Bioware profiles first Old Republic class: Bounty Hunter

by Griffin McElroy on Mar 21st 2009 11:30AM

If your prospective career path in Bioware's upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't involve lightsabers or force powers, you might want to turn your attention to the game's official site, where the developer recently posted the first class profile page, giving details, screenshots and short videos about the cutthroat, money-wise Bounty Hunter.

It looks like Bioware is preserving the intricacies of the manhuntin' profession as detailed by the films -- those who roll a Bounty Hunter will find themselves with a sweet arsenal of handheld ordnances, Mandalorian armor, jetpacks, wrist-mounted flamethrowers, and the ability to get totally sad when you see your dad get decapitated right in front of you.

[Via Massively]

Source

Tags: bioware, bounty-hunter, class, mmo, pc, star-wars, star-wars-the-old-republic

Reader Comments (49)

Wrist mounted flame throwers! Sign me up... When the beta gets released. :)

I can't wait to light some Jedi on fire. And then get totally sad.

I'm excited about using my jetpack and getting totally sad in the air!

I'm sold.

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
I CAN FINALLY BE A MANDALORIAN! WOOOOOOOO!

I could never possibly type how excited I am about this

You don't need to hold back on account of us.

Seriously, go nuts.

Though Bounty Hunter doesn't always imply Mandalorian race, but still yeah it was pretty exciting news over at Massively last night for me.

Also there are 3 short video's on the website of the class in action.

Yeah I remember some hella ugly bounty hunters from Star Wars for sure. I hope I can be one of the super ugly ones for added scariness! Yikes!

i'll be a kel dor bounty hunter. in honor of plo koon.

Your dad get decapitated? Or yourself get decapitated?

Jango Fett is the father of Boba Fett.

I thought that Bobba Fett was Jango Fett's normally progressing clone "son".

From http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett

"Boba Fett was a Mandalorian warrior and bounty hunter. He was a clone of the famed Jango Fett, created in 32 BBY as the first of many Fett replicas designed to become part of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was raised as Jango's son."

Fuck yes.

Best avatar ever
"Aye aye aye - the blarney stone brings a tear to me eye"

and hell yeah on flamethrowers and sadness
/forcerun3

You can't force push fire bitch! *fire comes back at me* Oh wait, you can... well I have a jet pack hehehehehe *flies away*

That's what force pull is for:)

Bounty hunters? We don't need their scum!

It'll be interesting to see how the balancing plays out with their seeming ablility to insta-pwn. But then again, the same could be said of force powers, so bring it on.

Oh and: MY BACKPACK'S GOT JETS!

If I do end up getting this game, I'll choose to be a Mandolorian for my first play through.

It's a no brainer.

Mandalorians are extinct, they've been extinct for a long time. Their race died out long before SWTOR. Mandalorians today are a diverse mix of many races under the same ideals, like Samurai. And I don't think they'd make a specific Mandalorian class, since Mandalorians took up many roles in their tribes. Not all Mandos were Bounty Hunters. Many were soldiers, mercenaries, or just family type. Someone's gotta train the next generation of Mandalorians. You could probably just roleplay as a Mandalorian. :)

Global Warming killed the Manalorians!

KOTOR has madalorians. in fact that was the war that proceeded the game in lore.
in Kotor 2 you meet them on a planet and in KOTOR 1 you had Canderous Ordo as a teammate so they can be incorperated

what rogue is referring to are actually called the Taung, the original species of the Mandalorians. However before the taung went extinct, they actively recruited other races for their crusades in the Mandalorian Wars. Most mandalorians of any note aside from the first Mandalores particularly Mandalore the Ultimate have been human. Most of the greatest successes of Mandalorians occurred when they were multicultural

Cruisin' Mos Espa
In my Delorean
War's over
I'm a peacetime mandalorian

My story has stumped
Star Wars historians
Deep in debate,
Buffet plate at Bennigan's

Rhyme renegade
Sure to penetrate
First and second offense
I won't hesitate

Got a job to do
And Darth's the guy that delegates
Got something against Skywalker
Someone he really hates

I don't give a fuck
I'm after Solo
For all I care
He could be hidin' at Yoda's dojo

Gotta make the money
Credit's no good
When the jawas runin' shop
In your neighborhood

Think you can cook
I got a grappling hook
Let's make this quick
'Cause I'm really booked

I'm a devious degenerate
Defender of the devil
Shut down all the trash compactors
On the detention level

chorus
My backpack's got jets
Well I'm Boba the Fett
Well I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt
To finance my 'Vette

For those who didn't know, you don't have to ask somebody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baRCq3twqww

This brings up an interesting point in the game. Are they going to have PvP or not? If they aren't, then that's a damn shame as ANY Star Wars MMO should have PvP in it. If they are, how they hell are they going to balance normal classes like Bounty Hunter with the all-powerful Jedi? It was a huge problem in Star Wars Galaxies as Jedi started to become more plentiful. One one hand you have people who think Jedi should own "normal classes" because they do in the universe, but then you have people who want to be able to go toe-to-toe with Jedi for the sake of gameplay balance.

That's the question that SWG could never answer, much less even think to ask. It's a different environment in the MMO industry these days, one that Bioware isn't going to make the same mistakes as SOE in. If they were smart (which I believe Bioware is), they'd look at the past failures and successes of Star Wars RPGs (to their credit, KotOR is an excellent place to start) and throw elements from them in with their own twist on them. That's something I think Bioware can prove themselves to be good at.

Yeah, they said multiple times that Old Republic will have PvP in their developer videos.

Well Mandalorians were often better fighters and tacticians. Not to mention they had mandalorian iron which could forge blades to fight toe to toe with a light saber and not break.

Plus there were never a huge amount of high level Jedi in the lore, most of the lower level ones were just as much of grunts as the clone soldiers were.

Jedi don't have to be all-powerful. They're not gods, just different than what most people are used to. Since most people would go their entire lives without seeing a Jedi, they wouldn't be used to dealing with the Force or lightsabers.

KotOR reconciled them fine. You played a Jedi, but your gunslinging friends(and enemies) were just as powerful. My class choice in mind isn't a Jedi(hate their dominant presence in all the games), but a gunslinging type(without the specific niche of Bounty Hunter). Maybe a basic soldier class.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

yeah, i read this yesterday, this game is going to be awesome.

YES! I got this in my SWtOR newsletter in my inbox yesterday, and it looks great! I hope they continue down this path! Its looking really nice!

Hand held flamethrower and jetpacks for teh win! YAY!

I hope I can play the game as a Hutt and sit around all day surrounded by naked slave girls...

Sounds good in theory, not sure how that would actually come out as a gameplay mechanic however :-p

Pfft, how about a Hutt pilot? I think the X-Wing books had a Hutt pilot. Not sure how he crammed himself into an X-Wing cockpit. I know for sure they had a Gamorrean(green pig guard dudes) pilot, and he had enough trouble fitting into the cockpit. Playing a Hutt would get boring.

"I'm tired of sitting around semi-afk all day, I wanna leave and go kill stuff!"

"Sorry, you can't. Hutts make others do everything for them. You just sit here on this dias for your entire game career and watch people come in from jobs you give them."

"I hate this! /quitSWTOR"

You chaps have apparently never heard of Beldorion the Splendid ;)

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beldorion

give me SWG pt.2 minus the NGE & Bugs

and i have found my new drug of choice.

i hope the trade/craft portion of the game is even half as in depth as SWG was.

The way SWG was designed before NGE was the #2 reason the game failed (after the bugs). I don't want this to be that game. If it launched with the NGE, it would have likely not been a massive failure (in terms of what it should have drawn given the license).

NGE was a mistake because any game that's been out for that long is unlikely to generate significant new interest and the original SWG already had an established base. Thus, it pushed away existing subscribers and failed to attract new ones due to the pre-NGE reputation.

SWG was not designed as a marketable game, it was designed very much as a hardcore title. The Star Wars universe and hardcore are a very bad mix. If BioWare does what SOE did to SWG pre-NGE, it is going to flop.

Different classes are certainly welcome, especially if they can make all of them as awesome as this, it might make people think twice about just being another Jedi/Sith. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be a Jedi, but they're a lot cooler when there's not hundreds of them everywhere.

Personally I'm hoping the Republic Commando is a playable class :)

I just want a Republic Commando 2, the ending for the first game was extra lame (as are any to be continued endings).

Here's praying for a Smuggler class that gets exclusive access to Mk 1.5 and Mk. 0 hyperdrive engines. ;)

Have fun shooting stuff, I just wanna fly around space really fast delivering "sensitive" cargo!

Errr Mk. 0.5, that's what I meant.

If I choose a robot will i still need to buy food? Hmmmm.

Heh. http://dipswitchcomics.com/64

I made a comic about that very class! :)

Bioware profiles first Old Republic class: Bounty Hunter

Reader Comments (49)

Posted: Mar 21st 2009 11:39AM (Unverified) said

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