Now We’re Talkin’

I probably have come off lately pretty critical of several MMO’s.  Alganon, Conan, The Old Republic, etc.  Several of these have drawn some difficult words from me lately.

So…when something positive comes along, I want to give it some air time as well.  Enter today – and  something that The Old Republic did unveil this week that gets a thumbs up from me:  Advanced Classes.  This directly addresses some of the concerns that I had around the classes and the possibility of the MMO becoming a Team Fortress/WAR sort of MMO.

In addition to your Class-specific Skills and Abilities, your chosen Advanced Class will grant you access to role-defining Abilities that represent additional areas of expertise and some may even grant new weapon and armor types. Additionally, each Advanced Class will also have three sets of Skills available to further customize your character.

Unlike most AA abilities that tend to open up three “trees” of skills, each making a style of play more viable for a given class, this seems to be a bit different.  Each of the eight classes will now open two advanced classes – meaning, really, 16 classes in total.  And each of those 16 classes will have access to three skill sets, one of which will be shared between the two (so two unique sets).

The example given on the page involves a Sith Warrior and seems to indicate that a player will have the opportunity to choose between two advanced classes, one of which will open up the role of tank (“some Sith Warrior players will want to charge into the fight and take the full heat of the enemies’ aggression”), the other that would open up the role of DPS (“Others will…[focus] on channeling all their rage to destroy their enemies as quickly as possible”).  If that’s true, it suggest an interesting dichotomoy: the ability to play a class as either a Jedi or non-Jedi.   My guess:

My own speculations aside, this is a step in the right direction to get me back interested in the game.  Kudos.