Dec 24, 2010

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Friday Update: The Trooper Dossier!

We all know every Friday is like Christmas morning for followers and fans of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, and today was no different! Joanne Laroche posted:

Always on the front lines of battle against the Empire, Troopers seize every tactical advantage at their disposal to defend the Republic. With combat experience and intense training, Troopers can specialize to increase their battlefield prowess. The Trooper’s Advanced Classes will allow you to customize your Trooper to match your desired playstyle: improve your Trooper’s defensive tactics and capabilities to become a nearly unstoppable Vanguard, or go all-out on offense and become a deadly Commando.

After a special Christmas Eve-Eve update from GameSpot, which revealed the (quite awesome) Trooper class video, this morning we get the rest of the goods: The complete Trooper dossier:

  • We get some initial details on the Trooper’s first companion, a Weequay named Tanno Vik, who was added to the Biographies section. Seems to have quite a way with explosives.
  • Also added to the Inhabitants page was the official entry for the Zabrak species. The narrative on the page indicates a high level of martial arts training, and the Zabrak animation on the page shows an unarmed punch ability. Interesting.
  • The starship that the Trooper will commandeer has also been revealed: The BT-7 Thunderclap. Included in the media for the BT-7 is a walkthru video, as well as some screenshots – including the popular cutaway view so you can see the layout of the inside.
  • And no class update would be complete without the proper treatment for the Advanced Classes. In the case of the Trooper, that would be the Vanguard and Commando.

If the class video is any indication the Trooper class will be well-represented in the class mix when The Old Republic launches in Spring of 2011!

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Sep 24, 2010

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Friday Update: Smuggler Holonet + Blood of The Empire #12

The Friday update is indeed arrived! And for yours truly, it’s the best one yet!

Today, BioWare has updated the official Star Wars: The Old Republic site with the full-on Holonet update for the Smuggler class! Not only do we get a revamped page, but we also find out about his ship, his first companion Bowdaar the wookiee and more!

Gunslinger Bad-assery

Gunslinger Bad-assery

Our hero and Bowdaar

Our hero and Bowdaar

Head on over to the official Smuggler page for all of the shady details!

Also this week, we’re treated to the finale of the latest web comic – Blood of the Empire #12. Suffice it to say, Teneb Kel reaffirms his “Sithiness”.

And as always, don’t forget to check out Darth Hater for their dissection and Aurebesh translations!

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Jul 5, 2010

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"Not Enough Force" – Resource Pools

With the recent release of the E3 multi-player combat video, we wanted to take a closer look at certain aspects of of what we saw. Even though its a low-level encounter, we feel there’s enough information there to warrant a deeper dive. For this first entry, we thought we’d start with thinking about the class resource pools, and how those might affect combat.

In the video, we finally get to see some Jedi in action – both the Knight and the Consular were in the group. These classes were withheld from the recent E3 hands-on sessions, so this was a special treat.

We viewed  the battle from the point of view of the Jedi Consular, which meant we got to see a lot of things that happen in the UI during combat, including some of the system feedback…  One example, the beloved MMO staple “Out of Range” message when your target is too far away for you to interact with it.

Out-of-Range

At about 2:30 into the video we see a different message pop up – “Not Enough Force.” This message appeared because the Consular did not have enough “Force Points” available to execute the ability that was selected. For those new to the genre, MMORPG player classes typically have resource pools such as this for two reasons: to govern the use of certain abilities (facilitating balance,) but also as a gameplay mechanic itself. Managing this resource pool becomes part of the skill you will need to learn to play your character effectively.

Mechanically, having Force as a class resource makes sense for Force-sensitive characters, but it still makes me cringe just a little bit seeing “The Force” reduced to a mere resource pool. I guess this is one of those things we just have to accept as necessary for game mechanics. But I digress…

At any rate, it got us to thinking about resource pools in general. We now know that the Consular uses “Force” as it’s resource. The Sith Inquisitor apparently does as well. Even though the Sith Warrior is a Force user, his resource pool is “Rage.” The Bounty Hunter uses “Heat” with the requirement to periodically vent your system. Naturally the Trooper uses “Ammo.” And the Smuggler has been observed using “Energy,” (same for the Imperial Agent.) Curiously, no information has yet been learned regarding the resources used by the Jedi Knight.

But what about secondary resources? Are there aspects to managing our characters in combat that go beyond the basics?

Examples from other games include WoW’s Rogue, who uses “Combo Points” to execute “finishing” moves – typically larger special moves of greater power. The Death Knight has the Rune system.  In Warhammer, you had similar secondary resources, but interestingly you also had a tertiary level of abilities called “Morale” abilities. These are abilities that you could use only while in combat, and the longer you were in combat, the more powerful they became. You had 4 slots and each slot was more powreful than the last. If you stayed in combat long enough to activate the ability in the 4th slot, it was a doozy.

Way back, almost a year ago, GameSpot did an interview which exposed abilities what BioWare was calling “spenders.” This seems to add another dimension to resource management, but we’ve heard very little about it since, nor seen anything in action.

The demo video was obviously of low-level combat, but these secondary resources in other games are available right from the beginning. We didn’t see any of that in this combat video… so will we see more depth in this area? Is  this something you’ve been pondering? At what point will we learn more?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comments below!


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Jun 11, 2010

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Gamespot Hands-On Reveals New Info

Well, it appears the deluge has started!  Gamespot has posted a new, extensive hands-on with the game at about 8:30pm EDT. It’s unclear if they got an early-hands on this week, or if this took place a few weeks back at the EA London press event.

There do seem to be some story spoilers in the article though, so if you click through, be warned!

At any rate, here’s some of the highlights:

  • “As we found, several classes are linked by their initial starting area and quest sets, though their differing powers and combat styles make playing each one a unique experience” – This seems to indicate as expected that certain classes are paired together on certain starting planets. But what’s interesting is that they seem to share at least some quests in these areas, which seems counter to what we’ve known so far.
  • “Yes, the Twi’lek are playable” – species # 3 confirmed! Twi’lek.
  • The Trooper resource system is “ammo” as opposed to previously seen action points. It’s unclear if that literally means you can run out of ammo, or if it’s just a metaphor for the resource system in place.
  • “In the case of the Imperial agent, we played as a member of the Chiss race–a species of self-reliant, blue-skinned, red-eyed humanoids that aren’t normally prone to direct acts of war” – Playable species #4 confirmed! Chiss.
  • Hunter’s Mark for the Imperial Agent – “From cover, the agent gains the snipe attack, which deals tons of damage, as well as the laze target skill, which marks a target and makes it much more vulnerable to damage–not unlike the Hunter’s mark skill from World of Warcraft.”
  • There seems to be a “conversation bonus” to talking things out as opposed to just shooting.
  • We finally see a Smuggler in the wide brim hat ;)

One thing’s for sure, this is just the beginning… I’d count on seeing more sources overnight and over the weekend revealing, or at least having their own take on these things, ahead of the official start of E3.

Even though it’s summer, it looks like Christmas for fans of The Old Republic!

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Jun 11, 2010

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Coming Soon: Classes, Advanced Classes and More!

Very soon, Ask A Jedi will begin publishing a regular series of columns dedicated to complete knowledge and mastery of all of the classes available to players in Star Wars: The Old Republic. As more information is revealed, and we learn more about how they play in the game, what it means to use companions, and how advanced classes work, we’ll work on distilling that info and presenting it in a form you can use.

Our goal is to make sure you’ll be the very best  Smuggler you can be… and whether it makes sense to become a wiley Scoundrel or a flashy Gunslinger. And that goes for every class! We want to take a deep-dive right out of the gate, and become the authority on the topic.

So with that said, please stay tuned and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook in the mean time!

Graduating Class(es)

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