If you're going to make a game with story, be consistent. (SWTOR spoilers)
Don't get me wrong, I still love SW:TOR, but there are problems. (Okay, there are many problems, but we're just focusing on story telling for this post.)
As I play through Chapter Two, I'm increasingly frustrated by the fact that - while they explicitly let you be Light Side or Dark Side regardless of which faction you chose - they seem to have had specific alignments in mind for the two factions. Even though the factions themselves do not fit said alignments. (Okay, the Empire is pretty well Dark Side - Lawful Evil with outbreaks of Chaotic Evil when Sith are involved. But the Republic has some bad cases of Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral and, as a whole, feels like it leans badly into Chaotic Neutral, with the Jedi mostly being aligned Lawful Self Righteous or Jackass Good.)
I skipped about half the quests (or more) on Taris Empire side because the in character response to most of them would've been "You want me to what!? What kind of person even thinks of that? No. Also, hell no." (Admittedly, for one of them, the refusal dialogue did come close to that.) The quests are just straight up evil. Part of this is because Taris is something of an anomaly, both sides. (I've come to the conclusion that Taris's real danger isn't the rakghouls, it's that it causes people to lose all common sense. More on this in a sec.) But many of the quests wouldn't be right even if the Empire and Republic were engaged in an active war. Considering that they have a peace treaty, Imperial side Taris is just fucked up.
Even just doing the planetary quest line was problematic because the writers of that quest line make the assumption that you are an absolutely loyal Imperial. Even though this hasn't been forced on you in Chapter One and is not forced on you in your Class story. Did the various writers of SW:TOR never talk to one another? It's also a frickin' railroad plot that I can imagine annoying Dark Side players as well. (DSP: Why can't I just shoot/lightsaber the annoying Sith woman?) And, once again, the game has set up a situation that mirrors something that happens in the other faction, but doesn't give you the options.
In the Smuggler story line on Tatooine, you meet a Jedi and then a Sith in fairly short order. My Smuggler is (sensibly) afraid of Sith and pretended to go along with the Sith's plan, secretly thinking "I know a Jedi. Maybe if I can get the Jedi and the Sith in the same place..." Which is pretty much exactly what happens. You're then given the option of siding with the Jedi or the Sith in the ensuing confrontation. (She picked the Jedi, of course.)
In the Imperial Taris story you are forced to work alongside this annoying Sith woman who's busy having a contest of who's is bigger with you, regardless of whether or not you participate. "I'll slaughter more Republic troops." *after quest* "Ha! I slaughtered more Republic troops." She also keeps running into trouble because the Sith idea of planning appears to be: charge everything while screaming and waving your lightsaber about. At one point your opponent is a Jedi, who tries to talk you into joining the Republic. In front of the bloody Sith. Which does at least provide some explanation of why the options are all "No." But it feels like there should've been an option that involved letting the Jedi live. You're allowed to side with Sith against Jedi in at least one instance Republic side. Why aren't you allowed to do the opposite here? The quest could easily have been written so that you had some option of "No, I won't join the Republic, but I will help you escape/pretend you're dead/whatever." But Annoying Sith is clearly the GMs pet character. (Though a smart Jedi would've knocked out the Sith before trying to win over the non-Force user.) Even a "no" option of: *points to Sith* "Do I look suicidal to you?" would've been better.
I'm kind of irritated that I'm allowed to be a nicer person in my Class quests (despite being brainwashed) than in the regular quests. Something seems seriously off about this. Especially since it wasn't true in the prior Chapter. It also makes for wildly inconsistent writing. You're allowed to object to torture (on the grounds that it doesn't work) in one part of the Taris story, but the rest of the Taris story continues to involve Imperials torturing people for information (which, sadly, works -_-) and you're never given another chance to object to it. If you're going to tell a Sith Lord and his apprentice (who doesn't like you, I might add) that you object to their torturing someone, you really should be able to object to fellow Imperials and further Sith doing the same. Sloppy writing.
I can headcannon some of the nonsense with "brainwashed and mind controlled" (For being good at one's job. Why couldn't I say yes to the Jedi again? Oh, wait, I didn't know that yet.) but it really feels like the writers of Imperial Taris assumed people would play their Imperials as Dark Siders. I don't know how I'm going to do even the planet quest line on my other two Imperials. They may end up just doing their Class Quests and moving on. I don't have "brainwashed and mind controlled" as an explanation for being OOC. (And I don't just mean with my own headcannon. How you act in your class quests doesn't match how you're allowed to act in the planet quests. Someone who's concerned about and saves the life of an SIS agent - part of a team that's mind controlling you, I might add - is not going to callously urge a Jedi's monstrous students to kill (and eat?) him. And they're certainly not going to put rakghoul virus in Republic kolto tanks. Okay, that was the quest you could actually say "No. And WTF is wrong with you!?" to.)
As I really only play Light Siders, I can't say how the Republic stuff looks to a Dark Side Republic character. But I have a feeling you end up with the reverse problem and you're not allowed to be as dark in the non-Class quests as you are in the Class quests. In any event, there seems to have been a lack of communication amongst the writers of the various story lines.
(The problem still exists, but to a much lesser degree on Quesh. For the most part the quests aren't evil, and the game only makes you act OOC once. I'm hoping that's the last of the sloppy writing.)
Oh, yeah, Taris makes people lose all common sense.
Republic side, Taris makes no sense, except as the ego/reelection scheme of the governor. The planet is a rakghoul infested cesspit. There is no logical reason to rebuild it ever. Oh, sure, it was supposedly a shining light of the Republic three hundred years ago. Except you find out quickly that it was Coruscant, only worse. The land was stolen from the first settlers - aliens, I might add - and it was kind of a human supremist world. This would be like deciding to rebuild a toxic wasteland that, by the way, also used to be Klan headquarters. Why would you do this!? It's a terrible idea on so many levels. It's not safe for settlers - in fact, your character runs around handling all the problems the Republic military is ignoring because they don't have the manpower. Republic military people have been stationed there so long some desert. The governor forces contractors to stay there by inventing quarantines. It's horrible. And Jedi characters really ought to be able to call the governor on it.
Empire side, Taris makes no sense. The Empire doesn't want Taris, they just don't want the Republic to have it. Yet, they're willing to waste all this man power on driving them off Taris. In seemingly open defiance of the peace treaty. The one they don't want to be seen as breaking. (They want the Republic to break it.) Guys, the planet is a toxic cesspit full of rakghouls. I don't think there's much chance of the Republic successfully rebuilding. If there were any sense that the Republic had made progress, maybe, but by the time you land there as an Imperial, the Republic has already been driven out of most of the areas they had in the Republic side version. Why is the Empire bothering with this again? (And why doesn't the Empire just nuke it from orbit? I bet there's a Republic-built super weapon lost out there somewhere that would do the job.)
I think the planet makes even the writers lose their common sense.
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/116927.html.
As I play through Chapter Two, I'm increasingly frustrated by the fact that - while they explicitly let you be Light Side or Dark Side regardless of which faction you chose - they seem to have had specific alignments in mind for the two factions. Even though the factions themselves do not fit said alignments. (Okay, the Empire is pretty well Dark Side - Lawful Evil with outbreaks of Chaotic Evil when Sith are involved. But the Republic has some bad cases of Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral and, as a whole, feels like it leans badly into Chaotic Neutral, with the Jedi mostly being aligned Lawful Self Righteous or Jackass Good.)
I skipped about half the quests (or more) on Taris Empire side because the in character response to most of them would've been "You want me to what!? What kind of person even thinks of that? No. Also, hell no." (Admittedly, for one of them, the refusal dialogue did come close to that.) The quests are just straight up evil. Part of this is because Taris is something of an anomaly, both sides. (I've come to the conclusion that Taris's real danger isn't the rakghouls, it's that it causes people to lose all common sense. More on this in a sec.) But many of the quests wouldn't be right even if the Empire and Republic were engaged in an active war. Considering that they have a peace treaty, Imperial side Taris is just fucked up.
Even just doing the planetary quest line was problematic because the writers of that quest line make the assumption that you are an absolutely loyal Imperial. Even though this hasn't been forced on you in Chapter One and is not forced on you in your Class story. Did the various writers of SW:TOR never talk to one another? It's also a frickin' railroad plot that I can imagine annoying Dark Side players as well. (DSP: Why can't I just shoot/lightsaber the annoying Sith woman?) And, once again, the game has set up a situation that mirrors something that happens in the other faction, but doesn't give you the options.
In the Smuggler story line on Tatooine, you meet a Jedi and then a Sith in fairly short order. My Smuggler is (sensibly) afraid of Sith and pretended to go along with the Sith's plan, secretly thinking "I know a Jedi. Maybe if I can get the Jedi and the Sith in the same place..." Which is pretty much exactly what happens. You're then given the option of siding with the Jedi or the Sith in the ensuing confrontation. (She picked the Jedi, of course.)
In the Imperial Taris story you are forced to work alongside this annoying Sith woman who's busy having a contest of who's is bigger with you, regardless of whether or not you participate. "I'll slaughter more Republic troops." *after quest* "Ha! I slaughtered more Republic troops." She also keeps running into trouble because the Sith idea of planning appears to be: charge everything while screaming and waving your lightsaber about. At one point your opponent is a Jedi, who tries to talk you into joining the Republic. In front of the bloody Sith. Which does at least provide some explanation of why the options are all "No." But it feels like there should've been an option that involved letting the Jedi live. You're allowed to side with Sith against Jedi in at least one instance Republic side. Why aren't you allowed to do the opposite here? The quest could easily have been written so that you had some option of "No, I won't join the Republic, but I will help you escape/pretend you're dead/whatever." But Annoying Sith is clearly the GMs pet character. (Though a smart Jedi would've knocked out the Sith before trying to win over the non-Force user.) Even a "no" option of: *points to Sith* "Do I look suicidal to you?" would've been better.
I'm kind of irritated that I'm allowed to be a nicer person in my Class quests (despite being brainwashed) than in the regular quests. Something seems seriously off about this. Especially since it wasn't true in the prior Chapter. It also makes for wildly inconsistent writing. You're allowed to object to torture (on the grounds that it doesn't work) in one part of the Taris story, but the rest of the Taris story continues to involve Imperials torturing people for information (which, sadly, works -_-) and you're never given another chance to object to it. If you're going to tell a Sith Lord and his apprentice (who doesn't like you, I might add) that you object to their torturing someone, you really should be able to object to fellow Imperials and further Sith doing the same. Sloppy writing.
I can headcannon some of the nonsense with "brainwashed and mind controlled" (For being good at one's job. Why couldn't I say yes to the Jedi again? Oh, wait, I didn't know that yet.) but it really feels like the writers of Imperial Taris assumed people would play their Imperials as Dark Siders. I don't know how I'm going to do even the planet quest line on my other two Imperials. They may end up just doing their Class Quests and moving on. I don't have "brainwashed and mind controlled" as an explanation for being OOC. (And I don't just mean with my own headcannon. How you act in your class quests doesn't match how you're allowed to act in the planet quests. Someone who's concerned about and saves the life of an SIS agent - part of a team that's mind controlling you, I might add - is not going to callously urge a Jedi's monstrous students to kill (and eat?) him. And they're certainly not going to put rakghoul virus in Republic kolto tanks. Okay, that was the quest you could actually say "No. And WTF is wrong with you!?" to.)
As I really only play Light Siders, I can't say how the Republic stuff looks to a Dark Side Republic character. But I have a feeling you end up with the reverse problem and you're not allowed to be as dark in the non-Class quests as you are in the Class quests. In any event, there seems to have been a lack of communication amongst the writers of the various story lines.
(The problem still exists, but to a much lesser degree on Quesh. For the most part the quests aren't evil, and the game only makes you act OOC once. I'm hoping that's the last of the sloppy writing.)
Oh, yeah, Taris makes people lose all common sense.
Republic side, Taris makes no sense, except as the ego/reelection scheme of the governor. The planet is a rakghoul infested cesspit. There is no logical reason to rebuild it ever. Oh, sure, it was supposedly a shining light of the Republic three hundred years ago. Except you find out quickly that it was Coruscant, only worse. The land was stolen from the first settlers - aliens, I might add - and it was kind of a human supremist world. This would be like deciding to rebuild a toxic wasteland that, by the way, also used to be Klan headquarters. Why would you do this!? It's a terrible idea on so many levels. It's not safe for settlers - in fact, your character runs around handling all the problems the Republic military is ignoring because they don't have the manpower. Republic military people have been stationed there so long some desert. The governor forces contractors to stay there by inventing quarantines. It's horrible. And Jedi characters really ought to be able to call the governor on it.
Empire side, Taris makes no sense. The Empire doesn't want Taris, they just don't want the Republic to have it. Yet, they're willing to waste all this man power on driving them off Taris. In seemingly open defiance of the peace treaty. The one they don't want to be seen as breaking. (They want the Republic to break it.) Guys, the planet is a toxic cesspit full of rakghouls. I don't think there's much chance of the Republic successfully rebuilding. If there were any sense that the Republic had made progress, maybe, but by the time you land there as an Imperial, the Republic has already been driven out of most of the areas they had in the Republic side version. Why is the Empire bothering with this again? (And why doesn't the Empire just nuke it from orbit? I bet there's a Republic-built super weapon lost out there somewhere that would do the job.)
I think the planet makes even the writers lose their common sense.
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/116927.html.