SW: The Old Republic - Episode VII (J.J. Strikes Back)

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, my trooper is at 45 and the storyline really stalled out.  I guess there isn't much reason to finish.  I have a Jedi Knight near 60 and that storyline was fun.

[Augusta Corvina]

 

I don't recall either Sion or Nihilus getting up to the kinds of things the Dread Masters were doing and once again the Sith Empire had no problems following a Nihilus wannabe. They only turned on him because they found out he was gonna kill all of them too.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think anyone in the empire knew the true nature of the Emperor, except maybe those that were closer to him. As far as they know he was the one that saved them from annihilation and lead them on rebuilding their empire pretty much from scratch.

 

 

 

Considering the guy so far hasn't really done anything that another Sith hasn't already done, I doubt they would've cared if he hadn't made it blatantly clear what he intended to do during the SoR climax. The only outstanding thing in his portfolio is his plan for the galaxy after all.

 

Everything else about him reminds me of what one usually get from a bunch of "Nuh uh mah villain is stronger than -yours-!" arguments.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Augusta Corvina

[213374U]

So, expansion gameplay trailer.

 

 

 

 

Also, free ****.

[Chaz]

 

 

I don't recall either Sion or Nihilus getting up to the kinds of things the Dread Masters were doing and once again the Sith Empire had no problems following a Nihilus wannabe. They only turned on him because they found out he was gonna kill all of them too.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think anyone in the empire knew the true nature of the Emperor, except maybe those that were closer to him. As far as they know he was the one that saved them from annihilation and lead them on rebuilding their empire pretty much from scratch.

 

 

 

Considering the guy so far hasn't really done anything that another Sith hasn't already done, I doubt they would've cared if he hadn't made it blatantly clear what he intended to do during the SoR climax. The only outstanding thing in his portfolio is his plan for the galaxy after all.

 

Everything else about him reminds me of what one usually get from a bunch of "Nuh uh mah villain is stronger than -yours-!" arguments.

 

Sadly neither Revan nor The Emperor are a huge focus on vanilla SWTOR.

Each Class has kind of their own set of villains or antagonists...  usually it's one main antagonist per chapter, and the great majority of these characters have pretty much nothing to do with The Emperor, in most class stories you barely hear about him in passing.

 

That's the reason why the character of The Emperor is very underdeveloped in this game, in my opinion his character should have been involved in all 8 class stories IN SOME WAY, not just 2 or 3.

 

From what I understand halfway through development of SWTOR they realized they have to tie SWTOR to KOTOR somehow and they brought in Drew Karpyshyn to sprinkle in some Revan/Emperor Storylines on some of the class stories and in some flashpoints. 

 

If you ask me, to go around calling themselves KOTOR 3, they should have connected their story to their previous games much better than what they did, all characters should have explored AT LEAST IN SOME WAY previous events of KOTOR and KOTOR 2. Like finding a Holocron of Darth Nihilus (and have him teach you something), or finding Clan Ordo who are honoring the promise Canderous made to Revan, The Exile could have appeared as a Force Ghost and mentor the Jedi Consular, things like that. Instead what we have are very minor references, very small cameos, and a story that 99% deals with new characters and doesn't deal with the past, it just feels disconnected from the rest of the franchise.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2015 by Chaz

[majestic]

http://dulfy.net/2015/08/06/swtor-gamescom-cantina-tour-qa/#August_7_QA

 

Heh. Chat bubbles, if they can solve the performance issue. That performance issue was the reason why they turned them off during closed beta half a decade ago... but hey, well, now that pigs can fly nothing is certain any more, right?

[Namutree]

The problem lies with Star Wars having rather flimsy and poorly defined foundations — it works great for juvenile space operas, but it starts falling apart when one tries to scrutinize the premises of the setting. 

I remember saying this in the past and only Gromnir kinda agreed. Glad I'm not the only one who gets this.

[Fardragon]

 

The problem lies with Star Wars having rather flimsy and poorly defined foundations — it works great for juvenile space operas, but it starts falling apart when one tries to scrutinize the premises of the setting. 

I remember saying this in the past and only Gromnir kinda agreed. Glad I'm not the only one who gets this.

 

I would say that is fairly obvious, which is why if you do try to scrutinise the setting (i.e. KOTOR2) you really haven't understood the point.

[Chaz]

 

The problem lies with Star Wars having rather flimsy and poorly defined foundations — it works great for juvenile space operas, but it starts falling apart when one tries to scrutinize the premises of the setting. 

I remember saying this in the past and only Gromnir kinda agreed. Glad I'm not the only one who gets this.

 

If Star Wars didn't work for anything else other than "juvenile space operas" (whatever that means) then KOTOR 2 would have not been a good game. Obsidian took the story of KOTOR 1 and ran with it, exploring some new dark and philosophical themes, people liked the story and the characters, the people that had problems with KOTOR 2 were with the unfinished state of the game, which has nothing to do with the Star Wars theme, it has to do more with development time and deadlines.

 

EDIT: Obsidian has done this in other occassions, NWN 2 was a general fantasy adventure with all the classic tropes but add some nuanced characters and a bit of a dark tone, the MotB expansions seemed to be much darker and it certainly didn't seem to me they followed a more classic structure from the OC, they went a bit more wild with the companions too in my opinion, instead of getting the classic stereotypes from the 1st campaign, the new ones were more unique and different, not necessarily more likable.

Edited August 8, 2015 by Chaz

[213374U]

I would say that is fairly obvious, which is why if you do try to scrutinise the setting (i.e. KOTOR2) you really haven't understood the point.

 

I don't understand what you mean, unless what you're saying is that the "the point" is "don't write internally consistent characters, don't explore the logical implications of central themes, don't think".

 

So, either The Brothers Karamazov or Spongebob Squarepants, right?

[Gromnir]

Yeah, my trooper is at 45 and the storyline really stalled out.  I guess there isn't much reason to finish.  I have a Jedi Knight near 60 and that storyline was fun.

a number o' the swtor storylines have a similar flaw: they collapse after the chapter 1 conclusions.  for the better part o' the game, you are chasing down X or puzzling through Y... and  then chapter 1 concludes.  now there is a new threat and we are informed that we must deal with a new problem that threatens the galaxy and us personal?  trooper and smuggler is particular fails in this regard, but they ain't alone.  

 

as for the kotor2, am pretty sure we have done this all to death, no? feels like groundhog day. in any event, obsidian attempted to face some o' the larger questions presented by The Force in kotor2.  the notion that such an exploration should result in auto-fail would, to us, identify a fundamental flaw o' the setting.  that being said, we do not believe that star wars is doomed if one attempts to create villians and heroes that could survive beyond' #'s spongebob or bad comic books.  sure, the typical way in which the Force is utilized by writers and directors is a bit immature (which ain't the same as bad) but adult reflection is possible. do more with star wars clear takes effort given you got a rather simplistic light v. dark Force... force. even so, obsidian made at least a half-hearted effort to do something different with star wars.

 

where we believe obsidian failed (if they failed) were with execution rather than concept.  nihilus, for example, were conceptual okie dokie.  take dark side to an extreme and have it become the faceless and all-consuming darkness?  the problem with the faceless evils o' enormity is that you cannot give'em a mask and make 'em talk like adults in a peanut's cartoon and still have a faceless evil.  you wanna make a sauron kinda villain?  fine.  is a common approach in lit to have faceless evil.  a mask and a speech impediment is not faceless. 

 

is nothing inherently ennobling 'bout doing different.  w/o some measure o' success, different is wasted. obsidian took a different approach and they succeeded... and they failed.  revan and kreia were aware as almost the entire catalog o' jedi and sith before and after were not.  revan were s'posed playing chess while all the other sith and jedi were locked in their interminable, and ultimate unwinnable, tic-tac-toe battles. unfortunate for Gromnir, the post kotor2 revan were returned to the comic book lineup o' characters with all the perspicacity o' a demented child who, having already been jolted senseless after jamming a fork in an electrical outlet, will gleefully repeat the event just to see the sparks fly.  how many comic  book villains and heroes is caught fighting functional the same battles for decades?  is understandable why such obtuse behaviors happens in serialized comic books and movies, but we nevertheless morn the lost possibilities suggested in kotor2. obsidian failed as much as they succeeded, but am saddened that their success were ignored by bioware.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Chaz]

Obsidian failed as much as they succeeded, but am saddened that their success were ignored by bioware.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

If you mean that Bioware ignored a lot of the plots and characters from KOTOR 2, I think you're right, I think the team that Bioware brought in to write SWTOR were not bad writers but they were either selfish and wanted to tell their own stories and ignore the past or they were mostly ignorant of the games that preceded SWTOR.

 

The few ties to KOTOR that exist are there because Karpyshyn wrote them, if they hadn't brought him in, there would be nothing at all. You can say that there are small nods to KOTOR 2, like Lord Paladius, Lord Draag, the Sith Entity...  but those can barely be considered easter eggs.

 

I think Bioware has always been true to the Star Wars theme, so it's ok if they want to do a Sci Fantasy adventure game without being too philosophical, pretentious or preachy (maybe that's why they're called juvenile or immature)  but at least they should have aknowledged more of what happened before, they are making a game that is part of a franchise, a series, they kinda treated SWTOR as a stand alone game.

Edited August 8, 2015 by Chaz

[Augusta Corvina]

 

 

 

I don't recall either Sion or Nihilus getting up to the kinds of things the Dread Masters were doing and once again the Sith Empire had no problems following a Nihilus wannabe. They only turned on him because they found out he was gonna kill all of them too.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think anyone in the empire knew the true nature of the Emperor, except maybe those that were closer to him. As far as they know he was the one that saved them from annihilation and lead them on rebuilding their empire pretty much from scratch.

 

 

 

Considering the guy so far hasn't really done anything that another Sith hasn't already done, I doubt they would've cared if he hadn't made it blatantly clear what he intended to do during the SoR climax. The only outstanding thing in his portfolio is his plan for the galaxy after all.

 

Everything else about him reminds me of what one usually get from a bunch of "Nuh uh mah villain is stronger than -yours-!" arguments.

 

Sadly neither Revan nor The Emperor are a huge focus on vanilla SWTOR.

Each Class has kind of their own set of villains or antagonists...  usually it's one main antagonist per chapter, and the great majority of these characters have pretty much nothing to do with The Emperor, in most class stories you barely hear about him in passing.

 

That's the reason why the character of The Emperor is very underdeveloped in this game, in my opinion his character should have been involved in all 8 class stories IN SOME WAY, not just 2 or 3.

 

From what I understand halfway through development of SWTOR they realized they have to tie SWTOR to KOTOR somehow and they brought in Drew Karpyshyn to sprinkle in some Revan/Emperor Storylines on some of the class stories and in some flashpoints. 

 

If you ask me, to go around calling themselves KOTOR 3, they should have connected their story to their previous games much better than what they did, all characters should have explored AT LEAST IN SOME WAY previous events of KOTOR and KOTOR 2. Like finding a Holocron of Darth Nihilus (and have him teach you something), or finding Clan Ordo who are honoring the promise Canderous made to Revan, The Exile could have appeared as a Force Ghost and mentor the Jedi Consular, things like that. Instead what we have are very minor references, very small cameos, and a story that 99% deals with new characters and doesn't deal with the past, it just feels disconnected from the rest of the franchise.

 

 

 

Revan barely showing up in swtor was for the best. Though it was pretty cathartic to shove a lightsaber down his throat after certain things(specifically the revan novel and that all I'll say about -that- subject).

 

I doubt the emperor being more involved would've improved anything. He's pretty much just a dry "moahahahaha i am teh evhulz" villain who's goal is galactic scale genocide Nihilus style. I'm not sure how they could've managed to salvage -that-. At least not going by how he's been presented so far in the game. Trolling the guy and doing the darkside option at the end of the JK questchain was pretty much the only times I enjoyed his presence.

 

'course this is all just my thoughts and feelings on the guy. I simply didn't like him all that much at all.

[Chaz]

Revan barely showing up in swtor was for the best. Though it was pretty cathartic to shove a lightsaber down his throat after certain things(specifically the revan novel and that all I'll say about -that- subject).

 

 

 

I doubt the emperor being more involved would've improved anything. He's pretty much just a dry "moahahahaha i am teh evhulz" villain who's goal is galactic scale genocide Nihilus style. I'm not sure how they could've managed to salvage -that-. At least not going by how he's been presented so far in the game. Trolling the guy and doing the darkside option at the end of the JK questchain was pretty much the only times I enjoyed his presence.

 

'course this is all just my thoughts and feelings on the guy. I simply didn't like him all that much at all.

 

I agree that The Emperor comes off as "Muahaha I am the Evhulz" villain, although better characterized than Nihilus since he was interpreted by an actor with experience in horror films, that gave him a bit more personality and flavor, the problem is that we never get to know his character.

 

From my point of view as a Sith Inquisitor the first time I get to "meet" The Emperor and talk to him was when I got to lvl 60, in an expansion that was released 3 years after the game came out! And it's the same case for pretty much every other class except the Knight and the Warrior, pretty disappointed considering they were hyping up The Emperor since before the game came out.

 

I think it would have been better if The Emperor was involved in most of the class stories as an influence, some stories worked great without him, like the Agent, but other stories really had lackluster villains. It's not necessarily bad if a game wants to have a larger-than-life, force of nature kind of villain, in fact in those cases it's usually better for that villain to remain mostly mysterious, but the problem is that he had zero presence in the game except for a few classes, he was not really a villain at all.

[Augusta Corvina]

 

Revan barely showing up in swtor was for the best. Though it was pretty cathartic to shove a lightsaber down his throat after certain things(specifically the revan novel and that all I'll say about -that- subject).

 

 

 

I doubt the emperor being more involved would've improved anything. He's pretty much just a dry "moahahahaha i am teh evhulz" villain who's goal is galactic scale genocide Nihilus style. I'm not sure how they could've managed to salvage -that-. At least not going by how he's been presented so far in the game. Trolling the guy and doing the darkside option at the end of the JK questchain was pretty much the only times I enjoyed his presence.

 

'course this is all just my thoughts and feelings on the guy. I simply didn't like him all that much at all.

 

I agree that The Emperor comes off as "Muahaha I am the Evhulz" villain, although better characterized than Nihilus since he was interpreted by an actor with experience in horror films, that gave him a bit more personality and flavor, the problem is that we never get to know his character.

 

From my point of view as a Sith Inquisitor the first time I get to "meet" The Emperor and talk to him was when I got to lvl 60, in an expansion that was released 3 years after the game came out! And it's the same case for pretty much every other class except the Knight and the Warrior, pretty disappointed considering they were hyping up The Emperor since before the game came out.

 

I think it would have been better if The Emperor was involved in most of the class stories as an influence, some stories worked great without him, like the Agent, but other stories really had lackluster villains. It's not necessarily bad if a game wants to have a larger-than-life, force of nature kind of villain, in fact in those cases it's usually better for that villain to remain mostly mysterious, but the problem is that he had zero presence in the game except for a few classes, he was not really a villain at all.

 

I thought Nihilus came across better if only because he didn't go on and on about how powerful he was(or any other variation of how so and so was X and Y).

 

If proxies count then he was kind of active in the consular story, but yes fairly absent outside of the SW and JK stories. Even then its only the SW he specifically calls out in SoR at the end(albeit only with one sentence, but the JK didn't even get that). All in all I honestly just don't see how they would've pulled him off in a way that would've worked well.

 

Eh personally I'm not really a fan of "force of nature" villains as a whole. They just don't work as an antagonist for me since it cuts down on interactions and the like. Plus the whole they're just there doing that thing because reasons doesn't work for me. I prefer villains capable of conversing, one that has actual motives and is engaging in some fashion.

[Chaz]

I thought Nihilus came across better if only because he didn't go on and on about how powerful he was(or any other variation of how so and so was X and Y).

 

If proxies count then he was kind of active in the consular story, but yes fairly absent outside of the SW and JK stories. Even then its only the SW he specifically calls out in SoR at the end(albeit only with one sentence, but the JK didn't even get that). All in all I honestly just don't see how they would've pulled him off in a way that would've worked well.

 

Eh personally I'm not really a fan of "force of nature" villains as a whole. They just don't work as an antagonist for me since it cuts down on interactions and the like. Plus the whole they're just there doing that thing because reasons doesn't work for me. I prefer villains capable of conversing, one that has actual motives and is engaging in some fashion.

 

Well maybe you're right about Nihilus, it's just that when I interacted with The Empeor in Ziost, well I saw a lot of potential since an actor can give more personality than a soundboard, there are soundboard characters in SWTOR and they get old REAL FAST.

 

In an Sci Fantasy Epic you kinda need both kind of villains, you need the down to earth human villains and the looming threat, force of nature villains, take Dragon Age: Origins, one of the best RPGs done by bioware, the human villain is Loghain, he betrays you and the king, and he sends assassins after you all the time, but he has his reasons, his motivation, and if you spare him and recruit him you can learn alot about him, even develop some sort of mutual respect. The force of nature villains are the Darkwspawn and the Archdemon they have no personality, and their motivation is to kill everything I guess, maybe they are better explained in a book or whatever but as far as the game is concerned they're just mindless monsters, they don't even talk until the expansion.

 

In an MMO where there are Darths and Jedi Masters everywhere and even your own characters are already larger-than-life to begin with (The Jedi Consular is pulling Telekinesis on a Yoda level pretty much from the get go) you need a force of nature villain that is even bigger and strongerer than your larger-than-life character and all the other NPCs, So it makes sense is The Emperor is kinda of super powerful, as long as there are smaller villains with more relatable and understandable motivations.

[Gromnir]

there is some bass ackwards reasoning at play.  have a super-powerful emperor with incomprehensible or ridiculous motivations is Not necessary even IF you feel a larger-than-life, force o' nature (or whatever) villain is required to make a satisfactory obstacle for an epic sci-fi protagonist.  IF you need a villain to embody the kinda insurmountable obstacle that only a super-powered hero can hope to face (*snort*) then you still ain't identified why an emperor kinda antagonist is necessary.  does the epic obstacle need scope to match the hero?  sure, but that not require the silliness we typical see from star wars.

 

am a vocal critic o' tolkien. get us going on tolkien's tedious prose and we could be here all day.  even so, tolkien understood that if you got an Adversary with scope to beggar the imagination, you gotta keep remote and faceless.  sauron's motivations don't matter in lotr.  

 

one o' the ways in which star wars often fails is that the writers gives human or humanoid aliens incomprehensible motivations and use The Force as an explanation for the ridiculous behavior.  wanna rule the galaxy?  why? 'cause that is what Evul does. it "makes sense" only if we accept that the dark side has placed the bad guys beyond the realm o' human emotion and motivation, which is a cheap dodge.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Augusta Corvina]

 

I thought Nihilus came across better if only because he didn't go on and on about how powerful he was(or any other variation of how so and so was X and Y).

 

If proxies count then he was kind of active in the consular story, but yes fairly absent outside of the SW and JK stories. Even then its only the SW he specifically calls out in SoR at the end(albeit only with one sentence, but the JK didn't even get that). All in all I honestly just don't see how they would've pulled him off in a way that would've worked well.

 

Eh personally I'm not really a fan of "force of nature" villains as a whole. They just don't work as an antagonist for me since it cuts down on interactions and the like. Plus the whole they're just there doing that thing because reasons doesn't work for me. I prefer villains capable of conversing, one that has actual motives and is engaging in some fashion.

 

Well maybe you're right about Nihilus, it's just that when I interacted with The Empeor in Ziost, well I saw a lot of potential since an actor can give more personality than a soundboard, there are soundboard characters in SWTOR and they get old REAL FAST.

 

In an Sci Fantasy Epic you kinda need both kind of villains, you need the down to earth human villains and the looming threat, force of nature villains, take Dragon Age: Origins, one of the best RPGs done by bioware, the human villain is Loghain, he betrays you and the king, and he sends assassins after you all the time, but he has his reasons, his motivation, and if you spare him and recruit him you can learn alot about him, even develop some sort of mutual respect. The force of nature villains are the Darkwspawn and the Archdemon they have no personality, and their motivation is to kill everything I guess, maybe they are better explained in a book or whatever but as far as the game is concerned they're just mindless monsters, they don't even talk until the expansion.

 

In an MMO where there are Darths and Jedi Masters everywhere and even your own characters are already larger-than-life to begin with (The Jedi Consular is pulling Telekinesis on a Yoda level pretty much from the get go) you need a force of nature villain that is even bigger and strongerer than your larger-than-life character and all the other NPCs, So it makes sense is The Emperor is kinda of super powerful, as long as there are smaller villains with more relatable and understandable motivations.

 

The actor is fine, but try as he might, he can't save a villain that bores me whenever he doesn't annoy me.

 

The Darkspawn are also the most boring part of the dragon age games. They're pretty much just animals on two legs a lot of the time and it makes me feel more like I'm playing glorified pest control than anything else. Loghain and that stuff was the best part of DAO in my opinion.

 

Perhaps its because I don't put that much stock in what characters do in gameplay as it very often doesn't sync up with what they are displayed as capable of doing in cutscenes and what not, but I never got the impression that any of them were doing anything on par with Yoda at the start of their respective stories. That said you don't need a force of nature villain to oppose any of that. Whats needed is a well written antagonist and thats it.

[Chaz]

The actor is fine, but try as he might, he can't save a villain that bores me whenever he doesn't annoy me.

 

 

The Darkspawn are also the most boring part of the dragon age games. They're pretty much just animals on two legs a lot of the time and it makes me feel more like I'm playing glorified pest control than anything else. Loghain and that stuff was the best part of DAO in my opinion.

 

Perhaps its because I don't put that much stock in what characters do in gameplay as it very often doesn't sync up with what they are displayed as capable of doing in cutscenes and what not, but I never got the impression that any of them were doing anything on par with Yoda at the start of their respective stories. That said you don't need a force of nature villain to oppose any of that. Whats needed is a well written antagonist and thats it.

 

The Darkspawn are necessary, in a movie maybe having a villain like Loghain is enough, but in a game you need someone you can fight constantly, and you cant fight Loghain himself every 5 minutes, right? Also some of the things that made Loghain good was that he was against the Darkspawn just like you, he just wanted to deal with them his own way and had no faith in the king or the wardens.

 

I made the reference to Yoda because while playing the Jedi Consular, she doing some very advanced Telekinetics since chapter 1 and she was doing it in cutscenes, even some Sith when they witness what she can do are like "What the F***!?"

 

As I said before, the Force of Nature antagonist is necessary, or maybe necessary is the wrong word, what I mean is that they work great with the Fantasy adventure formula, does it mean they're mandatory? Nope, but looking at Bioware's trackrecord it has worked well for them. In a more realistic setting the Force of Nature antagonist could something as simple as bad weather, an economic crisis or even a plague, in fact, in Neverwinter Nights you do have to stop a plague.

 

 

there is some bass ackwards reasoning at play.  have a super-powerful emperor with incomprehensible or ridiculous motivations is Not necessary even IF you feel a larger-than-life, force o' nature (or whatever) villain is required to make a satisfactory obstacle for an epic sci-fi protagonist.  IF you need a villain to embody the kinda insurmountable obstacle that only a super-powered hero can hope to face (*snort*) then you still ain't identified why an emperor kinda antagonist is necessary.  does the epic obstacle need scope to match the hero?  sure, but that not require the silliness we typical see from star wars.

I think the reason why we have an emperor is the same reason why swtor pulls so much imagery from the movies and prequels (even more than the original kotor) They wanted to make swtor as similar as the movies as possible for mass market appeal.

 

Even the protagonists are inspired by major movie characters, you have the republic and imperial cruisers that look just like the ones in the movies, trooper armors, etc. The original KOTOR games pulled imagery from the movies but just not as much, but now with EA making a huge investment on developing this massive MMO, they decided to play it safe and pull as much from the movies as they can, even down to the Emperor himself.

 

Also, the concept of a True Sith Empire was actually set up in the cliffhanger ending of KOTOR 2, Darth Traya was the one that brought it up, so it kinda makes sense that a Sith Empire has an emperor, even years before SWTOR was announced, fans of the series theorized that the only way a Sith Empire could exist without collapsing under infighting was by having a very powerful ruler to keep everyone in check, either that or a very radical way in the culture.

 

 

 

am a vocal critic o' tolkien. get us going on tolkien's tedious prose and we could be here all day.  even so, tolkien understood that if you got an Adversary with scope to beggar the imagination, you gotta keep remote and faceless.  sauron's motivations don't matter in lotr.  

 

 

Well, my issue with the emperor is not that he was distant and faceless, it's that he was actually absent, I would have liked it if he was involved in most of the stories as a force behind the scenes, pulling strings influencing people. As I commented before, My Sith Inquisitor gets to deal with the emperor only 4 years after the game came out, in an expansion.

 

 

one o' the ways in which star wars often fails is that the writers gives human or humanoid aliens incomprehensible motivations and use The Force as an explanation for the ridiculous behavior.  wanna rule the galaxy?  why? 'cause that is what Evul does. it "makes sense" only if we accept that the dark side has placed the bad guys beyond the realm o' human emotion and motivation, which is a cheap dodge.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Im not sure I can agree with this, I think the motivations of the Sith Empire are more human than you think, I know that Bioware was the one that was tasked by LucasArts to create the Sith Code, and when they did, they took some inspiration from Mein Kampf, and I think there are more similarities, the way that the Sith Empire wants to be great again and get revenge on the republic after almost going extinct in The Great Hyperspace War could be compared to how Germany made a comeback after being defeated in WW1 to become a major threat in WW2.

[Augusta Corvina]

 

The actor is fine, but try as he might, he can't save a villain that bores me whenever he doesn't annoy me.

 

 

The Darkspawn are also the most boring part of the dragon age games. They're pretty much just animals on two legs a lot of the time and it makes me feel more like I'm playing glorified pest control than anything else. Loghain and that stuff was the best part of DAO in my opinion.

 

Perhaps its because I don't put that much stock in what characters do in gameplay as it very often doesn't sync up with what they are displayed as capable of doing in cutscenes and what not, but I never got the impression that any of them were doing anything on par with Yoda at the start of their respective stories. That said you don't need a force of nature villain to oppose any of that. Whats needed is a well written antagonist and thats it.

 

The Darkspawn are necessary, in a movie maybe having a villain like Loghain is enough, but in a game you need someone you can fight constantly, and you cant fight Loghain himself every 5 minutes, right? Also some of the things that made Loghain good was that he was against the Darkspawn just like you, he just wanted to deal with them his own way and had no faith in the king or the wardens.

 

I made the reference to Yoda because while playing the Jedi Consular, she doing some very advanced Telekinetics since chapter 1 and she was doing it in cutscenes, even some Sith when they witness what she can do are like "What the F***!?"

 

As I said before, the Force of Nature antagonist is necessary, or maybe necessary is the wrong word, what I mean is that they work great with the Fantasy adventure formula, does it mean they're mandatory? Nope, but looking at Bioware's trackrecord it has worked well for them. In a more realistic setting the Force of Nature antagonist could something as simple as bad weather, an economic crisis or even a plague, in fact, in Neverwinter Nights you do have to stop a plague.

 

In the story as presented in DAO? Sure they had a purpouse there because they were written to do so even if they weren't particularly interesting themselves. However speaking in generalized terms then no they were not needed. One can make do with a villain such as Loghain as he'll have those serving him as obstacles between the player and himself. One don't even need to have combat if one so wanted, but at that point you'd be going into a different genre of games. This however is, as I said, me speaking purely in generalized terms rather than soley about DAO.

 

Advanced telekinetics? The only outstanding things I can remember is lifting rocks(or other objects) and tossing them or force pushing objects/people. Now its been a while since I played through the entirety of chapter 1 of the consular story, but thats about what I can remember of it. If thats advanced then telekinetic users in star wars are -really- bad. Plus Sith have the criminally insane habit of underestimating their foes.

 

Force of nature antagonists aren't necessary and never will be. Nothing wrong with including one however, but the risks of them being boring and just plain annoying are fairly high in my experience. Off the top of my head I can't really remember a whole lot of them as a result.

 

Not sure I can bring myself to refer to bad weather, economic crisis and plagues as antagonists given none of them have wills of their own and are just unfortunate circumstances. Even in neverwinter nights the plague isn't an antagonist, its a weapon used by the antagonist of the game.

[Chaz]

In the story as presented in DAO? Sure they had a purpouse there because they were written to do so even if they weren't particularly interesting themselves. However speaking in generalized terms then no they were not needed. One can make do with a villain such as Loghain as he'll have those serving him as obstacles between the player and himself. One don't even need to have combat if one so wanted, but at that point you'd be going into a different genre of games. This however is, as I said, me speaking purely in generalized terms rather than soley about DAO.

 

Force of nature antagonists aren't necessary and never will be. Nothing wrong with including one however, but the risks of them being boring and just plain annoying are fairly high in my experience. Off the top of my head I can't really remember a whole lot of them as a result.

 

Not sure I can bring myself to refer to bad weather, economic crisis and plagues as antagonists given none of them have wills of their own and are just unfortunate circumstances. Even in neverwinter nights the plague isn't an antagonist, its a weapon used by the antagonist of the game

As I said before, I think my wording was wrong when I said they were necessary, but they work well in fantasy, at least looking at Bioware and Obsidian trackrecord you have Mephistopheles and The King of Shadows in NWN The Blight from Dragon Age you can even say Darth Nihilus from Kotor 2.

 

As long as you have more down to earth, nuanced antagonists such as Loghain or Ammon Jerro they can keep the story interesting, but having monsters to slay in fantasy it's just more fun, I mean, who didn't got tired of killing hordes and hordes of human bandits in Kirkwall when playing Dragon Age 2?

 

 

Advanced telekinetics? The only outstanding things I can remember is lifting rocks(or other objects) and tossing them or force pushing objects/people. Now its been a while since I played through the entirety of chapter 1 of the consular story, but thats about what I can remember of it. If thats advanced then telekinetic users in star wars are -really- bad. Plus Sith have the criminally insane habit of underestimating their foes. 

 

I'm not done with the Consular story yet, but I've seen her lift a huge wreckage that was trapping a dude's leg and then send that wreckage flying until it disappeared from the screen.

 

I've seen her twice smash huge durasteel blastdoors with the force until she blew them open, not sure if you remember the opening scene from Episode 1, where they close those big blast doors and Qui-Gon tries to melt them with his saber but then gives up? Well, the consular just blew them open with Telekinetics.

 

But even if we disregard that, the developers have said even before launch that they are designing your characters to be badasses from the start, it plays into the narrative too, the Knight says she was able to beat all her instructors and Yuon Par or Syo Bakarn say that force users as powerful as the consular are rare and come along once every several decades, and they're saying this when she is a Padawan.

[Gromnir]

 

Im not sure I can agree with this, I think the motivations of the Sith Empire are more human than you think,

 

...

 

see, you say stuff such as this and we lose all hope.  the sith ain't Real.  their motivations is whatever the current author imagines.  the emperor is a cartoony comic book villain only 'cause the writers make him that way.  you prefer him that way as 'posed to remote?  fine.  nevertheless,  nihulus ain't any less real than vader and the force exists only in your imagination.  you have a notion o' what sith Is, so you is resistant to the notion that a better way to do sith or jedi exists.  we can pull funny quotes from you over the course o' the past few pages to illustrate this point (we has done so a few times already), but it would be a waste and am thinking you don't get the actual problem.

 

until you can give up on the notion o' what sith or force is, you won't be able to consider better sith or force.  

 

HA! Good Fun! 

[Hurlshort]

The schwartz is strong with this one.

 

[NightRevan]

I see DA:O as similar to say the alien movies, the Darkspawn are like the xenomorphs in being the antagonist, a implacable force of parasitic and alien horror, that can't be talked, reasoned with or fully understood, they aren't relatable but pure horrific and destructive threat (particularly with the alien being a rape metaphor adding to it's horror). Wheras the villains are Loghain, Howe and co in DA:O and the Company in the person of the android Ash and Burke in Alien and Aliens respectively, they are the relatable villian for main characters to contend and engage with, who have understable motives while the xenimorphs and also Darkspawn are the overall antagonist who are the overall threat that provides the context and drive for the situation the characters find themselves in and react to.

[Chaz]

I see DA:O as similar to say the alien movies, the Darkspawn are like the xenomorphs in being the antagonist, a implacable force of parasitic and alien horror, that can't be talked, reasoned with or fully understood, they aren't relatable but pure horrific and destructive threat (particularly with the alien being a rape metaphor adding to it's horror). 

 

Yeah, this comparison sounds right to me, and the Dark Spawn were basically Dragon Age brand of unrelenting evil force, in D&D or other setting it might have been Undeads, or in Sci-Fi it might have been robots, something like Terminators or Reapers (before they were ruined)

 

Which reminds me this dual villain (human and inhuman) also applies well to Mass Effect 3, you have The Illusive man and Cerbarus as the human and The Reaper threat as the inhuman antagonists. It's a formula that we see it gets used over and over because it works very well, even when you add variations here or there.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I see DA:O as similar to say the alien movies, the Darkspawn are like the xenomorphs in being the antagonist, a implacable force of parasitic and alien horror, that can't be talked, reasoned with or fully understood, they aren't relatable but pure horrific and destructive threat (particularly with the alien being a rape metaphor adding to it's horror). 

 

 

Yeah, this comparison would totally work if only the darkspawn weren't essentially orcs by any other name.

 

As-is, though, they're anything but "an implacable force of parasitic and alien horror". They're mooks to be slaughtered.