Well I for one really think you guys here at DH are doing a great job and have help me to have a greater understanding the game BW and LA are producing, the community here seems a bit more sane then on the official forums.
There are some off the wall people on the official forums that jump to some extraordinary conclusions but mix in one part avid MMO fan and one part Star Wars fanatic and that’s one volatile fan base …,I wonder if BW know what they got themselves into…LOL

I too had my momentary disappointment over the last two class reveals but now that I have a clearer vision from the new info released, I really like the idea.
I think it opens up a ton of possibilities and story elements to explore a class that uses the force to enhance the power of the mind rather then the physical.

I think a lot of us have our minds made up that a Jeti is a Jeti and a Sith is a Sith and therefor there is no room to split the class. But I think that is being too narrow-minded considering how deep the lore is and with Bioware reveling some of there thought processes on how they made their minds up to put in the additional force users I agree with them 100%

Agreed, I've largely abandoned attepts for participating in civil coversation in the general discussion part of the forums for the reasons you cite. I hope devs can protect themselves from the waves of unfounded negativity, without filtering out well founded concerns.

putting the tanks and healers on the most popular classses is a stroke of genius. if they make it so tanking isn't different from dps and cc and healing go hand in hand it may lead to the end of the lack of tanks and healers in games.

Less than 12 hours to go... must... hold... on... *sets alarm clock*

I too have been following this game since it was mere rumor and myth, and the suspense is killing me. I'm at work and trying to concentrate on anything non-tor related is turning out to be a wonderful exercise in futility. I'm very much looking forward to what ever it is you gents have in store for us.

I have to agree overall with the hater here. Part of the deal with getting scoops and information from LA/BW is strict publish restrictions, deadlines, and NDA agreements. I don't feel they have abandoned their community any more than I have.

I can only speak from personal experience as to the state of my own feelings, but I have'nt abandoned our community, it feels to a large extent like our community has abandoned me. With all the rampant whining and bitching over at SWTOR and the forums, the bioware hate posts poping, and the sheer volume of redundant whipped to death horses that keep poping up over there, all I can think is "WTF just happened?"

Lets be logical here. BioWare announced a class that might not be everyone's agreed upon "perfect last 2" but that's the way the ball rolls. Star Wars has always in an iconic way centered around Jedi, The force, And the massive struggle to control this power. Having 2 force using classes per side is a decision based on the timeline and cannon of the era..to an extent. We really don't know the directions planned for any classes nor do we know anything whatsoever about their story or progression. To be fair to BioWare and Lucasarts: Saying something is a bad idea, terrible, or game ruining before anyone has even tested the feature is not only premature, but foolish in the extreme. To me it just seems like everyone is out to judge this book by it's cover, and I feel sorry for them going through life deciding on appearance over content. Thats a poor judge of anything other than womens shoes and coffee cups. BioWare has never let me down before. Sure there are aspects I don't like, but that applies to everything. Nothing is perfect. The question we need answered unfortunately nobody can answer right now. It breaks down to:
Classes, races, professions, carrers, weapons ,gear, armor aside: Is it fun?

At this point. We just don't know. So how can we have the audacity to judge?

We all either like or dislike. Our reasons are our own. We have to ask ourselves, in a reasonable, logical train of thought and thought process. are my reasons founded in fact, or just irrational emotional over reaction. Either way it shows that the community is strong, big an paying attention. And that to me, will always be a good thing.

Actually the biggest disappointment lately has been DH.com jumping in the boat with Bioware and Lucasarts, no longer really being an neutral source of information and hereby partially loosing it's value.

Really, aside a satisfying exclusive 'bone' tossed to you by LA and BW every now and then - what is the added value on darthhater.com over swtor.com? Less people screaming and more people actually thinking intellectually about the game - agreed - but I don't really think you guys are neutral anymore.

All I'm reading here now is BW and LA related promotional speak and alot of "We can't talk about that right now / we can't comment on that" (Why does this sound so familiar to me?). Sure it's pretty awesome that you guys where honoured with the oppertunaty to be given these exlusive information extravaganza's. But the rebellious days of Bioware having to think three times before posting something that -might- contain too much information are pretty much done for.

In your flattery (I would be too, it's only human) that BW and LA take so much note of your blog and ask you participate in this, you've forgotten your own community.

I dislike screaming and squeeling before the bigger picture becomes clear just as much as you do. But it's pretty understandable that if you've expected something more original and the most obvious, typical thing comes out - people are going to be a little disappointed.

I was, too.

I think what you guys are doing is awesome but this is a ridiculously generalizing smiteful post and in all honesty, I feel like it's aimed at (people like) -me- simply because I was disappointed with the Consular/Inquisitor class release. What I'm reading here is: "If you don't agree, you're dumb and quick to jump to conclusions".

I hope you understand my point of view. English isn't my main language and even though I try as best as I can, I may accidently put words in a harsher context than intended - my apologies in advance if this occurs. None of the above is meant to be smiteful or offensive.

Could the main reason justifying the two classes have to do with the Knight/Warrior being a "Action Point" class and the Consular/Inquisitor being a "Mana Class"?

I wouldn't be disappointed if I could take my character and switch factions when i wanted to. I understand it makes the story, but they could make switching factions a reward for completing your story, or hitting the max level.

Agreed and signed.

For me I have a disappointment and a concern regarding the last two classes.

The Disappointment:

For Bioware saying that the game is about Story choices in this case the decision for me has already been made before I step into the gaming world. You can't start off as a Padawan/Jedi and follow your story and decide how you want to develop you have to pigeon hole yourself before you even start. You have to be melee or caster. Yes I know other games are like this but both the IP and the class in question has a heck of a lot more background than your average gnome. I would have liked to start the game as basic Jedi and be able to discover what I wanted to be as I played.

The Concern:

From the interviews/reviews so far the Consular etc has been referred too as a Mage several times I am concerned that the Lightsaber will become nothing more that the equivalent of a dagger for a warlock in games like WOW.

If as Bioware state that they are basing most of what we see class wise off the movies all Jedi use the Lightsaber first and force powers second. Watch any movie and they always start with Lightsaber combat (ok except when Palp fired Luke in Ep6). Even Yoda was a Jedi Consular and is supposedly brilliant with Lightsaber. Yes we are all not going to be super powerful like him but the point is this is the class they are basing it on.

From the information we are getting so far it seems to be a little conflictive. Hopefully when we get the up and coming updates we will get a clearer picture of the classes.


Quote - Obi Wan - 'Your Lightsaber is your life'

Nicely said! Saying that this game will be fail, or that it will be WoW-beater etc, while having not very much info (cause we still don't know too much about TOR to be honest) is just silly.

Well, criticizing something is the easiest way to get attention. At least on an Internet forum.
I guess, some people are living their own version of the world so much that when they are faced with a different opinion or option, they can't use logic or are unable to remain calm or just simply are not used to a reasonable discussion, .

I have never seen a waiting period before a major MMO launch WITHOUT speculations, flames and hate-posts aimed at the developer.

Amount of drama for SWTOR seems moderate so far IMO. It's even funny how they still manage to use different wording for the same rant.

Well, real fun should begin when they announce playable species...

Frankly, no-one should've been closed off to this idea. If you played KotOR you know the game is all about being a Jedi. If you listen to the interviews they talk about using the time period to justify there being thousands of Jedi and Sith around. If you look at the comic there are plenty of hints. Lastly, its clear this game is almost the polar opposite of SWG, where the players were the 'lesser-knowns' of the galaxy. In TOR, everyone is a hero. It looks to have been obvious to BioWare that 50% of the players want to be Jedi. Theres tonnes of other reasons why this class list makes sense.

Its the best decision they could've made.

In short: Don't whine about things we don't know anything about and have faith in Bioware. :) I never played a bad game from Bioware and cusomization (which is also a big issue on the boards) will be fine.

The Consular class release has fuelled the rename debate/polls of Jedi Knight to Jedi Guardian big time! I wonder if BW could even be swayed at all or is Guardian/Defender a later JK spec???

I’m very curious to see how they will breakdown and name all the Force class specs actually eg will it simply be called “Jedi Healer” and how will they name the Inquisitor Darth Maul Palpatine specs (which both sound very cool and have to no real surprise helped make the poll numbers for playing a SI over a SW rise rapidly).

I’m chilling for a bit now that we know all the classes and have a realisation that a more traditional trinity will be, to some extent, a part of TOR. Now I want real facts and details on roles, skills and how these classes will play (in both PvE PvP). How BW will balance them is my biggest concern and wish to find out. I’d say it’ll be interesting come play testing for sure…

Anyone who says "Sith has no healing" has never played a Necromancer/Dark Energy user or wasn't paying attention to dark side force powers in KotoR. The Sith heal is probably a mix of enemy debuff/heal self and ally.

Thanks DH, this post was really actually meaningful. I took it to heart, now I'm still going to comment and give the swtor community my opinion on what’s going to happen, and what I do/ don't like blah blah, but now I think I'm going to look at the broad spectrum, and have faith in not only BW but LA (which I think a lot of people forget that LA is working on this game too, and not everything is BW). I'll continue my beliefs, but with less profound actions, thanks DH. And I hope you all can relieve some of this crazy news on the 3rd of this week. Also it’s good to know someone else has played a Mythic MMO, man I love those dudes at Mythic. They’re some of the best guys, their a peoples person, rather than titans at blizzard (not trying to be rude, but it’s kind of true, and yes blizzard is nice to their gamers, but not as much as these guys). I play the warhammer board game, and the MMO, and I’m kind of said that BW kind of bought out Mythic, things are gonna be different, hopefully for the better.

They had to separate the classes; one will be an obvious cloth user and the other heavy armor. Not to mention the fact that they stated there will be customizable branches for each class. I am assuming the diversity will be vast, hence the need to split a sub-specialization (if I may), into individual classes.

Also, now instead of 50% of the player base being two classes -- 50% of the player base will be split into 4 classes. This helps the balance of things.

Oh, and something about me creating an acrobatic Sith force/lightsaber user, i.e. Darth Maul, makes me all fuzzy inside.

My main disappointment to the last 2 classes is that they use Sabers, im sure somewhere along the road they could of changed the weapon up a notch.
They have now all the same classes you would expect in any mmo, now this game will appeal to the greater masses.
Blades - Jedi and Sith
Elf Archer (Range DPS) Trooper and BH
Assassins - Smugler and IA
Caster(Healer/Mage) Jedi C Sith I
I do like the way there doing it, we are really getting 16 end classes out of the starting 8. With 2 paths to go in each class, it makes the lack of starting classes irreverent.