First off let me start off this little article with the props so due to SWTORCRAFTER and SERGE for the awesome interviews and hands-on reports from the fan summit. I was as happy as a Sarlacc full of Boba when I got all those articles and reports. Well done guys. Remind me to send you both a nice can of nuts, and a $50 space hooker for Festivus this year.
Today’s topic of whine: Game systems. That’s right. You read it right. I’m gonna go off on a tangent about something I have absolutely no clue about, have never heard about, and have never seen. Why you ask in a perplexed and angry tone? Simple: I have way to much time on my hands and very little to do. I also enjoy bitching about crap for no good reason.
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
In this article I will talk about the famous Story component BioWare has been focusing on as a main pillar of this MMORPG. If you know Bioware you know their strongest asset is great story. That is why I wanted to fight “The Man” and try and break that aspect of the game. I am an ex World of Warcraft player. Your story does not concern me. Give me quests and point me to where I can shoot stuff. There will be some spoilers in this article, but I will try and spare you as much as I can and warn you upfront when spoiler is incoming.
So as we make our way closer to that fateful date where we can all log into the The Old Republic and make a character to finally play, I start thinking of things that go along with Character Creation. Sure, the initial part of this process is choosing a race, sex, appearance and finally class, but there is also another part of this and that is HOW you choose to play that character. With the story part of the game and the effects of the choices we make, how you play your character is a bigger part of the direction you want your character to be.
One thing to think about is that this probably isn’t going to be as easy as you think. Light/Neutral/Dark as a Bounty Hunter takes different roles compared to the other classes. I see the role of Bounty Hunters (BH) as something out of the box in regards to what they do in each setting. Let’s take a look at how I see the roles playing out.
Light (good) I know, you are thinking “How can a Bounty Hunter be good?” I look at this in the mechanic of the Healing role. If you mainly run as a healer, then you might play the role of a support BH that is specialized in protection a person for the right amount of money. How many criminals in the Star Wars Universe do you think would pay for a top level BH that is specialized in protecting their target? This might involve having to go out and eliminate any suspects that pose a threat before they take action. You aren’t killing innocents unless they need to die and you don’t target indiscriminately. So being “good” while being “Bad” has an easier take in the class.
Neutral (balanced) Being a BH gives you a lot of leverage in this play-style. You take on jobs to either kill or capture. There is always a price when people want this type of service. Your employers might like it if you just went in blasters blazing but this is your show, not theirs. Just because you were sent to kill a person doesn’t necessarily mean YOU have to be the person that kills the target. You might capture them and take them back for your employer to do the dirty work themselves. You could turn down jobs that involve killing those that do not need to be killed. There are so many ways of playing a BH that is just there for the money it isn’t funny.
Dark (evil) Evil as a BH isn’t the same as being evil as a Sith Warrior, per say. As a BH, you are just plain bad. You take no crap from anyone. You don’t play by any rules but your own. Your only goal is money and self preservation and you will do whatever it takes, kill anyone you want and take or destroy as you see fit.
Now you see how I look at the paths we walk through the story element of the game. It’s up to you to decide what you want to make your Bounty Hunter. I actually plan on playing a balanced role as the Bounty Hunter. I’ll kill as the situation sees fit. I may take out an annoying NPC, when available, due to their chatter or inability to accomplish things gets on my nerves.
Granted, these are my interpretations of how I think each role could be played, but it is up to you to define how you play your Bounty Hunter. Have fun with your character and play the role you choose to the fullest of your potential.
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
In this article I will talk about the way combat works in SWTOR. I want to talk in detail about the skills my character had at its disposal during my gameplay and what it felt like to fight different types of enemies. I managed to get to level 6 on my own and I played a flashpoint with a level 9 character.
I’ve set a goal on playing the game outside of my usual gaming patterns. I usually read the quest text and do every quest I can find and I really hate to grind. I spend hours exploring and finding groups to do some cool stuff. In this case, I approached the game a bit different. I wanted to skip as much dialogue as I could to see if the game is still fun when I “break” the story element and I went off hunting mobs at random and outside my level range to see what it felt like. With all that in mind I sat at my designated computer and faced my scrawny imperial agent character. I felt sorry for the poor guy, he was in for some pain.
It is hard to pick out any particular coverage of the Fan Site Summit, because 15 fan sites were present and we think all of them did a great job. We are biased towards one of them because writer for SWTOR Life, MrWarlock, also represented his own site – SWTOR UK at the Summit. We had chance to hang out with Mick for those few days at the summit and I can tell you he is one proper human being. Now that I met him I truly regret not living closer so we can hang out more often in person. What you also need to know about him is that he is exclusively an MMO gamer and he’s been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. Story and some such tomfoolery is of no concern to him, or is it? To find out I recommend you read his articles from the Fan site summit – they are a jewel.
I would also like to point out that he is running a giveaway of swag he got at the summit. You can read all about it in his SWTOUR swag article and get a chance to win the book Deceived as well as a Sith t-shirt and hat.
As part of our Fan Site Summit experience at Bioware offices in Austin, Texas, we got a chance to participate in two Q&A sessions that were organized with Damion Schubert, Lead Systems Designer, Daniel Erickson, Lead writer and Blaine Christine, Live Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We managed to ask one question to each of them and I am providing you with a transcripts of these questions and answers along with complete audio recording of the Q&A sessions so you can hear what other sites asked and got answers for.
I would also like to mention that the impression you get when asking these developers questions is that they are really smart and approachable. I thought that the Imperial Agent question (that we actually got asked by one of the community members on the official forums) was going to catch them off-guard, but they had an answer right off the bat. They want to tell you everything about the game that they have been building for so long and it always take an effort for them to constrain themselves to not spilling the beans on not-yet-released information.
I was recently given the opportunity to play the Bounty Hunter class in an origin world experience at the first ever Bioware Fan Site Summit. It was a fun time indeed and I am thankful for the opportunity. It has answered a lot of questions for me personally about more than just the class, but on a broader level of having to do with my views on the game.
As part of this Friday’s update, Bioware treated us with the Sith Warrior Progression video. The star of the video is a Sith pureblood and we can see how his skills, armor and looks change as he gets more powerful. In all honesty this is the best looking progression video we have seen so far, especially the high level armor the Sith Warrior gets to wear. If I may be honest I think that is probably the best looking armor I have ever seen in any MMO so far.
A funny anecdote about this video is that we got to preview it at last week’s Fan Site Summit. They wanted to release this video as part of last Friday update, but they missed the deadline by 30 minutes and had to delay it for this week. I really don’t mind, because a trailer this awesome is rewarding just as long as everyone gets to see it, no matter when.
Swtor-Life.com has been given the honor of interviewing Damion Schubert, the Lead Systems Designer for Bioware, as part of the Fan Site Summit 2011. We gathered the majority of questions for the interview from the community and we thank you for making your voice heard.
Join us now as we dive right into just who Damion is for the company and what he has been involved with in the past, and the goodies we have to look forward to in the Crew Skills system! There are exclusive reveals about the yet unannounced aspects of the Crew Skills system to be found in this interview and we will be providing a transcript shortly.
A big thank you to all who posted questions in this thread on the official forums where we asked the community for their choice of questions to go to Damion, some of you got the answers I hope you were looking for.
Join me in my next Swtorcrafter crafting article where I discuss this information in depth, there is a ton of it to wring out of this interview!
It was like a dream come true, the fact that I was part of a site that was recognized by Bioware as worthy of attending their first ever “Fan Site Summit of 2011”. I am still having a hard time comprehending it all, and I think the events of the last few days are just now starting to soak in now that I am finally at home and can pause long enough to reflect.
Today’s topic of whine: Game systems. That’s right. You read it right. I’m gonna go off on a tangent about something I have absolutely no clue about, have never heard about, and have never seen. Why you ask in a perplexed and angry tone? Simple: I have way to much time on my hands and very little to do. I also enjoy bitching about crap for no good reason.
