Faction Specific Classes & What This Could Mean For Our Guild

Sureshot wrote:

Yeah I just used KotOR as an example. But personally I consider Scoundrel to be an archetype and Smuggler to be a class (or even a profession if you will). Another way of looking at it would be to use AoC again. Archetype=Mage, Class=Demonologist, thats the way see it anyway. As for being a pointless class I think this where this oh so important "4th. Pillar" comes in (sorry Lunarwolf!). The Smuggler story arc would no doubt be pretty interesting, depending on the player of course. As for combat, they have them in SWG so why not in TOR?

We'll just see what bioware does..

Aliendra wrote:

We'll just see what bioware does..

Aye, doesn't look like we've got much choice. I tell you one thing though if they f*** it up, I'm sending Salazar over in the Leviathan 2 to sort 'em out.

Aliendra wrote:

"Under which faction would you like to be neutral and communicative?"- is not a good catch phrase is it? Remember. Society is stupid. Such phrases are to complicated and to long to attract the twitch based generation. And everyone wants to attract those...Sadly.

Second...I have yet to play a MMO that you have to buy a new account to play on the other side of the fence...

No I agree it's not a good catchphrase! But I think the head-honchos at BioWare would have had enough business sense to know their portal to the public needs to represent the product. It could have been any countless number of things that sound punchy but they chose to focus on conflict.

Aliendra wrote:

If this game is heavily faction based like WAR and has characters as stupid as WAR i'm not playing it.

Their webcomic; "Threat of Peace" is another example of how this might be the case and at the end of their "The Setting" section they say:

"The uneasy truce established by the Treaty of Coruscant is quickly tearing apart at the seams, and a return to all-out war has begun in all but official terms.
A new generation of heroes, both light and dark, emerges to face the difficulties of these chaotic times, and fight for the fate of the galaxy in this most desperate age."

Pretty much a "them" and "us" flavour I would say.

Sureshot wrote:

Aliendra wrote:

...but a smuggler seems a bit pointless in combat based game don't ya think?

... As for being a pointless class I think this where this oh so important "4th. Pillar" comes in (sorry Lunarwolf!). The Smuggler story arc would no doubt be pretty interesting, depending on the player of course. As for combat, they have them in SWG so why not in TOR?

I agree with SS. And like you say Aliendra, if they're following the movies then sweeping Han Solo based characters into the NPC-only bin would upset a lot of people I think.

Aliendra wrote:

Second...I have yet to play a MMO that you have to buy a new account to play on the other side of the fence...

Don't mmorpg providers charge extra for multiple characters anymore? Way back in my EQ days I remember sony online forcing you to.
If not - hooray!!
And I'm an old fogey who needs to shut up!!
And check his facts!!

Seriously ... when did i even say they are throwing Han solo character to the bin? Don't put words in my mouth because it annoys me as hell and i'm tired... very tired.

All i am saying is that a smuggler on its own is pretty *bleep* useless in a faction based game with combat focus characters and without space combat. So they are going to rename it to scoundrel and give it a bit of muscle... and say scoundrels are also smugglers... Just all i'm saying... Semantics... Nothing more.

A hardcore split between factions is so not SW that if it exists it'll be a sad failure on biowares side. Just saying....

Moderated for dirty word! - SS

Aye, maybe it's best to stop this for now cause although it was a interesting debate I don't want it to turn into a pointless argument.

*Growl* Don't ya censor meh!

Seriously though.. Yeah i guess i'm to tired and to pissed of to get involved in a debate without it turning into a fight... sorry. Lets leave it for now and wait for real info.

Yeah, just going to quip in though for a last note:

Whatever does happen, if the classes we want turn out to be on another faction or all our allies start switching sides themselves, as a guild, we won't break up - we'll stick together and find a way around this, by roleplaying, getting lucky, or begging the developers. Because we are a tightknit gang of Chuck Noris imitators and just be getting through to the actual Beta will prove that we're a guild to last.

Aliendra wrote:

Seriously ... when did i even say they are throwing Han solo character to the bin? Don't put words in my mouth because it annoys me as hell and i'm tired... very tired.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I was agreeing with your citing Han Solo as a point in case. If my previous post reads like I'm twisting your words then I apologise. I'll try and be clearer in future.

Dont forget the (ahem) 'Fourth Pillar' - Story. If BioWare are doing this with their own spin on it; combat wont be the main focus of the game. (Sure, it will be a big part, no denying it) - but look at other BioWare Games : Kotor, Mass Effect, Jade Empire.... all had good solid combat BUT the combat was always something to do between the unfolding storyline which was always the strong backbone of the game.

How rubbish would Kotor been if it was a generic light-saber fighting game?

If BioWare do go heavy on the storyline, 'Smuggler' will not only be a very likely class, but also a very strong choice (and no, I'm not being Bias ). Even if combat does feature more heavily (a likely scenario); chances are smugglers will be a 'rogue' class, able to hide in shadows with weak armour that can deal lots of damage in suprise attacks.

I wouldnt put Smuggler in the 'Class Bin' quite yet

Harlequin2 wrote:

Yeah, just going to quip in though for a last note:

Whatever does happen, if the classes we want turn out to be on another faction or all our allies start switching sides themselves, as a guild, we won't break up - we'll stick together and find a way around this, by roleplaying, getting lucky, or begging the developers. Because we are a tightknit gang of Chuck Noris imitators and just be getting through to the actual Beta will prove that we're a guild to last.

Well said Harly!!



If that doesn't make everyone laugh, then nothing will!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Not gawddamnfreakingassnugget*bleep*facewoodenactorsillybeardthinkshestough!

Thats it, I'm killing everyone.

Moderated for swearing! You guys are vexed today!!- SS

SS is back! Censoring and moderating! Ohh what will they do next?! Who knows!


... Just making a statistic for Godwin's Law. Nothing to see here .. move along...

It was chunk F'ing nobbist. er, I mean Chuck Norris.

I am morally justified

A lightsaber is capable of cutting through anything except another lightsaber blade or Chuck Norris.

Godjera wrote:

A lightsaber is capable of cutting through anything except another lightsaber blade or Chuck Norris.

And Cortosis, I believe.

I have no idea of what I´am talking about so please bare with me ,

I do not believe that Bounty hunter class is Faction specific class,

Like haven´t they said that, An Sith can turn to be a Jedi?, same with Jedi can go Sith ,
So in that case. Why would a Bounty hunter be faction specific?,

I can play a sith but by decicion I make in the game, I can at the end be a jedi, I think they said something similar in the videos,

Anyway there is just so little information regarding this game.

Thats actually a really good point Cerrian - I had totally forgotten about that; the Dev videos have mentioned that Jedi and Sith can go light AND dark side; even implying it is possible multiple times...

...It is difficult to know this early on, but If BioWare are altering how we normally accept factions into something more fluid (for want of a better term), does a BH that STARTS with the Empire/Sith need to stay that way?

Hmmmm... curious.

Thanks for that Cerrian

I don't think that's what Bioware had in mind. I'm sure they said you could go dark side and light side whatever you played be it jedi or sith -it didn't matter. They didn't state that one can go to the other side of the fence faction wise. At least yet.

What i think factions will be solid... and Jedi will stay on the republic, Sith on their own side whatever they are good or bad.

They said i quote " You can play a good guy in a bad place and a bad guy in a good place"- Thats a story mechanism.

Anyway.. would be fun if we could switch sides... but the chaos it would do it the game world would be to great i think.

Cerrian wrote:

I have no idea of what I´am talking about so please bare with me ,

I do not believe that Bounty hunter class is Faction specific class,

Like haven´t they said that, An Sith can turn to be a Jedi?, same with Jedi can go Sith ,
So in that case. Why would a Bounty hunter be faction specific?,

I can play a sith but by decicion I make in the game, I can at the end be a jedi, I think they said something similar in the videos,

Anyway there is just so little information regarding this game.

I'm pretty sure they haven't said anything about Sith becoming Jedi or vice versa yet, but I do know that faction and your path down the lightside or darkside of the force are seperate things. This is what it says in the F.A.Q:

Quote :

Will I be able to play on the Light or Dark side of the Force?
Yes, during character selection you will align with the Republic or the Sith Empire. In addition, throughout the game you will also be faced with many decisions which can change your path down the Light or Dark side of the Force.

Now from this it sounds like they mean we will have to choose a faction from the start, so Sith or Republic. Now the alignment I assume is going to be more like it was in KotOR where your characters path to light or darkside was goverened by your actions. Hopefully through this we'll be able to swap faction but they still haven't mentioned this as a possibilty.

We still don't know if Bounty Hunter is going to be a faction specific class because they really didn't give us enough information to work with. However, if you go to the Bounty Hunter update, you'll notice a lot of clues pointing to the fact that they'll be a Sith only class. There's a good Sith Holocron article on it here. So anyway, after we all pulled our hair out in anger Sean then edited this post and put in the following:

Quote :

"Bounty Hunters who chose to follow government regulations and pursued criminals were sometimes revered as heroes."

Obviously this has confused everybody and now we're stuck trying to figure out whats happening, but at the current moment in time my guess would be that Bounty Hunters are part of the Sith-only faction, although I REALLY hope I'm wrong!

I must say though Cerrian I hadn't really thought of swapping factions so thanks for giving me hope! *Passes cookie to Cerrian*

This may not be news to anyone after checking my hazy memory and finding this plastered all over google and in reference to the "TOR faction crisis", but EQ2 has always allowed faction swapping via a special "Betrayal" quest. I do remember it being a one-way thing and I think intended for newbs to rethink their character creation decision.

Redwatch wrote:

This may not be news to anyone after checking my hazy memory and finding this plastered all over google and in reference to the "TOR faction crisis", but EQ2 has always allowed faction swapping via a special "Betrayal" quest. I do remember it being a one-way thing and I think intended for newbs to rethink their character creation decision.

Are you calling us newbs, Redwatch?

But I think faction switching would be great for letting us change Bounty Hunters to Republic faction would be great, but like the Cynicism Machine (A.K.A. Aliendria ) suggests nothing they have suggested has hinted at that, and I believe that would be pretty remarkable, in the literal sense. I don't know. There may be some event down the line in which we're able to switch sides, but I feel like it wouldn't always be available and especially not at the beginning. You also might need to be a certain alignment.

As always, just spouting ideas, don't take any of them seriously.

I've been thinking on this some more and came up with an idea which probably wouldn't work in a million years but I'll air it anyway. Maybe when we know more it might become relevant.

If the game does force a split why not one neutral guild with a republic branch and an empire branch? Depending on what the game mechanics allow (cross faction raiding parties, no big fences saying "no repulic/emipre players allowed” etc) this could work. We're mostly aiming for neutral characters, right? So the quests that shift light side/dark side points up and down, even if the shift is mirror imaged for faction alignment... It should all balance out right?

It's a bit messy but in-game divisions needn't reflect on us here at the forum and we can stick to our guns as a truly neutral guild.

Yes it's very much early doors and all speculative, blah-blah-blah, but I just wanted to put the thought out there.

Redwatch wrote:

I've been thinking on this some more and came up with an idea which probably wouldn't work in a million years but I'll air it anyway. Maybe when we know more it might become relevant.

If the game does force a split why not one neutral guild with a republic branch and an empire branch? Depending on what the game mechanics allow (cross faction raiding parties, no big fences saying "no repulic/emipre players allowed” etc) this could work. We're mostly aiming for neutral characters, right? So the quests that shift light side/dark side points up and down, even if the shift is mirror imaged for faction alignment... It should all balance out right?

It's a bit messy but in-game divisions needn't reflect on us here at the forum and we can stick to our guns as a truly neutral guild.

Yes it's very much early doors and all speculative, blah-blah-blah, but I just wanted to put the thought out there.

I think that idea would work, depending on the mechanics, if we were a larger guild. But twenty people split in half (realistically less even) would be only a group of ten players so I don't know how well it would work. I think our characters, for the most part, can adapt to being the good or bad guys stuck in a bad or good place; also, as other people have suggested, being one class but roleplaying another. And I have faith that the guild would be able to survive being forced to play one side or another. Just my take. Always good to be thinking though.

Black Heart wrote:

I think our characters, for the most part, can adapt to being the good or bad guys stuck in a bad or good place...

You're right Black Heart, that was always a good point.

Black Heart wrote:

I think that idea would work, depending on the mechanics, if we were a larger guild. But twenty people split in half (realistically less even) would be only a group of ten players so I don't know how well it would work.

I probably didn't explain this very well but my thoughts were the guild wouldn't need to actually split at all as long as the game mechanics weren't too restrictive. As long as we can join each other's parties in-game we can have exactly the characters we had conceived without faction forced compromises. We get a realistically homogonous guild and everyone wins.

But it's pie in the sky and too early to tell.

Black Heart wrote:

.... but like the Cynicism Machine (A.K.A. Aliendria ) suggests nothing they have suggested has hinted at that, and I believe that would be pretty remarkable...

Criticism machine huh? hehe! But you are right. I am sure the classes will be mirrored between factions (If the factions are restrictive and i think its fair to assume that) so roleplaying a different profession on the other side of the fence shouldn't be that hard... bah! It should be more fun actually

Black Heart wrote:

Redwatch wrote:

I've been thinking on this some more and came up with an idea which probably wouldn't work in a million years but I'll air it anyway. Maybe when we know more it might become relevant.

If the game does force a split why not one neutral guild with a republic branch and an empire branch? Depending on what the game mechanics allow (cross faction raiding parties, no big fences saying "no repulic/emipre players allowed” etc) this could work. We're mostly aiming for neutral characters, right? So the quests that shift light side/dark side points up and down, even if the shift is mirror imaged for faction alignment... It should all balance out right?

It's a bit messy but in-game divisions needn't reflect on us here at the forum and we can stick to our guns as a truly neutral guild.

Yes it's very much early doors and all speculative, blah-blah-blah, but I just wanted to put the thought out there.

I think that idea would work, depending on the mechanics, if we were a larger guild. But twenty people split in half (realistically less even) would be only a group of ten players so I don't know how well it would work. I think our characters, for the most part, can adapt to being the good or bad guys stuck in a bad or good place; also, as other people have suggested, being one class but roleplaying another. And I have faith that the guild would be able to survive being forced to play one side or another. Just my take. Always good to be thinking though.

The point is how restrictive the game will actually be? Rumours say that Bioware is modelling faction related things on WAR a bit and that means COMPLETELY restricted... That i think would be absurd to put in SW but i said the same about many things in many games... and gaming companies can't stop surprising me with their lack of imagination or logic... Still you are right about one thing. It would be possible to run a guild On both of the factions with only one restriction no there and that is language barrier. If we can speak to the other faction as to our own we can roleplay... raiding, pvp and any of that other stuff can be ran separately.

Second of all... I don't care if my char is light or dark side... what her class will be named. I'll roleplay whatever i want. Thats the power of roleplay. As long as it can be pulled off it will be pulled off Game mechanics... Its just that, game mechanics. Only thing we need to run a neutral guild is people with imagination

Redwatch wrote:

Black Heart wrote:

I think our characters, for the most part, can adapt to being the good or bad guys stuck in a bad or good place...

You're right Black Heart, that was always a good point.

Black Heart wrote:

I think that idea would work, depending on the mechanics, if we were a larger guild. But twenty people split in half (realistically less even) would be only a group of ten players so I don't know how well it would work.

I probably didn't explain this very well but my thoughts were the guild wouldn't need to actually split at all as long as the game mechanics weren't too restrictive. As long as we can join each other's parties in-game we can have exactly the characters we had conceived without faction forced compromises. We get a realistically homogonous guild and everyone wins.

But it's pie in the sky and too early to tell.

Exactly... All depends on how much restriction we will have. I really hope the restrictions are minimal... I am always for more freedom.