Jump to content

Ravager

Members
  • Posts

    229
  • Joined

Reputation

10 Good

Personal Information

  • Location
    With fish people, man. Freaky.
  • Homepage
    http://www.selkath.com
  • Interests
    Being blue.
  • Occupation
    Being a fish.
  1. Whoa, I used to see you posting on these forums a full decade ago--glad to see you're still around. I'm a Founder too. I've been following this game since it was announced in 2008 and have been subscribed since launch. I'm a "ride or die" kind of guy.
  2. How can one both pander to players and reject what players want? How does that possibly make sense?
  3. I want to confirm that this is happening to me as well. I will go onto Nar Shaddaa, for example, and there will be no ambient NPCs until I go into a conversation, and then NPCs appear. This only occurs with NPCs you can't select and don't have nameplates. It's been over a month. It'd be great if BioWare could at least acknowledge that we are experiencing this problem. Someone on Reddit said that streamers weren't even aware that NPCs weren't appearing until it was pointed out to them, so I imagine there are plenty of players who aren't aware that the empty areas are not supposed to appear this way.
  4. I'll be sure to try that now! I'll let you know if anything comes of it. Thanks for the response!
  5. I was told by customer support to post here about this bug and see if any other players are experiencing this. When playing "The Last of His Kind," Broonmark's recruitment mission, choosing the light side option to prevent Broonmark from killing the senator (which appears after you tell Broonmark that it's only his selfish bloodlust talking) results in Broonmark saying, "Peace, Sith...?" before the conversation crashes. Have any other light-side Warriors gotten this? I can't progress with the mission without forgoing light side points.
  6. I'm having another problem with this mission, as a Sith Warrior attempting to recruit Broonmark and keep the Wookiee alive (like the OP). I am selecting the light side option "Make peace with this grudge and move on," but as soon as I do, Broonmark only says "Peace, Sith...?" before the conversation cancels out. When I try to talk to him again, the conversation has reset.
  7. Would you prefer that there be two Immortal Emperors that developed separately from one another with no tie to one another at all? I personally prefer a connection between the two, as a lack of one would indicate some kind of creative bankruptcy. However, I do believe other options could have been considered--I was pretty fond of the idea that they could have been estranged siblings that were plotting against one another, making both common allies and enemies to the player. However, some explanation would be needed as to why their true bodies weren't Pureblood Sith, as seems to be the case with Valkorian, but the same explanation will be required if Valkorian is Vitiate's true body. Regardless, it seems a little obvious, but they kind of wrote themselves into by calling Valkorian the Immortal Emperor. Vitiate or not, it seems a little obvious and strange.
  8. OP: It should automatically unlock once you have purchased the expansion. The content unlocks at level 55 (perhaps a bit earlier) at the mission terminal on your ship.
  9. Here's an interview from Massively where Bruce confirms that the Togruta species option is in the works. He says:
  10. Firstly, no, it's not obvious; not only is that explanation highly convoluted, but it makes no sense. By your logic of Marr being told by Lana who was told by Theron off-screen, we can also surmise that Theron told Satele off-screen, which would defeat the purpose of Marr telling Satele in the first place. There is literally no on-screen evidence that Marr learned of the Emperor's survival, nor his plans, from Theron or Lana before the meeting, so you cannot possibly expect the audience to know where that information came from. Secondly, my point is not that every piece of information should be shown on screen, but rather that something as important as the Emperor's survival should take more time to make an impact. It's similar to Theron and Satele's relationship happening mostly off-screen--why not show that? That's not filler, that is character development. The same goes for the Emperor reveal(s). I think I should perhaps be clearer of what I am trying to say. Yes, of course we could say that it's possible Marr learned of the Emperor's survival from Theron, or Lana, or Baras, or Vowrawn, or any other character, but I am not debating whether it's logical this 'could' have gotten to Marr. It's the story-telling 'technique' of things happening off-screen and being explained in a few words on-screen SWTOR uses all too often that I take issue with. These moments could be so much better if the game actually showed us the revelation of the Emperor's survival and allowed Marr, Satele, and the player character to have some kind of reaction to it. It would make that reveal so much more compelling. I think this thread is aimed less at where Marr received the information as it is surprised at how that the game didn't make a big deal of it, considering how long they have built up these secrets. EDIT: To use another BioWare game as an example: in the first Mass Effect, all information and important action comes on-screen. You learn that the villain, Saren, is holed up on Virmire from the Council after coming back from a mission. Imagine if that scene didn't exist, and instead you came back to the ship only for your crew to already be discussing the mission to Virmire coming up next, and you are expected to know that the mission was happening as you walk in. When you ask who gave this mission, they explain the Council did. That, I believe, is a similar situation to what we are seeing in this SWTOR scene. Information is loosely explained to get you to the next objective, but with no emotional content to make it meaningful, and the lack of information comes from the fact that BioWare assumes every player knows that the Emperor lives/knows his plans from sources outside of their character. I understand the need to allow certain classes to see specific information that's unique to them, but if they are going to change the circumstances from no one knowing the Emperor's plans or his survival to making a mission based around the fact that EVERYONE knows he is alive and plans to consume the galaxy, then they should show it! My rant is over. I still enjoyed it greatly.
  11. I very much enjoyed the expansion's story, but this moment destroys me. There is so much potential to be had that was not utilized regarding the Emperor's current state and plans that did not pan out at all. It infuriates me that they would leave such an important revelation off-screen for Marr, another important revelation off-screen for Satele, and then let the scene where all of this plays out rely on assumptions of the player's knowledge. The scene (both Imperial and Republic) starts off great, discussing the accord, and then out of nowhere Satele/Theron announces that the last of the Emperor's "spark" is alive, and Marr discusses the Emperor's plans for the galaxy. A few questions are immediately raised: How does the Republic know the Emperor lives? When did Marr discover the Emperor's plans and turn against him? The importance of these two questions cannot be understated for the story's impact--not all Republic classes even know the Emperor's plan, let alone that he lives. The Chancellor announced publicly that the Emperor was killed, and was something of importance that only the Wrath knew he lived because the rest of the Empire, Marr included, write him off as being insignificant now. Likewise, the Empire doesn't know his plans. If they did, they would be like how Marr is now, and vehemently oppose him. As a Republic character (and even most Imperial characters), we learn that the Emperor lives from Theron or Satele, respectively, nonchalantly revealing his survival. This is the same man who was celebrated by Satele as having been killed, and learning he is alive should be a major blow for her and every player character. Similarly, there should be some kind of response from the Empire on this subject. Instead, the game assumes that the player has heard from his Sith Warrior friends that the Emperor is alive and the scene speaks of his survival as if we knew that going into this conversation, giving us the bare minimum explanation of how Satele gathered this information from Marr (Imperial)/Theron (Republic) without any of the emotional content. Then we have the question of Marr and the Emperor's plans. Firstly, while the game decides to tell us that Marr gave Satele knowledge of the Emperor's survival, it doesn't give us any explanation of where he got it. Furthermore, knowledge of Vitiate's plans is basically a secret to everyone in the Empire up to this point sans a few who have not revealed them to the wider Empire, as far as the player character is concerned. So, in this scene, we learn the divine leader of the Empire has now been revealed to plan on wiping all life from the face of the galaxy, and the game makes no attempt at explaining how the Empire learned of his survival, nor the gravity of its importance to how the Empire will perceive its almighty leader. We are instead given Marr nonchalantly stating that the Emperor must be killed because we "both know" he's not the same as he once was. We have an investigate option, which then assumes the player knew the Emperor lived all along ("You told them the truth about the Emperor [that my character didn't know about until you just said it]?"). In essence, the game once again assumes that we knew this information and leaves the most interesting content of the revelation off-screen. Sure, we know the Emperor lived from the Warrior and his plans from the Knight, but we as an audience want to see Marr and our character learn for themselves that is realistic to the circumstances the game has set up over 57 levels! This is a recurring problem in the game. The plots are sometimes so complicated that they pack a single conversation with tons of exposition. It's enough that this is the first time Yavin is brought up and that Revan plans to revive the Emperor into corporeal form, but now we are adding exposition about where Marr learned of the Emperor's plans, how the Republic learned Vitiate survived, and how the characters respond to this. It's all so quick that these story beats, which all should have warranted cutscenes for themselves, give off no emotional impact for us as an audience and just barely enough exposition to even make sense. It felt like they added in that Marr knew of the Emperor's plans because for the plot to work they needed Marr to support destroying the Emperor. It makes me sad. I don't think complex plots are the problem, either: I think it's a problem of many cutscenes acting as ways to get to the next major story beat, so the only meaningful ones come towards the end when there is no where left to go. Most cutscenes in the game are filled with exposition to make the circumstances of the coming mission seem plausible, and kind of leave out the emotional content until the finale or Flashpoint. On the conversation regarding the Warrior: of course there are clues hidden around the game, and it 'could' make sense that the Warrior figured it out off-screen and that Marr 'could' have known the Emperor's plans from Baras or Vowrawn, but not only is that highly convoluted (the theory that Marr was in on Baras' plans, while interesting, holds no water except for the fact that Baras asked for his aid first, which could be interpreted in a number of different ways) but it also is not interesting to learn these events took place off-screen. Learning the Emperor's plans or his survival should be for every class something beyond simple exposition as it is now. Without framing the Wrath discovering the Emperor's plans, the audience will not connect the dots.
  12. I signed up the moment the website came up, but the site was crashing all over the place, so it took an hour to get properly registered. Not that it matters anymore; I know plenty of people who joined the site late in the game but have been playing since launch. I have been continuously subbed since launch with a CE, and I've loved this game ever since. I guess I tend to be content with anything Star Wars, and something like this has given me literally hundreds of hours of fun. I do miss the pre-launch days, though. It's crazy to think that we are now just getting to the point where the game has been live as long as the pre-launch forums were. All kinds of mayhem happened on the forums, which was fun. Quite a community existed at that point, though I didn't really participate much. The first day was crazy--people were dissecting every detail of the few concept pieces and screenshots we had (people were getting used to the new style, which has since been toned down, and were critical of the placeholder "lightsaber bats" and "hairdryer blasters"). We had no idea about anything related to classes, world, or even branching storytelling. We knew all of that was there, it had to be, but it was fun waiting each Friday for new content. It was also what I see as the golden age of BioWare: it was post-Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins were hotly anticipated, so we had a lot to look forward to. I obsessively checked the BioWare forums to get updates on all three of these games, and it seemed like the marketing for the games was much stronger back then (the SWTOR developer videos truly made me excited to play the game, and these updates were much more frequent). Ray and Greg really tied the BioWare 'culture' together, I thought. I hope James Ohlen stays with BioWare--he's all that is keeping that culture tied to the company at Austin now that 'the Doctors' and most of BioWare's original design team for TOR are gone (not to mention influential KOTOR individuals such as Casey Hudson). Also, launch was the bomb. My account link: http://www.swtor.com/community/member.php?u=4484
  13. To be honest, I don't even know if Disney knows if SWTOR is canon. So far, all references to the pre-Phantom Menace Old Republic in new canon material/Star Wars.com Databank have been vague statements about the Sith being "an ancient order" and the Jedi being defenders of peace for "a thousand generations," giving them leeway to make it canon if they so wished (or if it fits with their new plans for expanding into the era). At the first Community Cantina after the announcement, they said pretty firmly that SWTOR fell into the "EU," meaning it was being considered Legends. However, at a recent cantina in Boston (I may be wrong about the location, but it was in the window of the past few months), they were more ambiguous regarding SWTOR's canonical status. I'll find a link. EDIT: http://dulfy.net/2014/08/15/swtor-gamescom-2014-cantina-tour-fan-flash-drive/ Not definitive either way, and may just be a fancy way of saying the game is not canon but still works with LucasArts, but the fact they didn't outright say 'no, it's not canon' as they did earlier in the year is somewhat interesting.
×
×
  • Create New...