Star Wars: Speculation Wars

I’m deep cleaning my office right now and setting up a playpen — tomorrow my wife returns to work from maternity leave, and I inherit the daily babysitting responsibilities (one of the perks of working at a church, I suppose!).  To pass the time, I was listening to the July 5th TOROcast – a bit old, but it’s the latest they had up.  The two commentators were discussing the recent Timeline #3 video and quickly jumped to the conclusion that the Mandalorians were going to be a playable class, mirroring the Republic’s Trooper.

Okay, I can see where fan frenzy might cloud the vision, but this struck me as a wildly inconclusive leap of logic.  First of all, almost every Star Wars fan, casual or not, already associate the Bounty Hunter with the Mandalorians, courtesy of Boba Fett and his outrageous armor.  When the Bounty Hunter class was announced, BioWare obviously went to great pains to all but telegraph “HEY!  YOU CAN PLAY BOBA!”, which I got in trouble for doing as a young kid but in a different sense of the phrase.  It hits me as unnecessarily redundant to have a second class — out of a mere eight, mind you — to harken back to this race.

Speaking of which, I think it’s a far easier speculation to swallow to consider that the Mandalorians are going to be, yes, a playable race.  The Bounty Hunter is a role; the Trooper is a role; being a Mandalorian doesn’t give you a role, it associates you with a race.

In gradually, painstakingly doling out info for TOR, BioWare is playing a game of poker with its fans, revealing their cards one by one while everyone furiously brainstorms over what remains in their hand.  Something to seriously consider is that out of all of the “big” announcements left to come, the final five classes aren’t the be all and end all.  The Holonet has four out of eight sections still “cloaked” — one of these I’m betting will be the playable races.  Mandalorians could well be one of those.

But another thing to consider is that there’s already a section on “Allegiances and Factions”.  The Allegiances are the two biggies — whether you’ll be on the side of the Republic or Sith Empire.  But there’s Factions to consider as well, which include this quote:

“Across the galaxy, dozens of smaller alliances have come together. Interstellar crime syndicates, multi-planet economic coalitions, and fleets of spacefaring nomads are plentiful and varied. Whether through political machinations, underworld activities, or sheer military might, many of these factions have grown to have significant prominence and power.”

I think it’s reasonable to speculate that Mandalorians might be a faction as well.  I’m very much interested in learning what the Faction system will be like — will it be a reputation grind as in so many other MMOs to gain special rewards?

Ah, the things we do to while away the summer days!