The Old Republic - Multiboxing Speculation

[Viryll]

Basic stuff - http://www.swtor.com/info/systems
Normal group size 4, Healer tank dps support roles, More story driven quests, crafting, 4 man instances(flaspoints), pvp. Seems fairly similar at the basic level with nothing that would deter multiboxing. They say everyone can participate in others quests and be grouped the whole time or it can be done solo, although there would be certain points that would require a group.
I also think that if they really want to be legitimate competition for other major mmo's they have to offer the same systems for all level of players, like some type macro system for hardcore end game raid guilds and such. I dont think they would overlook it when nearly every other game has at least some type of macro system.

Questing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEoG1...eature=related
Quest dialog is supposed to be great but can be skipped through for the most part, there are 1-2-3 options for responses during quest dialog for each player(similar to other bioware games) in the group and a random roll determines whos response gets used. So if you were playing with 4 of the same class I would assume they would all have the same options and would be easy to select the response you want across the board.
I doubt they will completely do away with collection quests but I think they want to keep the quests more heroic in a sense, so hopefully there wont be too many.

Combat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6L-N4zqAeM
Same concept as other, Ranged, melee, heals, cc, ect. Each class will have some more self healing abilities than other mmo's I believe, other than the normal potions and such.
Ranged dps seems to be the most popular to multibox and is what I plan on starting with. Lots of options for ranged classes in ToR, Smuggler, Trooper, Consular, Bounty Hunter, Infiltrator, and Inquisitor.
They say a flashpoint needs a well balanced team to be successful, maybe we need beeq to prove them wrong
I am leaning toward rolling 4 Inquisitors at first, the idea of having an entire force lighting storm at my fingertips is nipple hardening. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2-P5alg6sw
If not that then the Bounty Hunter Mercenary spec seems like it would be great fun as well, rockets, missiles, flames and other gadgets x4 ftw.
Each class really seems to have something fun to offer really, especially multiplied by 4.
Jedi Consular has a bit more heals/cc from what it sounds like, could be handy with a good macro and round robin use for raids/pvp.
Tanks appear to be the same, heavy armor, aggro control.
Space combat however does not seem like it would work unless everyone in the group is in the same ship. I looks like they used more of a starfox/arcade style for the space combat. No good details yet.


Companions- http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/companions
Each class gets a few companions as they move through their story, each offers something different. Looks like they will be similar to other pets, tanks, dps, buffs. Not to much info on how exactly they will be used in a 4 man group in flashpoints.


Crafting - http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills
This could be really good $$, check out the crew skills feature video in the link. Having 4 times the gathering/crafting abilities 24/7 seems like a good way to grind through a whatever crafting proff you pick.
The schematic gathering seems like it could be nice if patterns and such are in as much of a demand as in wow. Being able to set the crew to tasks while the rest of the group is off questing will free up some of the grind.

I'm sure there is more, Ill add it when I think of it, so far though It seems to be boxable.

[AgentSnipps]

I watched a video of a flashpoint not to long ago where the smugler was constantly seeking cover during fights, I can't help but wonder how difficult that would be to manuver as a multiboxer.

[Viryll]

Yes that's something I forgot to mention.

Cover would be tricky if only one person can go into cover in a single spot. The way it works for a profession that uses cover is that you will see a green marker showing where you can take cover in any given situation and by hitting the take cover button your character will go to the selected spot automatically.

Not all classes use the cover system though and you don't have to take cover to fight as a smuggler or agent, it just gives you a few bonus' and other attacks.

If you have 4 smuggler/agents and they can all take cover behind the same object then I might not be so bad but also with 4 of anything at your control it should really be your opponents who are looking for cover

[Kaelika]

I plan on attempting to dual-box in TOR. This is *the* MMO I've been waiting for as I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I'm hoping we do have some macro options.

According to this interview with James Ohlen, this is the word on macros so far:

Ask A Jedi: What about player customization, such as scripting or macros?


James Ohlen: That’s something that is pretty important for MMOs. It’s another feature we want to get in for ship, but its definitely a lot of work. So we’re trying to figure out how to get it in for ship. We might have to have a limited version at first. It’s a competitive feature, if we want to be competitive against a lot of the other MMOs, we eventually have to have it. I’ll just say its very high up on our list. It’s something that a lot of people want to see in our game, not just fans but even high up EA execs mention that its important.


The thing is, almost every feature that someone brings up, is on our list somewhere. And for the most part we’ve got almost all of them. They might be later on in the schedule. Its just about every project, even an expensive project like ours has a limited budget and limited amount of time, and we have to make decisions on what our players really need to enjoy the game.


Plus you have to avoid what a lot of games have done which is put in a bunch of features and don’t polish them, and then you have an unpolished and un-fun game. So we have to make sure that when we put in features, we have the time to polish them and make sure its actually a good feature.

[Viryll]

Sweet find on the macro info, I hadn't seen that. Its definitely the mmo Ive been waiting for too. I signed up within minutes of the website launching back in 2008. What time zone do you play in usually?

[Kaelika]

Sweet find on the macro info, I hadn't seen that. Its definitely the mmo Ive been waiting for too. I signed up within minutes of the website launching back in 2008. What time zone do you play in usually?

So did I, actually. I remember being extremely excited when they launched the website back then. You can find my SW: TOR profile here.

I'm EST, but I have European friends, so I'm often playing at various hours.

[Viryll]

Cool, sent a friend request. I usually play on central or eastern kinda odd hours as well.

I just read a post about space combat that it is completely optional so far. More of a side game. So we shouldn't have to worry about trying to control multiple ships or playing through on each character just to finish them.

[Kaelika]

Cool, sent a friend request. I usually play on central or eastern kinda odd hours as well.

I just read a post about space combat that it is completely optional so far. More of a side game. So we shouldn't have to worry about trying to control multiple ships or playing through on each character just to finish them.

Yeah, it's something I might do on one character eventually, but it's not a main priority for me. I'm just hoping for enough UI customization to suit my needs. (And I accepted the request. Feel free to contact me over on the TOR forums if you ever feel the need to do it. Always cool to meet other multi-boxers.)

[Kedash00]

anyone heard of a release date? all i've seen so far is spring 2011 but nothing concrete.

[Kaelika]

anyone heard of a release date? all i've seen so far is spring 2011 but nothing concrete.

The latest official word can be found here:

Star Wars: The Old Republic is expected to launch this year after the close of EA's fiscal 2011 (which ends March 31st, 2011). Information on the release date and pre-order programs will be released as it becomes available

.

Around the time of PAX East, Bioware stopped saying they were targeting the aforementioned spring release window. At PAX, they would only say "2011." Also, in the interview with Ohlen I linked in an above post, this was stated:

Ask A Jedi: Ok, final question, but I gotta ask… is the game still on track for release this year, 2011?
James Ohlen: Yep, we’re aiming 2011!

I'd also recommend taking a look at this article from Darth Hater:

Today Eric Brown, CFO of Electronic Arts, spoke at the Lazard Capital Markets Technology & Media Conference. The topic of Star Wars: The Old Republic was once again brought up and one of the many interesting things said by Brown was, "So we said it's going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal '11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It is also reasonable to infer that it's not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non-GAAP revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it's not unreasonable to infer that it's not included in that 90 day period."

This indicates that the game most likely won't release before the 1st of July.

You can find the official release "speculation" thread here.