As part of our continuing beta coverage, MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton has the inside scoop on Star Wars: The Old Republic's flashpoints. The article contains a few minor spoilers to reader beware! Check out Mike's preview of the SWTOR flashpoints and then leave us a comment or two.

The starter Flashpoints, The Esseles (Republic) and the Black Talon (Imperial) strongly focus on story in the way BioWare has described, but the developer has added new Flashpoints to the game that are more akin to your typical dungeon run. These additional Flashpoints were mentioned during the main Star Wars: The Old Republic panel at this year’s New York Comic-Con as a way of giving a choice to players who are more interested in a straightforward experience focused on gameplay or puzzles. The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose. Everyone loves variety, right?

Read more of Mike Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic - Flashpoints Beta Preview.

I agree, perhaps they will be improving this before release, but the Essels flashpoint was far more story driven than the other 2 I played. I hope they add some more immersive details to the game.

Everyone's going to want more flashpoints. Maybe in time there could be a "flashpoint architect" (similar to CoX) wherein people can "write in" their own character's story; maybe make it a "selling point" of rp servers.

I think it's better this way: Story-driven flash points vs. Quick-paced flash points

The you have someone with more time able to go story mode and those that do not a viable option. Fifteen sounds like a good number to start with, but I hope they don't add too many too soon. I'd hate for the worlds to dry up becasue everyone is running quick-pace flash points over and over...

This game just sound so awesome. Am glad my Girlfriend is not home most of the Christmas hollidays, cuz i would get into serious trouble!

The whole crew skills idea incorporated into the flashpoints sound interesting.

Honestly, story is what hides the fact the gameplay is generic. Having them more action based will make it more obvious of the generic gameplay the game has to offer. If your going to have a story based MMO, you can't skip on it or you point out flaws with your system. Getting the story to be a large part of the game is what can make an otherwise subpar game into one people find actually good and enjoyable.

As soon as it becomes a dungeon grind, people notice flaws, and its only so long before people can get over the fact they are using a light saber and realize its no different then if they were using an iron sword.

Sounds pretty lame to me,  your definition of awesome and mine are two different things.

For the complainers/haters I honestly wonder what you think would be "better" and ask you to clearly define it -

It's easy to mock something and say it sucks and there is a better way, but entirely more difficult to actually define what that better way actually is.

Story-less dungeon grinds are bad, story-focused dungeons are bad, open-world dungeons are bad, instanced-dungeons are bad, too many dungeons is bad, not enough dungeons is bad...

So, people, what is good?

"I’m honestly a little disappointed that each and every Flashpoint isn’t as cool as the Esseles, but when considering the fact some people are going to want to run this type of content over and over, it’s probably better BioWare opted to create some content that is a bit friendlier for that sort of thing. As enjoyable as the conversations are, I don’t know that I’d want to go through them a bunch of times if I’d already exhausted all of the possible outcomes."

Good assessment. And glad that they did think of this. If too much dialogue is repetitive it hollows out that entire USP. Better this way.

Really curious of the flashpoint content. 15 is a pretty friggin' solid number at launch. On top of that there will be heroics, exploration / datacrons, plenty of normal but VO'd quests, storylines and operations. Seems that this game will blow most releases of the past years out of the water, pve content wise.

Originally posted by Rogosh

Sounds pretty lame to me,  your definition of awesome and mine are two different things.

 

Could you elaborate? :)

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

 

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

They've said repeatedly that once you get done with the into tutorials that you can almost skip the storyline entirely and level by running dungeons, grinding mobs, doing world quests, or even PvP.

Originally posted by czekoskwigel

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

 

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

They've said repeatedly that once you get done with the into tutorials that you can almost skip the storyline entirely and level by running dungeons, grinding mobs, doing world quests, or even PvP.

Cool info, thank-you.  I hadn't heard that, but I don't follow it closely.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

 

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

 

You'll still want to do your class story, but you can essentially supplement the class story missions with Flashpoints in order to level up.  This means you can skip sidequests and such on the actual planets. I hope that makes sense.

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

You'll still want to do your class story, but you can essentially supplement the class story missions with Flashpoints in order to level up.  This means you can skip sidequests and such on the actual planets. I hope that makes sense.

Works.  Much less "on rails" than what I anticipated.  I like freedom in an MMO.  Pleased to see they are taking this direction.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

The additional Flashpoints, story focused and otherwise (a total of 15!), will allow players to basically level up via Flashpoints at any juncture in the game if they so choose.

Maybe I'm not understanding.  This looks like skip the storyline based quest progression and run dungeons over and over to level up.

You'll still want to do your class story, but you can essentially supplement the class story missions with Flashpoints in order to level up.  This means you can skip sidequests and such on the actual planets. I hope that makes sense.

 

Works.  Much less "on rails" than what I anticipated.  I like freedom in an MMO.  Pleased to see they are taking this direction.

 

You can also pvp for xp (which is my plan for alts). Do the story and pvp skipping a lot of side quests.

Sorry guys. I've had to remove a few comments as they violate the NDA agreement. I know you're all excited to talk about your experiences in the beta as well, but we simply cannot allow these sorts of posts at this time. :(

It sounds pretty good. and 15 is a very good number to start with. The wait is almost over!!

 Mike,

What are your thoughts on the combat? Does the pacing feel natural?

If we use examples like Eq2  or Warhammers combat pacing feeling natural for their game, that is.