Maria Caliban

Yes.

...are you sure you're disagreeing with me? If so, what are you disagreeing about?

Yes, but SW:TOR isn't SWG. Even if it was, it's impossible to know how much letting someone be a Jedi at level 1 hurt the game because: 1. SWG was already doing poorly. 2. The people who were most upset about that feature were the ones who had already played the game for years and liked Jedis being hard. (This is like bringing a steak to a vegetarian potluck.) 3. Older subscribers had all their hard work invalidated. 4. They added that feature with a large number of other, massive changes 5. The community reacted poorly to almost all of these changes. I'd say that these factors make it difficult to determine how the Jedi being a base class in SW:TOR will affect the game. In which I try to speak honestly about history...

Has typhon been in the setting previously? (Not SW knowledgeable)

Can you steal ammo from dead enemies? If I were going to choose between this and STALKER: Clear Sky, which would you recommend?

I can understand that somewhat, but part of me wonders if the 'problem' is more a single-player one. Both KotORs did backflips to make the PC a unique and special snowflake who was oh-so awesome and powerful. I don't think a MMO is about being a unique and special snowflake. If people want to play Jedi, they will. If it means grinding for 55 levels and to open up a new slot, that's what they'll do and 80% of the server will still be Jedis. I think it's better to let people be Jedis right off the bat, and then construct the game with that in mind. Yes, Jedis won't be as rare in as in the movies. They're at their height right now and both the Jedi and the Sith are scouring the galaxy for anyone with a hint of force ability as they know there's going to be another war soon. Try to make a huge enough environment so you're not constantly bumping into other players and create a large number of single-player instances for the storytelling parts. The thing is that I, personally, don't get why there being several thousand Jedi on a server is bothersome. It's right up there with people complaining that guns don't degrade in most FPS and health potions instantaneously give you life back for me.

I'm going to disagree. Say everyone is a force user - how many is that per server? 25,000 divided among Jedi and Sith plus the force using NPCs, but Star Wars is supposed to be an entire galaxy. Even if every PC is a Jedi/Sith, they'd still make up a small part of the galaxy's total population. You just have to imagine that there are a trillion NPCs on each serverwho, completely by coincidence, never show up anywhere. How is being a Jedi different from being a Mage? There will be tons of non-Jedi NPCs. You will probably slaughter thousands of them as you progress in the game. SW:TOR is about playing a hero in a galaxy of regular folk. Yep, 80% of PCs will be lightsaber wielding, but the idea is that the PCs are not the only people in the galaxy.

I'm going to disagree. Say everyone is a force user - how many is that per server? 25,000 divided among Jedi and Sith plus the force using NPCs, but Star Wars is supposed to be an entire galaxy. Even if every PC is a Jedi/Sith, they'd still make up a small part of the galaxy's total population.

That is a spectacular failure. A single player game might be judged on how many units are sold, but a MMORPG is about retaining and gaining customers over time.

Yes! *waves swick around while making swooshy lightsaber sounds* *knows you've done the same*

I think the awesome/suckage dichotomy has struck again. It's a mediocre game, but there are enjoyable parts and the setting is interesting. I played it until I got to a part where you had to have the 'right' build or die. It's a game that encourages specialization.

BioWare Austin's Star Wars: The Old Republic has enough content to fill the shoes of "KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and beyond," according to BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka at the game's announcement earlier today. To that end, lead writer Daniel Erickson has headed a team of 12 full-time writers for several years in crafting storylines tailored to each class. Adding to the complexity, BioWare has brought its trademark moral quandaries into the equation, creating another dimension on which to write compelling storylines. Shacknews talked to Erickson about the considerable writing effort in the long-awaited MMO and learned about a great deal, from moral decisions and Jedi to bunnies and Han Solo. On the way story will work in The Old Republic: "We have classes in the game, and every class has a different story. Every class has a story that will take you from the first level of the game to the last level of the game, and none of those stories are the same. In the same way, faction stuff is split out between the Empire and Republic. So the takeaway note from this is, if you roll a Jedi character and you play them from the first level to the last level, and then you roll a Sith and you play them from the first, you will not see one repeated quest, line of dialogue, or piece of content. It is a 100% different story experience. That is not to say you won't see the opposite side of the conflict. It is about war. We don't play common people. We play huge heroes in the Star Wars universe, which means the war is important." On the strength of class-based story: "You are a Sith. You have a Darth Vader fantasy. You are now playing, for all intents and purposes, a Sith RPG." On how confusing the story will be for newcomers: "What happened to Bastilla? This isn't stuff that we would ever shove into someone's face. People will be playing that have never played a KOTOR game, or have even watched a Star Wars movie. Just like we would for any fantasy game, [as a Jedi starting out] you go to Typhon, you train to be a Jedi, and you learn what it means to be a Jedi." On the idea of choice-based story in an MMO: "You're 60 hours into the game on the light side, and you hit this huge choice. You know exactly what you want to do, and you look for the save button, and you realize there is no save button. I'm gonna make this choice, and this choice is going to be my choice forever. It makes not only the individualism of we're actually telling this story, but the power of making these choices stronger than they've ever been in any BioWare game." On how the story will change depending on your companions: "The things you get to see are going to be dependent on who you're traveling with. If Han had never hooked up on Luke, he would have never had a perspective on the Force." On the possibility of more abstract, Han Solo-type classes: "There are a lot of fantasies in Star Wars, and they're not all Jedi and Sith." On including quests that don't feel "epic": "You will never have a stranger ask you to save her cat. There are no bunnies. There are no rabbits. You are a Jedi. At no point will you be sitting down saying, okay, I have three buttons and a crystal. If I only had some thread, I could make some shoes." On whether this means there won't be crafting: "That is not correct. There will be crafting." SOURCE: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1033

That's simply untrue. If it were, why are so many "Intimidate" options simply "Act Like A Colossal Wanker"? How does it get your job done any better if you sow dissent in your crew with racist statements? How does it get your job better if you insult your crewmembers or the people you're trying to help? The answer to that is in the post you quoted and then edited. How about reading the entire thing instead of once sentence?

Did you unbury it or have to fish for it? Either way, it might not matter, you probably didn't want to use that condom.

You're right. Where are the night elves and their sexy dances BioWare? Where?!

That would be crazy. That would be like people taking little pieces of paper and pretending they were worth gold, or having an electronic version of that paper which represents that gold. This doesn

BioShock Postmortem I think the sequel will be better than the first game. Then again, has anyone noticed that with games sequels are usually as good if not better than the original? I think it just takes an entire game before a development team figures out what they need to do.

Fable on the XBox. It's fun, especially the old guy constantly tell me YOUR HEALTH IS LOW and YOU HAVE A NEW QUEST AT THE GUILD. I teleported in just to try to kill him.

This is going to be an interesting game. I've signed up to the forums and it's a bunch of people from SWG talking about Alpha classes. I don't think they realize this isn't SWG 2. I once read that the Star Wars universe is in a technological stasis. While the aesthetics and emphasis change, unlike modern day technological development, technology has very little actual improvement. The Death Star, for instance, was not impressive because it had new technology, but because previous governments couldn

To which I say: thank goodness. Star Wars isn

James Bond is also radically different from his book incarnation. I'm guessing they'll go with the movie versions as it's aiming to be an action spy game.

Not really. Paragon = follows protocol and directions. Renegade = whatever needed to get the job done. But, like Jade Empire, it was poorly implemented. Which reminds me, any type of personality meter in the game? Dove vs Hawk, Obedient vs Maverick, Isolated vs Friendly?

BioWare/Lucas Arts presents.. Monkey Isle: Rise of the Sith.

I hate plain, white walls. Are you in an apartment or do you have no soul? ... no one's.

Killian Kalthorne = Hades?