SWTOR closed beta invites going out

You can't change sides; dark/light side is simply independent of Sith Empire / Republic.

IE you can be an Agent with a heart of gold but that doesn't mean you can do shit with Republic players. It's still the same old WoWesque two faction system. In addition to the usual story implications / dialogue choices of all BioWare games, the light/dark side will apparently have some effect on player progression in terms of abilities etc.

BioWare did hint early on that faction changes might eventually be possible. I would hope they could devise some in-game way to do that rather than a paid service, but that seems unlikely.

Also, when you registered for beta has nothing to do with whether or not you were selected in this phase, in all likelihood.
 
Window said:
bleh that sucks, the 2 faction system pisses me off
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Maybe it's the Star Wars geek in me, but it seems like a ridiculous system to have the faction be completely independent of the light/dark side alignment. Seems like a huge missed opportunity. If BioWare is all about story, why make a game where there's no real consequence for turning to the dark side?

2 faction system is just much easier to manage...that's all there is to it.
 
Keep in mind it's the Old Republic, so they're free to step outside of canon for gameplay reasons. You'd never have a lowly Trooper able to take on a seasoned Jedi by himself, but that's more or less how they're building it.

It'll be a good game just because it's Bioware and they give a shit about putting out a good product. But it will never appease the throngs of diehard fanboys.
 
Data said:
Keep in mind it's the Old Republic, so they're free to step outside of canon for gameplay reasons. You'd never have a lowly Trooper able to take on a seasoned Jedi by himself, but that's more or less how they're building it.

It'll be a good game just because it's Bioware and they give a shit about putting out a good product. But it will never appease the throngs of diehard fanboys.
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the throngs of diehard fanboys will whine about how they cant use a saberstaff as a jedi knight and only as a jedi consular and then they'll get over it and play the game. i can almost guarantee it
 
Data said:
Keep in mind it's the Old Republic, so they're free to step outside of canon for gameplay reasons. You'd never have a lowly Trooper able to take on a seasoned Jedi by himself, but that's more or less how they're building it.

It'll be a good game just because it's Bioware and they give a shit about putting out a good product. But it will never appease the throngs of diehard fanboys.
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The fact that it goes against canon is only a small part of the reason I think the 2 faction system is retarded. There are myriad gameplay ramifications that are also unfortunate.

You don't have to be a diehard fanboy to not approve of the aspects of this game that will be carbon-copied from WoW.

And this is coming from an admitted BioWare fanboy. I will buy the shit out of this game simply because it has their name stamped on it, alongside one of my favorite IPs. It's just regrettable that for all the money EA is throwing at this project it's looking like it's just going to be WoW: Star Wars. Of course, they have plenty of time to prove me wrong.
 
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I think there's a bit of psychology behind that decision (2 warring factions).

I could be wrong though.
 
Data said:
I think there's a bit of psychology behind that decision (2 warring factions).

I could be wrong though.
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It's because WoW proved it's easier to manage an MMO (and arguably more lucrative) when players have fewer choices and are spoon-fed decisions and content. BioWare is somewhat progressive at least by having story decisions (allegedly) be irreversible and carry consequences. I hope they stick to their guns on making advanced classes permanent as well.

They could certainly execute a warring faction system without forcing players to pick one side or the other; it would just be harder to do.

With a more open system, there would be more story opportunities, it would make the dark/light side meter more meaningful, it would solve the central problem with implementing a player bounty system, and it would simply make more logical sense for all of the classes.

The only things it would hinder are battlegrounds and starter zones for leveling up (even that's debatable) and of course ease of development.

Like I said, there is a lot to like about this game so far and I will be buying it most certainly. It simply has the same faults that other WoWesque MMOs have. That's just my opinion. There are plenty of people on the SWTOR forums doing nothing but hailing BioWare for the decision to make the game in the vein of WoW. I can't get my head around why anyone would want to play the exact same game in a different universe, but I guess to each their own.
 
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If you've seen how they're doing the scripted story elements, I think it's obvious how Bioware is setting up the story for each character within the context of the war. They're going to be limited in terms of development time and storage space with how far they can allow players to craft their own unique story. It's still "choose your own adventure", but within the framework of Republic versus Empire. There has to be that initial foundation if you ever want the game to come out. :p:
 
Data said:
If you've seen how they're doing the scripted story elements, I think it's obvious how Bioware is setting up the story for each character within the context of the war. They're going to be limited in terms of development time and storage space with how far they can allow players to craft their own unique story. It's still "choose your own adventure", but within the framework of Republic versus Empire. There has to be that initial foundation if you ever want the game to come out. :p:
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Disagree completely, but I'm not going to argue with you about it.

We have fundamentally differing views of what this MMO should be, and what it's capable of being. Given where they are now, I agree that it's obviously too late to do anything but a two-faction system (it's been in development since 2006); I was simply stating I disagree with it wholeheartedly.

A lot of that is because the two-faction system completely fucking ruins Bounty Hunter. It's because of that that there will probably be no player bounty system, so essentially BH is an RDPS class that happens to be called BH :rofl:
 
my only beef with the 2 faction system is that if i want to play a bounty hunter or something and my best friend wants to be a smuggler, we can't group or interact (at least thats how wow was and seems that this one will be)

so i'd be cool if i could kill a bunch of good jedi npc's as a smuggler and turn to the dark side and play with him
 
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for it to be exactly like you describe. Star Wars Galaxies had that open-ended aspect and it worked wonderfully. I'm just being realistic about what Bioware can accomplish with their current design goals.
 
--chaingun said:
A lot of that is because the two-faction system completely fucking ruins Bounty Hunter. It's because of that that there will probably be no player bounty system, so essentially BH is an RDPS class that happens to be called BH :rofl:
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there are bounty hunter terminals ingame. nobody knows what they are for yet.

also bounty hunters can also be primary tanks :V
 
Walking_Man said:
there are bounty hunter terminals ingame. nobody knows what they are for yet.

also bounty hunters can also be primary tanks :V
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Source on the first part?

I assume they're for hunting NPCs.

If there are player bounties, there will almost certainly have to be unique content for every single class, which I highly doubt BioWare is willing to do. Plus people will inevitably whine about even remotely involuntary PvP...there's just no way it's going to happen.
 
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What's the deal with player ships?

I saw the E3 video about them, but prior to that I'd never heard ANYTHING about ships for this game. What's up with that?
 
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