SWTOR

[Riggswolfe]

In fact, Good/Evil is a lousy moral scale because the meaning of each is so fuzzy.

This has to be the oddest statement I've ever seen. It is very, very easy to see true good and true evil. Now, most people fall in the middle in that gray area but to say good and evil are fuzzy concepts just blows my mind.

[Koyasha]

In fact, Good/Evil is a lousy moral scale because the meaning of each is so fuzzy.

This has to be the oddest statement I've ever seen. It is very, very easy to see true good and true evil. Now, most people fall in the middle in that gray area but to say good and evil are fuzzy concepts just blows my mind.

From an objective viewpoint they're not just 'fuzzy,' but meaningless because those words mean different things to different people, so unless you carefully define the meaning of the words as they apply to this particular instance, there certainly is no such thing as absolute alignment.  Good and evil are probably some of the most subjective concepts known to man.

[Riggswolfe]

In fact, Good/Evil is a lousy moral scale because the meaning of each is so fuzzy.

This has to be the oddest statement I've ever seen. It is very, very easy to see true good and true evil. Now, most people fall in the middle in that gray area but to say good and evil are fuzzy concepts just blows my mind.

From an objective viewpoint they're not just 'fuzzy,' but meaningless because those words mean different things to different people, so unless you carefully define the meaning of the words as they apply to this particular instance, there certainly is no such thing as absolute alignment.  Good and evil are probably some of the most subjective concepts known to man.

Sorry. That's bullshit relativist junk but I don't want to derail the thread to much so I won't carry on this discussion.

[Sheepherder]

This is the point --------------------------------------------> . It's going over that way ->

This is your head. (-.-)

Subtext.  Try it out some time.

[pxib]

Sorry. That's bullshit relativist junk but I don't want to derail the thread to much so I won't carry on this discussion.

We can derail a little. I think our difference is semantic. You are using "good" and "evil" in the absolute sense, and I am using them as they are used in the everyday (for example, in video games with morality systems). It is easy to think of acts which are inarguably evil -- self-serving deception, for example -- but it's considerably harder to think of acts which are inarguably good. When we can look from the vantage of history and make conclusions, almost any act has invisible effects that might push it either way. Worse yet, when evil is referred to it almost universally means whatever the particular individual speaking thinks is "bad" or "wrong". Good becomes "nice" and fares no better.

By fuzzy I just mean it's hard to make an act that's universally going to look nice or bad. Plus, as I keep saying, most genuine good and evil just doesn't make for interesting storytelling.

[Maledict]

That can be easily resolved by not having the consequences become apparent until ten hours later.

The problem with that is it leaves the player feeling fundamentally cheated.

Case in point - Dragons Age and Alistair. In order for Alistair to be a good king, you need to chose a very specific dialogue path at a certain point in the game that, at the time, you won't think has much meaning at all. The *entire* ending he has depends on that dialogue. Only by being an ass to him can you toughen him up into a good King.

Personally, as a gamer, that left me feeling hollow. I don't get a second chance to talk to him, I don't get to hang around and help him be King. It's just the choice I made at a seemingly inconsequential side-quest that chooses his fate. It doesn't make me feel more in charge of my destiny, it makes me feel less in charge and less related to the game as a whole.

In real life, you often have second chances. In games, you usually don't. Pushing players down a path they wouldn't want to go because of a hidden choice is a bad idea for a game in general in my opinion.

[pxib]

In real life, you often have second chances. In games, you usually don't. Pushing players down a path they wouldn't want to go because of a hidden choice is a bad idea for a game in general in my opinion.

That particular example is poor storytelling. The event which changes the ending seems inconsequential at the time rather than being effective foreshadowing. It's also a one-off, rather than an arc. Three dimensional characters make important decisions based on a sequence of events or a very important single event. So it's not about whether you as a player feel in control of your destiny as much as it's about whether you believe that the particular character has made a realistic assessment of his own actions. If ten hours later you discovered that small choices you've been making for the entire game had pushed him in a particular direction, or that during an obviously critical moment for him you'd made a single callous choice... then everything still makes sense on a character to character basis even if you as a player wished you had another chance. If the "right" choice isn't completely obvious in retrospect ("Oh of course... I was talking to a king.") then it's unfair to the player.

It's like what Short describes in the article I quoted: She felt not only a personal detachment from the morality of her character, but a detachment between the morality her character was displaying and the way everyone in the game (and, indeed, the game designers) seemed to be interpreting that character's moral decisions. For epic, enjoyable storytelling it's not always necessary that the player be immersed in the game world, but they must be immersed in the story.

[eldaec]

The problem with moral choices in games is that we as players can game the system. We can decide where we want to go as players long before we're given the choices in the game. In fact, the choices are so blantantly obvious in certain games that we know how to game them just by reading the instruction manual. SEE: Mass Effect's choice system of good on top, bad on bottom.

Based on the decisions you made in Mass 2, do you expect the quarians or the geth to rally to your side in Mass 3? It seems unlikely that they'll work together. How did you resolve Tali and Legion's loyalty missions?

This would be nice, but if this does have this level of impact in ME3, I doubt it will be any more than a few lines of dialog and 'oh look some quarian/geth models in my army'.

[tmp]

Based on the decisions you made in Mass 2, do you expect the quarians or the geth to rally to your side in Mass 3? It seems unlikely that they'll work together. How did you resolve Tali and Legion's loyalty missions?

How about the krogans? How did you handle Grunt and Mordin's loyalty missions?

And reaching way back, how did you resolve the rachni situation? It sounds like they were manipulated by the Reapers before (the "sour yellow note" dialogue). Whose side do you expect they'll be on?

Geth: i expect them to get in their Dyson sphere and gtfo. If i get lucky. If i'm not, the Reapers will simply rewrite (some or all) into their pawns again. If just one was able to do that a million+ shouldn't have a problem there.

Quarians: lol, quarians. After the second game painstakingly worked to establish them as completely worthless military-wise, who cares?

Krogans: yeah, after they were rewarded with a genophage for their last service to the rest of sentient species, i totally see them wanting to do that again. not.

Rachni: well they're dead in my game. But in the games where they aren't, seeing how the Reapers already manipulated them before i'd really love to see that happen again. Just to hear the screams of all these people expecting the Rachni cavalry to save the day for them as reward for their stupidity.

[UnSub]

That can be easily resolved by not having the consequences become apparent until ten hours later.

The problem with that is it leaves the player feeling fundamentally cheated.

There's a balance, of course. I remember Vandal Hearts II where you could only get the best ending if you picked the right dialogue response in the first 15 minutes of the game (or so). I enjoyed the story, but getting locked into the ending due to a response I barely considered was a bit dumb.

Again, I think The Witcher balanced it well. Consequences to actions weren't always explicitly labelled - if you let the Resistance take weapons you are guarding, they'll use them to kill a drug-dealing contact who gives you missions and gold in the next chapter. If the Resistance don't get the weapons, innocent people are killed by a purge. Both the Order of the Flaming Rose and the Resistance have members who are giant dicks, but neither side is totally wrong.

Of course, expecting this kind of subtlety in SWOR is misguided. The Jedi are good, the Sith are evil and any storyline is going to reflect that. I do wonder though if players can retcon their story, or if they are locked in to the choices they make first off.

[Megrim]

That can be easily resolved by not having the consequences become apparent until ten hours later.

The problem with that is it leaves the player feeling fundamentally cheated.

Case in point - Dragons Age and Alistair. In order for Alistair to be a good king, you need to chose a very specific dialogue path at a certain point in the game that, at the time, you won't think has much meaning at all. The *entire* ending he has depends on that dialogue. Only by being an ass to him can you toughen him up into a good King.

Personally, as a gamer, that left me feeling hollow. I don't get a second chance to talk to him, I don't get to hang around and help him be King. It's just the choice I made at a seemingly inconsequential side-quest that chooses his fate. It doesn't make me feel more in charge of my destiny, it makes me feel less in charge and less related to the game as a whole.

In real life, you often have second chances. In games, you usually don't. Pushing players down a path they wouldn't want to go because of a hidden choice is a bad idea for a game in general in my opinion.

'Fundamentally' is a bit a of a strong word, i think. It's already been said, but i think it bears repeating - there is a difference between making the choice completely in the dark, and making it based on non-linear options. If the game only gives you only one shot at something, it's not so great. Poor storytelling and all that. But offering a player multiple paths onto a choice, or giving them back-up options that arise later (let's say you didn't rescue the princess but ran away like a coward instead [against admittedly overwhelming odds] - it later turns out that the princess was in fact rescued by someone else, and she doesn't know that you bailed on her, so she still likes you and gives you quests. But if you stuff up a second time, that's it, you get exiled/banished/imprisoned/etc...).

What i think is going to be a bigger problem is the attitude expressed when you say something like fundamentally. For the most part, players play to be rewarded (and to justify a monthly sub, they have to be), so they expect to be able to do everything they like and still get all the rewards they want. But this doesn't really gel well together with good storytelling. It's probably quite hard for the developers to say "well, you dumbarses stuffed up that quest chain because you were too stupid to solve a simple puzzle and didn't catch on to the well hinted fact that killing npc x will result in you getting shafted" when the playerbase if screaming "i pay money ergo i demand satisfaction".

[Shrike]

A lot of stuff that makes me wonder if you paid any attention to the dialog in the game.

What I expect is to broker a peace between the quarians and the geth. All my decisions made with these two races were made with that in mind. 55k+ hulls with Geth shock troops. Yes, please.

What I expect is to bring the krogan back into the Council in a (relatively) civilized fashion via the decisions I made with Grunt and Mordin. Krogan marines on Council warships. Yes, please.

What I expect is to see a righteous asswhuppin' on the Reapers delivered in part by the rachni due to decisions I make 3+ years ago in ME1. Oh, and reinforced by the fact the rachni queen has stated explicitly to Shepard that she has very speical plans for the Reapers.

Stuff like this is why I played the game(s). Why you played it, I have no idea.

[Reg]

I'm with Shrike. As far as I can see my paragon Sheppard is on track for having all of those races onside for the upcoming war.

[tmp]

A lot of stuff that makes me wonder if you paid any attention to the dialog in the game.

Stuff like this is why I played the game(s). Why you played it, I have no idea.

I suspect given the context there might be something to Stormwaltz' question which seemed to be "do you really expect to get nothing but positive results for picking the "obviously good" dialogue options". And personally, i don't. Or rather, i hope that's not what we're going to get. Because in answer to your question i play the games of this type for the story. And if the story never breaks out of the "you've rubbed my back, now here's a reacharound as thanks" then it gets rather predictable and boring.

And btw, if you really expect to be able to bring the krogans back to the Council based on what you did with one of them and/or by removing the only factor which keeps Wrex' clan in power (relative monopoly on krogan females only effective due to presence of the genophage) it makes me wonder which of us didn't pay attention to the game.

[Ingmar]

removing the only factor which keeps Wrex' clan in power (relative monopoly on krogan females only effective due to presence of the genophage)

I was wondering how many people noticed that. 

[LK]

by removing the only factor which keeps Wrex' clan in power (relative monopoly on krogan females only effective due to presence of the genophage)

Remind me. I only recall preserving the information on the Paragon path rather than utilizing it to find a cure.

I want to see reintegration of the Krogan as well, but I'll put them down if they fuck up that opportunity.

[AutomaticZen]

More stuff, distilled down to mostly stuff I think we didn't know before.
http://www.tor-aid.com/20100620235/SWTOR-In-Game/e3-round-up-of-swtor.html

Advanced Classes Limited on Weapon selection – An easy example would be that a Sith Marauder is limited to only two single lightsabers (No double bladed lightsaber), and the Sith Juggernaut may only use a single Lightsaber.

Most Popular Buildings Can be Bound to – Meaning: Similar to the Hearth Stone in World of Warcraft, you can bind yourself to a location in a town to “teleport” yourself using your “Call Shuttle” ability, provided to every class.

The Current Maximum (Regular) Group Size is Limited to Four Players – However, each player is allowed to bring a companion character each (and it’s preferred that you do, as content is build around that factor).

Dialogue “Roll” System Explained – Stats will end up effecting the outcome of your roll, according to James Ohlen. In a group of more than two people, if two players in the party choose the same dialogue option, that option will end up being preformed rather than the minority’s choice. However, you will gain light/dark side points based on your choice, and not the outcome.

Advanced Classes unlock at Level 10 – I know a LOT of people question this statement, so I’ll provide the quote here:  “The Advanced Class system actually allows you -- once you reach level 10 -- to choose between two different roles.” – James Ohlen

Group Dialogue Provides a 2 Minute Window for the Remainder of Your Group to Gather Around You Before it Goes Ahead with the Cut Scene – There is also a “Skip Wait” button available for each member in the party, if you know they aren’t going to show or don’t wish to wait.

Companion Character Roles Better Explained – “Companion characters can sort of give a secondary class on top of what you’re doing. So, if you don’t have the healer that night, everybody could go get their healer companions and bring them with them. It’s not quite the same as having a fully-fledged person there that’s going to do what only a human can do, but you guys are probably going to be able to get through that scenario, now.” – Daniel Erickson

http://www.tor-aid.com/20100616226/TOROcast/brandons-hands-on-impressions-of-swtor.html

-Mobs stood still, a few patrolled around but they were pretty much all in groups and standing still waiting to be slaughtered. However when you DO engage them, they spring to life. The AI is very impressive for an MMO, with characters keeping their distance from you, and switching on the fly to their melee weapons when the time is right.

Right click was to attack with a basic attack, and it almost felt like an action game. It took a bit to get used to it though, because your "normal" right click attack almost counts as an ability, in that it activates a cooldown on your special abilities. So if you keep spamming what would be the Auto-Attack in other MMO's you wouldnt be able to use any special abilities. You have to make the effort to stop attacking that way and attack with a special ability instead. Long story short you cant be attacking with a basic attack and spamming special attacks at the same time, you have to choose between one or the other.. every half second!
 
-I looted a chest peice and equipped it (changing the way my upper body appeared). It seems like the armor slots are pretty typical (pants, boots, gloves, helmet, etc..) the main difference is that it APPEARS that the chest and shoulder pad armor have been combined into one slot together. I assume this is to ensure your character looks cool. There were plenty of slots for other things such as trinkets and ring type items.

-NO loading screens. Its something a lot of people overlooked, but I never had a single hint of a loading screen. I went from one area to the next completely fine. Its like if you took WoW and allowed all the instances to be walked right into without loading. Sure you still have that "energy beam barrier thing" but no longer does it mean "crap I have to sit through a loading screen to go there" it simply means "cool now I get to go on a mission without people there to mess it up.. unless I want to bring them along" I saw the developers even teleporting characters from one end of the map, or from one "instance" to the next without loading, and it was nearly instant. If you were worried this would be like Guild Wars, where everything feels like its connected through loading screens rather than actual ground.. don't be.

http://www.tor-aid.com/20100616227/TOROcast/hands-on-game-play-impressions-of-the-trooper-sith-inquisitor-and-smuggler.html

The Trooper’s play style is lots of little attacks with low damage dealt but can take a beating like you would not believe.  I tested BioWare’s statement of “our players should feel heroic and be able to take on multiple targets at once, not just one” and boy did the Trooper take the hits.  My Trooper stood up to six (Smuggler-esque) mobs as well as a combat droid with a ton of hit points, which took quite the beating from my Trooper.  The key to the Trooper, as it is to any tank, is to watch your hit points, after my seven mob battle I jumped straight into another with a second droid, needless to say I didn’t last long.  After dying as the Trooper and respawning I took notice to a health pack which returned probably about half of my health after one use, obviously including a lengthy cool down time.

 Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me.

The cover system made the Smuggler that much more enjoyable to play.  It added a completely different aspect to the game, however reminded me distinctly as if I were going to a stealth mode on my Rogue in World of Warcraft.  Now before I get SWTOR rage spammed, let me explain a second what I mean.  Going into the cover mode brings up a different ability bar (which all of us already know, I am aware) however what you do not know is the attacks while in cover mode seem to do a higher rate of damage.

http://www.tor-aid.com/20100620234/TOROcast/brandons-hands-on-impressions-round-2-speeders.html

I also had the ability which lets me “vent” the heat I build up from using my abilities. (If you don’t already know, the Bounty hunter has a heat gauge, the more you use your gadgets the closer to overheating you get, think of it like a reverse mana bar)

-Inside the same building as we were exiting, we noticed a terminal that let you bind yourself to it. We assume that using an ability, probably the “Call Shuttle” ability that is common to all classes, would teleport you back to that location with a really long cool down timer.

-I also saw a bounty terminal, which when I clicked on it gave me some text about a bounty I could do, and I could either take the bounty or pass on it. I passed.

-I looted his corpse and acquired a new blaster pistol that did more damage. I think I went from a gun that did 14-26 damage to one that did 16-30 damage. It was a bind on equip item. Also somewhere in between all of that I looted some new bracers which fancied my character up a little more and gave me some more armor. Later on in my play session I managed to score a much better chest piece. Taking my armor from like 8 armor all the way up to 26. While we are talking armor.. I noticed at one point in my character sheet there was a green bar that displayed my armor was 90%.. not sure what that means though, Samm thinks it could be durability. Also one of the armor slots looked like it could be for an eye piece or goggles. It was an image of a head with a robotic looking eye piece on, it wasn’t for a helmet because there was already a different slot for that.

-Early on in our adventures I had found a NPC by a bunch of speeders, he had a purple icon above his head. I right clicked him and it said something along the lines of “Location stored..” I tried again and it said “No connecting routes..” I think you can see where this is going. Since we were grouped up and working together, we were able to cover a lot of ground, and Samm found a second Speeder Vendor with the same logo above his head. He tried to use it thinking he could ride.. but no dice. However he had not talked to the first NPC like I did... so I ran over there and BANG! A map of the area popped up with a line connecting from where I was with that NPC back to the original one, and clicking on it would cost me 20 credits. We all know what this is. I clicked on the location and I was off on my speeder.. it was on rails and moved pretty fast. I was able to look around and everything, and before you knew it I was back at the first NPC... so I rode it back again. I think that makes me the first and maybe only person outside of Bioware to ride a speeder!

-Samm played around with Armor and Weapon vendors, and also played around with something called a “Bazaar” which was what the Auction House terminals were called in SWG. I will let him go into those details on his article. He also found a blueprint vendor, well that's what I assume when he said “oh a blueprint vendor”...

-Several times I looted a “dud grenade” which had a tooltip that hinted at the possibility of a way to make the grenade usable.

-As a bounty hunter, I was able to use Heavy, Medium, or Light armor after I leveled up once. I think initially I was only able to use light armor, but I could be wrong.

[fuser]

More stuff, distilled down to mostly stuff I think we didn't know before.
http://www.tor-aid.com/20100620235/SWTOR-In-Game/e3-round-up-of-swtor.html

The Current Maximum (Regular) Group Size is Limited to Four Players – However, each player is allowed to bring a companion character each (and it’s preferred that you do, as content is build around that factor).

Say what? So its capped at 4 players but they design the content for 8 total?

[Ingmar]

More stuff, distilled down to mostly stuff I think we didn't know before.
http://www.tor-aid.com/20100620235/SWTOR-In-Game/e3-round-up-of-swtor.html

The Current Maximum (Regular) Group Size is Limited to Four Players – However, each player is allowed to bring a companion character each (and it’s preferred that you do, as content is build around that factor).

Say what? So its capped at 4 players but they design the content for 8 total?

It is balanced with the assumption you will have your companion characters along. That shouldn't be very surprising, they pretty much have to do it that way unless they want the companion characters to be an afterthought.

[LK]

I may not like the graphics but I am seeing enough Bioware content to justify a purchase. How the end game plays out and group play, I don't even want to fucking think about. 2 players + 2 companions or 4 players seems alright but does beg the question "When your story's over... what's next?"

Still, I think this game will have a very strong initial launch.

[Malakili]

 Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me.

Danger Danger Danger!

Seriously what this reminds me of is actually Champions Online, my first tank character was nigh unkillable, but took forever to kill anything.   On the other hand, my DPS electricity character was squishy as hell, but it didn't matter because he killed everything in under 5 seconds.  I know the utility in groups can be a reason to play the tank anyway, but weve been through this before, and if playing non-DPS characters is slow and boring, you have a problem on your hands.

[Stabs]

Balance while levelling in a Diku is close to an unsolvable problem. If tanks and healers have equal survivability they're pretty pants at their main role (mitigating damage, healing damage). So usually a trade off is made of less damage for more survivability. However if you pick your areas carefully you can find easy areas as a dps. In an easy area survivability is moot and all that matters is dps and your dps guys have more of it.

WoW's optimal approach is level as dps then respec or dual spec at max level. I expect TOR to follow this.

[Velorath]

 Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me.

Danger Danger Danger!

Seriously, that sets off a warning signal for you?  Despite the fact that there's no context of spec, gear, or what companion character, if any, he had with him for each class?

[Fordel]

Balance while levelling in a Diku is close to an unsolvable problem. If tanks and healers have equal survivability they're pretty pants at their main role (mitigating damage, healing damage). So usually a trade off is made of less damage for more survivability. However if you pick your areas carefully you can find easy areas as a dps. In an easy area survivability is moot and all that matters is dps and your dps guys have more of it.

WoW's optimal approach is level as dps then respec or dual spec at max level. I expect TOR to follow this.

Actually the current Prot Warrior is arguably the best way to level one up, it's damage/killspeed is very competitive and any slowdown on a per mob basis is made up for by the fact you can kill half a dozen at a time.

Prot Paladins would be the same way if they actually got any of their abilities before level 50 or whatever and Feral druids are obviously unique in this case with being able to turn into a pure DPS'er more or less at will.


The Heal specs are the ones in WoW where you question your choices in life as you wand down the kobold for 5 minutes, though there appears to be some attempts at even making that experience better in Cata.



Specifically for the tank specs, they've made a lot of their killing power and DPS come from 'tanking', or being hit, which works wonderfully in the solo level quest environment AND limits how much power they would have in other environments like PvP.

[Koyasha]

Right click was to attack with a basic attack, and it almost felt like an action game. It took a bit to get used to it though, because your "normal" right click attack almost counts as an ability, in that it activates a cooldown on your special abilities. So if you keep spamming what would be the Auto-Attack in other MMO's you wouldnt be able to use any special abilities. You have to make the effort to stop attacking that way and attack with a special ability instead. Long story short you cant be attacking with a basic attack and spamming special attacks at the same time, you have to choose between one or the other.. every half second!

Combat wise, this concerns me more than anything else I have heard about the game so far at all.  I am definitely not a fan of spamclicky nonsense.  I won't be able to say anything for certain until I can actually play and see how it feels, but I suspect I will be very unhappy if I am forced to constantly click or right-click.

[UnSub]

 Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me.

Danger Danger Danger!

Seriously, that sets off a warning signal for you?  Despite the fact that there's no context of spec, gear, or what companion character, if any, he had with him for each class?

I'm going to take any discussion of class power with a cupful of salt given it is taken from E3 (or related) demos. Such things are usually tweaked / worked to ensure the player doesn't die horribly and get a bad impression of the game.

Interesting answer to the cutscene dialogue 'roll' - you get the reward for whatever you choose, not necessarily what the group picks.

The 2 minute response window will be shortened due to player complaints, I'm sure.

[AutomaticZen]

I assume they'll also have to remove the Cutscene Skip option, or you'll have players who want to be a part of the cutscene excluded automatically.  Alternatively, you could only allow Cutscene Skip is the missing players agree to it.

[UnSub]

The other fun griefing tool I thought of with SWOR is VOIP. Want to listen to a character explain the deep history of the Mandalorians? Only if you can hear it over my rendition of "Single Ladies"!

CoH/V had cut scenes - short, sharp, froze players in place and took away their chat tools. I don't use VOIP, but given that CoH/V was subtitles only, that probably didn't have much of an impact.

[Koyasha]

Why would anyone bother to use voip in this kind of game except in a pvp area?  Especially someone interested in listening to the dialogue?

[Ingmar]

I assume they'll also have to remove the Cutscene Skip option, or you'll have players who want to be a part of the cutscene excluded automatically.  Alternatively, you could only allow Cutscene Skip is the missing players agree to it.

GW has cut scenes with a skip button, people whine when you don't skip occasionally, but it has never been a huge deal that I've seen.

[Stabs]

Why would anyone bother to use voip in this kind of game except in a pvp area?  Especially someone interested in listening to the dialogue?

Thespians. Reciting Star Wars cliches with resonance and gravitas. Coming to a pug near you soon!

[Malakili]

Thespians. Reciting Star Wars cliches with resonance and gravitas. Coming to a pug near you soon!

I've got a bad feeling about this.

[eldaec]

 Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me.

Danger Danger Danger!

Seriously what this reminds me of is actually Champions Online, my first tank character was nigh unkillable, but took forever to kill anything.   On the other hand, my DPS electricity character was squishy as hell, but it didn't matter because he killed everything in under 5 seconds.  I know the utility in groups can be a reason to play the tank anyway, but weve been through this before, and if playing non-DPS characters is slow and boring, you have a problem on your hands.

Yes you are right nobody will play Jedi.
 

[Sheepherder]

The Heal specs are the ones in WoW where you question your choices in life as you wand down the kobold for 5 minutes, though there appears to be some attempts at even making that experience better in Cata.

Holy priest is pretty good right now.  At early levels it actually exceeds shadow in damage.

[Shrike]

Why would anyone bother to use voip in this kind of game except in a pvp area?  Especially someone interested in listening to the dialogue?

Some of us have friends that can't type and grew up with consoles so their main experience gaming is with the 360. Then they buy a real PC and...well...they want to talk, since they're used to it and can't type. And, yeah, it can be annoying.