STAR WARS: the Old Republic...Anyone Playing?
POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Monday, April 23, 2012 01:53
VIEWED: 16284
PAGE 3 of 13
I've been doing flashpoints with my brother. We only done the first one, the Esseles one from the Republic Fleet. We had some trouble with the first boss, but eventually after three times we figured out a strategy. We needed to kill off the minions, because they were killing me and I'm the only one who can heal other party members or companions in battle. Plus we needed to manage the aggro spread better. The other bosses were easy, though I still die every time, I'm not sure if I'm drawing too much aggro for being a scoundrel. Could be.
Interesting that the darkside Jedi has more to it than first glance.
Uh oh. I think I just got spoilers for Tython. Now I'm going to be double questioning this Jedi who decided to take me on as an apprentice.
The one thing I don't like are the romantic subplots, though.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanticPlotTumor
As if it isn't annoying enough that all of the male NPCs will flirt with a female player character. In fact, that's one of the nice things about being a Sith, everyone treats you like scum.
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The Sith Warrior gets a lot of attention from the opposite sex as far as I can tell. As a slave turned acolyte you are treated as sub-human, but you're not a slave soon enough and folk start sidling up to you for all kinds of reasons, many of which boil down to power-envy.
Here's the thing, though. The game has a few "great loves" sorta planned out for each class and those stories are more than just "growths" on the narrative, plunging, as they do, the player into yet deeper moral quandaries which is the heart of the game/world/story.
The Star Wars universe exists for the reconciliation of opposits, so love stories fit right in. Now, o' course, in SW:TOR there are plenty of opportunities for "meaningless" sex, but it's unfair to use the TVtropes argument "if the story can exist without the romance the romance shouldn't be there" in a create-your-own adventure story. The romantic part of the story can be experienced as integral to the narrative by one player and seen as a tumor by another. Neither is definitively right or wrong.
Oh, and you needn't second guess your master on Tython. I didn't give anything away beyond: hey, your story is more interesting than you might think.
Speaking of spoilers (this is for the male Smuggler storyline through the end of Ord Mantell) and seeing as you've played the female...
Select to view spoiler:
The male Smuggler has a major plot twist involving a romantic entanglement with Viidu's gf and a double cross which she orchastrates that I was totally not expecting. As a female Smuggler, I'm wondering if there was anything like that going on that you could see.
Having played through the male Jedi Knight opening and seen it played through as a female as well, I know there's a major romantic subplot the male can get into that can turn pretty surprisingly dark if you go down that road, but the female JK doesn't seem to have access to that subplot at all. I hope all the best romantic plots aren't only for the boys. That would suck--and be kinda counter intuitive.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Nah, not so much. Though I gathered she was kinda... Well. I wasn't expecting what actually happened, but I stood up for her initially. Now I don't think I'd care to see her again.
I sure didn't get into any subplots, thankfully. I think they're pretty bad. I deliberately avoided them in the original KOTOR too.
What's a captain to do? I just want to pretend like all I want is to get paid in the midst of random acts of goodwill and charity while avoiding the law. Have these people ever heard of professionalism?
I'll probably stick my companions in my ship when I get it and go questing alone. I don't like having them judging me all the time, positive impression or not.
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On the other hand, whenever I try to write romance just to attempt to be a well rounded author and to fake understanding you humans it's also really bad, so I guess I shouldn't be too harsh.
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Quote:This is what's so fascinating about this game. I love the light/dark points and the companion points system because they mimick the kinds of pressures we feel in real life choices. You actually feel judged by a game mechanic! From an immersion standpoint, how cool is that???
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'll probably stick my companions in my ship when I get it and go questing alone. I don't like having them judging me all the time, positive impression or not.
Me, I never thought of it as judgement, so much as happy/sad, horrified/relieved. When my Sith Lord is being menacing or when I brutally kill a rival Sith who's gotten in my way, I don't imagine my ex-slave judging me, I imagine her just feeling awful--scared, empathetic to my victim, etc. Conversely, when I use my power more humanely, or defy the Sith order, she feels some amount of relief and hope that her life may not end at the wrong end of my light sabre. To me it adds dimension to my in-game life. I love the cringy feeling I get when I've made her feel bad.
In the Imperial Agent storyline I went through an opposite kind of peer pressure weirdness when I was sent to interrogate a "notorious party girl." My increasingly sadistic sidekick actually egged me on to try to seduce this woman and then turn on her, at one point telling me, "She's got spirit, now let's try to break it." Ultimately, I couldn't bring myself to beat the woman I was interrogating--as my companion clearly wanted--but I didn't make the nice deal I could have made with her--and might have if my companion weren't around--instead discretely reminding the woman what kind of power she was up against and shouldn't she just simplify her life and tell me what I need to know? I knew it disappointed my companion, but there are limits, damn it all! The whole thing kinda creeped me out, but with the fate of the Empire at stake, I couldn't much dwell on it, could I? Hilarious!
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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You're not really getting to play your character how you want to if you're getting computerized peer-pressure. I find it irritating. I wonder if I ought to just cover up that corner of the screen.
But then, part of my irritation may be that the dialogue choices don't let me play my smuggler how I want to either, or maybe I'm just too nice or something. But the game really hasn't let me be subtle about it, my smuggler is coming off as a total goody two shoes. Blegh.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Also, I have a confession. See, I have a hugely difficult time coming up with names for video game characters. If the name isn't right--or say if I get the hair wrong during character customization, I gotta scrap it and start over. So, a friend of mine got the game and he was playing a Bounty Hunter, so I hadda make up an Imperial Agent on the spot and stole the name and (albeit blurry) likeness of our own dear Frem. I was terribly amused when the woman who was going to be his first "companion" is described as "...an anarchist" by his stuffy British handler. Good times.
Oh gawd that's hysterical...
I might drop the dosh on this, but ne'er fear, I have a long list of character names I use and that ain't usually one of em - I've played a few games with Anthony but our schedules aren't usually very compatible, alas.
Anyhow, lemme see if I can't bag a copy, neh ?
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Hey Byte,
Yeah, I recall something of the sort with the Smuggler. Sure there are darkside choices all around, but mostly they're simply stupid or ill-tempered, or love this, pro-military. Like I'm gonna betray the foxy cat-girl and return the stolen meds to the pencil neck soldier who lost 'em in the first place??? Oh hell no. Or, screw the orphans 'cause the military offered me some cash to extract the doctor? Those aren't choices for a smuggler--they do work a good deal better for the Trooper when he/she gets 'em, though.
And, whuh-oh, choosing the Smuggler class and not wanting to get involved with the romantic subplots? Sounds like a recipe for frustration. Nobody gets as much action in the game as the Smuggler. Just watch out for Corso, that is NOT a blaster in his pocket, he IS happy to see you...
Sounds to me like you might enjoy the Bounty Hunter story. Over on the Imperial side being a decent person is a ton more challenging and meaningful, I've found. Once you hit Dromund Kaas the psychotic tomfoolery never lets up. I love seeing a quest giver icon on my mini-map only to discover on approach that the quest is coming from a Sith. Oh hell, what demented shit is she gonna demand I get up to? And how much money can I squeeze out of her if I do? I kinda love how you can strong-arm people and you get a little cash icon in the corner of the screen popping up like a companion opinion. It's fun when your money approves of your actions!
And the game by no means throws sexual partners at the Bounty Hunter, far as I've seen. Been chatted up by only a couple women and both of 'em were distinctly "eeew," so it was an easy and character building decision to walk away. I have this kinda hilarious relationship with my companion though. She seems to be kinda interested in me, but whenever the conversation steers in that specific direction she backs away or laughs it off or stonewalls. I'm continually impressed with how much work went into creating multidimentional characters.
I dunno. I can see how I could easily find myself at odds with the game and it's constraints one way or another, but I find myself continually willing to take it on its own terms and discover the characters the game and I come up with.
Hey Frem,
I'm kinda of the oppinion that this is sorta the best game I've ever played--prolly not the best in any objective sense, but the most personally gratifying. Maybe. At least for now. Like they sat down and asked themselves, "So, what kinda game we gonna make for HK to love?" and went from there.
I'm currently on two servers, both west coast. One's PvE, called Namadii Corridor--that's the server my friend who bought the game started on; and Lord Ieldis, RP server. I have my Sith characters on Namadii and my Republic characters on Ieldis, so potentially I can have one character of all the 16 subclasses in the game--potentially, not planning that outcome at the moment.
One thing about the game that can be a pain is it's hard to play with other real people who are more than a day behind you on any of the planets/storylines. It gets awkward with all the stories you can't share and it's really easy to overlevel in this game, I find. And then you have your friend endlessly apologizing 'cause they're "holding you up," etc. Also, playing two characters of the same class together can break immersion, 'cause they have exactly the same voice and mannerisms in all the cutscense. Much better to have a mix. So, practically, having extra room for more characters allows me to start a new character if a friend wants to join me and I've already leveled out of the area on another toon.
Finding folks who share your schedule can be challenging. I have one friend who's schedule matches up with mine pretty dang well, but our other buddy goes to bed SOOOOO early. He starts crapping out as early as 9:30 on a Saturday night! lol He's an accountant and a devout Buddhist, not exactly a party animal.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean,
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Quote:
but mostly they're simply stupid or ill-tempered, or love this, pro-military.
Omigosh yes. It's like, here's a lawwoman who seems to be injured and I ask if she's doing all right. Then suddenly she expects me to help her make an arrest of some criminal element who did the same thing I woulda done if she were coming to arrest me, but the only option to say "no" was to tell her to toughen up! I mean, come on.
With all the law helping I'm obviously going to be doing, it'll be a miracle if I'm not pegged as an Alliance snitch and my contacts stay intact. The only times I even remotely get to behave like an outlaw is the few times I can act like I only just happened to show up somewhere the law was by happy coincidence, or I ask them to keep my name off the records. Amusingly see-through, but dammit, at least it's something.
And then when I'm trying to be nice at the end of a mission, it'll be all "I was honoured" this and that. The best I can do in that case is pretend it's an artifact of the spiritualistic culture I came from. But that only goes so far before I want my dialogue choices to really reflect some good old fashioned roguery.
Don't even get me started on Corso, his "I'm a naive backwater hick, inexperienced in the ways of the universe" pick-up attempt was laughable and annoying from the start, let alone when it becomes obvious it's all an act WAY before he finally fesses up to it.
At this point I wish he'd just take off with all my cash already, because at least it would be better than his idea of puppydogging.
It's a shame, because otherwise all the tricks a smuggler can do in a fight really makes it a fun class to play. I mean, you're stealthing around, lobbing around flashbangs, diving behind cover, hacking droids to stay out of fights, kicking people in the groin to stun them, what's not to like?
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Hey Byte,
Yeah, as I ease my way into a new character/storyline I find I have to take several runs at the first dozen conversations or so to get a feel for what works. The Smuggler is best when he's cracking wise and those replies aren't marked--you just kinda need to get a feel for it. Usually, if the reply tag is straight forward it ain't the funniest line. Often, the funny lines are hiding under the least compelling reply tag. And humor can cover a whole gamut of feelings, so you have more room to live your character the way you want. Or so I've found. Your mileage, etc.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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