I’ll touch more on the space combat at a later point–PC Gamer is doing an exclusive on it–so for now, let’s focus on what was revealed at “Crafting the Multiplayer Story.”

• Each of the classes in SWTOR have enough content to fill an entire KOTOR. While this is nothing new, it really is amazing to imagine how much content that means. There are currently eight classes and that means, in theory, they’ve created eight KOTORs for this game. That’s pretty sweet in my opinion.
• The story arcs are both worldly and galactic. What this means is that some of the quest arcs that you’ll be doing will be specific to the planet you are on. But, others that you will be doing are galactic.
• Your ship is customizable. This goes hand in hand with everything they’ve been talking about. They want you to truly appreciate your experience. I actually had some notes prepared about Fatal Alliance that fit in with this. There was too much mention of “modified ships,” but we’ll get to that when I finish.
• There is space combat. It should be noted, though, that the space combat doesn’t appear to be free-roaming. So, don’t expect to fly through space, happen upon a Sith/Jedi ship and open fire. Sean described it as, “Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles.” So, maybe I’ll be sitting in my cockpit dog fighting? We’ll have to wait and see.
• Once you are a part of a faction, you cannot switch. This, too, was also a question of mine. I’m at the part of the book where Shigar Konshi is with Darth Chratis and it’s obvious Chratis is trying to turn Konshi to the dark side. That would suggest faction change, but according to this panel, that is simply not possible.
• Not every class can play every race. This could potentially go against what I wrote about yesterday pertaining to aliens being open to mane different races, but we’ll have to wait and see. It could also suggest that they are, in fact, releasing races that are not force sensitives. We’ll have to wait and see on this. They wouldn’t reveal any other races, though.
• Mandalorians will play a huge part in this game. They are definitely going to be an interesting addition to the game.
• Progression is important. Crafting, tons of gear and other things. There are rewards for all of this.
• When grouping, if the group does something bad, if you choose good, you get light side points. This was an issue some were concerned about. When in a group, if three chose to do an evil act and you chose to do a good act, the evil act would be done. But, you’d get light side points for wanting to do the good act.
• Alderaan’s families are split. Family Organa is on the Republic’s side. Family Thulu is on the Sith side. Easily a great way for there to be serious problems.
• Lightsabers will be visually restricting. Double bladed Jedi Consular is a DPSer. Therefore, if you see a single bladed Jedi Consular, that means that they are geared toward something else.

This whole event turned into a huge Q&A which is always cool. Very little was provided about the overall “multiplayer” experience, but at least we know that there isn’t a problem if you choose to do something light sided and the rest of the team does something dark. This will put some people’s fears to rest. And, most importantly, there’s space combat! Wait until August when PC Gamer’s issue comes out. You can bet I’ll devour that for information for you guys!

While BioWare is not going to be talking a lot about space flight, a little information was released. This information, specifically, was that every class gets a ship. The type of ship varies from class to class and, more importantly, from sub-class to sub-class. Hillary had this to say about the choice of ships:

Always dreamed of flying a Corellian vessel? Choose the Vanguard class when playing. Or maybe you’ve had some sort of sick dream where you gangster walk through the galaxy aboard an Imperial transport (if so, choose the Sith Fury class).

However, there can only be so many classes. This would normally be a problem, but not in BioWare’s game. They have made it so that you can customize the heck out of your ship. In other words, you can take your ship and make sure that it is unique in some way. There will be thousands and thousands of different looking ships flying through the galaxy. This makes it so that you truly feel unique, something that BioWare was hoping for.

While talking about customization, we move to PvP. Hillary didn’t go into detail about the PvP challenges because BioWare isn’t discussing it yet, but what she did say was that there were specific prizes for participating in PvP. In other words, if you get into a PvP fight–such as a war between Jedi and Sith–you get new stuff. This stuff can be just for looks, but a lot of it can also be useful to your character’s success.

This PvP system provides an interesting experience. This game has been called a MMO, but it also can be played as a single player. Why you’d want to is beyond me, but if that’s your cup of tea, so be it. However, if you want to get the extra goods such as a stronger crystal for your lightsaber or a really cool jetpack–these are just guesses, by the way–then you’ve got to get involved in PvP. This, in other words, makes it very possible for there to be massive PvP battles.

Finally, you can customize the heck out of your PvP stuff as well. So, while I might want to play as a Jedi Knight and I want the armor that goes with it, I won’t look like another Jedi Knight because my armor will look a little different. That way, I really am a unique Jedi.

What do you think? Are you as stoked as I am about space travel, customizations and the slightly forced PvP? Chime in down at the comments. Also check out this great video from IGN that lays out in simple speak what this great game is all about.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a definite answer for you because the game is not out. However, I went digging and I think I might have come across a little information that might make it “likely” that The Old Republic will have space travel. It’s not a definite and BioWare could pull back at the last minute saying, “it just doesn’t work.” But, I think there is some evidence to suggest that space travel is very likely.

The first bit of information, albeit the lesser of the two, was found in an interview Dan Erickson – lead writer of TOR – said to Edge Online. In it, he specifically said, “We are building many many worlds and you can travel between them, but what happens then we’re not talking about.” He goes on to say, when he was pushed on space travel, that “we’re not talking about anything to do with space today.” I can handle that. I dig it. No need to reveal information too early.

But, that had me wondering…There has to be a way to get from planet A to planet B. More importantly, there needs to be some sort of combat in space. It’s Star Wars for Pete’s sake. It’s not Planet Wars. We take to space, baby!

The second bit of evidence I happened across was a little peaking around in the Holonet. When you look at the entry on the Jedi Knight, you see a page that is full of information. But, what is most important to see is that the holonet has a background designed for it. Now, with that in mind, consider this next link. It leads to a blank page, but has the holonet background. The keyword in URL is space. Check it out here. Please pay careful attention to the background and what it looks like.

The argument that was presented to me when I first found this was: “So what?” Well, I decided to do a little looking around. With the look of the holonet background in mind, visit this page with the keyword in the URL being shirt. Check it out here. That takes you to an error page that was created in case someone makes a mistake in the URL and there is nothing there. It’s a redirect. Compare it to TOR Universe’s “this doesn’t exist page.”

In other words, this might be some sort of a suggestion that they plan on adding space travel to the game. They created a folder specifically for it because if they hadn’t, typing in space after the holonet section of the URL would simply lead to the error page. Therefore, it is my honest belief – with what Dan Erickson said and this information about the URLs – that there will be space travel in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I am confident of this.

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think about space travel, think it’ll be probably and most importantly, what aspects of it you’re most interested in.