Star Wars: The Old Republic Jedi Knight Q&A

[Emabulator]

http://evavhost.com/i/news/TheOldRepublicJedi.jpg

GameSpot spoke with (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarstheoldrepublic/news.html?sid=6238428&tag=topslot;thumb;1&mode=previews) Dallas Dickinson and William Wallace from BioWare about the Jedi Knight profession in their upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic (http://www.swtor.com/).

GS: Tell us about the role of the Jedi knight in battle. How do these characters support their comrades when the going gets tough?

WW: The Jedi knight can fill a couple of roles in combat. In one-on-one combat, the Jedi knight is practically unmatched in melee power. He excels in getting into the fight very quickly by charging into a group of enemies and then has a number of strong single and double lightsaber attacks to damage his enemies and keep them from damaging him. In group combat, the Jedi knight excels at staying at the forefront of the fight and has a number of ways to keep the battle focused on him, letting his allies concentrate on what they do best and also keeping any Sith lightsabers away from unarmored targets. Even if the Jedi knight isn't leading the group, the character is still a valuable asset to his comrades by virtue of his wide range of melee abilities and his ability to augment the party's strength with Force abilities and auras.

[Orphiuchus]

So... hes a paladin?

[Sasori the Medic]

I want him to scream POOOOOWWWWWWEEEEEER! UNLIMITED POOOOOOWWWWWWWEEEEER!

As he pops his bubble.

[zaekrex]

So... hes a paladin?

So it seems. =/

[pwnophobia]

Force bubble!

[Anenome]

This is the innate problem with a SW universe MMO. There's always going to be this huge gap between what a Jedi is supposed to be and what you can actually do in game. That is, they need to make the classes fairly equally strong, yet we know that being a Jedi should be a huge advantage generally, with the best of them able to take on entire armies of driods single-handedly (ala Windu vs. droid army clip in Clone Wars animated).

Now, if they are able to get a sort of WoW feel going, but twist it such that the steadily increasing and advancing power is an internal skill-based thing instead of being purely gear-based, then all the classes could reach effective heights making them near invincible--much like a WoW character in epics will outshine someone in greens in every way. But crafting that sort of experience is far from easy to achieve.

I wish Bioware luck, but I sincerely doubt this is something I'm going to find myself interested in. But then again, I'm also a post-WoW MMO-burnout.

[Sasori the Medic]

The Jedi only seemed superhuman because the Star Wars movies were centered around the best and most powerful of them. You saw in Revenge of the Sith though that regular Jedi can be taken down rather easily if surprised or put in a precarious position. In my eyes, they can strike a good balance of the classes.

[lockwoodx]

Jedi bring a knife to a gun fight and win.

This will end well....

[White667]

This interview completely disregards what we need to know.
Telling us what they're good at is pointless, what I want to know is how they suck. I want to know that people who aren't Jedi's can still be as useful as a Jedi. That being a Jedi isn't as easy as just point and button mash like in the battlefront games.

[DocOblivion]

The Jedi only seemed superhuman because the Star Wars movies were centered around the best and most powerful of them. You saw in Revenge of the Sith though that regular Jedi can be taken down rather easily if surprised or put in a precarious position.

This is essentially what I was going to post. The Star Wars media post-original trilogy has definitely clarified this stance... only the very top tier Jedi were worthy of the traditional blaster-proof, force-of-nature, uber-warrior imagery. Everyone else was considerably more... well, human.