My issue is not with the technology not advancing, sketchy as it is you can retcon that.

But smugglers are all good? and bounty hunters are all evil? If anything, BHs side themselves with established goverments so should be republic. Vader employs BHs in the films because the Empire is the established government.

Smugglers work against established governements so should be empire aligned.

Why does the trooper in the cinematic trailer look like a jango clone trooper.

Why does the smuggler get a Wookiee companion.

Hutt crimelords have a habit of freezing enemies in carbonite? No - Han was frozen because he happened to be on Bespin where they had a carbon freezing chamber, it wasnt even commonplace in the films.

Most of the imperial missions ive done refer to the enemy as REBELS.

There are loads more...

The issue here for me is that this feels more like a reboot than part of a cannonical universe in an established timeline.

Yes yes, the game is fun, but I wanted an EXPANDED universe, not a re-hashed one!

Here's my complaint...

The KOTOR games... while they certainly had similarities to the movies... did have a different feel and presentation (especially the first one).

When videos and trailers started popping out for this game... It seemed like they had abandoned a lot of that KOTOR identity in an attempt to become something more people could identify with. Hell... I remember watching the first trailer (Return) and hearing the smuggler say lines (in part) from Han... and how the armor of Republic troopers resembled clone troopers from the movies. Then you throw in the Empire's badge thing on its officers (those red/blue square things) and Star Destroyer like crafts... and the game just seems to lose that 3000 year spread.

So yeah... I understand your complaint, and share in a portion of it...

Does it really disrupt my desire to play and experience the game?, eh... not really... not for the time being.

I do however wish they had not gone with so many obvious parallels to the movies though... I mean... looking at the Jedi Temple getting a craft flown into it... would have easily allowed them to make it look like whatever they wanted to... getting destroyed then and rebuilt later to how we see it in the movies. ... But oh well.

As for all the stuff about technology changes and wars and the loss of progress etc etc etc... Bypass jumping all the mental hurdles to justify things to yourself and just call it what it is and figure out if you like it or not. Just two cents nobody wants...

DEATH STAR

Oh, wait thers more

CLONES

SUPER STAR DESTROYER

I knda like that they made Sith tech look like empire stuff from the original movies..

Kinda made me feel like Sith tech had alot of influence on the development of the republic in later generations

I think a lot of it can be boiled down to:

a)Most people only know about SW from the movies.

b)Most people want to play in the "Original Trilogy" era.

c)Most people want to be Jedi.

The problem is, "b" and "c" don't work together. SWG originally wanted to have it so Jedi would be ultra-rare and would also be permadeath, so you'd almost never see a Jedi who wasn't a novice. Yeah, they stuck to that plan, alright.

So, to a very large extent, SWTOR has created a setting instantly recognizeable to most people who've seen the movies in terms of ships, uniforms, races, and basic conflicts, but with Jedi coming out of the freakin' walls.

(My unasked-for opinion? Why the frak isn't anyone setting a game just AFTER RotJ? The galaxy is in chaos. There are still huge remnants of the Empire out there, with multiple factions scrambling for control. Jedi are being taught again, and there's lots of self-taught Force users, or Jedi-in-hiding, popping their heads up for the first time. Players can meet/interact with the movie characters. Best of all worlds -- a familiar setting with familiar characters, but a lot more freedom for players. You can even declare it's an "alternate timeline" that branches right at the end of the Battle of Endor, so no one needs to feel bound by the established post-Jedi canon.)

Short answer... Yes. Nothing has really changed in 3000 years.

To its credit This is how most fantasy worlds are. Fantasy worlds that have a significant time pass must remain similar in order to appease fans. If they change too much the no longer resemble what they were originality and fans get *****y.

But if it makes you feel better think of it this way,

Would you really want to play a STARWARS game without blasters or light sabers? without planets you knew like Tatoonie? without names you recognize such as Organa? Without the recognizable races like Wookies?

Remove these things and this is no longer STARWARS.

While improvements in materials and equipment change, do you think that buildings will look that much different in the year 3000 from what they look like today or looked 2000 years ago. The cell structure of today's houses is done from both an engineering and ergonomic design. People will still want space (if it's available) and privacy. Sky scrapers might become taller, or wider, but eventually you will get to limits of materials and engineering. After 17000 years of evolution(plus the races that came before), i doubt there is much metallurgical knowledge that is yet to be discovered.

Once you build a functioning ergonomically advantageous space ship, how much diversity will you see later on? Some designers will be creative and make wildly different vehicles, but eventually similarly designed vehicles will keep reappearing because they are more functional than the creative ones.

YOU'd rather see a world that's different.

I wouldn't mind seeing a world that's slightly different. Tatoonine being a lush world, 3000 years shouldn't be enough for a whole planet's climate to change like that, maybe 30000 years. But I wouldn't mind seeing other dominant species, etc.

However I think one of the big selling points of KOTOR is the **familiar** star wars setting. People want to see their familiar star war-sy things. Why change things when the more familiar things are going to draw in more attention and customers?

I think one of the reason any fantasy setting often shares well known themes or names, etc. Is partly because it's hard to think of everything original, and partly because the consumers/players like familiarity. It makes a new lore world less intimidating and more easily accessible.

YOU'd rather see a world that's different.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a world that's slightly different. Tatoonine being a lush world, 3000 years shouldn't be enough for a whole planet's climate to change like that, maybe 30000 years. But I wouldn't mind seeing other dominant species, etc.

 

However I think one of the big selling points of KOTOR is the **familiar** star wars setting. People want to see their familiar star war-sy things. Why change things when the more familiar things are going to draw in more attention and customers?

 

I think one of the reason any fantasy setting often shares well known themes or names, etc. Is partly because it's hard to think of everything original, and partly because the consumers/players like familiarity. It makes a new lore world less intimidating and more easily accessible.

Sorry, Since this is a lore post i have to point this out. Its established in the first KOTOR when you listen the the sand peoples history that the world was Bombed into a wasteland by the Infinite Empire. But its been a desert world since then, which is ALOT longer than 3000 years (oral history that has been passed down since then, THAT is unbelievable nothing much changes in 30000 years lol).

I thought that was one of the big factors of Star Wars. Jedi are all about order and calm, which doesn't lend itself to progression. They are the leaders/defenders of the realm that everybody looks up to. We know from the history that they "win" this conflict. Change happens because of events that are chaotic.

That said things like the Suncrusher and the like aren't officially part of the same universe as the movies. In the movies the tech didn't advance all that much. X-Wing fighters were still the big fighters for the rebels. Sure there were more in the 3rd movie, A-Wings and B-Wings, but they weren't better then the X-Wings... they just were different. Timothy Zahn ((sp?)) wrote a very cool series of novels that explained the clone wars and the like, and the pre-movies completely nullified everything in it.

I think the reasoning and logic behind the game comes from what the player (MMO gamer) wants to see. I'm assuming most of the people that play SW:TOR have seen the movies and know at least a little about the lore behind the franchise.

I just couldn't see them changing the worlds that we know and love (Tatooine, Hoth and many more) into what they probably would have been 3,000 years prior. I'd much rather play through a universe that I've already experienced through the films rather than treading through a changed and older version of these areas.

Is SW:TOR considered canon? If so I can slightly understand your point as it doesn't make much sense that everything is the same and technology/species haven't changed.

Sorry, Since this is a lore post i have to point this out. Its established in the first KOTOR when you listen the the sand peoples history that the world was Bombed into a wasteland by the Infinite Empire. But its been a desert world since then, which is ALOT longer than 3000 years (oral history that has been passed down since then, THAT is unbelievable nothing much changes in 30000 years lol).

I'm a bit confused by your post.

It's established that tatoonine, at some point in the past, was different. Then stuff happened and now it's all sandy.

But between that time, and 'now' (in swtor terms), and the original trilogy - it's not enough time for the planet to change in climate at all. i.e. it's perfectly reasonable that tatoonine has looked for a really long time and still will in the next 3k years. Sorry if my post was vague.

I think the reasoning and logic behind the game comes from what the player (MMO gamer) wants to see. I'm assuming most of the people that play SW:TOR have seen the movies and know at least a little about the lore behind the franchise.

Yup, defintely. Isn't it even semi official that the classes represent cannon stereotypes from the trilogy? Like smuggler is the 'han solo fantasy', where as bounty hunter is the 'boba fett fantasy', etc.

Short answer... Yes. Nothing has really changed in 3000 years.

 

To its credit This is how most fantasy worlds are. Fantasy worlds that have a significant time pass must remain similar in order to appease fans. If they change too much the no longer resemble what they were originality and fans get *****y.

 

But if it makes you feel better think of it this way,

 

Would you really want to play a STARWARS game without blasters or light sabers? without planets you knew like Tatoonie? without names you recognize such as Organa? Without the recognizable races like Wookies?

 

Remove these things and this is no longer STARWARS.

There's some middle ground. Jedi who use electrically-charged swords instead of lightsabers. Tattooine as a bustling trade world, perhaps more fertile. Wookies as a newly-discovered race that no one knows too much about.

Why the frak isn't anyone setting a game just AFTER RotJ? The galaxy is in chaos. There are still huge remnants of the Empire out there, with multiple factions scrambling for control. Jedi are being taught again, and there's lots of self-taught Force users, or Jedi-in-hiding, popping their heads up for the first time. Players can meet/interact with the movie characters. Best of all worlds -- a familiar setting with familiar characters, but a lot more freedom for players. You can even declare it's an "alternate timeline" that branches right at the end of the Battle of Endor, so no one needs to feel bound by the established post-Jedi canon.)

I think the canon material only goes for something like 150 years so they could have easily done it 300+ years after the Battle of Yavin as the setting. The archaeology on Tython would still work, The Hutts being Mafia would still work, The tech being similar but different would still work, no toes would be stepped on.

Main reason I think they set it when they did is because the history they are inserting their story into is fragmented because it is recovered/aural/indistinct/wrong/corrupted etc and so if they do or say something that is wrong they can claim that the previously mention version was recovered/aural/indistinct/wrong/corrupted etc and this is the real history. Whereas if they set it after book/film/game material you'll get 1,000,000 red shirt guys popping up at Cons asking why they say Darth Vader caused the great Wookie extinction when it was pointed out in Star Wars: The Billionth Novel that it was a virus caused by that night of drunken sweaty love Han and Chewie shared after Leia's hens night fiasco.

So... nothing much changes in 3000 years?

 

As I understand it, the Old Republic era is about 3000 years prior to the battle of Yaavin/the original movies.

 

The spacecraft, droids, weapons, and even clothing and hairstyles barely look any different.

 

The hutts are all corrupt gangsters in the movie era; they're all corrupt gangsters here. The same races that are dominant 3000 years from now (except the Sith, of course) are dominant now. Whatever a world will be like 3000 years in the future, it's like now.

 

If one character did something, wore something, or said something in the movies, it seems that it's become a universal trait of their entire race. Every Hutt preserves people in carbonite and has a fetish for humanoid women and a rancor pit. Every Rodian is a sleazy wannabe tough guy.

 

It's kind of like setting a game in Ancient Rome... except that it's the United States of Rome, which is in a cold war with the Union Of Soviet Socialist Visigoths, and everyone has 9mm automatics, flies in jet planes, and drives a car.

 

I don't blame Bioware for this; they got their marching orders from Lucasfilms when it comes to creating backstory. It just seems like it's a hell of a missed opportunity. Instead of a Star Wars universe that's almost unrecognizable (maybe droid technology is very primitive, and Tatooine is a lush agricultural world, and races we've never heard of have political dominance while common races like Wookies haven't even been contacted yet), it's pretty much identical to the movie-era universe. About the only reason I see for the Old Republic existing, for gaming purposes, is that it lets there be Jedi everywhere, one of the problems with SWG in terms of being set in the original trilogy era.

 

This doesn't make the game any less fun or hinder my enjoyment much; I'd just like to know what everyone was doing for 3000 years. No scientists, engineers, or inventors? The same staticy holograms, the same weapon technology, the same types of droids?

I guess you're not up on your EU lore. They did a fantastic job. L2H8

A lot of the lore and stuff was in place before this game, through other video games, novels, and comic books, so BioWare doesn't have a whole lot of wiggle room.

But I have wondered the same thing

My issue is not with the technology not advancing, sketchy as it is you can retcon that.

 

But smugglers are all good? and bounty hunters are all evil? If anything, BHs side themselves with established goverments so should be republic. Vader employs BHs in the films because the Empire is the established government.

 

This part yeah.

I think it would have been cool to have Smugglers and BH start in a 3rd neutral faction. and be able to choose which side they join. Heck maybe even have the option of switching sides?

Ok My SWG is showing Smugglers could change factions.

Still I really liked the BH storyline as much as i tried in Beta anyway and wish i could play one as Republic.

Star WARS

The technology actually gets worse as as you move forward from era to era.. It's generally contributed to long drawn out wars that bring an empire crashing down and many of its advancements with it. The ideas remain so societies rebuilds each time with what is essentially the war torn left overs of the last super power and new ideas. Technology peaks as the wars climax and then society crumbles. In the later eras it gets real bad. Rebellion, New Republic, NJO, and then Legacy, they all happen fro 0 aby-40 aby and by Legacy every things a piece of ****.

The rule of two really kills a game set after ROTJ unless you go all the way into Legacy era.

But Sith Era (when SWTOR takes place) is by far the longest and least documented Era, so they had the most freedom in this era.

OP, it is actually worse then you think.

We are the future of Star Wars. Hence, the story starting out with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...".

Where the hell is my lightsaber dammit?

There is actually another factor at play here, a more technical one than social/political.

Moore's Law states, in non-technical terms, that computers will double in power every 18 months (for more details on the law, see Wiki). However, you will eventually reach the maximum density and power for computers, we're actually maybe 10-20 years from it right now. And I say the maximum as we're approaching processing speeds limited by things like the speed of light and the maximum density of transistors on a silicon chip. As such, there are limits on how far technology can advance, and how far computers can interact. But there is still hope which is what leads me to my idea on the stagnated society in the TOR and SW universe in general.

Technological Singularity.

Let me get into what the concept is. When our computers process data faster than we do, it is the concept of an interface between the human brain and electronic processes join, leading to "explosive intelligence". We have long since as a society stopped really adapting to the world around us and started adapting the world to suit our own needs, this is just the next step of that. Where we use technology to adapt ourselves.

In the SW universe, cybernetics in general is general frowned upon save for life or lifestyle changing occurrences, losing your arm, legs, or eye. But you never hear about voluntary adding a cybernetic interface between a computer and a brain. It's not a new idea, we've been studying the human brain for years ourselves and within the next 100 years I wouldn't be to surprised for the first direct brain/computer interface to occur. Why has the SW universe never investigated this idea, and with hyper-drives they have the technology to do it and at least the darker half of the universe isn't against throwing human test subjects under a bus for advancement?

My thoughts? Maybe they did. Maybe the first intergalactic nation, obviously humans cause there are so many of them, did invest in this technology. Maybe that show they discovered hyper-drive and star-ship technologies. Maybe it led into a conflict and...abuse of the ability that the Force awoke, where people were advancing in that path. True it awakened a civilization completely at war but...what could the outcomes have been? Maybe we'll find secret Jedi and Sith teachings both that require the extermination of all research along this path.

Sounds like an idea to me.

Speaking as someone who doesnt follow the Expanded Universe and gets 99% of my Star Wars Knowledge from the films.

I am glad it doesnt look that different. I like the feel of the films... Blasters, Lightsabers, Jedi, Wookies ect.

Cant be beat.

fact is that technological plateaus do exist. We have been spoiled by the fact that we are living in an era of rapid technological advancement, so it's hard to forget that for about 2000 years humanity used various iterations of essentially the same weapons (spears, axes, swords, etc.).

This pretty much. Depending how you define it the human race on planet earth stayed at a technological level for roughly 10000 years. Men (or women? ) found out how to cast metal approximately 8000 years bc. From back then until the modern history (about 300 years ago) they hardly improved their technology in any significant way. They got better at casting metal. And thus they could cast more complicated things. But ultimately they cast swords as the most common and most usable weapons for approximately 10000 years.

Very useful inventions and concepts that are very essential to us nowadays were developed or adopted from other cultures and vanished again during that very long timespan. It seems hard to grasp but read up about the history of water-closets for example.

Indeed cultural and social development is not a process that is going forward all the time. Not in reality at least. So why would anyone expect that from a fantasy world?

Technological stagnation.

You could argue they don't really need anything else.