SWTOR

[Kail]

A system which breaks down if a consequence of a decision is that the story thread veers into "dark" territory.

I've only been following this game sporadically, so this may be a stupid question, but have they actually said there will be moral choices like this in the game?  It would seem kind of meaningless to me without some kind of faction switching mechanic.  Otherwise you end up with Jedi who slaughter younglings every day but never fall to the Dark Side, or Sith who realize that their masters are ruthless megalomaniacal butchers, but stay on the payroll anyway because they get dental. 

I'd just think that moral choice would be a function of your class choice.  Isn't the story veering into "dark" territory something the average player who's choosing Sith is going to do, nine times out of ten?  Who is going to choose to play as a Jedi who falls to evil, rather than starting out as a Sith?  And have "meaningful branching storylines" translate into something like "should we charge the front door, or sneak in through the side entrance" kind of stuff?

[Margalis]

I've only been following this game sporadically, so this may be a stupid question, but have they actually said there will be moral choices like this in the game? 

IIRC the first mission they ever demo'd for the press had you choose whether or not to kill the admiral of some spaceship.

[Kageru]

The story *has* to have moral choices. Both because it's the foundation of the star wars lore and because how else can they make it worth the effort they are investing in story and voice-over? Telling a writer than they need to write "6 novels" worth of dialog but all of it has to have no moral decisions and no side effects would lead to huge amounts of fluff no one cares about. We'd get to the point where parties would organize something to select option 1 because it doesn't matter.

... though we may see that anyway.

[Ingmar]

Except it is also a faction-based game and they've said nothing about being able to switch sides. The choices are most likely more about how the missions play out than stark morality choices. "Evil, really evil, or greedy" for the Sith side, for example, is what they probably boil down to.

[Margalis]

The choices in Bioware games typically don't alter the overarching story in any real way - and that's in single-player games where you have full freedom to alter the story if you so choose.

[Reg]

Right, because going dark side in KOTOR and forcing Zaalbar to kill his best friend Mission was hardly meaningful in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the game you still end up defeating the big bad after all.

edit: spelling

[Lucas]

Regarding the possible "attraction" factor of the various classes, here is a  poll  (created today by a user) on the official forums. The question is: "What class do you have 0 interest in playing or hearing about?"

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=245697

Yes, I know that in the "grand scheme" of things it might mean absolutely nothing (demographic of the official forums opposed to general public and all of that), but I just thought about reporting it in here.

Personally, I voted for the Republic Trooper (followed closely by the Bounty Hunter).

[Malakili]

Anything force-usey.  Granted, I'm not going to play this anyway, but if I was, the huge amount of force users will just turn me off from wanting to play them.  I always like to play the class no one likes though.

[Paelos]

Shockingly, people don't want to play the tank. Another reason why I will rule at this game when I go Trooper! 

[Margalis]

What actually changes if you kill Mission, other than Mission not being around any more?

In Super Mario Brothers 2 Luigi can die then you can't pick Luigi. True story. In Shining Force you can fail to recruit Yogurt, then he's not around. Branching paths!

Anyway compare Bioware games to Bethesda games in terms of missable and mutually exclusive content, story branching, etc.

The question is: "What class do you have 0 interest in playing or hearing about?"

These results should surprise absolutely nobody. Force users and Boba Fett at the top, random made up junk that were played by extras in the movies at the bottom.

I don't get why they insist on calling the Han Solo class a "smuggler." Yes, technically in the movies he was a smuggler but that wasn't actually important, he was just a dashing rogue adventurer. In SWG I believe they tried to make smuggler into a class where the main point was sneaking cargo past people or something...(or am I totally inventing that?) That doesn't really capture the glamour of Han Solo at all. It's like calling the Jedi class "farmer" since Luke was a farmer.

They should just call it "Rogue." Or barring that, "Swashbuckler" or something.

[Reg]

Like I said, ultimately you end up killing the big bad and finishing the game. So no, for people who aren't actually interested in in-game storiy-telling (or who for some reason go out of their way to sneer at anything Bioware-related) it's completely unimportant.

[Margalis]

Like I said, ultimately you end up killing the big bad and finishing the game. So no, for people who aren't actually interested in in-game storiy-telling (or who for some reason go out of their way to sneer at anything Bioware-related) it's completely unimportant.

You are completely missing the context of the conversation.

My point was that even in their single-player games the decisions you make in Bioware games tend not to have lasting consequences like locking you out of certain content, especially choices that deal with NPCs in the world that aren't in your own party. (And in SWTOR you have your own dedicated party) The typical structure of a Bioware game is you have a bunch of situations that play out in relatively fixed order, and in each situation you can deal with it either by killing or feeding the kitten. Then you move on to the next situation. I don't think there are many times where you choose to kill a random side NPC and it changes much other than you get light or dark points. That is not some sort of "sneering" criticism of Bioware that's just how their games are structured.

Again compare that to Bethesda games where you can make decisions that open up certain doors, close others and greatly alter the available content. It would really suck if you played a Fallout MMO and your group voted to blow up a town while you wanted to save it, thereby depriving you of all the quests and NPCs in that town. But the danger of that happening in a Bioware MMO seems low as that doesn't really happen even in their single player games.

[Paelos]

I'm always amazed in my second playthrough of Bioware games how much of dick I'm being and then getting the exact same dialogue with the opening sentence changed.

[Sheepherder]

Who is going to choose to play as a Jedi who falls to evil, rather than starting out as a Sith?

[tmp]

I'd just think that moral choice would be a function of your class choice.  Isn't the story veering into "dark" territory something the average player who's choosing Sith is going to do, nine times out of ten?  Who is going to choose to play as a Jedi who falls to evil, rather than starting out as a Sith?

From the class descriptions they have it seems that the whole "resisting the pull of dark side" thing may be big part of the storyline they have for the less fight-oriented jedi class (consular iirc?)  Happens to be the one which i'll probably play, so... will see how it goes.

[Kageru]

It's the only story star wars has to tell. The politics and conflict of a galactic civil war became nothing more than a foundation for a bunch of mage-knight practitioners of a hokey religion and the MMO will mirror that because it is what the fan-base wants. I mean Han-solo is an epic movie character (because Harrison ford is just that good) but his actual role was as a glorified taxi driver because he's not magical.

And they're pretty much magical so we can pretend it is important. In this imagined galactic conflict I'm pretty sure millions of troops and civilians are forced to face the conflict between internal discipline and giving into anger and violence but since they're just fodder (to the point of maybe even being literally mindless clones) no one gives a damn.

Best improvement to star wars would be introducing a reliable anti-jedi weapon.

[LK]

They've introduced multiple anti-Jedi weapons that aren't canon or used all that prominently.

[Ingmar]

They should just call it "Rogue." Or barring that, "Swashbuckler" or something.

They called it Scoundrel in the WotC RPG and the KOTOR games based on it, which seems like the best choice to me really.

[WindupAtheist]

It's the only story star wars has to tell. The politics and conflict of a galactic civil war became nothing more than a foundation for a bunch of mage-knight practitioners of a hokey religion and the MMO will mirror that because it is what the fan-base wants. I mean Han-solo is an epic movie character (because Harrison ford is just that good) but his actual role was as a glorified taxi driver because he's not magical.

And they're pretty much magical so we can pretend it is important. In this imagined galactic conflict I'm pretty sure millions of troops and civilians are forced to face the conflict between internal discipline and giving into anger and violence but since they're just fodder (to the point of maybe even being literally mindless clones) no one gives a damn.

Best improvement to star wars would be introducing a reliable anti-jedi weapon.

Man, pick up a laser sword and wave it around until you grow a sense of fun.

[Sheepherder]

Man, jump in a mech and stomp it around until you grow a sense of fun.

I'd have a hard time coming up with weapons that wouldn't kill a Jedi.  Lasers, for starters, rather than the PPC's everyone in Star Wars carries.  Then vulcan cannons, and automatic shotguns based on the assumption that they can't block something that absolutely fucking envelopes them in hypersonic lead as opposed to subsonic plasma discharge.  Of course, wide angle incendiary weapons (flamethrowers of the standard volatile fluids or plasma variety) should go on the list, because if the direct impingement of fire cannot reach them at the very least the radiant heat will.  Of course cluster explosive weapons should go on the list, since it's impossible to block all directions with a lightsabre at once.  With the magnetic containment field enveloping a plasma charge that a lightsabre creates I'd bet a Tesla coil would be a fucking fantastic anti-Jedi weapon.  An EMP blast would, naturally, wipe out the containment field of the lightsabre, venting the plasma is every which direction, which would also be pretty fucking hilarious when it sears their hand off.  And of course I doubt their ability to sense nearby threats extends as far as orbital weapons, and the speed of reentry of a small weapon (kinetic or explosive, take your pick) should be more than adequate to overwhelm their capacity to react.

[Malakili]

Man, jump in a mech and stomp it around until you grow a sense of fun.

I'd have a hard time coming up with weapons that wouldn't kill a Jedi.  Lasers, for starters, rather than the PPC's everyone in Star Wars carries.  Then vulcan cannons, and automatic shotguns based on the assumption that they can't block something that absolutely fucking envelopes them in hypersonic lead as opposed to subsonic plasma discharge.  Of course, wide angle incendiary weapons (flamethrowers of the standard volatile fluids or plasma variety) should go on the list, because if the direct impingement of fire cannot reach them at the very least the radiant heat will.  Of course cluster explosive weapons should go on the list, since it's impossible to block all directions with a lightsabre at once.  With the magnetic containment field enveloping a plasma charge that a lightsabre creates I'd bet a Tesla coil would be a fucking fantastic anti-Jedi weapon.  An EMP blast would, naturally, wipe out the containment field of the lightsabre, venting the plasma is every which direction, which would also be pretty fucking hilarious when it sears their hand off.  And of course I doubt their ability to sense nearby threats extends as far as orbital weapons, and the speed of reentry of a small weapon (kinetic or explosive, take your pick) should be more than adequate to overwhelm their capacity to react.

2 words: Saturation Bombing.  No need for anything fancy.

[Margalis]

Once "Order 66" was engaged they killed all the Jedi by just shooting them normally, so apparently the most effective anti-Jedi weapon is the dreaded plot contrivance.

[tmp]

Once "Order 66" was engaged they killed all the Jedi by just shooting them normally, so apparently the most effective anti-Jedi weapon is the dreaded plot contrivance.

Each Jedi comes protected with a plot shield. The trick is disabling these, then they die like punks.

Not sure if wiping them out would be of any use, though. Since the story just focuses then on discovery of new force-sensitives in the least suspected places and candidates.

[Riggswolfe]

Once "Order 66" was engaged they killed all the Jedi by just shooting them normally, so apparently the most effective anti-Jedi weapon is the dreaded plot contrivance.

In all fairness, it was an example of surprise and concentrated fire on a single target. Jedi are great at deflecting bolts from a few targets but when whole squads open up on them that becomes problematic, even for them.

Oh, and grenades do work well against them assuming they don't catch them with the force and chuck them back. Then again, Star Wars isn't known for brilliant military tactics. Cover? Bah...we'll charge across an open field. Combined arms? Well...we have tanks but our spaceships are off...somewhere. Wing men? Their job is to fly behind us and take shots for us until we're out of wingmen...

[Murgos]

 

[Lucas]

Story of the last 5273 posts of this thread  

[Sky]

Snipers ... worked fine in SWG (except for not stacking with pistol damage).

I played a Rifleman. You're wrong.

A system which breaks down if a consequence of a decision is that the story thread veers into "dark" territory. So while you made the initial decision not to kill the base commander (even though you did) that means little if the rest of the story has decisions like "how would you like to slaughter his staff?". Which sort of means that even the most Sith or Jedi themed story must still have an option for the dissenter to pick, even if it is just endlessly picking "this wasn't my idea".

Vader ended up ascended as a Jedi, with Yoda and Obi Wan. So, there's precedent.

[Samprimary]

wait what did you just say?

about mein kampf?

[Sky]

Does it have a nice toasty kampfire?

[eldaec]

Story of the last 5273 posts of this thread  

Not sure about that, somewhere around page 100 there is an interesting analysis of the merits of various colours of Hulk.

[WindupAtheist]

I'd have a hard time coming up with weapons that wouldn't kill a Jedi.

Meh. If you're outfitting an army of a billion mooks, or NPCs if you will, to fight the Republic then I imagine it comes down to cost. Jedi are only a tiny portion of the enemy forces, the generals, and ordinary dirt-common pew-pew guns will kill them just fine in sufficient concentration.

If on the other hand you're a lone badass with a nigh-unlimited budget, like say a non-Jedi player character, then all those fancy weapons do become a good way to kill Jedi despite their magical powers. Or as I like to call it, balancing PVP.

[Samprimary]

The Bounty Hunter advanced class in the star wars tabletop rpg system could be built pretty efficiently for jedi-killing, as could the assassin, but by far the best way to kill a shit-ton of jedi is to have lucas write them into a movie, where they can do things like charge into the center of a giant Colosseum and then stand there for a while without cover in the middle of a gadjillion droids.

[Sheepherder]

Oh, and grenades do work well against them assuming they don't catch them with the force and chuck them back.

A small coded beacon on the soldier(s) and a microprocessor controlled igniter would easily fix that.

[Ratman_tf]

Oh, and grenades do work well against them assuming they don't catch them with the force and chuck them back.

A small coded beacon on the soldier(s) and a microprocessor controlled igniter would easily fix that.

Copycat beacons on your guys and some of those small probe droids to sniff out beacon codes. 

[Kageru]

Man, pick up a FGMP-15 and wave it around until you grow a sense of fun.

fixed. And I reserve the right to laugh at you when someone spots "Drizzzzt do'vader" in game. Like most people I can see the allure in being a super-hero with a laser sword (hey, I loved Ulysses 31 when I was young) but the idea of 90% of the player base being swordsman makes me groan.

I guess at least swords and lightning bolts are proven to work in the MMO space. I look forward to a real sci-fi MMO, ideally with fps or semi-fps aiming, coming out one day. Mass Effect online or Titan I guess.