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whowhatwhere posted:I mean, I know that's part of the game, but that never made sense to me unless the questline involves defection. It makes sense within the questline, at least as far as I got. You're still not really a nice person. Don't forget (as BW often but not always did): Light Side isn't necessarily the Good Side, and Dark Side isn't necessarily the Evil Side. Light Side characters are cool, calm, and dispassionate, while Dark Side characters aren't. You can totally play an Evil Light Side character. At least until you get to all the lovely non-story quests where the Light Side choice is "be a bigger saint than Gandhi and Jesus combined" and the Dark Side choice is "be a moronic psychopathic murderer" with absolutely no middle ground allowed. There are a bunch of quests that do allow neutral choices and even a good number that have reasonable non-hyper-extreme Light/Dark choices, but the majority are just ... ugh.
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Aug 31, 2012 02:48
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Yeah see the problem is you're assuming KOTOR 2 is still canon. Lucas doesn't consider it canon because he doesn't like the LS and DS being ambiguous, LS should be Lawful Good and DS should be Chaotic Evil. sword_man.gif fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 02:55
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whowhatwhere posted:
It's kinda lipservice to the "Force is the Force, it's how you use it" idea from KotOR that Lucas stomped on. Sith find focus through embracing their emotions and Jedi through suppressing them, but both can be channeled for good or ill. So as a LS SWarr you're willing to show mercy and honor, which confuses the hell out of the Jedi you spare. The point of a LS SW is to travel the galaxy making Jedi heads explode when confronted with their racism. That's the class quests, though. On other quests the LS/DS split is whether you're a gullible idiot or a bloodthirsty sadist.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:00
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This should be interesting. I nearly bought this game to scratch that MMO itch after leaving WoW but decided against it. -Imperial Agent -Chiss -Whatever it Takes/Heart of Gold (I don't actually know, just play it like a loyal agent except he/she hates all that dark sorcery wizard Sith poo poo getting in the way of running an efficient empire)
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Aug 31, 2012 03:04
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I hope I can still add my vote 1. Imperial Agent 2. Chiss 3. Male 4. As much I wanna say 4, I'm going to go with 2 5. Whatever it takes IA is my favorite storyline in SW:TOR and I really want everyone to experience the joy of being Space James Bond.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:07
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Sometimes the Light Side/Dark Side choices don't even make sense. There's an early Trooper quest where a bunch of medical supplies have been stolen from the Republic medical station, and without them a bunch of wounded Republic troopers are going to die. The Light Side choice is letting all the soldiers die because you get blackmailed into helping a thief, the Dark Side choice is telling the thief to go gently caress themself and doing your duty.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:14
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Zaodai posted:Sometimes the Light Side/Dark Side choices don't even make sense. There's an early Trooper quest where a bunch of medical supplies have been stolen from the Republic medical station, and without them a bunch of wounded Republic troopers are going to die. There are quite a few choices like this in the game. Honestly I just played it based on what felt right for the class and the character I was creating. Doesn't really matter in the end if your not at the end of the Jedi/Sith spectrum because the game has other ways both at end game and through professions that give Light Side and Dark Side points. I really have to say I'm both shocked and eagerly awaiting this LP. Good Job Moon Slayer for this fantastic idea.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:18
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I love KOR, yes, it is an MMO (which I hate, because I suck horribly at non-turn based RPGs) but it is SW and it is Bioware so yeah. I vote for: Chiss Female Imperial Agent who's got a Heart Of Gold. That story by far is the most interesting, far too many people take either the Jedi/Sith classes and they are by far the least interesting/George Lucas Prequel-esque story. Don't get me wrong, being able to use cool Force abilities and lightsaber attacks are fun, but it just isn't unique or interesting to be one beyond that. I've always loved stories in the EU that didn't include Jedi/Sith chars (or at least ones who were fully trained/fell in with either philosophy) because you could do a lot more character growth with someone who wasn't hindered by adhering to either the Jedi or Sith Credo. How can you really grow someone's character that's essentially supposed to be a pedantic or ascetic monk, or a sadistic assassin or brooding cultist?
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Aug 31, 2012 03:19
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Zaodai posted:Sometimes the Light Side/Dark Side choices don't even make sense. There's an early Trooper quest where a bunch of medical supplies have been stolen from the Republic medical station, and without them a bunch of wounded Republic troopers are going to die. To be fair, the thief was stealing the supplies to help the refugees that were sick and wounded and weren't being helped by the soldiers. Its a very morally grey choice, but Star Wars is a universe that is literally held together by an Absolute Good and an Absolute Evil.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:26
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Holy poo poo all the randomly-generated Chiss names are terrible. EDIT: And with that, voting is closed. Imperial Agent, Chiss female won by a landslide. I'll leave the thread open for a little while then close it until I can post content, which will probably be on Saturday. For now, here's a teaser image: 
Moon Slayer fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 03:28
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1stGear posted:To be fair, the thief was stealing the supplies to help the refugees that were sick and wounded and weren't being helped by the soldiers. Its a very morally grey choice, but Star Wars is a universe that is literally held together by an Absolute Good and an Absolute Evil. Yes, but the thief is also a huge dick to you, and already lost the supplies to bandits because she's loving stupid. It's only morally grey because they give you an option to threaten to kill a child for no reason. If you take out the cartoon villany option, it's pretty much "Do your duty, save the guys who are keeping the town from being overrun" or "Help jerkass thief who has shown she'll get the supplies stolen anyway because she's stupid". Being a refugee doesn't somehow make you inherently more "good" or more deserving of medical care than someone else. The reason they weren't getting supplies from the army in the first place is that the army was already down to almost nothing at all. I get from a narrative prespective that it was supposed to be set up so it was your duty vs the right thing to do, but the way the whole thing was handled it never gave you a reason that the refugees somehow deserved the stolen supplies more than the soldiers who were literally dying in their defense.
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Aug 31, 2012 03:47
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There's another pretty retarded moment in Coruscant. You've got this bit where you learn there's a bunch of guys willing to seek a formal alliance with the Empire, and are pulling some shenanagans to sneak it below the public eye. You get hired by a civilian who heard of this, who asks you to get proof of this so they can unmask it. You go to the droid with the evidence, sabotage it, and get the data... Then some junior bureaucrat runs by and bitches on how you're "SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY", and "ACCORDING TO THE LAW, YOUR OWN OPINIONS DON'T MATTER". The Light Side choice is giving the civilians fake data, the dark side choice is giving them the evidence. 
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Aug 31, 2012 04:35
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sword_man.gif posted:Yeah see the problem is you're assuming KOTOR 2 is still canon.
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Aug 31, 2012 05:43
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Speaking of things to come: Were there ever plans to have the Riddle Man from KOTOR 1 hit you with some riddles instead of a middling boss fight?
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Aug 31, 2012 05:49
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Sylphosaurus posted:Man, to hell with George Lucas. How can someone create such a fun space opera setting and then poo poo so badly all over it? The concepts of moral ambiguity and shades of grey appear to have no place in his vision of Star Wars.
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Aug 31, 2012 05:57
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sword_man.gif posted:Yeah see the problem is you're assuming KOTOR 2 is still canon. From what I've heard from some star wars nerd, this is untrue. Lucas tends to only use stuff he was a part of(with some exceptions) but only bothers to noncanon stuff that causes conflicts. KOTOR 2 is a huge deconstruction of star wars though, but the whole isn't canon stuff is just bioware not really working with the material from kotor 2 when making this game. I could be wrong but I remember someone coming into one of the tor threads and saying this.
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Aug 31, 2012 05:58
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I believe that's correct. Lucas basically doesn't give a poo poo about what other people do in SW, he'll ignore it if he feels like it because his position is "only the movies count, and if there's a discrepancy they trump." Only very rarely do things from the EU make it into the films (I believe Zahn's creation of Coruscant is the best example) From what I've read of Lucas in interviews he's actually pretty chill about it. Just like "hey there's my films, then there's everything else, and I only control the films so that's all I care about [re: canon]" and then he goes on to not discuss how swimming in a vault of money is pretty awesome. Bioware, however, were the ones to basically ignore KOTOR2. if you really want to go down that rabbit hole, the official Star Wars wikia has a long article on canon policy. I suggest not doing it. Psion fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 06:13
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There are KOTOR2 references found within the game. A few of the quest names for your professions (Something about "Master Mical" who was Disciple for... Arch?), and a GIGANTIC one that only a republic would even have a chance to see (and could skip it depending). Also, All the trailers for the game in chronological order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1KM3E0emjg Featuring the retaking of Korribon and the reappearance of the Empire, a MASSIVE fight on Alderaan, and the Sacking of Courescant (more specifically the wrecking of the Jedi Temple). Given how the game is designed, even if it's just for the prologue and a few set points, it might be beneficial to pop out a Republic run through too. Simply for a few history lessons, and showing off a few of the interlocks between flashpoints. Calax fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 07:22
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Sylphosaurus posted:Man, to hell with George Lucas. How can someone create such a fun space opera setting and then poo poo so badly all over it? Wait, are we talking about George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry? It seems to be a tradition I guess. These guys have a specific vision of how their universe operates and don't like to compromise that even if it leads to good storytelling. Gene is worse though since Lucas doesn't really care about the EU, while Gene would actively shut down stories that don't gel with his vision. The Bonding is a good example of this. (Yes all this comes from SFDebris) Anyway, Imperial Agent is a good story. I look forward to how the goonmind reacts to it.
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Aug 31, 2012 12:15
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Calax posted:There are KOTOR2 references found within the game. A few of the quest names for your professions (Something about "Master Mical" who was Disciple for... Arch?), and a GIGANTIC one that only a republic would even have a chance to see (and could skip it depending). References, yes. Taking the ideas from...well, lessee how it's covered in the storyline.
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Aug 31, 2012 13:41
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Nephthys posted:Wait, are we talking about George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry? It didn't help that Rodenberry developed a serious drug problem after TOS. By the time TNG rolled around he spent most of his time as a drooling vegetable with his lawyers making demands of the producers. It's harsh but true to say that the best thing Rodenberry did for TNG was to die.
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Aug 31, 2012 14:05
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I'm going to close the thread for now and re-open it when I've got content to post. I'm just going to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the thread's spoiler policy. Spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline and all planet storylines are not allowed, tagged or untagged. Other class stories may be discussed in spoiler tags. I'm also going to ask that from now on people use tags when talking about what planets we will be going to. Thanks!
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Aug 31, 2012 14:33
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 Hutta Episode 1: A Long Time Ago...  Opening Video (recommended)  Yes, even an MMO is not exempted from the rule that every Star Wars game has to start the same way as the movies. We even get a title crawl, which I have transcribed below.    quote:It is a pivotal time for the SITH EMPIRE. Having secured an uneasy truce with the Galactic Republic, the Empire now seeks allies among the neutral systems.   We fly past Nar Shaada on to the planet below.  Welcome to Hutta. Hope you like the colors yellow and brown.   And here's our heroine, Abeena Moonslayer. (Moonslayer being my account's “legacy name,” shared by all characters on my account. I'll discuss the Legacy system later)   I don't think Hutta's a very nice place, guys.  Abeena enters the local cantina, apparently having reserved a private room there already.  After making sure the coast in clear, we proceed to screw with the entertainment system.     This is our supervisor and the head of Imperial Intelligence, Keeper.  : Secure transmission established. This is Keeper. We may speak freely, agent; prepare to receive your orders. : I'm ready, sir. What's the assignment?It's Abeena's first mission, so she'll be as professional as possible, at least for the moment. : In short? Subversion. You were chosen for this operation because of your exemplary performance during training. Imperial Intelligence needs agents who are capable of working independently in the field. : Now you apply your training to the real world. Nem'ro the Hutt and his organization run Jiguuna, and you're in town to convince Nem'ro to supply the Empire.: Give me background. What are we working for?: Jiguuna is an industrial town and Nem'ro runs most of the industry. The Hutt provides weapons, drugs, and raw materials, but not to us. We believe Nem'ro has been reluctant to lose Republic customers by publicly siding with the Empire. It's time he overcame that reluctance.: Invisible hand of the market be damned.: You're absolutely right.Never hurts to suck up to the boss a little. : We need to know what Nem'ro and his advisors are thinking before we can act. I want you to obtain access to the Nem'ro clan's inner circle. You require a cover identity. One of our contacts, an alien named Jheeg, has prepared a background for you and will provide the details.: I drew an undercover assignment for my first mission? Hell. Yes. So who am I going to be?: You'll be taking the role of a visiting pirate and trader. As I said, our contact will give you the details. Jheeg will be waiting for you at a safe house. Locate him, take what he offers, then report to me.: Are we sure this contact is trustworthy?: Jheeg won't betray us. Whether he succeeds at his assigned tasks is another matter. I'd be more concerned with the rest of the populace. Most of Jiguuna is caught up in a turf war. Some of the gangs involved belong to the Hutts, others are independent. Your combat training should see you through, but expect brutality, and expect to be targeted. Jiguuna isn't friendly to strangers.: Sounds lovely.: If you wanted to go to lovely places, Imperial Intelligence was the wrong organization to join. Now, find Jheeg and report back to me. Keeper out. And with that, it's time to start the game proper. We begin in the Poison Pit cantina.  But, before we leave, looks like a cantina patron wants to talk to us.   : Welcome to Hutta, kid. You're new here. You look like you've got a bright future. : Um...ok?: So let me give you a word of advice. Watch your back out there. Learn how to please the people in charge, and as soon as you can, get out.: I don't plan to stay any longer than I have to. Especially if the planet smells as bad as it looks.: You've got a good head on you! Just hope that when you're ready to leave, you still can. There's a gang war ragin' out there right now. If you want to survive on Hutta, you're going to have to learn the ropes. I can get you experience navigating Hutta's gangs, help you build your reputation...: Here we go...: ...if you help me out.: Of course. There's always a catch.: This is a gangster town, controlled by a greedy and cruel Hutt named Nem'ro. As if there was any other kind. Used to be I worked for Nem'ro's gang. A violent, bloody life. That's why I left, but now my little brother's followin' in my footsteps. Nem'ro's street gang leader, Rex Geer, is my old buddy. I thought he might help get my brother out, but I can't get to Rex for all the fighting. I wasn't a very good gangster. Freeze up at the sight of blood, ya see?: How do I fit in?: If you could blast your way through them and talk to Rex, convince him to let my brother go, I'd be grateful.: Hmm...what would a visiting pirate do? Probably...help him for free? I'll take care of it.: Glad to hear it. If you're successful, I should be able to swing a favor or some credits for it as well. You'll find Nem'ro's boys holed up in Jiguuna, but your going to need to fight your way through Fa'athra's thugs. Be careful. Before we head out, there's a droid sitting by the main entrance trying to get our attention.  : P8-47 = carrying urgent message // Message = sent by Nem'ro the Hutt // Mighty Nem'ro = all powerful ruler of JiguunaYes, droids still communicate in beeps and whistles, but now their noise is subtitled, allowing you to finally know exactly what they are saying. Unfortunately, it's all written like this and will often go by too fast for you to get a good sense of what they are trying to communicate. : Well, I guess I've already got Nem'ro's attention. That was...wait, I've been here for five minutes. How could that be? You must be looking for someone else.: Message = meant for everyone // Nem'ro = making generous offer // P8-47 = deliver message or end up in scrap heap Without asking our permission, the droid plays its message, and we get our first look at Nem'ro the Hutt.  : I am mighty Nem'ro, ruler of Jiguuna! Citizens, hear me: my city is under siege from the craven Fa'athra and his followers. These criminals wage illegal war against me in the streets. Eradicate all of Fa'athra's people who dare to set foot in Jiguuna! Cripple this coward's army and you will know the honor and rewards of serving the great and powerful Nem'ro the Hutt.: Hmm...what would a visiting pirate do? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he'd help for free. I'll see what I can do.: P8-47 = relieved // Nem'ro = turn P8-47 into spare parts if message ignored // P8-47 = not ready for scrap heap And with that, we can finally head out into Jiguuna. We have three missions: make contact with Jheeg and get our cover ID, find Lew Brell's brother, and kill 6 of Fa'athra's gangsters.  Welcome to Jiguuna. It's really just a few huts (haHA! Star Wars pun), the cantina, a spaceport, and Nem'ro's palace, that big building in the background that was pretty much copied directly from Jaaba's palace in Return of the Jedi. You will see set pieces copied from the movies a lot in this game. I'm assuming it was an attempt to give the players an “authentic” Star Wars experience as opposed to laziness or lack of creativity (which Bioware has never been accused of) but perhaps Chewbot can go into some detail about this. Entering Jiguuna triggers an update to our codex. Some codex entries are triggered by entering an area, others are only found by locating and interacting with “lore objects” scattered around the world, usually in out-of-the-way places. Codex posted:Hutts are notoriously territorial creatures, and their settlements reflect this. Enormous urban centers inhabited by thousands of Hutts are few on Hutta; instead, the planet’s industrial towns are scattered across the globe, ruled like city-states by whichever Hutt rises to the top. Jiguuna is one such industrial town, serving as an operational hub for nearby factories, mines and processing centers. Booming and influential two centuries ago, Jiguuna fell into anarchy when its founder, Bakuush the Hutt, died in a mechanical accident. Afterward, Jiguuna’s population of humanoid enforcers, workers and slaves fought for scraps under a succession of would-be ganglords. Eventually, a Hutt called Nem’ro eliminated his competitors and declared himself Jiguuna’s new ruler. Since then, Jiguuna has been on an upswing, facilitating the distribution of shvash gas, spice and weapons. Competition with neighboring Hutts has brought gang warfare back to town, but business goes on, and Nem’ro controls the locals with bribes and brute force.  Over there we have a speeder point, which serves as TOR's taxis. We haven't discovered any other speeder points yet, so this is useless to us at the moment.  The city is crawling with Fa'athra's thugs, with some Nem'ro forces shooting at them. We have to kill 6 of them, so let's explore a gameplay element unique to the Imperial Agent and Smuggler class: cover. Targeting one of the enemies will cause a green outline to appear behind the barricade. Pushing the “cover” button (whatever you have it set to) will cause you to somersault to there, like so:  You get a defense bonus, and a lot of abilities are only usable from cover. Some people like the system, others hate it. I think it mostly depends on your play style.  It doesn't take us long to take out 6 gangsters, and doing so automatically completes the mission and scores us level 2. When you level up some small probes come whizzing in and display a holographic ticker and the Imperial or Republic symbol over your head. It's pretty satisfying. Just outside the cantina is Jheeg's house. The entrance is covered by a green barrier.  Here's how an MMO can get away with having RPG-like cutscenes. Certain areas, or phases, will only allow one player of any given class inside. These areas are completely cut off from the rest of the game world, so things can happen in there that affect the environment in ways they couldn't in the “real” game world.  Here's Jheeg, our contact and the guy who's going to set us up with our cover. He speaks alien language #3, a collection of five or six gibberish lines that Bioware uses when they don't want to pay a voice actor. Usually I don't mind because it's easy to skip through the dialogue, but there are places where it's really jarring and out of place, like when a colonel in the Republic army is incapable of speaking Basic.  : You. You are here softly, from the Empire. I am Jheeg. I am expecting you. I have your new identity.: How did an alien on Hutta end up working for the Empire? Last I checked, the Empire's not too fond of non-humans. And trust me, I know a lot about that.: They offer me money. Much like you? Now, I am helping another Imperial alien.Every now and then, NPC's will react to your race. It's a lot more prevelent on the Imperial side, since the Empire is pretty speciesist. And I will be calling them out on it, trust me. : You know the Red Blade? Small-time pirate. Rich. Mysterious. No on knows true species, gender, color. I planted rumors, made Nem'ro think the Red Blade is coming to visit, enjoy Hutt palace, do business. You will be the Blade. No one will doubt you.  : ...I think I see a flaw in your plan. If there's another Red Blade out there, won't that be a problem?: No. Real Blade is far away now, looking for new trade in the Outer Rim. Out of contact, won't cause trouble.: I highly doubt that, but I guess I've got no choice to go along with it.: Only one concern: I arranged tribute for Nem'ro, gifts imported from Empire, but there was...”interference”...at spaceport. : What kind of “interference?” : Gand steals from docks. Dangerous men, unaware of us. Nem'ro's tribute taken. But I saw everything; I observed well, yes? I have proposed solution. You quickly eliminate gang members. Only method to recover gifts, remove witnesses. : Well, Keeper did say to expect brutality. Let's make this fast and quiet, then.: Gangsters are nearby; this is why we meet here. But advise significant caution. Targets are excellent shots.: So am I.: I will communicate plans to our handlers. Speak again once Nem'ro's tribute has been recovered. Well, of course it couldn't be that simple. Next time: a branching sidequest! A trip to the market! And an audience with a Hutt! Also as a side note: I know some of the portraits are a little bit messy in this update. It's an issue I have since fixed. Moon Slayer fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Sep 9, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 11:35
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Just a question Moonslayer, are we allowed to talk about the class mechanics yet, or are you going in depth about it later? I've spent the last few months grinding the Lvl50 PvP with the cover focused version of the Agent, so I have a certain understanding of the cover mechanic. It is both my greatest friend and worst enemy.
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Sep 1, 2012 12:05
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Kata-Haro posted:Just a question Moonslayer, are we allowed to talk about the class mechanics yet, or are you going in depth about it later? Feel free to 'sperg out about any and all class mechanics that I've mentioned in the updates. As I said in the OP, I am not a serious MMO player so most of that kind of information would be stuff I'd be interesting in learning as well.
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Sep 1, 2012 12:09
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My two cents on cover (consider it a teaser to Kata-Haro's in-depth professional look at cover) is that it works well within the confines they expected you to use it... with the understanding that they never balanced any of their systems around being used in PvP. Cover gives some nice bonuses, and the skills you can use from it as the cover-specific class (we'll be aware of it later in the LP I'm sure) are devastating. The down side is, it locks you into place and the movement mechanic for when it throws you into cover and when it cant are somewhat janky. From a PvP prespective, it works a bit like Focus was going to for Hunters in the World of Warcraft beta, and has the same flaws that got Focus removed. When you're in cover, you are completely stationary. Additionally, you only get cover against targets that are on the opposite side of it from you and what is considered "opposite" doesn't always match up with what you see. So you get good, long ranged damage and some otherwise nice skills, but in exchange you're a complete sitting duck in PvP. If you can use terrain to make it hard for others to get to you, or you've got a strong team around you to peel people off you and keep them from getting near you, you'll do fine. But if someone gets within 10 feet of you, you're getting your poo poo wrecked, full stop.
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Sep 1, 2012 12:28
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Well then here's the basic things you need to know about cover. Like Moonslayer stated when you take cover behind an object it improves your defenses. While it doesn't reduce the damage you take it gives a 20% flat dodge rate to any incoming ranged attacks. I bolded the ranged part because it's important to know that being in cover doesn't protect you from getting beat on by, say, a lightsaber or a wide variety of other skills. It's also useful to know that you only get the "dodge" bonus against targets shooting you if the cover is between you and him. Although the arc of effect seems to be pretty generous when it considers if you're being protected or not. Something most players new to Agents might not know is the ability to "take cover in place". It's an ability that Agents start with but don't start on the quickbars. If you look through your abilities tab you'll find it. What it basically does is make you kneel in place, thus allowing you to activate abilities which can only be used while in cover. Although if you take cover out in the open you won't get the cover defense bonus, if you kneel next to a piece cover then it'll act the same as if you rolled into it. This is useful because of take covers big flaw, which is the fact that you don't directly control where you roll to. That Green outline only appears when you've got a target selected, in which case it'll try to find a suitable "cover point" between you and the target. Sometimes if you're not paying attention to where the outline is you might roll right next to a mob because the only suitable cover the game found is a box about a meter away from the guy. You can shift the outline to different cover by moving your guy around so the game recalculates a better cover spot. Basically cover in place gives you more control on where you want to sit your rear end down and rolling into cover let's you get some distance quickly. Seriously that roll is fast. Theres some other random factoids about cover but they involve some things that we haven't seen yet so I'll hold off till then. I hope this has been educational and not too long winded. EDIT: Oh yeah being in cover roots you in place like Zaodai said. You can move but that'll automatically break cover.Funny how that doesn't even register now. You just kinda accept that that's the spot you picked and getting you to move is their problem now. Kata-Haro fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Sep 1, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 12:34
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On the other hand, if you don't like cover it's not particularly necessary. One of the Agent's advanced classes relies on it, the other not so much.
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Sep 1, 2012 14:22
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The fact that your character is named Moonslayer reminds me of Luke's original name, Starkiller. And that makes the Star Wars nerd in me smile.
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Sep 1, 2012 14:51
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Looks interesting, I like your added dialogue, it fits well, except maybe the lampshading of a pirate accepting quests without a promise of a reward up front.
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Sep 1, 2012 15:25
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Waffleman_ posted:The fact that your character is named Moonslayer reminds me of Luke's original name, Starkiller. And that makes the Star Wars nerd in me smile. Thanks! My user name is completely unrelated to Star Wars, but when I started playing TOR I realized it fit the Star Wars naming scheme of "astronomical term + agent noun" and rolled with it. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Looks interesting, I like your added dialogue, it fits well, except maybe the lampshading of a pirate accepting quests without a promise of a reward up front. She is fresh out of training and probably doesn't have too much real world experience with pirates. That'll change.
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Sep 1, 2012 16:08
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The Old Republic: On the Emperor's Secret Service
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Sep 1, 2012 17:57
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Waffleman_ posted:The fact that your character is named Moonslayer reminds me of Luke's original name, Starkiller. And that makes the Star Wars nerd in me smile. Don't forget that Starkiller gets used in the Force Unleashed games. Glad that you're doing this - still enjoying the game myself and my agent was female chiss with a heart of gold and it really was the best storyline so far. Really would recommend videoing some of it as the voice/story was a major selling point (and some voices are quite good i.e Jadus for the full effect.
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Sep 1, 2012 18:30
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Moon Slayer posted:Welcome to Jiguuna. It's really just a few huts (haHA! Star Wars pun), the cantina, a spaceport, and Nem'ro's palace, that big building in the background that was pretty much copied directly from Jaaba's palace in Return of the Jedi. You will see set pieces copied from the movies a lot in this game. I'm assuming it was an attempt to give the players an “authentic” Star Wars experience as opposed to laziness or lack of creativity (which Bioware has never been accused of) but perhaps Chewbot can go into some detail about this. Well, I don't know if I should mention (take the blame for) this or not but not only was I planet lead (environment art) on Hutta, painted all the terrain textures, did all the lighting and did most of the important worldbuilding, but once switching to design I did all the Hutta Agent cinematics as well. So almost everything in almost every screenshot aside from the characters was made by me. Thanks for playing my game! Sort of weird to watch it like this. SWtOR had a much bigger concept art team than most development studios. We literally concepted and did a review process for every asset in the game, all the way down to the box crates. So, Hutta ended up brown and yellow because the concepts were brown and yellow (to be fair it is a toxic swamp). Oddly enough, we never actually built the assets in-house. Almost every single asset was outsourced to a production house (warehouse full of people with no A/C) in Shanghai and our team of 20-25 in house artists would spend most of our time doing feedback on their work and building the scenes. For the record, this is not unusual in the industry but not particularly satisfying for the artists. Jiguuna at one point was about twice as big but for optimization and gameplay flow we cut it in half. Early on it was pretty apparent that SWtOR was not an "exploration" kind of MMO. Because of the way story is always pushing you along, players wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Anyway, about the Hutt Palace, this was concepted by a guy named Clint and then went through several review passes where it would get homogenized and usually end up just being reminiscent of the movies. My job was to recreate it in 3D. So yeah, many (most?) of the designs were an intentional decision to hammer you over the head with recognizable nostalgia. For the record, working on this game gave me conflicting emotions. We recognized as we made it that there was nothing very great about the art. The engine limitations and art style that were set in place don't make for great portfolio pieces (for example we didn't get functioning alpha for literally two years). While I don't think it's bad, I'm not proud of it either, one of the big reasons I left. So basically, I won't be offended by anything you guys say, feel free to lay into the thing. Anything you guys come up with we've probably discussed more harshly ourselves. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Sep 1, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 21:04
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Propaganda Bob posted:The Old Republic: On the Emperor's Secret Service The Old Republic: The Jedi Who Loved Me
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Sep 1, 2012 21:19
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By the way, Lew Brell in the Poison Pit - if you're an agent he says you "look like you've got a bright future." If you're a bounty hunter he says something else. I'll post more like this as we get to them if Moon Slayer is cool with it.
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Sep 1, 2012 21:28
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Chewbot posted:For the record, working on this game gave me conflicting emotions. We recognized as we made it that there was nothing very great about the art. The engine limitations and art style that were set in place don't make for great portfolio pieces (for example we didn't get functioning alpha for literally two years). While I don't think it's bad, I'm not proud of it either, one of the big reasons I left. So basically, I won't be offended by anything you guys say, feel free to lay into the thing. Anything you guys come up with we've probably discussed more harshly ourselves. Nobody's going to fault you for being kneecapped, my biggest problem was the tedium of pressing one, pressing three, and waiting for a meter to fill before hitting two and four for tens of hours on end. One of my biggest questions about gameplay is: were there ever discussions about having an auto attack option, or even better an FFXII style preset attack pattern available to players?
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Sep 1, 2012 22:12
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Arbite posted:Nobody's going to fault you for being kneecapped, my biggest problem was the tedium of pressing one, pressing three, and waiting for a meter to fill before hitting two and four for tens of hours on end. Don't even get me started on auto attack. This was a hotly debated topic throughout development. Most of us were pro-auto but certain people in charge were very, very anti-auto. The reason was that it made the combat too passive.
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Sep 1, 2012 22:45
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Chewbot posted:Don't even get me started on auto attack. This was a hotly debated topic throughout development. Most of us were pro-auto but certain people in charge were very, very anti-auto. The reason was that it made the combat too passive. Ah. Was the tactical view you could get in the beta by holding shift and scrolling down on the mouse wheel the same or was that always a bug?
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Sep 1, 2012 22:58
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Chewbot posted:Don't even get me started on auto attack. This was a hotly debated topic throughout development. Most of us were pro-auto but certain people in charge were very, very anti-auto. The reason was that it made the combat too passive.  I take it these people in charge had never played an MMO in their lives? Lousy management. They seem to exist to screw up plans that would otherwise work out properly. 
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Sep 1, 2012 23:30
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