Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Wars: The Old Republic: A 6-Hour Preview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Recently, MMORPG.com writer Ben PerLee had the opportunity to spend quality time with Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic. In this new feature for MMORPG.com, Ben and fellow journalists had the chance to play as Jedi Knights and Jedi Consulars on their origin planet of Tython. Check out Ben's thoughts about his six hours with SWTOR and then weigh in with your impressions below.
I and fellow journalists were split between the Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular on their origin planet of Tython. It's a lush green forested planet with some of the oldest Jedi ruins in the galaxy, making it the perfect place for the Jedi to set themselves up. I was lined up with a brand new Jedi Consular, a character treated as a particularly powerful new member of the Jedi Order. Technically a padawon, I wasn't even given a lightsaber. Instead equipped with a crappy training sword (which the farthest I ever upgraded beyond was a vibrosword, with lightsabers made by the player at a later level), I set out to perform the origin world tasks and make myself familiar with The Old Republic.
Read more Star Wars: The Old Republic: A 6-Hour Preview.
)
Comments
Hell Ya! Iooking forward to this game soon!
Looking at that review and the review from many other source, to say i'm pleased and excited to hear it's doing so well would be an understatement.
I'm trying to keep my expectations low for this game so i'm not disappointed and so i don't explode with excitement when the game starts but every time i hear a review about this game it gets harder and harder to keep that from happening.
Finally it looks like we got a winner on our hand for MMOs. can't wait (but i'll have to) for the game to come out.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Actually sounds relatively promising if I erase all my notions of what I want a Star Wars game to be and just let the game be what it is. A really cool sounding single player game where I can sometimes play with friends if I want. *shrug* That doesn't bother me that much.
Ya know, as much as I am a Star Wars fan... the Jedi vs Sith moralities always stand like a huge obstacle in the way. How denying love can be counted "good" and betraying them is beyond me. The Jedi code is just absurd, leaving emotions and personal feelings aside sounds like being a robot. And the Sith ideal isn't better; letting your live be dominated by hate and anger... no thanks. If I were a force user I'd make my own way and be grey. Both ideologies are quite wrong IMO.
As long as games are just "kill 20 of X" it doesn't matter, but when story decisions are so closely led around these ideas... I am not sure how long I could go along with such stories, when my moral compass is so different from that set in the game stories.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
This game is going to be good as it sounds, because Bioware does that with most the games expectations are average or good and when the game actually launches and people play it becomes a very good game,
I definetly can say from playing KOTOR that starting out might be slow and gaining levels no real change to your character minus some armor, weapon or skill but later the game might expand to have PVP, Higher group Raids, Bounty Hunter attacks on Jedi and all the good stuff.
I really recommend people to play KOTOR at least past the Taris part to get a feel of what TOR is probably about.
Also multiplayer voiced PVP, that for me if its in will be the thing that will keep me playing loong time.
The idea of love being bad would be mister George lucas idea. BW is just going along with it as it's part of the lore of that universe.
Love as i see it in the star wars universe can make you do things that you normally wouldn't. Take for example if someone kidnaped someone else. If you didn't care for the person, you'd probably detain the person and call the police (normal rational action as long as the person wasn't hurt) whereas if you loved that person, you'd most likely beat the kidnapper half to death before calling the police (what would be considered an evil action, sorta). This is what the jedis dont' want. They give people access to a lot of powers (you know the saying about power and corruption) see anything that could cause you to use those powers to harm as something bad. Love tends to be the worst as it has the biggest influence(for example see Anakin skywalker)
They are the flower type people. Everything is connected to the force and if you harm anything with the force that isn't otherwise harming it themselves (ala the sith) then thats considered evil. Also lying is decietful which is where i think the DS points are coming in.
It's confusing as heck to me as i don't know the SW lore real well.
As for your original problem with the two sides. I would assume as you get 3 options in each discussion that you can general just pick the middle option and not go light or dark sided at all, what effect you do or don't get for going grey are unknown to me.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
This!
Coming away from The Old Republic, I'm more than optimistic. It's an incredibly polished game, and even more than that, it's plainly fun.
Hearing the words polished and fun is a big time win.
The poster above does not understand star wars
I know the SW lore and stories very well. The thing is, they always make stories which show that personal love ends bad. And it is forced, so made up. Thousands of years living as chaste monks didn't help the Jedi not to fall to the dark side all the time, ja ne? Maybe it has something to do with demanding inhuman and absurd standards. See the Catholic Church. I just have my gripes with fiction transporting this nonsense message that "love and relationship taints your spiritual development" bullshit. And the only alternative? Being an ugly Sith of hate and eeeevil.
Ok. It's fiction. But even fiction has to carry some deeper truth as I see it.
Besides it's just not canon. Originally only the Jedi after the Ruusan reforms were against relationship. Those happened 1000 years before Yavin. And in the New Jedi Order after Luke took over those rules were rightfully disbanded. The New Jedi since Luke marry, have kids and all, and they are not worse Jedi than all those monkish Jedi of before. A person who never had a relationship just never is really mature and lacks some important insight into what life is about.
Just my 5ct about this.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Corrected your former quote for you. It isn't just about anger or hate, but giving in to your strongest emotions. In the Sith ideology your own needs and wants come first, anything else is secondary to that, even rules or laws or the needs or rights of others.
About the preview, all in all a good, informative one. Seems today is the release of the NDA that was on the 6 hour demo play session, a lot of demo reports around on several sites.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah, the game needs to be fun first and foremost. I am happy with what I am hearing coming out of the play session.
Yea I agree with you, however the problem with Jedi having a family and kids, is that he can't do his job that effective if some bad guy can just take his family as hostage, everyone get all emo when the family is at risk.
Polished and Fun are not 2 words I would use to describe my experience with TOR. Though I can't go into details due to the NDA.
Well, A) Sith are rather slaves of their passions, not a very cool thing either and
all Sith I can remember were more or less solely dominated by the emotion of hate. There are so many passions, but I have't yet seen a Sith really living for love or food or whatever passion there could be. It's all a big ego trip.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
As they already stated, the world of SWTOR has much more gray in it than just black and white, more so than the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and the Expanded Universe already showed a wider complexity and depth to Sith culture and people adhering to the Sith doctrine than the movies.
And yes, the Sith are egomaniacs, I thought that should be clear by now after 30 years of Star Wars movies, books, games and comics.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
wow...I was gonna do up some more Cataclysm content today...but after reading this preview (and humbly waiting on this game to come out anyway)...it's kind of ruined my day. I don't even feel like playing anymore.
Can't wait for this..the lore..the storyline...EPIC.
Gonna have a while yet before this content comes out. So i wouldn't put other things off to wait for this.
Sorry if it ruined your day though.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
You will feel how much effort the devs have putted into to world once you walk into it. It are mostly the little things that make an mmorpg as a future reference.
Well anyhow it does sound promising ( the fact that the original classes didnt change or that they just took over the battle arena's of wow dont matter to me as long they are balanced and fun to play competiive or not. )
In short, denying love is "good" because you're sacrificing your own personal happiness for your calling as a Jedi. To have a world burning, and people suffering under tyranny because you were at home bumpin' uglies and chose not to act... that doesn't seem to be much of a good guy thing, does it?
Sacrificing your own personal happiness for the welfare of others is the very pinnacle of what it means to be a "good" person. What's more, is that the idea that you can't give up the good things in life to serve the universe is very clear and direct evidence that you should not wield the power that a jedi has, as you will inevitably use it to acheive your own personal goals, which inevitably and increasingly come at the cost of others(see politics and corporatism).
That's why I liked the novelization of RotS. It goes very heavy into detail these moral conundrums, making clear that Anakin's inability to "let go" of people and things he cared about most was his undoing.
Anakins undoing was that he was DUMB.
And this "let go". Yeah... you know the oh so wise Master Yoda seriously tells Anakin to be happy for those who become one with the force = die. I wonder why he wasn't equally happy when all his Jedi friends and the younglings became "one with the force". Shouldn't he be happy, sticking to his own advise?
(Yoda, seeing all the dead younglings) "Yay, one with the force they are, happy for them I am!"
Sacrificing your happiness for the welfare of others is FOLLY. It is what people in books do. Not real people unless they are silly. I would not harm another either. Yes, sometimes you have to fight for what is good. But that doesn't mean you have to purposefully stay unhappy all the rest of your life. I don't see that as goodness, but as stupidity. My moral is a clan moral. I love my family and my "clan" first and foremost. I would fight for them as they would for me, my loved ones. If their "going away in the force" aka death means zip to me, something would be fundamentally wrong with me.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
GAhhh! I CANT WAIT ANYYYMORE
This has gone way off into significant derailment of the thread, so I'm going to leave it at this single post as a reply and if you want to discuss the morality topic and what's realistic of it and of Star Wars lore and what's not, then you should create a separate thread about it if the subject intrigues you
It certainly is an interesting topic.
In real life, it happens all the time: (many) parents sacrifice their happiness for the welfare of their children, their happiness and needs aren't the single most important thing in the world anymore, no, the happiness of their children becomes just as or even more important. In real life, all kinds of sacrifices mean leaving aside your short-term wants and needs for the benefit of a higher purpose or of others. Else it wouldn't be called a sacrifice. A lot of people join the army to 'serve and defend their country' instead of only serving their own needs, Doctors without borders leave behind a lot of comfort and own needs to do their job in dangerous countries, often because they feel their work is important or the needs of the poor and helpless people there. A lot of religious people leave behind a number of their own needs and wants when they follow their religious calling.
That doesn't mean that those people are stupid, or that they're all not happy. They only derive their happiness not from satisfying their own needs and activities as they would've done if they wouldn't have had children, or gone into the army or become a priest or monk. No, their happiness comes from helping others or believing in their work or that they serve a higher calling.
By comparison, the same strain of thought can apply to making your own needs subservient to serving a higher calling as Jedi do in the Star Wars universe.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
This article helped ease the trepidation I've been feeling about this game.
I am curious though... with all the talk about being able to fling rocks and the like, does that mean the whole world can actually be manipulated? Like, if I pick up a glass, does it really pick up the glass? Can I put the glass in my pocket and walk out with it? That would be leaps and bounds above what most MMO's offer.
As for the "love" concept.. there's a reason Priests aren't allowed to marry. Because whats best for the family isn't necessarily whats the best thing to do. The Jedi aren't promoting the mindset "no relationships" just to be jerks. What happens if your planet is under attack? You have a choice.. save your family whom you love dearly, or leave them to get on a ship to fight the invaders which will probably leave the family dead and at the very least, betrayed but might save a heck of alot more people.
Yes, Luke does away with the old mindset in the New Jedi Order, including the notions of Dark Side and Light Side. The thing is, if you read the books, he's starting to realize he was wrong in promoting that. Its causing too much trouble. He's had to take over the leadership of the council, and he didn't want to, because this mindset is causing the Jedi to fight amongst themselves.
Self-sacrifice is not bad. Neither is caring for those you love. Its a matter of finding the balance. The thing is, balance doesn't really exist in the Star Wars universe. At least not among force users.
The rocks thing is likely an ability. It will make rocks appear underneath the surface, come up through the ground and bash the target. I"m not sure we are going to have a Half-life/portal type effect here.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.