When I look back on the Star Wars films that have been released, I can think of only one instance where a man with a blaster singlehandedly takes out a Jedi, and that is when Jango Fett shot and killed Jedi Council Member, Coleman Trebor in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, shortly before being beheaded by Mace Windu. Even then, Fett shot Trebor while he was distracted with Cout Dooku.
Why is this important? Because the fact of the matter is, that Jedi/Sith are far superior in all regards to your standard blaster toting Smuggler or Bounty Hunter. This is especially important because in MMORPG games, balance is paramount. If Biowarerecreates the classes as they are in the Star Wars universe, then the balance of power will be vastly in favor of the force-users. Star Wars Galaxies had an interesting way to deal with this issue. Jedi were as powerful as they were portrayed int he movies, though very rare. It was the lore of the time period (the Jedi were nearly extinct) that allowed this system to work, with very few Jedi roaming the galaxy.
The system initially had dedicated players finding rare Jedi or Sith holocrons. Each holocron would contain the title of a class that the player needed to master. If I remember correctly the player had to complete eight holocrons, each containing a separate class. The last (eighth) holocron appearing blank, meaning that the player had to go through mastering each class in the game to gain force awareness. Because of this ludicrously difficult and time consuming ordeal, there were very few Jedi in the beginning.
The developers of the game then turned to a quest based system. Still difficult and time consuming, but not quite as much as the prior system. This allowed for more Jedi to come aboutand also increased the number of Bounty Hunters. Because of their rarity, it was unnecessary to put any thought in balance; in fact, player Jedi made for quite interesting and entertaining ambushes.
The final step that the SWG developers took was to making Jedi a starting class, balanced to the same level of power as the rest of the classes. I’m not going to say that it single handedly ruined the game, it was ruined already, but for me that was the nail in the coffin of Star Wars Galaxies.
The reason for all that background on Star Wars Galaxies is because, the Jedi system worked until they made it mainstream, and in the world of the Old Republic, the Jedi are not rare, and they will most certainly be a starting class. I pray that Bioware will find a solution that will make the Jedi and Sith both powerful, but also balanced.
