Are you hanging desperately onto every new word about SWTOR and stalking the forums for yellow posts to give you a little more insight into how rocking the game’s gonna be? Ok, maybe you’re not quite as pathetic as me but the good news is, I get to pass the interesting details on to you so you can go on and… I don’t know… have a life! Speaking of interesting details, Georg “Observer” Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer for SWTOR posted recently about Smugglers and cover on the forums. According to Georg, “All Smugglers have access to cover, but depending on Advanced Class and Skill set, cover plays a less or more important role for your gameplay.” He goes on to explain the differences with a Gunslinger and a Scoundrel. For example, “A Gunslinger with lots of points in the Sniper tree will have made cover a…
Georg Zoeller
No Addons for SWTOR at launch
It’s been asked before, back when we were discussing the SWTOR UI and now it’s been officially stated by BioWare, there will be no addons for SWTOR at launch. Georg Zoeller popped into the forums to clear up confusion on the matter, stating: “What we’ve said is, regarding the question ‘Will there be addons at launch’ is “no, not at launch”. This statement indicates nothing more than that there will not be addons at launch. Nothing more, nothing less.” So there you have it, the official word on addons at launch. So as a gamer, this brings up some interesting questions for me. I wonder what features that could be potential addons will make it into the initial launch of the game. As a long time WoW player (since beta), I saw many addons eventually become implemented into the UI itself. Scrolling combat text was an early one and quest…
Friday update: SWTOR Dev Blog – Advanced Classes Update
Following last week’s April Fool’s joke, it looks like BioWare decided to make today’s dev blog entry on the Star Wars: The Old Republic site an in-depth and interesting read. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller has given players an update on the game’s Advanced Classes, and he covers everything from skill trees to improvements that have been implemented through game testing. Players will choose their advanced class at level 10, and each base class offers two advanced class choices (i.e., the Smuggler will need to select either the Gunslinger or Scoundrel as her advanced class). Each advanced class provides two exclusive skill trees and shares a third tree with the other (non-selected) advanced class. Zoeller also covers how the team makes these important class-changing decisions. He shows off a couple of images from their metrics system that feature death details and character movement on Ord Mantell. Of course, the…
Healing in SWTOR – What do we know?
A lot of people wants to know about the healing system in SWTOR. Will Star Wars: The Old Republic use a trinity system; the tank, healer, and the DPS class. Will the healer play a massive role, or will groups be able to go with no healing? So far Dallas Dickinson and Georg Zoeller hasn’t always agreed on how many healers their will be, and how healing works. Now the great people over at TorWars puplished a excellent article about what we know on Healing so far. A great read I encourage you to check out. Here is a snip: At this point, BioWare has made it clear that every class will have a sort of ‘second wind’ ability to add some healing and lower downtime. The devs have made it abundantly clear they want to avoid as much downtime as possible. This is a great thing. No one likes…
Zoeller Comments on Faction Imbalances
During these times of game testing, Principal Lead Combat Designer for Star wars: The old republic Georg “Observer” Zoeller, is closely monitoring the beta gamers play, to solve upcoming problems with faction imbalance. If you remember the launch of World of Warcraft, most american servers had an over wait of Alliance players, and the European servers an over wait of Horde. So far it don’t seem to be a problem though. But as we all know things might change at launch. Here is his forum post: “During Game Testing, we’ve been watching closely which class players decide to play at various times – such as: The first time they create a character 2 hours after that (player time, not real time) 6 hours after that 12 hours after that 24 hours after that 2 days after that … and so on. Imbalances are bad for business (especially for PvP), so we have a vested interest in achieving faction parity. We’re interested enough that we’ve even looked at the impact…
Coruscant? Republic Only!
For all the guys (and girls) who will be fighting for the Empire and who wanted to visit Coruscant – we have bad news for you. Stephen Reid just said: Coruscant will be for Republic only. So will be Dromund for the Empire. Georg Zoeller confirmed that you will be able to respecc within your advanced class. If you can change your AC is not sure yet. It isn’t going to be able to change your class at all.
Georg Zoeller reveals more info on healing
On the official German Forums for Star Wars: The old republic – Georg Zoeller (Zöller??), Principal Lead Combat Designer – did some more explaining about healing in SWTOR Quote from Bench Alright , but i don’t believe in healing Troopers, Jedi, Sith or Bounty Hunters Georg: Two Healers are in that listing. Who exactly? Sorry, won’t tell just yet Georg: To be a little more precise than in the English forums Each Side will have four starter classes with 2 advanced classes each , starting at lvl 10 Three of those starter classses can choose an advanced class that’s a full value healer with the respective abilities Check out the original post here (scroll down to his post) Below is the German version: Um ein wenig praeziser zu sein als im Englischen Forum. Jede Seite hat vier Start Klassen mit jeweils zwei Erweiterungs Klassen waehlbar ab Level 10. Drei dieser…
Interview with Georg Zoeller
Torocast hat a chance to sit down with Georg Zoeller, the lead combat designer at Bioware and ask him a bunch of questions. TOROcast: Early in development, BioWare said that they were doing something unique and special with healing. What is happening that is different compared to a typical MMO design? Georg Zoeller: In Star Wars: The Old Republic, improving your character’s Presence attribute, which governs healing ability, also improves the character’s active companion in various ways. Coupled with the ability to adjust companion behavior and equipment, this enables the player to function as a healer; even in solo situations.