I don't want to run around , I want to stand still and mash buttons and watch my pretty laser sword twirl around.
I hope we get hot pink light sabers and laser guns, or neon purple, to go with the force lightning, whenever my sith starts murdering things I want it to look like a rave.
Stantz on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Actually now that you mention it the combat vid does remind me of City of Heroes.
Now I'm even more disappointed. Although I have to say LOTRO's combat wasn't stellar either but that game easily made up for it with quest story and world design.
Alegis on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
What'd you guys think of the combat in Kotor 1 and 2? This doesn't seem to be that different. Personally, I kind of enjoyed the tabletop feel of the combat in those games.
What'd you guys think of the combat in Kotor 1 and 2? This doesn't seem to be that different. Personally, I kind of enjoyed the tabletop feel of the combat in those games.
I thought it was good.
It was also released some 7 years ago. That's what strikes me about the combat video thus far. Not so much that it looks bad, it just looks dated.
Well, combat has aurguably always been Bioware's weakest point since the transition to 3D. DA:O and ME2 are good steps in the right direction though, IMO.
Al I remember from kotor combat was master flurry, and then everything dying.
Master Flurry is good in that it doesn't penalize you. The Master Critical Strike was way better though, especially if you upped your crit chances with a keen weapon and such. And Master Power Strike actually wasn't that bad either. I thought it just added a flat amount of damage and then I noticed the fine print on my recent playthru that it increases the crit multiplier by one. So if you normally do double damage on a crit, it's triple. I was wrecking shit up with power strike (and a double-bladed saber).
Well, combat has aurguably always been Bioware's weakest point since the transition to 3D. DA:O and ME2 are good steps in the right direction though, IMO.
Yeah, no. DA:O's combat is a regression. DA:O's combat is shit. I beat the game twice and the combat is painful and boring.
At least in KotOR the melee fighting animations actually use both people. They actually parry and block eachother. I find it enjoyable to watch even if it's a bit repetative. The vidoes for TOR look a little worse because one person is swinging away and nothing is happening to the other guy.
They need to make sure they make players feel the impact. Sound really helps along with slower animations. When you can see it make contact and hear a thud or lightsaber crackle is when it really gets good.
I don't know if they can do a system in an MMO where a miss, block, hit amd parry each have their own animations. I guess part of the problem is that KoTOR was kind of turn based. You couldn't have 2 auto attacks go off at the same time (If I remember right) or there was some animation for just that scenario.
At least in KotOR the melee fighting animations actually use both people. They actually parry and block eachother. I find it enjoyable to watch even if it's a bit repetative. The vidoes for TOR look a little worse because one person is swinging away and nothing is happening to the other guy.
They need to make sure they make players feel the impact. Sound really helps along with slower animations. When you can see it make contact and hear a thud or lightsaber crackle is when it really gets good.
I don't know if they can do a system in an MMO where a miss, block, hit amd parry each have their own animations. I guess part of the problem is that KoTOR was kind of turn based. You couldn't have 2 auto attacks go off at the same time (If I remember right) or there was some animation for just that scenario.
That's asking a lot, speaking on a practical level. In an MMO environment, people aren't in sync with each other. While someone is doing one action, the other person is doing another action, and you can't really code things up to be that dynamic. Well, not easily at any rate.
WoW sort of has a system where misses have 'distinct' animations from hits. I've noticed that they tend to just have a long "recovery" from the swing during a miss, rather than chop-then-pullback. They also have a distinct sound to them (two-handed weapons have a really broad WOOSH sound). So, on that level, things are sort of possible. Parries are going back to my first mini-paragraph there. That takes an amount of sync'ing that is going to be hard to pull off in an MMO environment.
I'll admit that KotOR and KotOR 2 had cool animations for the attacks. But they had very few of them, like you said, that got repetitive. For as much as you're going to see those animations, they should've expanded on them. The whole thing happened however because the game was a single player experience and doubly-so it was turn based. Lot of advantages for the style of animation you crave.
At least in KotOR the melee fighting animations actually use both people. They actually parry and block eachother. I find it enjoyable to watch even if it's a bit repetative. The vidoes for TOR look a little worse because one person is swinging away and nothing is happening to the other guy.
They need to make sure they make players feel the impact. Sound really helps along with slower animations. When you can see it make contact and hear a thud or lightsaber crackle is when it really gets good.
I don't know if they can do a system in an MMO where a miss, block, hit amd parry each have their own animations. I guess part of the problem is that KoTOR was kind of turn based. You couldn't have 2 auto attacks go off at the same time (If I remember right) or there was some animation for just that scenario.
That's asking a lot, speaking on a practical level. In an MMO environment, people aren't in sync with each other. While someone is doing one action, the other person is doing another action, and you can't really code things up to be that dynamic. Well, not easily at any rate.
WoW sort of has a system where misses have 'distinct' animations from hits. I've noticed that they tend to just have a long "recovery" from the swing during a miss, rather than chop-then-pullback. They also have a distinct sound to them (two-handed weapons have a really broad WOOSH sound). So, on that level, things are sort of possible. Parries are going back to my first mini-paragraph there. That takes an amount of sync'ing that is going to be hard to pull off in an MMO environment.
I'll admit that KotOR and KotOR 2 had cool animations for the attacks. But they had very few of them, like you said, that got repetitive. For as much as you're going to see those animations, they should've expanded on them. The whole thing happened however because the game was a single player experience and doubly-so it was turn based. Lot of advantages for the style of animation you crave.
So the question becomes, how do you mimic the look and feel of that single player style in an MMO even if the behind the scenes calulations are different?
Didn't they say there would be not auto-attack? That may be a step in the right direction, if you keep everyone on a global timing system and actions and abilites, including standard attacks, are queued the system could control the flow of the fight a little bit. An example of this is, in KoTOR at certain points during combat you couldn't cancel your current action after it got to a certain point in the turns. The enemy would hit you, lower your hp to a certain "ohh Shit" point and you would have to wait a round to use a heal even though you might not survive their next attack.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
The only way I see it being mimicked is if they have NPC / mobs react to players in that manner, but in PvP it'll be standard MMO'ish animations being stand-alone.
I'm going to be up in the air with a jetpack and shooting people with laser pistols, I honestly don't give a damn if they don't sync any of that up. It doesn't bother me.
One of my favorite things in WoW are different animations for different reactive combat moves like dodge/parries/resists/misses ect. I'm surprised when I see newer mmos missing these basic elements of combat polish. I really hope there are lots of ducking/weaving/dodging animations for all things in TOR especially blaster shots. Animations for me are the backbone of a mmo i'll continue to play. Sloppy animations especially the ones you see a lot movement/jumping/idle ect can really kill a mmo for me.
Right now combat looks ok but nothing stand out. I'd love to see more reactive animations whn characters are getting hit/dodging ect. I know the game is a long way off but you know sometimes you see a poor animation in alpha/beta that makes it into live and it's disappointing.
I'm going to be up in the air with a jetpack and shooting people with laser pistols, I honestly don't give a damn if they don't sync any of that up. It doesn't bother me.
I'm the same way. It's one of those details I just don't really care about. For me, a MMO is way more than the combat. For me it's all about the community, atmosphere, and immersion. It remains to be seen if tor will deliver on any of those.
As long as the combat has sufficient feedback for when you take an action then I'll be ok with it. It was the big killer for me with WAR, combat animations and timing were all messed up and it just felt like you were pushing buttons while watching a fight, rather than controlling the character.
I have caught up on a few of the developer diaries and, I must confess, the sort of narrative they are constructing - or indeed at least attempting to construct - strikes me as something best suited to tabletop-like groups of trusted friends with similar attitudes and manners. Perhaps I may be quite alone in this regard, but have any of you other fellows gathered the distinct impression that you will be extremely reticent to allow random players to impose any of their vagaries on your experience?
I am having a difficult time envisioning precisely what the OR 'community experience' is going to consist of...
Doctor Livingstone on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
I'll be willing to tag along with random people depending on how much of an impact they can have on my story, but for the most part I'm sticking with people from friends and people of this forum for my experiences in the game. Those are the only two groups of people I can trust from the start to respect my needs (and I can respect theirs).
Henroid on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Honestly, it feels like something they created purely to fill out Friday releases. I read it because...well...you know.
They did say they have exciting things planned for E3 though. I'm setting my hopes unnecessarily high that we'll see a near beta version of this game.
E3 will be having so many MMO related things to watch for on top of this, I think my brain will pop.
If they do any releases worth noting, it had better involve info on how the game's story will be implemented in an MMO environment, seeing as that is the greatest cause of confusion here. It's really shaping up to be a "you and your friends" type deal, which is kind of hard to manage on this scale.
I have caught up on a few of the developer diaries and, I must confess, the sort of narrative they are constructing - or indeed at least attempting to construct - strikes me as something best suited to tabletop-like groups of trusted friends with similar attitudes and manners. Perhaps I may be quite alone in this regard, but have any of you other fellows gathered the distinct impression that you will be extremely reticent to allow random players to impose any of their vagaries on your experience?
I am having a difficult time envisioning precisely what the OR 'community experience' is going to consist of...
But isnt that part of the experience itself ?
I find it realy cool that the experience can change depending of the moral constitution of the group.
For example, 3 vote to kill the captain and 1 votes against, we all get the according dark/light points but the captain dies.
I have caught up on a few of the developer diaries and, I must confess, the sort of narrative they are constructing - or indeed at least attempting to construct - strikes me as something best suited to tabletop-like groups of trusted friends with similar attitudes and manners. Perhaps I may be quite alone in this regard, but have any of you other fellows gathered the distinct impression that you will be extremely reticent to allow random players to impose any of their vagaries on your experience?
I am having a difficult time envisioning precisely what the OR 'community experience' is going to consist of...
But isnt that part of the experience itself ?
I find it realy cool that the experience can change depending of the moral constitution of the group.
For example, 3 vote to kill the captain and 1 votes against, we all get the according dark/light points but the captain dies.
I really like that idea. As long as overall consiquences don't hurt each player's options later on. And I beleive they said they won't.
And just like in real life, if you go through a mission with one person who doesn't take it seriously and ops to kill everything no matter what, then you don't ever group with them again. Maybe you're in the same mood and just murdering people sounds fun. Hopefully the two factions will help seperate the types of people who want to be bad and the people who want to be good.
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
From Eurogamer
Eurogamer can exclusively reveal that Star Wars: The Old Republic's eight character classes will each split into two specialised Advanced Classes, giving the player a total of 16 choices of career in BioWare's MMO.
The first Advanced Classes to be revealed are those for the Sith Warrior. Choosing Juggernaut will shape this warrior into a tough, damage-soaking tank class, while the Marauder is all about channelling rage and maximising damage output.
Looking at the first exclusive screens of the two, it looks like the Juggernaut will feature the heavy body-modifications of Darth Vader, while the Marauder will be able ape Darth Maul's twin-lightsaber fighting style.
Choosing your Advanced Class is a pure gameplay decision rather than a story decision. Advanced Classes will share the same epic narrative, but have different combat styles and play different roles in a group.
Each Advanced Class will have its own skills and abilities that define its role on the battlefield, and in some cases grant access to new weapon and armour types. Choosing one means you won't have any access to the skills of the other.
nd each Advanced Class will have a further three branches of skills to specialise in (equivalent to World of Warcraft's talent specialisation options on a single class). Unlike the Advanced Classes themselves, you can mix and match these if you like, although they're all trained from the same pool of points.
The first two skill trees are particular to your Advanced Class, while the the third is a shared set of skills which expand on the core abilities of the main class.
There's much we still don't know about Advanced Classes: what the other classes will advance into, when you'll make the choice, and whether you'll be able to change your choice at a later date. But it's already clear that the range of options they'll offer the player is impressively large.
I've read a number of previews of Star Wars: The Old Republic. It'd be hard not to - people have been writing about it for over a year. Not to mention, I sat in a room at 2009's E3 and voted to kill some captain or other. But until yesterday, I still had no strong mental image of what the game would play like. That's not the fault of the writers - it's the fact that the particulars of what BioWare is doing are still in flux, and the developers refuse to talk about anything that's still in flux. Remember that sentence, you'll be hearing more of it later!
The basic recap facts have been worn into my brain, but let's dutifully go through it again: The Old Republic is a fully-voiced, story-led MMO, with eight classes, shocking amounts (fifty novels' worth) of dialogue, and BioWare's trademark branching moral storyline, with consequences that come snapping at your buttocks long after you've forgotten what you've done. Actually, I'm still expecting a slap for killing that captain.
Oh hang on, let me just correct a mistake. There are 16 classes - but we'll come to that later. See, I can prick-tease too.
At EA's showcase yesterday, the first thing that happened was a hands-on of a new class. We were each given a level six bounty hunter, and dropped into a Cantina in front of a quest-giving Hutt. Then, we explored the industrious swamp town of Jiguuna, and a hostile Evocii village.
An exclusive first look at the Sith Warrior Marauder. Darth Maul style.
The Evocii are proud warrior types - they're only hostile because Rikkitaki like us tend to be bounty hunters, bounty hunters work for Nem'ro The Hutt, and Nem'ro tends to send bounty hunters to kill them. Nem'ro's personality is best illustrated by his idle animation - he coughs into his palm, and licks whatever came out.
Worth mentioning at this stage - this is the first non-human playable race. When I ask about others, I'm given an entertainingly evasive answer that they'd only be using humanoid races because love scenes get weird with blobs. If we ever do make contact with lovely blue tit and dick creatures, I can't help but suspect BioWare will be catapulting themselves naked into space.
Our first errand involves killing Huttsbane, the aggressively named hero of a nearby Evocii village. It was my job to fetch his de-bodied head, but he wouldn't acknowledge my presence until I'd killed four of his Evocii Guardians. Not Scouts or Watchers, although they do look similar - Guardians. It's somehow reassuring to note that the adjectival pedantry of MMO kill quests has survived into TOR.
This gave me a chance to try out the six attacks that every low-level Bounty Hunter will have. It's a ranged class, with a weapon use that isn't limited by rage, mana, or energy - the Bounty Hunter has to deal with heat.
The Sith Warrior Juggernaut takes his bow, exclusively on Eurogamer. So Vader was a tank?
Decent attacks - the knockdown area-of-effect Missile Blast, and channelled Flame Thrower - all accumulate heat, and once your guage is full, you're stuck with phaser fire and the longer cooldown attacks like the paralysing Electro Dart, and the hugely damaging, but conditional Rail Shot. (To fire the rail shot, your target must be stunned, sleeping, or on fire). Our final move is the desperate Vent Heat, which can cool you down once a minute, and give you a chance to deal some heavy damage again.
The mobs aren't challenging - if you've read anything about TOR, you'll be aware that Lucasarts and BioWare's interpretation of heroism is to allow you to fight multiple regular mobs with only one eye to your HP. But once I do confront Huttsbane, I'm given the option to not fight, and take the head of another Evocii in his place. Bounty Hunters have three role-playing options - efficient, merciless, and sympathetic - and just like Mass Effect, the soppier options are delivered with in-character cynicism.
Role-playing doesn't affect your faction, of course. Both factions might have the light and dark path, but there were many thousands of decent German soldiers in the 1940s. That doesn't mean they fought for England.
From TheGalacticStruggle.com
Today, thegalacticstruggle.com managed to get some serious hands on time with Star Wars:The Old Republic and firstly, everyone will be pleased to know that the game is coming along very nicely indeed. After speaking with the guys at LucasArts and Bioware, it’s clear that this game needs to be right when it launches as the expectations from the community are very high. I don’t think any game has so much riding on it and this is probably down to the factors of combining Star Wars and Bioware.
We won’t go too much in to the quest we played today – we will leave that to the other media sites but with our hands on time, we were placed on Hutta as a level 6 Bounty Hunter, taking part in a new story on the planet but probably the most interesting thing was that we were playing as a Ratataki – yes folks – there WILL be playable species in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Players will be able to customise their characters as well. Jake Neri confirmed in our interview that it probably wont be as indepth as the customisation found in Star Wars Galaxies but there will be some variety for players.
During our time with the game, we discovered many neat things dotted around the map – some of which are still work in progress but we did get a chance to take a look in a Spaceport, noticed a few vendors and managed to see inside a Bazaar(auction house). How these elements will play out in the future, we just don’t know as they were not working. Also for the first time, we actually managed to play along side other players – which was alot of fun. I managed to jump in and rescue a couple of others who were pinned down by some of the vile gangsters you will find roaming around Hutta.
Badass Bounty Hunters on Hutta -
[View with PicLens]
The cover system adds a new sense of depth to combat. Instead of the traditional ‘button bashing’ MMO combat, you now actually have to re-think how you will attack. Often, I found myself having to move behind the enemy who were using the crates/speeders/trees as cover, so I could get a clear shot at them and it made the whole experience very engaging.
It’s not Shakespeare but its a damn good story
Personally, one of the biggest surprises was the ’story’. Like some of you, I really didn’t give a rats ass about story as I just wanted to get in to the action and play the ’story’ out myself by actually playing the game. However, once I sat down and the NPC (non player controlled) characters I was interacting with started to speak to me, I suddenly found myself actually CARING about the story and the decisions that I made. This was fantastic! Why? Because from an early stage, you can determine whether you will be a player who actually cares and build up a reputation for being like that, or someone who is a cold hearted killer. By instigating threats for example, you can see how the NPC’s react and importantly, respond. Soon you discover that SWTOR doesnt just become a just game any more – it becomes an engrossing and throughly enjoyable experience. You actually do enjoy the interactions with your surroundings – a great achievement, if you ask me.
Most of the stuff we saw was still work in progress and some ideas might not make the final cut of the game. The developers are trying out lots of new ideas that are either ‘borrowed’ from other MMOs or something that they have created themselves. Amongst traditional Amour/Weapon vendors, we noticed ‘Speeder vendors’ but they werent actually selling Speeders. Instead they appeared to be some sort of taxi service that might put you on a hired speeder bike/transporter and guide you to your chosen Taxi stop. If you think of how the flight masters work in WoW, this is probably how Bioware see this working (IF it stays in the game).
We also saw some kind of personal shuttle device, that might be able to call a shuttle to your location and whisk you away to a different part of the planet, or a new planet altogether but it’s clear that transportation is being taken seriously but how the general mechanics behind how it will work, are yet to be revealed. Our time on Hutta was very enjoyable and as a Star Wars Galaxies vet, I found SWTOR to be very enjoyable and I am extremely excited about the future – bring on the beta!!
So what’s next?
Tomorrow(Friday), we will bring you an exclusive podcast interview with Senior Producer at LucasArts – Jake Neri as we put some of your questions to him about the game. And hopefully, a brand NEW revamped thegalacticstruggle.com website.
On a side note, I would like to thank Adam, Jake, Dan and all the guys at LucasArtsand Bioware for making us so welcome and giving us some extra hands on time. And a big ‘hi-five’ to Deb!! What a great girl.
Well that's cool as shit. I mean, Ratataki aren't really all that amazing or anything, but just the confirmation of playable species is nice. And I like the class specialization thing, can't wait to see the Bounty Hunter's.
Nice stuff. So it seems there might be traditional dps/tank/healing classes, but it'll be spread out and will give players a choice as to what they want to play as.
Thanks for the heads up Reverse. Here's the second page of the eurogamer article
The ranged nature of the Bounty Hunter means I don't get to experience the connection of light sabres, or use cover - in fact, my pale-faced Rikkitaki mercenary is disappointingly familiar. The second quest, however, brings a smile to my face. It's another head-collecting quest, only this time I won't be given the option to take the wrong head, because I've got to deliver it to his wife. Nice.
OK, about those sixteen classes? I'm ushered into a corner with Daniel Erickson, the Lead Writer and Designer on TOR, and told that I can know something special and new: each one of the eight classes will branch into two specialised classes. It's a classic BioWare device, and in this case, it spares them from having to write 16 epic class stories, as the Advanced Classes will share their narrative. Anyway, at some point, a Sith Warrior will get the choice - does he want to become a Juggernaut, or a Marauder? In MMO language: a tank, or hardcore damage-dealer?
And that's just the beginning of your specialisation - this is also World of Warcraft's level 10 Talent Point moment, where you start your journey down those three skill trees you can never completely fill. It's as big and complex as two distinct classes. It's the beginning of your uniquely tweaked character.
And it's now that I must, with regret, refer you back to the first paragraph. It was on the last page, so I'll write it again, to spare Eurogamer from suffering two free page impressions - "BioWare don't like to talk about anything that's still in flux". These are the questions I asked that are met with a good-natured lack of information:
I'll tell you where you can stick your hokey religion, etc.
What will other classes advance into? (We're not currently saying)
How exactly will these skill trees refine the Tank and DPS roles? (We're not currently saying) Is it like, erm, a Paladin? (A bit like that)
When will you get to make the decision? (It's changed a few times, it's not fixed yet)
Given that these branches share a class storyline, will you be able to respec? (Maybe, we're trying to distinguish gameplay from story decisions - you should have to live with your story decisions)
Do you understand how nut-chafing this drip-feed of information can be? (We don't like talking about things that are still in flux)
Something that's always bothered me about The Old Republic write-ups, and something that's been brought up by previous Eurogamer hands-ons, has been the idea of what you do when you're not fighting. Devoid of other players, and with a skeleton crew of NPCs, the world seems sparse. I know this will be fleshed out, but it's still a worry: How will you fill the hundreds of hours that MMOs are expected to fill? Where's my cooking and fishing?
Stop! Boba time.
The answer is equally evasive, but upbeat. There's enough content to fill those hours, I'm told. You won't have the time in a single lifetime to discover all the content. Between the two factions, there are no recycled NPCs. It's Knights of the Old Republic 3 to infinity. If you printed out the script and it rained, the Earth would be covered in papier mache. Is big game.
This is, according to Erickson, the result of a brain experiment where they're trying to recreate the game that they imagined when someone first described MMOs to them. And that's exactly it. That is the lost feeling I've had when reading these previews. I find myself filling in the gaps in the official information with the hope I had when I first installed Anarchy Online. All this vagueness leads to hope. And hope is hardly renowned for its realism.
One thing we can be sure of, though: BioWare's simple commitment to story and meaningful decisions trumps its desire to make an easily described MMO. Having mapped out the nightmare logic of Mass Effect's chapter-spanning decisions, and The Old Republic's eight epic class storylines, this commitment must feel like marrying a serial killer. Sure, it's simple to honour your vows, but it's not always easy. Let's just hope it's fun.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is scheduled for release on PC in spring 2011.
Posts
The Phoenix spell was like a boomerang so changing position dragged it through the mobs on it's return. I think.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
I hope we get hot pink light sabers and laser guns, or neon purple, to go with the force lightning, whenever my sith starts murdering things I want it to look like a rave.
How the Jedi have fallen.
Now I'm even more disappointed. Although I have to say LOTRO's combat wasn't stellar either but that game easily made up for it with quest story and world design.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
I thought it was good.
It was also released some 7 years ago. That's what strikes me about the combat video thus far. Not so much that it looks bad, it just looks dated.
I do hope they get the DA:O guys in there to tart it up a bit though.
Master Flurry is good in that it doesn't penalize you. The Master Critical Strike was way better though, especially if you upped your crit chances with a keen weapon and such. And Master Power Strike actually wasn't that bad either. I thought it just added a flat amount of damage and then I noticed the fine print on my recent playthru that it increases the crit multiplier by one. So if you normally do double damage on a crit, it's triple. I was wrecking shit up with power strike (and a double-bladed saber).
Yeah, no. DA:O's combat is a regression. DA:O's combat is shit. I beat the game twice and the combat is painful and boring.
They need to make sure they make players feel the impact. Sound really helps along with slower animations. When you can see it make contact and hear a thud or lightsaber crackle is when it really gets good.
I don't know if they can do a system in an MMO where a miss, block, hit amd parry each have their own animations. I guess part of the problem is that KoTOR was kind of turn based. You couldn't have 2 auto attacks go off at the same time (If I remember right) or there was some animation for just that scenario.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
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That's asking a lot, speaking on a practical level. In an MMO environment, people aren't in sync with each other. While someone is doing one action, the other person is doing another action, and you can't really code things up to be that dynamic. Well, not easily at any rate.
WoW sort of has a system where misses have 'distinct' animations from hits. I've noticed that they tend to just have a long "recovery" from the swing during a miss, rather than chop-then-pullback. They also have a distinct sound to them (two-handed weapons have a really broad WOOSH sound). So, on that level, things are sort of possible. Parries are going back to my first mini-paragraph there. That takes an amount of sync'ing that is going to be hard to pull off in an MMO environment.
I'll admit that KotOR and KotOR 2 had cool animations for the attacks. But they had very few of them, like you said, that got repetitive. For as much as you're going to see those animations, they should've expanded on them. The whole thing happened however because the game was a single player experience and doubly-so it was turn based. Lot of advantages for the style of animation you crave.
So the question becomes, how do you mimic the look and feel of that single player style in an MMO even if the behind the scenes calulations are different?
Didn't they say there would be not auto-attack? That may be a step in the right direction, if you keep everyone on a global timing system and actions and abilites, including standard attacks, are queued the system could control the flow of the fight a little bit. An example of this is, in KoTOR at certain points during combat you couldn't cancel your current action after it got to a certain point in the turns. The enemy would hit you, lower your hp to a certain "ohh Shit" point and you would have to wait a round to use a heal even though you might not survive their next attack.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
Right now combat looks ok but nothing stand out. I'd love to see more reactive animations whn characters are getting hit/dodging ect. I know the game is a long way off but you know sometimes you see a poor animation in alpha/beta that makes it into live and it's disappointing.
I'm the same way. It's one of those details I just don't really care about. For me, a MMO is way more than the combat. For me it's all about the community, atmosphere, and immersion. It remains to be seen if tor will deliver on any of those.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
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Wait, you could actually tell what was happening in either of those?
They did say they have exciting things planned for E3 though. I'm setting my hopes unnecessarily high that we'll see a near beta version of this game.
SteamID: devCharles
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I am having a difficult time envisioning precisely what the OR 'community experience' is going to consist of...
E3 will be having so many MMO related things to watch for on top of this, I think my brain will pop.
If they do any releases worth noting, it had better involve info on how the game's story will be implemented in an MMO environment, seeing as that is the greatest cause of confusion here. It's really shaping up to be a "you and your friends" type deal, which is kind of hard to manage on this scale.
But isnt that part of the experience itself ?
I find it realy cool that the experience can change depending of the moral constitution of the group.
For example, 3 vote to kill the captain and 1 votes against, we all get the according dark/light points but the captain dies.
I really like that idea. As long as overall consiquences don't hurt each player's options later on. And I beleive they said they won't.
And just like in real life, if you go through a mission with one person who doesn't take it seriously and ops to kill everything no matter what, then you don't ever group with them again. Maybe you're in the same mood and just murdering people sounds fun. Hopefully the two factions will help seperate the types of people who want to be bad and the people who want to be good.
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The first Advanced Classes to be revealed are those for the Sith Warrior. Choosing Juggernaut will shape this warrior into a tough, damage-soaking tank class, while the Marauder is all about channelling rage and maximising damage output.
Looking at the first exclusive screens of the two, it looks like the Juggernaut will feature the heavy body-modifications of Darth Vader, while the Marauder will be able ape Darth Maul's twin-lightsaber fighting style.
Choosing your Advanced Class is a pure gameplay decision rather than a story decision. Advanced Classes will share the same epic narrative, but have different combat styles and play different roles in a group.
Each Advanced Class will have its own skills and abilities that define its role on the battlefield, and in some cases grant access to new weapon and armour types. Choosing one means you won't have any access to the skills of the other.
nd each Advanced Class will have a further three branches of skills to specialise in (equivalent to World of Warcraft's talent specialisation options on a single class). Unlike the Advanced Classes themselves, you can mix and match these if you like, although they're all trained from the same pool of points.
The first two skill trees are particular to your Advanced Class, while the the third is a shared set of skills which expand on the core abilities of the main class.
There's much we still don't know about Advanced Classes: what the other classes will advance into, when you'll make the choice, and whether you'll be able to change your choice at a later date. But it's already clear that the range of options they'll offer the player is impressively large.
The basic recap facts have been worn into my brain, but let's dutifully go through it again: The Old Republic is a fully-voiced, story-led MMO, with eight classes, shocking amounts (fifty novels' worth) of dialogue, and BioWare's trademark branching moral storyline, with consequences that come snapping at your buttocks long after you've forgotten what you've done. Actually, I'm still expecting a slap for killing that captain.
Oh hang on, let me just correct a mistake. There are 16 classes - but we'll come to that later. See, I can prick-tease too.
At EA's showcase yesterday, the first thing that happened was a hands-on of a new class. We were each given a level six bounty hunter, and dropped into a Cantina in front of a quest-giving Hutt. Then, we explored the industrious swamp town of Jiguuna, and a hostile Evocii village.
An exclusive first look at the Sith Warrior Marauder. Darth Maul style.
The Evocii are proud warrior types - they're only hostile because Rikkitaki like us tend to be bounty hunters, bounty hunters work for Nem'ro The Hutt, and Nem'ro tends to send bounty hunters to kill them. Nem'ro's personality is best illustrated by his idle animation - he coughs into his palm, and licks whatever came out.
Worth mentioning at this stage - this is the first non-human playable race. When I ask about others, I'm given an entertainingly evasive answer that they'd only be using humanoid races because love scenes get weird with blobs. If we ever do make contact with lovely blue tit and dick creatures, I can't help but suspect BioWare will be catapulting themselves naked into space.
Our first errand involves killing Huttsbane, the aggressively named hero of a nearby Evocii village. It was my job to fetch his de-bodied head, but he wouldn't acknowledge my presence until I'd killed four of his Evocii Guardians. Not Scouts or Watchers, although they do look similar - Guardians. It's somehow reassuring to note that the adjectival pedantry of MMO kill quests has survived into TOR.
This gave me a chance to try out the six attacks that every low-level Bounty Hunter will have. It's a ranged class, with a weapon use that isn't limited by rage, mana, or energy - the Bounty Hunter has to deal with heat.
The Sith Warrior Juggernaut takes his bow, exclusively on Eurogamer. So Vader was a tank?
Decent attacks - the knockdown area-of-effect Missile Blast, and channelled Flame Thrower - all accumulate heat, and once your guage is full, you're stuck with phaser fire and the longer cooldown attacks like the paralysing Electro Dart, and the hugely damaging, but conditional Rail Shot. (To fire the rail shot, your target must be stunned, sleeping, or on fire). Our final move is the desperate Vent Heat, which can cool you down once a minute, and give you a chance to deal some heavy damage again.
The mobs aren't challenging - if you've read anything about TOR, you'll be aware that Lucasarts and BioWare's interpretation of heroism is to allow you to fight multiple regular mobs with only one eye to your HP. But once I do confront Huttsbane, I'm given the option to not fight, and take the head of another Evocii in his place. Bounty Hunters have three role-playing options - efficient, merciless, and sympathetic - and just like Mass Effect, the soppier options are delivered with in-character cynicism.
Role-playing doesn't affect your faction, of course. Both factions might have the light and dark path, but there were many thousands of decent German soldiers in the 1940s. That doesn't mean they fought for England.
From TheGalacticStruggle.com
We won’t go too much in to the quest we played today – we will leave that to the other media sites but with our hands on time, we were placed on Hutta as a level 6 Bounty Hunter, taking part in a new story on the planet but probably the most interesting thing was that we were playing as a Ratataki – yes folks – there WILL be playable species in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Players will be able to customise their characters as well. Jake Neri confirmed in our interview that it probably wont be as indepth as the customisation found in Star Wars Galaxies but there will be some variety for players.
During our time with the game, we discovered many neat things dotted around the map – some of which are still work in progress but we did get a chance to take a look in a Spaceport, noticed a few vendors and managed to see inside a Bazaar(auction house). How these elements will play out in the future, we just don’t know as they were not working. Also for the first time, we actually managed to play along side other players – which was alot of fun. I managed to jump in and rescue a couple of others who were pinned down by some of the vile gangsters you will find roaming around Hutta.
Badass Bounty Hunters on Hutta -
[View with PicLens]
The cover system adds a new sense of depth to combat. Instead of the traditional ‘button bashing’ MMO combat, you now actually have to re-think how you will attack. Often, I found myself having to move behind the enemy who were using the crates/speeders/trees as cover, so I could get a clear shot at them and it made the whole experience very engaging.
It’s not Shakespeare but its a damn good story
Personally, one of the biggest surprises was the ’story’. Like some of you, I really didn’t give a rats ass about story as I just wanted to get in to the action and play the ’story’ out myself by actually playing the game. However, once I sat down and the NPC (non player controlled) characters I was interacting with started to speak to me, I suddenly found myself actually CARING about the story and the decisions that I made. This was fantastic! Why? Because from an early stage, you can determine whether you will be a player who actually cares and build up a reputation for being like that, or someone who is a cold hearted killer. By instigating threats for example, you can see how the NPC’s react and importantly, respond. Soon you discover that SWTOR doesnt just become a just game any more – it becomes an engrossing and throughly enjoyable experience. You actually do enjoy the interactions with your surroundings – a great achievement, if you ask me.
Most of the stuff we saw was still work in progress and some ideas might not make the final cut of the game. The developers are trying out lots of new ideas that are either ‘borrowed’ from other MMOs or something that they have created themselves. Amongst traditional Amour/Weapon vendors, we noticed ‘Speeder vendors’ but they werent actually selling Speeders. Instead they appeared to be some sort of taxi service that might put you on a hired speeder bike/transporter and guide you to your chosen Taxi stop. If you think of how the flight masters work in WoW, this is probably how Bioware see this working (IF it stays in the game).
We also saw some kind of personal shuttle device, that might be able to call a shuttle to your location and whisk you away to a different part of the planet, or a new planet altogether but it’s clear that transportation is being taken seriously but how the general mechanics behind how it will work, are yet to be revealed. Our time on Hutta was very enjoyable and as a Star Wars Galaxies vet, I found SWTOR to be very enjoyable and I am extremely excited about the future – bring on the beta!!
So what’s next?
Tomorrow(Friday), we will bring you an exclusive podcast interview with Senior Producer at LucasArts – Jake Neri as we put some of your questions to him about the game. And hopefully, a brand NEW revamped thegalacticstruggle.com website.
On a side note, I would like to thank Adam, Jake, Dan and all the guys at LucasArtsand Bioware for making us so welcome and giving us some extra hands on time. And a big ‘hi-five’ to Deb!! What a great girl.
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OK, about those sixteen classes? I'm ushered into a corner with Daniel Erickson, the Lead Writer and Designer on TOR, and told that I can know something special and new: each one of the eight classes will branch into two specialised classes. It's a classic BioWare device, and in this case, it spares them from having to write 16 epic class stories, as the Advanced Classes will share their narrative. Anyway, at some point, a Sith Warrior will get the choice - does he want to become a Juggernaut, or a Marauder? In MMO language: a tank, or hardcore damage-dealer?
And that's just the beginning of your specialisation - this is also World of Warcraft's level 10 Talent Point moment, where you start your journey down those three skill trees you can never completely fill. It's as big and complex as two distinct classes. It's the beginning of your uniquely tweaked character.
And it's now that I must, with regret, refer you back to the first paragraph. It was on the last page, so I'll write it again, to spare Eurogamer from suffering two free page impressions - "BioWare don't like to talk about anything that's still in flux". These are the questions I asked that are met with a good-natured lack of information:
I'll tell you where you can stick your hokey religion, etc.
What will other classes advance into? (We're not currently saying)
How exactly will these skill trees refine the Tank and DPS roles? (We're not currently saying) Is it like, erm, a Paladin? (A bit like that)
When will you get to make the decision? (It's changed a few times, it's not fixed yet)
Given that these branches share a class storyline, will you be able to respec? (Maybe, we're trying to distinguish gameplay from story decisions - you should have to live with your story decisions)
Do you understand how nut-chafing this drip-feed of information can be? (We don't like talking about things that are still in flux)
Something that's always bothered me about The Old Republic write-ups, and something that's been brought up by previous Eurogamer hands-ons, has been the idea of what you do when you're not fighting. Devoid of other players, and with a skeleton crew of NPCs, the world seems sparse. I know this will be fleshed out, but it's still a worry: How will you fill the hundreds of hours that MMOs are expected to fill? Where's my cooking and fishing?
Stop! Boba time.
The answer is equally evasive, but upbeat. There's enough content to fill those hours, I'm told. You won't have the time in a single lifetime to discover all the content. Between the two factions, there are no recycled NPCs. It's Knights of the Old Republic 3 to infinity. If you printed out the script and it rained, the Earth would be covered in papier mache. Is big game.
This is, according to Erickson, the result of a brain experiment where they're trying to recreate the game that they imagined when someone first described MMOs to them. And that's exactly it. That is the lost feeling I've had when reading these previews. I find myself filling in the gaps in the official information with the hope I had when I first installed Anarchy Online. All this vagueness leads to hope. And hope is hardly renowned for its realism.
One thing we can be sure of, though: BioWare's simple commitment to story and meaningful decisions trumps its desire to make an easily described MMO. Having mapped out the nightmare logic of Mass Effect's chapter-spanning decisions, and The Old Republic's eight epic class storylines, this commitment must feel like marrying a serial killer. Sure, it's simple to honour your vows, but it's not always easy. Let's just hope it's fun.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is scheduled for release on PC in spring 2011.
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