T w e n t y S i d e d
After reaching level 60 in World of Warcraft, I was inundated with quest starters for different major quest-lines in Battle for Azeroth. I’m still paying through those options to maybe figure out a better way to handle it, and there will be lots to talk about why this is in the future. But all the discussion about how Star Wars: The Old Republic handled stories prompted me to re-install and take a look at how my other favorite MMORPG is doing. It is very easy to just do a comparison between World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don’t think that really serves either game well. But the starting point is simple: Star Wars: The Old Republic does a better job telling its stories, and has done a better job CURATING its stories, than World of Warcraft. And I don’t think anyone is going to make the argument that Star Wars lore, even narrowed to The Old Republic era, is more easily contained than Warcraft lore.
However, as far as I know anyway, the lore of Star Wars: The Old Republic is *almost* entirely self-contained. It does take as history the two Bioware Knights of the Old Republic games, but all other background lore is either derived from basic canon or tweaked from newer canon to fit the ethos of the MMORPG.
It *is* important to keep in mind that Star Wars canon started fracturing in 1990’s, and that trend only increased. There is a moderate amount of retconning, but there is also a great deal that depends on when any given property was created. For example, most people forget that BOTH Knights of the Old Republic games were released AFTER The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The most obvious impact the prequels had on the games is the existence of a Jedi Counsel that tends to make bad decisions, and the idea that Sith are always the main bad guys and they always use some kind of basic soldier that looks like a Stormtrooper. These concepts didn’t exist before the prequel movies (I’m not talking about the basic ideas of Sith or Stormtroopers, I’m talking about the pervasiveness).
The setting of Star Wars: The Old Republic is a galaxy divided into two equal factions, with several neutral NPC factions. On one side is The Republic, represented in the game through the eyes of the military; the Jedi order, and independent traders (smugglers who are all bad boys and girls with hearts of gold). They are opposed by The Empire, run by the Sith: an order of Force users diametrically opposed to the Jedi. The Sith tolerate the presence of an Imperial Bureaucracy to coordinate the few things they don’t want direct control over, in this case Imperial Intelligence. The third Imperial faction is the Mandalorian Order, a mercenary faction that allied with the Empire. While other major Mandalorian groups exist in the galaxy, the Sith-allied faction is the only playable faction in the game. This gives the game 4 classes in each faction, with each class having two specializations. (EDITED for factual correction, see comments): For The Republic you can play as a Jedi Knight or Consular, a Republic special forces Trooper, or a Smuggler. Directly opposed, on the side of the Empire you can play a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor, a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter or an Imperial Intelligence Agent.
While your class, with minor concessions to your race, determine your story (which is why they are most commonly referred to as “Class Stories,”) your play-style is determined by your specialization. The specialization sub-classes were unique to each class until the eighth expansion, Legacy of the Sith was released about 18 months ago. With that expansion, any force using class could use any force-class specialization. For example, Force Lightning was a Sith Inquisitor Assassin specialty, but became available to Jedi classes as well (i.e. you could be a Jedi Knight Assassin). Your smuggler could now use Bounty Hunter flamethrowers. Your trooper now has access to the Sniper specialty. I have to admit, when I first logged back in to SWTOR for the first time in a while and saw this (last year), I deleted all my characters and re-built them with different specialties. Something I had to re-do this past week, because I couldn’t remember how to play. And something, as a side-note, I will mention SWTOR has made quite easy to do, now.
This is my main, technically the 3rd version of this character. Rix is also the only character that I’ve ever taken past the first few expansions into the newer full stories, although I’ve lost that version of the character. The Imperial Agent is generally considered one of the best class stories, although opinions vary quite a bit more over which is the worst (it’s Trooper.) Playing a Chiss agent gets you some additional dialogue, and has some lore value as well.
I mentioned the Mandalorian faction allied with the Empire is a mercenary group…not a race. The Mandalorians have been at various times a race, an empire, and a job. Sometimes all three at the same time. You can also start a lot of arguments online by claiming Mandalorians are THIS and NOT THAT. And I’m going to leave alone what Mandalorians WERE ORIGINALLY before retcons. Point being, the Mandalorians are a faction of mercenaries and big-game hunters at this point, and that means that lore-wise, the Chiss are the only Imperial ally that AREN’T actually “off the Empire,” as it were.
While your own character’s back story is up to your own imagination, there are dialogue options available that hint at some kind of trouble forcing you to leave Chiss space. The NPC Chiss you run into in the game will share dialogue that indicate the Chiss are allied with the Empire out of expediency and defense. The Chiss Ascendancy views itself as the rightful rulers of the galaxy, or rather than rulers, more as the group occupying the apex. They are monitoring and, it is hinted at, subtly controlling the Empire to their own benefit. It is also implied the Chiss’ primary superpower is bureaucracy, but I may be getting that from the unfinished-but-great Imperial Entanglements.
When you create a new character these days, you can choose to create a boosted-to-level 70 character that starts in the 7th expansion, Onslaught; or you can still create a level 1 character that starts at the very beginning of the game. I have yet to try a boosted character; neither have I played in either Onslaught or Legacy of the Sith, the 8th expansion. But we’re here for the story, and so we choose to start a level 1 character from the beginning.
On the Imperial side, the Agent and the Bounty Hunter both start on the Hutt homeworld of Hutta. As a rookie Agent, you have been sent on what should have been a simple, but important mission: curry favor for the Empire with a minor Hutt crimelord to secure an ongoing supply of medical stimulants. Of course, the Empire can’t OPENLY make this deal; the Hutt Cartel controls all business the two governments and other factions do with Hutt bosses, and the Cartel does not wish to anger one group by favoring the other too much. So this deal has to be done SECRETLY. And it can’t be seen to be initiated by the Empire in any case.
Unfortunately, the local Intelligence agent responsible for getting you an audience with the Hutt, Nemro, has lost track of your generous “gift” for the Hutt; and determines a highly unbelievable and unreliable cover identity. Trained in infiltration, assassination, and intelligence gathering, this is no problem for you. Since this is a MMORPG, most of your challenges can be overcome with the swift application of a knife the to back from the shadows.
The Agent with Operative specialization has three combat roles available: Medicine for group heals, Concealment for single-target damage, and Lethality for Damage-Over-Time. The primary difference at this point in the grind is with a skill triggered by the Agent’s special resource, which has only recently become available. If you spec for Lethality, you spend “Tactical Advantage” on an Area-of-effect damage enhancement. If you spec for Concealment, this skill is replaced with a powerful single-target knife attack. In World of Warcraft terms, the Agent Operative plays a lot like a damage-dealing Rogue.
The first two incarnations of this character were both Snipers. Sniper play is quite fun, but isn’t necessarily compatible with a lot of gameplay. As with any ranged attacker, this role works best with a tank pet or companion, and the Agent doesn’t acquire a companion capable of tanking. OK, technically EVERY companion can tank…every companion can do EVERY role; it’s just drop-down menu. I mean lore-wise, and appearance-wise. Additionally, the general rule-of-thumb for solo play is to always have your companion set to heal; and this has certainly been my experience SO FAR. I’ll give tanking a companion a try again when I get to a Sniper character. In all class stories, you pick up your first companion toward the end of the introductory questline. In the Agent story, you get Kaliyo Jhannis:
Kaliyo is essentially an underworld, criminal version of the Agent. She’s an assassin, enforcer, and brawl-loving Rattataki. She wanders from criminal employer to criminal employer, sometimes working for the money and sometimes working to stay hidden. Star Wars: The Old Republic has a companion influence system and an active alignment system. In addition to dialogue options you can choose while talking to companions, your alignment choices, which are also made via dialogue in cut-scenes, can influence your relationships.
Kaliyo is one of a handful of characters coded almost entirely “Dark Side.” She loves murder, pain, and betraying anyone other than her or you. She profoundly dislikes Sith and has no use for loyalty to the Empire, which means she doesn’t like it if YOU DO. Now, to be honest, all of it is really for fun and it doesn’t matter what you say…you can use gifts to get your influence up to the highest level with every character you wish. And you DO get in-game benefits from having high influence with your companion.
The one thing you will want to watch out for is the companions that you can engage in a romance with. Many of these are NPC’s that you can have a single-planet relationship with…or “fling” if you will; but each class story has one or more companions that you can romance. Engaging the romance arc on one companion can affect your relationship with other companions, so you may want to look out for those choices to avoid or at least understand before you do something you may regret. The romances are entirely story-related…you don’t get rare or unusual gifts or abilities that alter gameplay in any way. Just additional dialogue and altered relationships with your companions. But Rix likely won’t engage in any relationships until WAY down the line.
The Agent picks up six story-related companions initially, but you’re stuck with Kaliyo for, if I remember correctly, the entire first chapter of the story. Of the remaining five, I only have any interest in two; you don’t pick them up until near the end of the original game. And you can’t romance either of them, anyway. You complete the introductory story by using fake evidence that Nemro’s rival in the region is getting help from the Republic to steal Nemro’s chemical rights, and you casually suggest maybe contacting the Empire for help would be fair play. Kaliyo, who has been on to you the whole time (according to her, anyway), assists you with this ploy and joins you in Imperial Intelligence just for funsies (she says). The two of you take a shuttle to the current Imperial capital world of Dromund Kaas for debriefing and to get new orders. Unfortunately, they don’t have ANYTHING to do with the introduction, except for a long-standing hatred of Hutts.
That’s it for this week, guys; and I apologize it’s weak. This is the third version of this post I’ve done. Neither of the first two versions were any good, and this one is only better-enough to be acceptable. I had to completely re-think my angle just to get it to something basic. But at least it’s given me ideas for how to make the follow-up to this much better.
Secret of Good Secrets
Sometimes in-game secrets are fun and sometimes they're lame. Here's why.
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
The Mistakes DOOM Didn't Make
How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
Batman: Arkham City
A look back at one of my favorite games. The gameplay was stellar, but the underlying story was clumsy and oddly constructed.
A Lack of Vision and Leadership
People fault EA for being greedy, but their real sin is just how terrible they are at it.
How in the world did it take you three tries to make the usual crap article with zero original thoughts? Christ.
Stay mad lel.
On topic: I played this for a couple of days but I quit for one extremely pedantic reason
– The fact that lightsabers work like mmo weapons with dps and such, as opposed to instant kills.
Yeah, I’m getting the feeling this guy is just a troll showing up to disparage Paige’s articles; this is probably the 3rd or 4th time they’ve done it?
Anyway, as someone who’s never played many of the games these articles have been talking about of late, I don’t really have a lot to add (unlike Shamus’ old posts where I did actually have game experience and thus could share my own personal recollections), but I personally find these posts fun to read as a glimpse into worlds that I could have been to but never had the time/inclination to. :)
Yeah, Shamus wasn’t the biggest fan of MMORPGs. He tried several, and his longplays of LotRO, Champions Online, and WoW are some of my favorite things he wrote. I bet most people don’t remember he wrote an article about Guild Wars when it was still fairly new. His article prompted me to try Guild Wars…that was my first MMORPG. And still one of my favorites.
Didn’t he do a roleplay of LOTRO? I remembered playing Lord of the Rings Online for like 3 hours max. I didn’t like the game, but I like that he wrote a roleplay scenario of the game. It was an interesting way to present MMORPGs, although I prefer single-player RPGS (Zelda: TOTK, BOTW, Skyrim, Oblivion, etc.).
Given how many of them he played and for so long, it’s hard to say that he wasn’t the biggest fan of them [grin]. I think the dearth of his playing them over the past few years is more the same reason that a couple of years ago I had to consciously look into playing some of them: after the long burst where MMOs were the big thing, they kinda died off and we didn’t get any new big ones for a while. WoW was still the big one, and the others found their niches, and there wasn’t really room for any new big thing to come along, which meant that they didn’t get the attention, which means that any new ones and the old ones kinda faded from the collective memory.
Shamus’ Lulzy playthrough of Lotro is the reason I tried the game myself.
This has been the bane of making jedi playable characters in every game since the 1970’s. In the original West End Games roleplaying game, you couldn’t even start the game as a Jedi…basically you could only play a Jedi as a high-level character. Using Force Powers was extremely difficult. When you got to use a lightsaber, just hitting someone with it took such a combination of abilities and skill that you really bought-in to the idea that lightsaber combat was difficult. The second way of doing it was to limit the battles: you can use a lightsaber to deflect blaster bolts in this battle, but no melee combat. When you get into melee, it’s only against another trained lightsaber user, so it makes sense that the battle takes a long time; you are both deflecting attacks constantly until one attack gets through. Knights of the Old Republic introduced the concept of “cortosis,” a material that could deflect lightsaber energy. In the KotOR games all armor integrated cortosis. Technically, this carries over into Star Wars: The Old Republic; you’ll hear an NPC mention that the reason they aren’t afraid to face a lightsaber user is their cortosis armor, or in the case of a few cyborgs, cortosis “skin-weaves.”
Kind of a shame the cortosis technology would be lost over the next 3000 years. Made it so the Jedi and the Sith didn’t need legions and legions of warriors; just handful could dominate and entire galaxy. (Please note this is said firmly tongue-in-cheek, as with many things in Star Wars, this is the tip of a massive lore iceberg.)
Cortosis annoys me because it’s such an obviously “videogame-y” addition. Like, they didn’t add it because it made for a better story, or because it fleshed out the world. They added it because they wanted the player to be able to have flashy, exciting lightsaber battles, but they couldn’t let players and enemies wield one hit kill weapons, for obvious reasons. So armor and swords have this magical anti-lightsaber material in them, even if you find them in ancient tombs. It just kills the immersion, which is fairly important for an RPG!
What bugs me, now that I put the two together, is that there’s no reason you can’t have “one-hit kill” lightsabers in a hit point system anyway. Hit points systems and lethality are all about the visual description: the reason people get mad at them is, to put it bluntly, usually their own fault for not conceptualizing it right. If the rules say X, then the description should match X, and if you don’t describe it that way well it’s not the rules’ fault now is it?
The example I use is of course DnD 3.x. The rules clearly state that while every “hit” causing damage must cause some sort of physical harm that breaks the skin (inferred from the injury poison rules), they also clearly state that absolutely *no* attacks which “hit” are capable of causing unconciousness or mortal bleeding wounds until the target hits -1 hp or less, and are never instantly lethal unless the target drops immediately to -10 or less. Thus, it is actually very easy to figure out how to describe combat: misses cause no skin breaking damage, hits deliver at least a mild cut but nothing life-threatening, and eventually those thousand cuts will wear down the hit point endurance of anyone enough that they mess up and take a mortal wound.
How does this apply to lightsabers? The exact same description can be used for them too. Every “hit” is a dangerous graze causing burns and/or superficial clothing damage, but the hit point system says that until you run out of hit points frantically trying to keep the saber from touching you, you’re fine- until you’re not. The problem in this system is not hit points, but armor. . . but I don’t think many MMOs even use “armor” the way dnd does, as chance to miss. Lightsaber attacks should then ignore armor, which depending on the mechanics in use may or may not be feasible- unless you consider that even if a saber can go through, the armor still conceals, and based on my reading of the blast door melting scene in Phantom Menace, can be slowed.
And the funny thing is, the non-MMO KOTOR, the same as Neverwinter Nights, is already trying to present these visuals. Melee combat has characters running combat animations that barely even reflect the dice rolls, instead just a series of near-idle attack and parry and dodge animations. All you need to do is make successful attacks look like more of a “graze,” with a set of mortal attacks for when enemies actually drop, and you’re done. I would expect the MMO KOTOR is using a similar system. Just a bit more nuance and generic animations and they really shouldn’t even need any “cortosis weave” excuses at all.
I think computer-game presentations of lightsaber combat ATTEMPTS to portray things the way you describe, but it strains credulity when you have a melee character fighting a ranged character. A blaster hit can be a one-hit kill or a grazing shot, and technically a lightsaber hit could be indirect enough to not be lethal. Two ranged opponents can be seen using cover, dodging, and shields; and two saber dualists can parry and dodge. When you match the two against each other the styles don’t mesh, or at least not as well. A MMORPG has to be a bit more universal in it’s animations (generally, to save money and complexity), so you experience this jolt of unreality a bit more.
As to the first part, players of Star Wars video games bring movie-expectations to their gameplay. The character they are playing is, in their mind, the hero; and they want their hero to perform in a manner similar to what they see in the movie. Or at least, that’s the assumption most game designers make when trying to simulate powers and skills, I think.
Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor made a really good attempt at representing that- when fighting humamoid enemies, most ‘hits” are actually blocked by the defender, with animation showing test it took a lot of effort and was quite desperate (while their hp bar goes down)
All I ask for is they do enough for me to maintain suspension of disbelief. Knights of the Old Republic, and SO FAR Star Wars: The Old Republic, at least LET you manage fights in a way they can feel reasonable. Although to be fair, I’ve only played my Agent heavily so far. The Agent’s dialogue is written as a Sniper, which was originally an Agent-only specialization. But you could actually specialize in knife combat, which is really compelling. Switch your specialization to Concealment and use your immobilization abilities to reset your backstab, and everything but Elites, minibosses and bosses are one-hit or close to one-hit.
I don’t think there’s a way to reconcile all the things a lightsaber has been made to do in all the stories where they have been used. Similar to the perpetual “continuing lore” problem with comic books – you have many authors thinking of cool feats for the cool thing to do, so your magic sword eventually can cure cancer and give you fresh breath as well.
For instance, the blast door melting thing means that the user should be wearing the SW equivalent of oven mitts so they aren’t roasted within seconds of turning it on. Most lightsabers don’t even have a guard to keep you from putting your hand in the beam, but only Sith users ever seem to even use gloves. And that’s not because they’re more flammable, but for the the intimidation factor of wearing full armor.
How about you piss off?
Well, since I’ve been playing TOR pretty much steadily for the past few years (once a week, though):
I’d have to do more research that I don’t have time to do, but I’m not sure that this came from the prequels per se, especially the soldier part. There were other works around that time and I always believed that that part was an extrapolation from the original movie’s Empire than from the prequels, especially given that the entire setup is of a full on Empire and not a couple of Sith. The Rule of Two was completely ignored in the original games and in the Legends works up until “Darth Bane”, so it really seems more like a way to balance two Force-using Empires against each other with an Empire vs Republic conflict than something inspired by the prequels.
For the Force-users, you’ve mixed up the classes with the specializations. For the Republic, it’s Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular, with Sentinel being a specialization of the Jedi Knight along with Guardian. For the Empire, it’s Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor, with Juggernaut being a Warrior Specialization and Assassin being an Inquisitor Specialization.
I haven’t played with it, but I think that at least for subscribers any class can use any specialization as a secondary. There’s a quest to choose that that you get early on. I think you have to choose one set to use at a time, though, and you only get two.
Even back to the original games they’ve always been all three, and that continues here. Note that in contrast to what you said above that the Bounty Hunter does not start as a Mandalorian in any way, but becomes one as part of the class story.
In my experience, you should stick with healing. I haven’t come across a situation where drawing enemies off of myself mattered that much when compared to the healing you can get. Also, if the difficulty is too much there’s a way to change it. I run on the “casual” or “story” mode or whatever it is called which is the lowest and the combat isn’t all that difficult, especially with a healing companion. In addition, you can make things easier with overleveling by using the Rest XP and/or purchased or earned “Major Experience XP” things, although I’m not sure that the two stack. With those, I’ve been able to be massively overleveled just doing the class and planet quest lines. Also, you can run the first Flashpoint — Black Talon on the Empire side — in story mode solo, which also adds some XP.
You also can no longer get negative influence for doing something the companion doesn’t like. In the past, you needed high influence to see their story, but as you say that’s not true anymore, so you don’t have to worry about companion influence anymore, which is good because it allows you to roleplay more what you say to them than worrying about managing their influence.
Because of the stories TOR is the MMO I’ve played the most, even if it’s not my favourite (that was “City of Heroes”). Depending on your memory, you really could play it perpetually playing only from the beginning, working through each class to the end and then switching to another one until you go through all eight, and then starting over. That’s effectively what I’ve been doing, hopping between Empire and Republic so that the planet stories don’t get too stale.
Something I don’t think I successfully explained is that I didn’t mean the idea of Stormtroopers themselves, I meant the specific idea that ALL VARIATIONS of Republic and Empire soldiers throughtout the history of the galaxy were some version recognizable as a Stormtrooper, visually (and occassionally, thematically.) Likewise the Jedi Council, which is never mentioned canonically, or even, at least consistently, non-canonically, until it was introduced in the Prequel movies. Jedi were locked into the “wandering sage” concept, although love it or hate it, “padawan learner” was one of the first ideas George Lucas ever committed to paper. Similarly, the “Rule of Two” was created for the prequel movies (the LORE for the “Rule of Two” was created years later, the whole Darth Bane thing), as was the basis for “Sith” lore. Prior to the prequels, the only mention of “Sith” was in the novelization for Star Wars, where ONE of Vader’s titles is “Dark Lord of the Sith.” It is never explained.
You are absolutely right, despite having the game open in the background I completely bungled the Jedi and Sith Classes and Specializations. I will correct that in a bit.
I have NOT tested whether subscribers can mix Force and Non-Force abilities…I will try that. I did once subscribe to SWTOR, but I’m just, what’s it called, “Preferred” now? I retain some of the benefits from having subscribed at one point. It used to be a whole strategy, subscribing for one month to get those benefits. Of course, I did realize this week they have CHANGED a lot of that, and things that I used to have unlocked across my account are gone now, and I have to repurchase them. Thankfully, they’ve made most of those things purchasable by in-game currency now, instead of only Cartel Coins. Having a quest to enable this ability is definitely a new idea…I haven’t run across that at any point (that I know of).
Yeah…Mandalorian Lore. You are correct in what you say, in regards to the Bioware games, but I’m talking about all of Star Wars canon. I didn’t make that clear; that’s on me. I may do an entire article just on Mandalorian Lore at some point. Highlights being: Mandalorians were originally the Mandalorian Knights, a non-force-using weapon-centric Order opposed to the Jedi Knights. I always thought of it as if the Optimists Club went to war with the Lions Club eons ago. That may be too much of an Americana reference; apologies. Also, Boba Fett was originally (probably) NOT a Manadalorian. He was a bounty hunter wearing Mandalorian armor, where he got it was unknown but the Mandalorians had been defeated by the Jedi Knights centuries prior to The Empire Strikes Back. Lore going back to the days of the Great Hyperspace War has a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions, but it generally follows the idea that the Mandalorians were a warlike, honor-based race that decided to Silastic Armorfiend the galaxy to prove they were best at war. Likely during this process or because of their near-obliteration by the Jedi they started basically accepting “honorary Mandalorians” to replenish their numbers. From there you naturally move on to the traditional (at this point) Mandalorian story that they are mercenaries and bounty hunters.
I think the next article is going to start with “The Black Talon.” The story-mode flashpoints are all great fun. And they give you a tank. Although to be honest, the tank can beat everything by itself unless it pulls an entire room and you’re not near enough to help out, or a couple of the bonus bosses.
I’ve generally done the same with SWTOR. Just created new characters and played the class stories over and over. I know several of the early stories so well at this point I generally skip through them, but there are a few class stories I’ve only completed once.
It always struck me that the aesthetic for the Sith and Republic troops and ships in Knights of the Old Republic pretty much followed what we saw in A New Hope, with the armour for the Sith and the helmets for the Republic, which is why I think that followed from there. The “Old Republic” comics existed before Knights of the Old Republic I think and so things like the Council were I think stolen from there, but I don’t know how influenced they were by the prequels. But the “Rule of Two” didn’t exist AT ALL in those games, which suggests that the influence of the prequels over Sith lore wasn’t all that strong.
I KNOW that you can select a secondary powerset from all the classes — even your own — as a subscriber, but my impression was that it wasn’t limited to subscribers. I generally get an early quest mentioning it, and it goes to a long discussion with an appropriate guide who outlines the various classes and lets you pick the secondary. I’ve never actually tried to USE it — I tend to find the powersets for the class I’m picking more appropriate for roleplaying — but you are allowed to do that.
I wanted to see if there were other story mode flashpoints out there, but never got around to it. I always run Black Talon and the Republic equivalent, though.
I started through all eight classes to get all of them completed, then switched to picking classes based on characters I wanted to play, and now am running through all eight again to write up the TOR Diary entries on my blog for them. Once that’s done I’ll do something else, but likely will keep playing TOR if it’s still running by then [grin].
Ah!
Been playing The Old Republic for years. Still love it.
I really like that you started writing about it. :)
You are welcome! Don’t know how long I’m going to be on it, but I’ve started all 8 class stories, so there is A LOT to talk about.
While I fully agree with the former, I definitely cannot agree with the latter.
I mean I understand it’s very heavily a matter of preference, but Trooper storyline’s main problem is being ok if fairly basic and by-the-checklist, thus an uninspired and predictable one (with very unutilised storytelling potential for darkside playthrough. And with correction for overall writing quality as far as tOR is concerned).
However unlike Smuggler storyline, Trooper’s story doesn’t make an impression of being hastily and forcefully glued out of badly fitting pieces and overconvenient lesser-deity-ex-machinas, which imo is enough to protect it from being the worst.
Trooper is the one that I find the least inspiring, probably because of its lackluster story but also lackluster companions (the droid is mildly interesting because it’s funny, but the rest aren’t all that memorable). I’ve only ever played it once, though. I admit that I like Smuggler, though, and I don’t find it to be that contrived or glued together. There are I guess multiple plotlines, but that seems to fit the class, and I like the companions better.
Honestly, I’d say that each of them tend to have their unique benefits except for perhaps Trooper. Warrior has the split in Jaessa depending on whether you’re Dark Side or not, Inquisitor has the choice about how to deal with Zash and Khem, Agent has the bigger idea, Bounty Hunter has the alignment with the class, Knight has the ties to the earlier games, Consular has the politics, and Smuggler has the links to the underworld and how that works.
The first Trooper companion, Aric, is one of the two “main” companions I absolutely despise. The Trooper story has a lot of, what seems to me, “manufactured” drama; and Aric is the focal point of a lot of it. Ironically, the other hated started companion is the Smuggler’s: Corso. When I get around to these classes, I will likely refuse to talk to them and use one of the bonus companions I have unlocked. Can’t stand either one, AND if you play a female character they’re both romance options. Ugh. There are three Trooper companions I like: M1-4X, of course…it’s so easy to just give in an ham up your conversations with him. Elara Dorne is decent, and Yuun can be fun, although I don’t think the story for either of them is very long.
The second companion you get as a Smuggler really should have been your first: Risha. She has a deep and compelling storyline and they COULD have even made her universally romancable, but the class stories have no same-sex relationships. However, the Smuggler gets one of the best companions in the game: Languss Tuno. This guy is hilarious. I’m usually motivated to keep him as my main companion once I get him, which is a shame because the last compaion you pick up, Akaavi Spar, is actually quite good, too. She’s also, from what I remember, very difficult to gain influence with, despite being a love interest for male smugglers. I don’t remember her story being all that deep, but she has a great personality and voice acting.
Yeah, I didn’t care for Aric at all. And I found Dorne to be lackluster despite being the male Trooper’s only love interest. I don’t mind Corso, though, although a lot of that might depend on the personality of the Smuggler you’re trying to play. Risha is a better character, though. I don’t care that much for Tuno, but then most of my characters don’t care much for the more shady types, since they are either at least leaning good or are else pretty much brutes in the rare cases where I go evil. I found Gault better with my more shady Bounty Hunter this time around, but still hated Skadge.
My main problem with the Trooper story is roleplaying. In general, all of the class stories, by necessity, are confined despite Bioware trying to give each story multiple paths. I think Bioware did the best they possibly could (for the most part…there are problems). The Trooper story, to me, feels like it’s lacking a couple of important options, especially considering plot events that I won’t go into until I talk about the trooper. The voice acting plays into this as well. And again, Bioware did a GREAT job with the voice acting, but the trooper is one of the classes that the voice just doesn’t feel right coming from certain characters. I suspect most players either aren’t sensitive to it or just aren’t bothered by it, but it sticks in my brain as a detraction from the suspension of disbelief.
I worked on SW:TOR at the Bioware-Austin studio before it was released. It was not a particularly good experience.
EA’s purchase of Bioware gave them an influx of cash, but it also forced them to handle employment in a VERY unethical way.
My department suffered from severe mismanagement. At one point I had three different supervisors at one time, and often each didn’t know what the other was telling me.
Lots of unnecessary crunch before the release of the game, which inevitably led to me leaving the job.
I remember that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I remember *you* posting about it, whether that was here at Twentysided or not. :) It didn’t surprise me, of course, that a Bioware-produced game had better storytelling. It comes off even more impressive looking back that they managed to keep the quality as high as they did for as long as they did. (I’ve played Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, which deserve separate commentary, but I haven’t played the newest stories). There are certainly some inconsistencies and breaks and continuity…I’ve always had the impression that at least some chapters of the class stories were designed or written by different people, creating tones and dialogue options that didn’t necessarily follow from previous chapters. And of course, pretty soon I’ll be getting to the BIG (IMO) writing error that actually made me walk away from the game for a couple of years…
Oh, I’m sure a lot of the writing was inconsistent.
In order to save money, Bioware maintained two castes of workers: The full-time employees, who were paid and insured by Bioware directly, and the “contract” workers who were paid and insured by a third party staffing company in another state. In order to comply with employment laws, the “contract” workers were only allowed to work for 9 months at a time.
This resulted in a constantly rotating carousel of employees. It was demoralizing and disruptive, with new employees constantly needing training.
It’s amazing that there was any consistency in the game at all.
Ah, I need to go back to KoToR someday. I remember a few storylines, made it to max on a Jedi Consular iirc and even raided, but I don’t think I ever finished any of the other class stories. WoW pulled me back in. But I remember really enjoying the game while I played.