Witya
Agent
Number of posts : 345
Age : 41
Location : Wroclaw PL
Registration date : 2010-08-30
 | | Subject: DevTracker Highlights - Darth Hater Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:14 am | |
| Some quite interesting news about Imperial Agent and stuff - Darth Hater wrote:
DevTracker Highlights For The Week of March 31, 2011
by Infamous
, posted March 31st, 2011 at 5:47 pm
BioWare is quite matter-of-fact this week, releasing tidbits of information in some short and concise posts in this week's DevTracker Highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks lightsaber colors and energy blades. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert answers questions about the appearance of younglings, dueling, species and class combinations, and the soul of a class and their armor. Senior Game Designer William Wallace also talks about the Imperial Agent and the evolution of their energy blade abilities. Hit the jump to see all the highlights.
Georg Zoeller hints at how players will be able to choose their lightsaber colors in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
In "Jedi Knight Character Progression", Georg Zoeller said:
Setreveck said:
Great update. I have a quick question though.
Is it possible for Jedi Sentinels to wield two different colored lightsabers?
Yes. The color of your lightsaber is defined by the color crystal in them, not your class.
Damion Schubert reveals that children will be seen in the game, and some may play an important role.
In "Will there be Children/Younglings??", Damion Schubert said:
Yes, we have a smattering of NPC children throughout the galaxy, sometimes as key people in plots.
No, we do not have schoolyards full of Force-sensitive toddlers, readily available for Sith to grind up their dark side score.
Damion Schubert answers questions about dueling and how it will work.
In "Dueling Assumed? Confirmed?", Damion Schubert said:
Dueling is in. Dueling can be done between people on the same sides. Dueling is non-lethal.
Damion Schubert confirms Zabrak Bounty Hunters and hints at more class and species combinations.
In "Playable Species Compendium and Speculation List (Part 4)", Damion Schubert said:
It is confirmed - in the latest build of the game, we freed up some of the combinations of classes and species. I'll tell you that I have a Zabrak Bounty Hunter on my screen right now.
That being said, absolutely nothing in this regard should be considered 'officially announced' (ie 'This is how it will be in the game at launch'), as we're still gathering feedback and looking for potential issues with combinations we didn't expect.
Choices that might be in a build today might not be there when we ship.
William Wallace talks about the Imperial Agent's specialized use of energy blades, and how that ability can evolve depending on the skills you choose in the Operative skill tree
In "New Screenshots in PC Gamer?", William Wallace said:
Hey guys,
The Agent can specialize in the use of his energy blades, but that doesn't really make him a 'melee' class per se in the same way that a Knight or Warrior is.
Operatives continue using their rifle as their primary weapon, and continue getting abilities that utilize that weapon, but they can as part of one of the Operative skill trees add some special abilities. If you specialize far enough into the right skills, you unlock an ability that has a dual blade appearance, though the class does not actually dual-wield blade items in the same way that melee classes do.
In summary, you equip only one blade item as an Operative, but not in your primary weapon slot. What you see in the screenshot is the use of a single special ability that has an activation animation that shows two blades.
Hope that clears things up!
Georg Zoeller stops a rumor before it even starts, pointing out that an Imperial Agent's second weapon slot is for energy knives, not vibroblades.
In "New Screenshots in PC Gamer?", Georg Zoeller said:
Aaronlol said:
It is confirmed. Agents can use an ACTUAL vibroblade in an item slot. Operatives, while still a ranged class, have access to MELEE abilities (multiple) and Stealth. The Operative can very clearly be played as a Ranged/Melee Hybrid.
And no, it does not confirm that Force users can use Vibro-weapons.
This is how rumors start
Actually, the Agent's second weapon slot is for a specialized Energy Knife, not for vibro blades.
Damion Schubert discusses armor for classes, and the feeling each class resonates when wearing appropriate armor.
In "Dev's abandoning Film icons?", Damion Schubert said:
ElanJo said:
lame
https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img829/6227/lolojedi.png
Okay, for starters, fake screenshot is fake.
Moving on: it's very important to some on the team that the look and feel of characters tend to gravitate to match their classes - this concept of gravity is the important thing. While we do want to allow a certain amount of freedom in letting people choose a visual look for themselves, we also want to be sure that the easy path, the path of least resistance, ends up with people looking like Star Wars. This was, and remains, an important goal for those of us doing itemization.
Along the way, we've tried a few things. Incidentally, 'tried a few things' is one of the reasons we tend not to tell you guys about features until we've tried them out a bit - many ideas that sound good on paper fail in practice, and we prefer to weed those out before, say, people get attached to said failed idea and get angry because we took them out.
One of the things that we tried was gear that morphed when you put it on, so if a Trooper puts on armor statted for a Jedi, the armor would suddenly look like Trooper armor. This ended up being disconcerting to a lot of people playing the game: icons didn't match, for example, and gear that looked lame on you would look awesome on your companion character, which felt pretty sucky when you put it back on you. ('Felt sucky', incidentally, is code for, 'bad designer, no cookie').
Our gear now is settling in a pretty good state, in my opinion. We've taken the coolest and most emblematic armor, first off, and made it class only.
For the rest of the armor, we are following a reasonably standard RPG model of heavy, medium and light. Knights and Troopers both chase heavy, for example, but care about different stats. Armor with Knight-favored stats looks a closer to the Jedi ideal, whereas armor with Trooper stats looks more like the Troopers we know and love.
Yes, you can put on some vaguely 'Trooper-esque' armor as a Knight, but your stats will be terrible, thus the gravity of, you know, being good at your class is going to mean that it's rare.
And let's not forget that there is social value in seeing a Knight in vaguely 'Trooper-esque' armor - you know he's probably terrible at his class, and you probably shouldn't let him tank.
I've been playing our test server a lot lately, and I can tell you right now, people who are concerned about this are worrying too much. Our Knights look like Knights, our Troopers look like Troopers, and our players by and large are ending up with appearances that are appropriate for the class. | |
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Lunarwolf
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 6401
Age : 44
Location : Southampton, UK
Registration date : 2009-02-23
| | Subject: Re: DevTracker Highlights - Darth Hater Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:12 pm | |
| Here's hoping the "you can choose your lightsaber colour via crystals" remains until Launch. One of the coolest things about KOTOR was being able to chose the colour of your blade when you crafted it. That being said I'll probably still chose Purple  | |
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PrioryJK
Special Agent
Number of posts : 2575
Age : 37
Location : UK Hull
Registration date : 2009-05-01
| | Subject: Re: DevTracker Highlights - Darth Hater Mon Apr 04, 2011 3:34 am | |
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Sureshot
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 5209
Age : 47
Location : Reading, England
Registration date : 2009-02-11
| | Subject: Re: DevTracker Highlights - Darth Hater Mon Apr 04, 2011 7:36 am | |
| Interesting stuff, cheers Witya. Glad to have another species announced for the Bounty Hunter. I'm still hoping for more choices though! | |
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