I love it.
As a long time player of WoW (which I really also liked for the first 30 or so levels) I can appreciate the inspiration it took as well as the innovations it’s made.
So far (first 15 or so levels) it plays remarkably similar to a single player RPG that you can bring your friends into if you’d like but don’t need to (WoW was this way too). For me, it has some advantages over WoW in that I care about the Star Wars lore, find it more interesting and prefer the appeal of something that is galactic-wide.
The Sith, which I chose to play as, are interesting to say the least. Each Sith Lord is a power unto themselves. Each one behaves as if it is its own “great house” from the Dune universe. I don’t know how the Jedi play but I find the Sith very interesting.
My main gripe with the Sith is that the writing for it is remarkably uneven. Some people writing clearly decided that Sith = Evil which is not how I (or a lot of other people) view them. Strength through passion. Power through Strength. Understanding through Power. That is the Sith code that I’m familiar with. Not “Hate and random cruelty”. I prefer the Sith path to the Jedi paternalism path but that’s for another discussion.
The quests are very standard quests. Fetch this. Press these. Collect those. The difference being the story and the enjoyable gameplay of doing those quests. My biggest complaint about the quests is that there’s a lot of lazy idle animation in there which is, for a title with this kind of budget, unforgiveable. There’s a lot of “crazy” people you’re supposed to dispose of. But their idle animations are as if they’re casually conversing with one another. It makes me feel like Lancelot in The Holy Grail where people are just minding their own business and I jump in “have at thee!” and start slaughtering people in the middle of afternoon tea.
The music is particularly nice, a good blend of traditional Star Wars and some amazing original sound.
The user interface still has a long ways to go. It’s better than WoW was when it launched but that was years ago. It’s not bad but I look forward to modders getting ahold of it.
The graphics are good but I had to use my external GPU tools to turn on additional effects (such as anti-aliasing) because there are no in-game options at this time.
Character choosing. Yea, my character doesn’t look evil. Which is party of the point. The Sith aren’t evil in my view.
The green field tells you that this is an area dedicated to your story. It’s your own personalized instance.
Tired of not being able to play a lot of missions because you have to have a party? No problem. You can get companions as party members who you can even send on various tasks for you and they in turn gain skills that can be quite helpful.
If you get a real party going, you can dismiss your companions to go do something (you can’t have more than 4 people in a party and it doesn’t care whether they’re NPCs or humans).
When you launch the game, you are given a snap shot of where you are in your character’s main story arc as if it were a chapter from the Star Wars saga. The game does a good job making you feel like you are singularly important in the game universe.
If you have any specific questions, ask them here. I play on the Kaas City server as Talax if anyone’s interested.
dito. Great game!
Looking forward to joining you guys online over the next week.
Not surprised.
George Lucas is pushing to appeal to a younger generation for replacement Starwars fans and that involves making the content very black & white. Anyone who has seen phantom menace knows what I'm talking about.
I don't know which question i should ask: why don't you think the Sith are inherently evil, or why are you so averse to it?
Maybe a better question is where do you take your lore from?
For me it is the first MMO where i feel that i matter to the story. Good job on that Bioware.
And huge bonus points for not making me kill Rats / Boars / poor animal xyz for 60 levels (Light Side: Trooper: Lvl 12).
Exact opposite for me, I grew up on Warcraft. Which is why I won't ever play WoW. They don't so much disrespect the lore as piss on its grave and molest its wife and children. Not an exaggeration, even W3 was a pretty big departure from the first two.
Huh they went the other way for Warcraft. They widened the base by making orcs into lovable green teddy bears. In my W2 manual there are pics of orcs licking the blood streaming from the heads of beheaded elves, and dragons snacking on naked chicks. Warcraft orcs used to be sadistic killing machines.
I thought that it was possible to play as a Light Side Sith (or a Dark Side Jedi)? I'm playing a light side Jedi, so I can't be sure on that, but thats what I've heard.
Aaaaaaactually, this is a story development more than anything.
I don't think it has anything to do with searching for replacement fans. George Lucas has always portrayed the events of the movies and surrounding fiction as a struggle between unambiguous forces of good and evil. Gray is a relatively recent addition to the universe, pushed by the newer roleplaying games.
I don't think it's necessarily "replacement" fans, but they want to broaden their target audience. Jar Jar commands it. ME SO CLUMSY.
I take my lore from Wookipedia as well as the various novels. Plus, when I was writing Destiny's Embers, my editors were the same editors of the Star Wars EU books and I got to hear a lot of lore from them.
But basically, the Sith are certainly evil from the Jedi point of view. The Sith believe that civilizations grow and improve by competition and conflict. They are similar to "The shadows" in the Babylon 5 universe.
The Dark side of the force relies on passion for its strength. And while fear, anger, hate are powerful emotions, they aren't the only emotions and not necessary imo to the path of the Sith. The Sith believe in using the full spectrum of the Force.
By contrast, the Jedi path is that of paternalism. They are the ones (not surprisingly) to refer to "light" and "dark" sides of the Force. This is touched on a bit in the game but only fleetingly. In one mission, an ancient sith holocron is explicit "There is no light or dark, there is only the force".
In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith (a great book btw, less good as a movie) the Jedi were planning to overthrow the democratically elected government of the Republic because "they knew best". The Jedi are only the "good guys" because of sloppy writing.
I'm a light side sith.
BTW, anyone who thinks SWTOR is a kiddie game hasn't played it.
If you're playing as a Sith, there is a lot of cold blooded murder, torture, and ruthlessness that is beyond anything hinted in the movies. Killing Younglings is par for the course if that be your thing.
I've gotta say, that's some pretty interesting lore you came across. My knowledge of Star Wars only extends as far as the movies, so I've been put into a good vs evil mindset. Remember the third episode -- SPOILER ALERT -- in the final battle Anakin vs Obiwan where they made Anakin look really evil with blood red eyes?
Yea, the novel Revenge of the Sith is one of my favorite books (all books) of all time. I really loved it. Whoever wrote it definitely didn't like the Jedi.
Sorry to butt into your conversation, but it's always interesting to see how others' fictional beliefs are different from yours, especially when it comes to situations in which authors are reimagining the works of authors who are themselves reimagining the works of other authors.
If it's the universe as Lucas imagines it, then the good/evil view of the Jedi and the Sith is absolutely correct. If it's the universe as it has been variously imagined by other authors, then there's a number of possible, if inconsistent views, any of which could be correct. If it's the universe as it's imagined by fans, then there are even more possibilities.
I would have thought, though, that LucasFilm's editors would have been strongly against the "no light or dark side" view, since there's been an overwhelming move away from it in recent years. (Various authors have flirted with this view, but all the newest source books have come down firmly on the more traditional "light and dark side" view.)
Can I assume you haven't read any of the novels?
Revenge of the Sith, the novel, is about as canon as you can get right? The movies certainly give the Jedi perspective which is, like everything "from a certain point of view."
When a novel/movie/video game etc. needs a villain, the Sith and/or Dark Jedi are often the most convenient source. I think its safe to say lots of Sith can be safely classified as evil, but there are exceptions (Kreia from KotorII is probably my favorite). The Sith are a race, a civilization, a philosophy and a religion, and we are still lacking quite a lot of details about them. I don't think any of the source books have the scope to cast that big of a judgement on them, if that is even possible.
The novelization of Revenge of the Sith was definitely a well written novel.
You are correct.
Every since the post-Galactic Civil War (New Jedi Order and beyond) novels and The Clone Wars animated series (TCW), I have been getting increasingly disenchanted with the majority of new content in the Star Wars universe. Canon is being turned on its head thanks to TCW, and I simply won't tolerate anything it offers, beyond the new ships and stuff that aren't garbage.
I agree, this is a fabulous game. The story is great so far and really does make you feel like you are really into it.
Actually quite the opposite. There was a time in my life when I'd read every single novel then published, although ultimately I was no match for the power of LucasFilm licensing.
It's not a question of canon versus non-canon, or creating hierarchies within the canon, because their are canonical sources that support almost every view (although recently, as I'd mentioned, editors have stepped away from the "no light and dark" view, possibly because it's so obviously contrary to everything that Lucas has ever said on the subject). Instead, it's a question of reinterpreting the works of a number of authors to create a relatively cohesive fiction. Different folks do this in different ways.
I'm not criticizing your view, by the way - I apologize for any confusion - that'd require an essay on authorship and interpretation that I'm not about to write.
Your point about their being there being no monolithic Sith is well taken. But nothing Lucas has ever said about the Sith has ever been restricted to, say, the prequel and classic eras - it's all been categorical. You're right that the source books are more restricted.
Revan (Kotor I, for anyone who doesn't know), is another good example. He was definitely, but he drew on both the light and the dark sides of the Force. He wasn't truely evil, unlike Darth Malak. Malak wanted to strike harder and with more cruelty against the Republic, while Revan wanted to use more restraint. Eventually Malak attacked Revan, and Revan cut off his jaw (which is why he wears that metal thing in Kotor).
In my opinion, it's not the Dark side that defines the person, its the person himself. Palpatine obviously was horribly evil. Anakin Skywalker originally was not, nor was Revan
Obviously I am of the Darth Bane persuasion. Of Course the Sith are not all evil, as the word is heavily relative. The Sith Lords in the time of the old republic were many, lending to various levels of weakness and defilement of the ancient rule of two. The Force is merely a fact of existence. The way one uses it determines his or her strength and worthiness to survive.
I personally enjoy the different interpretations of The Force. Each one lends to new possibilities of understanding. It does not matter in the end if evil is inherent in the Sith or if it is merely a common path to those that use emotion in such a way. What truly matters is power. Power decides destiny. It is a simple thing to learn.
I was pretty angry at this game's existence when it first came out, but now I am thinking about getting it. The story may justify the lack of deadly combat, my biggest complaint in these types of games.
Play EVE then.
I mean combat that takes more skill and less WoW formula: Tank, DPS, Buffer, Healer, several "powers" with cool downs. combat should be like Battlefront II. It isn't beyond this MMO to achieve that level of good combat.
On that note, where the frak is my Battlefront III? Why is this the only game that doesn't get a million sequels?
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