Zion,

We had a brief exchange in a different thread about my concerns with the story line -- namely -- the whole become leader of the galaxy thing, but you really seem to be on a soapbox about how much you hate the new expansions.

When Boyd gave his defense in terms of metrics, it was only that. He recognized that people had concerns about the story, though I think far more had my concern than your concern about Valk / Vititate. You have to remember -- a lot of us, myself included, are not steeped in Star Wars lore and don't particularly care. We just like shooting things with lasers and using lightsabers.

This is like your third or so thread venting on the subject. I mean if you want to vent I get it, but not sure what you are hoping to accomplish. Debating pro vs. con threads too is pointless -- people are more inclined to ***** than praise, but understand that some of us don't have the visceral hatred for KotFE / ET that you do.

Dasty

To understand why FE/ET feel so underwhelming when compared to SoR or any earlier content you need to understand the shift in focus.

 

For SoR and earlier content the story ranged across many planets, dealt with many factions, and offer many choices but was still fundamentally focus on Your Character are the main protagonist.

 

That all changed with FE and they doubled down on that change in ET.

Ok so there's still a few location shifts, but nowhere near as many as in earlier content.

There's really only one faction now - Zakuul - but there's a two or three mini-gangs within that.

Choices no longer matter at all - 99% of players end up exactly the same as everyone else, no matter what choices you made.

However, the HUGE shift in focus is that Your Character now becomes the antagonist, and the Protagonist is Valkorion.

 

A more honest title for FE/ET would have been "Keeping Up With The Valkorions" Season 1 and Season 2.

 

Your character no longer matters - you are, allegedly, the leader on the Alliance, but you are told what to do by Theron, Lana, Valkorion, even SCORPIO. You are their puppet, you do as they say, when they say - and what few dialogue choices you are given allowing you an attempt to resist their control of your actions are only there to reinforce the fact that you have NO CHOICE, you are NOT IMPORTANT.

 

What matters is telling Valkorion's story, making him and his children the singular focus of pretty much EVERY dramatic moment in what passes for story in FE/ET.

 

This wouldn't have been quite so much of a problem if a) the story was good, and b) it was handled intelligently. Unfortunately neither of those actually happened.

 

I've read Charles' comments on how they cut FE down because the feedback on pacing was negative, unfortunately they did nothing to address he negative feedback about the quality of the story.

 

So what went wrong with FE/ET?

 

It starts with the fact that he lead story/content designer was the person responsible for the very worst class story by a mile. A class story so badly handled it was painful to play through it.

 

Next comes the desire to have a "mono story" that fits everyone - when in fact the story makes no sense at all from the point of view of a non-force use, little sense from light side force users point of view, and only marginal sense from anyone else.

 

The content itself is boring to the point of nausea. How many more "run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight four skytroopers - run down corridor - fight boss - run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight four skytroopers - run down corridor - fight boss - run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight three skytroopers - run down corridor - fight four skytroopers - run down corridor - fight big boss" do we have to suffer through before someone realise this isn't exciting content, heck its not even good content, in fact its appallingly bad content.

 

And just to show just how much they DON'T "get it" they did the same on Iokath, except they made the physical layout of the planet a grind-fest barrier to what little enjoyment is still to be had from the game.

 

 

Someone at Bioware, or EA a few months back made a difficult but necessary decision as regards the Lead Producer and that has started to pay off already.

 

That same person needs to make an equally difficult, and even more necessary similar decision about the Story and Content leads.

 

Then the game can start to be turned around.

 

All The Best

Unfortunately, while the person who made the change at lead producer did the right thing, it will be the lead producer who would have to make the change in terms of story and content.

I do agree a different creative direction is needed, but with the lead producer having been a part of that development team for so long, will he be able to look his former co-workers in the eye and say "we need to go in a different direction in terms of story?"

I accept that people make mistakes, but this is a whole studio with EA behind them looking over their shoulders. - There must have been meeting after meeting where BW told everyone that their vision of the future was one that would propel this game to the next level. - When that didn't happen....What happened then?

 

Besides, they have the whole community ready and willing to throw ideas into the pot. - They have the bucks enough to hire great programmers, artists, animators and move-makers..... but (strangely) not voice actors and writers? something doesn't compute....

 

One man at the helm has (had) a lot to answer for.... One can only hope that new leadership can turn this around in time.

( "Apology accepted, Captain Needa!" )

Especially big studios can mess up when there is a bunch people who all have their own ideas and visions and someone has to bring them all together. Yes, in my opinion a lot can go wrong the bigger the project is. And money doesn't also equal quality. They can have all the money and bring in talented programmers, artists and writers.

But the problem here is that that they probably wanted the writers to do a single story instead of class stories. So what to do? Somehow you now have the tast of uniting all classes into a single storyline. How can one do that without making it akward? It's impossible. And writing however is a more controverse topic. You can be a great programmer and then you bring good results. But you can be a great writer and still have ideas for your story that wildly end up not being good but writing is a lot about your own opinion as well.

That said, I am not saying they are free of the criticism. They deserve the criticism but just saying that there are so many factors that can influence the outcome of a large game like that. It's easy to mess up in such a project.

What went wrong with Kofte? Simple

E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, it should have never been released. That was a disease this game will never recover from.

What went wrong with Kofte? Simple

 

E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, it should have never been released. That was a disease this game will never recover from.

The sad but awful truth is the very best thing about both FE and ET is the Trailer Cinematics.

If the gameplay, story and content were half as good as the cinematics Bioware would have been on to a winner.

But they weren't.

All The Best

The thing to keep in mind is that the thing he changed based on feedback with something structurally however the story he is crafting seems to be in his mind based on those dry comments above actionable criticism.

I wouldn't go that far to be fair, Charles is clearly inviting feedback and providing examples of where it has altered what has been provided for KotFE, which resulted in a condensed KotET.

However this part concerns me more.

Overall, story is one of the most difficult areas to implement feedback, since we've usually constructed the next several beats by the time players see any of it and provide feedback. But hopefully this post helps to demonstrate that we still try very hard to implement feedback-driven changes into story regardless of the challenges.

Yes, absolutely the writers have a specific vision of what they want to create and that is great, I commend that. The caveat here is where they haven't taken feedback into account regarding class specific stories (or even snippets such as SoR supplied) or acknowledging classes within the story properly (lip service doesn't really count here). A Jedi Knight probably wouldn't approach situations in the same way as an Imperial Agent for example, and it is that lack of class specific writing that really hurt the expansion in my own eyes. Simply put, the story made zero sense for some of my classes to even be participating within it.

Certain classes would probably have approached each scenario in a different way, but due to the corridor nature of most of the expansions it simply wasn't catered to. If it had been more open world? Perhaps it could have been managed, but for some unknown reasoning we went from open worlds to corridor shooter in the space on one expansion. The only true exception to this felt like Darvannis and perhaps Voss.

I wouldn't go that far to be fair, Charles is clearly inviting feedback and providing examples of where it has altered what has been provided for KotFE, which resulted in a condensed KotET.

 

However this part concerns me more.

 

 

 

Yes, absolutely the writers have a specific vision of what they want to create and that is great, I commend that. The caveat here is where they haven't taken feedback into account regarding class specific stories (or even snippets such as SoR supplied) or acknowledging classes within the story properly (lip service doesn't really count here). A Jedi Knight probably wouldn't approach situations in the same way as an Imperial Agent for example, and it is that lack of class specific writing that really hurt the expansion in my own eyes. Simply put, the story made zero sense for some of my classes to even be participating within it.

 

Certain classes would probably have approached each scenario in a different way, but due to the corridor nature of most of the expansions it simply wasn't catered to. If it had been more open world? Perhaps it could have been managed, but for some unknown reasoning we went from open worlds to corridor shooter in the space on one expansion. The only true exception to this felt like Darvannis and perhaps Voss.

We are actually making the same point here. 100% agreed

 

And given BioWare's SWTOR history, first crapping on the players with no more class story, and then this, its like they don't care about consistency at all - shoot, the next installment we may all find out Treek was our long lost sister - the writing was THAT bad in terms of coherency and consistency with what came before.

Wait..I have a sister? LOL

I agreee that whole plotline and the writing were equally bad. I only enjoyed the bits of content added like planets, companions, and the star fortress. That story doesn't really fit in the star wars universe from a fan's perspective.

This thread makes me feel like it is impossible for them to follow a KOTOR or even just an Episodes style story. I don't know why they are so wrapped up in adding material that deviates from an established standard of storytelling excellence.

Here's whats missing:

- A cause that fits the main theme of star wars

- A central conflict that affects everyone

- A personal conflict just for you

- A lost or forgotten knowledge to strengthen your character

- A hidden truth to bring full resolution (tha AHA! moment)

- An assembly of characters with unique motivations that are interesting

- Minor objectives that add up to something big

- A set of different reasons for you to care about any of it

- Real choices that impact a final outcome

If the story doesnt do these things, then its not really Star Wars in my opinion. I mean even the heroics do a better job of following traditional Star Wars style storytelling.

Welcome back Zion, it's nice to see you playing again.

While I enjoyed the new updates with my Force using characters, I did find that the new material doesn't have the same replayability value as SoR imo. I agree with you, that the bit with Revan was more fun. I've played SoR with the majority of my toons, but the newer stuff, with only 3 of them (up to date) and one other, my alt agent, that has only done part of it.

I think what really helped SoR was that there was the one class specific bit so that gave it variety, I played all my toons through that just to see what happened for them. The other thing that helped me enjoy it more too, was the Battle Buddy droid they implemented, which allowed me to play the flashpoints and get caught up with all the parts that featured Theron and Lana. That was like a whole new world to me, to get to do those things and finish up the story. Prior to the Battle Buddy, my story was left unfinished, I didn't know how it turned out, because I'm a soloer. So, I hope they keep adding the Battle Buddy as we go forward. I really liked that.

 

 

- A personal conflict just for you

- A lost or forgotten knowledge to strengthen your character

- A hidden truth to bring full resolution (tha AHA! moment)

- Minor objectives that add up to something big

- A set of different reasons for you to care about any of it

- Real choices that impact a final outcome

 

If the story doesnt do these things, then its not really Star Wars in my opinion. I mean even the heroics do a better job of following traditional Star Wars style storytelling.

I agree with these points in particular. I wanted it to be more about 'me' er, rather the character I play. It focussed too much on the Valkorians. And for me it was weird at first, because, he was Vitiate, then has suddenly Valkorian, and it was a bit...wth happened there. I get now that he changes his identities every so often, but it was a bit confusing at the start.

I think either today or tomorrow I'm going to put a threat out there on what I would do if I were to make a sequel to this MMO. It will be a very long read but I almost feel like you'd be cathartic.

I actually have a very specific vision in mind. And while a brand new story would be fun, I think bringing our favorite characters into the official Canon of Star Wars while at the same time playing with people's expectations based on the previous Old Republic games and then taking them for a ride with some twists and turns they weren't expecting would be a hoot.

I know nothing would ever come of it but I still want to get it out there anyway. You never know who's reading.

I have to agree with the OP. So much potential thrown down a hole and covered in excrement.

Unfortunately, the more I look at where the game is now and how 4.x and 5.x have gone, the less I like it. The more I look at what other games are doing, the less impressed i am with SWTOR. The story doesn't at all feel like Star Wars. The writing is disjointed (it's like each chapter got written by a high school English class with only a short outline of what happened before and after.) Taking away companions with no plan on how to bring them back as a totally incompetent move. I like Charles, but as creative director, he should be following Ben on to "other opportunities" due to his decisions with companions.

The only way I can see to save the game and get back to SW is to simply retcon out 4.x and 5.x as a bad dream and move one. No more carbonite are other gimics.

Unfortunately, there is no way SWTOR could be consdired a AAA MMO. It is now pure bush-league. There are not enough players left to support a decent game and there won't be unless some major changes are made. I don't see EA putting the money into SWTOR to make those changes.

The one and only positive I have seen since 4.0 was announced is the increased communication by Kieth. That is a really good thing, but I am afraid it is too little, way too late.

Zion,

 

We had a brief exchange in a different thread about my concerns with the story line -- namely -- the whole become leader of the galaxy thing, but you really seem to be on a soapbox about how much you hate the new expansions.

 

When Boyd gave his defense in terms of metrics, it was only that. He recognized that people had concerns about the story, though I think far more had my concern than your concern about Valk / Vititate. You have to remember -- a lot of us, myself included, are not steeped in Star Wars lore and don't particularly care. We just like shooting things with lasers and using lightsabers.

 

This is like your third or so thread venting on the subject. I mean if you want to vent I get it, but not sure what you are hoping to accomplish. Debating pro vs. con threads too is pointless -- people are more inclined to ***** than praise, but understand that some of us don't have the visceral hatred for KotFE / ET that you do.

 

Dasty

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

I think either today or tomorrow I'm going to put a threat out there on what I would do if I were to make a sequel to this MMO.

calm down man no need to make threats were all friends here. lol

my ONLY issue is how the Emperor gone a 360 with its personality and thinking....

 

i personaly liked the NEW changed emperor

 

but i hate when MAIN characters Instantly change Personality out of tin air and this drasticaly with 0 buildup ....

 

like BOOM now your like this deal with it..... you were totaly different for thousands of years but who cares BAM your like this now......

While I think the KotFE / KotET plotline had its share of problems (particularly being way too 'one-size-fits-all' with respect to awkwardly fitting in the non-Force User classes and the player character often feeling like a supporting role), Valkorian's personality is one of the things I particularly liked, and it didn't strike me as a plot hole the way it did for others.

One of my absolute favorite lines from the vanilla game is when you encounter the Emperor in the Jedi Knight's story and he gives his big villain speech about out why he wants to be an immortal god:

• "You discern a fraction of reality. Beyond these stars exist other galaxies, other worlds, other beings. I will experience or ignore them as I wish. I will spend eternity becoming everything: a farmer, an artist, a simple man. When the last living thing in the universe finally dies, I will enjoy peace and wait for the cycle to begin again."

That is a villain I can easily believe was already spending centuries of his ageless life building Zakuul - exploring what it was to build a "perfect" society where he was a beloved ruler (and even as close to 'benevolent' as he is capable of), and exploring what it was to fall in love and have children. (Which, of course, he is terrible at since the guy is legitimately evil to the core as we already knew.) If anything, it's the Vitiate we see on Ziost that I think is out-of-character given what we see both before and after.

There is a Vitiate / Valkorian plot hole that I do think the narrative really should have filled in explicitly, rather than leave it up to the player to head!canon: whether the Emperor was willing to lose Zakuul as a necessary sacrifice in his "start a chain reaction that will wipe out all life in the galaxy" attempt at godhood (so going back to Zakuul to launch a new war in KotFE was his "Plan B" scenario), or if he was only being half-truthful with the Knight, and had the ability / intention all along to spare Zakuul from his galaxy-wide death wave, leaving his perfect, "eternal" society (which already worshiped him) with an open galaxy left behind to colonize and repopulate as a monument to his glory.

 

the plot was full of holes, no-ne cared much about the valkorians, no-one wanted to be frozen then awakened with nothing changed in the meantime.

 

I'm sure they would have retained more players if all that money and effort had been put into new planets, new dailies, new maps, new questlines, new events, new operations, new pvp maps, more spaceflight. - class specific stories or elements of story.

 

Such a wasted opportunity to make this game great.

 

2 people on nar shaddaa this lunchtime. - just 2.

 

Did they blow millions of dollars to keep 2 people on one server amused?

for realz

I'll repost this because I'm lazy:

I dunno about story.. I guess you can retcon everything in your head I suppose. The worst thing about KOTFE/KOTET was the actual game play. It was every bit of the word horrible if you looked it up in a Thesaurus! Game play was NOT fun and repeating it was literally slamming my hands on the keyboard getting frustrated because of scripted mobs and endless stupid skytroopers. Terrible (TERRIBLE!!) game play.

 

It was mostly trying to keep me logged in as long as possible to complete the content. And BW, you know this, so lets not play. Don't try this ploy again. KOTFE/KOTET was the worst gameplay I've ever experienced.

The only loose end that doesn't really feel tied up to me is why Vitiate all of the sudden decided to drop his "Kill everyone in the galaxy for immortality" bid, which is featured heavily in the jedi knight story, as well as Shadow of Revan, to actually ruling the galaxy with his utopia in Wild Space and the vast technological marvels he discovered from Iokath.

I mean, he flat out says in Chapter 1 of KOTFE that Zaakul is his focus (in response to Marr claiming it was his distraction.) By Chapter 9 of KOTET it is clear he always wanted his empire back. The events of the Jedi Knight story are, per game canon, like what, a couple years before Chapter 1? Ziost is what, 6 months before the events of chapter 1? So basically, as recently as a few months before his adult sons began their campaign to test the core, he still thought the best thing to do for his goals was to kill everything in the galaxy, but now he's had a change of heart? We learn in the Dashade recruit mission in chapter 13 of KOTFE that Vitiate visited the Yavin 4 moon centuries before (but after Exar Kun) and planned to use the machine to gain immortality then. It's not that I doubt its possible he had a change of heart per se. But he achieved his utopian society and found love (with Senya), and bore three children long before the events of the Jedi Knight story take place. Are we meant to take away from the story that the player, impressing Vitiate with their feeble attempt to stop the massacre on Ziost, somehow drove the emperor to change his mind about galactic annihilation? How does that reconcile with his statement that he built Zaakul to surpass all his previous works, and that he found "true love" with Senya, all the while planning ritualistic galactic destruction with Revan in stasis and Lord Scourge executing Vitiate's wrath? Ruling utopia with an unstoppable droid armada was a better means to the his end of immortality than dark side rituals, or a better end in and of itself? Surely he can't intend to use the Eternal Fleet to extinguish all life in the galaxy, since its clear Dark Side Force rituals were needed to feed his immortality, so the desire to rule with the power of the Eternal Throne and its Fleet must be his true current motivation. The timing just feels off with the rest of the game and Legends material. 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?

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.

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.

calm down man no need to make threats were all friends here. lol

Haha! Nice catch on the typo. Meant to say thread. That's what I get for using voice to text on my phone!

While I think the KotFE / KotET plotline had its share of problems (particularly being way too 'one-size-fits-all' with respect to awkwardly fitting in the non-Force User classes and the player character often feeling like a supporting role), Valkorian's personality is one of the things I particularly liked, and it didn't strike me as a plot hole the way it did for others.

 

One of my absolute favorite lines from the vanilla game is when you encounter the Emperor in the Jedi Knight's story and he gives his big villain speech about out why he wants to be an immortal god:

• "You discern a fraction of reality. Beyond these stars exist other galaxies, other worlds, other beings. I will experience or ignore them as I wish. I will spend eternity becoming everything: a farmer, an artist, a simple man. When the last living thing in the universe finally dies, I will enjoy peace and wait for the cycle to begin again."

 

That is a villain I can easily believe was already spending centuries of his ageless life building Zakuul - exploring what it was to build a "perfect" society where he was a beloved ruler (and even as close to 'benevolent' as he is capable of), and exploring what it was to fall in love and have children. (Which, of course, he is terrible at since the guy is legitimately evil to the core as we already knew.) If anything, it's the Vitiate we see on Ziost that I think is out-of-character given what we see both before and after.

 

There is a Vitiate / Valkorian plot hole that I do think the narrative really should have filled in explicitly, rather than leave it up to the player to head!canon: whether the Emperor was willing to lose Zakuul as a necessary sacrifice in his "start a chain reaction that will wipe out all life in the galaxy" attempt at godhood (so going back to Zakuul to launch a new war in KotFE was his "Plan B" scenario), or if he was only being half-truthful with the Knight, and had the ability / intention all along to spare Zakuul from his galaxy-wide death wave, leaving his perfect, "eternal" society (which already worshiped him) with an open galaxy left behind to colonize and repopulate as a monument to his glory.

Just a point, but your big proof with the line you quoted actually supports the conflict in his personality.

Yes he wanted to be all those simple things, but at the same time he also wanted to consume all life in the galaxy and be its creator. That line was delivered in that context by the original creative team. As he said in the line you quoted once the lights are all gone he'd start again.

Basically it feels like you kind of Cherry Picked something from that to justify your side of things while ignoring something else you quoted that actually supports what I was saying.

The thing that went wrong with KotFE?

I think the writers and designers did a good job but all in all too many chapters for every class. Since the majority of us have alts it would've been neat to have certain chapters exclusive to their class. That way you as the player would have to put the missing puzzle pieces together across your legacy. The original class stories are actually made in this fashion especially the flashpoints.

If I were the executive producer of the project I would see that certain chapters weren't applicable to certain character classes and would've withheld them from certain classes for example:

Chapter 12 Visions in the Dark - would only be for force user classes Backpack hopping and meeting Marr Ghost and Senya to build a Saber

Chapter 13 Profit & Plunder - would only be available for non-force user classes The bank heist every smuggler/evil agent/soldier of fortune/bounty hunter yearns for

Having a legacy of a few alts at 65 would encourage subscribers to play both KOTFE & KOTET on different alts. Most people binge played the two expansions and it was just too much to take it all in. I truly believe people would've liked to play detective across their alt to learn the whole story. I personally felt weird being a bounty hunter in Chapter 12 and had no place being there. Conversely I don't think my light side force user would ever feel good about Chapter 13.

This approach to playing KOTFE/KOTET across your legacy would inevitably mean you didn't get certain companions . But let's face it would a Force user really have a need for someone like Gault? Or would a Trooper know what to do with Dasheed or Xalek? I would've made the executive call to write the majority of class companions into the two bulk of the two chapters. People who have yet to find their Vette or Kira have a right to be concerned at this point.

In conclusion KOTFE/ET were great they just should've made it so you played it across your legacy instead of giving every class the whole enchilada.

We were living in the Happy Days of swtor story when they decided to move us across Milwaukee and give us Laverne and Shirley. Travel plans got confused and we didn't even end up with Mork and Mindy in Colorado, but instead we end up in Chicago, suffering through Joanie Loves Chachi for 2 seasons.

We were living in the Happy Days of swtor story when they decided to move us across Milwaukee and give us Laverne and Shirley. Travel plans got confused and we didn't even end up with Mork and Mindy in Colorado, but instead we end up in Chicago, suffering through Joanie Loves Chachi for 2 seasons.

You sir deserve all the internet points for today.

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...