If there’s a running trend we’re seeing with Bioware’s upcoming MMO these days, it’s in the way that they introduce new classes to the ravenous fandom. Sure, there are videos and a dev diary, and the requisite interviews, but what I’m referring to is basically what I like to call “iconic presentation”.
If you notice what Bioware is doing with their class reveals, they are very quick to compare a class to an iconic character from the classic Star Wars universe. The Bounty Hunter is Boba Fett, the Smuggler is Han Solo, and so on and so forth. The latest is the comparison of the Sith Warrior to everyone’s favorite badass evil guy Darth Vader.
In this we might find some possible clues as to the remaining classes. For example, a Jedi class is inevitable, but perhaps we might see a mirror to the Sith Warrior be someone patterned after Luke Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi. We could see Jedi or Sith who are more attuned to the Force rather than the lightsaber be compared to Yoda or Emperor Palpatine. What about droids like R2-D2? Perhaps a versatile person of many skills as Leia? There are plenty of possibilities to be had among the characters of Star Wars.
I think it’s safe to say that Bioware’s really selling the story appeal partially based upon any dreams we Star Wars geeks had about being the iconic characters from the episodes and stories. To be honest that makes people more excited about the remaining classes of the game and generates a ton more discussion in the forums. Frankly, that’s what Bioware wants – excitement and buzz, to better sell the mechanics and meat the game inevitably has to offer. I personally haven’t found anything among the various classes yet – but hope to by simply looking at who I’d want to play in the vast Star Wars universe.
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The more information I get from it, the more it looks like…
an instanced based mmo. Possibly similar to DDO. With pretty generic classes.
Hopefully the story can be a good enough selling point, because I don’t think they are breaking grounds in other areas.
The way you present it here sounds like what they did with LOTRO. Each class matches up to a character in the novels (not always very well, mind you). It does help with the RP though, in my opinion. It could limit them as far as new classes for future expansions and such though. Looking back at LOTRO, they had to stretch pretty hard to find a character match for the Rune Keepers.
I’m hoping for a Droid race/class like HK-47.
[...] TOR classes (the five revealed/assumed are Jedi, Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter, Trooper, Smuggler), fans have turned to the one clue BioWare’s tossed to them — that all of the classes are based on an [...]