SWTOR opens the Operations holonet page

Star Wars: The Old Republic does everything slightly different from other MMOs on the market. Of course, the principle difference is personal story, which is woven into every bit of gameplay. Even the traditional raids are slightly different. In SWTOR, these highly dangerous group encounters are called Operations -- large, story-driven encounters for either faction. Today, the BioWare development team released a new page on the official website highlighting this endgame content.

The Eternity Vault Operation is presented through images of the opening cutscene, part of the first encounter, and the end boss, the Infernal One. The videos included had been presented previously during E3 and PAX East as the Eternity Vault trailer and walkthrough video. However, at the bottom of the page sits an image that does not fit the Eternity Vault encounter, followed by these cryptic words: "Even though the Eternity Vault is featured prominently here, it is not the only high-level Operation for you to experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic. More will be revealed..."

As soon as we know exactly what those words mean, we will let you know in our continued coverage of this highly anticipated title.

Reader Comments (50)

Does it bother anyone else the Rakata is 20 feet tall?

@Interitus

if it's not big in mmos, it's not a boss.

@Interitus It does imo, especially in Star Wars Universe, being bigger does not mean stronger...not to mention how the hell can this Rakata be this
big. Only reason for Bioware to make it big is easier for raid members to target it? lorewise it's ridiculous.

@Interitus Absolutely. People that can't target a normal sized NPC shouldn't be raiding anything other than WoW's easy mode raid finder.

@Interitus

Yes, it does.

@scottsummer Size matters not.

Apparently not...

@Interitus

From a story standpoint? Sure. From a gameplay standpoint? Not so much.

@Greyhame

The problem is that in solid game design we shouldn`t have to make story sacrifices for gameplay, or visa versa. They should be a cohesive whole that complement each other.

@Interitus

Raid bosses have to be bigger than life, otherwise they'll be completely obscured by the the players surrounding him and all the lasershow ability fx.

That's just how it is -- if you're designing a boss fight for 4 groups of people you should make it so the players can say they actually remember what the strongest boss in the game actually looked like during the fight.

@jealouspirate

Unfortunately that doesn't even work in non-MMO games. The story is always sacrificed for gameplay. In an ideal world it would not happen, but that ideal does not yet exist.

@(Unverified)

Well as someone else said, a MMO player should hopefully know how to use a main assist without having to physically click a boss.

I understand the concept from a gameplay perspective, but I think it's sad that this is how you handle a raid boss, just make it big.

For story (and consider how much TOR is built on story). I hope Bioware at least makes some excuse that the force corrupted him, or some excuse to say why he is a giant Rakata.

I understand that's how they do it, but doesn't mean I have to like it.

@Interitus I actually like the idea of the Rakata being very tall compared to the modern species of the galaxy. It would offset their otherwise pretty ‘silly’ appearance, and I'd be totally fine with them being retconned to maybe 8-11 feet tall. But not like this.

@(Unverified)

Perhaps the concept of "boss" characters in the Star Wars Universe is what should be questioned then.

Sure, there are big bad villains like Vader, but he's not typically being engaged solo by a dozen or two heroic characters at the same time during the movies, comics, etc.

Why couldn't Bioware stick to the Star Wars convention of large battles involving legions of enemies on either side, or even splitting up parties to tackle multiple different battles at once? Maybe it's the same reason they shoehorned the healer/tank/DPS "holy trinity" into a universe that's completely devoid of any such archetypes.

Basically, if they couldn't lift something from the conventions of WoW/EQ, they don't have the courage or ability to make it a core part of the game. Bosses and raids must be just like the conventional norm, just as class roles must be, progression must be (level based grind leading to gear grind raiding/PvP/daily quests end game).

@Saerain
Hah! I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds they look silly. I would have no problem with 8 - 11 feet. They were supposed to be quite tall (2 metres) anyway.

There is lots of talk about TOR being innovative. This is a place where they could have done that. yeah, it's not a big deal. But lets face it .. EVERY mmo has giant raid bosses. Is there no other way to do it? If TOR found asystem that worked I would have been really impressed, because those are the kinds of things people copy. I don't think every company wants to have a giant monster as their raid boss.

@Interitus It is an archetype of human mythology that strong beings are tall. The ancient people imagined their gods usually as considerably taller than humans. See the myth of the Nephilim also, which later is reflected in the fairy tale giants. Many ancient people imgained their gods tall. So I guess this aspect kinda speaks of human archaic memory.

Awesome. now lets wait for new info. 14 Dungeons at launch is much.

@Jormaster

15

that is so uncannon and stupid looking

@(Unverified)
yeah, it's just one big giant doo-doohead! /facepalm

@(Unverified) It's also very unbazooka, unhandgun, unrevolver, ungrenade and not to mention extremely unhydrogenbomb.

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SWTOR opens the Operations holonet page

Reader Comments (50)

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:08PM Interitus said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:20PM real65rcncom said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:48PM scottsummer said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:04PM Ilikesoup said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:18PM jealouspirate said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:34PM Infestimus said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 8:51PM Greyhame said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 9:30PM jealouspirate said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 9:54PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 10:39PM Greyhame said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 10:42PM Interitus said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 12:11AM Saerain said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 12:43AM Mystal said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 12:49AM Interitus said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 9:16PM Elikal said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:09PM Jormaster said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:46PM real65rcncom said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:01PM Lenn said

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