Coming Soon to a Galaxy Near You!
On the heels of the latest patch BioWare has also debuted a new trailer that highlights things to come for Star Wars: The Old Republic. James Ohlen discusses the recent Rise of the Rakghouls game update and how it is a two part story that has been in the works for quite some time now. The trailer also shows off plans for new Warzones and expanded PvP options including rankings, expanded guild offerings such as a guild bank, further details on the expansion of the Legacy System and the modifiable UI changes everyone has been clamoring for. Check out the trailer below.
James Ohlen provides additional Legacy details
As it is implemented currently, the Legacy System in Star Wars: The Old Republic simply provides characters with the option for a surname, and an extra experience bar which doesn’t have any benefits. However the system as it is now is a building block for a much more robust feature set. One of the things the legacy system is designed to do is to allow players to build a family tree among their characters. So players can determine what relationships their characters on the same server share, such as father and son. Read the full quote below from an interview with GameSpot.
So the legacy system, it’s kind of inspired by the fact that the family dynamic is so important in the Star Wars movies. You have Luke being Anakin’s son, the most famous father-son relationship in movies. We wanted to have a system that encouraged players to create alts and to play the game through the different story paths. So the legacy system is meant to do that. It essentially allows you to, instead of just having a bunch of alts that have no relation to each other, you can actually create a family tree where your alts can be related to your main character, either as, you know, a sibling, a son, a father, a family friend, or a husband and wife.
You can actually choose the relationship your characters will have with each other. And then you gain legacy experience points and legacy levels, and with legacy experience points and levels, that gives you–that allows you to unlock abilities, perks, a whole slew of different advantages, essentially, that all the members of your legacy tree will be able to enjoy.
So it’s pretty tight. I think people are going to really like it, and it’s something we want to push towards players who enjoy the level-up game. It’ll also be beneficial to the end game, but it really is going to have a lot of abilities that make leveling up even more enjoyable and allow you to customize your leveling experience.
Gray Jedi Rejoice: Neutral Gear coming soon
PC Gamer recently conducted an interview with Game Director James Ohlen, and among the topics discussed were plans for upcoming “neutral gear”, which will be exclusive for neutral-aligned players, just like currently light and dark exclusive gear. Ohlen confirms this gear will be coming at a later date.
“We knew with the light side/dark side system that there would be an urge – especially for min maxers – to go completely light side or dark side. It happened in Knights of the Old Republic back in 2003. We knew that was going to happen,” said TOR’s game director, James Ohlen.
“We have a system for people who want to stay more in the middle… but that’s something coming up in a later release.”
“It’ll let you play a “Gray Jedi”. Basically you don’t need to go to the extreme to get rewarded. You can have a different playstyle. We like to call it the “Gray Jedi” playstyle. That’s coming in a future piece of content.”
Many players were disappointed with the seemingly lack of support for a neutral playstyle, so this should bring a nice change to those who had been worrying about min-maxing their alignment choices. Read the full interview at PC Gamer.
Preview of Upcoming Content from James Ohlen
If you are already wondering what the first batch of post-launch content for The Old Republic will be, James Ohlen has an answer for you. While not diving into specific details, he has revealed that as soon as next month, there will be a new Flashpoint as well as an addition to one of the current operations. Included in his post was a teaser image of one of the new bosses. Check out the post from the community blog below.
A lot of people have been asking for more information on our future plans. What are we going to provide for players in terms of features and content? While we’ve given some information on what features we’re working on, we haven’t given much detail about content. We’ve said that we’ll be providing new Flashpoints, Operations and Warzones. Now we’d like to give some more details on what they are.
Next month we’re going to be releasing a new Flashpoint and an expanded Operation. The new Flashpoint involves a plague that could have significant repercussions across the galaxy. It takes place on a brand new world and involves some pretty epic battles. I can’t go into much detail, but be prepared for something different. The expanded Operation takes the existing Karagga’s palace scenario and more than triples it in size. It includes three new boss monsters and some pretty epic set pieces. You won’t believe the last boss, so we’ve provided an image as a tease.
We plan to continue releasing Flashpoints, Operations, Warzones and new game systems on a regular cadence. This patch coming early next year is only a taste of what is to come. Stay tuned for more announcements!
James Ohlen on the future of SWTOR
With many of you probably in Early Game Access already, and many more invites to come, it’s never too early to be thinking about what is on the horizon for The Old Republic. While not providing solid details, Game Director James Ohlen has given us a taste of some of the features we can expect in future patches. What is the number one feature you’re looking forward to being implemented in TOR? Let us know in the comments.
Welcome to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. It’s been many years in the making and the team is very proud of what we’ve achieved. Since we’re an online game we are going to continue building on the game for years to come. You can count on us to diligently expand the game and service to surprise and delight you. We’re going to not only respond to your feedback, but also hopefully exceed your expectations on how Star Wars: The Old Republic will evolve over time.
Many of you helped make the game what it is today by participating in our testing programs. You’ve watched the game grow over the past year and have been very vocal about things you’d like to see in the game in the future.
A team is never finished building a massively multiplayer game, so we’d like to take this opportunity to reveal a little information on what the team is working on for patches coming in the near future. Our priorities have been, and will continue to be, based off of the feedback we receive from our players. Read more»
Legacy System Revealed
James Ohlen has revealed the Legacy System, a feature that will unlock upon completing a character’s first chapter of their class story. Once unlocked, players will be able to choose a surname for their character, aka their legacy. This name will be shared across all characters on a server, and can be displayed in multiple ways: after your name like a last name, or below your character’s name. After unlocking your legacy, you can receive legacy points that will also apply to all characters on a server. However, what these points will unlock has not yet been revealed. Read the official announcement post below.
Hey Everyone,
This build has our first iteration of the Legacy System! At its core the Legacy system is about allowing players to create a family tree of characters. Family is pretty important to the Star Wars universe, with the Skywalker family having one of the most interesting dynamics in movie history. This version is just the foundational components that we will use to build upon in the future. Here are the features of this iteration:
Once your character has completed their Chapter 1 storyline, they will be able to choose a Legacy Last Name. This Legacy Last Name must be unique and is shared across all characters on that server – so choose carefully!
Once you have unlocked your Legacy, any and all characters on that server will now contribute to that player’s Legacy Experience Points. Much like normal experience points, when you reach certain Legacy thresholds, you will increase your Legacy Level.
We already have plans for how we will expand the functionality of the Legacy System in one of our major post-ship patches. This will include being able to shape your Legacy’s family tree, and give you a reward for all those Legacy Levels.
We look forward to reading your feedback on the Legacy System!
–James
Damion Schubert provided additional clarification about displaying your legacy:
Originally Posted by Raiel
It does. All of my characters have different last names. If there’s a display toggle for the Legacy surname, though, it’s all good in the hood.
You can choose to do one of the following:
- Display your legacy name as your last name (“Raiel Firewalker”)
- Display your legacy name below your name
Raiel
The Firewalker Legacy
- or choose to hide it altogether. This choice can differ per character.
BioWare Talks About Preparing for Game Launch
In an interview with Gamasutra, James Ohlen, Project Lead for The Old Republic, discusses the difficulties of developing a MMO and talks about the final phases of the game’s development. He goes on to divulge a bit about the uses of beta testing and the focus on polish as well as planning for future content. While the interview doesn’t reveal anything really new it does give us a bit of perspective about the process that the developers are going through in order to bring a high quality experience at launch. According to Ohlen it looks like they are expecting to have a very large launch crowd and are determined to make sure it runs smoothly.
And the fact is, because of the hype around the game right now, our launch numbers are predicting something really huge, which means we have to be ready for the biggest online launch in history essentially, which has made it really tough. We’ve been running a lot of tests, just making sure we’re going to stand up when we launch. 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]
BioWare Talks The Old Republic Endgame
Gaming website IncGamers recently spoke to BioWare’s James Ohlen on the topic of endgame content in Star Wars: The Old Republic and how that will intertwine with the individual class stories.
“Obviously the endgame of our game is very important and something we’ve put a lot of thought into, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot of different ways to do endgames,” Ohlen said.
Perhaps the most interesting quote is this: “You’re going to have a really epic, awesome ending when you finish your class story arc in this game, but that doesn’t mean that your character can’t continue.”
It sounds like endgame content we traditionally expect in MMOs such as raids and different forms of PvP will be present, and separate from how your individual class story will end. This is all speculation though, so make sure to share your own theories for how endgame content in TOR will work in the comments.
BioWare On The Old Republic’s Endgame [IncGamers]
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.
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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.
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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?
