12.18
As the news coming out of Austin continues to pick up speed, mining information is becoming much more exciting. The response to our recent speculation articles inspired us to delve deeper into what we were previously told about Star Wars: The Old Republic — with surprising results. We used our recently acquired knowledge to give context to older news items, and realized BioWare was giving us hard facts all along.
A few years ago during the 2007 Austin GDC, Gamastura covered a speech by Gordon Walton, the co-studio director at BioWare Austin. It focused on how developers should approach making MMOs in a post World of Warcraft market, and towards the end of the presentation, Walton made the following comments to the crowd:
“The places to innovate are endless, but what do players want? Innovations have to be substantially better to be noticeable. Their game has eight classes, my game has 16. Who cares about classes? Do something I’ve never done before. If nine out of 10 people can’t tell it’s an innovation, it’s not an innovation.”
In retrospect, this quote reveals a great deal about Star Wars: The Old Republic in light of what we recently learned about class skills. Given the fact that we know there are eight classes, and we speculated each class has two distinct paths of damage and support, we can now see why Walton mentioned the number 16 in 2007 — BioWare is supplying many more “classes” then we previously believed.
Additionally, the focus on recognizable innovations by making them substantial allows us to speculate that the depth within these 16 “classes” will be far beyond what many MMO players are accustomed to. We should remember that this speech was based around developing games in a WoW-dominated world. In order to stand out, Dalton states a game would need to do more than just supply a little more of the same. We believe this means you will see far more customization within each TOR path then what we currently see in a single set of WoW class trees.
Using this hypothesis, we created a possible class progression chart based on what we knew of the Smuggler’s paths:
We believe the class customization options will be extremely deep once a player chooses their particular path. So deep, in fact, a single specialty could contain the same relative complexity as an entire World of Warcraft class. Instead of three talent trees, you may have as many as nine talent trees to quickly move between when you want to adjust your play style. Such an intricate level of customization would fit with Gordon Walton’s desire to stand out in the eyes of the MMO community, and fulfill BioWare’s promise to give gamers “a different, defined play experience.”
This is how we arrived at nine talent trees per path: first, we looked at what we already knew about the two Smuggler paths, noting the Scoundrel had both a focus on Stealth and Medicine. With all the developer talk about not forcing you to do something, such as solely specializing in healing to be viable for group play, we arrived at the conclusion that there had to be a third specialty that enhanced the Scoundrel’s ability to do damage.
We then went back to the trusty Holonet and noticed something in one of the Combat Tactics videos: a Smuggler quickly moves to get into closer range and wields a single weapon. Since we already said the Gunslinger was longer ranged, utilized Cover, and duel wields blasters, we hypothesized the third specialty in the Scoundrel path would focus on single weapon damage.
Referring back to Walton’s quote again, we concluded only developing three talent trees would be much too limiting for the level of character customization BioWare was aiming for. To account for this, we gave each specialty the same multiple of three to get to nine talent trees. The result is an array of so much variety, depth, and versatility that we could imagine quickly re-arranging talent points for a particular situation, and then with equal speed, do the same for a different one.
We then added a possible alignment focused skill for each specialty. We were told previously that characters would have specific abilities linked to whether they are light, neutral/grey, or dark. A single skill for each specialty would fit, and allows each character to access three possible skills based on their class, path, and alignment.
While this is extremely speculative, we believe the information received from BioWare and LucasArts strongly points to such complexity. This elaborate customization would be a significant undertaking for any development studio, but the response would be amazing from players tired of limited options. If this is similar to the class design of Star Wars: The Old Republic, we could be looking forward to a future of astonishing theorycraft.
Update: Ginnel, a member of the official forums, created a thread earlier today that contains an interesting quote from the latest issue of Edge. The quote, shown below, further endorses the conclusions contained in this article. The emphasis on deep character development is seen in this excerpt, as well as restating how dramatic the choice between the Gunslinger damage path and the Scoundrel support path will be.
There’s a dramatic amount of variation within classes. Using the example of the Smuggler, BioWare guided us through three or four paths of character development; every couple of levels brings with it a specialization path. Smugglers, for instance can specialize early on as Gunslingers with dual-wielding and coercion abilities, or Scoundrels with stealth and healing aptitude. Class choice affects the story arc far more than the actual gameplay it reflects who you want to be within The Old Republic’s universe, not what you wish to do.
Related posts:
[qoute]We believe the class customization options will be extremely deep once a player chooses their particular path. So deep, in fact, a single specialty could contain the same relative complexity as an entire World of Warcraft class.[/quote]
Is this a good idea? Keep it simple stupid.
That being said smuggler looks interesting.
[...] In a previous article, we presented a chart showing the depth of customization players might expect after making the path choice in Star Wars: The Old Republic. BioWare’s RPG signature usually includes foreshadowing an important decision with prior experiences and choices made during one’s personal story, so the major decision of path choice shouldn’t result in a surprise. Although we expressed our opinion of the depth and variety of customization that should exist after making this permanent decision, we didn’t detail how we suspect you will initially acquire and progressively improve skills in what we call the “core class.” Therefore, we here at Darth Hater decided to elaborate on our prior class combat speculations and delve deeper into what we feel “core class” really means. [...]
I found this article to be really insightful well researched. I thought I would try to add a little further to the speculation =D
Some classes seem to have some fairly obvious game choices that mesh perfectly with this hierarchy. For instance, the imperial agent could logically diverge into a more rogue-like stealthier utility/dps class, or as more of a single-target DPS sniper class. The trooper class seems to have some weapon specialization choices to make judging from the various weapons we’ve seen so far. I would say the speculation on JK/SW are right on the money with a more tank-like tree seeing better armor and a single lightsaber, and a DPS path with lesser armor dual weilding. Consulars/Inquisitors seem to lend themselves to caster specs, and my speculation would be healer/cc for the other main branch.
All of the classes have exhibited some form of CC so that could make sense as a subset of particular specs and a strong choice for a PvP build. It’s interesting that I haven’t really noticed any buffing so far in the videos though I haven’t scoured the UI with a magnifying glass looking for them.
I have a strong feeling that, much like in many other MMOs to date, each normal class ability that you recieve in the early game will have an affinity toward one tree or another giving players a strong idea about which style of gameplay they would choose to pursue.
One last note, I think that the companion system that is in place very strongly supports a DPS versus support choice since anyone who has ever leveled a purely support class (real holy priest) in an MMO has felt the pain that I’m confident Bioware won’t inflict on us since you will be able to choose a companion that complements your characters role.
Keep up the good work and keep the great reads coming!
[...] sets for sure but we speculated about this exact point and it seems to almost confirm what we were theorizing. The concept art of the armor sets mention classifications as med, heavy, and [...]
[...] must logically have both a support and damage path, we also discovered that there must be enough variety of customization built into these path choices that could completely avoid the common MMO problem of forcibly [...]
Lots of speculation like you say, but I like what you guys are doing on this site.
I am not so sure about the idea that Gunslinger vs Scoundrel is a “permanent choice” since in your Neri interview in the podcast episode 14, he seems to be saying that you will still always be able to switch between the two “quickly” once you have unlocked the two paths. Around 1:31:29 into the podcast is the question to Neri.
Love the site and the podcast. Keep up the good work!
Jake Neri even said in our interview that there wasn’t official nomenclature, so I’m pretty sure the same word was used for two different things.
If the path choices weren’t permanent, then there would be less trees, and it doesn’t make sense for something like that not to be permanent when you go back and read other stuff like Walton’s quote.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the reply. I was thinking it could work sort of like City of Heroes, where you can pick two different “builds” for your character and switch between them without actually doing full “respec”. One could be for pvp and one for pve, or one for solo play and one for teaming.
Yeah and in the written interview here http://darthhater.com/2009/12/03/jake-neri-interview-part-two/#more-4843 He again mentions being able to switch between the paths once you have reached a certain level and unlocked them. Pretty much verifies that the path choices won’t be permanent. But yeah besides that one point, solid write up imo.
Put those quotes in context with Walton saying “16 classes.”
It doesn’t appear to us that BioWare changed direction in regards to class design since Walton said that.
I have a question. Do you guys think there will be talent trees OUTSIDE of the specializations, like in Dragon Age? So we have smuggler core trees that are more numerous that specialization trees?
I think it is more like WoW where you learn core abilities and different ranks of them, and then after you make your path choice, you get to put points in your nine talent talent trees.
That makes sense. Would probably depend on how long till you make the choice though. For example, if it took a long while (like a couple dozen hours of gameplay), it would probably be best to have smuggler talent trees to have some variety. If its at level 10 or 15, it wouldn’t really be necessary.
*shrugs*
Maybe think of it this way: how can you make a choice like that… such a permanent one… without real knowledge of your class’ depth, core abilities, and story?
interesting stuff guys, looks like another couple are taking it on full swing to give a bit more life (though through the roof speculation) to this idea: http://polyfx.com/swtor/
op:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=101653
This is a very interesting article. I would be quite please if BW’s system were like this. It provides an elegant solution to dilemma between meaningful persistant choices and the issue of respec. So, from what I see, light side/dark side and path represent the persistent story based choices, but your main skill trees could easily tolerate free respec. It is a very satisfying solution.
I dig your work here, I really do. But don’t you think that 18 (eighteen) skill trees per class is a bit over the top? Of course it has to be considered how big you think these 18 trees are. I think there is no way that each of them is as complex as a WoW-class skill tree…
Well look at it in a “TOR perspective” rather than a WoW one. WoW has three trees per class (cause there cheap like that). But for people who’ve never played and MMO and are going to play TOR all these “Trees” don’t seem like much, in-fact some may actually want more! So really yes it a lot, but without knowing what the level cap is and how many talent points you actually get its hard to tell how points might work. Plus with the way TOR looks it does look like it’ll be much more complex for the more “hard core” players. (err at least non casual ones)
Oh and besides Hobowan, once you choose a path you can’t switch, so it’d more be like 9 trees rather than 18, because the other path wouldn’t matter much anymore.
Cool, interesting read indeed. Thanks.
So what’s your take on the “themes” that have been mentioned? Apologies if I missed something obvious here, but I’m wondering if they could be more than just mere design categories and perhaps in some way are integrated into the actual class structure? I might be way off here, but it would be nice to hear what you guys make of it:
“…each class is being designed around a number of different themes that can apparently be specialized in to customize your character around your playing style. The example given was the smuggler profession, whose general themes include luck, recklessness, opportunity, and cowboy.”
Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarstheoldrepublic/news.html?sid=6242790&mode=previews
Again, not sure this is relevant, but I’m mentioning it just in case.
Cheers
SE
They were just talking about the text that was under the smuggler block seen in our dec 3rd smuggler tree article. Basically they were talking about themes or things that the certain class/sub classes have as seen in our past articles. Not sure why that quote has been taken to mean other things but we are hopefully clearing that up with every article we publish.
Thanks sado.
Are you saying that these themes (luck, recklessness, opportunity, and cowboy) did not originate from BioWare/LucasArts, but rather from you DH guys speculating?
The GameSpot article makes them sound pretty “official” and I couldn’t find anything mentioned about them in your Dec 3rd “Smuggler Class Trees” article, nor did anything show up through your search function.
Again, sorry if I just misunderstood you and/or missed something obvious, just want to make sure I got this right.
Cheers
SE
That’s not what I was saying at all…
The place where we got the picture in the smuggler tree article was from the LA presentation itself, we just made a clone of the slide from memory. What was not included in that picture was the text under the smuggler box at the top, which gamespot included in their article. That is where the content you were referring to was seen.
We did not include that text in our class tree article because it was the same general description that we have had for months on the class. The same luck, cowboy, and other themes can be seen in the holonet as descriptors for the smuggler class.
Thanks for clearing that up sado, much appreciated.
Didn’t see the presentation myself, so it can get a bit tricky at times figuring out what came from where etc.
Anyway, since you guys didn’t seem to put much emphasis on these themes (at least not in terms of class structure), I guess it’s safe to say they are not important in that regard.
Thanks again for clearing that up.
Cheers
SE
Well-done Eml <3. 10 beers, 3 gin shots, and 9 hours of brutal analysis.. it came out what it should be. I think this will be the forefront of what will come ahead, in terms of character progression and others. Well-thought out but keep knocking that wood down DH team, were getting near to the end it seems and you guys have the pieces of the puzzle just waiting to put together.
<3 DH team
-Macer
P.S. Eml loves black cake. mmzmzmz!
More like 200 bears later and 3 years of listening to BW rant on about story
But this is just speculation so we can only assume that it may happen, not that it actually will.
Its also worth mentioning that this type of system has been seen in BW games from KOTOR to ME to DA have this type of setup where instead of 1 huge talent tree like WoW or Diablo, you have individual skill trees, thus supporting this hypothesis even further.
I gotta admit this has become my most frequently visited site lol. I come to this website every day or maybe twice a day just to see what is going on. I love the articles everyone at DH posts they are funny but informative. Only problem i see with yall is your making it hard to forget about the game and wait for to be released.
yea me too
ya, im here everyday as well, never been so excited for a game to come out, maybe intigued should be the word.
Interesting! I hope it plays out like you speculate it will, although I’m cautious not to set myself up for disappointment tbh.
hey emleah i found something about specis. Maybe all the playable species? What do you think? >>>> http://www.swtor.com/media/concepts?page=12 and
http://www.swtor.com/media/concepts?page=13
I think that all the species have already been revealed ^^^
I have no inside info but, I hope you’re wrong. Bith? Gamorrean? We already know that all playable species will be able to speak Galactic Basic. Nautolan, Ithorian, and Human are the only ones on that list I see as fan favorites. Neomodians? Kitonaks? Where are the Kel Dor, Twileks, Zabraks, and Mon Cal…among others.
Yeah besides Gamorreans and Ithorians can’t even speak basic. However Ithorians are liked by a sum of the star wars community. Also Kitonaks are just a no no to be playable. And I’ll have you know Xavier that I like Nemodians, even if their all wussies. Bith, and Nartolans make sense though, however mere concept art isn’t as good as in game screen shots. And we’ve seen screen shots of Kel Dor and Gran. I’ve never seen in game shots of Kitonaks or Nemodians.
They may be saving the playable species for big reveals. I think those pics are a good indication of what will NOT be playable.
Really Direct? Nemodians and Nartulans or a bith seem like a logical candidate to be playable to me, the others not so much.
[...] deals with their theory as to how the class trees will progress. You can find the full article on DarthHater.com As the news coming out of Austin continues to pick up speed, mining information is becoming much [...]
Excellent article. I hope your supposition does indeed come to fruition.
Thank you. Sorry it wasn’t posted yesterday, but we had to burn the midnight oil after getting distracted by bright shiny objects in the Holonet.
I am extremely happy that you guys are looking into previously released info. I stated earlier that i also believe that bioware gave us a TON of info already, we just didnt know it at the time.
The best thing out of all this though, is the quote by Walton. Seeing that bioware / lucas arts, already knew how to make a successful game, back in 2007 is very very pleasing. This shows that this will not be another game that pretty much mirrors the WoW style.
“I stated earlier that i also believe that bioware gave us a TON of info already, we just didnt know it at the time.”
Very, very true.
I really like your speculation and hope it’s predictive of what’s to come. I don’t know if you ever played SWG pre CU (combat upgrade) and NGE (new game engine) but what you’ve shown here is very, very, similar to what was in SWG when it launched. I believe that flexibility in customization and building your toon the way you wanted them is one of the main reasons you still have so many people pining about the loss of that game (SWG today is radically different…and not for the better).
The really intesting thing here is that Gordon Walton and Rich Vogel (the co-studio GMs in Austin) were two of the original architects of SWG when it was lauched. What we might be seeing here is them retaining one of the great concepts in SWG and incorporating it into SWTOR in a new incarnation.
For anyone that is interested, the way it worked in SWG was that you chose a basic class (melee or ranged) and you had a full matrix (3×4, 12 blocks) to fill out as you levelled. Once you completed the basic tree, you then unlocked a number of discrete advanced trees (each a full 3×4 matrix). As an example if you went ranged, once you compled the basic tree, you could then start progressing into the advanced trees of Pistoleer, Carbineer, or Rifleman…each of those having their own full 12 block matrix. Now here’s the cool part: you could mix and match from different trees. E.g. you could choose a full column of 4 blocks in Pistoleer, 3 blocks from a column in Cabineer, and 5 more blocks from various columns in Rifleman. The catch was you were restricted 12 blocks total so you had to plan out your template (the term used for you particular customization). As a bonus, if you used all your 12 blocks in one advanced class (say Rifleman) you unlocked a final 13th block called Master Rifleman, which always had some cool abilities….the offset for restricting yourself to one advanced profession. And finally, you could re-spec your template by unlearning a block and then start progressing up some other block elsewhere.
Clearly Bioware will not allow you to pick and choose across macro classes, but it does sound like they will allow you to do so within the subclasses.
Here’s to hoping you’re on the right path!
Aurie.
I don’t play other MMOs except WoW — I play good games, best in genre types for at least three years each. So it is really hard for me to bring stuff from other MMOs into speculation articles because I didn’t play them, and I have to rely on other people’s knowledge about them.
Therefore, thank you for bringing this SWG comparison into the discussion — it sheds a whole new light on this topic.
I’m kind of iffy on this one. PvE wise I would love it. Lots of choices for individual situations and such.
PvP wise though, I see this is essentially impossible to balance, likely leading to another WAR on the pvp side, nerfs and buffs with every patch, flavors of the month, etc.
So, I’m split on this, becaue I do enjoy both sides.
I’ll just continue to trust in Bioware:)
Working on something else that will hopefully explain this better and address your concerns.
These types of articles is what originally brought me to darthhater.com. This has been missing for a while, but I am glad to see you’ve found your roots again
Way to utilize all of your resources guys! Great work.
One of my little loves for MMO’s is when there’s an online talent tree app that you can play around with putting points into various class spec trees – I just find them really fun to play with, planning for ages :-p
Can’t wait to see where TOR goes with talent points/spec trees!
I really know what you mean. I spend as much time on wowhead.com clicking through talents than I play the game. Addictive!
It took me a bit to understand what you were trying to say. But this quote from you on vent helped immensely.
“… instead you say to yourself, let’s build it from the bottom-up. Every class needs to have a support path and a damage path. But if they aren’t in there permanently, we’re going to run into issues. So, to compensate for being stuck that way, we’re going to get tons of options to choose from. So that you can, in a support path, spec for healing, but quickly turn around and spec damage when you need it.” – roughly remembered quote from emlaeh on vent
Are you available to be my personal dictation machine?
Gotta write a whole other article on that concept… you’d come in handy!
I was hoping that each specialization was going to have its own trees and this article pretty much reassures me that it is true. I really hope BioWare pulls this one off, then we will get the greatest MMO of all time.