The Old Republic: World of Star Wars?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I don't see why it being a game means all visual believability should be chucked out the window. Even if you use a depletable hit point system, why can't you call them "stamina points" and show the combatants narrowly dodging until their SP runs out at which point the lightsaber strike lands in a cinematic and fatal fashion?

The standard "damage sponge" model is getting more and more jarring as time goes on and graphics improve and it needs to be rethought, especially for settings where we are used to people not surviving hits from these weapons.

[Serafina]

That would indeed be a nice system:

Combatants strike at each other and each strike depletes "stamina" (or whatever). Visually, hits are blocked, parried, evaded or just glancing hits (those could be reserved for criticals).
The hit that drains your last stamina is played as something fatal - a stab trough the stomach, dismemberment, beheading or the likes (of course depending on the grade of violence in the game).

Technically no different from a damage-sponge system, but much better visually.

[Gramzamber]

I don't see why it being a game means all visual believability should be chucked out the window. Even if you use a depletable hit point system, why can't you call them "stamina points" and show the combatants narrowly dodging until their SP runs out at which point the lightsaber strike lands in a cinematic and fatal fashion?

The standard "damage sponge" model is getting more and more jarring as time goes on and graphics improve and it needs to be rethought, especially for settings where we are used to people not surviving hits from these weapons.

Well the point was mainly the whole "lightsaber hits people and doesn't burn them/slice their limbs off/whatever" has already been done in KOTOR which was made by the same company, and games in general, especially RPGs get away with a lot of visual licence or what have you.

I like your idea and agree in general with the sentiments about combat/damage though.

[Eleas]

I don't see why it being a game means all visual believability should be chucked out the window. Even if you use a depletable hit point system, why can't you call them "stamina points" and show the combatants narrowly dodging until their SP runs out at which point the lightsaber strike lands in a cinematic and fatal fashion?

The standard "damage sponge" model is getting more and more jarring as time goes on and graphics improve and it needs to be rethought, especially for settings where we are used to people not surviving hits from these weapons.

Your point is well taken. However, upon viewing the videos I found it far less pertinent here, because the graphics are so far behind the curve. The animations were canned and rote, the combat model static, the visuals uninspired and the polycount dreadful. To see a clay figurine getting repeatedly bisected by a lightsaber with nothing to show for it is jarring, yes, but so is everything else.

I also note that the devs feel the Sith Empire must naturally use nearly the exact same symbol as the Galactic Empire did (which in itself, lest we forget, was derived from the symbol of the Old Republic); that Nal Hutta had to be renamed into "Hutta" for no reason except the need to remove a continuity and diversity (bet you fifteen bucks sometime in the future there's going to be a furore among drooling fanboys at the refusal of a new author to use the new name "because it breaks continuity"); their baffling insistence that this is somehow great storytelling (the only part of the video I saw that was seriously beyond the pale was the size and scope of every female character's tits); that... well fuck it. I guess my point is made.

[Gramzamber]

What's worse about the Old Republic symbol is that it's actually supposed to be based on ancient Jedi lore, the spokes representing the Jedi's dedication to wisdom or something like that.

[Eleas]

What's worse about the Old Republic symbol is that it's actually supposed to be based on ancient Jedi lore, the spokes representing the Jedi's dedication to wisdom or something like that.

Well, I'm sure the devs figured that it could be balanced out by using the title "Grand Moff" to represent Sith Imperial leaders. Well, that, and the insistence on feeling suitably heroic in the Star Wars fashion. You know, letting us feel just what Han Solo feels every Monday morning when he steps out into a sunny nondescript settlement, runs up to the first two people he sees standing haphazardly around for no reason, and starts pumping shot after shot into their bodies until they drop to the ground? Kinda like that.

After watching the extended video and hearing them slather disturbingly canned-sounding praises upon this Anime-character shell (to which they've glued little bits of Star Wars, I will grant), it's no longer open to question as to what kind of people the Devs are like. You may think I'm going to call them cynical money-grubbers or assholes who don't care what the fans want.

I won't, alas, because it's not so. They're something infinitely worse: they are the fans. They're the same kind of gibbering fan-slave who would memorize The Glove of Darth Vader and the Star Wars Holiday Special simply because the more garish it is, the less logic it entails, the more they enjoy it. These are the people who, in a rare case of myth become reality, actually uses Star Wars as a means to escape reality in the most literal sense. This is why they hate the parts of Star Wars that have any kind of complexity or logical coherence; such systems are better described through applied intelligence, instead of rote learning of trivia.

To them, a bounty hunter in Star Wars is Boba Fett - there is no other form of bounty hunter they could imagine playing, and so to be a bounty hunter it must have the same appearance, colour, voice, and armament. Similarly, they can't imagine playing a smuggler without that smuggler wearing a vest and a blaster pistol; that a smuggler should actually smuggle things and that the outer appearance should needs vary greatly from one smuggler to the next, well, such ideas are ludicrous to this kind of retardo-fan. Star Wars is supposed to be cool and awesome and ka-pow! How dare you slow things down with your boring-as-shit "themes" and "restraint"? I'm gonna go play some more The Force Unleashed, dammit!

Not to belabour the point, but I suspect this is also one reason why the women of this game all seem to look like cartoonified pornstars. It may look like they're pandering to the lowest common denominator, but that's not really what's happening here. Pandering implies compromising the vision by riding on a popular but crude bandwagon, and - you may have guessed where I'm going with this - there is no compromise involved in this instance. No, the Devs genuinely believe that women in Star Wars should all be 20-year old Barbie with mammoth tits because this is how you make a game Cool and Awesome and Wicked, and that, just like Mandalorians are exactly like the guys from 300 dude! and the Zann Consortium would totally kick the Empire's ass because they're like a secret crime syndicate (and you sure don't want to mess with organized crime, do you?) are all facts and immune to question.

So yeah, I'll look over the shoulder of my buddy Pendragon as he tries the game, which he will - though annoyed, he thought it might be worth a look if only for the similarities to KotOR. I will look over his shoulder and maybe it'll be fun. At the same time, I fear I'll not be able to shake the certain knowledge of all the rest of the fans who'll be sitting in front of other screens, caught in a tortuously hard choice because dammit, while Star Wars is cool and all, he could be watching that awesome Transformers: Reign of the Fallen rerun on TV instead.

[Bakustra]

This game looks hilarious in many ways. The character models are ludicrously stiff, raising a hand to shoot and holding it steady while nothing else moves, except for Jedi, who appear to have developed some kind of universal muscle spasm disorder, twitching their hands endlessly while locked in combat. I burst out laughing when Bounty Hunter Groba Jett revealed that he dual-wields gangsta-style, while resting one wrist atop the other. If poserdom were made into an artform, I submit that that ought to be one of the accepted categories.

When it comes to the actual gameplay, I see them babbling on about how many choices the player has, but the enemies look to be statues laying around the field, occasionally shooting back, except of course if they have a lightsaber, in which case they do move around (with muscle spasms), but I'm not yet convinced that they're not showing off PvP there.

The developers seem amazed at the thought of incorporating more than one static animation for a lightsaber swing. You know what would be more innovative and potentially far more fun? Incorporating a mouse control for your guns and lightsaber. Say you right-click to shift to first-person, and then you can scroll to zoom (mappable for those on laptops), move the mouse to shift your field of view, and left-click or press a "trigger key" to fire the weapon (which you could do when not zoomed in, but with worse control). However, lightsabers would be triggered by left-clicking to grip the saber, and then moving the mouse to swing the blade (left and right swing the blade in that direction, forward makes a thrust, and backwards, say, lifts the saber up) though blocking would be difficult to make as fluid (perhaps holding down a key to shift to block mode, or toggling). Granted, there are probably a dozen flaws that I haven't seen, but they're never going to capture the market from WoW, so they might as well try something new!

[Pint0 Xtreme]

The developers seem amazed at the thought of incorporating more than one static animation for a lightsaber swing. You know what would be more innovative and potentially far more fun? Incorporating a mouse control for your guns and lightsaber. Say you right-click to shift to first-person, and then you can scroll to zoom (mappable for those on laptops), move the mouse to shift your field of view, and left-click or press a "trigger key" to fire the weapon (which you could do when not zoomed in, but with worse control). However, lightsabers would be triggered by left-clicking to grip the saber, and then moving the mouse to swing the blade (left and right swing the blade in that direction, forward makes a thrust, and backwards, say, lifts the saber up) though blocking would be difficult to make as fluid (perhaps holding down a key to shift to block mode, or toggling). Granted, there are probably a dozen flaws that I haven't seen, but they're never going to capture the market from WoW, so they might as well try something new!

What the hell? SWTOR is supposed to be a MMORPG, not a Wii lightsaber game.

[Agent Sorchus]

The big failing in the combat that I see is its static nature. Oh look a jedi and sith standing next to each other spazzing out. hey look a soldier standing without cover firing a bigass gun without any ability to aim. There is a reason the "smuggler" sounds and looks the least retarded. Honestly I would penalize players for standing still. Like for lightsaber combat have a variety of stances that provide bonuses and interact between each other in a rock paper sizors kind of way. Then add a couple of moves that can end certain stances and change position of the characters, and finally have bonuses for changing from one stance to another, especially while moving. Viola a way to have an interesting interaction in lightsaber combat that is not Close, engage, spaz, kill based on the stats of your weapon.

Of course this idea will never be used.

[Bakustra]

What the hell? SWTOR is supposed to be a MMORPG, not a Wii lightsaber game.

In order for their MMORPG to stand out beyond "yay Star Wars", they need to be able to bring something interesting to the table. If they want truly innovative combat, giving the player control over their lightsaber would be far more so than adding three or four looping lightsaber animations instead of the traditional one. There's nothing about the MMORPG genre. that forbids the use of different controls, to be honest, even if it becomes more of a action-MMORPG in the process.

[Civil War Man]

I don't see why it being a game means all visual believability should be chucked out the window. Even if you use a depletable hit point system, why can't you call them "stamina points" and show the combatants narrowly dodging until their SP runs out at which point the lightsaber strike lands in a cinematic and fatal fashion?

The standard "damage sponge" model is getting more and more jarring as time goes on and graphics improve and it needs to be rethought, especially for settings where we are used to people not surviving hits from these weapons.

Lord of the Rings Online at least made a step towards this by having hit points represent morale instead of health. Hitting zero didn't mean the monster killed you. It meant the monster so thoroughly dominated the fight that you basically got scared and ran away.

Unfortunately there wasn't really anything else to hold my interest beyond the starting montages for each race.

[Srelex]

Is it me, or does the 'lightsaber combat' look like very intimate dance-offs?

[AMT]

I like it. Can't wait for it to come out. Looks fun to me.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

What the hell? SWTOR is supposed to be a MMORPG, not a Wii lightsaber game.

In order for their MMORPG to stand out beyond "yay Star Wars", they need to be able to bring something interesting to the table. If they want truly innovative combat, giving the player control over their lightsaber would be far more so than adding three or four looping lightsaber animations instead of the traditional one. There's nothing about the MMORPG genre. that forbids the use of different controls, to be honest, even if it becomes more of a action-MMORPG in the process.

They already have something that makes it stand out from other MMORPGs. It's called immersive story - you know, the thing they've been talking non-stop about for the past year! Why do you think they're putting so much emphasis on things like character archetypes, dialogue or voice-acting? For shits and giggles? If I wanted to play a twitch-based MMO game, I'd play something like Planetside. The developers of The Old Republic have said many times that it's supposed to behave like a typical MMORPG with the added dimension of better story. And I'd much rather have them concentrate their efforts on successfully integrating into this game an adequate level of engaging story (which is something virtually very MMO ignores or utterly fails at) rather than for them to waste their time developing "innovative" combat (And by "innovative", I mean retardedly forcing a Wii lightsaber game into a MMORPG). KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age have all been stellar story-based games for me. If they can plug their style of story telling into a MMO and do it well, then I'm definitely going to be looking forward to playing it.

[Ghost Rider]

The insane problem of Story versus Mechanics is that mechanics can be easily fixed in accordance to latency and computers. While WoW and other lag in this particular, they have tried. Story on the other hand...dependant on players? Think of the part they showed.

Sith Lord wannabe and Bounty Hunter. So Sith Lord 519752486 wants to be kill all, but you don't. Well, too bad so sad dumbass, you teamed up with a killing bitch. Or hell, it could be the reverse. You're stuck on the choices of other morons. Hell, even with friends this can lead to all sorts of weirdness depending on how you want to play. And pray none of these story choices lead to different loot. You think loot drama exists now? Think about it people making oversized story flow charts to lead to specific loot.

Stellar story based on single player is easy. Only you have to live with the choices. Stellar story based on multiple players? Much harder given the dynamic of what two people will want, let alone if they want you to team up larger and larger groups.

[Agent Sorchus]

They already have something that makes it stand out from other MMORPGs. It's called immersive story - you know, the thing they've been talking non-stop about for the past year! Why do you think they're putting so much emphasis on things like character archetypes, dialogue or voice-acting? For shits and giggles?

Yes it is called Fanboyism. An immersive Story doesn't make Fett clone archetypes necessary or even good. An immersive story justifies it's own character archetypes rather than taking them from more well known Characters. Another problem with "Immersive" storytelling is the back breaking effort of making it feel like the players actions are decisive rather than scripted and only one of a dozen total possible choices. EVE is the best at making the action's of each and every player feel decisive; but it's story not in the players face, the way that most developers feel makes a story Immersive. Hell EVE had one group of players that were so immersed in the story that they were convinced that the developer would come to their aid when other players decided that their actions required punishment.

No matter how Immersive the story is supposed to be you are limited by making the players give a shit about their actions. Mass Effect works because the opposition is soul crushingly evil, what happens they tried to play on the other side? You can't give two shits then. But guess what, that is the way The old Republic is supposed to go, with players on both sides of the conflict. Try to make me give two shits about action when both sides are just ultimately going to be scripted. So your best bet on distracting the morons consumers is to make the actual combat interesting and distinctive.

It is not distinctive and thus they fail. Literally the combat looks so very similar to Star Trek online that I couldn't tell that they didn't use the same mechanics. Oh but the batleth only has one animation to the lightsabers twenty. Well good for the lightsaber dood, but there is far more classes that do not use lightsabers than do. And for them hiding in a Star trek buble sheild and shooting is little different than hidding behind a half body sheild and shooting. Both games even have the guy carrying a fuck off big gun the same way with the same effect.

My prediction is that neither game will do well and that the next WoW is going to be something different.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

The insane problem of Story versus Mechanics is that mechanics can be easily fixed in accordance to latency and computers. While WoW and other lag in this particular, they have tried. Story on the other hand...dependant on players? Think of the part they showed.

Sith Lord wannabe and Bounty Hunter. So Sith Lord 519752486 wants to be kill all, but you don't. Well, too bad so sad dumbass, you teamed up with a killing bitch. Or hell, it could be the reverse. You're stuck on the choices of other morons. Hell, even with friends this can lead to all sorts of weirdness depending on how you want to play. And pray none of these story choices lead to different loot. You think loot drama exists now? Think about it people making oversized story flow charts to lead to specific loot.

Stellar story based on single player is easy. Only you have to live with the choices. Stellar story based on multiple players? Much harder given the dynamic of what two people will want, let alone if they want you to team up larger and larger groups.

I won't pretend that story telling in a multiplayer environment doesn't present a unique set of challenges. But then again, I'm not going to say that I know how to solve these problems since I'm not a game designer (or at least a very good one). However, that doesn't mean there aren't solutions to them. Perhaps they've got a good and innovative system in place or they're onto something with designing story telling in an MMO. Or they're blundering in pandora's box and we're all going to be highly disappointed on game launch. Who knows? But I did like what I saw in their "Flashpoint demo" and if it's indicative of what's to come, then I've got a lot be excited for. At the very least, you could keep a list of close and reliable friends to go questing on multiplayer story sequences. If it had been Sony online developing this, I wouldn't really care for it. But Bioware is relatively competent developer. And I'm cautiously optimistic that they're not going to totally screw it up by introducing this new multiplayer story system while simultaneously ignoring all the realities of player griefing that comes with any online game.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Yes it is called Fanboyism. An immersive Story doesn't make Fett clone archetypes necessary or even good. An immersive story justifies it's own character archetypes rather than taking them from more well known Characters.

Character types do not make the story. They merely help players connect to their characters. Jesus Christ, this is fucking Star Wars! People WANT to play Boba Fett, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. These are the characters people connect with when they think of Star Wars.

Another problem with "Immersive" storytelling is the back breaking effort of making it feel like the players actions are decisive rather than scripted and only one of a dozen total possible choices. EVE is the best at making the action's of each and every player feel decisive; but it's story not in the players face, the way that most developers feel makes a story Immersive. Hell EVE had one group of players that were so immersed in the story that they were convinced that the developer would come to their aid when other players decided that their actions required punishment.

You're not talking about immersive story telling. You're talking about emergent story telling, which is a different beast from narrative story telling. Story in Bioware games is strictly narrative. If I wanted to play an MMO devoid of any narrative story, I'd play EVE.

No matter how Immersive the story is supposed to be you are limited by making the players give a shit about their actions. Mass Effect works because the opposition is soul crushingly evil, what happens they tried to play on the other side? You can't give two shits then. But guess what, that is the way The old Republic is supposed to go, with players on both sides of the conflict. Try to make me give two shits about action when both sides are just ultimately going to be scripted.

Wait, are you saying scripted story telling is only compelling if your antagonist is "soul crushingly evil"?

So your best bet on distracting the morons consumers is to make the actual combat interesting and distinctive.

It is not distinctive and thus they fail. Literally the combat looks so very similar to Star Trek online that I couldn't tell that they didn't use the same mechanics. Oh but the batleth only has one animation to the lightsabers twenty. Well good for the lightsaber dood, but there is far more classes that do not use lightsabers than do. And for them hiding in a Star trek buble sheild and shooting is little different than hidding behind a half body sheild and shooting. Both games even have the guy carrying a fuck off big gun the same way with the same effect.

You're a moron if you think combat is what is going to (or should) separate The Old Republic from other MMORPGs.

My prediction is that neither game will do well and that the next WoW is going to be something different.

I've found little purpose for comparing any game to WoW, which I've completely become bored with for reasons that The Old Republic is supposed to address.

[Eleas]

They already have something that makes it stand out from other MMORPGs. It's called immersive story - you know, the thing they've been talking non-stop about for the past year!

Yes, they've been talking about it. I would have preferred that they actually demonstrate it, but they don't. Nothing they've shown so far represents even the tiniest departure from what we've seen in KotOR 1 or Neverwinter Nights 2, except that we've already played those games years ago.

Why do you think they're putting so much emphasis on things like character archetypes, dialogue or voice-acting? For shits and giggles?

I can't speak for Bakustra, but I don't think it's for "shits and giggles", as you put it. It seems clear to me that they spout it as a vacuous sales pitch mantra, without even understanding the words coming out of their own mouths. And speaking of words, the dialogue we saw so far had depth comparable to Anakin's courtship of Padmé. I've actually played games with good dialogue, you know; I recognize it when I see it. A bounty hunter growling trite tough-guy bullshit ain't it.

If I wanted to play a twitch-based MMO game, I'd play something like Planetside. The developers of The Old Republic have said many times that it's supposed to behave like a typical MMORPG with the added dimension of better story. And I'd much rather have them concentrate their efforts on successfully integrating into this game an adequate level of engaging story (which is something virtually very MMO ignores or utterly fails at) rather than for them to waste their time developing "innovative" combat (And by "innovative", I mean retardedly forcing a Wii lightsaber game into a MMORPG).

The sad truth is that - as you yourself note - literally anything would be an improvement to existing MMO storytelling. Therefore their major selling point boils down to "we're trying to give a shit about storytelling in ways that might someday be the equal of mainstream games". That's not an endorsement, it's an admission of incompetence.

KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age have all been stellar story-based games for me. If they can plug their style of story telling into a MMO and do it well, then I'm definitely going to be looking forward to playing it.

Don't get me wrong; I'd love for you to enjoy the game. The possibility of you having fun doesn't annoy me in the least.

What I am annoyed with is two things.

The first is the Devs, with their incomprehensible, oblivious and constant self-aggrandizement and their gushing over a product that brings nothing new to the table. One moment we hear them praise Lucas's vision and the amazing detail of the Star Wars setting; the next, we see them slavishly imitating disparate elements without the tiniest understanding of why they were even in the films. The Devs are not building on the existing Star Wars mythos, because they don't have the guts to introduce truly new ideas. Instead, they fixate on superficial details and strive desperately to reproduce these details again and again and again, all in order to capture the Star Wars feeling.

In short, these people talk about story without knowing what the word means.

My second beef is that this problem is not confined to the Devs, and it will not be confined to the game. No, this will spill over into general canon, heroically nudging the bar even lower than The Force Unleashed and Star Wars Galaxies and Forces of Corruption managed. The fans will clamour that this is what Star Wars actually is - a mishmash of contemporary action B movies and adolescent power fantasies and pew-pew IN SPACE.

After all, it's much easier to transplant a Stormtrooper, paint him blue, and introduce the Hurricane Commando! ("What do we call their team? Well, has to be the Empire, of course, because they're the bad guys. Didn't you watch the movies? Star Wars has to have the Empire as bad guys. Let's make them... I know... nazis!")

Actual storytelling transcends derivative setpieces and one-liners and edgy banter. Such things requires attention to detail, respect for established canon, and restraint. The themes, the undercurrents, and the emotive power is generated from the heroes being human, fallible, and vulnerable.

But if the fans don't care about that, maybe it's fitting that they get the kind of game developers they deserve.

[Eleas]

Character types do not make the story. They merely help players connect to their characters. Jesus Christ, this is fucking Star Wars! People WANT to play Boba Fett, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. These are the characters people connect with when they think of Star Wars.

No, that's the extent of imagination managed by morons. I personally want to play - and have indeed played - a character that is a blend of Star Wars-compatible characteristics, or who at the most is similar to a character from the films. If I wanted to experience the films, I'd fucking watch them.

You're a moron if you think combat is what is going to (or should) separate The Old Republic from other MMORPGs.

Then what would? The "rich choices"? I saw literally no meaningful choices being made in the video, not at an emotive level. The killing of the captain was leeched of any drama due to the tired conventions that Bioware have by now worn down to nothing.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Not to belabour the point, but I suspect this is also one reason why the women of this game all seem to look like cartoonified pornstars.

What the fuck are you even going on about? Let's compare.











TOR
WoW
Age of Conan
City of X
D&D Online
Everquest II
Guild Wars
Lineage II
Warhammer Online

TOR hardly compares or even looks like any of those.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Yes, they've been talking about it. I would have preferred that they actually demonstrate it, but they don't. Nothing they've shown so far represents even the tiniest departure from what we've seen in KotOR 1 or Neverwinter Nights 2, except that we've already played those games years ago.

What's wrong with re-using a proven formula? Mass Effect 2 didn't introduce anything fundamentally different from Mass Effect 1. It still didn't stop it from being a great game. The further you move away from that formula, the more you risk breaking the system.

I can't speak for Bakustra, but I don't think it's for "shits and giggles", as you put it. It seems clear to me that they spout it as a vacuous sales pitch mantra, without even understanding the words coming out of their own mouths. And speaking of words, the dialogue we saw so far had depth comparable to Anakin's courtship of Padmé. I've actually played games with good dialogue, you know; I recognize it when I see it. A bounty hunter growling trite tough-guy bullshit ain't it.

I don't really think they were showing off story content as much as they were demonstrating the medium at which the story is being delivered. What I got out of it was: "this game is KOTOR Online". To be frank, it's the only reason why it's captured my attention.

The sad truth is that - as you yourself note - literally anything would be an improvement to existing MMO storytelling. Therefore their major selling point boils down to "we're trying to give a shit about storytelling in ways that might someday be the equal of mainstream games". That's not an endorsement, it's an admission of incompetence.

Yes, it's clearly an admission of incompetence (in regards to story telling) from existing MMO developers, not from Bioware. They are promoting themselves as a remedy.

Don't get me wrong; I'd love for you to enjoy the game. The possibility of you having fun doesn't annoy me in the least.

What I am annoyed with is two things.

The first is the Devs, with their incomprehensible, oblivious and constant self-aggrandizement and their gushing over a product that brings nothing new to the table. One moment we hear them praise Lucas's vision and the amazing detail of the Star Wars setting; the next, we see them slavishly imitating disparate elements without the tiniest understanding of why they were even in the films. The Devs are not building on the existing Star Wars mythos, because they don't have the guts to introduce truly new ideas. Instead, they fixate on superficial details and strive desperately to reproduce these details again and again and again, all in order to capture the Star Wars feeling.

In short, these people talk about story without knowing what the word means.

If you can summarize what the Devs have been saying in one sentence, it would be this: We're making KOTOR multiplayer. Quite honestly, I don't know why you think they have no idea how to tell a story. The last I checked, their most successful titles were all story based games and they all were very satisfying to play. I have a bit more confidence in their ability to capture good story telling. It has nothing to do with what they're selling - I just need to point to KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age as clear examples of their competence in that field.

My second beef is that this problem is not confined to the Devs, and it will not be confined to the game. No, this will spill over into general canon, heroically nudging the bar even lower than The Force Unleashed and Star Wars Galaxies and Forces of Corruption managed. The fans will clamour that this is what Star Wars actually is - a mishmash of contemporary action B movies and adolescent power fantasies and pew-pew IN SPACE.

After all, it's much easier to transplant a Stormtrooper, paint him blue, and introduce the Hurricane Commando! ("What do we call their team? Well, has to be the Empire, of course, because they're the bad guys. Didn't you watch the movies? Star Wars has to have the Empire as bad guys. Let's make them... I know... nazis!")

Actual storytelling transcends derivative setpieces and one-liners and edgy banter. Such things requires attention to detail, respect for established canon, and restraint. The themes, the undercurrents, and the emotive power is generated from the heroes being human, fallible, and vulnerable.

But if the fans don't care about that, maybe it's fitting that they get the kind of game developers they deserve.

You're insane if you think the story telling of The Force Unleashed is even at all comparable to Knights of the Old Republic.

[Agent Sorchus]

Character types do not make the story. They merely help players connect to their characters. Jesus Christ, this is fucking Star Wars! People WANT to play Boba Fett, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. These are the characters people connect with when they think of Star Wars.

Types of characters specifically do not, but characters are the most basic element of story craft and the one and only thing that you cannot skimp one in creating characters. The more you are dedicated to being like a specific character the less you get to work the character into the story and the more it is a guy doing things. Imitation with out understanding creates bad things in art, whereas Imitation when one understands all the choices implicit in the original the more likely it is going to work.

You're not talking about immersive story telling. You're talking about emergent story telling, which is a different beast from narrative story telling. Story in Bioware games is strictly narrative. If I wanted to play an MMO devoid of any narrative story, I'd play EVE.

But if you give up on character (by using only archetypes pimped off of something else) than all you have is emergent story. Character and conflict are literally the most basic elements of crafting stories, ie you cannot have Mass Effect without John Sheppard and his crew of misfits*. Trying to interchange Boba Fett with anyone else doesn't work because neither character will have similar interactions while remaining true. And thus no "Immersive" story.

Wait, are you saying scripted story telling is only compelling if your antagonist is "soul crushingly evil"?

Actually yes I am, in the case of one persons view and in the form of a violence laden video-game. You take one persons view and they will try to justify their antagonism by painting the other side as evil. While they do not have to be soul crushingly evil, they have to be portrayed as less important than your self. Pulling away from 1st person view and away from such a violence laden story, no.No, but in all Bioware stories that I know (so not Dragon Age) the only way the opposition is portrayed is straight evil. KOTOR check Mass Effect check. Your opposition might not be as evil as you try to be in the end, but still their idea of you going evil is to kick kittens and puppies. They have no idea of a suave and sophisticated evil. Just eating puppies whole and live.

You're a moron if you think combat is what is going to (or should) separate The Old Republic from other MMORPGs.

Strawman. And not even a good one.

Did I say all other MMO's? Fuck no I just compared them to their closest competitor. They are going to be fighting for control of the same market and need to not feel like the exact same game, even if the story is distinct they must draw the casual section of the market, and if they are not distinct and offering a unique experience they can't do that.

I've found little purpose for comparing any game to WoW, which I've completely become bored with for reasons that The Old Republic is supposed to address.

What? They are going to try to address the problem of having a lackluster story with no character to it by... making a game with no real characters, just a bunch of fanboy clones.

ALL FUCKING BIOWARE GAMES UTILIZE SPECIFIC CHARCTERS INTERACTING WITH A SUPPORT CAST TO TELL THEIR STORY, AN MMO DOESN'T GET A SUPPORT CAST, AND THEIR IS NO SPECIFIC CHARACTERS TO BECOME ATTACHED TO.

FAIL

[Ritterin Sophia]

ALL FUCKING BIOWARE GAMES UTILIZE SPECIFIC CHARCTERS INTERACTING WITH A SUPPORT CAST TO TELL THEIR STORY, AN MMO DOESN'T GET A SUPPORT CAST, AND THEIR IS NO SPECIFIC CHARACTERS TO BECOME ATTACHED TO.

FAIL

Yeah on your part, it's not our fault if you haven't been following the development process and realized they're adding companion characters that follow you around, much like your party members in KotOR. But never mind that let's just hate on it some more for imaginary problems that don't actually exist.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Types of characters specifically do not, but characters are the most basic element of story craft and the one and only thing that you cannot skimp one in creating characters. The more you are dedicated to being like a specific character the less you get to work the character into the story and the more it is a guy doing things. Imitation with out understanding creates bad things in art, whereas Imitation when one understands all the choices implicit in the original the more likely it is going to work.

You honestly think the player characters are going to be exact clones of existing Star Wars characters?

But if you give up on character (by using only archetypes pimped off of something else) than all you have is emergent story. Character and conflict are literally the most basic elements of crafting stories, ie you cannot have Mass Effect without John Sheppard and his crew of misfits*. Trying to interchange Boba Fett with anyone else doesn't work because neither character will have similar interactions while remaining true. And thus no "Immersive" story.

Because Revan as an abstract character based on three different archetypes didn't work at all in Knights of the Old Republic, right?

Actually yes I am, in the case of one persons view and in the form of a violence laden video-game. You take one persons view and they will try to justify their antagonism by painting the other side as evil. While they do not have to be soul crushingly evil, they have to be portrayed as less important than your self. Pulling away from 1st person view and away from such a violence laden story, no.No, but in all Bioware stories that I know (so not Dragon Age) the only way the opposition is portrayed is straight evil. KOTOR check Mass Effect check. Your opposition might not be as evil as you try to be in the end, but still their idea of you going evil is to kick kittens and puppies. They have no idea of a suave and sophisticated evil. Just eating puppies whole and live.

Players in KOTOR (and in various other single player story-driven games like Jedi Knight), have the option of being an evil character. And the existence of those evil characters did not detract from the story telling. So I have no bloody idea what the fuck you're talking about. And that's also not to mention the Devs have also stated that players in the Sith Empire are going to see their side to have a grayer moral shade as opposed to the conventional SITH = TOTAL EVIL mentality.

You're a moron if you think combat is what is going to (or should) separate The Old Republic from other MMORPGs.

Strawman. And not even a good one.

Did I say all other MMO's? Fuck no I just compared them to their closest competitor. They are going to be fighting for control of the same market and need to not feel like the exact same game, even if the story is distinct they must draw the casual section of the market, and if they are not distinct and offering a unique experience they can't do that.

Strawman? You just said: "So your best bet on distracting the morons consumers is to make the actual combat interesting and distinctive." Who gives a flying fuck whether The Old Republic is supposed to distinguish itself from "other MMOs" or "their closest competitor"? Your main point still remains the same: That the only way The Old Republic can sell is to offer L33t combat. Because apparently, Knights of the Old Republic sold itself on combat mechanics.

What? They are going to try to address the problem of having a lackluster story with no character to it by... making a game with no real characters, just a bunch of fanboy clones.

ALL FUCKING BIOWARE GAMES UTILIZE SPECIFIC CHARCTERS INTERACTING WITH A SUPPORT CAST TO TELL THEIR STORY, AN MMO DOESN'T GET A SUPPORT CAST, AND THEIR IS NO SPECIFIC CHARACTERS TO BECOME ATTACHED TO.

FAIL

Ignoring your ignorance on the prospect of companion characters that have already been stated to be in the game, what part of an MMO precludes the use of a supporting cast? Why can't a set of characters reprise themselves in a succession of multiple story sequences?