Today's Friday update is another entry by Jedi Master Gnost-Dural as he looks at the Great Hyperspace War and where it all went wrong. Here is the official news:
Over the millennia, the Galactic Republic has faced no greater threat to its existence than the brutal invasion instigated by Sith Lord Naga Sadow. It was a time in history when the original Sith Empire had reached the height of its power, and the Republic was poorly prepared for a conflict of such magnitude. Master Gnost-Dural looks back at the Great Hyperspace War and identifies the controversial decision that drove the Sith into exile and set the stage for the Empire’s campaign of vengeance against the Republic.I quite like this update. It tells some of a period I'm not all that familiar with (in fact we'll continue to have that as we go further and further back in history), dealing with a major event that probably most everyone in the galaxy would know about by now (and thus helpful in roleplaying) and keeping plenty of mystery in place for the game itself. And it shows the Republic as capable of not only making big mistakes, but also being aware of this (or at least the Jedi are aware of it as per Gnost-Dural's observations).
BTC 1347 – When two hyperspace explorers stumbled onto the remote world of Korriban, they never could have guessed the chain of events they were setting into motion. Over the previous centuries, the Sith Empire had grown in size and strength, and Korriban was the very heart of its dominion. The reigning Sith Lord, Marka Ragnos, had just died, sparking a brutal power struggle between rivals Ludo Kressh and Naga Sadow. The explorers’ arrival marked the first contact between the Republic and the Sith Empire, and it created at an opportunity to end the power struggle. Naga Sadow seized the moment and rallied the Sith for a pre-emptive strike against the Republic under his leadership. The ensuing series of battles saw the Republic nearly destroyed, but Naga Sadow’s machinations ultimately backfired, and the Republic drove the Sith back to Korriban. The Supreme Chancellor then directed Republic forces to ensure the Sith never returned… by annihilating their civilization entirely—a move which would ultimately come back to haunt the Republic centuries later…
Watch the latest Timeline holorecord, The Great Hyperspace War , narrated by actor Lance Henriksen.
You can also download a high resolution version of this video.
Read on after the break for the full transcript of the timeline update, an interview concerning crew skills, an update on the HeroEngine and a couple of bits from the Dice Summit. And a whole load of developer quotes from the forums.
Let's start with the full timeline transcript again:
AMONG PAST THREATS TO THE REPUBLIC-THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR STANDS ABOVE ALL OTHER WARS IN GALACTIC HISTORY.I can just eat up lore update. Yummmmm.
IN FACT, THE BATTLE WE FIGHT TODAY IS IN MANY WAYS AN EXTENSION OF THIS SAME CONFLICT.
THE SITH EMPIRE WE BELIEVED WE HAD DESTROYED IN THIS WAR HAS NOW RETURNED TO AVENGE ITS DEFEAT.
THE HISTORICAL FACTORS THAT SET THE STAGE FOR THE MODERN CONFLICT BEAR CLOSE EXAMINATION.
I BELIEVE THE GREATEST FACTOR OF ALL MAY HAVE BEEN THE WAY THE REPUBLIC CONCLUDED THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR.
THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR BEGAN AT A TIME WHEN THE REPUBLIC HAD ENJOYED SEVERAL MILLENNIA OF PEACE, GROWTH, AND CONSOLIDATION.
IN CONTRAST, THE SITH EMPIRE WAS ENDING ITS CENTURIES-LONG ADOLESCENT PERIOD.
UNDISCOVERED BY THE REPUBLIC, THE SITH HAD CONQUERED ALL THE STAR SYSTEMS NEAR KORRIBAN.
THEY WERE NOW SEEKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPANSION.
AT THIS TIME, A BRUTAL POWER STRUGGLE HAD BROKEN OUT FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE SITH RULER.
AMONG THE CONTENDERS WAS THE DARK LORD, NAGA SADOW.
WHETHER BY CHANCE OR BY DESTINY, IT WAS AT THIS TIME THAT TWO REPUBLIC EXPLORERS STUMBLED ONTO KORRIBAN.
NAGA SADOW SEIZED THIS OPPORTUNITY TO GAIN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE.
THE EXPLORERS WERE IMPRISONED AS SPIES, BUT NAGA SADOW STAGED AN ATTACK TO LIBERATE ONE OF EXPLORERS AND LEFT EVIDENCE SUGGESTING THE ATTACK WAS A REPUBLIC MILITARY OPERATION.
LEVERAGING THE WIDESPREAD FEAR OF AN IMPENDING REPUBLIC INVASION, NAGA SADOW RALLIED THE SITH TO UNITE BEHIND HIS CAUSE—A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST THEIR NEWLY DISCOVERED ENEMIES.
EAGER FOR WAR, THE PEOPLE EMBRACED NAGA SADOW AS THEIR NEW RULER.
HIS FIRST ACT WAS TO LAUNCH A BRUTAL ASSAULT AGAINST THE REPUBLIC.
THE SITH ARMIES ATTACKED ON SEVERAL FRONTS, INCLUDING CORUSCANT ITSELF.
NAGA SADOW COMMANDED ALL HIS FORCES FROM A MEDITATION SPHERE SUSPENDED OVER A GIANT STAR.
THE INITIAL ONSLAUGHT OVERWHELMED THE REPUBLIC’S UNPREPARED DEFENSES.
THE SITH EMPIRE’S VICTORY WAS ALMOST ASSURED, BUT AS HAPPENS SO OFTEN, THE DARK SIDE TURNS UPON ITSELF.
NAGA SADOW WAS BETRAYED BY HIS APPRENTICE.
THOUGH THE APPRENTICE WAS DEFEATED, THE ATTACK DID SUCCEED IN BREAKING NAGA SADOW’S BATTLE MEDITATION. THE TIDE OF THE WAR TURNED.
THE SITH WERE LOST WITHOUT THEIR LEADER’S DIRECTION AND REPUBLIC FORCES SOON CHASED THE INVADERS BACK TO THE VERY DOORSTEP OF NAGA SADOW’S MEDITATION SPHERE.
RECOGNIZING HIS IMMINENT DEFEAT, THE SITH LORD ABANDONED HIS FORCES AND STARTED A CHAIN OF EVENTS TO DESTROY THE NEARBY STAR AND EVERYTHING IN ITS VICINITY.
NAGA SADOW FLED BACK TO KORRIBAN, ONLY TO DISCOVER RENEWED OPPOSITION TO HIS RULE.
CIVIL WAR BROKE OUT, WHITTLING AWAY WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE SITH EMPIRE’S ALREADY WEAKENED ARMIES.
NAGA SADOW DEFEATED THE UPSTARTS, BUT THE SITH WERE DEFENSELESS WHEN THE REPUBLIC FLEET ATTACKED SHORTLY THEREAFTER.
AS THE REPUBLIC FLEET WIPED UP WHAT REMAINED OF THE SITH MILITARY, NAGA SADOW FLED AGAIN, THIS TIME INTO PERMANENT EXILE ON YAVIN-FOUR.
IT WAS AT THIS MOMENT THE REPUBLIC MADE WHAT MIGHT NOW BE CONSIDERED A MISTAKE:
THE SITH NO LONGER POSED A THREAT TO THE REPUBLIC, BUT THE SUPREME CHANCELLOR WAS UNSATISFIED.
JEDI AND REPUBLIC FORCES WERE SENT TO KORRIBAN AND OTHER SITH PLANETS TO ENSURE NO REMNANTS OF THE SITH EMPIRE REMAINED.
IT WAS THIS ACTION WHICH DROVE THE SURVIVING SITH TO FLEE INTO DEEP SPACE WITH THE NEW DARK LORD WHO ROSE TO TAKE NAGA SADOW’S PLACE…
THE SAME DARK LORD THEY CONTINUE TO CALL ‘EMPEROR’ TO THIS DAY.
I BELIEVE THIS WAS WHY HE LED HIS PEOPLE TO REBUILD THEIR CIVILIZATION ON DROMUND KAAS, AND THIS WAS WHY THEY RETURNED THIRTEEN CENTURIES LATER TO GET REVENGE AGAINST THE REPUBLIC.
ONE MUST WONDER HOW THINGS MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IF THE REPUBLIC HAD HANDLED THE END OF THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR DIFFERENTLY…
WE MUSTN'T FORGET, THOUGH, THE CONFLICT AT THE HEART OF THE GREAT HYPERSPACE WAR AND THE WAR WE FIGHT TODAY BEGAN EVEN BEFORE THE SITH EMPIRE ROSE TO POWER.
I’LL ELABORATE IN THE NEXT HOLO-RECORD.
Over at Ask A Jedi they asked someone else instead in a quite in-depth Q&A with Damion Schubert on Crew Skills. Here's an excerpt:
Ask A Jedi: Another concern regarding missions that might award dark or light side points is that it trivializes the morality system, essentially allowing you to “grind morality.” How is this system intended to work?There's quite a lot of good stuff in there, like hinting at some tinkering system for lightsabers, guns and vibroblades, and well worth a read.
Damion Schubert: The system is less designed to allow you to ‘grind’ morality than it is to allow you to correct some bad decisions – which is fairly vital in an MMORPG, where you have no reload button. It would take a pretty hefty time and cash investment to use this system to ‘grind’ morality.
Soemthing I didn't know, though not directly related to The Old Republic, is that apparently late last year HeroEngine (which is being used to build The Old Republic as well) was bought from Simutronics by Idea Fabrik in Germany. And now Idea Fabrik is setting up a new MMO development team. As Gamasutra reports:
I'm not sure how I could've missed the original buy; must've flow relatively under the radar. But I'm interested in finding out what projects this Second Star Interactive (SSI? That must ring a bell among the oldschool gamers) and Idea Fabrik are making.Germany-headquartered Idea Fabrik quietly purchased the HeroEngine development platform and technology from Simutronics late in 2010, and now the company's founded a new game development studio in northern Virginia called Second Star Interactive.
The studio will be run by Darrin Hyrup, former executive and co-founder of Electronic Arts' Mythic studio, and Idea Fabrik says Second Star Interactive will employ a number of Mythic vets, as well as staff with experience at Bethesda Softworks and Sony Online Entertainment.
According to Neil Harris, who's president of IdeaFabrik's U.S. HeroEngine operations, owning an actual game development studio is a "critical" way to stay close to the platform's user community.
"Darrin and the Second Star team bring a wealth of experience and practical contributions to the table that will help us grow both as a technology provider and as a company," he says.
Second Star Interactive will operate as a division of Idea Fabrik's wholly-owned U.S. arm, IF Studios. Idea Fabrik has an art studio in Ukraine called IT Lagoon, with which the studio will work on development projects and on showcasing HerEngine.
Says Idea Fabrik chairman Alex Shalash: "We at Idea Fabrik are extremely excited about the launch of the Second Star Interactive studio, especially in the current environment of high growth in online game development, where the competition for high quality talent is very strong among both well-established players and the new breed of well-financed casual game developers."
Simutronics originally developed and launched the HeroEngine in 2006. It's since been licensed to "dozens" of developers globally, and is notably used in upcoming BioWare MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. IdeaFabrik also has a HeroEngine project in-house that it says will launch "later this year", and says many third-parties will also reveal projects developed with the tech in 2011.
This week the Dice Summit (a networking gathering of game development industry leaders) is being held (if I'm not mistaken it finishes later today). And a couple of things came out of that.
As reported by Gamesindustry.biz and GameSpot the BiOWare doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (who were inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame and who won big with Mass Effect 2 at the Interactive Achievement Awards during the summit) spoke at the Dice Summit's keynote address. They talked about change, about WoW and SWTOR. Here's a quote from both articles:
"In some ways they [Blizzard] cracked this market wide open. Obviously Star Wars is a very big licence and it's something that when done right - and it's something we did right with KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) years ago - it's an incredible force multiplier on your efforts. We've added things so that anyone that plays it knows it's a BioWare game.And from GameSpot:
"It's not like we're actually going out there to beat anyone, we're going out to place. The audience will tell us if we have a place," [Greg Zeschuk] concluded.
With [Blizzard's] Morhaime's presence on the stage noted, Zeschuk and Muzyka were then asked how they hope to compete in the massively multiplayer online space, and in particular, what can they bring to the table. Zeschuk began by noting that World of Warcraft remains the touchstone in the industry, and it proves that big games still work. He also said that because of WOW's influence, it is important to maintain the standards that the game established.There is a lot of sense in what they're saying about how the game relates to WoW (which frankly has been overblown some by the online community who seem to see it as BioWare saying that they're just making WoW all over again), but at the same time comparisons to WoW remain to be a sensitive issue with the community. There is truth in that nobody wants a WoW with lightsabers (people who like WoW will play WoW), and I also believe that a lot of success for WoW was a bit of a fluke. It's not healthy to take it too much as the shining example of MMOs. Though maybe I'm just saying that because I couldn't stand WoW for a number of reasons.
That said, Zeschuk noted that anyone who plays Star Wars: The Old Republic will see that it is a BioWare game. Second, he said that they aren't going out there to beat anyone, in that they aren't positing the game as the oft-feared, never-materialized WOW killer. Lastly, Zeshuck said that delivering superior service is of the utmost importance for BioWare, even if it is an incredibly intimidating project to take on.
Muzyka then chimed in, saying that BioWare does, in fact, have ample experience in the field of games-as-service, given many team members' backgrounds with Mythic Entertainment. For BioWare, he said, it's about collaboration, as well as finding the best and the brightest and building off of their communal experience.
GameSpot also has a video interview with the two Doctors taken during the Dice Summit:
The video is a lot of them talking how enjoyable they find the MMO, which isn't really that surprising. It's nice to hear what kinds of things they liked (such as the first time that you get your ship), but one wouldn't really expect them to say that they found the game a horrible bore or anything even if it was (which I don't think it is).
And yeah, 2011 is looking to be a rather insane year for BioWare with Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic all coming out this year.
Now all that's remain is the...
Developer Quotes
I'm trying something different with the developer quotes this week. Though in the end you probably shouldn't notice much difference. Instead of looking at the devtracker on Friday and making a list of all developer quotes at that time, I decided to try and keep track of them throughout the week, preparing the post ahead of time. That should save a lot of time on Friday (added on Friday: which is a good thing considering how much stuff there was to deal with in general today). I've also considered just posting them right away, but then the blog would become mostly dev quote posts (at least if the developers keep up the current level of posting).The main difference you might notice is likely a slightly higher number of quoted posts. We'll see how it goes.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on soloing Flashpoints.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on holstering weapons.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on release window.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on instancing.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on faction balance.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on class abilities.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on class abilities, part 2.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on TORSyndicate podcast interview.
- [link] to Daniel Erickson on Sith being evil.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on class abilities, part 3.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on class abilities, part 4.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on companion characters.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on outdated ability descriptions.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on changing abilities.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on solo story.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on soloing Flashpoints, part 2.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on animation updated.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on developers being more talkative.
- [link] to Georg Zoeller on advanced classes respec.
- [link] to Damion Schubert on ingame economics.
- [link] to Damion Schubert on xp for gray mobs.
- [link] to David Bass on updating fansite kit.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on unanswered questions.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on ingame marriage and Scotland.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on unanswered questions, part 2.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on unanswered questions, part 3.
- [link] to Stephen Reid on news site exclusives.
I'm pretty sure you can't solo them all...Despite his assurances that there's plenty of solo content too I'm still kind of bummed out by this. This might just be a desire to have all kinds of content created for me to enjoy, but I was kind of hoping that they'd do some kind of scaling thing for Flashpoints so that solo players at least can experience them. Such a system would also be very good, I think, as a difficulty setting so that groups who find the content too easy (and there will be those, guaranteed) can up the difficulty a bit. That's one thing that you can do with instanced content which you can't as easily with other content.
That's because I have a looping video of Darth Vader explaining the price of failure as a screensaver along with the words: "Failure ... a player in the Game Testing Program soloing a Flashpoint".
We might or might not ease that definition for the introductory Flashpoint - that's certainly possible if testing tells us it is needed - but once you're past the opening period of the game, Flashpoints sit squarely in full group difficulty territory.
Don't worry - there's plenty of exciting content for the solo player, too.
Later he followed up on this with this post:
Flashpoints are designed as group experiences that cannot be soloed at equal level (ie a Level 30 Flashpoint can't be defeated by a solo Level 30 character). That is unlikely to ever change.Let me just say that I hope that they'll manage to do that. Though that leaves the question about max-level Flashpoints. Maybe I'll manage to convince some friends to play the game with me (if we're tired of LotRO by that point that has a decent chance).
Ideally, I'd definitely like to allow players to solo a Flashpoint when they are significantly above the Flashpoint's intended level. As of now, we haven't really looked at that too closely, as we are balancing the intended group experience first.
If we can make it work, I don't see why we wouldn't do it - if a player finds entertainment by soloing a Flashpoint, that's a good thing in my book.
The next post is by Stephen Reid about the release window for The Old Republic:
Everyone at BioWare and EA is working to ensure that Star Wars: The Old Republic is delivered at the quality level you expect from BioWare and Star Wars.There's nothing really new in there, it's been known for a bit now (most recently re-confirmed during the EA earnings call) that its release window is now "sometime in 2011, after March" from its earlier "spring 2011". Personally I still expect that to be sometime in the Fall (September or October).
Star Wars: The Old Republic is expected to launch this year after the close of EA's fiscal 2011 (which ends March 31st, 2011). Information on the release date and pre-order programs will be released as it becomes available.
Georg Zoeller has a post about instancing as well:
For the average planet, I'd say that 85+% of space is located in open, non phased areas.I think that this is mostly them re-iterating again what they've said before. With how story-driven they keep saying that SWTOR is I think that most people keep expecting it to be mostly instanced solo areas. That is after all the easiest way to do story in a multiplayer game; by removing the other players (and effectively making it a single-player/cooperative game). And people thus need reassurance that it truly is a shared space.
That's average of course. Origin planets, with their focus on introducing the player to the story and their character, generally have a higher density of phased space, while vast open planets like Hoth or Tatooine have less in relation to their huge size.
Though I must say that personally I would've been quite happy with a much more instance-driven experience (hence why I'm disappointed as well that the Flashpoints are mostly group-oriented). I guess that's the part of me that just wants a single-player follow-up to the previous KotOR games (one that I can play with others if I so choose). I somehow can't shake the feeling that in the public spaces a lot of the story will be lost as everyone will be doing the same quests, doing the same stories, going after the same things. It will, I fear, make the stories feel hollow if that guy I've got to arrest just gets arrested again a minute later by the next person.
But we'll see.
Georg also made a post about how they're watching the player populations during their testing:
During Game Testing, we've been watching closely which class players decide to play at various times - such as:Since faction balance mostly affects PvP, I must admit that I personally don't really care about how balanced or not the factions are. It doesn't change my Republic stories if there are twice as many Imperial players as I won't encounter them anyway (at least not in a story context).
... and so on.
- The first time they create a character
- 2 hours after that (player time, not real time)
- 6 hours after that
- 12 hours after that
- 24 hours after that
- 2 days after that
Imbalances are bad for business (especially for PvP), so we have a vested interest in achieving faction parity. We're interested enough that we've even looked at the impact of new content information being released on those numbers.
That said, while testing we also discovered this: which faction people choose generally does not change based on what's the current 'hot topic' on the forums. In fact, people are surprisingly resilient even against heavyweight marketing like trailers.
It's almost as if people's favorite Star Wars fantasy is a much more powerful driver on what they want to play than day to day Forum chatter.
And, to give you some peace of mind - in Game Testing so far, it seems like the supporters of Empire and Republic are very evenly matched, at least within the statistical margin of error at this point.
That won't rule out imbalance developing due to other external factors (e.g. large guilds settling on a server, regional differences, etc) but, again, we are aware of such things and will do our best to minimize imbalances in the actual game.
Short version: There are things that can affect faction balance, but the cycle of news releases to our community does not seem to be a significant factor at all. If it was, well, I don't think the community would take it all that well if we started delaying availability of information because of this.
I will say this though. Just because two factions have roughly the same number of players doesn't mean that the factions also have roughly the same number of PvP players. And player distribution during testing probably isn't a very good indicator either. But I'm sure that BioWare is keeping such things in mind.
Georg also made a number of posts about skills from base classes and how they interact with the advanced classes. There's some interesting stuff there. Here's a couple of his posts on the topic. Post one:
Just staying high level here (since we continue to heavily modify skills as part of balancing, and I don't want to get anyones hope up - or downPost two:)...
As explained on the Advanced Classes page, each AC has three skill trees - two unique to the Advanced Class and one shared between all Advanced Classes for the same base class.
Skills such as the 15 -> 30m range upgrade mentioned in this thread could be on an a skill tree that is unique to the Sage, since the Shadow isn't much about ranged combat.
Other skills that modify Project could be on the skill tree unique to the Shadow or on the shared skill tree so both Advanced Classes could get access to them.
Ability ranks replace previous version, so if you get Benevolence II, it replaces Benevolence I.Post three:
The number of combat abilities a character has to juggle is definitely something we look at closely (e.g. we want to make sure you don't juggle 4 full bars at all times), but we haven't settled exactly on what our maximum comfortable limit is yet.
The majority, but not all, of active abilities definitely come out of the core class, although, as mentioned in this thread before, they can be pretty heavily modified by Advanced Class skill choices.
We've been working on class skills and abilities pretty heavily over the last couple of weeks, so a lot of the stuff that is floating out there from previous demos is no longer valid (and I'm sure we're going to go through this a couple of times before ship based on feedback from our game testers - we're pretty efficient at iterating this kind of stuff).
All those old tooltips are irrelevant, outdated, etc. They don't warrant long discussions here, because most of what you read in there will not be in the game in that form by the time we ship.I find it quite interesting that base class skills not only continue to be useful (by continually being upgraded), but also can change depending on what choices you make in your advanced class. And that third post I find interesting because it shows that all those skills lists posted in various places (both leaked lists and lists from demos and such) are basically useless. Anyway, can't wait to see how it really works out in the end.
We iterate very actively on abilities based on Game Testing feedback and metrics and it is not uncommon for entire skill trees to change or even disappear as we are balancing the game for gameplay, fun, and of course PvP.
We could have long discussions about Benevolence or other abilities, but they might not even be in the game anymore at this point (or not part of the base class anymore). (PS - This is not a subtle hint one way or another.)
Obviously we can't stop people from writing down every technical detail they see at a convention, but honestly, doing something like that at this stage is, in my opinion, just wasting people's time.
Cheers
Daniel Erickson made a very interesting post (he seems to be in the habit of doing that, but maybe that's because I'm just very interested in lore) about the Sith being evil. Here it is in its entirety:
Hey Folks,That definitely sounds very interesting and could make playing a lightside Sith quite interesting I think. Of course I still question whether a Force user based on rage can really be lightside, but it makes it very tempting to make my Agent character perhaps more lightside than I was first planning (which was more neutral/selfish).
First of all, let me say that I love this thread. It always makes me smile to see people really digging into the setting and thinking about how it works together. Star Wars has a fascinating universe that is almost fairy tale simple on the surface and endlessly complex underneath. There is room for exceptions to every rule and variations on every theme. But in the interest of time, I'll keep this post to the general. The rule, not the exception.
Sith are evil.
The Sith philosophy is evil and encourages evil in its participants. We can get into endless philosophical discussions about whether anything is actually evil or actually good but if we are speaking from our modern, western view on the concept of evil then the Sith clearly qualify. They are encouraged to put the personal over the group, power over compassion and to judge everything's worthiness to survive on its ability to fight for that survival. Mercy, sympathy, generosity, these are seen as weaknesses. Anger and rage are seen as strengths. These are not people most of us want to work with or have as neighbors.
That does not mean, however, that the Sith see themselves as evil.
In our own world, slavery as something that is inherently evil is something the majority of the world has agreed about only in the most recent centuries. Imperialism, expansion through conquest, the rights of the few to rule the many because of birthright - these are things that our world's cultures have accepted as the natural order for a far larger percentage of history than they have rejected them.
In the Star Wars universe, followers of the Sith philosophy genuinely believe that these things we deem evil, are actually in the best interests of a society. They look at the disorder, corruption and infighting of the Republic and they scoff. "What those people lack," an Imperial thinks, "is strong leadership."
It's important to remember that movements towards freedom normally come during the reign of weak, distracted, or greedy rulers who are not providing for their people. The Sith Empire has had 1000 years under an Emperor who rebuilt them from almost nothing, led them in conquest and glory against their neighbors, returned the Empire to power and then led them in revenge against the Republic. A Republic who had previously attempted to eliminate the Empire's entire existence because of their beliefs. If this was ancient Rome the vast majority of the people would throw the Emperor a victory parade, not ask for representational government.
It's equally important to remember that you don't have to believe in any of this to play on the Empire's side in The Old Republic. You can be the exception to the rule. You are merely making a choice to be someone who was born on that side of the fence. Or, in the case of the Bounty Hunter, someone who tends to work in that part of space. The light side Sith who works tirelessly to make his Empire a better place is a deeply compelling character. The pragmatic Agent who wants nothing more than to protect the millions non-Sith citizens from harm is equally interesting. The Bounty Hunter gets to be his own man and spit right in the face of anyone who he doesn't agree with. Being a good man in a bad place is one of the all time great role-playing options.
So when you roll a character on the Empire side you're going to hear the arguments about why the war is important. You're going to feel the anger of a people who were told they didn't have the right to exist and were chased out of known space. You're going to see the culture that created and maintains their hierarchy and strange form of order. And you're going to make a choice about how much or how little of it your character wants to believe. Then you're going to start making choices. That's when it gets hard.
Hope that helps!
Daniel
Thanks for that insight, Daniel.
Another post by Georg Zoeller talks about the potential for respeccing your advanced class. Here it is:
Plenty of interesting discussion here.The thing I find most interesting there is the (re)affirmation that the advanced classes are really supposed to be seen as separate classes, and not just as 'specs' within the same class. I haven't played (much of) WoW, but I'd imagine it's something like having the Warrior and Paladin sharing one skill tree and otherwise being completely separate. Puts things into perspective to have to spelled out so clearly like that.
A few things from our point of view:
Ultimately, testing will tell us what we'll go with for launch, but even then - MMOs change, new content is added, player preferences emerge and change, so this is likely one of those topics we will be frequently discussing even after launch to ensure the design matches the expectations of our players and does not introduce unwelcome side effects.
- Your Advanced Class choice very much defines how your character plays from the moment you choose it. Their impact is more akin to that of a different class in other MMOs than that of a different 'spec'. A Sith Sorcerer is very, very different from a Sith Assassin.
- As mentioned before, the ability to respec your skills is definitely in the game. At this point, it costs credits but has no other requirements or limitations. The exact cost will be fine tuned, probably until ship, in conjunction with the rest of the economy - so giving precise numbers at this point isn't helpful.
- We haven't made up our mind yet about the availability of an Advanced Class respec. We are evaluating all options (no Advanced Class respec, fixed cost respec, respec cost increasing with level, etc.).
- A lot of thought currently goes into the consequences of Advanced Class respec - if we allow it, it will require players to relearn their entire approach to combat (which they learned over many many hours before) and replace the majority of their equipment, so it's not a thing we would want the player to do lightly, or just out of curiosity.
With all this said - thank you very much for your continued feedback and thoughts on the topic. We are actively reading and discussing the topic frequently.
Damion Schubert made a few posts as well, one being about getting experience for killing mobs you're out-leveled:
If you kill things that are a much lower level than you, you will get less XP. The formula is complex (and prone to change as part of Game Testing) but right now if you kill something more than ten levels below you, you will probably get zero XP.Nothing really special there; something that's quite usual as far as MMOs go. I just strongly hope that such mobs (mobs you get little experience for) also don't aggro you as it can be quite irritating to go through a low-level zone only to be constantly harassed by mobs that don't pose any threat to you and that you don't get much experience for either. Hopefully their aggro range scales (down) based on the distance between levels (of mob and player).
If you kill things that are a much lower level than you, but above the level of a group member, that group member will get grossly reduced XP compared to if he killed it himself. Again, the formula is complex, but the short form is that if you're going to twink a group member, you're best off killing things near your level and keeping your party member relatively nearby -- and nearby in a dangerous area means that he's in risk of being killed by aggressive aggro, backspawn, etc.
Phew, that was a lot. See you again when there's more to report.
[link] to Crew Skills Q&A with Damion Schubert at Ask A Jedi.
[link] to new HeroEngine developer news at Gamasutra.
[link] to Dice Summit post at GamesIndustry.
[link] to Dice Summit post at GameSpot.
[link] to video interview with Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk at GameSpot.
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