Loot, Stats, And Inventory

The character sheet of our Trooper included a significant amount of standard item slots like Bracers, Belt, Hands, Feet, Chest, Legs, and Head. There were four weapon slots: Ranged Primary, Ranged Secondary, Main Hand, and Off-Hand (both had small melee-type slot icons). The remaining non-armor or weapon slots were Ear, Implant, and Heirloom for a total of 14 slots.

Our Level 6 Trooper only had one weapon equipped in the Ranged Primary slot, and four pieces of armor equipped. Our characters were not equipped with helmets. Three of the armor pieces equipped weren't named, but the two other equipped items had full tooltips:

Hefty Gunnery Belt
Bound
Waist
34 Armor
100/100 Durability
+4 Agility
Requires Medium Armor
Requires Level 4

HE2 Mantellian Blaster Carbine
Bound
Ranged Primary
26-36 Energy Damage

We looted mainly gray items with an auto-loot feature that would automatically deposit the loot into our inventory, which had at least two panels of multiple slots or bag space for items. Meg tried to equip one of the items she looted, but noticed it was a lower level item after replacing the existing item in the slot. She tried to re-equip the heavy armor/higher level item she started out with, but received an error along the line of "you do not have the armor proficiency to equip that item."

The three main stats the Trooper seemed to use were Agility, Endurance, and Cunning.


Falling Damage & How We Failed At Death

One of the first things a true Hater does when they get their hands on Star Wars: The Old Republic is to immediately try to figure out a way to die. I noticed there was a larger structure nearby, and after a quick check behind the shoulder, I jumped off of it - and discovered falling damage is definitely in the game. It took about 25% off a full health pool, but I couldn't tell if the armor I wore mitigated it in any way.

Still determined to die, I successfully pulled a bunch of mobs on me and the death window popped up with the "Return to Med Center" and "Self Resurrect" debug option similar to another familiar Trooper in the PAX demonstration video. One of the LucasArts folks figured out what I was trying to do by that time, because before I could click the "Return to Med Center" button, I was told I wanted to "get right back into the action," and another hand that didn't belong to me clicked the Self Resurrect debug button.

As we pointed out earlier, there is a durability statistic on item pieces, however I didn't see a durability loss afterward.

Conclusion

We realized the Trooper's combat was fast-paced and immediately engaging compared to the "take a full bar and empty it" typical of ranged DPS classes in other MMOs. All the tools at our disposal to cope with multi-mob situations at such a low level enhanced our enjoyment of playing the class, and gave us a very immersible feel.

The attention to facial and environmental detail seemed improved over recent official footage. The vocal intonation of our characters was extremely believable and polished, and they felt customized to the male and female human characters we played at the various demo stations.

We wanted to sit there for hours playing and exploring, but we were told we had to go in order to make room for the next group. We reluctantly said goodbye to our Troopers and Ord Mantell, musing about what other fun explosives and guns the Trooper would use later on.