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The Kira return thread


OldVengeance

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So one of the biggest things that stood out to me from the Bad Feelings Podcast with Charles and Eric was he mentioned the Kira return again.

 

He said he is aware the Kira (and Scourge) are at the top of the list when it comes to fanbase anticipation.

 

And what he said was at this point he's sort of torn between finding a good balance of just getting her back quickly and making her return feel more important.

 

He also said that they had put together another short reunion for in the vein of all the short Alliance Alerts that have been out recently, but he also seemed interested in feedback about what people wanted.

 

"Do we do something that we can get done quickly and get her back, or do we try to do something a little bigger because we have kept her away from you for so long? Let me know, what do y'all think? I don't know."

 

He had previously said that the Kira and Scourge reunion wasn't in 5.10 because "They wanted to put a little more beef on that" which suggested they had something at least a little more than the standard reunions planned.

 

Speaking for myself, I don't want to have waited all these years for an underwhelming return. I mean we've waited this long. I think I'd prefer a longer reunion.

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"Do we do something that we can get done quickly and get her back, or do we try to do something a little bigger because we have kept her away from you for so long? Let me know, what do y'all think? I don't know."

 

He had previously said that the Kira and Scourge reunion wasn't in 5.10 because "They wanted to put a little more beef on that" which suggested they had something at least a little more than the standard reunions planned.

 

Speaking for myself, I don't want to have waited all these years for an underwhelming return. I mean we've waited this long. I think I'd prefer a longer reunion.

I'd rather wait longer to get her and Scourge back but have a satisfying return than get done with it in an underwhelming fashion, especially since they're both important companions to my main character.

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I think the ideal moments for Kira to return have come and gone multiple times.

 

* She could have been in the KOTFE/ET Story ... seeing as she (and scourge) have a backstory that connects them to the Emperor.

* She could have been with the Republic on Iokath.

* She could have been on Ossus with Nadia & Doc.

 

I'm not really sure what you could do at this point. Maybe they've both been captured by the next big bad guy/girl?

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I think the ideal moments for Kira to return have come and gone multiple times.

 

* She could have been in the KOTFE/ET Story ... seeing as she (and scourge) have a backstory that connects them to the Emperor.

* She could have been with the Republic on Iokath.

* She could have been on Ossus with Nadia & Doc.

 

I'm not really sure what you could do at this point. Maybe they've both been captured by the next big bad guy/girl?

 

I hear what you are saying but with Ossus just a lead-in to 6.0 I feel the return during that would make sense.

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+1

 

Waiting a couple of months longer doesn't matter anymore at this point. Kira and Scourge would have made a lot of sense during the Valkorion storyline but instead they gave us companions who played no role otherwise. I'd prefer a new story line and Kira / Scourge as a big part of it.

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What is the big deal with Kira anyway? There is like 500 threads about this almost every week.

 

She will return with 2 minutes cutscenes and she will stay in your companion list forever without further dialogues and/or cutscenes. This is not original SWTOR anymore, that entire kotfe/kotet messed up everything, I don't get the same SWTOR feeling anymore.

 

5.10 was better than kotfe/kotet/theron combined in my honest opinion.

 

I got my Ensign temple back in 55 second cutscene, and done. She is locked and meaningless forever. I waited for like 4-5 years to get her in 55 seconds. Same thing will happen to Kira as well, so be ready to get angry and spam the forum with mad posts.

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I'd rather wait longer to get her and Scourge back but have a satisfying return than get done with it in an underwhelming fashion, especially since they're both important companions to my main character.

 

Which is what we've said about every single companion, but apparently they didn't give a rat's rear end about what we wanted for them :mad:

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Which is what we've said about every single companion, but apparently they didn't give a rat's rear end about what we wanted for them :mad:

Pretty much this yes.

 

Vector's return really made me sad, it was rather sweet by itlsef, but he could've played a role with the Alliance for all classes considering his diplomatic skills, and even more so considering his ties with the Killiks.

I think my IA actually dreamed about that reunion because she was missing her dead husband too much... :(

Edited by Goreshaga
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Pretty much this yes.

 

Vector's return really made me sad, it was rather sweet by itlsef, but he could've played a role with the Alliance for all classes considering his diplomatic skills, and even more so considering his ties with the Killiks.

I think my IA actually dreamed about that reunion because she was missing her dead husband too much... :(

It's really unfortunate that Vector was given so little content, especially because it's not realistic that his status should've been completely unknowable to us until the end of KotET. With our various Imperial contacts - including Empress Acina, who should've been able to tap anyone we couldn't - it makes no sense that he was off the grid for so long. As you say, he would've made lots of sense as an Alliance member.

 

Yes, I am still salty that only a handful of LIs got chapter returns when every single one deserved them. So whatever can be done to make Kira's return more substantial, I think they should take the time to do it. Once released, solid content is solid forever, and flimsy is flimsy forever.

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Yes, I am still salty that only a handful of LIs got chapter returns when every single one deserved them. So whatever can be done to make Kira's return more substantial, I think they should take the time to do it. Once released, solid content is solid forever, and flimsy is flimsy forever.

Well, i'm quite lucky that the only LI i really liked that did not come back through a chapter was Vector, but it kinda ruined the romance to me though.

 

I fully agree that all LIs should've been returned through chapters and not 2 min cutscenes and be done with it. It could even have changed a bit my dislike for some of them.

I spend a fair amount of time wanting to destroy SCORPIO during my IA paythrough, though arriving at the end of her story on Iokath, i actually found myself happy to let her go find peace and freedom, that was a satisfying farewell to a character i really started out dislinking a lot, and now i actually don't hate her anymore.

On the other hand i started out not liking Ashara that much, but her 2 min return trully made me hate her, especially since a trully DS SI who should not accept her behaviour has no way to actually act on it.

If she came back through a whole chapter, available to every character, proving that she could be usefull and that she could go along with some of my toons, i may have disliked her less than i started out, now, it's unikely i'll ever stop hating her.

 

Now back to Kira and Scourge, i really like them both (while not being particularly interested in any of them as romance options), and even if i have to wait for them to be the last companions to come back, i really hope, i'll get a nice return. Doc and Nadia's were pretty good, i'd like something as good as that, and for them to be available to all classes.

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The funny thing is that I thought Vector's Alert was actually perhaps the best one they've done. My Agent didn't romance him, but I legitimately thought his romance reunion was very moving. But I can see why it's still frustrating for his fans, and after the shortness of the Jaesa romance reunion, I really would want Kira's to be something more.

 

Anyway, It's true that the most logical time for Kira and Scourge to return was before Valkorion's defeat. But I think it's still possible to give them a meaningful return, especially if the coming storyline is about Jedi and Sith.

 

I'm going to repost my thoughts on Kira's absence from an earlier thread:

 

My own attempt at a "best possible explanation" for Kira's absence is that she was approached by Scourge sometime after she escaped from Vaylin. He learned what had been going on with Valkorion and the Outlander and concludes that he still needs to destroy Vitiate's original body (or something) for the Outlander to truly be able to succeed at stopping the Sith Emperor for good. And he tells Kira that he needs her help with this because she is a former Child of the Emperor.

 

He also tells her that if she were to return to the Jedi Knight before they succeed, Vitiate would know of the danger they posed and stop them, so she needs to forsake her desire to see the Hero of Tython in order to save them. Kira knew that Valkorion was trying to posses the Knight so she reluctantly agreed.

 

I would totally buy that for why she hasn't returned yet, at least for up until the end of KOTET. Perhaps for one or both of them got swept up in the Jedi-Sith conflict after the fall of the Eternal Empire?

 

I think Charles did mention he had ideas for content having to do with Vitiate's original Pureblood body, I'd always hoped that his idea for Kira and Scourge's reunions had something to do with that. I don't think we ever learned what the true purpose of the Children of the Emperor was either, maybe this could explore that. I'm not sure what they would do to deal with that or how, I figured there must be a way. I guess they could theoretically do a "Kira and Scourge Chapter" like they did with HK, but that seems unlikely.

 

I will say that I hope they tie in what we heard about Kira to her story. Because both Ranos and Hexid say that Nadia was constantly searching for you, and then disappeared. Yet we never learn why she stopped trying to find you and went to Ossus.

 

And especially because between joining some anti-Arcann rebels and later learning the Knight was alive, Kira sounds like she had quite an interesting adventure. She tried to free them before Lana did, but Vaylin attacked her team and stopped her. I'm curious to know what happened there. Maybe she dueled Vaylin and escaped? Maybe Scourge saved her from Vaylin? Maybe Scourge tipped Vaylin off so that his plan to destroy Vitiate's body wasn't ruined. Maybe both?

Edited by OldVengeance
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My own attempt at a "best possible explanation" for Kira's absence is that she was approached by Scourge sometime after she escaped from Vaylin. He learned what had been going on with Valkorion and the Outlander and concludes that he still needs to destroy Vitiate's original body (or something) for the Outlander to truly be able to succeed at stopping the Sith Emperor for good. And he tells Kira that he needs her help with this because she is a former Child of the Emperor.

 

He also tells her that if she were to return to the Jedi Knight before they succeed, Vitiate would know of the danger they posed and stop them, so she needs to forsake her desire to see the Hero of Tython in order to save them. Kira knew that Valkorion was trying to posses the Knight so she reluctantly agreed.

This would be my guess as well, especially considering that

Doc said he was with Scourge and Kira quite some times, even after the Republic was defeated by the Eternal Empire, untill Scourge went on a hunt that had something to do with the Sith Emperor, and that Kira seemed to understand what it was all about.

Now i wonder who could be Scourge's mysterious contact within the Empire though.

 

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Kira and Scourge should've been in KOTFE/ET. Their entire backstories are about the Emperor, and the main character for both KOTFE and KOTET was clearly meant to be the JK.

 

Their stories alone warrant a bigger return than any other companions in the game. BW has to explain where they've been all this time and why, specifically, they weren't there when you confronted Valkorion. They HAVE to. That's just Storytelling 101.

 

I appreciate them listening to players who want them back quicker, but the way those characters have been written dictates a reunion with much more weight behind it. A 1-minute cutscene will not suffice. Not even close.

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I'd rather wait longer for a better return for Kira but I don't have any confidence it would be better. They promised that if players waited for companion returns they'd be 'meaningful' and well, we see how meaningful those two-minute-wonders were. :rolleyes:

 

In terms of story I do wonder if Kira's come around to working with Sith because she seems to have teamed up with Scourge, but I do worry that she would refuse to go with an Imperial-siding JK.

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I'd rather wait longer for a better return for Kira but I don't have any confidence it would be better. They promised that if players waited for companion returns they'd be 'meaningful' and well, we see how meaningful those two-minute-wonders were. :rolleyes:

Well... I wouldn't say the two-minute returns aren't meaningful at all. I think some of them packed a ton of meaning into their brief spell. I'm thinking particularly of the returns for Vector and Iresso, which show both characters quite profoundly changed by their experiences. I'm still unpacking that content in my mind months later. I just wish they could've been deeper and better-developed, to the length of a full chapter - which also would've shown other characters reacting to and interacting with them. That would've been even more meaningful. Bah, but I've discussed this so many times with you, I might as well be a broken record. :)

 

Of course, those are the better of the two-minute returns. Some I did find genuinely forgettable, like Corso/Risha and Mako/Akaavi. I truly can't find much meaning in those, and I absolutely don't want Kira and Scourge's returns to fall into the same category.

Edited by Estelindis
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Well... I wouldn't say the two-minute returns aren't meaningful at all. I think some of them packed a ton of meaning into their brief spell. I'm thinking particularly of the returns for Vector and Iresso, which show both characters quite profoundly changed by their experiences. I'm still unpacking that content in my mind months later. I just wish they could've been deeper and better-developed, to the length of a full chapter - which also would've shown other characters reacting to and interacting with them. That would've been even more meaningful. Bah, but I've discussed this so many times with you, I might as well be a broken record. :)

 

Of course, those are the better of the two-minute returns. Some I did find genuinely forgettable, like Corso/Risha and Mako/Akaavi. I truly can't find much meaning in those, and I absolutely don't want Kira and Scourge's returns to fall into the same category.

 

I don't know - as much as I agree that they unpacked some very heavy stuff in the Vector and Felix returns, I feel like "meaningful" implies more than two minutes and then never seeing the characters again. I'd take that to mean that the companion would get a chapter or some story content of substance, not just popping up for sixty seconds and then going away.

 

The two minute returns, to me, felt like they were saying "fine, fine, you want the characters back? Here. Now shut up." or them trying to do damage control because by then the characters had been gone for two years and they really needed to find ways to get them back quickly in the absence of other story content.

 

And on some level I do also think it was them doing what they could with very limited resources, but I still wish they'd at least done some fact-checking and had better scripts for most of those returns. Even with the ones for Nadia and Jaesa I was throwing my hands in the air - DS Jaesa didn't turn on the HoloNet like Andronikos, and neither she nor Nadia recognized Lana.

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I'd rather wait longer to get her and Scourge back but have a satisfying return than get done with it in an underwhelming fashion, especially since they're both important companions to my main character.

 

This^^^. I want both of their returns to have a good story with it, and very meaningful. I don;t want it cheap like so many others that should Never have happened.

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Even with the ones for Nadia and Jaesa I was throwing my hands in the air - DS Jaesa didn't turn on the HoloNet like Andronikos, and neither she nor Nadia recognized Lana.

Oh yes, that was maddening. The Dark Jaesa mission was on the PTS and I gave feedback about that aspect of the writing, but no. I guess they didn't want our opinions about that. :(

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Oh yes, that was maddening. The Dark Jaesa mission was on the PTS and I gave feedback about that aspect of the writing, but no. I guess they didn't want our opinions about that. :(

 

Ah, I didn't see that - that was great feedback. Someone else mentioned somewhere that all of the companions are in the scenes that open SoR, and you're all going to Rishi together, which would imply they've met Lana and Theron.

 

Those moments where Lana and the companions haven't recognized each other have been so frustrating. Nadia's..."Is that lady a Sith?" Yes, Nadia. She is. YOU MET HER BEFORE. *headdesk*

Edited by IoNonSoEVero
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Those moments where Lana and the companions haven't recognized each other have been so frustrating. Nadia's..."Is that lady a Sith?" Yes, Nadia. She is. YOU MET HER BEFORE. *headdesk*

Couldn't agree more. I know some people have said that BW can't make assumptions about which character we have "out" with us when doing missions, but I've always seen that as an artificial gameplay issue that shouldn't be reflected in the story. Except for balance issues, nothing really prevents the whole crew of any class from all going into the field together. And for at least one crew, Havoc Squad, it actually makes sense for them to do this a lot of the time storywise. As such, I think assuming any character wasn't there makes far less sense.

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Couldn't agree more. I know some people have said that BW can't make assumptions about which character we have "out" with us when doing missions, but I've always seen that as an artificial gameplay issue that shouldn't be reflected in the story. Except for balance issues, nothing really prevents the whole crew of any class from all going into the field together. And for at least one crew, Havoc Squad, it actually makes sense for them to do this a lot of the time storywise. As such, I think assuming any character wasn't there makes far less sense.

 

I agree. I feel that since the whole crew is seen traveling to Rishi, the romanced characters all have barks on Rishi and Yavin 4, and one or two of the class companions have roles in the Rishi class quests (Talos with the SI), it can be presumed that they were all in attendance. And as you say, for groups like Havoc Squad it makes sense for them to be out there all together.

 

It drove me nuts with some of the older Alliance Alerts that neither Lana nor Theron mentioned when they were directing you to recruit your own companions, like Pierce for Sith Warriors. Raina Temple's KOTFE letter even mentions Lana by name, but when she shows up before Copero, there's zero recognition. *facepalm*

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It drove me nuts with some of the older Alliance Alerts that neither Lana nor Theron mentioned when they were directing you to recruit your own companions, like Pierce for Sith Warriors. Raina Temple's KOTFE letter even mentions Lana by name, but when she shows up before Copero, there's zero recognition. *facepalm*

What annoyed me most was that we're supposed to believe Lana and Theron are searching diligently for our companions, yet they don't always recognise those companions when they see them. I actually find this even worse than our companions not recognising Lana and Theron (though frankly this is bad enough). Even if we imagine that somehow they didn't meet on Rishi, Yavin, or Ziost, Lana and Theron would surely have perused our companions' dossiers in their efforts to track them down. But no: on Iokath, Lana has "captured these assassins." Facepalm indeed! I seem to recall you saying you interpret this line from Lana sardonically, but to me it comes across in exactly the same tone as the non-recognition from Jaesa and Nadia. I think it's all just unfortunate writing.

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What annoyed me most was that we're supposed to believe Lana and Theron are searching diligently for our companions, yet they don't always recognise those companions when they see them. I actually find this even worse than our companions not recognising Lana and Theron (though frankly this is bad enough). Even if we imagine that somehow they didn't meet on Rishi, Yavin, or Ziost, Lana and Theron would surely have perused our companions' dossiers in their efforts to track them down. But no: on Iokath, Lana has "captured these assassins." Facepalm indeed! I seem to recall you saying you interpret this line from Lana sardonically, but to me it comes across in exactly the same tone as the non-recognition from Jaesa and Nadia. I think it's all just unfortunate writing.

 

Yeah, it is all unfortunate writing, and you're right. Lana and Theron both worked in intelligence agencies, of course they would have had dossiers on the PC's crew. Plus Lana worked in the military sphere with Darth Arkous so she would have had some familiarity with the Imperial military's officers, and Theron knew some of the Jedi. There's no reason they would not have instantly known the PC's companions.

 

I head canon the 'assassins' comment from Lana as being sardonic because my PC would have seen Quinn as an assassin, but in reality, yeah, it does come across the same way. No reason for it, or for Lana to not recognize Quinn or Elara if that's the PC's class companion.

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