In our short play session at E3 we got a chance to run around as a Sith Warrior. Well, I chose a Sith Warrior for my first run through. Basically let me preface this article with my all time favorite Star Wars character being Darth Maul. He had almost no screen time and accomplished very little. However, Darth Maul took on two Jedi Knights at the same time and faced a variety of turbulence at the start of the Clone Wars. Maul was also by far the coolest looking Darth, at least in my book. So I am biased toward the Sith Warrior, but I am also harshly critical. Just like our great friend Boba Fett who never really got the time to be an awesome villain we all wanted to see, Darth Maul also got the Lucas cut and we barely got to see his awesomeness on screen. So with Darth Maul in mind, let's look at the Sith Warrior.
You start off with a practice Light Saber and are given a task to clear some slugs out of a cave. Typical MMO quest for starters. However, these slugs are big and can tear your head off. The story line is cool, you have fought your way up through the ranks and the Sith are now taking a look at your powers. It was fun, in an evil kind of way, but killing slugs is not my idea of being a Sith bad-ass. Still they tell you there is a Sith war blade down in the cave, so needless to say I am going in.
The dialogue is again one of the challenges of Old Republic. Many players like it and it has served Bioware well in the past, but again it seemed a bit tedious. My answers were all snarky and evil of course, but in the end I used the space bar to get my quest and get moving. I'm a Sith Warrior after all. I don't need to remind myself I am evil. I just want to hack Jedi apart. So I run into the caves and find the slugs are neutral to me. I attack them as I go and just keep rolling through to try out some new Sith skills. Again it was a limited demo so there were not a ton of skills available to players. But after hacking through giants slugs I came to an important question, what can I do against a ranged opponent?
With so many classes being ranged in the game, where does that leave me? Now, in Star Wars, the Jedi and Sith don't bother with blasters, who needs them when you have telekenesis and lightning? But in a game where you are constantly running into blasters, what defenses will you have against the ranged classes? Unfortunately the short demo did not answer my questions.
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I eventually challenged the boss slug and destroyed the nest which looked like something more out of Aliens than Star Wars. The quest was fun and there were also some side missions to pick up along the way to help add to your reputation within the Sith and the Empire itself. I think the story building element to the game is great from a single player perspective and there is no lack of it here, but again, this is an MMO. Many players will be rushing through the content to get to the cool looking armor sets and higher level gear. Especially when in the demo they showed the Bounty Hunter armor progression and explained that other players will know not to mess with you if you have on certain stuff, I suppose it is the same as WoW.
In the end I found the Sith Warrior lacking. Trust me, I am eager to take another shot at the class and definitely want to give it the due it deserves, but as a starting quest and starting area I was bored quickly when killing giant slugs. The skills were ok, with standard light saber attacks and some jumps and blasting effects, but again I fear for my abilities when it comes to ranged opponents. Time will tell on this one. I will say that for all of the story and personal achievements Bioware is hyping up in this game, killing slugs at the start just seemed like another MMO in my book. Sorry fans if you were expecting awesomeness, I was too. The Smuggler was much more fun to start with, at least for now. At PAX I promise to give this class a second chance... in the name of Maul.
