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Star Wars: The Old Republic has garnered a rabid fan base since it’s official announcement over a year ago. This community has eagerly awaited each new reveal BioWare has prepared, however, not everyone has been patient enough to wait for Fridays to roll around. Some industrious individuals have taken it upon themselves to sift through the official site, attempting to ferret out any content clues hidden within the website architecture.
The recent spoilers for the Jedi Knight reveal is a perfect example of this. With multiple people searching in different ways, the effort has been remarkably effective. Forum members have been finding clues ranging from the solid to the nearly definitive. But what are some of the steps taken by these detectives in their never ending scavenger hunt? We asked a few of the users who helped break the Jedi Knight news to find out.
Remlish was one of the first to notice clues about the upcoming reveal by looking at possible information pages and checking if they were reserved for future use. However, Remlish is quick to state that he wasn’t the first. Since it was discovered that some pages looked different then others, many internet blood hounds have been trying to find the next “error” url.
I wasnt the first to discover Jedi Knight , i just started the investigation thread.
Originaly i just had a brain fart and the math came together into the Holonet Speculation thread i have going. As of recently every monday or tuesday i check each probable configuration of remaining classes and planets to see if i get the “error” or not.. i actually checked jedi-knight monday and it was blank so they must have updated the site late monday early tuesday. – Remlish
Wewi quickly followed the tide of speculation by uncovering a series of images that could be linked to upcoming forum pages. Much like Remlish, Wewi found success through repetition and consistancy.
Nothing special. I just check the unannounced class forum icons every day. Well sometimes i forget it, so almost every day. – Wewi
Debran built upon the success of the others and discovered a possible Holonet icon for the Jedi Knight. It seems that persistance, deductive reasoning, and a little web savy helped reveal what could be considered the most convincing evidence found on that day. Debran believes it took a little more then just hard work though.
Mostly luck actually. I discovered that others discussed the holonet jedi knight page and that “not authorised” apeard. So I thought that there probobly was more to this deciding to dig deeper. Then I just analyst the holonet class page and found how they name the class icons. Combining these two aspects and the discovery was made. – Debran
Sunyata made a huge break in the case the next day with the discovery of the Jedi Knight Holonet Animation. This was certainly the most convincing evidence so far, nearly solidifying the idea that the class would be revealed soon.
it’s simple trial and error. I just looked at the structure of webpage and where they store what information and then put in the word “jedi-knight” where on the sith page it says “sith-warrior”.
The way I figured out the “code” for that is: you go on the sith page http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/classes/sith-warrior, then “Extras” in your Firefox-Browser and then “Page Information” (this is the translation from my German Firefox, may differ in the English version). Then you go to media and find a list of all the used media for that page including their links, or storage places on the website.
I just tried to type in a few of those links with the replacement of “sith-warrior” by “jedi-knight” and eventually got a little excited of my findings
These are just a few of the sleuths who have been delving into the depths of BioWare’s database, each building off of the deductions and successes of the previous in one way or another. As hype for Star Wars: The Old Republic builds, more and more clever minds are being drawn to the site, each trying to find their own Indiana Jones-eque discovery. With BioWare maintaining control over the flow of information, the internet arms race between fans and devs will certainly be an interesting one to watch.
all quotes are used with expressed written consent
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[...] Darth Hater re: TOR – “Some industrious individuals have taken it upon themselves to sift through the official site, attempting to ferret out any content clues hidden within the website architecture.” [...]
Another way to get information is to keep a record of what’s happened the past months and make an educated guess that it’s “any time now” we get a new class reveal. Not very specific. Not very spectacular either. But fun to see anyway.
PDF Format overview of releases the past year:
View: http://tinyurl.com/yzbt73v
Download: http://tinyurl.com/yjfoj5h
There’s a pretty stable ‘flow’ of Timeline updates. Everything else seems utterly random. I offered this to DH.com in a mail but it got a little ignored (ehehe).
that is a great chart! Really nice to see the information pattern visual like that. Thanks
By all means, download it and use it in the future. It’s ODS format, but if you’re used to the Exel version I’d happily include one in the zip file.
EDIT: There we go! I don’t know if it’ll look like anything that makes sense in Exel, but I’ve given it my best shot.
We didn’t ignore it just have been extremely busy this weekend and last week. Got lost in all the hub hub.
Oh no, no. That comment was not intended to be anything near serious. Love the blog and the work you’re all putting into it.
It’s a lot like the success of the TV show Lost. There were little puzzles that got the fans talking. There’s always another mystery waiting to string you along and keep you excited. I wub it ^.^
BioWare probably did this intentionally. They could’ve hidden these images and animations behind password protected links, with “Forbidden” errors when you try to access them. Can’t be too hard to do, so they probably left these eggs hidden on purpose, to pre-hype us on an announcement before they actually announce it.
Really though, the Jedi Knight wasn’t really much of a secret to begin with. When we heard about this game, everyone knew there was going to be some type of Jedi and Sith classes for the factions. I just wonder why they waited so long to reveal them? I think if you start a new discussion, it should be how people think the Jedi and Sith will play different. Especially considering you can have a light side and dark side allignment. Would going dark side as a Jedi cause you to gain powers like lightning and choke, or would going light side as a Sith cause you to gain special Jedi powers such as enhancement or healing powers that the Jedi might have?
There could be a whole lot of reasons. I personally noticed a pretty big upgrade in the animations and graphics of the jedi stuff. So maybe they waited for that so they could show off some of the new graphics.
I honestly don’t think you will receive the same abilities with a Dark-side jedi as a Sith Warrior does. Bioware is making each class unique, having abilities flow over from one to the other would just ruin that whole thing.
I think that your alignment to dark or light side will only affect a few things.
A: Appearance (possibly optional)
B: Unique abilities or bonuses to either extreme light, extreme dark, or neutral.
Now that it’s finally out that the 5′th slot is the ‘typical’ Jedi Knight, with all due respect the class is brilliant and I’ve enjoyed this information to the fullest, I’m starting to get very curious about character slots 6, 7 and 8 again (Like a proper spoiled brat, not long after I’ve gotten what I want, I want the next thing! Happily admitting it being the worst thing).
How’s that forum coming along DH-ers? *Eager*
Everyone thinks they have a pretty good feeling on slot 6. (Sith Agent) Slots 7 and 8 are where the real debate hops in. As far as the forum is concerned…. “Soon”
Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight are foils, ditto Smuggler and Bounty Hunter, so does that mean Imperial Agent is the foil to Trooper? Or will its foil be one of the completely unknown classes, with Trooper also foiling one of the unannounced classes?
Smuggler and Bounty Hunters are foils in story ONLY not gameplay. The Sith Agent will be the gameplay “mirror” of the the Smuggler. The Bounty Hunter and the Trooper are gameplay “mirrors” as well. I use mirror loosely because Sith Agent and Smuggler will have Light Armor/Ranged DPS in common and that’s it. The Trooper and Bounty Hunter have Heavy Armor/Ranged DPS in common and that’s it. BioWare has routinely stated that all 8 classes will have unique gameplay mechanics. I don’t know how someone could objectively look at the Smuggler and the BH and say that they are gameplay “mirrors.” It seems to me that lots of people are letting thoughts of Han and Boba Fett’s feud get in the way of actual gameplay mechanics.
I’m going on how when Smuggler got announced, they explicitly compared the 2 classes. They mentioned how both classes are ranged shooters but with melee ranged attacks(BH Flamethrower, Smuggler Kneecap Shots and such). I wasn’t basing it on story at all.
And how do we know the Imperial Agent will be light armor/ranged dps? Ranged attacks aren’t very stealthy, melee attacks can be much quieter(a knife in the back is quieter than a gunshot to the same back).
I found it interesting that from the time this stuff was found until the actual reveal itself, the DevTracker went completely silent.
I hope they dont the amount that even a small bit of info brings to the forums, hypes the game more than BW could hope for.
Was fun to see the Jedi discoveries this week.
Is Indian Jones the bollywood version?
I went in and edited it to make it the Americanized version you are familiar with…. even if Temple of Doom could be considered Bollywood.
EDIT: Of course! I love cultural re-makes from all over the globe! (thanks for the advice Zoid)
Dont admit to spelling errors, just say that you like crummy foreign remakes of American films and assume everyone else does too.
Hey, who said anything about spelling errors?
And Indian Jones….crummy??? A tad over-acted with erratic camera work and an entire over exhuberant dance routine through a mine…yes. Crummy…no. pff.
your cinematic tastes are exceptional
Want to bet the file names stop following the patterns now?
Im not sure. I would be willing to bet Sean and the amazing community team at BioWare Austin have silently applauded our efforts. Think about the hype that was coursing through the forums all week instead of just one day. Not to mention forum_76.png which is the 6th classes forum icon what ever that may be…something tells me that leak was not an accident…
I don’t know. Just like all programming, when designing a website (especially with some amount of complexity like this) you start with a certain naming convention and you really don’t want to change it after the sites been built.
Do you honestly believe they don’t want this stuff to be found? Lucasarts and Bioware devs are laughing their rear off reading this stuff. In all honesty I wonder who’s having more fun: Us discovering their hints, or them reading we’ve discovered it.
It’s a game itself, quite an entertaining one in my honest opinion.
I think the devs are laughing harder at the people crying about the “stupid” timeline and comic updates, knowing that they are full of hidden info about the game.
True. Either way, we can agree on the fact they’re probably having alot of fun.
all the information in this article has already been talked about in the forums. BioWare already knew all the tricks, this is for the fans who might not have sifted through all of the forum pages.