Will everyone be a Jedi?

That is the ultimate question that seems to be on everyone's mind. There are plenty of choices available outside of the "Jedi class" as far as I can see: Manalorian and Wookie might be two examples where non-Jedi classes could be based. I, as well as many others, would love to play as a bounty hunter. The one main problem with these other classes is balance. As I said in a previous article, Force users are meant to be uber and godlike, so how can a regular joe compete with that? Jango and Boba fet put up a fair fight against the Jedi in the films and off the top of my head manage to kill at least one Jedi without breaking into a sweat. They are meant to be the most elite bounty hunters in the galaxy though. Do we really want to boost up all other classes to match a Jedi? I think we definitely do NOT want to do this. That would take away from being a Jedi. Some classes would be close and others would be further away.

If we look at the previous KOTOR games, everyone played as a Jedi. From this point alone it would make sense for everyone to play as a Jedi. Would this give enough variety though? There are plenty of skills available for Jedi to train in that includes blasters, weapon skill/damage, defense, force powers etc. Even Sith were known to heal their own wounds and raise others from the dead (healer archetype?). So there might be enough variety if everyone was a Jedi, but would everyone want to be a Jedi? Like I said before, to be the next Jango Fett with his rocket pack and batman utility belt is enough to get people's mouth watering.

Force users during the KOTOR timeline seemed to be in ample supply. And that's a good thing. I remember just starting out in KOTOR I, killing mobs on my merry way. Then you have to fight the first dark Jedi and the stakes were suddenly raised. Then later on in the game you might be faced with 2 or 3 Jedi at the same time; that was great! Playing as a dark Jedi was great fun to choke hold one while I beat the other down with my light sabre. There would definitely be no problem lore wise to have a million force users running around if the time line was set up well enough.

If we look at Star Wars Galaxies (before the combat upgrade), very few players had the chance to play as a Jedi. I know this changed a lot through the course of SWG's life but I really only wanted to mention that Jedi were unlocked. They had to complete an unknown set of criteria in order to unlock the Jedi which meant you were either very lucky or you did everything you could in the hopes you would unlock these unknown requirements. As far as I know, they did it this way to fit in with the lore. They set it between episodes IV and V where there were very few Jedi in existence.

And the last game I want to have a look at for ideas is Jedi Knight II. In one of the multiplayer modes, most people started off as normal soldiers using a variety of blasters, rifles and rocket launchers. Then occasionally you were selected to become the Jedi. You had access to all of your force abilities and your light saber and you tried to hunt down the lowly soldiers. You were more powerful when you became a Jedi but there were enough soldiers to back you up if you were against the Jedi. So what if, during the MMO, there were Jedi who were purposely overpowered but if you rolled a non-Jedi, you had a million NPC characters backing you up. This might work well in large scale PvP and especially so if you didn’t have character names over your heads. That way you would be indistinguishable from the other soldiers so any Jedi would have to cleave through random NPCs in order to work out which one you were.

As far as I know, no MMO has tried anything like my last suggestion so it is untried and tested. At the end of the day though, a KOTOR game would not be a KOTOR game if it didn’t have Jedi/Sith involved. Good luck Bioware with whatever you decide.