Our visit began in a large, well-appointed screening room, where LucasArts' Jake Neri and BioWare Austin's Blaine Christine walked us through a series of announcements concerning character classes in The Old Republic. Starting off we got our first look at the Imperial Agent, a stealthy, subterfuge-based class that had been previously revealed but not actually shown in action. In MMO terms, the Agent seems to fit pretty snugly into the rogue category. In the brief demo that was shown, the Agent used her sniper rifle, sleep darts, remote-controlled probes, and cloaking abilities to eliminate her targets quickly, quietly, and from afar. The Agent is also able to use the same cover system as the Smuggler class counterpart on the Republic side.
The big reveal of the day, though, was a pair of Force-based player classes--the Jedi Consulor and the Sith Inquisitor. These classes will exist in addition to the already-announced Jedi Knight and Sith Lord classes, and will put a greater focus on use of Force powers over lightsaber action, though they'll still be proficient in both. To put it in the context of Star Wars characters you already know, if the Jedi Knight taps into the Luke Skywalker fantasy, the Jedi Consulor is more of an Obi-Wan type, opting to use his Force powers to fight enemies from more of a distance. We wrapped up our time in the screening room with a viewing of the amazing CG Old Republic trailer that was originally released at E3 earlier this year. Even after watching that trailer multiple times, it still packs quite a punch when viewed on a big screen.
Next up was our actual hands-on time with The Old Republic, where they were letting the press play with the new Sith Inquisitor class for the first time. The class-specific scenario had me crawling through an ancient Sith tomb full of robots and rebels, all demanding to be lightsabered and lightninged to death. It is, admittedly, difficult to get a real feel for an MMORPG with a scant half-hour of playtime--that's barely enough time to conjure up the perfect blend of vowels and commas needed for a good Star Wars character name--and without any first-hand knowledge of how the Jedi Knight or Sith Lord classes handle, I can't say just how different the Inquisitor will be. For someone whose MMORPG experience pretty much begins and ends at World of Warcraft (that someone: me!) the interface felt immediately familiar, and like any good MMO, I ended my playtime hungry for more XP and loot.
The two things that stood out to me during the demo was the way the basic lightsaber attack required an individual button press for each attempted strike, giving it a pseudo-action feel, and the volume of voice work. I interacted with several different characters during my quest, and as BioWare and LucasArts have been promising, each featured unique voice acting that matched the quality of what you'd expect from a BioWare game.
Lastly, we finished off the evening chatting with BioWare's Blaine Christine, who entertained my questions about the motivations behind having multiple Force-using classes per faction, the game's relationship with Knights of the Old Republic, his favorite character class, and more. You can check out our video interview with Blaine below to see what he has to say.