During our time in San Francisco we gathered a lot of information that, while pertinent, was not deep enough to warrant an entire post. This article will deal with the general abilities and information that which does not pertain to any one class garnered during the hands-on demo. To keep the information separate this article utilizes a bullet-point format; discussing only the information being highlighted at the time. The bullet-points follow no particular order of importance.
Call Shuttle Ability (Hearthstone, Recall)
It will come as little surprise to anyone who has played a recent MMO that a working Hearthstone or Recall-to-town ability is currently in the game titled Call Shuttle. When activated the character opens a datapad on his/her arm displaying a holographic image of a planet that persists while channeling the recall. This ability, like many other channeled skills, can be interrupted by taking damage. As of right now, the ability is usable inside of buildings and underground, however, the name implies that this may not work inside of buildings when the game is live.
Current Character Stats
Stats seen on the character sheet during the demo are as follows Cunning, Presence, Willpower, Strength, Agility, Accuracy, Absorb percentage (Armor Value), and Armor Rating. It should be noted that these ability values could change down the line and should be considered placeholder until stated otherwise by BioWare. Armor Value expresses damage mitigation and the Armor Ratings seems to imply gear statistics. Crit chances were also seen near the bottom of the character sheet.
Warhammer like Quest-helper System
Possibly the biggest bit of general information garnered during the demo, Star Wars: The Old Republic has a system of questing similar to Warhammer. The system currently in place draws circles around areas where you can find your objectives on the map. It also directs you to zones or different levels of a dungeon with a green waypoint arrow pointing you in the right direction. The intent of this system is to get away from the requirement of having to have a web browser open while playing to find where to go for a quest. The system also updates you when you complete parts of your quests by popping up yellow text saying for example Collect monkey rings 1/4 and so on in similar fashion until you complete the quest. If this system continues to work throughout the game the way it did during our hands-on session it will succeed in that regard.
Tiered Maps
As you go up and down stairs searching for your quests you will see the mini-map and world map change to reflect what is on that level. This allows them to stack maps on top of each other and yet still allow players to navigate non-instanced floors without receiving information overload. This implies that we could be seeing much more depth and complexity from the dungeons and buildings in The Old Republic.
Quest Colors Answered
One of the long running questions that has persisted since the beginning of our dissection posts has been about the blue/yellow quest representation. From the hands-on demo we found that blue quests appear to be side quests and yellow quests are main story quests.
Looking for Group
While fumbling through the quest log we noticed a button at the bottom that said Look for Group. It is implied that you will be able to look for a group for an individual quest or dungeon through a system similar to World of Warcraft. In this demo, the system was not in place, all that was in place was the button itself to Look for Group. No specifics could be learned about the system at the time of the hands-on demo but it is likely we will hear about it down the line. You are also able to abandon and track selected quests from the quest log.
Right Click is Attack, No Auto Attack
As we mentioned in the Sith Inquisitor page, during the demo we discovered that pressing right click on an enemy NPC is your base attack. After the abilitys animation was completed the character did not continue to attack, requiring another right click to continue the battle. Additionally, the Inquisitor did not automatically move into attack range like you would normally see in an MMO, the player has to manually make sure they are in range to perform the attack.
More Facial Cosmetics Seen
Facial cosmetics were seen in the form of tattoos and scars on one of the quest giver NPCs as well as eye liner on sado's female character and a pencil mustache on Dover's male character. What the implication is of this is unknown. Since we were unable to create the character for the demo ourselves we cannot say how much this implies about facial customizations.
Companions are Summoned and Dismissed on Command
Companions are summoned via clicking a channeled ability called Summon Companion. Dismissing the companion was not seen during the demo as we were unable to actually complete the summon of the companion but the fact that you can summon them implies that you can dismiss them as well. It is also of note that the companion image seen for the ability Summon Companion was a Human Female, likely placeholder.
If a companion dies they can be revived by the player via the Revive Ability. Description of the Revive Ability Single target revive, can revive companions or allies with the ability. It is not known if every class has this ability or just the Sith Inquisitor, however this could be implying that all classes may have this ability.
Enemy Rank Added
We noticed when jumping into the hands-on that the enemy NPC ranking system featured a new classification Standard. In our prior dissections(Link) we pointed out that a ranking system for the enemy NPCs was seen and was similar to the World of Warcraft Elite system. We do not know if this new rank, Standard, means a completely new rank added to the game or has one of the previous ones was simply renamed.
Walk, Run, Sprint
In the current demo there are three different modes of movement walk, run, and sprint. In its current form, sprint does not have a length of use limit. Sprint currently works as a faster version of run, is not an ability, and is merely just one extra button press while running. It should also be noted that force users will passively deflect blast bolts in all three movement modes in the current build.
New Smoke Effects
In screenshots released quite some time ago we saw the Sith Holocron on Korriban without smoke effects. In the current demo smoke effects have been added to the surrounding area of the Sith Holocron. The effect itself looks great, we cant wait to see it used in other areas or adapted for other uses.
