"And somewhere the former crazed Emperor lives on, Eager to take every last drop of life from the galaxy..."

That line was in the interlude after I finished SoR on my bounty hunter. Marr talked to me about us being back at war with the Republic. The Emperor himself restated his ideals and confirmed his identity as a planet devourer.

Why can't Boyd and Bioware just admit the truth? Someone had a very BAD idea to change everything up with KotFE and KotET, and even if this was a direction being forced on the writing team, they utterly failed to bridge SoR to KotFE and give a plausable reason for an Emperor, who's ultimate motivations have never been hidden, be it from his own words, Scourge's , etc, that he wants to devour all life in the galaxy to become a god, and create a whole new galaxy with him as the center.

Frankly, settling down on Zakuul would be beneath him.

You can tell the tone starts to get a little wonky in Ziost. But still, what they did for KotFE was wrong. It was out of character, and poorly written when contrasted with what came before. Its like KotFE and KotET were different games entirely but with the same mechanics.

If EA or the higher ups at BioWare will not allow them to admit they screwed the story up, fine. But start making it RIGHT. Pre-KotFE Emperor DOESN'T NEED a retcon - VALKORION DOES. Hell, they already did the whole "split body" thing with Revan - I could see Vitiate separating the part of him that wanted family into a separate entity, while the "Hands" supported Vitiate proper. Rehash? Sure. But better than continuing to try to make a failed story work.

Come on BioWare. Enough screwing around. Just playing through Vanilla stories is enough to scream that KotFEs story was out of place and broke continuity. So fix it already, and stop doubling down on stupid and expecting us to believe it, when the story that came before is enough of a testament to how you are full of it.

Agree. The whole thing reeks of "hey this classic SW stuff is getting old, let's boldly go where no one has gone before"

Surely there's a trope for that...

I knew it ! Though this one describes musical genres, it's littered with all the pivotal points happening here.

I 100% agree. KotFE and KotET were interesting stories, but they should have never been a continuation of SWTOR's story. The narrative is so messed up in my opinion at the moment that a lot of the magic that brought me to the game 5 years ago is gone. I fell in love with SWTOR due to the classic Star Wars themes, Jedi vs Sith, Empire vs Republic. Leave that be, allow me to live my fantasy and play in a story that is classic Star Wars, not this new alternative side. Sure, it's interesting but we have enough of that "alternative side" flavour in the new movies, I really didn't want or need it in SWTOR.

Thus, my passionate plea to Bioware: return to classic Star Wars in SWTOR, Republic vs Empire, Jedi vs Sith. Return the magic that brought me to SWTOR five years ago, please.

Without wanting to sound too judgmental but one reason why a mysterious ancient emperor works better than a socialite emperor of zakuul is the simple point that the writers have to be able to describe someone like an all powerful emperor.

Vitiatate had tremendous power, intellect and deviousness that had no equal. As a writer you will have to be able to understand that to describe it properly and if your own power, intellect and deviousness do not even come to close to such a thing, how can you even hope to do that justice in detail.

So BW's solution was to make it a personal drama hoping to reel people in like any soap opera might. Except, there are people here of some intelligence (and it doesn't require you to be Einstein) to poke through that quite easily.

Also their inability to write consistently is another issue. They clearly had no plan for the writing beyond some big lines and once they started writing the chapters it just went all over the place. Not in the least to try to accomodate 8 wildly differeng classes and background stories.

In short, they tried to do something they did not have the capacity for and it shows. Vitiate had to step down to Valkorion and we had to step down to some Alliance commander simply because BW could not continue where things left off. I think in part it's a resource issue and the other part is that they went so overboard with the original stories that they wrote themselves into a corner they couldn't get out of. As much as I like the original stories, I never thought it was a good idea to make our characters Dark Council Members, Wraths, Masters etc. right away.

What else can you write beyond that? What can you achieve more than where we got? Particularly in an MMO where you have to assume the story needs to continue. We rose to power too quickly. That includes Imperial Agents defeating a Dark Council member at lower levels even and that is something that I wish they hadn't done. The Inquisitor gains power beyond power by dabbling with spirits and then it just disappears like it never happened.

So I think it's not just Vitiate but all of our characters that suffered a dumbing down of their roles and personality. It was a poorly executed story nerf. Of course Bioware then throws in the idea of becoming a god in Iokath...I mean, was that really necessary?

Thus, my passionate plea to Bioware: return to classic Star Wars in SWTOR, Republic vs Empire, Jedi vs Sith. Return the magic that brought me to SWTOR five years ago, please.

In that scenario the best I think we can hope for is missions like the Umbara one, where Imp and Pub ncs are switches based on our Iokath coice.

I never thought it was a good idea to make our characters Dark Council Members, Wraths, Masters etc. right away.

In that sense (but not necessarily in other senses), the Trooper story is probably more successful (less fail-ridden?) than the others - the character remains just a Major. Sure, a Spec Forces Major, but not General or anything stupid like that, while the others are on the Dark or Jedi Council, or they are the Emperor's Wrath or the top of the top fighting Jedi, or whatever.

Come on BioWare. Enough screwing around. Just playing through Vanilla stories is enough to scream that KotFEs story was out of place and broke continuity. So fix it already, and stop doubling down on stupid and expecting us to believe it, when the story that came before is enough of a testament to how you are full of it.

Woah now. While they certainly threw everything pre-KotFE out the window and only barely acknowledged it ("You're not the power-hungry planet eater from before!" "I am and I'm not!"), I don't agree that the new story is worse. I think it's better. Obviously that's opinion though and we'll likely never agree.

However, do you really think they're capable of fixing it? Apparently they thought they'd painted themselves into a corner with the previous story, hence the heavyhanded approach of throwing it out the window and pretending it never happened. Would you really want them to do that again, reboot the story once more?

Woah now. While they certainly threw everything pre-KotFE out the window and only barely acknowledged it ("You're not the power-hungry planet eater from before!" "I am and I'm not!"), I don't agree that the new story is worse. I think it's better. Obviously that's opinion though and we'll likely never agree.

 

However, do you really think they're capable of fixing it? Apparently they thought they'd painted themselves into a corner with the previous story, hence the heavyhanded approach of throwing it out the window and pretending it never happened. Would you really want them to do that again, reboot the story once more?

If KotFE and KotET were seperate stories in a seperate game, then I would have liked them and graded them much better. As a continuation of the SWTOR narrative however I 100% agree that KotFE and KotET are much worse than the original vanilla class stories. Just look at what a forced railway run KotFE and KotET are, there is a negligible amount of story variation in different playthroughs which makes the two new expansion boring and bland after the first 2 playthroughs. Even playing it Dark Side or Light side has no impact on the story at all expect for the decor changing a bit. Is that supposed to be meaningful choices?

Look at the vanilla class stories, choices did matter there, a lot, a lot more. You can play a Light Side and Dark Side Sith Inquisitor or Sith Warrior and you won't have the exact same story experience with each. With KotFE and KotET you do. There is a reason why I have deleted the characters that I suffered through KotFE and KotET just to be able to return to the vanilla storyline and wash the bad Zakuulian taste out of my figurative mouth.

Vanilla class stories? Solid 9/10.

KotFE and KotET together? 4/10 if I am generous.

Taken form all the posts on the subject of story, it would appear that most players have noted decline in quality of writing in the last few years.

TBH better fan-fiction is posted in the forums, better writing is everywhere.

~To shoe-horn every old class story into a one-size-(doesn't) fit all was the biggest mistake ever.

It was cheap and it felt and played cheaply.

Taken form all the posts on the subject of story, it would appear that most players have noted decline in quality of writing in the last few years.

 

TBH better fan-fiction is posted in the forums, better writing is everywhere.

 

~To shoe-horn every old class story into a one-size-(doesn't) fit all was the biggest mistake ever.

 

It was cheap and it felt and played cheaply.

I consider many roleplay events and storylines I have had back in the days there existed a Progenitor server, with other players to be much and much better quality than KotFE and KotET. And to think what awe we had back then for the story team (KotFE hadn't been released back then) and how our dreams were to catch a glimpse of their attention for our fanfictions. How things have changed now, after KotFE and KotET. It saddens me so much a great story went down to an average story that I really have to push myself to play.

Even Copero I was like "ugh, do we have to do it?". I ended up postponing it to the other day because the Inquisitor class story which I was replaying for the 7th time was much and much more interesting...

Taken form all the posts on the subject of story, it would appear that most players have noted decline in quality of writing in the last few years.

 

TBH better fan-fiction is posted in the forums, better writing is everywhere.

 

~To shoe-horn every old class story into a one-size-(doesn't) fit all was the biggest mistake ever.

 

It was cheap and it felt and played cheaply.

It also started on Ilum. I liked Ziost and Oricon but why the Dread Lords or the nearly omnipotent Emperor think my goofy smuggler is a threat to them is a mystery.

The best part of the whole Kofte story was when we forged a superweapon to kill Arcann within some force sensitive cave, that just so happened to be not that far from where we reside on Odessen, only to end up not even using it in the end. What's this shield s**t we're doing right now is what I thought to myself. I nearly spilled coffee on my keyboard from laughing so hard....and the kicker was that Arcann still didn't die. Dude has even thicker plot armor then I had on. Ha Ha ha!! lol

KotFE and KotET were a story experiment that in my opinion failed and backfired. I think the devs wanted to sail on the waves of The Force Awakens too badly and opted to also flow on the "shades or gray" and "alternative side" current. Sadly, the story became damaged, the population of the game declined severely and they haven't been able to bring back all the players that went away. They forced Zakuul and the Eternal Alliance down our throats and now it seems a bit as if they are surprised people turned away and left after the force feeding.

When the new Star Wars trilogy went to explore the whole "more than light and dark", "shades of gray" and "alternative side" themes, Star Wars The Old Republic should have stuck with their roots and what made them successful in the first place, and thus they should have remained traditional Star Wars. And now sadly the devs are too afraid to admit they made a mistake with KotFE and KotET and the story keeps on going and players are turning away more and more.

People always blame Charles Boyd but, to my memory he wasn't lead writer until after kotfe.

I blame whoever thought up that SWTOR should go down the "shades of gray" theme that has been going on with the new trilogy movies. Sure, interesting theme but it's enough that it is being explored in the movies, we don't need it in SWTOR. Whether that was Charles Boyd or not I don't know, but whoever came up with the retcon idea that came with KotFE and KotET instead of continuing traditional Star Wars and the amazing pre-KotFE storylines made a grand mistake that the game is paying for now with a declining playerbase.

The story would have been better if the Sith Emperor had died on Yavin 4 and Kotfe was its own story with twin conquerors and a bearded old emperor that does not live in your head and does not make it out that you alone in all the galaxy was special.

Hell the Sith Emperor should have stayed dead as he was on Makeb and the story moved forward. Instead of always being dragged back to the same big bad. I'm sure the current story arc will tie back to the Emperor again in some way.

Sadly though, I think they are just winding down till EA decides its not profitable anymore. We are down to 5 servers, has anyone seen the numbers on their sever that would make them think there are 5,000 unique accounts. Even including free to play it would be optimistic at this point to hope there are 25,000 people playing the game.

So with the state of the galaxy where there are massively diverging story lines as far as Empire and Republic go but a one size fits all story around the character, short of another 5 year nap and galaxy reset I don't see how they can hope to get a story to work. Half makes me expect that the thing Theron is after is a time machine to reset the Kotfe mess, but you just can't do that after 2 years of Story. It would make the Dallas I just had the strangest dream fiasco seem like masterful writing.

I blame whoever thought up that SWTOR should go down the "shades of gray" theme that has been going on with the new trilogy movies. Sure, interesting theme but it's enough that it is being explored in the movies, we don't need it in SWTOR. Whether that was Charles Boyd or not I don't know, but whoever came up with the retcon idea that came with KotFE and KotET instead of continuing traditional Star Wars and the amazing pre-KotFE storylines made a grand mistake that the game is paying for now with a declining playerbase.

I don't really think it's a bad thing. It is sad that certain things cannot continue because of what happened to certain characters, but a story going through phases is interesting to me. It shouldn't go on forever with the alliance and stuff though.

I don't really think it's a bad thing. It is sad that certain things cannot continue because of what happened to certain characters, but a story going through phases is interesting to me. It shouldn't go on forever with the alliance and stuff though.

Sadly it seems we are stuck in the Alliance. I hate it all because of that fact, that we don't seem to be getting the choice to abandon the Alliance and return to the Empire or Republic. I hope I am wrong, I really am. I just want to be done with the entire Zakuul and Eternal Alliance debacle and return to the roots of SWTOR

KotFE and KotET were a story experiment that in my opinion failed and backfired. I think the devs wanted to sail on the waves of The Force Awakens too badly and opted to also flow on the "shades or gray" and "alternative side" current. Sadly, the story became damaged, the population of the game declined severely and they haven't been able to bring back all the players that went away. They forced Zakuul and the Eternal Alliance down our throats and now it seems a bit as if they are surprised people turned away and left after the force feeding.

 

When the new Star Wars trilogy went to explore the whole "more than light and dark", "shades of gray" and "alternative side" themes, Star Wars The Old Republic should have stuck with their roots and what made them successful in the first place, and thus they should have remained traditional Star Wars. And now sadly the devs are too afraid to admit they made a mistake with KotFE and KotET and the story keeps on going and players are turning away more and more.

The devs wouldn't have any idea what the plotlines were for the new movies were especially within the time frame KOTFE was written in so there's no point in blaming or even suggesting it was the new movies.

Also in the Entertaiment Weekly article Rian Johnson confirmed that the new trilogy never had any sort of outline. JJ didn't have anything planned for Eps 8 and 9 when making 7 and as such Johnson had free reign to do whatever he wanted on Last Jedi as long as Kathleen Kennedy approved it. So even the new movies didn't know the direction they were going.

Didn't Charles Boyd make a seriously long post months back explaining certain things while admitting other stuff is yet to be answered?

Yes, but people blasted him for it because they didn't like his explanation.

Yes, but people blasted him for it because they didn't like his explanation.

This is why we can't have nice things.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Yup, and people wonder why they get no extra info anymore about stuff. I read the explanation, didn't agree on it all but appreciated that he actually took the time to explain Valky. It was awesome! but we won't get that again because of the "I didn't like that reasoning so you're an idiot and trash writer" crowd. PSA: it really is possible to disagree or provide criticism without falling into insults and raging.

Yup, and people wonder why they get no extra info anymore about stuff. I read the explanation, didn't agree on it all but appreciated that he actually took the time to explain Valky. It was awesome! but we won't get that again because of the "I didn't like that reasoning so you're an idiot and trash writer" crowd. PSA: it really is possible to disagree or provide criticism without falling into insults and raging.

Yeah, I bet we'll never see a detailed response from Charles again. I guess having common decency is impossible for some.

Okay, so my memory didn't fail me.

Six months ago, the same OP of this thread created another thread also stating "After revisiting SoR grr grr KOTFE". Same premise though that one didn't start out with a focus on Vitiate's character development/mistakes.

Charles' answers back then.

The thread itself that got closed because it derailed so badly but it has plenty information on this stuff and in the final post, Eric links to other discussions on the subject. Just for those curious.