Image via Wikipedia

Hello, and welcome to The Blog Unleashed, Kotormmo.net's newest blog. I'm Skyrocket and each week I'll be here talking about some aspect of TOR. I don't have any fixed idea that I'll be writing about so if there's something about the game your interested in please feel free to send me any comments or suggestions. With that said let's get down to it.

One thing we've heard about TOR is that the classes in the game will allow players to make characters like the iconic ones from the movies. So far Bioware seems to be delivering on that with the classes we've seen so far. But one iconic character has so far had not even been hinted at in the classes we've seen do far.

I speak of none other than Princess Leia.

So let's try and imagine for a minute just what a class that allows you to be a Leia-like character could be like. One interesting source that I've found is from the Star War Role-Playing Game: Saga Edition. In this table-top RPG one of the core classes is the Noble who is clearly based on Leia. The short version of the class is that Nobles excel at social situations and adding buffs to allies and debuffs to foes.

Characters that can buff and debuff are common in many MMOs so it's not unreasonable to think a class that excels in that couldn't be in TOR. Also, in Bioware's Mass Effect, the player's social skills could unlock new dialogue options which could have important impacts on the story. Given the popularity of Mass Effect I'd be very surprised if this trick didn't make it into TOR.

Now I'm sure some of you are saying “But,Skyrocket, Leia was pretty good in a fight and she was a Jedi too.” All of which is true. In the Star Wars Role-Playing Game core book Leia is given some levels in the Soldier Class to reflect her combat skills and surely would gain some levels in Jedi later on. But looking at her history, especially the Expanded Universe stuff, we see that Leia is first and foremost a diplomat who tries to deal with conflict by talking first if at all possible.

So what might it be like to play a Noble if they were to make it into TOR? Odds are your character isn't going to be running around mowing down enemies left and right. A noble would have to be more careful in combat and likely would make use of the cover system we've seen the Smuggler use. A Noble might also be able to get NPC followers sooner to help protect them. A bit like the Warlock in Warcraft, as an example. Or the Noble could use their diplomacy skills to get former foes to fight for them. Like Hunters taming animals, to use another Warcraft example.

Now we have to ask ourselves just how likely such a class being in the works is. I think the odds are at least fair. Star Wars: Galaxies has the Entertainer class which is very socially orientated. As I've said, characters who can buff and debuff are something of an MMO staple. Also, there are going to be some gamers who are more interested in exploring the environment and interacting with NPCs than combat. A Noble could move easily among the heads of major corporations, planetary rulers and members of the Senate thus creating a very intrigue fueled story that would appeal to such players.

Now this is, of course, mostly speculation on my part. But Star Wars wouldn't be what it is without Leia and I don't think TOR could be all that it could be without some serious nod to her role in the mythos.

Written by :

Skyrocket