So the cat is officially out of the bag for the two remaining Star Wars: The Old Republic classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor. This fills out all of the careers in the game, and the reaction to the last two reveals has been interesting to say the least. Over at the official forums, there is a veritable hotbed of opinions about the last two classes, from crushing disappointment, to concern over debate on no clear healing classes, to outright wild notions (that might be trolling). In other words, there's a lot of the typical MMO community reaction to any kind of definitive announcement; that, my dear friends, is a blend of mass hysteria and crazy jumping to conclusions.

Literally a week after fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic received big news with the Jedi Knight reveal, we got another exciting news-bit with the announcement of the Imperial Agent. I do have to say, after some voiced concerns that the updates for the game were not "ramping up", two class announcements in as many weeks goes a long way to counteract such feelings. The number of classes revealed for The Old Republic is now at six, with two more still waiting in the wings. For now, let's focus a bit on our newest class for TOR.

Everyone on the Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums, and at Darth Hater, has their hearts all a-flutter over the possible announcement of the Jedi Knight, the anticipated lightsaber-wielding class for the Republic side of things. With the Sith Warrior taking center stage for the latter part of the summer, it seems that the holidays will be bringing us plenty of the lighter side of things with their peace-loving Jedi counterparts.

By now, folks who've been following the game have had a chance to take in the latest Developer Dispatch from BioWare on the making of the planet Coruscant. Like many others, I was impressed at the six minutes of explanation detailing how the developers plan on making Coruscant meet the expectations of the players who are eager to get their hands on it and experience what it has to offer. The Coruscant presentation brings up an interesting point regarding the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and how large and massive Bioware plans to make the various areas of the game.

As someone who traditionally plays the oft-pressured role of support in most MMOs, I've been watching news about those sorts of roles as they will pan out in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We've heard precious little about anything regarding healing, except for the fact that there will apparently be an out-of-combat healing ability that all classes will get. But does the lack of information regarding healing and support in the game point to an indicator of these types of classes not being ready for prime time, or is Bioware looking to go in a different direction when it comes to support with their new title?Let's play a little Sherlock Holmes and see if we can't examine some of the evidence that's out there, shall we boys and girls?

I'm always on board with shoehorning classic songs into my articles, so today's slightly modified entry, "I'm Too Sexy (for my 'Saber)" is a bit appropriate, considering the subject matter.

My fellow DH compatriot Dirty has a really neat article up about trying to bring balance to the Force...of class distribution. You should definitely check it out for some good thoughts about how it's going to be a challenge to make people play something other than sword-wielding ninja-monks, otherwise known as Jedi and Sith. That's certainly going to be a hurdle for Bioware, but more than that, I think that the overall balance in a two-faction game might just be of concern to them as well.

As many of you folks who've been crazy enough to follow the game this far out know, Bioware's been releasing fairly regular updates on Star Wars: The Old Republic for quite some time now. These mostly take the form of Fan Fridays, which drop in little nuggets of info about things that are happening with the game's development, or present pieces of media such as the Threat of Peace comic.

There's no doubt that one of the largest strengths of the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic is simply the IP. Star Wars is one of the most well-known, well-loved, and most-discussed science fiction franchises in media history, and combining that with the immersion factor of an MMO is certain to draw players in to give it a whirl.

Yoda really had the best seat in the house, yes?


There are a lot of people I talk to these days, whether it's over IM, Twitter, or any of the other wonderful social networking/productivity-inhibiting apps, about Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the game's development being in its relative infancy as far as the process is concerned, some folks out there are in a constant state of delirious excitement over what could be an extremely successful release. The key element I keep hearing over and over again is "SWTOR can't come soon enough WE WANTS IT NOW11".