Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO)

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

However the Jedi Councilor didn't go into the lightsaber forms from what I recall. i did have a choice at level ten between being more healing/dps with one saber (a jedi sage) or damage/tank? with a double bladed lightsaber (a shadow jedi). The double blade was tempting, but I wasn't sure about the playstyle of a Jedi the fights from the shadows, but uses basically a lightsaber quarterstaff that puts out a lot of light.

I hated picking advanced classes because of this. The Sage/Shadow choices are so different, and the 1-10 experience doesn't really give you much of a feel for anything. It's like ok, you can stealth or you can heal, both of which you've never been able to do before. Oh and these are permanent choices, so if you regret the playstyle you have to go relevel from 1-10 again!

I hated the system when it was in Everquest 2, I hate it now. Eventually EQ2 wised up and got rid of it. I suppose though, since I'm ranting, I'll toss up my thoughts on the beta:

1. The questing experience was incredibly fun. Having a personal class story is a great concept that pulls you into the game. It's much better than the usual "pick a class, plunk down in starter area, read some text, go kill 20 boars". Essentially, the mechanics are the same, but the presentation is a big improvement. I hope future MMO's take notes on this, personally.

2. The UI is awful. The design is cool, but it's form over function, and that's bad. So much wasted space, the options are very limited, and there are odd choices in window placement and usage. Checking certain things at once was difficult. Got a new mod for a quest reward, but not sure if you should pick that or the other item? You have to let the quest reward acceptance go to pending, open up the character pane (or inventory), click to open the window for the mods on your item, remember the stats so you can compare them to the reward, close out of all of that, and open the pending quest reward. Don't forget the stats, or you have to repeat it! Ditto for companion gear upgrades. Ugh.

3. Following this, finding quests was initially difficult. A lot of the "heads up" icons tend to blend very easily. WoW's now iconic question mark might be obtrusive, but you can't miss it either.

4. There's no real indication what stats benefit your character through game tutorial or general play. You have to learn by making the correlation that Aim does nothing for your Jedi Knight. Why even have that in the character window then? If you can't benefit from it, the stat shouldn't even be listed in the character window.

5. Rewards are generally terrible as you level. Great, another quest reward or flashpoint drop for an item you or your entire group can't use. Carrot on stick perhaps, but annoying and outdated. You do get badges, but the rewards are limited.

6. The overall structure of the game hasn't changed from the WoW model. Bioware didn't need to reinvent the wheel here, but outside of the setting and storytelling, the base of the game is the same. You level, your power is based on gear + level, you run dungeons, raids, craft, and pvp. If you removed the cutscenes, wheel, and voice acting, you'd be left with the average WoW clone with a Star Wars name. Except WoW has years of content and more polish.

7. The worlds, as pretty as they can be sometimes, are very static and barren. It's obvious that the horizon is painted, that everything is bordered by invisible walls, that there are no critters, and ambient sounds are limited (sadly I only recall the traffic noises in Coruscant and of course the Cantina music). Weather appears to be absent, as does day/night. NPC's that just stand around. When you complete quests that should clearly change the world, nothing actually does. The same npc who turned out to be a spy is sitting there handing out quests to other newbies. The station you helped retake is still crawling with the same enemy forces. While the storytelling makes you feel like things are happening, the world never actually shows it. This is jarring. There's lots of players running around, but it all feels lifeless.

8. Space combat. Cool, but really out of place. It's more like a mini-game with bad controls. At least your ship is cool though. I like that you get your own personal spaceship. It satisfies the desire for player housing in a practical way.

9. Enemy difficulty was wild. You could charge into a group of elites and smoke them, or face one elite that smoked you, or a group of normals that smoked you, or vice versa. It felt really random. At least death isn't punishing.

10. Sprint. Every MMO needs this.

11. Armor art and character customization. I'm not expecting wild things here, but the armor art was really lacking on detail and variety. Oh yay, another hooded cloak. A different color of white trooper armor. *twirls fingers* It's possible to have a theme and still create variety. For now, everyone just looks drab, including most NPC's. Ditto for character choice. Everyone is a variation of a human. I realize that in the story humans (and those like them) are the standard....but really, it seems like the only species variety you see is from the NPCs! It's a bit difficult to tell who is the Zabrak and who is the Twi'lek when both are covered in armor from head to toe.

All of that said (and I'm sure I could think of more if I really put my mind to it), I had fun playing the game....because I like Star Wars. Stripped of that, and the Bioware storytelling, and the game shows itself in a much different light, which is that fundamentally it's not only just like those that came before it, it's also in many ways more regressive in design than it should be.

[Kyero Fox]

^ -11- Its the demo basicly, the graphics are limited if you notice you can't put everything on high, and a few are stuck on low or medium.

[Keroko]

While true, the graphics settings have no effect on the armor design itself. White armor is still white armor regardless of settings.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Really? I'm pretty sure the only thing I couldn't max out was AA, which was greyed out and unavailable.

I agree that having a base class and going to an advanced class can be jarring. The worst offender I think is the smuggler/imperial agent, especially if you want to play Operative or whatever the smuggler version was. The healing is pretty straight forward, but the DPS tree? You've spent 10 levels shooting stuff, and suddenly you're relegated to knifing stuff. It totally throws you for a loop. Sure you could probably spec to imp stealth and dump the rest into Leathality but for some reason, it seems a waste. It's my theory for why that class always ends up on the bottom of the popularity polls. It'd be nice if they just had 8 seperate classes, it'd be easy for them to share the first 10 levels, before branching into their own quest lines.

Every MMO needs area loot, the sprint may as well be default run speed.

The worlds kind of remind me of Everquest due to the static nature, I got that vibe more then comparing it to other MMOs in recent history, dunno why though. maybe its that some textures/art and models just seem lazily done (like the pit in Dromund Kaas between the Imperial citadel thing and the front of the city. Some things like that just scream façade, painfully so). It leaves you feel like you're playing inside a diorama. That and I think most the Imperial Officers are all the same rank. It kind of stood out against the fairly hideously textured uniform

I think the unchanging world thing is kind of tempered by the fact you never stay in an area long. If they did go full on with the phasing like WoW did in LK and Cata, then yeah that would have been just... WOW (lolpun).

For a first time MMO it's not bad, and definitely gets a thumbs up on the story telling and it is a lot of fun which does seem to balance out faults.

[lightbringer]

Played sorcerer to 25 over the weekend, and various other classes (soldier, agent, knight, consular) to 5 or 6. I agree with much of what Solace wrote above.

1. The voice acting is top-notch, as we have come to expect of Bioware games, and the entire NPC conversation system is very polished. You can tell that a lot of effort was expended in this direction. I wish that light side / dark side choices would come up more often, but they do appear. When they appear, they are usually quite extreme, like the choice between killing someone or letting them go, or torturing them or not.

2. The textures were washed out but that's partially because AA and AF were disabled and partially I believe because this build did not have the high-resolution textures. At least that's what people who have been in beta longer are saying. I hope it's true since it's quite distracting in cut-scenes to see this kind of bland texturing. The comic-y art style works well and I'm sure it won't be a detriment to people's enjoyment of the game. There is also visible texture pop-in, I hope they sort this out. Framerate-wise it was great, but my machine has high specs and I've seen other people complain that the game brought their weaker PCs to their knees.

3. The starting planets and capital planets are a bit on the small side (Korriban and Dromund Kaas small and from what I've seen of Hutta it's positively tiny) but once you hit Tatooine you'll be glad you saved those 48k credits for your first vehicle - the place is huge.

4. I came into the beta knowing that the space game would be an arcade-like minigame on rails so I was not disappointed. I played the first four missions many times and still had fun. The missions weren't particularly hard though, especially once you upgrade your ship a bit (I recommend expanding missile bay from 20 to 40 first, this helps a lot with strategic targets). The system also lacks variety - all I've been able to do was shoot lasers, shoot missiles, and do a barrel roll.

5. Shooting lightning from your fingertips is FUN. My sorcerer also used lightning in cutscenes, although some executions were done with my lightsaber, but actually using it on enemies is fabulous. The sorcerer also gets a range of 30 meters for most of his attacks, which means you can stand half a screen away and spam lightning. I only wish the sorcerer would get to use his lightsaber even a little bit. The only times you swing your lightsaber is if you're completely out of force or are just roleplaying. If you're down to your lightsaber, you're usually already as good as dead, which makes having it in your hand as you go through the casting animations completely pointless.

6. There are some improvements to usability that I suspect will make this game really popular. One is automatic looting in a large radius. Just right click and the last twelve corpses within some 20 meters or so will be looted. Another is crafting, obviously. Companion crafting missions take the tedium out of crafting, but don't expect to get rich quick - most of the time you'll be losing money as you skill up, like you'd expect. Another is turning off and on quest tracking based on what region you are in, so when you travel to Hoth only the Hoth and class missions will be turned on. You can also simply right-click on player corpses to use your out-of-combat revive, which everyone has access to from the start. And drinking and eating food to restore health and mana - right from the start, everyone gets a fifteen second spell that completely restores you. No need to waste inventory slots on this stuff. You can also teleport to any binding terminal you ever visited, not only the last one you bound to.

7. The class storylines are all great and they are individual threads that weave and intertwine to form one big tapestry. I only got started on most of them but, for instance, my sorcerer encountered and interacted with characters who my jedi councilor also encountered before. I think if you like story you will definitely want to play through all eight class storylines, so there is a lot of content here for fans of Bioware storytelling.

8. There really is a lot of similarity mechanics-wise to other popular MMO games like Everquest and WoW. A bit mitigated by lack of auto-attack and by coordinated lightsaber animations, but overall anyone who played WoW the past few years will feel right at home here. This isn't automatically bad but it also means that the game plays it safe and does not advance the genre - all it does is slap Bioware's brand of story onto it. And it's true that the game is quite static and barren right now and does not use phasing extensively to show how your actions affect the world. What you get is a common area which is the same for everyone plus various sub-areas which are instanced based on the quest you are on.

9. One of the coolest features is the modification system. Some items (blues and up) come with slots and it's possible to completely modify them. Your starting four-slot lightsaber is as good as an end-game lightsaber if both use the same modifications. So instead of upgrading equipment you can just keep the equipment you like and upgrade its stats. Current the damage rating on lightsabers is taken directly from the hilt modification, similar mechanics exist for armor and blasters. Modifications are often purchased using commendations, received as quest rewards, or even crafted.

10. You get to play as humans... or green humans, or red humans, or humans with horns, or blind humans, or humans with mechanical parts, or grey humans, etc etc. You get the idea. Twi'lek are about as non-human as it gets. Fortunately, not all of your companions are humans - some are Wookies, Jawa, robots, and other, more exotic varieties.

The weekend build was apparently not the latest build but even so, it was soewhat buggy. Especially the minimap and crafting. There were only a few CTD, thankfully, but at times the game necessitated a restart (at one point in Balmorra simply moving the camera around caused extensive z-buffer trashing which made the game completely unplayable, for instance). With the launch being as close as it is, I'm a bit concerned that the game will be panned by critics for launching in such a state. But then, MMO launches are never smooth or bug-free, so it's probably expected. And Bioware is racing to get the game out the door this Christmas season, feeling that everyone waited long enough. Personally, the combination of Star Wars setting + Bioware storytelling is enough for me to play this game, but I do not plan to take part in guilds or raids so maybe I'm a bit at odds with hardcore MMO philosophy. I'll play through all the storylines and maybe focus on one or two characters after that for achievements and such.

[Nixl]

Originally Posted by creb

If you really think the Sith Warrior is simply "go kill", then I have to question how far you got through it, and what type of conversation choices you made. While I think the Imperial Agent has the best overall story in the game, when it comes to the Lightsaber-wielding classes, the Sith Warrior had a surprising amount of play and nuance to it, assuming you allowed it to and didn't simply choose to murder everyone you met. In the case of my Sith Warrior, Jaesa Williams said it best, "You are a being of Light, masked by Darkness...", and she spends quite a bit of time angsting about how we are to live with the Dark things we do for the bigger picture/greater good. Again, assuming of course you're not just some homicidal maniac who murders everyone because...hey, Sith=psychotic murder in your eyes. I mean, for goodness sake, you have a philosophical conversation (and acceptance) with the Light Side reflection of yourself. Again, assuming you're not the type of player to just spam the '3' key on your keyboard, there's a lot of measured depth to the SW if one so chooses.

I played a Light-sided Sith Warrior, because the [Kill Him/Her] options just seemed too comical and ridiculous. That and, it seemed more practical to help fellow Sith in a story that us suppose to be about war. Overall, with few exceptions I found the morality too extreme with limiting options, but my main complaint is that I never found an element that anchored me to the story if that makes sense. By a literary anchor I mean a dedicated villain, mentor, theme, or backstory. Maybe you played farther than I, but does the Sith Warrior ever get a dedicated rival/villain or at least some type of theme by which the character is driven that lasts longer than a single act?

From what I played you killed off the rivals so relatively quickly that there is no true antagonist to face you through till the end. They were just meaningless stepping stones. I just felt like I was going to planets with a shopping list of going to point A, kill some droids/rebels, return to point B have some guy be angry and eventually fight them. Rinse, repeat.

In truth I do not want to say some hyperbolic statement of "it was the worst story evaaaarrrr," but I do not think it was truly great or something that made me love Star Wars again in the same light of Kotor 1 and 2. I know some have said it is in MMO, but the Kotor series is suppose to have a RPG leaning and in addition it seems strange for Bioware to make a weak story that they depend on selling the game with.

Originally Posted by lightbringer

I think if you like story you will definitely want to play through all eight class storylines, so there is a lot of content here for fans of Bioware storytelling.

I do not know if I agree with this sir. I am a dedicated RPG fan, but I do not know if I would call TOR a strong RPG or story. I would go so far as to say it is an MMO with cutscenes. Furthermore, that story will probably become diluted by raids and the need to grind the next level of gear. I know it is an MMO and there are limits, but did Bioware/EA really have to pick an established RPG franchise to turn into a subscription MMO with a WoW/Everquest gear grind model?

Let me just say, that I am not a Bioware story fan, but even this seems not up to standard for Bioware.

[Kyral]

Wow you guys are fast! I only managed to get my SW to level 14 during the weekend. Oo
(oh and I had a Trooper, a Counciler and a Agent who were all lvl 3, ok I made them on the last day before I had to go to at least get some insight into the others. )

Well I just say what I once told a friend of mine after I first heard that SWTOR is in the making: "If they manage to make it only half as good as WoW I will be pleased."

And with this low expectation I went in there and was pleasant surprised by pretty much everything.

Grafics was alright, the combat was fluid and had some nice melee animations, voiceacting was nice and I really loved the cutscenes.

Yes, I agree with the lack of "grey" choices. Sometimes I saw a choice that was light/dark and I thought that it looked pretty neutral. (For example, a fellow sith who fell from gracce is begging you for a chance to die fighting.
You can now kill him (dark), spare him (light) or give him a weapon and grant his wish (dark).
I mean... wut? Isn't the last choice what he wanted?)

Anyway. It exeeced my expectations.

[MeoTwister5]

So here' my take on the beta:

The Good:

1. The single player aspect. This is probably the strongest aspect of the game and the strongest single player element in all MMOs I've ever played. The immersion and effort placed in a single player experience is superb and nearly rivaling other dedicated single player RPGs. This would satisfy anyone who wants a strong solo element if they don't necessarily want to be partying with other players too much.

2. The game universe, while in some aspects kind of closed and a bit straightforward, is itself looking great in depicting the pre-trilogy world started by the first two games. Coruscant's decay looks great and Tython while small is a great setup for the Jedi characters.

3. The lack of autoattack and the need to pay attention to your combat skills makes this less of a battle of cooldowns most other MMOs are. Here it actually feels more involved as you need to manually keep yourself in the battle and positioning yourself for specific skills. It feels less like who has the stronger skill levels and more dependent on you actually playing attention and actually playing as opposed to just being uber-geared.

4. Auto area loot. Yes, every MMO needs this.

5. The games feels accessible enough for MMO newbies and complex veterans alike. It's simple enough to allow people unaccustomed to the usual OCD gameplay in MMOs but complex enough to attract and keep the attention of long time MMO gamers. I've only barely managed to scratch the surface of the item crafting and modifications system, but I can say that as opposed to the need in many MMOs to practically dedicate your time to item collection and crafting, the game is managing to balance simultaneously playing and crafting. Ordering your AI companions to do stuff for you is forgiving for those of us who don't want to mine every damn node on the planet, but still requires effort on your part to make the best items.

The Bad:

1. The game feels rather poorly optimized graphically for what it was showing. Granted this was beta and many of the effects aren't yet present, but given it's relatively low requirements the game isn't running as fine as I expected. Loading times can be long, the framerate can stutter in big cities and the game doesn't quit to desktop very well.

2. I really didn't get too much of a feel for the partying in this game. Maybe it's because I played mostly solo for much of the beta, but sometimes I feel that the single player aspect almost overrides the MM aspect of the game. I assume that's more of my fault since I didn't get to play a lot of my beta access.

3. Besides some new gameplay improvements and changes over other MMOs, in the end the game doesn't feel as revolutionary as most news and previews has suggested it to be. It's still very much in its core a standard MMO with many attractive changes, but there's nothign groundbreaking I've seen so far to make it break from the mold. Sure it's an MMO more fun than most other MMOs, but it's still an MMO of the mold nonetheless.

In any case it's a very positive experience from me and has actually exceeded my expectations of the game. The beta has cemented my decision to start playing within the first 6 months of release.

[lightbringer]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

2. I really didn't get too much of a feel for the partying in this game. Maybe it's because I played mostly solo for much of the beta, but sometimes I feel that the single player aspect almost overrides the MM aspect of the game. I assume that's more of my fault since I didn't get to play a lot of my beta access.

I got to party quite a lot for doing the heroics (up to Balmorra Bonus) and the first two flashpoints (Black Talon and Hammer Station). I think the party system works fine. You're limited to a party of four, which can be any combination of humans and companions.

One of the good things about it is that as long as not all people are together, you can summon your companion... once enough people approach your companion is dismissed automatically. The radius for this is a bit too big so it can happen at an inconvenient moment (like fighting a champion... ouch).

Another good aspect is how conversations play out. They do a diceroll and the winner gets to talk, but everyone gets social points and also LS/DS points depending on the choice they made. If you are in a remote location you can join the conversation over holocall but your options are limited to talking roles (a hologram has a hard time killing someone with a lightsaber or handing over a quest item, for instance). Sometimes you cannot select any option at all because of that, but the game still waits out the timer for your choice... I hope they patch this away eventually.

You can share missions with others but they would be missing out on the related starting conversation.

Your map displays every party member's mission objectives even for missions you are not on, so no more "hey do you still need to do X" talk.

Heroic missions do feel a bit heroic but some of them are quite short. You often go into an instanced dungeon (no loading screens) which can be as small as two-three rooms and almost every mob is elite with the occasional champion (SWTOR mob progression is: Normal -> Strong -> Elite -> Champion -> Boss. The last two are not generally solo-able at your level). Even if your party is a few levels above the heroic, you still need to make use of crowd control and positioning (they use knockbacks, too). I didn't investigate other classes' CC mechanics but Sith Inquisitor gets a 60 second stun interruptible by damage and I used it all the time when grouping. When we had two inquisitors along we would even use both stuns to take out two targets if needed.

Flashpoints are what WoW players will be familiar with as instanced dungeons except that there are no side quests to do once inside, you just need to complete the flashpoint story. Some are dialogue-heavy and some are just straight up run through and kill everything. The flashpoints themselves are, from the two I saw, not that difficult, but the end bosses were quite tough. I venture to say that Hammer Station needs some work, we went through to the very end without breaking a sweat but then wiped eight times on the last boss. Fortunately we had a patient group and we talked about strategies and eventually managed to kill him. This is the first flashpoint where I think it makes a lot of sense to have a dedicated healer and dedicated tank, and I expect further flashpoints to follow that pattern also.

I also played a round of Huttball but rather than a party I'd say it was a bloody mess. On the upside we managed a landslide victory and even got a couple of "guys u premade??" messages from the opposing team, who didn't really know the rules (but neither did I, even though they announced it loud and clear). All I know is I got 30 kills and only eight deaths, which is like a new record for my non-PvP self. And I got to zap a lot of people to death with lightning. The teams were mixed levels from 14 to 28 or so and while Bioware said that lower level players are scaled up, I felt that zapping 14's went a lot faster (I was 23 at that time).

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by Nixl

I played a Light-sided Sith Warrior, because the [Kill Him/Her] options just seemed too comical and ridiculous. That and, it seemed more practical to help fellow Sith in a story that us suppose to be about war. Overall, with few exceptions I found the morality too extreme with limiting options, but my main complaint is that I never found an element that anchored me to the story if that makes sense. By a literary anchor I mean a dedicated villain, mentor, theme, or backstory. Maybe you played farther than I, but does the Sith Warrior ever get a dedicated rival/villain or at least some type of theme by which the character is driven that lasts longer than a single act?

From what I played you killed off the rivals so relatively quickly that there is no true antagonist to face you through till the end. They were just meaningless stepping stones. I just felt like I was going to planets with a shopping list of going to point A, kill some droids/rebels, return to point B have some guy be angry and eventually fight them. Rinse, repeat.

In truth I do not want to say some hyperbolic statement of "it was the worst story evaaaarrrr," but I do not think it was truly great or something that made me love Star Wars again in the same light of Kotor 1 and 2. I know some have said it is in MMO, but the Kotor series is suppose to have a RPG leaning and in addition it seems strange for Bioware to make a weak story that they depend on selling the game with.



I do not know if I agree with this sir. I am a dedicated RPG fan, but I do not know if I would call TOR a strong RPG or story. I would go so far as to say it is an MMO with cutscenes. Furthermore, that story will probably become diluted by raids and the need to grind the next level of gear. I know it is an MMO and there are limits, but did Bioware/EA really have to pick an established RPG franchise to turn into a subscription MMO with a WoW/Everquest gear grind model?

Let me just say, that I am not a Bioware story fan, but even this seems not up to standard for Bioware.

Not sure about the other classes, but there's definitely a major villain character "anchoring" the story for both the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter. So if you don't like the story of the Sith Warrior for that reason, you might want to try those other classes out. I don't think the story's amazing or anything (Smuggler reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean for some reason), but I think the presence of a class story works out pretty well overall.

[Ithekro]

The Jedi Councilor has a villian to go after (after you go though the mystery first to find him I suppose). While the first 10 levels are basically legend finding that ends up being a lightsaber quest, you still have to beat out a guy to get there. After that you get the actual plot with your Master and a sickness of some of the Jedi Masters that you need to find a cure for. Saving your Master's life becomes your motivation...though with the amount of side quests you seem to do on the way (since with a few of them you have to go though those areas anyway) you don't seem like you are in a hurry.

There were a few quests that seemed ill placed, but that might have been a sign of lag (in the case of a quest in the Works, I somehow was doing the cutscenes for the quest but was not on the quest.) because I did not see the questgiver on my way to the elevator. He appeared when I got out which would have sent me back though the whole thing again...so I dumped that one (having done the quest before without credit). The other problem was likely due to the number of people questing. I often encountered areas that had no mobs (or just corpes) so after a bit I would start getting the "kill x number of mobs" bonus quests. I'd get in and start heading out, cutting though those mobs that some had respawned, then as I need the exit get a "kill elite mob" quest that was all the way back inside the area...and might have been someone I killed already. I ignored several of those because I really did not want to fight my way back in and out a second time for that (wthout knowing what I might get as a reward).

[Nixl]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Not sure about the other classes, but there's definitely a major villain character "anchoring" the story for both the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter. So if you don't like the story of the Sith Warrior for that reason, you might want to try those other classes out. I don't think the story's amazing or anything (Smuggler reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean for some reason), but I think the presence of a class story works out pretty well overall.

That's good to know, I feel like I should have heeded a warning I received to avoid the force user stories. After playing the game, I just wish they made a true Kotor 3 instead of an MMO. I just get the general feeling that TOR is suppose to be the finale of the franchise and I simply don't like it. I am pretty sore that the RPG elements of Kotor seems to have lost out to the necessities of modeling after the WoW/Everquest themepark model ( Trinity system, Raids, etc).

Don't mind me though, I am just a bitter Kotor 2 fan.

[Ithekro]

Oddly, the more I look at Star Wars, the more it seems like the technology is stagnent. There are little improvements over the thoundands of years, plus some super weapons, but a blaster in the Old Republic seems the same as a blaster in the Clone Wars. Ships seem more or lessthe same. Walkers seem the same in style. Droids are mostly the same. Just slightly more refined or having cleaner lines.

After 4,000 years, that seems rather stagnent. Maybe that is what happens near the top end of technology.

[Nixl]

I think it has more to do with George Lucas having an iron grip over the images and objects that can go into anything Star Wars related.


He probably hated what Obsidian did with Kreia.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Nixl

I think it has more to do with George Lucas having an iron grip over the images and objects that can go into anything Star Wars related.


He probably hated what Obsidian did with Kreia.

If I may crush this little bug that keeps crawling around, no he does not. There are multiple star wars stories that show a great technological difference. Try reading the Tales of the Jedi comics. 100% C-canon, and with designs that will make your jaw drop with the difference.

George Lucas has always said that he really doesn't mind what the EU does. His motto has always been that he has his own vision on Star Wars, and other people have their own. Now if you're going to ask for his vision (such as with the clone wars animation), then yes he's going to give you that. Beyond that? He really doesn't care, which leads to lots of good things, and lots of terrible things in the EU.

To quote an interview regarding this out of 2005:

" STARLOG: "The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that's in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?"

LUCAS: "I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions." "

And if you want proof that he doesn't keep an "iron grip" on EU canon:

" LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..." "

Yet all of these events, despite not being what Lucas has in mind at all, are still fully canon.

...

Wow. Tangent. Sorry, but this whole mindless blaming of Lucas whenever something happens in the EU that people don't like bugs me.

[Nixl]

I do not mean the stories exactly, but rather I mean the actual images. I thought he owned/controlled the images in relation to visual media. I don't necessarily mean the stories or canon vs non-canon books, but the actual visual representation, especially in Lucasarts.

I do not mind the information, the quotes are rather interesting and perhaps explains quite a bit about "canon vs non-canon," but I thought I remembered him being rather proactive in maintaining a certain Star Wars image with LucasArts productions/projects.

Edit: Is Tales of the Jedi a LucasArts feature?
Edit 2: The Kreia comment was a little off-topic in certain respects, but I did not mean he had a grip over the story, but perhaps an interest in keeping a coherent image, which perhaps reflects in the technology.

[Ithekro]

The older Tales of the Jedi (comics: Dark Horse) sure, the 5,000 year ago stories have rather prototype look and feel to things. Ever the 4,000 year ago stuff is more primative to the stuff from the movies and Clone Wars era. But here in the Old Republic, which is something like 3,500 years ago (relative to the Battle of Yavin, "Star Wars") and the other Knight of the Old Republic games, the tech seems more or less in line with the "present" we would know from the era of Luke Skywalker. Some things are different of course. There are always special weapons and the like that are new and all. But the basic stuff seems all the same. Even the armor for the Republic soldiers looks very much like Clone Wars armor. It is like a style that the Galaxy held on to for thousands of years. Even when the tech does change, the style remains intact. The droid are just about as fuctional then as now. Blasters seem to fuction more or less as good. Hyperdrives seem as functional (however they might not be as "fast" or perhaps accurate in avoiding hazards...making them effectively slower by taking longer routes) The lightsaber is suppose to be a old weapon anyway, so that makes sense (even if the 5,000 years old ones had a backpack and power cable).

Maybe it has something to do with all the wars and various times civilization gets overrun. Maybe the Republic has spent more time rebuilding than advancing over the last several thousand years.


The one thing I don't really get is the heavy use of melee weapons in this game. And I don't mean the lightsabers or regular vibroblade stuff. It is the training lightsabers and the like that I don't understand. The ones with a physical shaft. That would seem to make no sense verse a lightsaber (a vibroblade would be cut in half by a lightsaber easily). I mean my character used one until level 9, and my hunter companion used some sort of power staff that usually looked like a lightsaber in combat, but it is just a concept that I missed someplace (though to be fair I didn't play the Knights of the Old Republic series...though somehow I think I have a copy of one of them that I started and never continued).

[Keroko]

Again, Lucas really doesn't care much about the EU, be it narratively or visually. He is strong in maintaining his vision of star wars in projects he works on. Projects he does not work on he does not keep a strict eye on. Heck, the only Lucas guidelines for the EU that exist, exist because people kept asking Lucas for them, not because Lucas wanted to keep strict control.

As for Tales of the Jedi, it's a dark horse comic series. A bit of an oldie too, starting in the early 1990's and ending in 1998.

[Nixl]

I see, so he only cares about the actual projects he works on and not anything subsidiary that LucasArt works with such as the Old Republic. Interesting indeed,

So how much did he have to do with the prequels? (Just kidding)

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Nixl

I see, so he only cares about the actual projects he works on and not anything subsidiary that LucasArt works with such as the Old Republic. Interesting indeed,

Indeed. And it's the studio's and fans that want to keep everything looking star wars. But with Lucas and his tendency to tweak with the movies people hold dear, it's easier to blame him.

Originally Posted by Nixl

So how much did he have to do with the prequels? (Just kidding)

One hundred percent his responsibility.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

The older Tales of the Jedi (comics: Dark Horse) sure, the 5,000 year ago stories have rather prototype look and feel to things. Ever the 4,000 year ago stuff is more primative to the stuff from the movies and Clone Wars era. But here in the Old Republic, which is something like 3,500 years ago (relative to the Battle of Yavin, "Star Wars") and the other Knight of the Old Republic games, the tech seems more or less in line with the "present" we would know from the era of Luke Skywalker. Some things are different of course. There are always special weapons and the like that are new and all. But the basic stuff seems all the same. Even the armor for the Republic soldiers looks very much like Clone Wars armor. It is like a style that the Galaxy held on to for thousands of years. Even when the tech does change, the style remains intact. The droid are just about as fuctional then as now. Blasters seem to fuction more or less as good. Hyperdrives seem as functional (however they might not be as "fast" or perhaps accurate in avoiding hazards...making them effectively slower by taking longer routes) The lightsaber is suppose to be a old weapon anyway, so that makes sense (even if the 5,000 years old ones had a backpack and power cable).

Maybe it has something to do with all the wars and various times civilization gets overrun. Maybe the Republic has spent more time rebuilding than advancing over the last several thousand years.

Nah, it's more that studios look at this and go "how far can we push things before it's no longer star wars?" and then decide it's not worth the risk of experimenting and just stick to what people can recognize.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

The one thing I don't really get is the heavy use of melee weapons in this game. And I don't mean the lightsabers or regular vibroblade stuff. It is the training lightsabers and the like that I don't understand. The ones with a physical shaft. That would seem to make no sense verse a lightsaber (a vibroblade would be cut in half by a lightsaber easily). I mean my character used one until level 9, and my hunter companion used some sort of power staff that usually looked like a lightsaber in combat, but it is just a concept that I missed someplace (though to be fair I didn't play the Knights of the Old Republic series...though somehow I think I have a copy of one of them that I started and never continued).

In KotoR this was actually explained. In the war energy shields were developed, which would wrap around your body and protect you from blaster bolts. Not indefinitely, but long enough to allow a small strike force equipped with shields to wreak havoc on the enemy. Being designed to block energy bolts, the militaries of both sides started training their armies in the use of vibroblades, which could pass through these shields with relative ease. The rest of the galaxy followed suit. The weapons themselves are created with a cortosis weave, a metal that in enough quantities can shortcirquit a lightsaber. Being rare and brittle, it's not good for pure weapons, but the weave allows a melee weapon to stand up to a lightsaber.

Yeah, they're all silly excuses to handwave the use of swords in a blaster filled universe, but there you have it.