So how do you know this isn't akin to those side-quests in Kotor, just a bad way to stretch and wrap up a story left hanging? And that the rest won't be as bad?

 

Jesus-fucking-a-snake-Christ, please tell me you're joking.

Please.

 

'Fraid not. He's got scans, so it seems legit.

Here are the relevant posts from that thread. The rest is either the same stuff we have going on here, or typical SpaceBattles retardation.

How could I possibly trust Bioware's writing for the rest of the game when they're so willing to rape their previous installments like that?

 

I'm glad Bioware got the balls to fuck up their most loved character in the Star Wars universe. Fuck Revan and the Exile as well their stories are but one of many in The TOR universe.

 

No, no, nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

...




NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

TOR does not exist to me.

/me goes back to writing his KOTOR3 fic.

 

More beta invites went out today, and I got in! Been signed up for it since they first announced it, so I'm super excited to test this baby out. Anyone else get in?

From what I can tell, this is NOT a weekend invite, so I should get to test it for a while.

 

That's awesome. I look forward to the feedback from someone that's actually played the game.

 

Your ass better be streaming that shit.

 

Should be done dl'ing/patching by the time I get home tomorrow (350kb's connection FTL), but I don't know if I'll stream or not. I've read that Bioware is being extremely strict about the NDA.

We'll see.

 

Willing to bet they won't let you stream it.

 

Yeah I know. Wouldn't be willing to bet my beta access on it anyway.

 

From what I've been hearing there are a lot of problems still and that Bioware has been really slow to respond to them. Just a forewarning.

 

As much as I know this is probably heresy to most KOTOR fans... yeah, pretty much this.

Look, I know people liked Revan and the Exile, but to me, the Old Republic Second Sith War and the fighting against the Mandalorians here felt like the laziest sort of tie-in to the old-school Star Wars EU with characters like Ulic Qel-Droma, Nomi Sunrider and Exar Kun (who I can imagine most KOTOR fans don't even recognize, and isn't that just a little fucking sad), and to me, Revan and Malak and the rest of them never had much depth or complexity to them as characters. If anything, they just struck me as the laziest form of bad-ass character archetypes made to appeal to an audience that had never heard of the older EU. They were designed to appeal to fans who had never read the comics or the novels, and any attempts to tie into that canon always felt, at least to me, more than a little stupid. And maybe it's just me, but they always felt overpowered and a little too influential for my tastes, particularly in the way they behaved in the EU. Say what you want about Exar Kun, but he had to work his Sith ass off to conquer as much of the galaxy as he did - Revan just seemed to pick up most of it way too easily. Yes, I know there was an explanation on how he did it and how he managed to convince most of his former comrades from the Mandalorian Wars to come fight for him against the Republic - yeah, I don't buy that for a fucking second. Personal loyalty is one thing, treason is something else.

And yeah, on a side quibble, I've NEVER liked how the KOTOR games have handled Korriban in any way, shape, or form. The planet is a bleak mausoleum planet off of the main hyper-routes, and not suited for factories or fucking Sith Academies - that's what Ziost and other planets in the goddamned Sith Space were for!

Yes, there were elements of KOTOR's gameplay that were very solid, but nothing that exceptional, and compared to Neverwinter Nights, Bioware's big success story before Mass Effect, KOTOR never really clicked for me. The gameplay felt cluttered, and while the plot was extensive, I really could never care all that much about any of the characters (and plus there were about a million canon quibbles that had me frothing with frustration for most of the game, but whatever - at least the older SW EU games tried to follow established canon while going in a new direction...). It's funny that I cared more about fucking Aeron and Emon Azzameen from X-Wing Alliance than I did for Bastila or HK-47 or anyone from KOTOR - and considering we're talking about a BioWare RPG, that's saying something.

I dunno, maybe it was because I've been playing Star Wars games since 1994, but to me, the Star Wars EU that worked best was tied to the original series, with games like TIE Fighter and Rebellion and X-Wing Alliance and the Dark Forces games. Yeah, it was an older generation, and yes, I can admit just like everyone else that the first Dark Forces was essentially a Doom clone (a very damn GOOD Doom clone, mind you), but in terms of PC SW titles, those are the games I remember and still care about. KOTOR, at least on a narrative level, has never been that engaging for me, and frankly, compared to Kyle Katarn or Zaarin or even Dash Rendar, Revan can squat on the cold side of Ryloth for all I care.

Addendum - for those of you who are going to say, 'Well, Kyle Katarn got massively overpowered too if you played the Dark Forces games, and that he's just as boringly badass as Revan,' I have only one thing to say to that: while I could argue that Kyle Katarn has more depth and complexity than anything KOTOR ever gave the Star Wars EU, the biggest point in his favour is that he had to fucking earn his badassness by fighting kell dragons in a Huttese slave ship with his bare hands.

 

Silens, did you even play KotOR II? It seems like most of your complaints are leveled at the first game, without taking much of what the second game added (which was a lot) into account.

Also, how do you guys go from "I didn't find this as interesting as others did," and "there are other stories to tell in the Old Republic era besides Revan and the Exile," to "GRAAH FUCK THEM THEY SHOULD DIE."

 

I think one of the big differences between Raven and Kyle Katarn, and why so many are getting butthurt over that story, is that Revan was basically a blank slate we projected ourselves onto. Yeah, he had a history, and it was badass, which we then included in our little vision of him, building him up more. Plus, I think it was hinted in 2, with the Exile also, that both dabbled in the Dark Side, emotions and whatnot, but were able to overcome the temptation, building them both up even more.

Thus, so many are taking it personally.

Unfortunately, most people wear rose-tinted glasses when they look back upon the Kotor games. Hell, 2 sucked balls unless you downloaded the patch, and even then there were a fuckton of bugs and annoying glitches.

And they really did mess with canon a bit too much. However, that is kind of why I liked it so much. They stretched the limits of canon too far, but it was different than the older games. Kind of like reading a heavily-alternate HP fic, it was a change of pace.

As to the characters, I rather liked the cliches they used. I think think they employed them very well. Except for Malak, God was he a horrible character.

And, they really should have included more on Exar Kun. Maybe tied in Revan's desires with hearing about his rise. Hell, it only happened twenty years beforehand. Also, the master race that ruled the Galaxy by using a forge to create ships that utilized the dark side....yeah, don't really need to say anything about that.

Still think the game is fun, though, and hoping the same with the MMO.

EDIT: Just saw the tag about Revan fanboys. LOL.

 

I level a lot of the same complaints I make with Neverwinter Nights 2 to KOTOR 2 - namely that it was rushed, buggy as hell, way too short, and severely lacking in depth. And boy oh boy, I had issues with how the Exile and the Jedi Order were held. But frankly, even though KOTOR 2 had the license from LucasArts, it wasn't primarily produced by BioWare, but by Obsidian - thus for the most part, even despite my problems with the characters they introduced and the mishandling of certain elements, KOTOR 2 isn't really that relevant to the discussion about TOR and how BioWare is handling it.

@iLost - yeah, I can see where people are coming from with Revan and the whole self-projection thing, and believe me, I can see where people are coming from with regards to the canon - but fuck almighty, for those EU fans that have been involved in the SW universe for over, say twelve years, TOR is unrecognizable as Star Wars canon. They only chose the Old Republic for the setting because they wanted Jedi and Sith and the New Republic has been fucked over by the novels too much to have the Empire as a plausible threat - even though the 'Sith Empire' is designed to mimic the Imperials to try and lessen any cognizant dissonance from fans like me. And of course, they can't set it near the Galactic Civil War, 'cause that's where Galaxies was, and we all know how well THAT turned out. And let's face it: LucasArts is intentionally exploiting KOTOR fans' memories of how much they loved those games to pull in a new audience for this game.

And to be honest, I'd be fine with an acknowledgement of the older canon, like how some of the novels and games have done (for better or for worse, I'll admit... fuck you, Kevin J. Anderson...), but I also know this is an MMO, and I'm not expecting this to be completely canonical or included with mainstream SW continuity any time soon. It's like when WoW came out, and some of the expansion packs did stuff with Medivh and Draenor that utterly pissed me off as an older fan of Warcraft. As it is, I'm not surprised they're doing things with Revan and the Exile - but considering they were self-insertion characters, is anyone surprised that the second they got personality outside of their meager (and rather poor, IMO) backstory that contradicted play, people would get pissed?

Eh, whatever. LucasArts hasn't paid attention to my fanboy demographic in five years - I don't expect them to start now.

/resumes waiting for remake of TIE Fighter (on that note, there was even a video made on the Escapist on the show 'No Right Answer' where the remake of TIE Fighter was strongly suggested - take the hint, LucasArts)

 

Which is exactly one reason I'm forgiving them any missteps when it comes to the lore. I know there's going to be some muckraking in that regard. I'm just hoping they pull through with their hype about individualized stories running parallel with a million others. With the addition of companions to sweeten those stories, I'll be all-in. If the gameplay is somewhat WoW-like, I could live with that.

I liked playing WoW.

If they fail in that endeavor, then I'll rage.

As to the old EU, I quit reading after the Yunzhan Van thing(sp?). It just seemed to go on and on. I like how they tried to make another bad-guy that wasn't Sith, but it just didn't sit very well with me.

 

Wow. What. This is literally the first time I've ever heard someone say it wasn't deep enough. It completely turned the Force, the Jedi and the Sith on their head! Something that Lucas, in his mindless desire to break the Force and its users into firmly separated good and evil archetypes, would never do.

Oh, what, you didn't like how the Jedi were made fallible and imperfect for once?

Yes, Bioware's angry that Obsidian made a far better game than they did and are childishly striking it out.

Disregarding your apparent disdain for anything that isn't TIE Fighter or Kyle Katarn... why did they need to add and alter all this stuff for them in TOR in the first place? Why do we have to meet Revan and the Exile's ghost? Why couldn't they just say "Revan and the Exile managed to stall the Sith Empire for three centuries with their efforts" (with a few more details on what they did, though not on who they are) and leave it at that? That would have been vastly preferable to completely destroying what was there, and would have left the door wide open for whatever new stories they wanted to tell.

 

God, this is way too nerdy for me.

I'm out of here and back to watching a 70 minute Phantom Menace review.

 

Oh for fuck's sake...

Were we watching the same films or reading the same EU? You do realize what was going on in the Star Wars EU at the same time KOTOR 2 came out, right? Yeah, say what you want about the Yuuzhan Vong (the Force only knows I have), but it did a far better job of exploring the concept of the Force than KOTOR 2 ever did, namely because the New Jedi Order had quasi-likeable characters I actually gave a shit about. I never cared about the Exile in the same way I did for, say, Ganner Rhysode or Jacen Solo or even fucking Kyp Durron. And maybe it's just me, but the Sith coalition in KOTOR 2 just pissed me off because there were too many things involved in that mess that made no goddamn sense.

Hard as this might be for some to believe - and if you've seen any of my posts on Star Wars on this forum, you'd know this - but I'm not the biggest fan of Jedi-based games, and frankly, not that big of a fan of the Sith either. If anything, I wish there were more games featuring characters that don't have force-sensitivity, and I was hugely excited when they talked about bringing Smuggler as a class into TOR (bring back good first-person space combat to the game and I might start worshipping it).

That being said, I've been reading the Star Wars EU since '98 and gaming for longer, so I was long ago exposed to the fact that Jedi aren't perfect and never really have been. Hell, I'd even argue that characters like Corran Horn became a little less interesting when it was discovered they had force powers, and I loved that when a force sensitive character was introduced into the Wrath Squadron (fifth book of the X-Wing series, look it up), she actually turned her back on that lifestyle simply because the Jedi path wasn't right for her. And frankly, having just finished reading Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn, where he provided a pretty damn excellent in-text criticism of the way Jedi are typically portrayed, I don't see how any but the stupidest EU readers would consider the Jedi perfect.

I could go on here and say that the first KOTOR game was far superior to the second - and in terms of writing, gameplay, story, characters, and playability, it was, and neither game were as good or as ground-breaking as TIE Fighter or Dark Forces 2 (and any PC gamer around from that time would agree with me) - but that's not the point. The issue is that Obsidian's not designing TOR, BioWare is, and say what you want about EA (Lord knows I will), but they're not going to risk their bottom line by letting disgruntled BioWare employees take a dump on Obsidian.

Trust me, I've written essays on the topic of my disdain for the majority of LucasArts' Star Wars games beginning around 2003.

Namely for the same core reasons that you've been bitching here - players want to see Revan and the Exile and feel involved in those stories. They are looking for that connection, not a load of hand-waving or details that either the EU already has filled in through the source books (pick up the New Essential Atlas if you want to know where I'm coming from on this). Players want continuity, they like references back to the old games they loved. Yes, we can cue the fanboy bitching, and to a certain point, that anger is completely fine, but maybe people should wait until there's context before screaming "RUINED FOREVER".