STOP IT!
Over the last few years, and several crappy "hands on previews" reviews, a good number of people have stated their own fact, that The Old Republic is nothing more than WoW with a Star Wars skin! If I had my way, these people would beaten with plastic Lightsabers, and dumped at the front doors of Blizzards HO, with fanboi written on the their foreheads in Jiffy Marker (tm). To, to emulate something successful, and borrow things from other games isnt all that bad. The Formula has worked for Blizz for close to seven years now. Good on them.
The issue that bothers me, is that after every thought that TOR is WOW with a sci-fi skin, is the next thought, that they should take more from WOW to put into TOR, if only to cause some people headaches and the usual nerd-rage flame posts on the official forums.
The latest of these, 'ideas' is that people want to 'dual-specc' their characters in TOR, bring more WoW drippings into something that already appears to have lots of its own 'flavours'. To those that do not know, dual-speccing your character is to be able to utilize two of the three talent trees used for character development in World of Warcraft, giving said character abilities to define its role within the game. So, in the case of, say, a Warrior, the person could dual specc it to be able to offer up the role of both a Tank (protection, aggro control, mob control damage absorption) or to deal damage, the DPS role (damage per second, mad crits yo!) OR in the case of the Paladin, they can pick two of three roles such as Tank (not too badly) DPS (laughable again, I hear) or Healing (too well, I hear). Now to me, this fits within this fantasy setting. Dont ask me why, to me, it just does. Perhaps because it is the fact that these are talents, and not an example of true class building.
To add this into The Old Republic, would be...awful. To begin, I would have to point out that they way I feel class advancement is done there, is that, say, Jedi Consular is your "role" rather than class, and then to move into the Shadow, or Sage, would be closer defined as a Class. Heck, even replace "Role" with Archetype" and that would be better. This would then suggest that to head down the 'Sage" line, implies that all you are trained in, Healing, ranged/melee dps, and CC (crowd control). To sit back and say, "Hang on, let me change specc" just doesn't work in the Star Wars universe.
The same could be said for respeccing. To change your class mid game. Considering that your personal story within the game is based upon the choices you make, this would be kind of immersion breaking to some degree. Also, what mechanic would they use to allow to you change? Use the Force, or drop a star cruiser on your head? Im all for the second one, just to see it happen! Seriously, I would pay for my friends to respecc, on a regular basis!
Add-ons! Add-ons? Considering the fact that the game has not yet been released, I do not see the need for add-ons.Yet. Now, there are some add-ons I think should be allowed, and some I think that should never see the light of day. Ones I would happily endorse, a threat or aggro meter. Yup. After spending years upon years playing a healer, I know the need for one. Although, I did spend years and years in EQ, raiding, as a healer, and never required one. Hmmm! That took some practice, and because I think that Raid Healing in EQ relied so heavily upon healer rotation, that one person could never really drag threat away from the tank. DPS on the other hand, I remember peeling threat away as easily as some might peel a banana! heheh....squishy dps.
Anything like DPS meters, or a gear score addon. Nope. While I can admit that both might have had, uuhh, good intentions for their creation (I highly doubt it, but I am going to go with it), but only lead to misuse amongst the 'elite' of the WoW community. Sure, that Prot Warr has a gear score of 10k, but he got carried by his guild through all the raid content, and couldnt hold onto anything, let alone threat or aggro.
I remember building one of my toons up, and while my dps was getting better each session, it wasnt near the levels I wanted it. I remember getting punted from a non-heroic grp, because my dps wasnt 6k+!! Eh?
Again, I am sure that someone created these add ons for use in gauging raid bosses, and trying to find out where they, as a guild stood compared to the encounters they would be facing. However, the were more than frequently misused, leading to backlash amongst the larger community.
Lastly, Dungeon-Finders, or Looking For Group tool. I am on the fence with this one. Now, I am in a guild for TOR, and I am going to be running everything with my guild. PVP, Flashpoints, end game raids. I really do not intend to use something like this. I suppose that there are people that will. Cross Server? NO! Emphatic NO! I would wholeheartedly agree with how a cross server LFG system wrecks the community. Random grouping with people from your own server, means you still have to mind your manners, and not be a douche bag! Repercussions will follow if you do. With Cross server, you can be an asshat, and not have worry about randomly grouping with those people again.
I can only wait and see what becomes of all this in the end.
E3 Prediction, we get a launch date, and it will be in September 2011!!
Happy gaming everyone.
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