Star Wars: The Old Republic Developer Blog
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1099
Interestingly, the Mystics have been around as long at the Old Republic has--though the culture and people who would become the Voss came much later. In the first days we wanted to bring something completely new to our class offerings and a group who looked at the Force in a fundamentally different way was intriguing. The Mystics would be grey and dangerous to the eyes of the Jedi, able to see through the lies of the Sith and beholden and interested in neither. They would enable us to explore themes of religion (every culture sees gods but interprets them differently), culture (believing themselves to be the chosen people) and politics (due to the infallibility of their visions, they are happily totalitarian). We had numerous different ideas for how they would look, be thought of by the greater galaxy and behave. For a while we had a running joke of Mystic converts standing in spaceports asking weary travelers, (Have you been to Voss?)Four new screenshots can be found within the article, too.
Two problems quickly made themselves apparent. First and foremost, a BioWare story doesn't work if you don't understand the shoes you're standing in. Roleplaying games are about exploration and discovery but you have to have a basic place to work from. Something as alien as the Mystic culture (its express purpose is to be strange to the Star Wars galaxy) is the exact opposite of where we'd want to start a Player. (Never introduce the exception before you teach the rule) is one of the fundamental tenants of strong RPG writing and obviously the rule was the Jedi, the Republic, the Sith, the Empire. There was more than enough content we'd have to catch Players up on without introducing some completely alien idea. Secondly, we realized we had far more Jedi and Sith fantasies than were going to fit into two classes both for story and gameplay. When it became apparent we were going to have four fundamental Force-using classes the chances of a fifth was immediately taken off the table. The Imperial Agent would be our chance to explore new territory while still introducing Players to a core part of the galaxy.
