Sith Inquisitor Storyline: General Spoiler Alert

[Uruare]

So, I recently completed the sith inquisitor storyline. This post won't contain any detailed spoilers, but it will contain general-gist spoilers, so don't read on if you don't want any indication of how things roll at all with this.

 

 

 

 

That said, I'd just like to say that I see very well what they tried to do with this storyline.

 

Too little, too late. The ending, while fitting, didn't make up for feeling like I was being railroad tracked through some of the stupidest crap that made very little sense and was packed with zero meaningful options along the way...since the end of chapter 1.

 

Too little, too late. As a concept basis of underdog-rising-above, whoever wrote this needs to learn a lot about engagement. You want to create a 'powerful arch-nemesis' arc to your underdog-rising-above plot, you could do it a hundred different ways better than this, because this is...just...garbage.

 

Pure tripe. If it were a novel submission on my desk, it'd sit in the slush pile. Amateurish, evades its own point, fails at internal coherence left, right and center and absolutely fails to create any sense of the story moving forward in any positive manner at all...right up until the end.

 

And then you get your five minutes of 'whoo', and that's that.

 

 

Shame on you, whoever authored this. You treated your big-bad like a Marty Stu, abused the player for being catherded down the railroad tracks you devised repeatedly, engineered far too few minor victories to give a sense of achievement and progress and promptly incinerated the few you did give, typically with more being railroad tracked into being pointed and laughed at.

 

Conclusion: This storyline didn't leave me hating the big-bad and wanting to burn his face off; it left me wanting to discourage the writers and directors from ever stringing words into sentences again.

 

Every other class story I've seen does a very decent job of telling a story in the eventually-obviated thematic. There are choices, and yes, the illusions of choices; you feel like you're doing -something that matters-, in some way, in every other class story I've played, and I've advanced deep into quite a few others.

 

This one...nope. If it never gets changed, I'll still play inquisitors, but my spacebar will be doing the talking for me.

 

Want to fix it? Keep the concepts, add some meaningful content that doesn't just hamfistedly context-force the importance of those apprentices that get whacked (Who cares? Why should I, the player, care? You gave me no reason, but you sure tried to hastily force one), focus the story more meaningfully on doing something that feels relevant to the conclusion.

 

You sent me around being a ghostbuster and then sent me around being sickly mcsicksithpants; you railroad tracked me right out of your story arc and ran me around for 20 levels giving me not even the illusion of being a lord of anything.

 

You could have had some neat interactions between the new, beleaguered lord and its apprentices; you didn't even touch that. Not even with the companion.

 

And what about that cult? So much potential...and you sent me to be a ghostbuster.

 

The ghost idea is fine; why couldn't that have been a path my character devised upon? Why did you need to stick some irrelevant, may-as-well-have-been-nameless NPC's in there to catherd me into it and leave me with dialogue options that repeatedly consisted of "What?" "Huh?" and "Derp, ok"?

 

 

And the conclusion, after all that? Yeah, cool, I win. Too bad you beat the give-a-crap out of me ten levels ago after you ripped the first tiny victory I got to have away and took a giant poop on it with yet more of Marty Stu now being Martu Stu 2.0 with 20% more Awesomer Than Ever.

 

I see what you tried to do there; you tried to escalate the sense of conflict.

 

You failed. What you succeeded at was making the XP for completing the class story more important to me than the story itself, 'cause the story was just ...abusive, frankly.

 

You abused my time.

 

Storytelling is an artform. Most of the other class story writers and directors got it.

 

If you're the same ones that did others', you dropped the ball bad and hard on this one; kindly look into altering it to be less of a disengaging eyeroll.

 

If you're not...please, take some professional advice and learn from this. You delivered this badly; very badly. You made me want to force lightning -you- more than your Martu Stu, and you never, ever just idly kill a player in a -cut scene-.

 

You just don't do it. You don't; it isn't interactive. It takes a steaming poop -right- on the purpose of playing a game.

 

You want your big-bad to idly sway me like a fly? You have them curbstomp the heck out of me in your combat system. Yeah, that's right; you set that level 50 Champion against my level 30 piddly-twink, and you give me the chance to at least take a swing at the Big Bad.

 

A useless swing; an ineffective swing; one that ultimately misses tragically even if I brought level 50 buddies with to see what happens if I kill the guy 'cause he enrages and one shots everybody at 50% health, and then return to the railroad tracks.

 

But you didn't even do that. You. Killed. Me. In. A. Cut. Scene.

 

That ending with the big 'whoo'? All I could think about was that you killed me in a cut scene.

 

Think about it for a while. And then fix it, please.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Paralassa
content

[Toat]

play IA if you want a good, responsive story with 5+ possible endings.

 

 

/thread

[RiledRodian]

And your credentials to "professionally critique" this story are?

[JRastenn]

I have no idea what a 'Marty Stu' is, and the site google took me to was irritatingly vague about it, but beyond that I completely agree with everything you said. The Inquisitor storyline was so arbitrarily frustrating at times. Not the difficulty, the story. I'm currently slogging my way through Corellia (I hate that planet so much) so I haven't seen the ending yet, and frankly I just don't care. Story is EVERYTHING to me, it is the sole reason I play any game, and I just don't care.

 

The antagonist is just bland. He wants to kill me because, you know, it's the rules. The killed-in-a-cutscene thing got me so upset, and a friend of mine couldn't understand why. He thought I was just mad I lost. It wasn't that, it was the WAY I lost. I just sort of waved my hands around and sparked some lightning, and he waved his hands around, and I dropped to the floor. That's it? That was my payoff after all the buildup with the ghosts?

 

Acts 2 and 3 have been nothing but a series of buildups, getting right to the edge of something great, and then they pull the rug out from under you in some vague and often confusing way. Even your minor victories are spoiled. I should be giddy with excitement at coming to the epic conclusion of my characters story, and instead I'm procrastinating going back to the bland, boring planet that is Corellia and going through the motions so I can be done with this.

[lokdron]

I competely agree i finished the sith inquisitor story and lets just say I did not feel like darth sidious as bioware said as they where hyping the class when the game was still in development. I tried the sith warrior story level 32 atm the story is FAAAAAR better than the SI one the SW can lie manipulate and there is political backstabbing. The SW corrupts force users left right and centre the sith warrior was doing EVERYTHING the SI should of been doing in their story. BUT NOOOOOO we get indiana jones, ghost hunter and then ghost buster and don't let me get started on ashara and being a dark side rank 5 SI and thanaton oh and the SI companions SUUUUUUUCK compared to other classes. Lets not forget how many times they slap you in the face about how that said "someone" is going to betray you when it finally happend it was not even a suprise anymore. The only reason why I took the SI to 50 is because I enjoyed the SI class gameplay the most.

 

I heard a rumor that the person who wrote the SI story left bioware to finish college if this is true lets just hope we get a better writer for the expansion.

Edited January 11, 2012 by lokdron

[ElFlamaBlanca]

Whats stupid is that in the comic Thanaton schemed, backstabbed, blackmailed his way up to a higher position, yet hates our character for doing the same thing.

 

Or should I say Hates our character because Zash did the same thing. Because I dont remember my character doing anything like that even though thats what was highlighted in the class story.

Edited January 11, 2012 by ElFlamaBlanca

[Heimskringla]

Yep. I completely agree. The story lost coherence after Act I. I've long maintained that the SI was written by Bioware's most inexperienced writer. I too can see the story the writer was trying to tell, but it wasn't the story the writer actually told.

 

First I'm Indiana Jones. Then I'm Egon. Then I'm what, exactly, and why?

 

I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy both my Bounty Hunter (even though I don't care for Pew-Pew classes) and my Sith Warrior stories a lot more, because they actually appear to tell a coherent story in a way that doesn't abuse my intelligence.

 

I probably would've dropped the SI entirely if I didn't enjoy the gameplay mechanics so much.

[Uruare]

And your credentials to "professionally critique" this story are?

 

There was only a smattering of professional critique in that largely anecdotal POV assessment. Furthermore, I'm not going to rattle off my credential to justify my opinion to you.

 

If you want them, send me an email with your Bioware employee letterhead making a formal request inclusive of a contract offer for my services pending acceptance of a resume and project examples.

 

Otherwise...that there is the sum of my experience, opinion and feeling on it. Apparently I'm not alone either.

 

Cheers!

[RiledRodian]

There was only a smattering of professional critique in that largely anecdotal POV assessment. Furthermore, I'm not going to rattle off my credential to justify my opinion to you.

 

If you want them, send me an email with your Bioware employee letterhead making a formal request inclusive of a contract offer for my services pending acceptance of a resume and project examples.

 

Otherwise...that there is the sum of my experience, opinion and feeling on it. Apparently I'm not alone either.

 

Cheers!

 

So what your saying is that you didn't like the story, and to validate your dislike, you are assuming false credentials to somehow make your argument hold more authority.

 

I only suspect this because the numerous grammatical errors as well as the generally unprofessional pacing and structure of your post. I don't know what your profession is, but I doubt it's writing.

 

I'm fine with your opinion, but don't try to exert authority you don't have to attempt to raise your thoughts behind subjectivity -- it's just a pet peeve of mine.

[Uruare]

So what your saying is that you didn't like the story, and to validate your dislike, you are assuming false credentials to somehow make your argument hold more authority.

 

I only suspect this because the numerous grammatical errors as well as the generally unprofessional pacing and structure of your post. I don't know what your profession is, but I doubt it's writing.

 

I'm fine with your opinion, but don't try to exert authority you don't have to attempt to raise your thoughts behind subjectivity -- it's just a pet peeve of mine.

 

 

I didn't like the progression or dispensation of it one bit, no. It railroad tracked where it should have offered at least illusion of choice; it bludgeoned where it should have intrigued.

 

 

I suspect, in counterpoint, that your absolute lack of relevant commentary on the OP, whether in agreement or disagreement or even contextual address, in favor of leaning on a somewhat overelaborated ad hominem position, relegates you to the troll box.

 

Buhbye.

[Duradel]

So what your saying is that you didn't like the story, and to validate your dislike, you are assuming false credentials to somehow make your argument hold more authority.

 

I only suspect this because the numerous grammatical errors as well as the generally unprofessional pacing and structure of your post. I don't know what your profession is, but I doubt it's writing.

 

I'm fine with your opinion, but don't try to exert authority you don't have to attempt to raise your thoughts behind subjectivity -- it's just a pet peeve of mine.

 

Come on man, none of what you're saying has anything to do with her points, you're just rambling on and attacking the OP for a pitiful reason. Go troll somewhere else.

[Horatio]

I absolutely agree with the original poster.

 

I too work in publishing - and if I'd received the SI story as a draft, I'd have sent it back immediately for a total do-over.

 

Everything after Chapter 1 would be thrown out. (And the ending of Chapter 1 would need a pretty good work over too).

 

Who wrote this schlock?

[lokdron]

I think we can agree that the hype surronding the class is false as bioware was hyping the class story.

[Karkais]

I have now finished the inquisitor storyline, so feel I can comment on it fully.

** contains loads of spoilers **

 

I absolutely agree with the OP.

 

All along I loved the concept of inquisitor so much that I filled the gaps with my imagination and saw things thru tinted glasses. But the reality is that the storyline is pretty much overhyped crap.

 

I used to think that there were some pretty juicy evil stuff along the way that you got to do, but afterwards I realized that those were planet quests, not storyline class quests.

Most of the actual class storyline is generic "you need to get this", "you need to beat that guy". For at least 20 levels its ONLY that. The player doesn't get to do many meaningful choices, in most cases its your companions and other people who say what you should do. And you go "derp, ok", like OP said. Is this a Sith lord? Do you even give orders much? No. Youre an errand boy. It was sort of fine as long as you were an apprentice, but not after you reach the rank of lord.

 

The storyline seems full of missed potential.

 

My favorite part was manipulating Ashara to kill, and then to help me. But after that, guess what? She actually doesnt become dark side, she stays irritatingly light side and whats the worst, her romance option would suit a lightside jedi much better. Can the player, as a Sith mastermind continue to corrupt Ashara? Of course not. Blah. Biggest pile of missed potential so far. (I cant even bloody break away from the romance once its started! There are no dialog options that say ok, thats enough. You are just my apprentice, deal with it. )

 

I can see what Asharas own motivation seems to be, she wants me to change the empire into something better. Bring order to the galaxy. She even talks about this as "our mission". Where did I agree to that? Did I have option to say "shut it, youre just a servant" in the affection dialog? I don't think so. I may have missed it, but Im pretty sure thats being force-fed to the player inthe affection dialog choices, which btw seem to be mostly same thing, agreeing with her using different words.

 

"You are all thats vile and corrupt in this galaxy!" -vision of Nomar Organa

 

Nomar Organa would have been perfect as a sort of nemesis to the player, but no, he is killed after one simple mission. You could have made him use force push and leg for it after the fight, having him sabotage me in future missions, but no, he just goes plop in a really easy fight. It would have been much better to have him continue hunting me when I continue the storyline. Espcecially since he is the ONLY major jedi the player meets in the entire blooming storyline, Asharas masters notwithstanding.

 

"I trained you too well, apprentice" - Darth Zash

 

Huh, what? Zash trained me? Where and when exactly? There wasnt even a flytext saying "One month afterwards" to give Zash some time to train me. Complete miss on the master-apprentice relationship that could have been used for great effect. Even more important for Sith who train to be warriors and lords. Instead, she sends me on errands to fetch stuff. How original! It would have been MUCH better for her to actually train me and then me using my newfound knowledge and skill to defeat her. That is the Sith way.

The same miss on master-apprentice relationship happens with the player and companions. Inquisitor gets two force-sensitive companions, Ashara and Xalek (unless you also count Khem who is technically force sensitive), and the player is a master in the force and lord of the sith for crying out loud! Anything happening on that front? Nope. Instead my mass murderer sadistic Sith lord holds Ashara by the hand and goes "I always wanted to be a starship captain" while looking at the stars from Furys bridge. Good lord.

 

Darth Thanaton as the big bad? I agree with the OP, Thanaton is big bad because the story says so. Not that Thanaton ever does anything particularly impressive. Thanatons biggest achievement seems to be performing force storm and escape. Thats just plain bad storywriting. Thanaton should have hit on

 

-my cult on Nar Shaddaa, particularly Rylee in case she was romance interest

- my companions

- other people close to the player

to make the player hate him more. Does the player ever vent anger, hate, the emotions Sith are known about and what are the source of power in dark side? Nope.

 

I like the IDEA that the player goes to all the dark places in order to find power to beat his rival Thanaton, only that it doesnt appear like that. For the most part it feels like the player is a puppet on strings. He should have made decisions what to do ON HIS OWN. Inquisitor is supposed to be a mastermind. This does irritate me a LOT. Also in the class quests the inquisitor doesnt even get that many dark side options, he doesnt get to be evil all that much in my opinion.

 

Does the player ever manipulate people? Apart from Ashara and Nomar Organa story in Alderaan, not really. Thats about it. There should have been more of that, and/or a long, incremental "corrupt Ashara to the dark side" process. Do I order people around as lord of the sith? Well once that I remember, onboard the Doombringer, but thats all. I had them bow to me couple of times, but ordering them to do stuff? Not really. After the Doombringer thing the whole fleet aspect is also mostly forgotten. Only used once as an excuse to go place A and beat mobs. The NPCs call me "my lord" even when I was still just an apprentice..

 

The game should show what you have achieved much better. More cutscenes showing the player exercise his power. Instead it concentrates on your allies failing in various ways and the player being the only person who can save the situation by going to place A, beating mobs along the way and interacting with control panel B.

 

ps. If the inquisitor got power from ghosts, did he ever even consider swallowing Kalliq? I dont remember if I even had the choice.. That would have made much more sense having the players forefather willingly give power to his successor.. Plus you'd get the chance to drag him around for additional "flesh of my flesh" sessions. But to quote myself, "This is star wars, sense doesn't come into it."

 

pps. I felt the need to open up. I still love my character, the powers, a lot of the stuff I did along the story, but seriously it could have been MUCH better.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Karkais

[Esbia]

Couldn't agree more with this entire thread. +10000000 to all of you. I've just rolled a Jedi Knight to see how true storytelling is really done . My Sith Assassin will be for raiding and raiding alone.

[Tellenn]

http://rharwick.com/2011/12/14/skyrim-the-discipline-of-the-open-world-game/

 

Too bad she didn't take any of this into consideration when she wrote the Inquisitor story.

 

Fail Bioware you should have got a professional writer with actual published star wars stories in to do the class. Not just some intern game writer.

[lowflyingmeat]

Yup, just got my Darth title on my SI yesterday, the story blows.

 

Everything from the companions to the flow, it's just stupid. The body snatching thing from Zash was a bit unexpected but nothing special. After that sequence, Act1, the entire game nose dived for me.

 

We can't fully corrupt Ashara, Khem Val is a mute, and we have a random space pirate bum as a companion..

[lokdron]

http://rharwick.com/2011/12/14/skyrim-the-discipline-of-the-open-world-game/

 

Too bad she didn't take any of this into consideration when she wrote the Inquisitor story.

 

Fail Bioware you should have got a professional writer with actual published star wars stories in to do the class. Not just some intern game writer.

 

Glad she left bioware to finish college lets hope we get a better writer for the SI expansion story.

[Rouge]

I think that people should take a note that SIs story is different to SWs on purpose. It has to be, to justify two different Force wielding Sith classes. IA also takes on part of the kind of scheming that JC at the later part have in their class story, so we have to be different in that regard also. We are more akin to Smuggler in the class story in some respects, the outsider who has their own story and when we have Zash and Thanaton to order us around, the Smuggler has Skavak etc to pursue.

 

Thanaton also doesn't come from utterly nowhere, he's clearly stated to be Skotia's master before Skotia goes down and that he didn't like Zash even before. He is established to have a petty vengeful streak which is revealed off-hand in a conversation in the Nexus cantina between the slave buying nobles. He hates us for what happened to Skotia, because we are Zash apprentice and then heirs of sort.

 

What comes to his death, understand that us not getting to kill him (or let him live) is a way of showing - which should have been brought up better, probably - that the Sith Order finally accepts us as their own, as they choose us over Thanaton and Darth Mortis kills him.

 

Certainly I think there could have been more moments of awe, where people acknowledge what we have done and become. But still there are such moments. I for example chose to kill Hiran on Balmorra and then had to kill Major Bessiker too (a decision for which I regretted killing Hiran, which itself is a positive sign for me, that I care about the story in such a way), and after I had gotten the relic I was after, the newly promoted Major Ilun made a holocomm call to me to basically grovel before me and seek my approval.

[Heimskringla]

http://rharwick.com/2011/12/14/skyrim-the-discipline-of-the-open-world-game/

 

Too bad she didn't take any of this into consideration when she wrote the Inquisitor story.

 

Fail Bioware you should have got a professional writer with actual published star wars stories in to do the class. Not just some intern game writer.

 

I have maintained, all along, that Bioware gave the SI to its most inexperienced writer. This seems to have proven my suspicion true.

 

Seriously... they had Daniel Erickson, Drew Karpyshyn, and Alexander Freedman... all of these writers have acheived some degree of success in their field and have proven that they can actually write compelling stories, but they gave a major class story to a no-name writer, and it shows, because the story completely fails to capture the feel of a Sith.

 

The SI is probably the only class that doesn't feel anything like its movie inspiration.

[Heimskringla]

Thanaton also doesn't come from utterly nowhere, he's clearly stated to be Skotia's master before Skotia goes down and that he didn't like Zash even before. He is established to have a petty vengeful streak which is revealed off-hand in a conversation in the Nexus cantina between the slave buying nobles. He hates us for what happened to Skotia, because we are Zash apprentice and then heirs of sort.

 

What comes to his death, understand that us not getting to kill him (or let him live) is a way of showing - which should have been brought up better, probably - that the Sith Order finally accepts us as their own, as they choose us over Thanaton and Darth Mortis kills him.

 

The problem with Thanaton is that he is never developed as a nemesis. We get a couple of conversations with him on Dromund Kaas, and then another encounter with him before the beginning of Act III or at the beginning of Act III. After that, there's nothing, really. You don't engage in "The Game of Sith" with him at all. He doesn't really attack your power base, and you don't really attack his.

 

It's a problem with all of the nemesis that the SI has in the class story... they're not really fully developed characters, and you don't interact with them enough to feel much of anything. I barely cared that I had to kill Zash. In fact, I cared more that she took over Khem Val than anything else.

 

However, with Thanaton, I didn't care at all. He was simply thrown in there as my nemesis, but he was never developed as such. I didn't feel anything about him. He never really did anything to me.

[Rouge]

Thanaton has the Blood of the Empire as a backstory which makes him among the most fully explored characters in the game...

 

He is basically an older version of your own character.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Rouge

[tausra]

It's too bad none of that is present in the game.

[Heimskringla]

Thanaton has the Blood of the Empire as a backstory which makes him among the most fully explored characters in the game...

 

He is basically an older version of your own character.

 

You're missing the point. He has a backstory, and it is very good. However, he is not developed in your story sufficiently as your nemesis. Rebecca Harkness didn't spend enough time developing Thanaton as a nemesis for Act II or Act III. He's just sort of there.

[Siczar]

This is disappointing to read about the future chapters. I decided to try out a Twi'lek light side character and have been finding it a great fit. The resentment and hostility is around every corner, one NPC because you are an alien, another annoyed because of your moral convictions.