I also think that I just really missed the "MMO feel" of places where you could wander about, get side-quests, find odd things, explore. Like the planet we visited with Gault and Vette. That was a cool planet. It was like Hutta, only better. But then we didn't get to do anything there except go through the story--which was the exact same story every time...

 

It's often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result...

 

And "You've lost that MMO Feeling... oh,oh, that MMO feeling....Oh....woooh!"

 

Seriously, though, you're right. The wandering over new terrain, getting involved in different stories, meeting new people ( NPC and PCs) and just having that sense of wonder of not knowing exactly what is around the corner are key ingredients. Repeating the same chapter time after time, even with different convo options has little re-playability. - And that one is one of my faves - but I've done it.... 3 or 4 times. Some of the rest are one-shot things. didn't like it..... moved on. never to return. - Certainly not putting 20+ alts through the same old cut-scene-and-star-troopers snoozefests.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Storm-Cutter

Here is what I found so strange.

 

I was not expecting this at all.

 

As time went on, during 4.x, I found myself enjoying the Alliance Alerts more than the cinematic story chapters. I was dumbfounded. How could this be happening? Why on earth would I enjoy these "classic conversations" more than the cinematic experience?

 

I've been thinking about it, and I think the reason is that my character mattered in the Alliance Alerts. The Skadge alert, for instance. That alert has many different ways it can end, depending on your choices. So my character mattered. And different characters I had did that alert in different ways.

 

Even if I did the Alert the same way every time, I knew that it could end differently. So, it mattered.

 

I also think that I just really missed the "MMO feel" of places where you could wander about, get side-quests, find odd things, explore. Like the planet we visited with Gault and Vette. That was a cool planet. It was like Hutta, only better. But then we didn't get to do anything there except go through the story--which was the exact same story every time...

 

Well of course. People play the game for story and choice not to be led down a tunnel of wave after wave of the same Mobs playing a non Star Wars story in a Star Wars game

pretty much this, every opinion we have is subjective it is unknown if its is the most like or hated, I like Kotfe and kotet. I greatly dislike SOR and the Rep side makeb storyline, not Imp side storyline I very much like that one but imo the missions and bosses were annoying .

 

also another note Charles is not the lead writer he is the creative director, Ian Ryan is the lead writer for SWTOR

 

At some point though, you have to be willing to open your eyes. While I understand the forms isn't representative of everyone it can be a microcosm of popular opinion. Look at this thread and other threads similar to this. Look at the number of people who hate the story in some form or manner saying relatively the same things and all different people, and then look at the people who liked the story and how they are usually fewer in number and sometimes passionate enough to repeatedly post.

 

Passion however is not numbers. And if you look it by the numbers of people posting against versus people posting for you can at the very least make a logical conclusion that it appears that the majority of people on these very forums did not like Knights of the Fallen Empire or Knights of the Eternal throne.

 

To ignore even that and continually throw out phrases like we don't really know is to ignore reality when it is staring you in the face. And if someone is going to be like that no one is going to change their mind. But the facts are still the facts in the fact of the matter is more people posting on the forums disliked the direction and the quality of knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne than did like it.

 

Now if someone wants to say that's the forums only and move the goalposts because the facts are contradicting what they are saying or what they are deflecting then that's entirely on them and actually to be expected. One could point to a similar trend on Reddit as well or even Twitter at the time or other social media. And if the person in favor of how those stories went down once to ignore all that and still insist that we don't know how people really feel about the story then there's nothing anyone will be able to do to convince them.

 

But just because they aren't convinced doesn't mean there isn't a massive amount of evidence that the stories for Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne failed greatly and failed to resonate with the majority of people based on Forum post social media and even in game complaints.

 

All that really means is that some people like the story and because they like the story they feel threatened by others who say they don't. In particular they feel threatened that a lot of people are saying they don't like the story. I don't think they feel is threatened if it really was 50-50 but something in their subconscious is making them defensive. And for those of us who love psychoanalyzing others that's all we really need to know to tell the truth on the whole matter.

 

The only thing I can think of is that he only let Revan and Scourge think he was going to destroy everything for immortality, when really all he wanted was to destabilize the core galactic powers. And really, that means the Republic and its Jedi Order, since he was presumably working hard on the Eternal Empire even during the events of the Returned trailer when the Sith Empire returned to Korriban. Is this implied in the Revan novel? Are we to conclude that the rituals of the JK story, the Yavin 4 machine, and Ziost, were merely meant to increase his power as Valkorion, and weaken his only serious opposition, but he never needed them to be immortal. Or maybe he's like a vampire ... he wants to rule and has the resources to do it with the Fleet, but needs to refill his immortality tank every once in a while by destroying all life on a planet or two? Scourge just had the project scope wrong?

 

In the revan novel ( It takes place between kotor 1 and 2 then a bit after kotor 2) is more about revan and him getting his memories back after getting mask back then getting canderous and going to fight the emperor again. He gets captured by scourge and Nyriss and held for a long time until the exile free's him then they attempt to strike down vitiate with scourges help. Though I don't believe it was the emperor. Vitiate could possesess several bodies at once. We've seen this in the sith warrior story as well as on ziost. I believe the person are defeated by in the jedi knight story and in turn whom you strike down was another emperor's voice. I believe Vitiate was already planning to take over zakuul as vitiate. The dark council as well as Marr had said he's been absent for centuries. And with his Voice and Wrath as well as his children (of the emperor) he would never have to physicaally be there to ensure things were going to plan.

 

I have other loose ends too. For example, in Chapter 2 of KOTET, Vitiate tells you he found Valkorion centuries prior and he was a great warrior for the planet. But we also know from KOTET Chapter 4-5, and the Iokath daily story line, that the builders of Iokath tested the Eternal Fleet and the superweapon droids on ancient Zaakul, giving rise to the mythology (in which Valkorion is well versed). And Koth says the stories about the Gravestone (also part of the Iokathian weapon program) were that it was the only thing that stood up against the Fleet, and Vitiate acknowledges that the Gravestone isn't what he expected in KOTFE chapter 5, implying this is the first he's set eyes upon it. It would stand to reason that the Builders of Iokath used the Gravestone to tame their fleet after their weapons test on Zaakul, but it doesn't explain how Vitiate/Valkorion gained control of the Fleet. I guess when Vitiate found the ancient warrior known as Valkorion it was probably right after the test. He must have been intrigued by the prospect of an unstoppable fully automated fleet and reworked the Knights and the Scions to help him forge his Empire. I presume he must have gained control after the builders were killed by the superweapon or ARIES and its minions and his Knights and Scions were stronger. But its all educated guessing on my part so there's a lot of details we're missing there.

 

110% agree Plot holes are leaving us to wonder.

 

But that still doesn't compare to the apparent personality change from Vitiate to Valkorion. The time frames just don't jive. Knowing now what Charles Boyd said about how the trilogy of the Eternal Empire was condensed, I can't help but feel that we got robbed of some of these plot holes.

 

I think we should get snippets of info back in little codices when we click an item or datacrons.

 

 

I agree with other that one storyline for 8 classes wasn't the best way to go. I think for the Sith Warrior you should have been able to choose to defend valkorion and have defeated arcann only to have arcan escape with 1/3 of the fleet and 1/3 or the knights and as The hand of Valkorian you should be tasked with hunting arcann down and bringing him to justice. For the Inquisitor and jedi knight the regular story would have been fine with the knight with the ending being the knight creates an alliance the inquisitor now dark council elite turns zakuul into a second sith empire. The Imperial Agent should have been tasked (depending on your ending) with discovering this rumored new power in wild space to assess how much of a threat it would be to the empire (this story would take place before arcann and thexan's attacks) Your agent would go undercover as a part of zakuul's elite to learn more... The smuggler would be trying to steal resources from a resource rich planet not knowing it belongs to zakuul. You run into skytroopers and you start being hunted down by one of the captains of the knights of zakuul. Jedi sage story have been meditating and have seen a vision of what is to come and have been sent by the council to find this new threat and maybe you come back and try to stop thexan and arcan only you end up escaping with your crew due to overwhelming odds......idk Maybe im grasping at straws but we need to go back to having separate class stories for each characters.

I still think it's cool that Charles Boyd confirmed that they condensed the story.

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

 

TIME TO admit that players prefer republic vs empire story content rather than fighting some third party.... fighting third party content should be provided rarely as a distraction and something new, but main story content must be related to war between reps and imps

Edited June 30, 2017 by omaan

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

I can see some of what you were trying to do with the story - but if the player doesn't have enough information IN-GAME to piece that together for themselves then it it will always seem there are glaring plot holes and inconsistencies.

 

What you basically said with your "we don't have the time" comment is that "we don't have the time to tell a coherent story" - if that really is the case you really should get out of the story led MMORPG business; because you are doing neither the IP nor the paying customer any favours by dumping incoherent stories on us.

 

Your comments about how and why the story was condensed, and this post on a more detailed story still leave some huge questions though:

 

1) At which point did Star Wars The Old Republic officially become Keeping Up With The Valkorions?

 

2) More importantly WHY did it become that?

 

3) What "Developer" decisions, based on which feedback, led anyone at all at Bioware to think this was a good idea?

 

4) And why is the most interesting and action-packed part of both FE and ET the full cinematic trailers? These used to be called "Teaser Trailers", now it seems they should be called "Suck It Up - The Game Will Never Be Half As Good As The Trailer - Trailers".

 

All The Best

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

Thanks for this. I am probably one of the few that actually enjoyed getting away from the Republic and Empire, especially my agent. She has no trust for the empire after the mind washing they performed on her and this actually gave her a way to not be tied to the Empire. Of course, I would have prefer for Iokath that she would have remained Alliance and not have to side with one of them. Empire she doesn't trust. Republic she not sure about but if since it came down to it, she will support the Empire.

Hey,

 

*snip*

Wow...interesting read. Very interesting. Thank you for this!!! I know it has helped me understand it all much better.

snip

As long as we're talking about Valkorion, am I the only one that the Knight Outlander doesn't get a unique line when

The JK's relationship with Valk is the longest and the second-closest of all 8 classes; I was really anticipating my Guardian to talk about

 

 

Also Keith, if you guys hadn't decided, as a response to player feedback, to condense the post-KotFE story and pay less (read: no) attention to bringing back companions going forward, as referenced in an earlier devpost, do you think that

 

 

Final point, as long as you're taking story feedback, can we have more screentime (especially one-on-one screentime) dedicated to companions other than Lana? It's like she's your pet favourite or something.

TIME TO admit that players prefer republic vs empire story content rather than fighting some third party.... fighting third party content should be provided rarely as a distraction and something new, but main story content must be related to war between reps and imps

 

I think it should be other way around imo. empire or rep has been done like a lot in the movies and games, something new is always good, its like assassins creed we fought the Templars 100 times how about something new. this is 3000 years before the movie with many possibilities, you can have a story about the rakata or a story about mortis about what was like father in that era so many things no need to stick to one. that just my opinion though

SoR was the lowest point in the overall story. Wasn't keen on KotFE onwards, but SoR took a beloved character and just ****ed about with him. Bad fan-fiction through and through. All that soul-splitting Harry Potter BS doesn't exist in SW, and with good reason- it's garbage. Add to that Revan's dialogue was written by a ten year old and his previously perfect voice was changed for... whatever the hell that SoR voice was supposed to be.

 

And after the story that built up to it (which was amazing) SoR was one of the most disappointing aspects of gaming I've encountered in the past decade or so.

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

This was an interesting read, I hope you will do more of these for future story expansions! Can't wait for the next big story.

The main problem I have with KOTFE/KOTET is the time span between the Ziost event, and chapter 1 of KOTFE.

 

Are we to assume Vitiate was able to cease control of Zakuul, build up the Eternal Fleet, and do everything else he had to do to prepare during that time span? It was only a few months for us, but it feels like it should have been decades, and none of the characters involved seem to have aged. Or was it that he had indeed began controlling Valkorian much earlier, and maintained a presence on multiple planets?

 

It always seemed more appropriate to me to have frozen our characters in carbonite after the Ziost events, and not after the Eternal Fleet invasion.

Edited June 30, 2017 by ViciousFett

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

[...section describing valkorian]

 

All in all that was a very interesting read and I would suggest not abandoning adding most of it into KOFTE and KOTET retroactively. It would flesh out a lot of the story and make a lot more sense in some cases. The story you told was more the story I was expecting and a lot of that didn't come through in the chapters.

 

If I may make another suggestion, continue to work on side missions, lore objects, updated and alternate paths in existing chapters, and related activities that help to tell this side of the story. It doesn't have to released right away but I think it should be released. However, wait until you can make a substantial update to the Zakuul storylines instead of releasing it in little bits.

 

Now that there's some explanation floating around a promise to return original companions quickly, which I think was the real source of impatience, I think updates will be better received. Overall, I think having more details, though not all in chapter form, will let people appreciate the story more.

I thought the original class stories all set up Valkorian beautifully! I will never agree with throwing Revan and the Exile in there, but in every story they repeat the Emperor is MIA or behaving oddly. Then again I'm a writer maybe I just picked up the foreshadowing quicker than others.

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

very awesome read thank you. I cannot wait tell the next story comes out

2 questions though

1. will we be able to find how exactly valk or his servants find the eternal fleet and disable it. I think it would be interesting story

 

2. is 5.3 going to cont the story of iokath with the ense bosses there still a lot more stuff we do not know

Edited July 1, 2017 by commanderwar

Valkorion stuff

 

Thanks for the post, it's an interesting read and fits mostly with what I thought of Valkorion.

 

I really enjoyed KOTFE/KOTET for the most part, although I'd like to see more interaction between the player and their companions and also between companions and other companions/characters. I enjoyed SOR as well but mostly because I really liked both Theron and Lana. Revan was a hot mess though and I thought Yavin 4 in particular was disappointing. Makeb had a solid storyline but ended up being not memorable and had some very flat characters that I could never make myself care about.

 

Looking forward to more.

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

But what about his original body? Did Vitiate's Sith Pureblood body give out long ago? He had it until the Revan novel, then started using Voices, but it seemed to me that he had always kept his pureblood body stashed away to protect himself, yet, killing "valkorion" kills Vitiate. Do you think his body is still out there somewhere, lifeless and dead, because us the protagonist slew his spirit while it possessed us?

That was an interesting read.

Charles, how far ahead of time is the writing team in the game? Perhaps you could share where/when RotHC was written prior to launch. Same with SoR. Were you treating KOTFE while writing SoR or did you have to sit down and do a continuity check?

 

How far into the future do you already have storyline treated? 1 year? 3?

Hmmm interesting. Thank you for providing more explanation on the Valkorion/Vitiate stuff! Much appreciated.

 

I do think it's easy to see that your original plans with Vitiate were different (of course plans change which is normal in any big company I would say)

Though honestly I still found the transition between Vitiate and Valkorion jarring and I also don't agree with your "I don't like to write" comment. I think some of these points and the transition between Vitiate and Valkorion should have taken more time to explain in cutscenes. I remember in SOR when previously the jedi and the sith did not know about the emperor being dead (except for the sith warrior) but then in that cantina Darth Marr in one sentence goes on to say something to the likes of "Oh yea, Vitiate isn't dead and we told that Satele" Moments like these should have been handled more carefully and convenient plot points just happened without explanation (for example explaining how Lana and Theron met during Forged Alliances). And it happened in my opinion more since Forged Alliances.

 

Now, my major criticism is about the role of the Sith Warrior in this and the reason for the ritual to devour the entire galaxy? So if I understand correctly then Tenebrea initiated that ritual to force the republic and the empire against each other?

 

Also the Sith Warrior's action in act 3 on Voss were pointless then. It was before the attack of the jedi knight and the warrior had to kill the voice to allow Tenebrea to gain a new voice right? But if Tenebrea could have had more voices from the beginning then why did the sith warrior need to kill the voice on Voss?

Nobody cares, fix the game.

 

Don't claim to speak for all. Charles chose to share some information, if you look at the comments, many appreciate it.

** SNIP **

Hi Charles,

 

We get were you are going though, as you're pointing out, whatever we like or not the focus on a 3rd force and the "Kardashian" family, you did not pave the way for the players to get all that IN GAME.

Mystery is good, yet you have to explain some parts to the players or at least give hints.

 

Now in regards of the 3rd force, I did not felt it was that well brought in to be honest.

Also before delving into that new power, we all know you should have kept pushing the war between the factions. In fact you should have even increased it to make it feel a real war.

At no time in the initial campaign I really felt the galaxy was at war ; more like a couple of skirmishes here and there.

 

To me the real explanation behind the 3rd faction was the decline of servers population and lack of budget. As such the imbalance between the factions became an issue and you had to streamline the story into a one fits all.

 

Anyway, thanks for the write-up. It's not because I'm not fond of the last X-Packs that I don't respect your work.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Deewe