Repetitive nonsense in nearly all flashpoints and storylines

[AscendantOps]

Does anyone else get the feeling that nearly every single storyline and major quest/flashpoint in the game revolves around the same, old things that repeat themselves time and time again? Apocalyptic, barren planets driven mad and inhospitable by dark side energy and ones that are in danger of cracking into two (Ilum and Makeb). Then, in every single class quest chain and elsewhere you have an already innumerable amount of weapons of mass destruction, insanely intricate hacking devices, massive battle droids with ten cannons, people with more and more horrifying war crimes and atrocities, giant worms with horns emerging out of some bizarre dark side void generated by Tron-esque technology cubes, and 8-feet tall mutant lizards with ridiculously big war axes that babble and mutter incomprehensible nonsense and threats in some monotone, pseudo-menacing voice.

 

Bioware has to get back into basics when designing new storylines and planet concepts. Get a skriffing grip and hold your horses when you lay your ideas on the table. It doesn't all have to be about absolute destruction and desolation.

[oJebuso]

What you just described is a very diverse amount of storylines and enemies......

 

Maybe this game isn't your cup of tea.

[Tatile]

Back to basics?

 

Grunt work?

[Shadowcaper]

I think he wants one of the storylines to revolve around the Imperials and Republic sitting around a table, sipping tea and negotiating a peace treaty. That would be a fun game

[Tatile]

I think he wants one of the storylines to revolve around the Imperials and Republic sitting around a table, sipping tea and negotiating a peace treaty. That would be a fun game

 

A political intrigue story line would be really interesting for, say, the Inquisitor or the Agent, but I don't believe that Warrior or Bounty Hunter would be terribly good at diplomacy and back-stabbing. Or subtly in general.

[RaiderMid]

We'll see what they come up with for their next major threat to the galaxy. Seems like alot of people want it to go back to the war. I'm ok with that but it just isn't very original.

[Master-Nala]

We'll see what they come up with for their next major threat to the galaxy. Seems like alot of people want it to go back to the war. I'm ok with that but it just isn't very original.

 

At this point, I don't see how the war could get back to the level that it is in Acts I-III. The Empire has lost too many key personnel (including the Emperor) and no matter what Marr says, a bit of super juice (Isotope 5) won't change that. The surviving members of the Dark Council will no doubt be trying to grab as much for themselves as possible (my Darth Imperious and Darth Nox will ).

 

Just like with the EU, I think the Empire v. Republic storyline would be pretty stale at this point. The Empire lost, there's great opportunity there for the Imperial characters, plenty to make them feel good about losing.

[WestXv]

With how my juggernaut ended the story of makeb with no more infighting amongst the sith and isotope 5 to power new defenses the empire seems well on its way to a come back.

[YeOldeRepublic]

Very much dating myself here, but the OP's post reminded me The Simpson's Itchy and Scratchy show, where the writers decided that Itchy and Scratchy would get along and love each other. End result: No one watched the show. Maybe this is what sells, OP.

[RixoFutu]

At this point, I don't see how the war could get back to the level that it is in Acts I-III. The Empire has lost too many key personnel (including the Emperor) and no matter what Marr says, a bit of super juice (Isotope 5) won't change that. The surviving members of the Dark Council will no doubt be trying to grab as much for themselves as possible (my Darth Imperious and Darth Nox will ).

 

My Emperor's Wrath whould said that you are a traitor and enemy of the Emperor, sentence is death. Emperor just gone silent, he is not lost. And Dark Council is commanded by Darth Marr, everyone respects him.

[LordArtemis]

This is partly a symptom of the person that was put in charge of story.

 

I will say that the storylines are good...but some of them are better than others.

 

The original KotOR storyline was much more epic than the jedi and sith storylines in this game IMO.

 

I was disappointed that the stories were so "muddled" IMO, but I understand seeing how they tried to tie in planetary quests across multiple classes. They had to muddle the stories to get them to work.

 

The surprising thing to me is the most memorable stories are the ones that do not deal with what could be argued as iconic Star Wars roles....like the Agent.

[HaoZhao]

It doesn't all have to be about absolute destruction and desolation.

 

It kind of does, or else why care when you've just come from the other mission where you saved the galaxy? Yeah, there's a problem with snowballing drama where the developers have to keep making the stakes higher and higher than the last released story.

 

The hard truth is that "repetitive nonsense" is the heart and soul of an MMORPG. You do one thing, and then come back the next day to do it all over again.

[Phrase]

In a galaxy far, far away...

 

There was a sextet of movies that featured a storyline with the premise of people being driven mad by or oppressed by the Dark Side and its corruption. I hear they even make games about it.

[AshlaBoga]

A political intrigue story line would be really interesting for, say, the Inquisitor or the Agent, but I don't believe that Warrior or Bounty Hunter would be terribly good at diplomacy and back-stabbing. Or subtly in general.

 

The way the wrote the warrior in this game, he's more subtle than the Inquisitor:(

[Bobbyrab]

 

The surprising thing to me is the most memorable stories are the ones that do not deal with what could be argued as iconic Star Wars roles....like the Agent.

 

That's the thing: the traditional Star Wars class stories had to feel like their classes. Thus, JK had to be like Luke/KOTOR 3, SW had to be Vader, Hunter like Fett and so on. Agent is really the only class that ISN'T copied from a well known Star Wars character. You could make an argument for Trooper, but he's mostly your standard military grunt. And thus, Agent's writer(s) probably had much more free reign to just make a cool story rather than to make sure it adhered to some archetypal Star Wars experience, or what the writers felt was the experience needed for the class.

 

IMO, this was very much needed for all the class stories: make sure it's a good story versus making sure I felt like a certain character.

[LordArtemis]

That's the thing: the traditional Star Wars class stories had to feel like their classes. Thus, JK had to be like Luke/KOTOR 3, SW had to be Vader, Hunter like Fett and so on.

 

...and IMO they failed to do that in a general sense. There were times when you had the opportunity to play a role that would mirror what I believe most folks would assume would be the roles for iconic classes, but most of the time it seemed that a person was saddled by minutia.

 

Making remarks like "I can smell your fear" or "Time to go killing" instead of "I sense fear in you" or "they will know the power of the dark side" did not help.

[Arenatah]

...and imo they failed to do that in a general sense. There were times when you had the opportunity to play a role that would mirror what i believe most folks would assume would be the roles for iconic classes, but most of the time it seemed that a person was saddled by minutia.

 

Making remarks like "i can smell your fear" or "time to go killing" instead of "i sense fear in you" or "they will know the power of the dark side" did not help.

 

Oh, god, on my SI...

"JUST SHOW ME WHERE THE FUN IS"

"JUST SHOW ME WHERE THE FUN IS"

"JUST SHOW ME WHERE THE FUN IS"

Edited October 6, 2013 by Arenatah

[AscendantOps]

All I'm trying to say is that Bioware should stop pushing the wild card and background of every new story chain to a bigger and bigger extreme. It's starting to look something like a futuristic version of Alice In Wonderland when they insert these supposedly terrifying monstrosities and giant mutant smurfs that all have the same evil intents of carrying out massive genocide and destruction for completely irrational and inadequate reasons.

 

I'd like to see more down to earth -type of flashpoints, where you'd have to carry out political assassinations of ordinary sentients, and not unstoppable embers of muscle mass with a ridiculous amount of cybernetic implants wielding a massive cannon grek and so on. Alternatively, neutralizing a rogue Imperial warlord, where the objective would be to destroy his/her command vessel, or apprehending a crime syndicate leader who has corrupt senators in his/her pocket. Just ordinary stuff, not the overdone heroics.

[bibobpipop]

For early-level-flashpoints such content would be ok, as we, the players are still rather small grunts in the big armies, but as lvl 55 with a completed story you are member of the dark council / wrath of the emperor / jedi master / best bounty hunter ever etc. . For such a character to go hunting after a crimelord would be like Obama, Putin, Merkel and Cameron team up to catch a pocket-thief. It just wouldn't make any sense.

[Asavrede]

Have you seen the movies this game is based on? If so, I can't really fathom how you could have this objection.

[Tatile]

For early-level-flashpoints such content would be ok, as we, the players are still rather small grunts in the big armies, but as lvl 55 with a completed story you are member of the dark council / wrath of the emperor / jedi master / best bounty hunter ever etc. . For such a character to go hunting after a crimelord would be like Obama, Putin, Merkel and Cameron team up to catch a pocket-thief. It just wouldn't make any sense.

 

Then pretend you're Boris Johnson, problem solved.

 

Also, from the sounds of it, OP wants everything to be Imperial Intelligence's work. Which is fine by me, I love Intelligence, but... *cries* II doesn't exist any more! There's no more Agent storyline, there's no back-up support network, no Watchers!

 

Cipher D:

[AscendantOps]

Also, from the sounds of it, OP wants everything to be Imperial Intelligence's work.

How and why you came to this conclusion escapes me.

 

Besides, Imperial Intelligence as we knew it no longer exists at the time of Makeb/Oricon. It's been reformed into Sith Intelligence.

[GalacticKegger]

Other than fresh content with all fresh plot twists and fresh NPC antagonists/protagonists being expanded into the game almost daily, how does repetition go away? How do authors get their books to dynamically and fluidly update themselves, with a million variations for a million different readers continuously being released so everyone has their own story? Even if a game actually could do that, it would likely take a farm of HAL9000s just to manage (let alone store) all the dialogue.

 

The only legit way I personally can see "repetitive nonsense" going away in an MMORPG is for fiction to mimic reality... i.e. the game becomes all open-world PvP, survival of the most geared, all player cause & effect all the time. Where advancement is predicated on players competing for PvE positions of power and creating the game's politics, structure & story in the process. But that's not a RPG ... that's an Action/RTS world builder.

 

I doubt it would survive because the majority of players who would stay are in the minority of players who would pay to lose days of sleep creating and protecting their virtual kingdoms. Everyone else would be, like ... "It's all yours. If I want dog-eat-dog drama I'll turn the game off and go sit in traffic."

Edited October 6, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[Apache]

I guess I can agree with the OP to a point

 

We are following our class stories, and every time we land on a new planet there is some guy standing there saying "Hey, since you are here, could you save the planet for us?". And of course, we do. Every time. Then on to the next planet where there is yet another guy standing there saying "Hey, since you are here, could you save the planet for us?"... and over and over. The exact story changes for every planet, but its always you there to save the day.

 

But yet, that's what STAR WARS is all about isn't it? Its always the big bad Empire out to gain more power and the goody goody Republic/Rebels trying to thwart them in an epic conflict. Because neither side thinks small. It always involves entire planets and solar systems in an attempt to rule or save the galaxy.

 

Kind of like a young man I heard of. He was just a moisture farmer who stumbled on a couple of droids, which led him to meet an old man who told him that he was the son of a Jedi and gave him a lightsaber. In his quest to become a Jedi, like his father, he battled the evil Empire and saved an entire planet (moon actually) called Yavin 4 and the Rebellion by destroying a massive machine of planetary destruction called The Death Star.

 

Fun stuff actually

[Rasal]

There's just so much you can do with an MMO, even one with as large of a budget as this one had. But I agree with the 2nd poster: There is a lot of diversity in story and quest content.