SWTOR asks who's better: Jedi Knight or Bounty Hunter

@Ren54

It has nothing to do with making a SW MMO. The problem is that they shoehorned SW to fit the WoW/EQ mold instead of designing a game that fits the lore and theme of the IP.

@Cyclone Jack

They can fall to the dark side they just do not become sith! There will be dark side abilities and gear for those that turn to it.

@Ren54 My main thought here, and one that was stated elsewhere, is that its not entirely a fight of ideologies at this point. Its a straight up Faction war. The jedi who fall to the dark side are supposed to have unique conversation points, abilities, etc, but stay on the side of the republic. Much like in the Original KOTOR series, you could be as evil as you wanted, but still fight for the jedi council + Republic.

Same thing. I wouldn't say its shoe horning the EQ/WOW model into an MMO, I would say its being faithful to the KOTOR series.

@AnotherPint

So you can have dark side Jedi in the Rebellion and light side Sith in the Empire? Or will there be a way to actually change sides?

@(Unverified)

Except you didn't have tanks and healers in KOTOR. ;)

Don't get me wrong, I'll probably still give it a whirl when it launches, its just that there are a whole lot of core design decisions that EAWare made that I disagree with. I think that SWTOR would be a much better game without the trinity, with the ability to switch sides based on your actions (or inaction), and with a more open class design.

@Cyclone Jack

There is no way to change sides but it would have been fun if you could. Dark side Jedi will stay Republic and light side Sith will stay Empire.

@Cyclone Jack

Its the difference between what the Jedi Order thinks is against a Code versus what the Force thinks about you.

For instance, passion for a lover is forbidden by the Jedi Order but that may make no difference to the Force at all. In such a case, you may violate the Jedi Code with impunity without actually affecting your light/dark side Force nature.

@Cyclone Jack

Yes, except "Rebellion" is "Republic" in this era.

As far as I know no way to change sides (yet?) though.

@Cyclone Jack

Going to the dark side is not an on/off switch. It is a path; and a Jedi ALWAYS has to worry. That's why they have the code.

On the other hand, as you say, if the game doesn't have a mechanic that eventually flips you to Sith if you're dark all the time, then that's lame.

@myr

Yeah, force of habit. Besides, "You Rebel scum!" sounds better than "You Republic scum!" :)

@Ordegar I still dont really see how. Its a political affiliation. If you spent years / decades fighting an enemy, im pretty sure that starting down the path to the darkside doesnt mean you're going to want to be their friends.

Consider the time scale this is on, KOTOR 1, 2, and the gap in between has occured so far, and that isn't a slight amount of time. Some of these jedi have likely been fighting against the sith / various forms of the sith for a while.

There were anti-jew bigots fighting against the Germans during WW2 because they were american and supported america. Same gist, dark side jedi/ sith (terminology here gets messy), who are supporting the republic out of hate of the sith / empire.

@(Unverified)

Yes and no. A Smuggler or Bounty Hunter doesn't usually choose sides and just works for the highest bidder. Granted, some will choose, like Han chose to stay with the Rebels. Also, people's perspectives and ideals can change as well. Who once was a member of the Republic may see something that causes them to rethink their stance. Revan, for example, was a Jedi who turned Dark Side during/after the Mandalorian Wars.

@Cyclone Jack
What about grey Jedi's, they don't worry 2 much about the dark side.

@Cyclone Jack I prefer the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps myself. Makes for a more stable environment. And having characters switch factions based on their light-side, dark-side choices would just cause too much hassle. I'm glad BioWare is going to keep things simple. Would be doomed to failure if they went too far out on that ledge. :)

@Cyclone Jack Actually there were tanks and healers in KoTOR. Healers for sure.

@WrecklessMEDIC

I do think that a side-switching mechanic would be difficult to do properly, based solely on one's light/dark points, but I think it would be an interesting mechanic nonetheless. Is it a needed mechanic, not really, its just something that mildly irritates me that I can be a bastard of a Jedi and still be 'the good guy'. However, this could just be that I've no knowledge of a dark side character that worked with/for the Republic/Rebellion, or of a light side character that worked with/for the Empire, as I do not follow the extended universe (books, comics, etc).

As for the trinity, have you played an MMO (or multiplayer RPG, like Diablo) that did not have the trinity? The closest MMO example I have is City of Heroes, where you can pretty much do anything with any group of characters, including all Blasters or all Stalkers.

@dudemanjac

Just because you have you heal ability does not make one a healer. In fact, for one of my playthroughs, I went through KOTOR only using passive Jedi abilities and only used the 2 droids as my companions (once I got them). The only healer in the movies, that I recall, is the medical droid in Empire.

As for tanks, heavy armor does not make one a tank. Tanking is an aggro control mechanic that makes little actual sense. In terms of KOTOR, why would someone focus on the Trooper, who is at range, while they have 2 Jedi stabbing them in the back with lightsabers? FWIW, I played a Prot Warrior in TBC and LK, and I had a blast tanking in TBC (hated it in LK, quit shortly after).

I would much rather see a 'tanking' mechanic that made sense, where the 'tank' is an actual threat, not someone who makes taunting comments and low-damage 'threatening' attacks to force enemies to attack them instead of the squishy, easy to kill DPS/Healers. Make the tank get in the way, literally blocking the enemies from getting past (which requires collision detection), use a variety of snares, knockdowns, stuns and other debuffs to keep the enemy damage low. Set certain enemy AI to prefer certain targets, instead of using a universal aggro table.

@Ordegar
actually yep, going dark side is pretty much a on/off switch if you have the force of will to press it. Luke and Mara proved it.

and remember Jacen, you can be a dark Jedi and still fight the enemies of the republic. The only thing that change are the means used, the end stays the same.

Many Jedis turned to the dark side because they thought that physical violence was the answer to fight evil, that the good of many outweights the good of one, or even that a benign tyrant is better than anarchy...the light Jedis would consider that points of view extremly twisted, but they were still figthing evil.

I think you simply dont know enough of the lore to have an opinion on this...