SWTOR Bounty Hunters in theory

I read the Bioware dev blog about SWTOR’s Bounty Hunters three days ago and I finally have the opportunity (time) to comment.  Bioware devs have a very clear view of what they want the Bounty Hunter class to be in their game.  The language they use to describe what could be very, very basic gameplay is bubbling with verbiage that romanticizes the gameplay of a Bounty Hunter – or is it being literal?  The way that they are describing this class can be taken and manipulated by the jadiest of jaded players and reduced to nothing in a second.  I’m going to take a different approach though.  I’m going to take the highlights from their dev blog and try to expound upon how I feel they could take their theory and really turn it into a thrilling experience for anyone who plays a Bounty Hunter.

The bold text is straight from Bioware’s dev blog.  My replies follow each point.

“They work for the bad guys, but they’re not necessarily bad guys themselves.”
Moral ambiguity is the key to potentially rich gameplay for this class. Allowing the Bounty Hunter to make decisions like they mentioned (“Will you take a bribe to fake a kill you didn’t make—will you switch sides when it’s clear the person you’re hunting has more honor and justification for his actions than the one who sent you?”) could really offer a fun twist to any standard “quest”-like content. Take it a step further though. Allow the Bounty Hunter to work his way towards eventually being able to take missions from the opposite faction. It’s clear that there is a good vs. evil motif going on here. If the BH makes enough “good” decisions then why not let them eventually take missions from someone offering missions behind the scenes – in a dark alley – who represents the republic or something.

“They specialize in the hunt, the small scale assault, the personal touch. You don’t call the Bounty Hunter when you need to take out an army; you call the Bounty Hunter when there is a very particular person whose death or capture could mean the difference between large scale victory and defeat.”
In SWG we went up to terminals and picked up missions to go to such and such a waypoint to kill some NPC standing around. Spice it up a bit! If we’re playing Bounty Hunters then I want to feel challenged. I want the hunt to require that “personal touch” and I want it to be an involved experience. It can still be NPC’s that we hunt. Make it like a game of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego”. If you ever played the older harder games meant for older kids/adults then you’ll know that it required you to have a bit of knowledge about the world or to look it up. You could talk to people on the streets who were in an area you suspect the mark visited. I would rather it take a few days to finally find someone, and the reward match it, than go kill 10 bothans for 30 credits / rinse and repeat.

Take it a step further. Allow other players to hire Bounty Hunters through an in-game system. Allow them to post a request for a kill that BH’s can accept from a terminal. The game would place it into the BH’s log like a mission and the first BH to kill the mark would receive credit for the quest. The player posting the hit would already have placed his offer of credits into the game’s system and those credits are then transfered directly to the BH. Take it a step even further! Let the BH kill other players by being directly hired. Provide the ability to form contracts so that someone can hire me, in person, for -my- fee and let me go kill that person. The game will provide the proof of the deed and I can earn a reputation.

“You get the distinct feeling they’re doing a job.”
Good! I want to feel like I have a constant motivation or fire lit beneath me to keep me actively engaged in the game. However, I don’t want it to be that distinct feeling that I get when the game itself starts to feel like a job. I don’t want the quests to be redundant, tedious, or job-like in the negative sense of the word. I think it’s fair to say that this feeling of a job (or purpose, which I like better) can be obtained from my suggestions above.

“The Bounty Hunter story is the hunt itself. Smugglers, Jedi, Sith, rebel leaders, rogue droids, assassins, entire gangs or embezzling underlings, the Bounty Hunter takes them all down. Each hunt has its own flavor and each hunt brings with it a unique set of challenges and choices… Core to the entire Bounty Hunter fantasy is this sense of independence. As a Bounty Hunter you are, and always will be, your own person.”
If you advertise each hunt as unique and make it sound like the hunt will be dynamic, engaging, challenging, etc… then it better be that way. This class sounds like the ultimate soloer’s dream because it allows him/her to go off and do their own thing but be apart of the bigger picture and interact with the community. It’s really, really not that hard to work out how to implement the above systems. I honestly feel that it’s the only way to really make this class fit the picture Bioware is painting.

Quick points:

I have myself all excited now. I’ve come to understand that when something sounds like it can be this cool it usually never happens that way(why?!).  However, I want to be optimistic about this and continue to explore how this came become a reality. The great potential here lies in Bioware’s opportunity to make every class as neat as this one sounds.