June 5th, 2012
Published by: VR-Zone
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Star Wars: The Old Republic to get level cap increase, new planet, species, and companion Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-to-getlevel-cap-increase-new-planet-species-and-companion/16175.html June 5th, 2012
BioWare has unveiled some of the new content and features that will be coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic this year, including a level cap rise, new abilities, a new planet, new species, new companion, and lots of additional high-level content. BioWare has unveiled some of the new content and features that will be coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic this year, including a level cap rise, new abilities, a new planet, new species, new companion, and lots of additional high-level content. The level cap and new abilities will be the main attraction for most players. BioWare was tight-lipped about the exact number of levels involved, but we can likely expect it to be 5 or 10, a standard for most MMOs. We likely also won't see this until later this year, from September onwards, and perhaps closer to Christmas. The company has not revealed if this will come in a standard free update or as part of a paid expansion, but we expect the latter.
The increased level cap will mean more story for all classes, an important feature of the game from the beginning. Currently when players reach level 50 their main storyline ends and they are forced to play Flashpoints and Operations for additional story, or repeat the daily quests, which have begun to employ text-based instructions more often, moving away from BioWare's much-touted fully-voiced characters. We can expect a return to proper storytelling with the new content for each class, however. From the rise to level 50 players acquired five primary companions, with a sixth in the form of a ship droid. A new companion will be available to all classes, the HK-51 Assassination Droid. It looks like players will have to fight it first before gaining control. It also appears that this is a shared companion across all classes, marking a sharp shift away from the unique companions of each class. This likely means that the same-sex romances that BioWare promised are even further away from entering the game. However, Ray Muzyka, CEO of BioWare, commented that “new companions,� plural, were on the way, so it may just be that the studio is keeping the others under wraps for now.
As with any level cap increase, new skills are to be expected. The E3 reveal video showcases two of these, a roundhouse kick for the Jedi Knight, and a spinning lightsaber attack for the Sith Inquisitor, adding some new AOE capability to the classes.
A new playable race will be available, the Cathar, a kind of humanised cat-people, which players will have encountered throughout the existing in-game world. Races are primarily cosmetic, of course, so this won't really affect gameplay, but 1