Instead of KotOR 3 we got: Star Wars: The Old Republic

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Instead of KotOR 3 we got: Star Wars: The Old Republic

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Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Internet Kraken posted:

I just want to know if 4 is slightly overweight or straight up obese. The later would be hilarious.

On females the only thing body type affects is cup size (on the scale of large/huge/enormous), aside from 3 which is She-Hulk. On males 4 is... not Porkins but pretty close.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 01:19

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:15

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

It wasn't the best game for me, but what really killed it was load times. Y'all probably haven't heard of the 30% loading bug, it hit a relatively small percentage of people and I was one of the lucky ones. At 30% the loading screen would just freeze for 2-5 minutes depending on planet size. They said it was due to poor system specs, but as far as we could tell it was system-agnostic. Low end, high end, NVidia, ATI, we couldn't find anything we had in common and so couldn't even begin to figure out how to fix it. I'm sure the guys on Bioware's end had the same problem.

It made the game unbearable. Wipe in a flashpoint, I get to load the planet, hit the gate, and load the flashpoint again. 5 minutes later I'd get back in with everyone else. Warzones involved getting on my ship (only place with a decent load time) and trying to make it out of the Huttball gate before the game dumped me for AFK, since it started the counter while you were loading.

That said, I liked the class stories, at least the first one I did. After that the "fight your way to the same place and walk into a different door for a minute" became a bit apparent, but that's kinda a necessary evil of the format they chose. I'd have preferred to have a way to skip planets, but the class-story quest prevented that for understandable reasons. The class quests led you to almost every corner of every planet, so while the story was different on another guy there wasn't much for the explorer personality to appreciate on replay aside from the occasional class-specific area that wasn't just one room with a boss. It's the kind of game I really wanted to be better than it could be.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 05:26

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

CommissarMega posted:

Say, I heard the game's going F2P- any idea when? I might actually play it for the storyline if that's true.

Only current date last I heard was "this fall." My money's on either a week before the 25th hoping to swipe guys from Pandaria, or two weeks afterward to soak up fallout once the panda buzz burns off, but that's a complete guess no better than that of a blind monkey.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 08:17

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

Have to ask though, every time someone brings up this game, the Imperial Agent gets mentioned for being awesome. Can someone just give me a short version as to why it's so highly regarded?

Aside from the style it was the storyline used in a lot of promo stuff, and so got the most attention and polish. I believe there are five different ways the overall story can end, even though it doesn't diverge much in the middle (if you choose decision A or B it'll affect things later but you're still going to continue on to do job C for guy D). Everyone else gets one, maybe 2, that don't reflect any game choices. SW gets a heavy tonal shift if they're light or dark (but you still do the same stuff to the same people), not sure anyone else can really influence things more than cosmetically.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 20:59

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

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'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.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2012 03:00

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Kata-Haro posted:

EDIT: Huh Jedi doesn't trigger spell check but Sith does? Does Jedi mean something else that i'm not aware of?

Jedi is in more conventional usage. Yes I feel like a horrible person for typing that sentence.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 03:09

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

We are Empire, not Sith, and the Empire are only brutal thugs to people who aren't in the Empire. And slaves. And aliens. And anyone who looks at us askance. But not humans, and these people are humans. At least the father is, I have my doubts about that kid.

...where was I? Ah yes, gently caress da Sith, let them go. That kid would end up hitting his own head with his lightsaber anyway.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 11:07

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Quiet Python posted:

I love my Smuggler, he's the handsomest man in seven systems. So why the hell does just about every piece of Smuggler headgear involve a crash helmet and/or a face mask? I want to show off that beard and those flowing locks, not cover them up!

Actually, I don't think I've found any headgear for any class thus far that I would consider wearing in public. Now if only we could hide our companions' head slots, too.

This LP actually motivated me to pick up my Agent again, and get my Smuggler to level 45. I've never actually maxxed out a character in an MMO before, but if I don't run out of story before that happens, I just might do it.

Does anybody else find it difficult to play Dark-Side characters? I just can't seem to take any joy in it. I've tried starting a DS Bounty Hunter three times and I keep getting to a point where I don't want to be a dick anymore. Even my attempt at playing a Sith Inquisitor couldn't stay Dark, though he has a great evil voice.

The Sith Inquisitor full-helmets would look nice with a hooded robe. Unfortunately they force the hood down even if you have a chestpiece with one.

And yeah, DS feels oogy in most cases. Even the Inq I was running power-hungry tends to pick LS choices when it doesn't directly benefit her. She gets some odd lines, like entire conversations were recorded with an assumption the player would go all-top or all-bottom even on the non-LS/DS choices. It makes her sound insane when she says one line in a normal voice and the next one giddy with evil glee. Other classes have that a bit but SIFemale seems to be rather extreme. Female SWarr's silly choices were dark sarcasm, which went well with her other more formal responses.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 01:00

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Quiet Python posted:

The Smuggler story had a very different feel from my Jedi characters' stories.

When you're a Knight, you're basically told "Here's a goal, and here's a whole bunch of obstacles for you to smash your way through. At some point, you will have the opportunity to make a speech before kicking rear end." You're dealing with military officers and Jedi masters and high-ranking diplomats, because you're a Jedi and you're kind of a big deal.

When you're a Smuggler, you're basically told "Here's something you want, and there's people who don't want you to have it. But there is a crazy hare-brained scheme that just might get you what you want and screw over these other guys, so get out there and lie, cheat, flirt and steal to get what you need to pull this off." You're dealing with card-sharps and crime bosses and bounty hunters, because those are the circles you run in and those are the people you know.

At the end of the day, it's still collecting MacGuffins and punching Big Bads in the dick, but the flavor is different.

Yeah, Bounty Hunter is "go to this planet and hunt this bounty" but they have some nice ways of changing up the style of it at first. One you're making the guy come to you, another they're barely slipping through your fingers at every stop, and so on. Feels like they forget that in the second half though, and the later planets are all "you know where the guy is, but you've got to jump through hoops before you get there." It's less of a chase/hunt and more "find keycard, get bounty."

EDIT: on another note, I know the Imperial stance is "gently caress aliens, except for Chiss" but I can't recall, did the Chiss do something to earn their respect or is it because their spies and fleet could wipe the Empire out if they wanted to?

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 02:20

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

It would be amusing if the Sith stayed in robes but added a lot of decoration and bling as they got more awesome and ran out of people to tell them not to (the Lucas effect) while Jedi, being more lenient in their training regimen, started out with a lot of personalization and flair and removed it as they mastered the Force. A Jedi badass advertises himself by the mere fact that he doesn't NEED to advertise how awesome he is.

Hard to put into a game though.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 07:00

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

That's right folks, BH's nemesis for chapter 1 is Justin Bieber.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2012 00:07

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I can never not see Baras as Grimoire Weiss.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2012 05:57

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

In contrast (not that this alone makes it a better/worse game), in Guild Wars 2 my sylvari's first quest was to help a guy whose male partner was getting trounced in a duel. I could ask Caithe about that and it was just "yeah, sylvari don't really care about that kind of thing." It was a little odd to see it dealt with matter-of-factly when so many games either tiptoe around it or put a "hey we have gay characters" sign on the box.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2012 03:51

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

For people asking "why would they even do this" the reason is to separate PvP gear from PvE. PvPers always complain when raiders come into the fight and compete with their high-end gear from space dragons or whatever, and there's similar animosity the other way for people who "easy pvp" their way into getting geared for raids. I'm not sure why neither WoW nor SWTOR has had the bright idea of making expertise/resilience constant. Just say "if you have a full set of PvP of any tier you will have 1000 expertise, and you'll have reduced stats otherwise compared to PvE. That way you can't cannonball their pool and they can't drive through your volleyball match." Instead they include that stat in the "numbers go up" part of gear stats, and so it can easily spiral out of control. Particularly expertise, which is exponential. Live longer, hit harder, AND heal for more?

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 00:29

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

So in conclusion, every planet sucks. The stories can be okay, the planets suck.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 23:58

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Feinne posted:

Also this is a little thing but please tell me the boss taunts in later dungeons are at least better delivered. That poor Jedi that was the final boss sounded terribly bored that she was pulling you all in for a PBAoE attack.

I can't really hold boss mechanics against Bioware because there's only so many ways you can make things interesting, but every time I fought her I would fill my Ventrillo channel with "closer... come closer... AND BURN!"

# ¿ Sep 23, 2012 08:24

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

CommissarMega posted:

So she's just another alien, big whoop. You see stranger people on your way to work. Ever see a kel Dor or Cerean? Woo, those dudes is weird, yo! And you try being nice and polite when an Anzat's at your counter! You don't know where he's gonna make a withdrawal from, your bank or your brain!

Those aliens all look alike to me.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2012 07:30

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Death From Above is the best ability. I always started giggling when I hit that button.

And I'd say the Empire stuff isn't ALL over-the-top twisted (though my memory may be faulty) but on Dromund Kaas it's pretty much par for the course. I'm surprised they didn't hide an easter egg of a bunch of Sith dancing and singing The Inquisition in a basement somewhere.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2012 11:29

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I'd say go for a Twi'lek, it fits with the Inquisitor storyline pretty well. I'm surprised one can even pick Sith, did you legacy unlick it?

# ¿ Sep 30, 2012 22:23

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Catsworth posted:

Alright so take two. Or rather test post two. How do these look for quality/size wise? (I stole other posters sizes so don't anyone dare say they're too big! )

Looks good to me.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 03:50

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

The Lone Badger posted:

I don't believe somebody's managing to do a bounty hunter run without referencing The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates all the time. You're a better man than I.

It's the Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries these days, and has been changed as such in the archives. Some lawyers wrote Howard Tayler a very polite cease-and-desist a few years back asking him to change it. Defense of copyright and all that.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 16:41

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Bad Moon posted:

Oh no! Morty found the One Ring!

One mindripper to rule them all, one mindripper to find them,
one mindripper to bring them all and in the darkness mindrip them.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 09:01

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Catsworth posted:

And now it's possible to share Zash's unofficial nickname: Darth Barbie.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 15:47

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

How can we do anything but like Khem Val? He's OUR 8-foot tall force-eating monster!

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 08:01

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

CommissarMega posted:

Do I even want to know?

You'll find out. Everyone in a class gets the same companions.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 05:05

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I was kinda being vague on purpose guys, figured we could wait until she picked a side to discuss the other one. So much for that.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 05:31

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Up Up and Away by the 5th Dimension.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2012 05:31

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

"And yet, and yet, in the depths of his curly mind he thought he could hear the tiny voice that would grow louder over the years, the voice that haunts all demon kings, everywhere: look out, behind you..."

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 07:12

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

When there's something strange in the Sith temple, who ya gonna call?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2012 14:36

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Dis you pipe in your own music or did they finally fis those boombox droids? At some point they disabled their music.

And yeah, the final Hammer Station boss is a bit of a bitch.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 01:33

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I can't recall if it was mentioned here or the MMOHMO thread, but in beta companions apparently could be equipped with kits for the various roles. With that option being able to kill em off makes more sense, but when roles were locked (I assume to make companions feel more distinct, or when they started limiting the NPC-specific armor to roles) it was something that necessarily had to be dropped.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 18:38

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

SirPhoebos posted:

^^^Basically it comes down to managing expectations. XCOM: Enemy Unknown does a very good job with this. You are quickly made aware that your troops are going to die and they're going to die a lot. So when it happens, it still stings, but you don't feel like throwing the keyboard through the monitor because this is exactly what you signed up for.

I love how the tutorial mission forces you to place soldiers out of position so they get killed.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2012 03:22

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

whowhatwhere posted:

So, RockPaperShotgun had an interview with the "lead systems designer" of TOR, Damien Schubert. It's pretty interesting generally but then there's this one bit:

Which...doesn't seem to track given what gets said in the black bars.

I'm going to try to dodge any discussion of quality (though it'll probably come through in word choice, it's no secret I'm not fond of SWTOR) to look at what makes GW2's "story-driven" levelling and SWTOR's "story-driven" gameplay different. Because I find these kinds of things interesting.

For SWTOR they said "okay, we need a story that takes the player through every planet they would visit" and did so; the player's story takes them to every point on a planet they may want to visit, which along with the planet's own story quest gives multiple reasons to go to any particular quest hub. It lets you craft a story and be sure the player will see all of it, the downside is that if there's a particularly annoying place (players don't have to agree on which one it is, but there are a few that always come up) it holds the story hostage until you go there.

In GW2 story quests are single quests every 2 levels or so. They don't care where you're making your own story and exploring the rest of the time, you can walk out of a completely different zone, do the story quest, and go back to that completely different zone. The story is a supplement to the rest of the gameplay, rather than being the sole motivator/metric. Painful levelling spots (Orr, all of Orr) can be avoided, aside from an occasional dash to a quest point.

So SWTOR takes the story and uses it to say "this is how you have to go through the planets. If you skip it and go to Kashyyk that's fine, but when you come back we're gonna sent you to Kashyyk anyway." GW2 says "you can go through zones however you like, but there's a bit of story this way. Do it whenever, you may get pointed to a zone you've been to but that just means you can warp right there and then leave." To GW2's credit it also lets them diverge things, where one choice can take you to two different zones instead of doing different things in the same place.

In SW's defense, the stories are quite nice the first time. They just don't give any reason to play another guy of the same class, and the overlap of everything beside class quests makes playing the same faction that much more of a slog as well. GW2 has separate stories for each race until 30, with their own internal variances picked at character creation, then merge into three order questlines with a few choices of places to go, then three "lesser race"-interaction questlines, then a bottleneck, then a choice of three again... and so on. There's less there, every character winds up telling the same story, but how they go about doing it has enough options to stay interesting for at least 2-3 alts or so.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2012 21:30

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I can't recall, is this one of those times you're allowed to say no and (gasp!) it actually sticks? I know Inquisitors get one of those on a later planet that took me by surprise.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2012 20:40

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Character choices for classes sounds awesome. Kojak could make a good LS-but-savvy JK or Trooper.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2012 21:58

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I liked this little bit. Quinn's nature had me positive he'd wind up listening in on me (not slimy or anything, something I couldn't put my finger on paired with my own genre-savviness), so they seem to confirm that betrayal but then "I wasn't spying on you, I heard everything because I was listening to someone else listening to you."

EDIT: Keep in mind the investigator was originally supposed to return empty-handed, we were tying up loose ends before she reached them with plausible deniability. Pure damage control (can't change what they already suspect, just shut off confirmation and interrogation) which will now extend to the investigator herself.

Bruceski fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Oct 25, 2012

# ¿ Oct 25, 2012 04:54

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

The Great Hunt's a big deal. If you win you're one of the best of the best bounty hunters around, and a BH lives or dies by his reputation. It gets you into an elite group of BHs who share tips, resources, and drinking stories. When rich folks need a job done, they'll come to you.

Taro Blood wants that fame. He'll do anything to get it. Last time he entered he pissed off the other hunters so much that they all beat him up. So now he's healed, back with a grudge, dismissed the whole thing as "they're just intimidated by how awesome I am" rather than changing his ways, and sees you as a challenge to his victory. He removes challenges to his victory any way he can, as long as it doesn't involve him doing it himself. It's only cheating if you get caught.

If Taro were to actually win, I like to think that Mandalore would punch him out at the award ceremony.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2012 04:57

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Barf Wight posted:

I was bored and had an idea for something, the result is kinda not what I had hoped for, but that's what I get for not being Drew Struzan! That was kind of the style I was going for I guess, floating heads (the good kind) and all that good stuff. Also, yes Lamadar and his spaceship are on there twice, can you see what else is not as it is supposed to be?

Had some text on it but

Three-Mandalorian moon?

# ¿ Oct 28, 2012 18:38

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Pretty sure Grandfather is the one on Balmorra. Dromund Kaas is... The First? I think so.

One thing all heroic world bosses have is an intimidation aura that makes companions cower. No cheesing it with a tank spec and NPC healer, but my mercenary BH at max level soloed every one until the 6th planet as a "beacause I can" thing. That 6th one did enough damage once enraged that I couldn't heal myself AND kill it, so it put a timer on the fight that my dps couldn't quite match. If I went back to the game and got better gear he might be managable.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2012 03:37

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:15

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Moon Slayer posted:

Now that I'm feeling better, I updated the table of contents and added a fan art section. Also, there should be an Abeena update coming in a few hours or so. Thanks for your patience.

EDIT: Yeah, Grandfather is the big alien cow on Balmorra. I snuck in and stole an egg from that area, any idea what I'm supposed to do with it?

After my time, but some google-fu turned up that it's a minipet.

quote:

How to hatch an Orobird Egg
To hatch the Orobird Egg, you need to go to Tatooine. From there, you want to:
1. Get the Water buff from a Water Vaporator. (There's some right near the taxi area in Anchorhead and one right in the middle of the second town on the Imperial Side).
2. Head to the Czerka Archaeological Site in the Dune Sea and go behind it (At about -2410 by -335). There will be a bunch of solar panels and behind one, an odd machine that has solar panels facing inside.
3. Go under the strange machine and stay there until your egg hatches. It will then turn into an exhaustion zone (and take away the water buff) once the egg has hatched and you will need to run out.

Only hatch ONE EGG AT A TIME or it can glitch.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2012 04:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Instead of KotOR 3 we got: Star Wars: The Old Republic

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