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Hearts and Minds - Weird perception of "good" or "bad" performance


force_fortytwo

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Hi,

 

I'm wondering if anyone else is also a bit perplexed about how the game values the dialogue choices made in this little quest.

 

I'm talking about the pubside version,

 

 

when your character - as the former Jedi Knight, current Alliance Commander who has sided with the empire on Iokath but then returned to help the Jedi on Ossus - is invited to a Republic-wide holovised show with that Alec Ranin guy. The involvement of Jonas Balkar in the preparation of this video makes it very clear that your toon is intended to be used for a big fat nice Republic propaganda video.

My toon in that situation accepted the offer. She is aligned rather with the republic, but is a honest person who keeps her word, which explains why she sided with the Empire on Iokath - since Darth Acina had helped her fight Zakuul, while the Republic did not. She also has developed an attitude of integrity, straightforwardness and a disgust for blunt, jingoistic propaganda. She's all about values and deeds, not nice words. (And, mind you, she's not a saboteur!)

 

And that's how she handles the interview. She

- makes it clear that the Alliance is still a separate entity,

- makes it clear that she heeds her obligations (the Empire helped me, meanwhile Saresh tried to have me killed)

- but also points out that she's absolutely willing to fight Malgus's Empire and

- makes it clear that the Republic will prevail if they live up to their ideals again and fight together.

 

Surely not entirely what the propaganda department would have hoped to hear, but seriously... can a new, important ally - who does not see herself as "within" the republic anymore and has had a thorough experience of betrayal and disappointment (Rep passivity, Saresh's assassination ploy, Malcom's narrow-gauged stubbornness) - really be blamed for not unconditionally buying into all that Republic hooray stuff again? Apparently the "good guys" (the Galactic Republic or at least the propaganda guys) have a serious problem with freedom of speech there, as they'd rather someone advertises the war for them with that monochromatic "Us vs. the Sith" viewpoint, instead of pointing out the shades of grey on both sides and arguing how the Republic can finally be a great democracy again and win against the Empire's threat... The rather monosyllabic reaction of the media guy after the interview ("My assistant will show you the door") and Balkar ("Next time you should find someone else to do that") really made me ponder what my toon will make of that now.

 

How did you perceive your "Hearts and Minds" situation, in case your toon isn't a Republic White Knight or a clandestine Saboteur for the Empire?

 

Edited by force_fortytwo
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Hi,

 

I'm wondering if anyone else is also a bit perplexed about how the game values the dialogue choices made in this little quest.

 

I'm talking about the pubside version,

 

 

when your character - as the former Jedi Knight, current Alliance Commander who has sided with the empire on Iokath but then returned to help the Jedi on Ossus - is invited to a Republic-wide holovised show with that Alec Ranin guy. The involvement of Jonas Balkar in the preparation of this video makes it very clear that your toon is intended to be used for a big fat nice Republic propaganda video.

My toon in that situation accepted the offer. She is aligned rather with the republic, but is a honest person who keeps her word, which explains why she sided with the Empire on Iokath - since Darth Acina had helped her fight Zakuul, while the Republic did not. She also has developed an attitude of integrity, straightforwardness and a disgust for blunt, jingoistic propaganda. She's all about values and deeds, not nice words. (And, mind you, she's not a saboteur!)

 

And that's how she handles the interview. She

- makes it clear that the Alliance is still a separate entity,

- makes it clear that she heeds her obligations (the Empire helped me, meanwhile Saresh tried to have me killed)

- but also points out that she's absolutely willing to fight Malgus's Empire and

- makes it clear that the Republic will prevail if they live up to their ideals again and fight together.

 

Surely not entirely what the propaganda department would have hoped to hear, but seriously... can a new, important ally - who does not see herself as "within" the republic anymore and has had a thorough experience of betrayal and disappointment (Rep passivity, Saresh's assassination ploy, Malcom's narrow-gauged stubbornness) - really be blamed for not unconditionally buying into all that Republic hooray stuff again? Apparently the "good guys" (the Galactic Republic or at least the propaganda guys) have a serious problem with freedom of speech there, as they'd rather someone advertises the war for them with that monochromatic "Us vs. the Sith" viewpoint, instead of pointing out the shades of grey on both sides and arguing how the Republic can finally be a great democracy again and win against the Empire's threat... The rather monosyllabic reaction of the media guy after the interview ("My assistant will show you the door") and Balkar ("Next time you should find someone else to do that") really made me ponder what my toon will make of that now.

 

How did you perceive your "Hearts and Minds" situation, in case your toon isn't a Republic White Knight or a clandestine Saboteur for the Empire?

 

Here is how I best describe the entire interview.

 

 

 

 

IMO: We are given an opportunity by the dev group to provide feed back to see how we feel about the ending of KotET. Do we simply want to join the republic and disolve the remnants of the "Alliance" and be done with it ? OR do we want the Alliance to remain a seperate entity for now ?

 

Both are good solid questions. Both have players that support either point of view. I chose the same response you did... we remain independent but have chosen to assist the Republic in this conflict. I really do like the Republic. I really don't like the Sith Empire. On the other hand there is a LOT to be said about the corruption on BOTH sides.

 

As for Malgus and the rest of the story .. IMO we are just seeing the beginning stages of the conflict. It could also be that we see more interviews... and those questions being tougher to answer. The one thing I hope that we DON'T see is being handed answers that we don't really like and probably wouldn't choose. Along those lines I also believe that this could be an opportunity for the development team to see just how many of us really would have prefered that 3rd option in earlier disscussions. Soooo... really IMO... this is a VERY WELL done opportunity to "set the records straight" so to speak.

 

Bottom line: Both the Hearts and minds interlude and the subsequent followup interview were VERY WELL DONE !

 

TWO thumbs up IMO !

 

 

 

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I also thought the interviews are *Weird, totally Unexpected coming from SWTOR but not Bad either. My JK seemed good with it he always has plenty of "Righteous Rhetoric" for every occasion but for my Main the Gunslinger I kept thinking of Han Solo, Malcom Reynolds or any other similar figure what they would think ( Evel Knievel had quite a profound reaction to being *Interviewed ).

 

The Sith Interview was very different however and brought back the issue of "How would we reintegrate our characters back into the factions" The interview itself (Sith/ Imperial) was ok but the *Wording brought up an issue of "Them giving Orders and Us Taking those orders". Going back as an Equal Partner or returning as a pleab lackey. The wording from Darth Krovos implied slightly less but on her terms while the wording from Malgus was a definite "You order I follow" one of the responses to Malgus after his statements was/ is "Understood". Bey’wan Aygo used that response After you tell him your finished with his crates. It's all in the wording, Symantics, equal and working together or responding to orders.

 

I do see how our responses here could be used to determine an honest answer to how the players want to return to a 2 faction scheme; honest, everybody will do this and also part of a short story.

Edited by MikeCobalt
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Like you said, it's a propaganda speech. Which fits because your job as a "loyalist" is to improve Republic morale. Any answers other than "REPUBLIC ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" does not fit with that agenda. Even when the reporter acknowledges how the Republic was not as good to you during the war with Zakuul, as the Empire was, you're expected to be 100% republic in your heart and mind-- or, if not, you're expected to SAY so anyway, to make the everyday-people watching the broadcast, to feel proud and patriotic.

 

The Imperial speech for Imperial loyalists has a tad more flexibility,

 

 

in that you can preach better esteem and prestige for aliens and Non Sith and still get good marks, but again, anything that does not make the soldiers proud and confident, is not what the speech handlers want. Again, it's propaganda, and you're not supposed to tell the pure TRUTH, as much as what the speech handlers, think the soldiers want to hear.

 

 

Like the character of "The Girl" in the movie Season of the Witch says: "We believe what we want to believe."

Edited by HollyUSEC
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Like you said, it's a propaganda speech. Which fits because your job as a "loyalist" is to improve Republic morale. Any answers other than "REPUBLIC ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" does not fit with that agenda. Even when the reporter acknowledges how the Republic was not as good to you during the war with Zakuul, as the Empire was, you're expected to be 100% republic in your heart and mind-- or, if not, you're expected to SAY so anyway, to make the everyday-people watching the broadcast, to feel proud and patriotic.

 

The Imperial speech for Imperial loyalists has a tad more flexibility,

 

 

in that you can preach better esteem and prestige for aliens and Non Sith and still get good marks, but again, anything that does not make the soldiers proud and confident, is not what the speech handlers want. Again, it's propaganda, and you're not supposed to tell the pure TRUTH, as much as what the speech handlers, think the soldiers want to hear.

 

 

Like the character of "The Girl" in the movie Season of the Witch says: "We believe what we want to believe."

 

:) Oh H**l I just thought of something, everybody here was worried about "How", we would be reintegrated back into the two factions, Hero's considering what we've done at Zakuul, or Starting over from the bottom. From this it looks like we're coming back as a "Campy T.V. sales pitch person", a TV commercial. :)

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  • 1 month later...

:) My Gunslinger didn't get the "Good Response". First off he and Jonas did Not meet well after Jonas's smart a** personality then later on during the interview I'm thinking "What would a "Star Wars" Smuggler think about the media and a million "Too close to home" questions. That last remarks they asked about his answer was "Nope".

Hahahaha, Walking out Jonas says "That coulda been better, from now on let me handle the press". I walked out thinking "Good, I didn't want to do this anyway and you really pissed me off so have fun".

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  • 1 month later...
The imperial saboteur speech was so cringeworthy, cartoonish, and OOC. I really hated it, especially the end where your character is like chanting awkwardly to themselves. Is my punishment for betraying the Empire that I have to become a complete buffoon?
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My dark Jedi character is willfully supporting the empire, naturally. He was invited and painted a bleak picture of what will happen if the republic kept fighting. NR-02 couldn't be more happier with the result. So what exactly is a good or bad response? :rolleyes:

 

I have my main who is a light side sith warrior and he'd love to openly support republic efforts and help the propaganda message if only to spite his fellow dark lords, they'd be furious but he'd be emboldened by their hate and fear, it would be like a declious meal to feed on, knowing that his chains are broken and struck a sharp blow to his enemies. The more they'd react the stronger he'd get by converting that darkness to light and spreading it around, after all one less dead sith lord is one less tormented soul being freed from servitude.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My JK chose the options to tell Alec that the Alliance was allied to the Republic but not part of it and that she chose the Republic on Iokath only because it was a safer bet on the long run than chosing the Empire.

After that she said that Malgus was powerful but was already defeated once and could be a second time and that the republic and the Alliance could win the war together.

Both Alec and Jonas were happy with her in the end, eve though she clearly stated that she had been disappointed by the Republic and would like to remain independant in the future. And that this wish for the Alliance to be independant was the only reason she chose the Republic over the Empire on Iokath.

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  • 3 months later...

Normally don't necro a thread but, yeah, having finally done it with a pub character, it is a lot more awkward than the Sith. My answers were:

 

We're still separate.

Love the republic

Beat Malgus once, we can do it again.

Only through Sacrifice

Prepare for a long war.

 

My rationale was that my trooper was a Republic loyalist but the events during the Zakuul war didn't inspire a lot of trust. Also, as a trooper, she doesn't see why she would say "yeah, war is going to be a cakewalk" both because of her experiences on the front line and telling the Republic that they shouldn't believe it's going to be a cakewalk so they need to be willing to commit.

 

(Afterwards, I wish that there had been an option to tell Jonas to shove his assessment up his ***.)

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