Friday Update: E3 Details, Advanced Classes, and The Lost Suns



This week's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update is E3 Details, new Advanced Classes Page, and on The Lost Suns with an interview Alexander Freed. As BioWare Austin's Community Manager Stephen Reid hinted at this morning, there are three updates today about SWTOR. This is all in preparation for the Electronic Entertainment Expo that starts June 6 and expectations are massive on the news coming out of the event. Stated in the E3 details post is a tidbit about what fans can expect from E3:

  • More to share regarding the stories from the CG trailers

  • Belsavis raid content

  • Alderaan political intrigue

  • Tatooine -- sandpeople and something unknown


As part of this week's Friday Update, MMORPG.com interviewed Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller about the Advanced Classes we will see in Star Wars: The Old Republic. He covers abilities from almost every class including the Jedi Knight's Force Leap, the different stances of the Sith Warrior, the Bounty Hunter's helpful Kolto Missile, and the Smuggler's explosive Shrapnel Bomb.

The Old Republic: The Lost Suns previewed earlier this week on StarWars.com, and today an interview with Senior Writer and Managing Editor Alexander Freed. He covers a brief overview of the comic that follows Theron Shan, a Republic spy set out to discover what the Sith Empire's plans are for the planets newly acquired in the Treaty of Coruscant. The comic canonically at the start of the game, about 10 years after Threat of Peace and 40 years after Blood of the Empire.

Included a bit after the rest of the updates went up was a new Advanced Classes page. The page is a newly redesigned page to fit the place of the older updates. It contains new information about the trees and abilities of the Advanced Classes.

Official Dev Tracker posts follow the jump. Images from today's Friday Update are contained in the Media Gallery below. If higher resolution versions of the images become available, we will update them. Aurebesh Working translation follows the jump as well as in the Media Gallery.
Aurebesh Working Translation





DevTracker Posts


Alyson Bridge

The galaxy is at peace, but no one believes peace can last forever. To learn the truth behind the cease-fire between the democratic Galactic Republic and the tyrannical Sith Empire, the Republic's espionage service has sent Theron Shan - a maverick spy and son of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order - on a mission into Imperial space.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - The Lost Suns is a five-issue miniseries from Dark Horse Comics chronicling Theron's mission and the fallout that ensues. Written by BioWare Senior Writer Alexander Freed, who also wrote the previous Dark Horse Comics series Blood of the Empire, The Lost Suns features art from George Freeman and Dave Ross, with covers by Benjamin Carr.


Alyson Bridge

E3 2011 is almost here! Taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 7th through June 9th, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is the premier trade show for game developers and publishers worldwide. BioWare and LucasArts will be in attendance to reveal new information about Star Wars: The Old Republic, but you don't need to travel to Los Angeles to get all the latest information.

Read on for a sneak preview!


Alyson Bridge

Today we are excited to announce the launch of a newly redesigned Advanced Classes page. Advanced Classes give your hero access to unique skills and abilities that allow you to customize your character to your own unique play style. The new page allows you to explore each of the Advanced Classes in-depth and to check out the skill-sets that become available as you reach higher levels in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Learn More

Gallery: 6.3.11 Friday Update Images

Friday Update 6.3.11 Background 24
Friday Update 6.3.11 Background 9
Friday Update 6.3.11 Background 10
Friday Update 6.3.11 Background 11

Comments

  • Trusin's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 54
    #38 Trusin Posted 6/3/2011 6:16:10 PM
    One thing that worries me is the Healing side of Trooper BH Smug and Imp A. The only reason why is ive never seen a healer that didnt use Mana (A energy bar that didnt regenerate quickly). I can remember being in 30 min Arenas in WoW were the only way to win was to drain the healers mana down. Or effectively CC one of them so you can make the healer over heal to consume more mana on heals. Either way this is something id like to see addressed or mentioned
  • DarthShnooky's avatar
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    • Posts: 345
    #42 DarthShnooky Posted 6/3/2011 6:48:03 PM
    True, but this is not WoW. So it all depends on how PvP works out in game. If it's more about shutting down healers through abilities, rather than simply waiting out their mana, then that makes a major difference. I would rather deal with healers through active abilities and powers that let me take them down, than simply outlast them. Just have to wait and see...
  • Trusin's avatar
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    • Posts: 54
    #52 Trusin Posted 6/3/2011 7:18:54 PM
    Dont get me wrong i wasnt whining or throwin a fit over it love the update, but i guess when your use to X your perspective is only seen that way. Its hard to fathom anything else, so im excited to see it in action which made me think of the gear behind it and the fact there is no auto attack. In my mind the only way to make all this work would be to have hybrid... making it so if your a healer you have two jobs attacking and healing not just one or the other... I hope this is the way they went with it because I could not imagine a trooper with a Huge cannon never using it when hes healing. Or Epic Lootz that gives a trooper a huge cannon that looks awesome that he never once fires cause hes a dedicated healer.
  • DarthShnooky's avatar
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    • Posts: 345
    #62 DarthShnooky Posted 6/3/2011 8:09:19 PM
    No problem, never saw you as whining, just makin' conversation.

    It looks and sounds like hybridization is alive and well in this game. So PvP healers may actually be able to contribute some decent dps while they're at it. Let's hope...
  • Raithnor's avatar
    Spice Runner
    • Posts: 149
    #32 Raithnor Posted 6/3/2011 5:27:50 PM
    I'm not too familiar with WoW, but looking at all of the advanced class abilities it reminds me of Champions Online only with much better synergies. Which makes a certain amount of sense because Champions doesn't really use "classes".

    There's a "Use X to add a bonus to Y which adds a bonus to Z which gets a bonus when you perform a given action."
  • Jonnehz's avatar
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    • Posts: 381
    #35 Jonnehz Posted 6/3/2011 5:41:15 PM
    Its very wow as well. Talents which make your next cast instant and do more damage. Very familiar.

    But then, its hard to be original when you're already 8-9 years behind the mmo craze. I'm ok with that, so long as it works and suits the play-style.

    Sadly quit :/

  • Raithnor's avatar
    Spice Runner
    • Posts: 149
    #37 Raithnor Posted 6/3/2011 5:52:00 PM
    Having never really played such a system it sounds like fun. I like synergies, it's like the Devs are giving you a license to min/max without having to grind yourself stupid for gear.
  • DarthShnooky's avatar
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    • Posts: 345
    #40 DarthShnooky Posted 6/3/2011 6:46:54 PM
    It certainly looks that way. Even better, these types of synergies often allow for better hybridization between trees within an AC. WoW died to me the moment they destroyed hybrid builds within the classes...just reinforced the already prevailing cookie-cutter attitude. We can only hope that seeing these synergies built into the trees means the devs at BW are not only supporting hybridization, but understand how to properly balance it and make spec experimentation fun!
  • Socrates's avatar
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    • Posts: 419
    #30 Socrates Posted 6/3/2011 5:14:42 PM
    After browsing the SWTOR forum for 5 minutes seeing people whine about E3 screwing them over 3 days before E3 even starts, I just threw up in my mouth.

    That is all.
  • Jonnehz's avatar
    Dark Lord
    • Posts: 381
    #36 Jonnehz Posted 6/3/2011 5:42:55 PM
    Well, to be fair, I find updates that have nothing to do with the game pretty shitty myself too.

    Its not like you can really criticize them for not giving out info.. you just gotta wait that little bit longer until E3 gets into swing.

    Hopefully then we'll have something big to talk about.

    Sadly quit :/

  • StarSpider's avatar
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    • Posts: 56
    #29 StarSpider Posted 6/3/2011 5:07:46 PM
    Can't wait to take a look at the AC stuff. Stoked to get a closer look at abilities for the Smuggler!
  • Jaspor's avatar
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    • Posts: 292
    #24 Jaspor Posted 6/3/2011 4:54:50 PM
    Looks like the top text says "Most Wanted." Damn that's a bitch to translate all inverted like that.
  • Raithnor's avatar
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    • Posts: 149
    #28 Raithnor Posted 6/3/2011 5:07:42 PM
    It's not inverted exactly, it's just using a font that's different from the standard "Aurebesh". It's using "Galactic Basic" font which used inverted character for small case letters and changes out some of the weirder Aurebesh for something resembling english letters.

    The orange character on the first and fourth lines is supposed to be an asterisk
  • Jaspor's avatar
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    • Posts: 292
    #31 Jaspor Posted 6/3/2011 5:15:13 PM
    Ah, that explains why I was having a hard time matching some of those characters, thanks for the info!
  • Raithnor's avatar
    Spice Runner
    • Posts: 149
    #23 Raithnor Posted 6/3/2011 4:48:51 PM
    It's the BHG "Most Wanted" board from a previous screenshot of the smuggler. The third name down is "Blackwell"

    EDIT: My bad. Blastwell, but we've seen the sign before.
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