Well that’s certainly a novel way to make sure you don’t have a huge overpopulation of Jedi Knights and Sith Warriors. The Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor are both force-active classes, one fulfilling a support role while the other seems to be more of a DPS class. Note that all of the information here comes from a translation of a scan of the PC Games article from The Old Republic forum member Petrosis.

According to said translation, the Jedi consular can be geared towards a healing or damage role, depending on how useful the player feels like being.

The article calls the Sith Inquisitor a second line fighter, and from looking at its powers (seen below) it seems almost like a crowd controller with some area-of-effect (AOE) damage thrown in.

Check out the descriptions from the translation below, or hit up the link for the full post.

Jedi Consular page:
Image top:
With sword, charm and the force! The Jedi Consular fights from the second line.
Image middle:
The seventh class is the Jedi Consular. Contrary to the revealed Jedi Knight, several weeks ago, is the Consular not to be found in the first line. Although he can swing the lightsaber too, he masters several ranged fighting skills like “Sleep”, “Lift” or “Smash”. The class can be tuned into damage or healing. Thus is the Jedi Consular one mighty support class in the Old Republic. Abilities:
Sleep
Lift
Smash
Force Push
Reflect

Both images bottom:
Beatiful type! The Jedi Consular stretches his arms, focuses his force, and throws the attacking droids with one strike through Force Push on the ground.

Sith Inquisitor page:
Image top left:
I have the force! As a Sith Inquisitor one masters the use of elecricity with ease.
Image top right:
The Sith Inquisitor is the alst of the eight classes tottaly with which SWTOR will launch. The Inquisitor is the opposite of the Consular and is a fighter from the second line. Equipped with force abilities like the “Shock” or the “Lightning Charge” heats his enemies properly, in which we could assure ourselves in one play session. One quest sent us into an ancient Sith-tomb, where crawled with killer worms (K’lor’slug Ravager) and imperial deserters. With the help of the area attack “Overload” near enemies we can not only damage them, but knock them back and stun them for several seconds, and so we cleaned the nest quickly.

Abilities:
Saber Blow
Shock
Execute
Overload
Lighting Charge
Whirlwind
Dark Gift
Call a fare(?)
Dark Meditation

Image middle:
Bad chance! In close combat has the Trooper against the Inquisitor the bad cards
Image bottom:
Electricuted! With electrical hit one does not only damage but stuns the enemies

PC Games article fully translated [The Old Republic Forums - Thanks Venom!]

The Chronicle Master system works much like City of Heroes Mission Architect, allowing players to use in-game tools to create their own missions and share them with the community. Since Sony Online Entertainment implemented the feature last month, players have been sharing the hell out of some missions. SOE cites one player who has already created more than 6000 playable quests all by himself. That’s relatively insane.

It’s even more insane when you take into account estimated subscription numbers for the game. MMO Data has Star Wars Galaxies’ subscriber list estimated at around 50,000 players. Even if they were off by half and it was 100k, that’s still 30 user-created quests per player. I suppose it helps that completing player-made quests earns you special in-game loot, but still, that’s a pretty impressive ratio.

It just goes to show that players who’ve stuck with Star Wars Galaxies this long are really, really into Star Wars.

I knew something was missing from World of Warcraft. If I am going to be nearly comatose from eating brown food, then my WoW character should be too. During the Pilgrim’s Bounty celebration, which runs November 22-28, Bountiful Tables will be popping up outside of major towns and cities in Azeroth, allowing players to sit, eat and share food until their armour no longer fits. Each table features five different chairs — The Sweet Potato Chair, The Turkey Chair, The Stuffing Chair, The Cranberry Chair and The Pie Chair — with the player sitting at each chair responsible for sharing his or her bounty with the rest of the class. Eating five helpings of anything grants you a buff. Eating five helpings of everything grants you an hour long 10% reputation gain buff, reflecting the spirit of the season.

I am just tickled that there’s something called The Pie Chair. I need one of these chairs.

As I said, the holiday is also about cooking, and Pilgrim’s Bounty features five recipes that can take a player from skill level 1 to skill level 340, along with daily cooking quests that result in the prize of a Turkey Caller, which sounds like a pet to me.

Check out the Pilgrim’s Bounty page on the World of Warcraft website for more on this gluttonous new holiday.

For those of you not up to par on your Star Trek calendar, that’s actually January 12, 2010. The open beta will run through to January 26, giving players two weeks to play the game prior to the February launch. Open beta keys will be given out on a first come, first serve basis, with players urged to watch the game’s official website at http://www.startrekonline.com to keep abreast of the situation.

“We are excited to announce the dates for the open beta phase as this is one of the final steps in launching Star Trek Online to the public,” said Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer on Star Trek Online. “We are looking forward to the launch of our first-of-a-kind MMORPG with anticipation and excitement and we expect Star Trek Online to explode onto the scene, giving fans and gamers a Star Trek experience like no other.”

Star Trek would be a much bigger hit with the fans if video game website writers didn’t have to covert dates to stardates of their own accord. Just sayin’.

Allowing players to create their own nemesis in Champions Online seemed like a great idea, but I always wondered what Cryptic would do with them once they were created. Now we know. Starting November 24, the Nemesis Confrontation event will let players team up with friends to take on their nemeses together.

“We wanted to take our unique Nemesis System to the next level and do something really awesome with it,” said Bill Roper, Executive Producer of Champions Online. “So we asked ourselves, what if your Nemesis could band together with your buddy’s Nemesis to take you on? Epic.”

Players will have to band together against a team of their greatest foes in order to stop them from tearing a hole in reality in a bid to take over the Champions universe. The event will feature a brand new location and new, intergalactic gladiator enemies to the mix as well. Sounds like a good time!

And in case you’ve let your Champions Online subscription lapse already, Cryptic is holding a free weekend the 26th through the 28th, just in case you wanted to return to give your nemesis the beat-down.

Visit the event page for more information on Nemesis Confrontation.

We’ve spent more than enough time telling you about how ship combat works in Star Trek Online — now it’s time to show you.

We’ve been harping on the space combat in Star Trek Online for quite some time, and now Cryptic gives you a look at what we’re so excited about. It’s possibly the best video game representation of Star Trek space battles so far, and utilising bridge officers as special powers and abilities during combat is rather brilliant.

Think Mr. T’s original World of Warcraft ad was just a fluke? The Night Elf Mohawk is back, and he’s proving his worth — with Mohawk grenades.

Yes, Mohawk grenades. Available today in North America and later this month in Europe and Korea, find a Night Elf Mohawk NPC in your favourite World of Warcraft starting location and they will grant you a five-charge Mohawk grenade, capable of turning anyone in the blast radius into a Night Elf Mohawk. I almost wish I was making this up… almost.

Once again I must point out that the space shots look incredibly pretty, and the on-foot bits not-so-much. It almost looks like you’ll be playing two different games when Star Trek Online launches in February. I’ll be sticking to the space lanes as much as possible, thanks.

Star Trek Online is Cryptic’s massively multiplayer stab at the Star Trek franchise, but it won’t take a system from 400 years in the future to run it. A PC with 1GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo of 1.8Ghz or higher, and a NVIDIA GeForce 7950 or ATI Radeon X1800 or better should do nicely. Those are pretty modest, all things considered. Hell, my toaster requires 2GB of RAM to burn a piece of bread, so this is downright child’s play.

Of course, if you want the game to look good you’ll have to step up from System Requirements to Recommended Specs, in which case you’ll want a faster Core 2 Duo, enough RAM to power my toaster and a beefier video card, but I’m sure you’ll make due.

Check out the full specs below, and be sure to read AJ’s preview to see how she felt about the game’s mix of ground-based and ship combat.

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Memory: 1GB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800 / Intel HD Graphics
Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD: 8GB Free Disk Space
Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
Disc: 6X DVD-ROM
Recommended System Configuration

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)
CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 5600+
Memory: 2GB RAM+
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+
Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD: 8GB Free Disk Space
Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

Funcom wants you back in Age of Conan, and they want you back bad. As of today, they are offering two free weeks of Age of Conan to returning players, with some rather special incentives for those who pony up cash for a renewed subscription. One month nets you a free week’s worth of game time, which I suppose is nice, but not nearly as nice as the three months incentive. Re-subscribe to Age of Conan for 90 days and you get a beta slot in The Secret World, which is looking much more interesting than many MMO games out today, including Age of Conan.

But wait, there’s more! Subscribe for six months and you get all of that, plus a 10 per cent experience boosting helmet, and a year will get you the beta spot, the helmet and the upcoming Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, completely free! All of this, plus double XP for everyone in the month of November.

A desperate move by a desperate company, or an outpouring of love for the fans that they’ve lost? Is beta access to The Secret World worth $US40 or so? You be the judge.