Star Wars The Old Republic

[miffy495]

Wait, Taris is in the game? The planet that got razed to the ground from orbit at the end of the first chapter of KoTOR 1? When does this take place?

[Gwardinen]

Wait, Taris is in the game? The planet that got razed to the ground from orbit at the end of the first chapter of KoTOR 1? When does this take place?

Somewhere between 100-300 years after KOTOR I think. I actually have a character on Taris right now and an NPC mentioned when the bombardment happened exactly but I can't bring it to mind.

The planet is fairly screwed up by the bombardment, and there are still rakghouls around (the cure you found in KOTOR didn't have time to be distributed before the bombardment). You also go through the wreck of the Endar Spire, at least as a Republic character, which is the ship you begin KOTOR on.

[Karimi]

Well, I've started playing the game, playing Bounty hunter on Sith'ari if anyone wants to join me.

[Chris]

I'm Remo on Drooga's Pleasure Barge as a Republic Smuggler. Happy to group up with anyone, although I'm remembering how frustrating server-based persistent online games are as I've failed to find anyone I can actually play with so far. I even chose this specific server because Steve is on it, but I didn't realize he was on the Sith side so we STILL can't even play together.

I'm level 20 I think.

[Forbin]

Yeah the servers are a bit hit and miss. I rolled on a server because my friend had picked it randomly, and I'm finding out that it's pretty dead. I've been thinking of re-rolling an alt, because the game really just isn't that focused on end-game right now anyways and I'm not really in a race to hit 50.

I'm tempted to make a tank, there is a bit of a shortage of them it seems.

[Karimi]

As I suspected, there is practically no moral range in this game. Unless you're a psychopath, you end up being light. The metric for good and evil isn't "selfish vs selfless", its "reasonable vs kill everyone for no reason". I tried to play my hunter as a pragmatic sell-sword trying to make a profit and ended up being light because I didn't see any point to being a homicidal maniac. :/

[Gwardinen]

As I suspected, there is practically no moral range in this game. Unless you're a psychopath, you end up being light. The metric for good and evil isn't "selfish vs selfless", its "reasonable vs kill everyone for no reason". I tried to play my hunter as a pragmatic sell-sword trying to make a profit and ended up being light because I didn't see any point to being a homicidal maniac. :/

I'm having a few issues with the moral choices too, though not in exactly the same way. My favoured way of making a fully rounded and complex character at this point would be to pick light and dark as I feel they're appropriate to my own character's sensibilities and the situation at hand. However, there are mechanical methods to discourage you from doing so.

Unlike Mass Effect, there are not two independent morality sliders in SWTOR. Dark side points are simply negative points, they move you lower on the scale while light side points move you higher. For this reason they only possible outcome of not sticking to one side or the other is that you will end up more in the middle than you would otherwise. This is a problem because there are equipment options that are only available after having entered a particular tier of alignment. For example there are weapons that can only be equipped if you are "Dark I" or "Light I".

All being nuanced does is make you weaker. It may actually fit the Star Wars lore for that to be true, but it doesn't make for a very compelling morality system in a roleplaying game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That's a real shame to hear. I wonder if it's a LucasArts thing, as I'm pretty sure KOTOR had the same system. It's all a bit silly... One day someone, somewhere might do something interesting with a moral system. *sigh*

[Karimi]

Unlike Mass Effect, there are not two independent morality sliders in SWTOR. Dark side points are simply negative points, they move you lower on the scale while light side points move you higher. For this reason they only possible outcome of not sticking to one side or the other is that you will end up more in the middle than you would otherwise. This is a problem because there are equipment options that are only available after having entered a particular tier of alignment. For example there are weapons that can only be equipped if you are "Dark I" or "Light I".

All being nuanced does is make you weaker. It may actually fit the Star Wars lore for that to be true, but it doesn't make for a very compelling morality system in a roleplaying game.

Apparently they're planning to add "gray" armor for neutrals, which should make the whole metric a lot more interesting.

[lobotomy42]

So, after the first 30-day period runs out, I'm canceling my subscription to this game. What it comes down to, I think, is that I just don't like the MMO-RPG genre. I was hoping my love of Star Wars and love-hate relationship with Bioware could overcome this, but it really can't. The ratio of story elements to "kill 30 things" quests is set at a point that makes this game too much of a time investment to be worth it for me. This isn't really the game's fault - it is more or less what it promised to be - but my life is too short to invest time in this kind of thing.

[Murdoc]

So, after the first 30-day period runs out, I'm canceling my subscription to this game. What it comes down to, I think, is that I just don't like the MMO-RPG genre. I was hoping my love of Star Wars and love-hate relationship with Bioware could overcome this, but it really can't. The ratio of story elements to "kill 30 things" quests is set at a point that makes this game too much of a time investment to be worth it for me. This isn't really the game's fault - it is more or less what it promised to be - but my life is too short to invest time in this kind of thing.

That's exactly how I found the game in beta, lobotomy. I think what they have made is done well, but the game just isn't for me. I want them to take this content, half the size of the environments and x amount of things to kill and sell it to me as a singleplayer experience. Or just work on a proper kotor sequel.

[Forbin]

If you're looking for a more relaxed play style, you can almost completely ignore all bonus quests. There's almost no quest requiring you to kill X dudes, where X is greater than 5 that is a mandatory quest or even something you pick up from an NPC.

Karimi, I think you're selling the dialogue system short. I've played a bit of a few different classes, including bounty hunter now up to 25. If you're farming light side vs dark side points it may seem like you're forced into choices you find extreme, but honestly I don't think it's that simple. First, you shouldn't farm light or dark side points, they don't really matter (which is maybe a flaw). I recommend turning the indicators off, if you've enabled them and are finding it shallow.

Second, the dialogue system seems more in line with Dragon Age once you start factoring your companions in. It's not quite so morally ambiguous, but each companion has their own personality, and likes when you behave a certain way. For example, the bounty hunter companion Mako. She likes when you act like a professional bounty hunter. Asking for better payment will gain you affection, but acting like a space asshole will lose points. The penalties for acting inappropriately aren't that great, but the opportunity cost of missing something that they would like is higher. Companion reputation unlocks content, and from what I've seen it's actually interesting.

So in the end you're deciding between the line you'd like to say the most, the decision that will give you companion favour and a light-side vs dark-side point alignment. It's not the best dialogue system BioWare has made, but it is pretty good.

[ThunderPeel2001]

You can play this for free all weekend:

http://www.swtor.com/weekendpass/?sourceid=ea5086