The first bit of information was the Advanced Class Specialization pages were each updated with a description for each class

• The Operative- This Advanced Class seems to be the AC that will specialize in stealth support or healing. This is interesting since if you recall when BioWare laid out the descriptions of each AC early on the excluded healing from the Operative even though many speculated they were in fact the other Empire healer.
• The Sniper – If the name did not spell out its role I am not sure I could describe it any better. Long range, high damage.

Next on the list is information on one of the Imperial Agent’s companions, Kaliyo Djanni. It seems to be a common trend that “not a lot is known about their history” when it comes to this games companions. However, one thing is clear, she seems to be of the same stuff that Imperial Agent’s themselves are. She has spent time as an enforcer and an assassin, sounds like a DPS companion to me!

What will certainly be one of the most, if not the most played Imperial Agent race, the Chiss, got an update this week on the inhabitants page. If you ever wanted to know more than just “they look badass” then I would head on over to that page, you might learn a few things.

This week we got to take a tour in the X-70B Phantom-class Prototype, the starship for the Imperial Agent. This ship just looks like a yacht in the sky on the inside. Every room they explored just screamed luxury. You will also notice in the video that there is a room that looks like a lab and someone I don’t recognize in it. I would expect to see a future update with them as a companion as well.

To round out the entire update we got a little over a minute of “gameplay” footage of the Imperial Agent. I think this video does a great job of showing you the narrative style you will see for the Agent as opposed to its Smuggler counterpart. In the video we also got to see stealth, portable cover, and the Agent use a droid in battle.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks update, BioWare gave us quite a bit to chew on!

Imperial Agent Class Video

Imperial Agent Ship

Aurebesh Translation

Ship

Covert Ops Implement

Ship Hull Analysis

Architectural Features

• High-Tech Sensory System
• Agile Weapon Systems
• Experimental Drive Array

Welcome To The Holonet

Kaliyo Djannis

Cannibal – Demon Of The Summit

Humor is important for a narrative because it instantly amuses the audience. If a good gag makes us laugh, that makes us like that character, that story, and that product. Some quotes on why humor is a good thing:

“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

Mark Twain

“Show me a person who doesn’t like to laugh and I’ll show you a person with a toe tag.”

Julia Roberts

“The most wasted day is one without laughter.”

E.E.Cummings

“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

E. B. White

So, without over-analyzing, I’ll simply make the claim that humor is necessary in order to win over the audience, break the tension, and set the mood. While not all narratives are comedies, humor can be woven into any story and delivered in a way and at a time appropriate for the mood the author is going for. The kind of humor you implement—dry wit, black  ”gallows” humor, biting satire, screwball slapstick—provides necessary context for audience that tells them what type of story you’re telling without boring them. Not every scene calls for humor and not every mode of comedy fits the story you’re telling, but it’s rare to read anything but a phone book that doesn’t contain some brand of intentional levity. A good joke can provide a break from tension, an insight into a character, an unusual and entertaining incongruity, or can just keep things moving so the audience doesn’t fall asleep. Humor keeps an audience engaged in a narrative. Good writing has to be funny, even if it’s the type of funny that makes you cringe more than laugh. A world without some form of humor is lifeless and inhuman. It’s one the audience doesn’t care about. A narrative that takes itself too seriously, that never attempts to amuse the audience, is one that will feel dry and empty to anyone who isn’t obsessed with the subject matter. I’d say “like a text book” except I’ve actually read text books that made me laugh. The only problem is that being funny is hard.

But let’s consider some examples of what Star Wars humor is like. In the original and best trilogy of films, we meet a number of funny characters. The prissy C-3PO is the butt of many jokes, but Han, Luke, and Leia all get to throw in their quips and one-liners. Even Chewbacca gets to drop a few meaningful growls and guffaws at Han’s expense. The love triangle between Luke, Han, and Leia seems to be a primary source of amusement, especially when Han and Leia are exploring their belligerent sexual tension by throwing verbal barbs at each other. Threepio and R2-D2 seem to have the robot equivalent of little lover’s spats as well. Throughout the three original films, the sense of humor seems to come from exchanges of good-natured verbal antagonism among friends in stressful situations.

“They always lock the door. You’d think they’d have learned by now. Doesn’t look like there’s a key – that would be too easy. The console to unlock the door is probably hidden in some room twelve floors up or something… how does that make sense?”

Kyle Katarn, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

In fact, Katarn was full of quirky observational one-liners:

“Never trust a bartender with bad grammar.”

Kyle Katarn, Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Atton: “Umm… all right? I’m guessing that Republic ship that just docked isn’t carrying friends of yours.”

Kreia: “I hope your talent for understatement is offset by your skill with a blaster. If not, I fear our time together will be very short indeed.”

Atton: “Yeah, and I’m also good at running and drinking, your majesty.”

—Atton Rand and Kreia on the Peragus Mining Facility, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Kreia: “But we have spoken long enough – and my wound pains me. If you have other questions, find me in the crew quarters… there we will speak more.”

Atton: “Hey, don’t stop your long, boring rants on my account. I was just getting sleepy-eyed.”

Kreia: “Also in private, we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools.”

—Kreia and Atton on the Ebon Hawk, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

—but my favorite exchange is this conversation between Bastila Shan and Mission Vao:

So while I would normally feel that video games should stick with the out-of-narrative gags, it seems as if BioWare’s companion system and narrative cut scenes allow them the humor that appeared in the Star Wars films. This will be hampered somewhat in SWTOR by the limitation of only one companion following the player at a time, but I’m sure they’ll find ways around that. And if all else fails and they’re hurting for humor, we know that they’re capable of breaking out the puns:

“Well… I had an Uncle Richard that tried to bring nude theater to a festival in Waterdeep… Exposure is usually good for an actor’s career, but even so, a cold reception for the play caused the cast to shrink steadily. Blackballed, my uncle tried to recruit from the thieves’ guild, but they wouldn’t let their nick-ers go. ‘Just bare with me,’ he would say, but they were afraid of being stripped of their dignity. He gave up the lead to attract new members, and eventually the production’s genius was uncovered, even with his part left out.”

—Jan Jansen, Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

This actually raises an interesting question for BioWare. Their design allows them to include the in-narrative gags that most video games struggle with, but should they ignore out-of-narrative gags, pop-culture references, and Easter eggs? Blizzard Entertainment is known for putting out-of-narrative references in World of Warcraft that I admit got me to chortle heartily from time to time. Even something as simple as referencing an internet meme can be a nice little in-joke to break the monotony of endless adventure in Azeroth. I would hope BioWare could do the same—I’d rather be amused than not—but it’s possible they’d worry about taking such liberties with Star Wars canon by throwing too many Easter eggs in the game. Or it’s possible that the narrative tone they’re trying to strike with SWTOR doesn’t fit too well with references and gags that break the fourth wall.

Of all the stories in our game, the Smuggler ones are specifically written with an emphasis on humor and romance. If you’re playing this class, you get to say the funniest things (usually at the least appropriate times), and are always on the lookout for people who find charming rogues irresistible. You’ll be flirting with or laughing at the most exciting personalities in the galaxy: crime lords, gamblers, Bounty Hunters, senators, nobles, spies, Jedi and even Sith.

{SWTOR.com: “Developer Blog: Creating the Smuggler”}

One interpretation of the above quote is that, other than the Smuggler, class narratives will not include humor very much, but that seems unlikely. A more likely and far more interesting conclusion is that BioWare plans to have different moods or genres assigned to various class narratives, complete with their own brand of humor for each. The Smuggler might get the light-hearted wise-cracking, the Trooper might show off a fine appreciation for military humor, and the Sith classes will likely display a dark streak of hangman’s humor. The Star Wars novels have already attempted writing Star Wars in various genre styles. The Republic Commando novels focused on the military perspective, the Coruscant Nights tetralogy explored a Star Wars galaxy with noir stylings, and even horror was given a go with the Death Troopers novel. We know that each class in SWTOR has a primary writer shaping its story, so each author could foster a unique perspective on the events in the game. They could provide their protagonists with unique personalities, and a person’s sense of humor is a big part of defining their personality.

Unfortunately we haven’t heard or seen much humor about the events surrounding SWTOR other than the description of the Smuggler class narrative. The stories we’ve seen all seem to be taking events surrounding the game very seriously. Master Gnost-Dural always strikes a sober tone in his Timeline videos; it would be unusual for him to suddenly switch to stand-up. The cinematic trailers tend to be short on words and high on violence (and melodrama). The webcomics we’ve had so far—Threat of Peace and Blood of the Empire—have been lacking overt humor. Even the first tie-in novel, Fatal Alliance has been severely lacking in laughs.

We need to start with the basics, how does the cover system work? When a Smuggler or an Imperial Agent moves within range of a doodad/wall in the terrain in which they can take cover behind, a green silhouette, which we affectionately call gumby appears and at the press of a hotbar button (or hotkey) the character will roll into the cover position. As of the writing of this article there are two inherent benefits to using the cover system. First, while in cover the character will have an evasion bonus to any target in a directional cone in front of them. Secondly and more important, while in cover a separate hotbar (the bar in your user interface which displays your skills) will appear with skills usable only while in cover. From what I have seen from my hands on these abilities tend to be more powerful than those which are used outside of cover.

At this point we also know that the Gun Slinger AC for the Smuggler and the Sniper AC for the Agent are specifically designed with the cover system in mind. From the appropriate descriptions and skills we can assume that these specializations are for DPS, this will be relevant in future sections so keep it in mind.

Raiding Implications

Raiding for many players, especially the hardcore, is what defines an MMO. When looking at the innovation of the cover system, as a hardcore player myself, I cannot help but notice one major problem which will be tricky when considering raiding, movement. So much of the great design we have seen over the years in raiding has involved movement in raid encounters. I think we all know the mantra of WoW raiding “Don’t stand in the fire”, and although it is good to poke fun at it, the defining feature of much of WoW raiding is movement. The terming of “don’t stand in the fire” comes from the fact that many encounters involve specific spots in the environment which are bad, sometimes lethal, to stand in which would require your character to quickly move out of it or be killed. Whether it is moving to avoid positional attacks (staying out of a dragons cone of fire), moving out of random effects (don’t stand in the fire), or simply a fight that involves kiting a boss or mob. This is not only a WoW mechanic either, raiding, at its core in almost every MMO involves movement. What kind of design might we see when taking into consideration a class who’s primary mechanic is to not move? Well we have a few options:

• Movement heavy encounters – Any encounter involving a large amount of movement will simply be a nightmare for these classes. Simply put, you will be spending a large amount of your time either using weaker skills, since you are not in cover or wasting time trying to get back into cover to use your more powerful skills. I fear movement heavy encounters could alienate those cover minded classes and in some cases even diminish the fun factor of raiding for those players.
• Stationary encounters – Although these certainly exist in MMO’s, raid bosses which have no or little movement requirements tend to be nothing more than “tank and spanks”. Now, these encounters are often enjoyable for everyone since they are basically like testing your DPS on a training dummy but the problem is there is such simplicity in their design that they get old quickly.
• A pleasant mix – This is the most likely and most used option, a healthy balance of movement and non-movement fights. I think where my concern lies here is how you correctly balance the cover classes. Are they gimped on movement fights and then over powered in the fights where they just get to stand still and shoot?

The second issue that needs to be taken into consideration is the environment itself. It is imperative that the level designers make sure that on any movement fight that cover is still readily available throughout the entire encounter area. I believe this is the first time where environment designers can potentially play a huge role in raid encounter design.

Player vs Player Implications

The worries for PvP actually mirror PvE quite a bit but they have different results. Lets look at environment design, but this issue varies greatly depending on the type of PvP:

• Open World PvP – We do not know if there is any form of organized world PvP (WAR style) but we can assume at the least that there are PvP servers. The main implication here is that BioWare must be sensitive to have cover points absolutely everywhere so that no matter when or where a Smuggler or IA engages another player, cover is available.
• Warzones – What most players commonly know as battlegrounds, this is one of the forms of PvP that should truly not be a problem. Mostly these stages are designed as a healthy mix of exterior open space and interior confined fighting. Also, they already need to be balanced around melee and ranged combatants so typically these stages are filled with strong and weak points for all classes regardless of mechanics.
• Arenas – Now there is no indication that arenas will be in this game, however, if they are, they could be tricky to balance around cover. We have no choice but to look at WoW for arenas since they revolutionized arena combat and even created an e-sport around it. The stages differ dramatically but always trend around open spaces filled with line-of-sight conflict throughout. Since typically “doodads” are used as LOS blockers it could be interesting to see a cover class using those same doodads for their defining class mechanic.
• Objective-based PvP – This section refers specifically to things such as capture the flag or assault/defense maps. This is a form of PvP where the cover classes role could vary greatly but they certainly could find their niche’ and excel in it. For example, capture the flag. Although a Smuggler might not be the best option for trying to capture the enemies flag due to the immobility of their mechanic, the cover system makes them perfectly suited for defense. In theory, the character could “camp” their flag while in cover and be at a great advantage when the enemies come.

Balancing Concerns

Now onto something a little bit more general, what I fear will be BioWare’s difficulty in balancing the damage and effectiveness of skills in and out of cover. At its core, abilities when you are in cover have no choice but to be more powerful right? Otherwise, what would be a players motivation of going into cover. On the flip side, they need to insure that a cover class isn’t completely gimped outside of cover either. I think a fair comparison here would be to a warrior’s stance mechanic from World of Warcraft. In this example the character has different usable skills, dependent on stance and also inherent advantages and disadvantages to each. Increased defense while in protection stance, increased critical chance but more damage taken in berserker stance. What the end result is that all three stances are balanced due to bonuses and penalties associated with each. I think BioWare could take a similar stance with stances (pun not intended), however the issue of immobility does muddy the waters a bit since it is difficult to balance around.

My concern with this is that I could see a tendency to over power the cover skills, in other words make them do a little bit too much damage. However this might be necessary in order to compensate for the time they spend out of cover, I almost see no way to avoid it from the current design standpoint. Just the same, I worry that it is possible that the skills outside of cover will be a mix of low damage skills and crowd control (so that the character can get into cover). Basically what I am saying is that my concern is that one or the other will have to be gimped or overpowered in order to be balanced against the other set. The question is how that could potentially stack up against the other classes.

One last point that needs to be considered with the cover classes is how player skill can be tied into the overall balancing. I make this reference often but it could be similar to a hunters ability to jumpshot, this allowed a players skill to move beyond the limitations of class mechanics. One thing that remains to be seen is the viability of the cover classes to kite effectively. In theory, this would require the player to use a skill or two in cover and then quickly retreat into another position of cover, repeating the process over and over until the opponent is dead. I think this is a difficult thing to gauge when considering balance, since player skill varies greatly, but it should be a consideration nonetheless. Skills such as these can define the amazing Smugglers and Imperial Agents from the average.

I am merely presenting some of the overbearing concerns I have with the cover system. The simple fact is that SWTOR is months away and we can expect to see a lot of changes and balancing to the current system. This is the first time I have ever seen an MMO developer have to balance a class mechanic around a “separate stance” that involves being completely immobile; which adds a whole host of concerns. I think BioWare is well aware of this and the ability for both classes to be able to create their own cover is a brilliant addition and can by itself fix quite a few of the inherent issues. It remains to be seen how BioWare will handle balancing this complex mechanic around 6 other classes in both PvE and PvP, I will certainly be watching intently.

Comments? Leave them below! Want to discuss this article with the rest of the community? Head on over to the discussion thread. Additionally, if you wish to comment on this article or have anything you would like to see in a future Muscommunication, email me! musco@torocast.com

-eric