitter for catching this)

Bioware just sent out another QR barcode image similar to the ones we mentioned earlier this week. There is again a binary code hidden within.

This translates to:

http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html

Guess what? This is the website of the British Secret Intelligence Service, better known to most as MI6 (yes the one where Mr. Bond works). the curent rumor is that the next Bioware game will be a multiplayer shooter type of game set slightly ahead of current time and will be done in fashion of Call of Duty and Bad Company. Can’t do nothing but wait it out until the Video Game Awards on December 11th to find out for sure.