The Spy Game - Coming to a galaxy near you!

When SWTOR launched it seemed like the Imperial Agent class was fairly low on the radar for players primarily due to the fact that it’s a unique class with somewhat challenging mechanics and a lack of a well known iconic Star Wars character. The absence of any Qui Gons, Jango Fetts or Han Solos for us to draw inspiration from as far as the six Star Wars films are concerned meant that a lot of people took a pass on our favorite class right out of the launch gate.

As the game has matured however, and word of the excellent IA class story and abilities have spread it seems like I’m seeing a lot more Snipers and Operatives around these days. This has recently left me wondering how many of you play this class as your main and how many of you play it as an alt. Almost six months in I have several alts from different classes but my Sniper is still my favorite.

Going it Alone

Have you seen this guy in your SWTOR?

Playing solo as an Agent feels very appropriate at times, and to be honest is a lot of fun. All through the leveling process and class story you really get a “James Bondian” sense of being on your own and needing to make do with what resources you have at hand in your bag of tricks. The universe feels like a dangerous place and while things were a bit challenging at times I never felt like the odds were insurmountable.

While leveling solo I also enjoyed the story opportunities that presented you with a choice of being a loyal Imperial drone or thinking outside the box for a creative solution and even the occasional “Sure I’ll do it if the price is right” decision.

My biggest complaint while leveling the Imperial Agent was that at times I felt “slow” compared to other classes primarily due to the fact that as a pure Marksman Sniper you can’t just go blindly charging in to a fight. Lots of encounters required careful observation of the environment and enemies and planning as to how I was going to prioritize target selection and management before starting a fight. At higher levels fights were challenging and occasionally required some trial and error learning but in retrospect I really enjoyed the hell out of those encounters.

I’m currently leveling a Bounty Hunter alt and it really feels like BH is the “easy button” class to level. Most times I can just charge in to the fray in a storm of mayhem and fire and come out practically unscathed. When summoned to help a guildie defeat Borga out at the Lady of Pains fortress on Tatooine I actually found myself yelling “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED” immediately after pounding him into sludgy bits. It’s a very visceral and fun way to play but the class feels very forgiving and not nearly as challenging. The fact that you get your healer companion before you get off of your starting planet makes this class even more forgiving and the Agent is the opposite. You don’t see your healer companion until you’re pretty far in to your class quest and I feel like this forces you to become a better player right out of the gate. Once Doctor Lokin joins your team, the leveling difficulty curve is significantly easier.

Teaming up

Which one of these guys are you?

As much fun as soling this class is, playing as part of a coordinated team is really where the Imperial Agent comes in to his or her own. Being a team player requires coordination and communication and everyone needs to know what their role is. Being a Marksman Sniper means your role is pretty well defined.

As a Sniper I love hearing the words “hey we need more DPS can you give us a hand”? Your role as a support class means that many times you get to avoid the worst damage while dishing out a steady stream of hurt in support of the main tank, protecting other support classes like healers or picking off the stragglers depending on the encounter. It’s a versatile class with a lot of utility and flexibility.

A well geared Sniper is capable of dealing insane burst damage or a healthy amount of sustained damage once again demonstrating his adaptability for each situation. Your ability to use environmental objects to reduce your incoming damage helps to make up for being limited to medium armor and can make the game tactically interesting as you survey the battlefield and react to the situation, taking advantage of cover when you need to fire and move in a fluid situation. This combined with the fact that there seems to be a shortage of ranged DPS most of the time ensures that if I’m looking for work it’s almost always available. This absolutely fits in perfectly with where your class story ends up once you’ve reached level 50 and entered the interlude stage.

Everyone has a different play style, fortunately the Imperial Agent is a good choice for either preference. What’s your preferred play style? Are you a Lone Ranger or a Team Player? Let us know in the comment section below!

Tip ‘O the week: When you’re working with a group, keep an eye on your healer. If he goes under everyone else probably will too. If he starts drawing fire then it’s time for you to step in and draw the attackers off. It’s far easier for your healer to keep you and the tank up than it is to also worry about keeping himself up. This is even more relevant since the change that restricts you to consuming one health pack per encounter. Use situational awareness and the environment to take advantage of the AOE heals as much as possible. As a Sniper it’s sometimes easy to get yourself out of the healing area due to you having the longest range of anyone in the encounter. Don’t get tunnel vision!

Imperial Agent Weekly is an ongoing column for aspiring IA’s everywhere. For players who are just getting started with the Imperial Agent, check out our Newbie Guide here.

The euphoria of reaching the level cap for the first time is often followed by a great uncertainty: what happens now? A whole host of new game features open up at level 50, features that the leveling process does little to prepare players for. The options can be daunting and bewildering. Just what are “daily” missions, and what is so great about them? Should I focus on Hard mode Flashpoints? I am not in a guild, should I join one? What are Operations, and can I eat 12 hours before I attempt one? Fear not, new level 50 reader — all of these questions and more will be addressed after the jump.

Joveth GonzalezWe’d like to inform players that we will not be requiring any downtime during our usual scheduled maintenance window on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012.

Both the website and the game servers will be available for play.

Enjoy the game!

For those of you looking forward to an excuse to peel away from your keyboard, better luck next week. 

You will have an actual purpose...soon.

With every major new feature announced for Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will of course have a few questions. Today, BioWare’s David Hunt has answered over a dozen questions about adding augment slots to gear with Game Update 1.3. I’ve included the conversation below, but if you still have questions, head over to the official forums and ask away.

Pic Source

Furious Angels

Since regrettably Adad no longer plays Star Wars: The Old Republic I was able to get Tbone, the guild leader of Furious Angels to answer a few questions on his behalf.

What was the purpose of the video?

We’ve always made videos to promote the game and the guild. This particular video was originally made for one of the Orders, which is what we call smaller sub-divisions of our guild. We liked it so much that we decided to use it as our main recruitment video.

Have you made music or guild videos in the past?

Yes, if you check our YouTube profile you’ll see that we made full-fledged movies back when we played The Matrix Online. They had plots, voice acting, and a dramatic final act!

Which tools did you use?

I use FRAPS and Adobe Premiere Pro. Adad, the creator of this particular video, prefers Final Cut I believe.

Where is the footage from?

We made this video before the game released, so it is from the “Hope” CGI trailer. We also used audio from Episode I that talks about Angels. We wanted to show beauty and gracefulness but immense power as well. Satele using her acrobats to slice through enemies seemed like a perfect example of this.

Music: Title/artist? Why did you pick this particular music?

John Murphy – The Last Message (from the soundtrack to Sunshine). We’re always looking for new audio for our websites and videos. I forget who originally pointed out this track, but it instantly clicked with us. Just epic! We use it as background audio on our site as well.

Let’s have a look at the video then:

Any parts in particular you would like to draw attention to?

The video is simple and clean. Short and sweet. We have a lot more involved projects, but in terms of grabbing your attention quick and leaving you wanting to know more, I think it’s effective.

Did you get a lot of feedback from within the guild?

This was more of a solo project. We’re in the works of making a new recruitment video using in-game footage as well as our first movie (we’ve been waiting for the high-res textures!). Those projects will be a huge collaboration involving the entire guild.

Any advice you would give to guilds making their first video?

Know what your guild is thematically. Making a generic SWTOR advertisement with your guild name attached to it is fine, but if you want to make something unique that feels inspired, think of how your guild operates first (happy-go-lucky? militaristic? mysterious? sociable? black ops?) and go from there.

Sound advice! Thank you for that and for sharing so much background on the project. I think it’s a very good example of ‘less is more’ and worth bearing in mind for future promotional projects for guilds.

~~~

If you have an awesome guild video you would like to share with us, send me an email to kristen @ torwars DOT com, mark it ‘Holovid Heroes – YOUR GUILD‘, tell me why you think it should be shown here on TORWars and don’t forget to give me a link to your video!