3201

I’m glad that I’m not the only one that read that piece of crap. My thoughts:

Revan book spoilers

The book was awful. Instead of telling a good, cohesive story it felt like (1) a terrible attempt to reconcile Revan’s absence from KOTOR 2 while also answering why he didn’t take any of his companions with him and (2) a setup for Revan, Meetra and Scourge to all still be alive at the time TOR takes place. As a prequel to TOR it was successful in that even though I hated it, it still somehow made me more excited to play the game.

3202

The more I’m thinking about it, the more I’m concerned about the inability to respec from tank to healer, or more importantly from dedicated DPS to tank, etc, in the endgame. I feel like I have to plan out what I want my characters to have so there’s a balance among them in case I have to fill in on a raid. I’m also not a fan of having to learn how to heal on one class and tank on another, instead of being able to just respec.

I totally get wanting to make choices permanent, especially in such a narrative-centric game, but I wonder how much that ethic should really translate into limiting end-game options. I guess we’ll see in a couple months.

3203

I wouldn’t call it awful, myself. But I agree that it was very good as a prequel, and probably would’ve made a great 3rd person action game as KOTOR3.

3204

I’ve never yet seen players happy about the inability to respec in a game with talent specs. I expect this will be a continuing source of complaints.

3205

It read like the story in a game. “And then this happened. And then this happened.” There is no filler whatsoever, which I actually appreciated after giving up on the bloated, going nowhere The Hangman’s Daughter, but even as a game story I think it would’ve been pretty disappointing.

More Revan discussion:

Revan, who after KOTOR had developed into quite a powerful Jedi, is smited not once, but twice in the novel. First he’s captured by Scourge and Nyriss and then, after years of imprisonment, is struck down unceremoniously by The Emperor after being betrayed by Scourge. T3M4 is obliterated and Meetra is stabbed in the back. Revan is never reunited with Bastila and never meets his child. It’s a total bummer of an ending and not a suitable reward for completing a game. As a setup for the MMO, it’s successful in that it allows characters you care about from KOTOR 1 & 2 to exist in the TOR timeline as well as setting up a good reason to hate The Emperor. But as a resolution to Revan’s storyline it was very unsatisfying to me.

3206

I’m fairly certain you can respec between DPS and tank. Not sure about healer and tank.

Jedi Guardians can act as tanks, and due to beta feedback IIRC can also act as DPS depending on their setup. This would be a within-advanced-class respec, so this is allowed.

3207

From accounts, the Guardian’s single blade DPS is slightly lower than the two saber DPS spec, so SERIOUS PLAYERS will have their panties in a bunch over someone DPSing with a single blade, I’m sure.

I’m going to be playing a Trooper (unless the beta this weekend makes me hate it a lot). I have to decide whether I’m going to play a healer or a tank. All the classes can switch to a DPS build within their Advanced Class, but you can only ever be a healer or a tank. If my guild gets into raiding, and we have a bunch of one and not the other, we can’t just respec and gear up, we have to roll a new character and level them before we can get the party started.

And that’s a game-canceling pile of shit for players to deal with, I think.

3208

REVANATION

I totally hear you. Really, it’s the prelim bout in a feud with the Emperor. The popular babyface just got fed to build up the heel, so when the up and coming face (us) brings down the undefeated heel, they make a ton of money on the PPV buys. I mean, the expansion buys. So as a game marketing tool it’s very effective.

3209

Good news, the not til sunday routine is now 2 major waves. The previous testers first, the new testers second. Anyone who has beta access can login go to the bottom of the forum page, click game test… then look for general beta discussion(I think that was what it is called)

It is an announcement anyway so easily available when you click on the language you want to read it in.

…

The story element this deep and this integrated sets the bar higher. I also don’t see why anyone wouldn’t go backward to Eq? You can have houses (whee ships) in eq2. Been decorating for years, now I get limited decorating in a ship whooopee.

The holidays in wow all cycled over to currency for each holiday. This was already common practice back in eq2. The games are all similar underneath, it is the polish and the time taken that makes the difference.
If Swtor’s curtain over the mechanics is that visible to you (and you do not like that feeling) then by all means walk away. I enjoy finding traces of the “god’s hand” in the game worlds. Love to see how things changed even if it is by how broken a quest is.
Heck it seems to be an odd obsession with me, I rarely get characters to endgame,but I know every nook and cranny in the start zones. I spend a great deal of my mmo time helping others find things or work out the most effective ways of getting through a start zone. (For instance all you joining the test … make sure you kill at least 2 of everything, quests often drop by kills and often take 2 of that critter to make the quest pop up. Some of them -will not- pop up after you out level them)

I found out that it is actually rather easy to get to the “other” start zone, and that if it looks like you could walk on something (that piece of metal there looks like a ramp hmm) try it.

And just so I am not seen as a rabid fangirl , I -loathe- jumping in this game. The response time of the controls is awful and I want to throttle whoever made the choice to put the extra bar UNDER the original bar. Remapping the entire keymap is quite annoying

3210

I was excited about getting an email for a beta invite the other day, but then I saw it was just for a weekend test. Not sure if it is worth spending the time to download the client.

3211

It’s interesting to see the discussion of respecs. Players who cut their teeth on things like EQ learned the ropes with classes that were very focused–so much so that soloing was impossible for many classes/character types. Raiding and grouping meant finding X of these and Y of those, and you can’t even to it without Z of that particular class. Which made people who mastered Z very valuable for raids, and often utterly useless for anything else. Leveling healers, for instance, was nightmarish.

On the surface, respeccing and flexibility make sense; you get classes that can solo and which can switch between “adventure” and “raid” modes, in effect. But there is a cost, too. I know people who really, really love to be the best at one particular thing, like tanking or healing, and get immense pleasure from mastering a difficult skill that few others take the time to do well. For them, allowing anyone to swap back and forth say from tank to DPS or healer to DPS is anathema. Sure, there will always be a difference between the really good tank or healer and the so-so tank or healer who swaps into that role for an instance or a raid, but for some folks, it’s the exclusivity (and let’s face it, the sort of cachet that comes from leveling up a solo-unfriendly class, in all of its frustrating glory) that matters too.

Modern MMOs have pretty much dumped the idea of dedicated roles and mission-critical classes it seems. Probably for the better, but I guess I’m still not that used to seeing people assuming the ability to switch back and forth between entire role archetypes should be a given. One of the cool things about rolling different characters in the old days was learning new mechanics and new skills. Today, look at Rift–in that game, you really didn’t ever need to roll an alt if you didn’t want to, as you could simply grab whatever souls you wanted and mix and match, and the four archetypes overlapped so much it was really rather muddled (interesting, but muddled). Of course, one person’s muddled is another person’s freedom I suppose.

Still, I predict one thing will be the same with SW:TOR–there will be a bajillion DPS and a paucity of good tanks and healers…

3212

I think the bolded part is incorrect. There’s a part that says existing testers will see the new servers and can use them, but it doesn’t mean they’re the first wave. Notifications still haven’t gone out, but according to that post most folks will be in on Friday (I’m hoping part of the selection will be the inverse of what you interpreted; new testers on Friday, Saturday made up of people who’ve tested previously because THEY’VE HAD THEIR TIME ALREADY!!1!).

3213

I agree that there’s a world of skill difference between a dedicated healer/tank and someone just swapping into that role, but when the inability to have someone be a part-time off-_____ is the difference between raiding on your scheduled night because your regular guy couldn’t make it and having to call it off, I’m okay with having the option.

3214

Can anyone confirm if this is accurate?

At level 10, each class has to choose an advanced class. This choice is permanent and you can never respec to the other advanced class. You can, however, re-allocate your talent points within your advanced class. Some advanced classes are pure dps only, and other are dps/tank or dps/healer hybrids. There are no advanced classes that can do all three roles (like Druids or Paladins in WoW). The pure dps classes do more damage than dps-specced hybrid classes.

Pure dps:
Gunslinger (Smuggler)
Sentinel (Jedi Knight)
Sniper (Imperial Agent)
Marauder (Sith Warrior)

Hybrid tank/dps:
Guardian (Jedi Knight)
Shadow (Jedi Consular)
Vanguard (Trooper)
Juggernaut (Sith Warrior)
Assassin (Sith Inquisitor)
Powertech (Bounty Hunter)

Hybrid healer/dps:
Scoundrel (Smuggler)
Commando (Trooper)
Sage (Jedi Consular)
Operative (Imperial Agent)
Mercenary (Bounty Hunter)
Sorcerer (Sith Inquisitor)

Is that right? Am I missing any information?

3215

That looks right.

While I’m thinking of it I’ll ask one more time: the TRN has an applicant named “Bilski,” anyone know who that is?

3216

It’s a have-cake-and-eat-it thing ultimately; choosing a class is supposed to have some significance. And at any rate, Mercenary and Commando are ACs that can tank or heal depending on spec. Sorry if they don’t wave a glowstick around, but there are those two ACs which can heal or tank dependant on spec. (Perhaps later meaning they can dual-spec tank/heals.)

Incidentally I’m not seeing where it says the first wave is returning testers and the Saturday wave is new folks. I just see that the bulk get in Friday, the remainder Saturday.

EDIT: Marchhare posted his list. I thought Merc/Commando were a bit less squishy than other “DPS/Heal.”

3217

I thought Merc/Commando were a bit less squishy than other “DPS/Heal.”

I could be wrong (I’m not in the beta and am only getting this info from fan sites), but I think Mercs/Commandos are sort of like Paladins in WoW if Paladins didn’t have the Protection tree. They wear heavy armour and have good survivability, but they lack the ability to act as tanks.

3218

I don’t know Old Republic but in WoW I tend to play the DPS classes. I like respecs just because I like to play around with the different talent trees. I don’t raid so I don’t worry about my optimal build and rotation, although I do try to have a PvE build for 5-mans. I would be unhappy if once an affliction warlock, always an affliction warlock.

It’s a game, not a life-choice. I don’t want to have to level a new character in the same class just to experience a different build.

3219

You can still respec in TOR, you just can’t choose a different advanced class. Suppose you were a Jedi Knight and picked Jedi Guardian as your advanced class. You could spec yourself for tanking when you’re in a group and then respec for dps when you’re playing solo. You can’t; however, respec to the other Jedi Knight advanced class (Jedi Sentinel).

If it helps, think of the game as having 16 classes, not 8.

3220

I could be wrong, I am far from perfect.

For all the what class does what folks …here play.

http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill