Are BW's writers creatively bankrupt?

[Andge]

So far, I've finished the smuggler story line, and played a sith warrior to lvl 36, i.e. been through much of the story content of the game.

And so far I must say I am greatly disappointed with that side of the game; The prologue of both the smuggler and the sith warrior's story line was good; it had momentum and a feeling of urgency and climax in the end.

But then both of them die; no momentum, no urgency, no stakes for your character since the smuggler is pursuing the goals of the republic and the sith warrior continues to pursue the goals of Darth Barras. And there is no feeling of one event leading to the next. It is mostly an NPC contacting you saying "do this" and later on "now do that" etc.

And the generic side-quests; the only genuinly interesting quests has to do with events in Kotor I - Revan, The Rakata etc-; The Thing Czerka Found, The promised land, the planet story line on Belsavis, The Foundry, the quest for Revan's facility on Nar Shadda etc.

Those quests have epic and time-spanning about them.

The rest of the quests are short-termed and local both geographical and time-wise.

 

I can't imagine how any stories from this game - except the ones that has to do with Kotor in one way or another - to ever become lore that will be the basis of future stories or references in other games the way the movies, Kotor I+II, the Dark Forces games etc. did.

 

In short, takes away all stories in this game that builds on the stories of Kotor in some way, and this game would be totally flat in terms of story in my opinion.

 

I wonder if anyone else out there feel the same way?

[alricka]

I dunno, personally, I rather enjoy the stories. It's video game writing, not some high literature, sure, but I don't see how it is worse than any other game. There is only so much creativity that you could put in a story that has to be driven and seen through the basic RPG game mechanics (i.e. "go there, kill stuff, become stronger, rinse, repeat"). It's still leaps and bounds ahead any other MMO in that regard, though.

 

While relatively simple in plot compared to movies or novels, SWTOR's stories provide strong characterizations of the classes and sometimes a very vivid and cool atmosphere. Each story is distinct from the others in that regard.

Now, sure, I would prefer it if they were a bit more sophisticated and unpredictable, but what we currently have is absolutely good enough for me.

 

As to the side quests, yes, most of them are trivial and the world stories are even simpler than the class ones, but again, this is common in RPGs. At least here it's served with the cinematic conversations which often provide a cool or funny vibe from your character even if the quest itself is nothing special. Again, leaps and bounds ahead of any MMO.

 

And for what is worth, I think there are a few small stories that are among BioWare's best.

[Kaisernick]

i havent finished the smuggler story yet, but the warrior chapter 1 leads up to a grand end and chapter 3 your character really comes into his own.

[elliotcat]

Two classes is not "most of the story content". Seriously.

 

You get out of it what you put in, really. Develop your character and give them a background, play them as you feel they would really react. I get so much more out of the stories that way.

[bright_ephemera]

So far, I've finished the smuggler story line, and played a sith warrior to lvl 36, i.e. been through much of the story content of the game.

And so far I must say I am greatly disappointed with that side of the game; The prologue of both the smuggler and the sith warrior's story line was good; it had momentum and a feeling of urgency and climax in the end.

But then both of them die; no momentum, no urgency, no stakes for your character since the smuggler is pursuing the goals of the republic and the sith warrior continues to pursue the goals of Darth Barras.

 

I'm going to latch onto one subsection here, and that's to say that in my experience, Act 2 has felt very weak across almost all classes. It exists mostly to gather up your party (all classes get companions on Balmorra/Taris and Hoth) and give you a minor victory that will suddenly fail/flip into the driving premise for Act 3.

 

The Smuggler, I felt, never recovered to Act 1 levels of excitement. The Warrior gets interesting in Act 3. The Knight gets very intense. The Inquisitor does get a clear direction, if not a brilliantly gripping one. Trooper has been tolerable. That said, the only Act 2 that kept me riveted was the Agent; for everyone else, Act 2 was something I slogged through to hit the finale that would lead me into the action of Act 3.

 

Oh, and because of this story structure, level 36 isn't "most of the story content" for the game and it leaves out the highest-stakes content of any class.

Edited September 16, 2012 by bright_ephemera

[chuixupu]

Well, personally, I've had a hard time getting through the Smuggler story specifically. The first act was alright, but I've been pushing through just trying to get to 50 ever since. It has it's moments and funny lines, but it feels rather disjointed. The smuggler feels like a fun character thrown into a bad script.

 

I even liked the Consular story much better, which seems to get a lot of negative comments here.

 

Agent story I've been through 3 times and thought it was great every time. I think if this game was JUST the IA story I'd be happy.

 

Bounty Hunter was fun but not the most memorable, other than stuff that related to companions. I thought the first act was the best, but it had a nice ending as well.

[SupremeLegate]

I've gotten one of each class to 50 and I have enjoyed all of each story. In fact I am currently leveling a 2nd Trooper and am actually enjoying it more, as I can kick back and enjoy the story instead of trying to get through it. Assuming we will be able to buy Character slots with Cartel Coins I know I will be leveling another Bounty Hunter and Sith Warrior.

[imperialmerc]

So far, I've finished the smuggler story line, and played a sith warrior to lvl 36, i.e. been through much of the story content of the game.

I stopped reading here. I've leveled a Trooper, Bounty Hunter, and Agent to 50 and am currently leveling a Warrior, Inquisitor, and a Smuggler. You have not seen most of the story content in the game. I suggest you go roll an Agent.

[Andge]

I stopped reading here. I've leveled a Trooper, Bounty Hunter, and Agent to 50 and am currently leveling a Warrior, Inquisitor, and a Smuggler. You have not seen most of the story content in the game. I suggest you go roll an Agent.

 

Alright, let me rephrase that to "I've seen enough to make a qualified judgement". My impression is that the class quests actually make up for a very low percentage of quests in the game. In other words, if someone has leveled a republic class to level 50 and done all side quests and fps etc, he will have seen a majority of the stories on the republic side.

 

In any case, I still feel that if the stories in this game that are in some way based on stories from Kotor were removed from the game, what would be left would mostly be flat, predictable and non-epic stories. Hence the title of this thread; I get the impression that the BW writers are creatively burned out and only manage to deliver intruiging stories when they spin off their stories from past achievements like Kotor. Which they cannot keep on doing.

And I wonder if I am the only one feeling this way.

Which, luckily, judging on the replies I seem to be.

[imperialmerc]

Alright, let me rephrase that to "I've seen enough to make a qualified judgement". My impression is that the class quests actually make up for a very low percentage of quests in the game. In other words, if someone has leveled a republic class to level 50 and done all side quests and fps etc, he will have seen a majority of the stories on the republic side.

 

In any case, I still feel that if the stories in this game that are in some way based on stories from Kotor were removed from the game, what would be left would mostly be flat, predictable and non-epic stories. Hence the title of this thread; I get the impression that the BW writers are creatively burned out and only manage to deliver intruiging stories when they spin off their stories from past achievements like Kotor. Which they cannot keep on doing.

And I wonder if I am the only one feeling this way.

Which, luckily, judging on the replies I seem to be.

I don't know what you're talking about. I have loved every story that I've played (granted, I'm only midway through the Warrior story and not even on Kaas with my Assassin and not even off of Ord Mantell with my Smuggler) and I will continue to play until I finish all of those stories. Will roll a Knight when Kel Dor gets made a playable race.

[Andge]

I don't know what you're talking about. I have loved every story that I've played (granted, I'm only midway through the Warrior story and not even on Kaas with my Assassin and not even off of Ord Mantell with my Smuggler) and I will continue to play until I finish all of those stories. Will roll a Knight when Kel Dor gets made a playable race.

 

I'm not just talking about class stories. I'm talking about all stories - side quests, fps, operations, class quests etc. And I'm not saying all stories in the game are bad. What I'm saying is that I feel that almost every grapping and intruiging story in the game is somehow based on Kotor. Most of the ones that aren't somehow based on Kotor are trivial and flat. Which is not good since the writers can't keep relying on Kotor spin offs to make epic stories.

But it is good to hear that you feel differently and enjoy all the stories in the game.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Andge

[bright_ephemera]

I responded to the class quest feeling earlier. I'd like to pull together a response to the KOTOR concerns now.

 

I disagree that the non-KOTOR side quests are generic. The KOTOR ones are obviously directly related to a larger galactic narrative that the fans of the existing game know, so they get an easy leg up into important territory, but - what else are you going to do? They feel epic because we know the larger context from KOTOR. Nothing else can get exactly that significance, because we as players have no other context (that I'm aware of) to link it to. So it's kind of circular: big because KOTOR, therefore only KOTOR-related stuff feels big. SWTOR does at least elaborate on new aspects of KOTOR elements; for instance, the Infinite Empire gets a lot of play well outside what we learn in KOTOR, particularly on Tatooine and Belsavis.

 

I suspect the NPCs and elements of the faction-wide plot on FPs at least will see additional growth in the lore. The whole False Emperor thing, possibly the alternating conquests of Balmorra, the misadventures of Doctor Godera and his psychotic denial of his own destructiveness (check out the Agent and the Knight), these are established by SWTOR and are ripe for future exploration or at least significant references later on. Any one of the weapons programs or hauntings in class quests have the potential for long-term ramifications. You're right that few of the original quests feel like they are established but non-KOTOR - right now I can't think of something that's, say, 50-200 years old and affecting the world - but any number of things in game do have the potential to be raised to iconic status.

 

As for classes, at opposite ends of the continuum the Imperial Agent would be brilliant with or without KOTOR and the Knight is a straight-up KOTOR continuation. You can get either flavor.

[Andge]

 

I suspect the NPCs and elements of the faction-wide plot on FPs at least will see additional growth in the lore. The whole False Emperor thing, possibly the alternating conquests of Balmorra, the misadventures of Doctor Godera and his psychotic denial of his own destructiveness (check out the Agent and the Knight), these are established by SWTOR and are ripe for future exploration or at least significant references later on. Any one of the weapons programs or hauntings in class quests have the potential for long-term ramifications. You're right that few of the original quests feel like they are established but non-KOTOR - right now I can't think of something that's, say, 50-200 years old and affecting the world - but any number of things in game do have the potential to be raised to iconic status.

 

As for classes, at opposite ends of the continuum the Imperial Agent would be brilliant with or without KOTOR and the Knight is a straight-up KOTOR continuation. You can get either flavor.

 

Thanks for the reply. If anything non-Kotor related from this game will ever become iconic, memorable, the basis for strong future stories etc. is exactly what I wonder and worry about.

 

I will roll an agent next to see if at least that one non-Kotor related story will have that epical quality I hoped SWTOR stories would be full of.

 

Bottomline is, judging on the replies to my original post, my impression of the game's stories seem not to be widespread amongst other current players.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Andge

[Andge]

I dunno, personally, I rather enjoy the stories. It's video game writing, not some high literature, sure, but I don't see how it is worse than any other game. There is only so much creativity that you could put in a story that has to be driven and seen through the basic RPG game mechanics (i.e. "go there, kill stuff, become stronger, rinse, repeat"). It's still leaps and bounds ahead any other MMO in that regard, though.

 

While relatively simple in plot compared to movies or novels, SWTOR's stories provide strong characterizations of the classes and sometimes a very vivid and cool atmosphere. Each story is distinct from the others in that regard.

Now, sure, I would prefer it if they were a bit more sophisticated and unpredictable, but what we currently have is absolutely good enough for me.

 

 

I think video game writing can be sophisticated and unpredictable, but whether that is the case for the MMO genre is of course a good question.

Still, I feel that there are great stories in the game - they are just Kotor related. The Thing Czerka Found for instance. For a planet storyline/side quest/non-class quest, that is a really good story; it starts out small with getting some data from a droid, escalates, raises questions with the holorecordings etc. and then there is the at least semi-epic battle with the quest-boss. The same with the Belsavis storyline.

But again, both are Kotor-related. If e.g. these two storylines had been totally independent of Kotor and solely based on their own events (and possibly not about ancient empires and imprisoned ones - for instance the boss in The Thing Czerka Found could simply have been "The Spirit of the Sandpeople/some kind of force entity" (and possible have giving us a chance to dwelve into Sandpeople/Tattoine lore) - end of story), they would have been great and invigorating for the game. Instead they have to cheapishly rely on past narrative achievements.

 

But you might be right that there is a strong limit to how engaging and epic a storyline in an MMO can actually be due to the lack of genuine effect of the players choices etc. Which is why the epic stories in the game has to "borrow epicness" from past stories from outside the MMO as bright_ephemera touched upon above.

Maybe that is partly the answer to my question

If that is really that case, there is a lesson to MMO story writers right there; always try to draw lines from your stories to larger stories from outside the MMO itself.

Maybe that theory can be refined, but I think there's some truth in it.

 

So thanks a lot for the input to both of you!

Edited September 17, 2012 by Andge

[SamuelAU]

Two classes is not "most of the story content". Seriously.

 

You get out of it what you put in, really. Develop your character and give them a background, play them as you feel they would really react. I get so much more out of the stories that way.

Yeah, pretty much.

 

If you don't like the stories you're playing then maybe give another one a try. May I recommend rolling an Imperial Agent?

[Mutive]

I think video game writing can be sophisticated and unpredictable, but whether that is the case for the MMO genre is of course a good question.

 

I think that video game writing can have advantages over traditional writing. In general, I'd say that it's not as good as that found in novels. But...there is some video game writing out there that has made me think/feel every bit as intensely as great literature. (*cough, cough, Planescape Torment, cough*)

 

I think it's even possible in the MMO genre (*cough, cough, imperial agent storyline*) But I do think that every time you add a limitation, you make it harder to create great literature.

 

Figure that for an MMO, you have to write a story where a) the story sort of works with the pre-exiting notion of the class, b) you must have five companions, each with the correct selection of abilities (who may or may not be with the main character at any given time), c) you must go to the same planets, in the same order, as everyone else (and have decent reasons for doing it), d) you have to make the player feel important, while not actually letting them change the world in any significant way, etc. etc. and yeah...you have a hard task. Some writers obviously did a better job than others. And most classes have at least a slow planet or two, where you realize that the writer reallyc couldn't figure out how to advance the plot over the planet. But...I'm still fairly impressed by what the end result for SWTOR was, given the enormous constraints.

[alricka]

I think video game writing can be sophisticated and unpredictable, but whether that is the case for the MMO genre is of course a good question.

Still, I feel that there are great stories in the game - they are just Kotor related. The Thing Czerka Found for instance. For a planet storyline/side quest/non-class quest, that is a really good story; it starts out small with getting some data from a droid, escalates, raises questions with the holorecordings etc. and then there is the at least semi-epic battle with the quest-boss. The same with the Belsavis storyline.

But again, both are Kotor-related. If e.g. these two storylines had been totally independent of Kotor and solely based on their own events (and possibly not about ancient empires and imprisoned ones - for instance the boss in The Thing Czerka Found could simply have been "The Spirit of the Sandpeople/some kind of force entity" (and possible have giving us a chance to dwelve into Sandpeople/Tattoine lore) - end of story), they would have been great and invigorating for the game. Instead they have to cheapishly rely on past narrative achievements.

 

But you might be right that there is a strong limit to how engaging and epic a storyline in an MMO can actually be due to the lack of genuine effect of the players choices etc. Which is why the epic stories in the game has to "borrow epicness" from past stories from outside the MMO as bright_ephemera touched upon above.

Maybe that is partly the answer to my question

If that is really that case, there is a lesson to MMO story writers right there; always try to draw lines from your stories to larger stories from outside the MMO itself.

Maybe that theory can be refined, but I think there's some truth in it.

 

So thanks a lot for the input to both of you!

You're welcome, I enjoy having meaningful discussions here. Pity it hapens so rarely...

 

Anyway, I think that The Thing Czerka Found is kind of a strange example of what you're describing. Now, it's been ages since I've played KOTOR but isn't the only connection between that quest and KOTOR the Rakata guy? To be honest, when I played through that quest I didn't even think of KOTOR and I was very pleased with it. I find it to be exactly the stuff you say it's generally lacking in SWTOR's storytelling.

Belsavis is another odd example, IMO. Ok, sure, we have the Rakata's fingerprints there as well but this is a loose connection at best. As far as I can tell Belsavis' lore is generally SWTOR's product.

 

Now, sure, there are things like, say, the Endor Spire or the Promised Land quests on Taris that are more directly tied to KOTOR, but where's the harm in that? This is the same setting, after all, and the two games are made by the same studio. I rather enjoy such nods and they don't take away anything from newer players who don't know what KOTOR is.

I think that's the key here. SWTOR isn't relying on KOTOR's stories; to me such examples look more like homages.

 

As to the overall storytelling in MMOs, it's just that it's such a hard format to tell a (good) story into. Everything they do has to be understandable and playble for a lot of people at once, the world can't really change (i.e. that's why our characters don't have a visible impact on the world even if their stories told us otherwise), the general conflicts have to always stem from and lead to a stalemate (i.e. that's why the whole Cold War thing was invented and why neither side will win in the game) and so on. When you factor in all this it's really hard to come up with something that is truly exciting, original and epic. For what is worth, my opinion is that with SWTOR BioWare has come as close as pulling it off as it is possible in an MMO.

Edited September 20, 2012 by alricka