Virtual Voyages

(The universe of SW:TOR is, obviously, not my own. I am merely playing in George Lucas, Lucasarts, Bioware, etc's sandbox.)Summary: When Kyrian's highly questionable approach to his job finally catches up to him, it's up to Jezari and Savler to save his life. If they can. The Empire does not take kindly to treason.

 

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I'm going to have to dust this off and get it up to date. Just as soon as I remember how things on here work...

 (The universe of SW:TOR is, obviously, not my own. I am merely playing in George Lucas, Lucasarts, Bioware, etc's sandbox.)( Read more... )

 Tumblr is happily squeeing about the fact that the main character may not be white.  Which would be cool.

There's the possibility that it will be less ethically fucked up than The Clone Wars, which I periodically try to like, but which is so black and grey morality that I just can't.  (If the heroes acknowledged that everything's fucked up and just did their best, I'd probably be fine with it, but the show seems to want to have it both ways - dark! edgy! the Republic is evil! the Jedi are evil! root for our heroes who are obliviously supporting the evil! also, it's a less bad evil, so it's totes the good side!  See!  Heroism!)

It's Star Wars.

It should be exactly the kind of thing I like, given my fondness for scruffy teams running around being heroes.

I'm instead deeply meh about it.  Maybe it's just my reluctance to get too enthusiastic about something that might suck.  Maybe it's the fact that I really don't like Jedi.  Maybe it's that there's such a fine line between the tropes I love and tropes I really don't like, and I have this sinking feeling that the show is mostly the latter.

That main character?  He's an ex-Jedi with a mysterious past who has to pick up his lightsaber again and be a hero, and he's the leader of the group.  Gag me oh so much.  That is a character type that I viscerally hate.  Describe a character as "____ has to pick up their _____ again and be a hero" and my face is already squinching up in displeasure.

I'm not entirely sure why.  I'm fine with people turning hero.  I'm fine with people pulling themselves together again and being heroes.  I'm fine with (though it's not something I like that well) people turning in their badge/supersuit/whatever then after events returning to be heroes once again.  Which is kind of a full arc of the same thing I hate so much.  Kind of.

I think it's at least partially the conflation of hero with their _____.  Ex-Jedi dude can't be a hero unless he uses his lightsaber because Jedi and hero are synonyms and he can't possibly hero without a lightsaber.  Even though waving around a lightsaber would make heroing riskier not just for himself (his choice, there) but for the people he's trying to help.  The Empire's not going to be cool with anyone fucking up their plans, but that anyone is a Jedi?  They're going to come down like two tons of bricks on anyone that Jedi helps.  (In Rebellion Era tabletop games I've played, the universal response to someone whipping out a lightsaber was "HOLY FUCK PUT THAT THING AWAY!" because I am not the only one who thinks that the Empire's response to a Jedi running around - or a possible Jedi running around - would be to kill the whole area with fire.)

But it's not really the very distinctive weapon, it's that whole idea that he's more of a hero with a lightsaber than he is without one. Being a hero is about what you do, not what you do it with.   Confusing the two is a very bad idea.  For one thing, it suggest that heroes without a _____ are less than those with it.  That is not cool.

The fact that the ____ we're talking about is a lightsaber just makes it worse.  I have major Jedi issues to begin with.  My default stance on Jedi is "Yuck."  I have to remind myself that I love Zayne Carrick, and that Luke and Obi-Wan are all right (and there are other EU Jedi I thought were all right when I read about them).  At which point I amend it to Jedi being "Mostly yuck."

I have a lot of trouble with superpowered heroes.  The appeal of magic, or superpowers, or Force Sensitivity always runs smack up against my dislike of special heroes, of the idea that ordinary humans are useless and just exist as roadblocks or rescuees, of the idea that only some people can be heroes.  Some times fiction does a good job of handling a world where some people have powers and some don't and makes it clear that there are many ways to be heroic and do good and all that.  And some times I end up feeling like the series tag line should've been "Whoever wins, we lose."

That the ex-Jedi is the leader of the heroes and that he has to pick up his lightsaber again does not bode well for Star Wars: Rebels.  At least for whether I'll like it.  (Did there even need to be a leader?  Tell me, who was the leader in the original trilogy?  Yeah, Mon Mothma led the Rebel Alliance, but of our motley crew of heroes?  There wasn't one.  If there had to be a leader, did it have to be a guy?  Did it have to be a Jedi?  Did they have to go with the must pick up lightsaber to be hero thing?  It's like they picked the answer I would least like to every one of those questions.  If the heroes included an ambiguously brown Jedi-in-hiding, one who'd either never put down his lightsaber or who did fine without one, I'd have gone "Oh, cool." with only a bit of Jedi reservation.)

I ran across a gaming blog post (somewhere) that postulated that games should sometimes punish people for taking the good (or "good") option, instead of always rewarding them. While they were discussing standalone computer games (and I see some potential problems with punishing people for doing good things in game), I think they're on to something.

Then again, I could just have a sadistic streak.

Seriously, though, I do think game designers sacrifice story (and sometimes all logic) in their desire to not punish players for their choices. Especially if those choices are the good ones. Now, maybe they're right and players would feel punished if good choices had logical fall out. But I suspect that most players would prefer an awesome story, even if their character has a shitty time of it, and even if their good choices mean that sometimes bad things happen to their character or they miss out on a reward or whatever.

I support my theory with the fact that nearly everyone deems the Agent story the best in SW:TOR even though it has (regardless of moral choices) your character go through hell to do their job, not to mention get screwed over by their own government. One actually has the sense that their could be fall out from making Light Side decisions in that story, and there may be a time or two, minorly. (I can't always remember what choices were LS/DS and what were regular conversation.) I suspect that if they had included actual fall out from LS decisions, the story would've only been deemed more memorable and awesome.

In contrast, the Sith Warrior story has, so far, lacked any sense of threat surrounding LS choices because your master just invents reasons for them. It takes a way part of the fun of playing a Light Side Imperial to feel that you could plant the Jedi flag in your master's chamber and dance around it singing "Go Republic!" and he'd just pat you on the head and complement your brilliant plan.

...

I just realized that, in a sense, making sure not to punish the character for non-faction-consistent actions kind of does end up punishing the player. It damages the immersiveness of the game and damages the story of the game. To put it in tabletop roleplaying terms, it leaves you with a gamemaster who's afraid to let anything bad happen to the characters no matter what the players choose. This isn't a good thing.

The fall out should be in-genre, of course, but there should be fall out. It can be minor and mission specific (my favorite early moment of the game actually does this - the Agent story mission Dark Meeting proves that being Honor Before Reason with Sith is...not wise) or it could be alternate missions prompted by previous choices (a little like how the romance stories with companions work - you flirt, you get the romance stories, you don't, you don't) - and if you get sufficiently dark as a Jedi, say, you get a little intervention meeting with important Jedi who are worried about you or if you get sufficiently light as a Sith, you get a threatening meeting with important Sith who are suspicious of you.

Likewise, too many good deeds as an agent should get some sort of either "I know what you're doing, you may get yourself horribly killed" or "I suspect you of treason" meeting with Keeper (Depending on exactly what Keeper's moral leanings are supposed to be. I'm still not entirely sure... So perhaps a threatening ambiguous meeting would be best... is he hinting that what you're doing is dangerous or is he hinting that he'll be happy to put you in front of a firing squad, give you to the Sith, whatever they do to traitors).

Being too Dark Side as a Smuggler could trigger problems with Republic customs. (Though - and this is another story fail due to being afraid players would feel punished - the story only ONCE notices that you are a frickin' criminal. The story would be vastly improved by people, you know, noticing.  More lines of dialogue indicating that people are suspicious of you, or surprised by your heroics, or... ANYTHING.)

I have no ideas for Trooper or Bounty Hunter because the Trooper reports to someone who wouldn't likely object to them being Dark Side and Light Side and Dark Side have no meaning for Bounty Hunters.  If Troopers reported to someone who wasn't evil, then I'd say they should be brought in for discussion of how their risking a court martial if they're Dark Side.  If the alignments had meaning on a Bounty Hunter, I'd say that they should be threatened for breaking the Creed or giving Bounty Hunters a bad name by being unreliable and sometimes not doing what you were hired to do. Or something.

I mean, I loooove the letter of face palm*, but I would love it ten times more if a bounty hunter hired by her aggrieved husband showed up later.  Or, hell, even if you just got a second letter from the husband promising to hire a bounty hunter as soon as he could afford it.  Sith should be a lot more peeved if you don't do as they tell you (logically this would go away as a Sith character got higher level and more powerful, but on Agents and Bounty Hunters?  You should just get used to pain.)  The Republic should be upset if someone acting in their name is committing evil acts (then again, they don't notice all the Republic NPCs doing so...).

Generally speaking, games should care more about the story and less about the immediate rewards.  Have things play out the way they would in that genre, in that setting, with those people.  If that means that sometimes being good sucks, then, well, sometimes being good sucks.  You should get a reputation based on your actions and that should change how people react to you - for better or worse.  (And, hell, there would be times when having a bad reputation might be advantageous.  "Oh, god, it's the Slaughterer!  She never leaves anyone alive!" *NPCs flee the area, abandoning their stations and letting you walk in and get/do what you came for*  Conversely, a good deed might result in an NPC going "Wait, don't shoot him, he saved my brother!" and getting everyone to stand down and let you get/do what you came for.)  Committing crimes - for good or ill - should come back to haunt you.  Not behaving as your faction deems appropriate should bite you in the ass.  I think most players would be too damn entertained to care if sometimes being good meant that their character got a beating instead of a reward.  I also think that, the better the story you tell, the more the story itself becomes the reward.

I'm less comfortable with more serious versions of the idea, simply because I would rather fiction didn't say "doing good is pointless" or "being evil leads to success."  I realize some measure of that is true in reality, but I want my fiction to be better than reality.  (Which is not to say that people shouldn't make games with those messages - I just want them to market them clearly so that only people who do like grim fiction buy them.  I would, for example, expect a Song of Ice and Fire game to operate under those rules because that's how that fictional world works.  Good fails.  Evil succeeds. Or fails.  Because it is a world of suck.  And the people who like the books would want that.)



* As it's a minor spoiler for a mission on Imperial Balmorra, scroll to the bottom of this entry virtualvoyages.dreamwidth.org/9147.html

Obviously, all the plots in an MMORPG are going to be railroad plots (and much of the time in tabletop gaming as well, really), but there's still the matter of whether one feels railroaded or not. Or at least as if one bought the ticket to where the train is going, as opposed to finding out that somehow your ticket to Orlando was now a ticket to Juneau or London or Nairobi. (Halp! This train is teleporting!)

Most of the time, despite inherently having less choice than a tabletop game (where, say, one's Jedi could devote his or her life to correcting the wrongs the Republic is committing, or one's Bounty Hunter could decide that, actually, they'd rather become a rescuer of folks kidnapped by the assorted despicable governments, or whatever), SW:TOR does a great job of presenting stories that flow naturally and feel as if they contain real choices (even if those choices often lack the consequences they really should carry). But sometimes, they flub up badly.

And they - in my opinion anyway - flubbed in Chapter one of the Bounty Hunter and in Chapter Two of the Jedi Knight

( Spoilers under )

First, the nonspoilery review of the two classes I've finished (and they will come as a surprise to no one).

Agent: Totally awesome!  Epic fun spy fiction along the lines of James Bond (though less ruthless if you play Light Side).  Oddly enough, quite possibly the furthest to the Idealism side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs Cynicism, if played Light Side.  The vast majority of LS choices line up nicely with good (though I will note that many only work because this is an idealistic story as you are frequently endangering your mission by being LS) and it is tropetastic in the best possible sense.

Smuggler: I love the dialogue options, but the story did not hold up at all well. I felt like it's twists were more on the order of retcons and the story just felt a bit generic.  (Rather than centered on you/your chosen career the way the Agent story is.)  While it still has a number of LS choices that are on the idealistic side and the story itself could still be argued to be, it's set in a not-so-idealistic world.

Now for the more spoilery class reviews and some tweaks that I think would have made the game a ton better.


( Spoilers under cut )

(The universe of SW:TOR is, obviously, not my own. I am merely playing in George Lucas, Lucasarts, Bioware, etc's sandbox.)


Title: Conflicts of Interest (Part Two)
Genre: Gen (adventure)
Rating: PG (mild violence, swearing)
Summary: Missions for their respective governments have set Kyrian (an Imperial Agent) and Jezari (a Smuggler who does work for the Republic) on a collision course.  There is also the slight matter of a Bounty Hunter...

 

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This is a blog about MMOs.  It is also a writing exercise of sorts, in which I blog as characters I play in various MMOs.  As myself, I will discuss MMOs, both specifically and as a game genre.  Expect posts by me to be about the good, the bad, and the ugly in MMOs and MMO culture - from my point of view.  Which may, or may not be the same as yours.  The in character posts are intended to be purely fun, and the views in those are not necessarily the same as mine.

A quick and easy key to telling the posts apart is this: if the icon is a glowing book, that's a post by me, the player; if the icon is a character from a game, it's a post by that character.

Cheers!
And happy gaming. :)


Edit: I should warn that Star Wars: The Old Republic posts will contain quest spoilers.  (Never thought I'd be typing that for a game!)

Edit 2:  There will also be fan fic short stories about some of my SW:TOR characters.  These may include spoilers indirectly (mentioning things that happened in game), though the ficverse will diverge from the game's storyline.  (Exactly at what point it diverges will be noted here once I've figured that out.  Right now, the only story I've written would fit tidily into the game's stories no prob.) Those posts will, handily, be identified with an icon that reads "SW:TOR fan fic."  (And, if I someday write fan fic about my Champions characters, there will be an icon that reads "Champions fan fic.")  I will do my best to post appropriate ratings and warnings, though I am new to this whole fanfic thing.

Edit 3: In view of Edit 2 (the fact that there is now fan fiction on here) and in view of the internet generally being in favor of content warnings, I am following an internet friend's suggestion and adding, ah, content info:

The Star Wars universe contains - in no particular order - war, violence (usually not graphically depicted), maiming, torture, genocide, destruction of planets (sometimes inhabited), zombies, super weapons, terrorism, a tendency to conflate evil and insanity (or just a lot of villains who are probably also in need of some mental help), mass murder, fantastic racism speciesism, ableist language, sexist people, swearing, and probably a few potentially unpleasant/disturbing things I've temporarily forgotten.

It also contains spaceships, varied assortments of humans and aliens, mystical powers, heroism, adventure, spaceships, daring rescues, improbable powers of persuasion, hope, triumph over adversity, good people defying bad governments, friendship and/or love triumphing over any number of things, and did I mention spaceships?

A large number of these things will be mentioned and/or contained in my fics, character blogs, and general blogging about the game.

I don't care who tries to tell you what about Taris, stay away from it. It's a rakghoul infested cesspit and I don't want to have to come smuggle your ass off it because you fell for the brochures and now Governor Asshole won't let you leave.  I mean it.  There is nothing there except swamp, rakghouls, pirates and toxic waste.  And people who fell for the brochures.

The customs official's a jerk, the governor just cares what it looks like to the people back home, and the soldiers have been stuck there so long they're losing it.  The damn planet needs warning beacons, not resettlement.

Seriously, I don't care if your great-great-great-great grandwhatever had land there, it's not worth it. 

Not than anybody'll listen to me.

Damn being an upstanding citizen.