Brooks and Zach,

I totally agree with you about the graphics. One thing that can hit this ball out of the park is the following video.. I love it, and hope you do too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OskRij8AYaU

Sly

I'm halfway through the episode (just heard the break bumper with the "we are brown coats etc etc") and I wanted to comment on the bounty hunter as healers thing.

I've stated before that I think we need to stop thinking about class choice as the core aspect of our character, but rather think of the advanced class as the core aspect. The example I cited before in WoW terms was imagine you start off as caster DPS and at level ten you choose your advanced class of either warlock or mage. Respeccing could still happen within lock or mage, but you shouldn't be able to repec from mage TO warlock for example. And so far the dev statements have backed up that world view. They have said respeccing within your advanced class is going to be available for a cost, but switching from sawbones to gunslinger in smuggler would not be possible.

So now let's take a look at bounty hunter healing. Each advanced class of bounty hunter will have 3 skill trees to play with one of which is shared with the other bh advanced class. So that means that each advanced class has 3 aspects to their game play, some tank some dps, and now some healing. Now they may make healing the shared aspect or more likely they will place it squarely in one advanced class unavailable to the other advanced class. This will mean out of 20 skill trees spread across 4 primary classes 3 will have healing.

But why so many healers? Well companions I think can only go so far and still make content challenging and not to easy. So as Zach rightly brings up there needs to be more healers for end game. I have a prot warrior and a mage in WoW at the moment. If I want to random queue on my mage I wait 40 minutes to get a pick up group. If I queue on my tank it is no wait. My wife has a holy priest, she never has a wait. So you will need people who can heal to some degree. And having more healing classes is probably a good thing because it allows for a variety of healing styles.

Again to use WoW as an example, but I understand EQ2 has similar themes, there are different tactics for healing. For example disc priests are preventative healing using shields (I could see a BH being that kind of healer), other healers are reactive healers waiting for people to take damage and then racing to get them healed back up. Some are good AoE healers others are better single target healers. Having a variety of healing classes allows them to vary up encounters we will face, and give healers a different sense of how they work into an encounter.

I think we should also note that companions are augments to our class, not a substitution for other SWTOR heroes.

Hey, does anyone know where the clip is from that they have played during some podcasts with that guy giving the epic gamer speech?

"We are Trekkies, we are Browncoats. We are geeks, we are nerds. We are Nintendo fan boys, we are X-Box fan boys, we are Sony fan boys, we are Atari will never die fan boys. We are Alliance, we are Horde. All that matters is we are gamers. We are, all of us, creators of our own stories together. Welcome home!"

Animus - I believe it was Wil Wheaton during the PAX keynote address. I am not sure if it was the 2010 speech or the 2007 one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSLDfAgbOh4 (this is the link to part 1 of the 2010 keynote)

- Alan

Thx for the link Alan. I love the one they use on the show though with the Irish music in the background. I want it as my ringtone lol.

That song is called shipping off to Boston by the dropkick murphys. It's not part of the actual speech it's something zack and Brooks made themselves. They did it because that's what their doing is shipping off to Boston to pax east

Nice, ty Braio. I am so getting some Dropkick Murphys albums now. I been trying to find a good Irish Rock group for a while.

Just so I don't feel like i've derailed the thread. I rolled every class in WoW, and I'll probably do the same in this game. My main is going to be a Sith Warrior(Juggernaut) for doing stuff with my friends. Then in my solo time I was going to do a Bounty Hunter(Mercenary), cause I really want to be like Cad Bane in the Clone Wars series. I don't really have an opinion on how any of the classes are going to be, simply because I haven't played them yet. Honestly though, if they can pull off a RANGED tank class (Trooper), it's not that much of a stretch of the imagination on a BH healing. We'll probably find out more at PAX East on just what they meant.

I agree with what Blackferne said too about Disc. Priests in WoW. The Powertech advanced class for the BH does seem to imply it being some kind of buff class, like increasing shields and armor, maybe even be able to use stimulants on party members to heal for a little bit and increase a stat for a short time. Just using my imagination here by the way. I'm still wondering if everyone is going to be able to use medpacks like in KotOR, last time I played through as a counselor I had to pop those things like Tic-Tac's.

Just wanted to jump in and say we had a great time. Thanks for inviting us.

I love Brooks asking me if I'm actually going to wear a suit. You can hear it in his voice: "Wait, is she serious?"

It was a good show Iliked it alot. Really enjoyed hearing your input about the game.

Edit: Just listened to episode 26 were the ladies of CRR also were guests to the show, must say that I really enjoyed that episode aswell. I hope to hear you more in future episodes.