How many are looking forward to KOTET?

[PlasmaJohn]

I find myself ambivalent. I get my raid fix elsewhere so there's little reason for me to maintain a continuous sub. Since I lost faith in their content team about two years ago I feel a sort of sad amusement at their constant missteps.

 

Story only goes so far and I much prefer to consume it at my pace. If they plan to dribble it out again, I'll just wait until they're done stringing it out. If they pull yet another pointless cliffhanger I may even skip a year.

[Victor_Nite]

I really enjoyed playing through KotFE and I am looking forward to see what happens next.

 

That said, I would like to see more content involve whatever romance your character is running. I know there were a few times after Ch. 9 that would have had good opportunities with Lana but such material was absent. I want to see an acknowledgment from the NPC that it's still in effect and not abandoned somewhere because of what all was going on.

 

Some side content would be kind of nice. I know some have mentioned they'd like more flashpoints and operations. I don't personally care for those unless I play through them in a solo mode. I could care less about the rewards, I just hate missing out on story content.

[Thoop]

on a scale of one to ten my excitement level is ... a low meh

 

this game needs a new raid like yesterday

 

also give smugglers back their fly by's while were at fixing everything

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Have fun running 40 toons through the same story again next expac people

[Aowin]

I really enjoyed playing through KotFE and I am looking forward to see what happens next.

 

That said, I would like to see more content involve whatever romance your character is running. I know there were a few times after Ch. 9 that would have had good opportunities with Lana but such material was absent. I want to see an acknowledgment from the NPC that it's still in effect and not abandoned somewhere because of what all was going on.

 

Some side content would be kind of nice. I know some have mentioned they'd like more flashpoints and operations. I don't personally care for those unless I play through them in a solo mode. I could care less about the rewards, I just hate missing out on story content.

I'd like to see a more involved romance as well. Whether it's one of the KOTFE companions or a class companion, I want that romance to actually be represented. Flirt options and kisses aren't the only way to show chemistry between two people. Give some unique lines of dialogue in the story to help personalize it more.

[Ippotamus]

It's bizarre to watch the "spectacle" of a team of writers and devs just piece meal destroy the plot, characters, and relevance of so many things they themselves created and the players cultivated.

 

Bizarre and painful.

[LyraineAlei]

I'd like to see a more involved romance as well. Whether it's one of the KOTFE companions or a class companion, I want that romance to actually be represented. Flirt options and kisses aren't the only way to show chemistry between two people. Give some unique lines of dialogue in the story to help personalize it more.

 

^^^^^^^

 

Heck, the use of endearments would help.

 

"My dea- I mean, my lord, blahblahblah wordswords" - Quinn

 

"Cyare, look out!" - Torian

 

so forth with others. A little variation from non-romanced companion mode, but it would be enough to keep the feeling of a romance going on somewhere offscreen.

[Jamtas]

It's new content so I am looking forward to it. My only concern is how long it will keep myself and many others engaged. And if it can bring people back to the community with the planned group content- even more so can't wait.

[Aowin]

^^^^^^^

 

Heck, the use of endearments would help.

 

"My dea- I mean, my lord, blahblahblah wordswords" - Quinn

 

"Cyare, look out!" - Torian

 

so forth with others. A little variation from non-romanced companion mode, but it would be enough to keep the feeling of a romance going on somewhere offscreen.

 

Exactly. It wouldn't be costly for BioWare to have a few variations in the dialogue and those little details go a long way to making folks more immersed and happier. I just don't like the status quo where the relationship is more or less nonexistent until the occasional flirt option or kiss happens randomly.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Aowin

[BlueShiftRecall]

Exactly. It wouldn't be costly for BioWare to have a few variations in the dialogue and those little details go a long way to making folks more immersed and happier. I just don't like the status quo where the relationship is more or less nonexistent until the occasional flirt option or kiss happens randomly.

 

Agree completely, loved the little lines in the intro to Rishi cutscene on our ship with our LI, was just a simple line but was enough to show we're married and still care. Reminds me of Chapter 12 where we go missing for a few days (thanks to Valkorian) and then come back and your LI's don't seem to care you've been missing at all. Theron (who I was romancing) was more interested that I met his mother then the fact I nearly died and had been missing. I know we get that letter from them but come on a letter? A little dialogue face-to-face showing at least some concern would have been nice.

[LyraineAlei]

Agree completely, loved the little lines in the intro to Rishi cutscene on our ship with our LI, was just a simple line but was enough to show we're married and still care. Reminds me of Chapter 12 where we go missing for a few days (thanks to Valkorian) and then come back and your LI's don't seem to care you've been missing at all. Theron (who I was romancing) was more interested that I met his mother then the fact I nearly died and had been missing. I know we get that letter from them but come on a letter? A little dialogue face-to-face showing at least some concern would have been nice.

 

Except those were only a limited number of LIs- No DS Jaesa, no Akaavi, no Temple in SoR.

 

A handful of other bits of dialogue I came up with-

 

"You don't want to keep me around for my good looks, then why did we get married?" Romanced Doc (whenever he's recruited) being sent somewhere.

 

"You're still **** with my language, ni di'kut." (my idiot, seems like a fitting endearment from Akaavi) Akaavi to romanced Smuggler.

 

"Hey, want me to take out Saresh for you and we could be Supreme Chancellor and you'd be the General like we planned?" Kira, response to being clicked on by Romanced Knight.

 

"If you touch me, my husband will kill you." Romanced Vette, combat line (to go with her "If I die, I'm gonna haunt you")

 

Even a updated list of dialogue comps say when clicked on, sent on crew skills, or in combat would be nice.

 

"I was the commander of Havoc Squad. -sigh- Just like the old days, boss." Jorgan being sent on a crew skill by any Trooper.

 

So forth.

 

Bah, I'm getting my hopes up, better quit while I'm ahead.

[BlueShiftRecall]

Except those were only a limited number of LIs- No DS Jaesa, no Akaavi, no Temple in SoR.

 

As someone who is a fan of Akaavi (really enjoyed the romance on my DS Smuggler) it's worries me about how much we're going to get from her as well as DS Jaesa and Temple in KOTET. What happens if their VA's don't want to do more lines?

[Aowin]

As someone who is a fan of Akaavi (really enjoyed the romance on my DS Smuggler) it's worries me about how much we're going to get from her as well as DS Jaesa and Temple in KOTET. What happens if their VA's don't want to do more lines?

 

BioWare will simply replace them.

 

That being said, it shouldn't be an issue. Before these voice actors even began working on SWTOR, they had to sign a contract with BioWare/EA with regard to their long term commitments to the game. As far as I'm aware, these voice actors are contractually obligated to come back and voice their characters whenever BioWare needs them. To my knowledge, that contract was supposed to last ten years.

 

I'm more concerned with the substance of these romances rather than the voices, myself. If we only get occasional mentions and hints of a romance, then I think the entire system was largely a failure. LI should truly be more than just "another companion" and I really want to see BioWare try to embrace that in a meaningful way.

[LyraineAlei]

As someone who is a fan of Akaavi (really enjoyed the romance on my DS Smuggler) it's worries me about how much we're going to get from her as well as DS Jaesa and Temple in KOTET. What happens if their VA's don't want to do more lines?

 

I suspect that it was more of a case of "These are the first possible romances for each class, so they're most likely the most popular choices, so we're only going to acknowledge these ones for right now, I mean, who's going to notice?" more than a case of "VA said she doesn't want to."

 

Fan of Akaavi as well, but I like Mandos.

[Costello]

It's bizarre to watch the "spectacle" of a team of writers and devs just piece meal destroy the plot, characters, and relevance of so many things they themselves created and the players cultivated only to have the devs pat themselves on the back and players rush to post how "amazing" it was while the forum mods bury any critical threads in subforums.

 

Sorry folks, the Emperor has no clothes on, pun intended.

 

Agreed.

 

If we break it down, the latest innovations in game play have been to add a temporary action bar to nearly all of the later chapters (I can't think of one in profit and plunder but may be wrong). That's pretty much if for game play as far as things go, while we have seen companions become more generic and the new content either an endless wave of sky troopers or an excess use of knock backs. It would be hard to show where the game play has improved since launch despite a number of QoL improvements, they seem determined to rely on cool down and resource management as the primary method to keep customers enthralled. Though the one noticeable difference is less game play and more and more cut scenes, sometime little more than a walk between two extended cut scenes in which you have the enjoyment of being dictated to by various new generic companions.

 

Next up is the story. Aside from the often lamented one story fits all approach, we are left with a story that in many ways makes little or no sense. Sadly when you tell a story that lacks continuity or any logic it moves away from a story to gibberish. Now people may find when a child talks gibberish its endearing when its something you paid for as entertainment its bad. Even that aside we get a story in which the plot is seldom advanced and your left open to betrayal and being berated by your 'companions' through out. If you want to craft a story with numerous betrayals or disobeying or commands, don't have these people as your companions. Set them up as an alliance of necessity, that once the necessity is done that they act in a consistent manner. Have it so the story has you working with them but never bringing them into your inner circle and make it clear you have the option to keep them at arms length. And then if your going to set something up as an ultimate battle, allow it to conclude. If this is the ultimate battle there can't be any other battles that will be as grand so if its not concluded then its only going to be a major let down if they come back for a second not so ultimate battle yawn.

 

Finally there is the communication to the community, this doesn't appear to be a full time job. Its not overly clear what is going on, though maybe its finding nice hotels to stay at during the cantina events? Last week we had a bumper week for communication, servers are lagging and disconnecting so a few late posts on the issue. Left with 'We will keep you updated as we get more information." There were no further updates, now its one thing to ignore the community, unless your role is to deal with the community. At that point its a little like someone working at a bar to ignore the customer rationalizing the job is much easier if you don't have to serve any drinks. But to say you will keep people updated and then not bother, your not even managing to do what you have said you would. Its not that I think the community team are bad it just seems they don't care, I'd wager they get into work check their e-mails find that they haven't got any and then start drinking till its time to go home. Possibly checking out cat videos on the internet and laughing at posts on the forums defending the game which they themselves have long ago given up caring about.

 

Its either a lack of budget, but KotFE was meant to be massively successful so that doesn't make sense, or apathy that the game engine is so bad and coding in such a state that no one really cares about the game. With them being more surprised than anyone that anyone could defend the possibly 4 choices in the game that have a knock on effect (some very minor) as proof that Choices MATTER!

[Victor_Nite]

I'd like to see a more involved romance as well. Whether it's one of the KOTFE companions or a class companion, I want that romance to actually be represented. Flirt options and kisses aren't the only way to show chemistry between two people. Give some unique lines of dialogue in the story to help personalize it more.

 

More involved romances would be awesome! And agree with the rest of what you said completely.

[Toraak]

Personally I'm not looking forward to it. I've lost all faith the raiding community will get the NEW operations we truly need. The story from 4.0 was meh. some really good chapters, mixed with some terrible chapters so the story itself does not intrigue me at all. (especially after chapter 16's ending).

[Shwarzchild]

I don't know if I'm looking forward to it anymore. While there are things about Kotfe I like. There are things that I find deeply flawed about the experience. From what has been discovered, albeit very tiny and this is more speculation than opinion derived from hard facts, is that Kotet looks exactly the same as kotfe, and that's not exactly something I think is good.

 

Uprisings? Sounds like star fortresses 2.0, and the flaw there is that star fortresses were carbon copies of each other with no diversity. Even the companions lacked diversity. You gave them supply crates, they said to you the invisible hand was ready to support you. You go to a star fortress, blow it up. You go do the same thing again in exactly the same fashion.

 

 

Kotet chapters - sound exactly the same as kotfe. And thats a big problem for me. I loved 1-9 of kotfe. But, in my opinion only, kotfe chapters 10-16 were not as enjoyable. The story felt lackluster in comparison. I personally thought chapter 9 was the best place to end season 1.

 

I know talking about operations is a bit of a touchy subject. Still, for me and the community of which I'm a part of, having no operation to go into is a serious issue. Asking us to re-level, and re-gear, to have the chance to get exactly back to where we just were is a time sink not many want to partake in. I said in another thread that this will end up destroying communities of players (regardless of size, or perceived influence on game health). It worked fine with Kotfe because there were a lot of people like me who hadn't seen this stuff on tier. Now we have, and we'll feel probably close to what other raiders felt previously. I feel that saying "k bye bye" to whole communities of players is a tragedy that doesn't need to happen. I went through in my mind how many people I know won't stay. The list eclipsed over 200 people when factoring in guilds I know well, and my own guild. That seems like just too many to just throw to the way side. Just my 2 cents really on that.

 

So....I'm hoping that with more information my initial reaction changes. But, right now...I'm leaning towards being more pessimistic than optimistic. And, that leaves me slightly sad. In my time here in the game, I've never questioned if I'll stay around. Now with the news slowly starting to trickle in regarding Kotet. I've actually asked that question to myself. I honestly never thought I'd ever ask that question to myself. I thought I'd be one of the last people standing as the lights go out whenever the game ran its course as I was one of the last members on Death Wind Corridor back in the day. I don't know. I just don't know.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Shwarzchild

[Naaima]

I'll consider getting excited when Bioware actually tell us something, until them I am firmly on the fence.

[Aowin]

More involved romances would be awesome! And agree with the rest of what you said completely.

 

Yep. Many will criticize KOTFE stating "choices didn't matter enough." Well, choice isn't the only thing that matters in a story-driven experience. Really, the characters, their motivations, and how they are affected should be more important than anything else. It's caring about what's happening and who it is impacting that should be our primary concern. Having more involved romances would go along way to making the game not only more personalized but more engaging as we feel more invested in what we are doing. That will certainly mitigate the amount of complaints that the story is identical for everyone.