Reminds me of DAoC if I'm not mistaken (it's been so long). Basic class for a few levels, then able to choose the advanced class. Nothing really new here.
Thats entirely possible. i don't know for certain so i'm not going to counter you or anything.
But if you are correct thats entirely possible because they (the devs) said we've taken a look at all the games around and incorperated the best parts while putting our own spin on it.
Taken the PvP for tanks from War
Taken the class from DAoC
Taken the questing system from WoW.
Putting branching stories from their own games.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I think its going to be amazing. You guys who think its way to much for them to handle this much of a load they are throwing at us you have to realize that they have been working on this game for the past 5 years and have spent millions of dollors into the game already. Way more than any other game has ever put into a game. This will either make them or break them. But in my idea they are in this for the long hual. They want this to be to WoW killer. Unlike other games that say they are the wow killer who has ever put this much money into a project and have spent this long creating a game. They want this game to be detailed and make sure everything is going smoothly.They have yet to open up beta and you guys are critizing it. This can completly ruin this company if it does not become a hit. With them putting this much of the line i think they know what they are doing.
Well nice advance class breakdown, though as some others have said a few of the details seem a bit hazy as if they are still works in progress. Sadly though they still haven't given us much information about exactly what we will all be doing with these intricate classes. Will Bioware break the mold and give us something fresh to do after the leveling process is over, or will this game be yet another BG, Raid, Heroic end game treadmill?
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Am I the only one who is calling total BS on their smoke and mirror explanations? To answer the last question related to their ability to balance classes, the response is all over the place, and more, a mention of things you would expect, like; "Visually, each of the classes has their own set of animations, sounds, visual effects and appearance" < - Well duh.
I think this is way too much for them. It was a bad choice to make so many classes(doubled with specialization). I doubt the uniqueness and quality of each one will suffice. I would rather have 3 great classes with great branching sub classes, than 6 mediocre classes with 12 bad specializations(or whatever). Balancing is just going to be harder. Bioware is horrible, even in their single player games at balancing. As good as many of them are, Balancing has always been a bad part of their products.
We always forgive them because their stories and characters make it worth it, but the end game PvP won't hold it up. Brace for impact my friends. This is not Biowares fault either. Just look at their skills. It will not look like a epic star wars battles, but like a circus fest. you always saw one smuggler or a one bounty hunter at a time. It will look lame to have these rare sneaky characters in droves. Not even talking about jedis.
"To ensure faction balance, each Republic class has it's 'nemesis' on the Empire side, balanced for equal access in utility, mitigation and damage potential, etc."
< - To me this sounds like they are compromising integrity. We all remember the Shaman/Paladin relationship and the crap that followed. When one was nerfed the other had to be adjusted even if nothing was wrong, and this was even more stupid as they were to different classes that worked in different ways. Eventually they become more and more the same, and got the same skills with different names. What was the point? To balance it out they become more copy pasted versions of each other, until Burning Crusade gave it to the opposing faction, but by then it was too late.
Or at least until Paladins following 5-6 major class redesigns.
Well nice advance class breakdown, though as some others have said a few of the details seem a bit hazy as if they are still works in progress. Sadly though they still haven't given us much information about exactly what we will all be doing with these intricate classes. Will Bioware break the mold and give us something fresh to do after the leveling process is over, or will this game be yet another BG, Raid, Heroic end game treadmill?
I really don't expect them to break any molds, at best a new spin may be there but alas I think end-game will be what you'd expect for the sort of game TOR is. You'll most likely see raids, gear grinds as well as PVP. The only other thing I can see being at end game would be story content updates.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
im not expecting anything big out of the end game. i thought there was gonna be some epic pvp thing, kinda like WvWvW in GW2, but then they revealed contested PVE zones as "open world pvp" and BG's. lame.
there's absolutely nothing new they can do with raids that hasnt already been done. i just dont see them thinking outside the box for end game because theyve played everything safe so far.
that being said, the advanced classes have come along nicely and look cool.
It seems MMORPG are spending more time writing about this game than any other. For all we care, it could all turn out not to be worth the hype. Granted, it certainly looks intersting but that's about it.
The advanced class system seems a bit "meh" to me. Its basicly just a couple of separate classes with them being paired off so some skills can overlap.
I'd have used a hybrid skill system [maybe some skills action [uo] and other time based [eve]. Everyone would be a force user and if they don't want to become a Jedi they could join a milatary academy or a spy hall. If they want to become a sith they travel to a sith temple.Basicly a sadbox with classes being added in a way that gives you acess to skills when you join the faction associated with it and all missions being optional.
Or to sum it up a sandbox game sith themepark systems being attached on.
What I still dont bloody get is say I'm a Vanguard for Trooper so I'm doing cool tanking and then I want to be a Marauder can I switch to it? Can I switch one advanced class to another?
What I still dont bloody get is say I'm a Vanguard for Trooper so I'm doing cool tanking and then I want to be a Marauder can I switch to it? Can I switch one advanced class to another?
You definately can't switch from being a Vanguard to being a Marauder, that would require you to change class and factions, you may be able to change from Vanguard to Commando though, they still haven't made up their minds about it but it seems that right now they are leaning towards a yes but with a high cost.
It seems MMORPG are spending more time writing about this game than any other. For all we care, it could all turn out not to be worth the hype. Granted, it certainly looks intersting but that's about it.
Perhaps the reason it seems that way is because lately SWTOR has released more info than other games? I wouldn't blame MMORPG.com given that games like GW2 and the Secret World are still far off from their release dates and therefore release less info while SWTOR seems to be approaching a release now and are therefore starting to open the floodgates of info on the game.
This actually makes me thing there will be very similar ACs. As a general rule, having more classes makes them less unique. I'm not saying a Marauder won't play differently than an Imperial Agent, I'm saying a Marauder will play almost exactly the same as its Jedi equivalent, with only a few "fluf" to differentiate them.
Think of Rift, there's many "Rogue" classes but are they really that different from one another? Not so much, they all have one basic combo point attack, they all have finishers, they all use the same resource system, etc. What differentiates them are a few details here and there, like class A has to keep this DoT rolling while class B has to backstab.
Blizzard themselves said the reason why they took so long to add the Death Knight, and the reason why they aren't considering adding more classes, is because they can't find a completely different playstyle to make one that doesn't turn out to be similar to the classes already there.
I'm excited about TOR, but to be honest I'm one of those gamers that would actually prefer very unique, but few classes rather than a bunch of similar ones. Let's hope I'm wrong though.
Reminds me a little of Aion but with more options, such as multi healing and tanking variations. Level 10, 4 general class split into 8 advanced classes, trinity roles, capital city advancement, etc etc... With that said, I'm sure a few games are similar to that.
Looking forward to more in-depth information regarding other aspects of the game. This topic doesn't really feel like anything new for me personally.
Wow. Everything I see about this game just makes me less interested. Videos showing players shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting at a boss. Now this class explanation that amounts to, "saber, saber, gun, gun, saber, gun, force, stance." Speaking of stances, I'm not entirely certain what an industry relations manager does, but someone from marketing needs to get ahold of this guy and say, "Yeah... when you're talking about the powers in SW:TOR, you probably should not lead with, 'they get a stance and a passive ability." In fact - you can just leave those out of the conversation altogether."
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
Games like EQ and Vanguard are some of the only titles that give you a "unique" feeling to playing your class. The more classes there are in a game, the more options, and the less people there are potentially playing your specific class. PVP and class balancing are what ruin the equation. Yes PVP is important to a lot of people, but they have been spoiled by games like WoW that focus on making every class equally able to kill any other class. Think back to the days of EQ, do you see a cleric running around blasting a tank or DPS class to death? No. Because Clerics knew their role...as a HEALER, and what they were supposed to do. Nowadays developers are making shallow character classes trying to ecompass all 4 MMO archtypes so that they can effectively do ANYTHING they want, regardless of what class they are. This is stupid and takes away from the core values of the games like EQ that many of us originally came from. I wish a developer would put class balancing on the backburner and try to make ALL of the classes truly unique from eachother. Not silly class specializations that are going to BASICALLY have the same skills with a different icon and slightly different spell effects.
I'm tired of games whose biggest innovations are different lore and IP surrounding the same basic format. Stupidly long leveling just to raid, raid stupidly long amounts of time to raid moar, then expansion comes out and you do it all over again.
There has to be a different way to gather 1000s of people to play a game. You shouldn't have a situation in a game where there is practically no content unless you continue raiding, just like PvP should have real consequences and benefits. Especially in a Star Wars game, of all things.
Am I the only one who is calling total BS on their smoke and mirror explanations? To answer the last question related to their ability to balance classes, the response is all over the place, and more, a mention of things you would expect, like; "Visually, each of the classes has their own set of animations, sounds, visual effects and appearance" < - Well duh.
I think this is way too much for them. It was a bad choice to make so many classes(doubled with specialization). I doubt the uniqueness and quality of each one will suffice. I would rather have 3 great classes with great branching sub classes, than 6 mediocre classes with 12 bad specializations(or whatever). Balancing is just going to be harder. Bioware is horrible, even in their single player games at balancing. As good as many of them are, Balancing has always been a bad part of their products.
We always forgive them because their stories and characters make it worth it, but the end game PvP won't hold it up. Brace for impact my friends. This is not Biowares fault either. Just look at their skills. It will not look like a epic star wars battles, but like a circus fest. you always saw one smuggler or a one bounty hunter at a time. It will look lame to have these rare sneaky characters in droves. Not even talking about jedis.
"To ensure faction balance, each Republic class has it's 'nemesis' on the Empire side, balanced for equal access in utility, mitigation and damage potential, etc."
< - To me this sounds like they are compromising integrity. We all remember the Shaman/Paladin relationship and the crap that followed. When one was nerfed the other had to be adjusted even if nothing was wrong, and this was even more stupid as they were to different classes that worked in different ways. Eventually they become more and more the same, and got the same skills with different names. What was the point? To balance it out they become more copy pasted versions of each other, until Burning Crusade gave it to the opposing faction, but by then it was too late.
Or at least until Paladins following 5-6 major class redesigns.
I have to agree. I think one of Warhammer's bigger mistakes (not biggest though) was not making the "mirror classes" absolutely, perfectly mirrored. Yes, I know homogenization sucks... but this is the one instance where it doesn't. If Bounty Hunters have jetpacks, and Troopers don't, Troopers better be blantently overpowered, or every Trooper is going to rage when a Bounty Hunter jetpacks out of trouble in a situation where a Trooper just dies.
Bioware is making a mistake by having 16 advanced classes to balance, each with 2 different stpcs... rather than cutting that number in half by mirroring Sith and Jedi abilities. You can reskin them all you want (same ability, different graphic/name), but if a Consolar's main damage ability doesn't do the exact same damage as a Sith Sorcerers (and in the exact same way), Consolars are going to be extremely pissed.
No MMORPG can get class balance 100% right. Bioware should not be going out of its way to make it harder, especially with their first MMO release.
It seems MMORPG are spending more time writing about this game than any other. For all we care, it could all turn out not to be worth the hype. Granted, it certainly looks intersting but that's about it.
Perhaps the reason it seems that way is because lately SWTOR has released more info than other games? I wouldn't blame MMORPG.com given that games like GW2 and the Secret World are still far off from their release dates and therefore release less info while SWTOR seems to be approaching a release now and are therefore starting to open the floodgates of info on the game.
That may be so but, then again, how come on other MMO site is talking about this game as much. The hype level of the game is only p of the pulicity and, just a guess, it's going ot sell like hot cakes but will the subscriptions continiue after the release of another game et. Guild Wars 2
Meanwhile, there are games out the which having even been looked out.
Once again, here we have another post by the mind of another polluted WOW player. It is these "all knowing" types that no matter what is presented, in terms of any new game that is released, will be compared to that Gorilla (WOW). When the OP says, "you have been warned" reminds me of the repeated one million posts about the same topic over and over and over again. The level of maturity went right to the third grade when the OP made his "All God" knowing statement of what we are going to experience NO MATTER WHAT when TOR gets released. The Bioware developers must always get a good laugh in terms of these three year old mentality threads.
Comments
Well this fills out the advance classes part people were asking for that they said was an important part that needed updating.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Thats entirely possible. i don't know for certain so i'm not going to counter you or anything.
But if you are correct thats entirely possible because they (the devs) said we've taken a look at all the games around and incorperated the best parts while putting our own spin on it.
Taken the PvP for tanks from War
Taken the class from DAoC
Taken the questing system from WoW.
Putting branching stories from their own games.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
And again.. no detailed love for the Imperial Agent....
There's no fate but what we make..
I think its going to be amazing. You guys who think its way to much for them to handle this much of a load they are throwing at us you have to realize that they have been working on this game for the past 5 years and have spent millions of dollors into the game already. Way more than any other game has ever put into a game. This will either make them or break them. But in my idea they are in this for the long hual. They want this to be to WoW killer. Unlike other games that say they are the wow killer who has ever put this much money into a project and have spent this long creating a game. They want this game to be detailed and make sure everything is going smoothly.They have yet to open up beta and you guys are critizing it. This can completly ruin this company if it does not become a hit. With them putting this much of the line i think they know what they are doing.
Well nice advance class breakdown, though as some others have said a few of the details seem a bit hazy as if they are still works in progress. Sadly though they still haven't given us much information about exactly what we will all be doing with these intricate classes. Will Bioware break the mold and give us something fresh to do after the leveling process is over, or will this game be yet another BG, Raid, Heroic end game treadmill?
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I don't think we are even allowed to say that....
But E3 should be a nice bit of information.
I really don't expect them to break any molds, at best a new spin may be there but alas I think end-game will be what you'd expect for the sort of game TOR is. You'll most likely see raids, gear grinds as well as PVP. The only other thing I can see being at end game would be story content updates.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
im not expecting anything big out of the end game. i thought there was gonna be some epic pvp thing, kinda like WvWvW in GW2, but then they revealed contested PVE zones as "open world pvp" and BG's. lame.
there's absolutely nothing new they can do with raids that hasnt already been done. i just dont see them thinking outside the box for end game because theyve played everything safe so far.
that being said, the advanced classes have come along nicely and look cool.
Nice write up with lots of details about the ground game which looks good. The space game...not so much.
FEEL THE FULL
FREE-TO-FLAME
FANTASY.
The advanced class system seems a bit "meh" to me. Its basicly just a couple of separate classes with them being paired off so some skills can overlap.
I'd have used a hybrid skill system [maybe some skills action [uo] and other time based [eve]. Everyone would be a force user and if they don't want to become a Jedi they could join a milatary academy or a spy hall. If they want to become a sith they travel to a sith temple.Basicly a sadbox with classes being added in a way that gives you acess to skills when you join the faction associated with it and all missions being optional.
Or to sum it up a sandbox game sith themepark systems being attached on.
What I still dont bloody get is say I'm a Vanguard for Trooper so I'm doing cool tanking and then I want to be a Marauder can I switch to it? Can I switch one advanced class to another?
You definately can't switch from being a Vanguard to being a Marauder, that would require you to change class and factions, you may be able to change from Vanguard to Commando though, they still haven't made up their minds about it but it seems that right now they are leaning towards a yes but with a high cost.
Perhaps the reason it seems that way is because lately SWTOR has released more info than other games? I wouldn't blame MMORPG.com given that games like GW2 and the Secret World are still far off from their release dates and therefore release less info while SWTOR seems to be approaching a release now and are therefore starting to open the floodgates of info on the game.
This actually makes me thing there will be very similar ACs. As a general rule, having more classes makes them less unique. I'm not saying a Marauder won't play differently than an Imperial Agent, I'm saying a Marauder will play almost exactly the same as its Jedi equivalent, with only a few "fluf" to differentiate them.
Think of Rift, there's many "Rogue" classes but are they really that different from one another? Not so much, they all have one basic combo point attack, they all have finishers, they all use the same resource system, etc. What differentiates them are a few details here and there, like class A has to keep this DoT rolling while class B has to backstab.
Blizzard themselves said the reason why they took so long to add the Death Knight, and the reason why they aren't considering adding more classes, is because they can't find a completely different playstyle to make one that doesn't turn out to be similar to the classes already there.
I'm excited about TOR, but to be honest I'm one of those gamers that would actually prefer very unique, but few classes rather than a bunch of similar ones. Let's hope I'm wrong though.
Reminds me a little of Aion but with more options, such as multi healing and tanking variations. Level 10, 4 general class split into 8 advanced classes, trinity roles, capital city advancement, etc etc... With that said, I'm sure a few games are similar to that.
Looking forward to more in-depth information regarding other aspects of the game. This topic doesn't really feel like anything new for me personally.
Thanks for the interview, nice read. keep up the good work!
Wow. Everything I see about this game just makes me less interested. Videos showing players shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting at a boss. Now this class explanation that amounts to, "saber, saber, gun, gun, saber, gun, force, stance." Speaking of stances, I'm not entirely certain what an industry relations manager does, but someone from marketing needs to get ahold of this guy and say, "Yeah... when you're talking about the powers in SW:TOR, you probably should not lead with, 'they get a stance and a passive ability." In fact - you can just leave those out of the conversation altogether."
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
Games like EQ and Vanguard are some of the only titles that give you a "unique" feeling to playing your class. The more classes there are in a game, the more options, and the less people there are potentially playing your specific class. PVP and class balancing are what ruin the equation. Yes PVP is important to a lot of people, but they have been spoiled by games like WoW that focus on making every class equally able to kill any other class. Think back to the days of EQ, do you see a cleric running around blasting a tank or DPS class to death? No. Because Clerics knew their role...as a HEALER, and what they were supposed to do. Nowadays developers are making shallow character classes trying to ecompass all 4 MMO archtypes so that they can effectively do ANYTHING they want, regardless of what class they are. This is stupid and takes away from the core values of the games like EQ that many of us originally came from. I wish a developer would put class balancing on the backburner and try to make ALL of the classes truly unique from eachother. Not silly class specializations that are going to BASICALLY have the same skills with a different icon and slightly different spell effects.
I'm tired of games whose biggest innovations are different lore and IP surrounding the same basic format. Stupidly long leveling just to raid, raid stupidly long amounts of time to raid moar, then expansion comes out and you do it all over again.
There has to be a different way to gather 1000s of people to play a game. You shouldn't have a situation in a game where there is practically no content unless you continue raiding, just like PvP should have real consequences and benefits. Especially in a Star Wars game, of all things.
Wauu that guy on second screenshot looks like he came from WOW..................
I have to agree. I think one of Warhammer's bigger mistakes (not biggest though) was not making the "mirror classes" absolutely, perfectly mirrored. Yes, I know homogenization sucks... but this is the one instance where it doesn't. If Bounty Hunters have jetpacks, and Troopers don't, Troopers better be blantently overpowered, or every Trooper is going to rage when a Bounty Hunter jetpacks out of trouble in a situation where a Trooper just dies.
Bioware is making a mistake by having 16 advanced classes to balance, each with 2 different stpcs... rather than cutting that number in half by mirroring Sith and Jedi abilities. You can reskin them all you want (same ability, different graphic/name), but if a Consolar's main damage ability doesn't do the exact same damage as a Sith Sorcerers (and in the exact same way), Consolars are going to be extremely pissed.
No MMORPG can get class balance 100% right. Bioware should not be going out of its way to make it harder, especially with their first MMO release.
That may be so but, then again, how come on other MMO site is talking about this game as much. The hype level of the game is only p of the pulicity and, just a guess, it's going ot sell like hot cakes but will the subscriptions continiue after the release of another game et. Guild Wars 2
Meanwhile, there are games out the which having even been looked out.
FEEL THE FULL
FREE-TO-FLAME
FANTASY.
Once again, here we have another post by the mind of another polluted WOW player. It is these "all knowing" types that no matter what is presented, in terms of any new game that is released, will be compared to that Gorilla (WOW). When the OP says, "you have been warned" reminds me of the repeated one million posts about the same topic over and over and over again. The level of maturity went right to the third grade when the OP made his "All God" knowing statement of what we are going to experience NO MATTER WHAT when TOR gets released. The Bioware developers must always get a good laugh in terms of these three year old mentality threads.
gosh! how do you know all this ???? I am just blown away ..well something that a 2 year old can convey to us is just mind boggling.