Inside Look at Flashpoints
This past Friday’s update saw the addition of the Flashpoints page to the official site Holonet as well as a detailed look at a flashpoint location, Taral V.
Some missions are too dangerous for just one hero. In Flashpoints, players team up with others to confront monumental challenges at pivotal moments in the game story. Fight deadly foes, make decisions that determine the outcome of the story, and get some of the best rewards in the galaxy as you and your allies experience Flashpoints.
The new Flashpoints Game Systems page features more detailed information about Flashpoints along with an exclusive video look at Taral V, a never-before-seen Flashpoint from the game. Get ready for great multiplayer action in Flashpoints in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!
In addition, Gamespot has performed a lengthy interview with World designer Jesse Sky discussing the Taral V flashpoint.
GameSpot: Give us an overview of the Taral V flashpoint. What’s the purpose of this area in the game’s story, and how will successfully conquering it change the outcome of a character’s adventures?
Jesse Sky: The emperor is holding a powerful Jedi captive in his personal prison–a massive space station at the heart of the Maelstrom Nebula. Only a Gree computer is capable of navigating the treacherous cosmic storms that surround the prison. Fortunately, the Republic has learned that the Empire guards just such a device on the remote jungle world of Taral V.
Blaine Christine Talks Endgame, Classes, and More
MMO Blog Massively asked some questions of BioWare’s Blaine Christine on the topics of endgame, crafting, classes, and more. While as usual there wasn’t anything new really revealed, it did give some hints as to when we might be seeing updates for certain things or at least what they are working on right now.
What can players expect from the endgame?
Blaine Christine: Let me preface it by saying that we know endgame content is very important for folks, so it is something we are definitely going to focus on. We have not released a lot of details yet, but what we have said is that we will indeed have raids. We haven’t announced specifics around what will definitely be endgame content. Additionally, we have mentioned our player vs. player Warzones. We will have multiple Warzones. Those will mostly be higher-level content, where players participate in larger player vs. player battles, where they experience epic Star Wars ground combat on kind of a grand scale. Then beyond that, we expect — because it’s a BioWare game with BioWare storytelling and multiple branches through the stories — part of our endgame is players playing through classes that they haven’t played or replaying through certain classes to see how certain companion characters or certain branches can affect the outcome of that particular storyline. Additionally, we will have the auction house, crafting and harvesting, guild play, and all the things people are expecting out of an MMO.
I know you have said much about crafting, but what can you tell me at this point?
Blaine Christine: We haven’t announced details, yet. What I can say is we are hammering out the details of that design right now, and it is going to be different from what people expect. And from what we’ve tested internally right now, it’s very cool, very exciting. I think it’s a different take on crafting than what people will be expecting. It’s not the standard implementation. It’s going to be a treat.
Read the entire interview at Massively.
PAX Interview with Daniel Erikson
Star Wars: The Old Republic guild website Guildumbra got the chance to interview Daniel Erikson from BioWare at PAX this past weekend and has made the interview available as video online. You can view it at Jedi Archive Online.
Previews Abound for The Old Republic
Today many websites have posted their hands-on impressions of Star Wars: The Old Republic after getting to play the game at press events during November. Below all the previews have been compiled from the official forums: Read more»
PC Games Interview with James Ohlen
Member GGDonner of the official forums has translated an interview with James Ohlen, the lead designer on The Old Republic, from the 8-page TOR article in the December issue of German magazine PC Games. Here is an excerpt:
PCGames: Whats the main difference between jedi-knight and jedi-consular / sith-warrior and sith-inquisitor?
James Ohlen: The jedi knight is a warrior, whose abilities are all based on lightsaber melee combat. The consular on the other hand is a supporter. He stands in the background and tries to deal damage from there or to crowd control enemies. As an example, he can lift them up into the air to smash them on the ground afterwards or just to throw them around.
PCGames: So you are bound with your class choice to one specific gameplay style? Or are there ways to play your class differently?
James Ohlen: All classes in SW:TOR can move into another direction from one point in the game. So you can chose between two different ways: One of these ways as a consular is to heal. If you want to play an old-fashioned healer class, the consular is your choice. Of course you don’t have to go that way, but as an consular you have the option to do that.
There are a few things confirmed in the interview. First, there are two different paths for each class. These will probably be similar to WoW specializations, except it sounds like once you choose one way, you can’t go back.
Companion characters will level up with your character, but you do not choose their skills. You do not directly control them, but they can be fairly easily influenced by your PC.
Lastly, Luke Skywalker was a “little jedi boy”.
PCG Interview with James Ohlen [The Old Republic Forums]
Jake Neri Discusses New Classes
Speaking to SW:TOR blog DarthHater, Jake Neri has given some of his insight into what the inspirations were for the final two classes for The Old Republic: the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor.
We talked a lot today about being able to customize your classes in a number of different directions. When you think of Sith Inquisitor, you’re thinking about how we’re talking about him today in the Emperor Palpatine mold, the force lightning using guy. But as time goes on, we will show you other ways to customize that class that will give you a different gameplay style. We thought as core classes the Consular and the Inquisitor made the most sense. We thought they balanced well against the other two. You can think of the Jedi Knight and the Sith Warrior as more of a melee-style Jedi, and the other two maybe more of the ranged-style Jedi. I think it made a lot of sense.
Makes sense to us, but what do you think?
Jake Neri on the Sith Inquisitor & Jedi Consular [DarthHater]
The Jedi Knight is like Samuel L. Jackson
I mean, Mace Windu. In an interview with GameSpot, Old Republic producers Dallas Dickinson and William Wallace discuss the ins and outs of the newest announced class of the upcoming MMO.
Dallas Dickinson: The Jedi knight is based very much on [Samuel L. Jackson's] Mace Windu archetype [from the Phantom Menace motion picture]. He is a powerful, force-wielding warrior who will be called on to protect the galaxy from a great evil. Players should expect to be involved in a bit of intrigue but mostly to be focused on hunting down and combating the Sith and their representatives throughout the galaxy.
Several examples of the types of missions a Jedi might undertake are given as well, such as protecting a politician or using diplomacy, as we saw in the Star Wars prequels.
The Jedi Guardian class from Knights of the Old Republic was a source of inspiration for the Jedi Knight class as well, says Wallace. “Besides Force push and saber throw, the Jedi Knight gets some abilities similar to the guardian’s “Force valor” that give various benefits to both Jedi knights and their entire party, as well as the ability to wield two lightsabers at once. The guardian profession was definitely a major influence on the concept and design of the Jedi knight.”
Read the full interview at GameSpot.
Interview with BioWare’s Blaine Christine
The MMO Gamer recently had the chance to interview Blaine Christine, one of the producers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Nothing new is uncovered, but there are some interesting points throughout the interview. Perhaps the most interesting point is when the Light side / Dark side scale is being discussed:
If you look at KOTOR and how that worked out, if you played light side versus dark side, there were distinct different in the story, and distinct differences in how your character developed. It’s going to be very similar to that.
In KotOR, there were some story differences depending on your alignment, but in the end, the way the game played out relied on a single binary choice regardless of your alignment. Hopefully the system is fleshed out a bit more so that the alignment decisions you make feel significant. Some evidence of this we’ve seen already is from the GamesCom demo in which killing or saving the captain actually affects whether you will see him again down the road. Read the full interview at The MMO Gamer.
Video interview from GamesCom
German site SWTOR-Station scored a video interview with lead writer Daniel Erickson at GamesCom the other day. Not a lot is revealed, but there is some hinting in regards to future sith classes.
Video is below.
[youtube L8A8f3fWTGc]
GameSpot gets details on new class – Sith Warrior
The boys at GameSpot scored themselves an interview with creative director James Ohlen and associate lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi, and in doing so, effectively announced the next playable class in The Old Republic – The Sith Warrior.
Plenty of good info in this interview, so it’s well worth a read, but I’m guessing we can probably expect the official announcement within the next couple of weeks.
Here’s a snippet.
————
GS: Aside from using the weapon to slice through droids and enemy soldiers, what other lightsaber-based abilities will this character have?
EL: While Jedi use flowing and elegant lightsaber forms, the Sith Warrior’s attacks are all about uncontrollable rage and the overwhelming use of force. Impale, a gratuitously brutal and generally downright lethal attack, is a good example of the Sith Warrior’s powers. The ability is what we call a “spender.” The character can use it only once he has whipped himself into a fine rage, typically in the middle of a fight. Since such devastating power would be wasted on an already-wounded enemy, the smart warrior prefers to unleash it on a fresh attacker for, under the right circumstances, an instant kill. Also, I find that impale is a very satisfying way to finish a long fight against a powerful foe.
GS: We understand that the character will be able to dual-wield lightsabers (as shown at E3). How will that affect the character’s performance in battle? Will there be different skill trees for different weapon styles (one weapon, two weapon, and so on) like in the KOTOR games?
EL: While we are not quite ready to talk about the specifics of the progression system at this time, I can say that dual-wielding both increases the character’s offensive power and opens up certain dual-wielding-only abilities. However, dual-wielding comes with a trade-off, and those who do not go down that path excel in other ways.
————
Check out the rest of the interview here.
edit – Looks like there’s also some interesting new concept art along with this interview. Confirmation of double-ended lightsaber?
