(spoilers) KOTFE, SoR, and Classes.. some thoughts

[Rolodome]

It hit me today, while running through SoR on my first Consular and doing the special class mission to make a holocron... how stunningly cool it was to have such a personalized moment for my class and character. That this was a mission no other class could experience and it was relevant to my character's history.

 

And I realized, that's one of the drawbacks of KOTFE that has been bugging me. Sure, you're the Outlander, but all eight of you are. I feel KOTFE is sorely missing that feeling, even if it's just for a single side quest, that you have a history and Outlander is just yet another name given to you on a long list, but it's ultimately not who you are.

 

I've been thinking a lot recently about why it is that some will shout their praises of the class stories, but poo poo on KOTFE. And I think this is one of the primary reasons. KOTFE tries to do some personalizing, but with the vanilla stories, we got used to playing stories that were unique. Eight different unique stories. And as we take those unique stories and put them into KOTFE one by one, we increasingly realize how narrowed the whole thing feels.

 

I think that's why KOTFE was, in many ways, solid for me the first time, but fell off quickly after. I know that no matter what class I drag into it, I'm going to get told the same things by the same people and I'm going to be told that no, it's not some other guy who became the outlander, it's me who is the outlander. It's not my Smuggler who already did it who is the outlander, it's my Jedi Knight. But now it's not my Jedi Knight this time, it's my Sith Warrior. And so on.

 

In SoR there was at least that moment where you bridge off and I think it helps you forget that your characters are overlapping each other. It helps create the feeling that it isn't all overlap. That there is something different happening here each time. Furthermore, in SoR, there was no sense of losing your prior identity; you were still "the Emperor's Wrath" or "The Barsen'thor." It wasn't shouted every minute, but it wasn't lost entirely either. In contrast, KOTFE's intro practically goes out of its way to wipe your prior identity and start over.

 

I know you can only do so much, but I really feel this is something to keep in mind going forward. Short of deleting the classes and merging them into one, you aren't going to escape this problem over time. That little touch of one quest for each in SoR is huge to me as a player and no matter what you wipe out in the story, we aren't going to forget our characters' histories.

[therecanonlybeon]

honestly the only "feeling" i get is from my relationship with my BFF

in my head - or wherever he was floating around

Edited September 26, 2016 by therecanonlybeon

[Estelindis]

I agree about the class-specific mission in SoR feeling really special (especially agent, wow). I feel like it would have created immense replay value to add something of similar scope to KotFE. The whole main story being the same would be really improved by even one very personal moment.

[psandak]

I agree about the class-specific mission in SoR feeling really special (especially agent, wow). I feel like it would have created immense replay value to add something of similar scope to KotFE. The whole main story being the same would be really improved by even one very personal moment.

 

While I agree that even just *A* class mission in KotFE like SoR would have been nice, I pose this question: would you have been willing to wait another year for KotFE?

 

It was a full 20 months between RotHC and SoR. OTOH it was only 10 months between SoR and KotFE. My point being that a lot of that time between HC and SoR was probably spent on those eight class missions.

[MadDutchman]

While I agree that even just *A* class mission in KotFE like SoR would have been nice, I pose this question: would you have been willing to wait another year for KotFE?

 

It was a full 20 months between RotHC and SoR. OTOH it was only 10 months between SoR and KotFE. My point being that a lot of that time between HC and SoR was probably spent on those eight class missions.

 

It would be 8 vanilla "side quest" missions worth. That is, quests that aren't instanced and all take place in the same area. You have to do voice acting, and the actual mission objects etc, but you don't need to do new terrain and the like.

 

So it probably wouldn't have been a lot, but neither was it trivial.

Edited September 26, 2016 by MadDutchman

[psandak]

It would be 8 vanilla "side quest" missions worth. That is, quests that aren't instanced and all take place in the same area. You have to do voice acting, and the actual mission objects etc, but you don't need to do new terrain and the like.

 

So it probably wouldn't have been a lot, but neither was it trivial.

 

What about the writing for those story elements? All too often we focus too much on the animation and play time elements and writing is dismissed or forgotten. Writing takes time.

Edited September 26, 2016 by psandak

[Rolodome]

What about the writing for those story elements? All too often we focus too much on the animation and play time elements and writing is dismissed or forgotten. Writing takes time.

It does, but keep in mind most of those kind of missions is dialogue. I hesitate to say dialogue is easy because I know for some people it's definitely not. But if you have a recurring writer role at a company like BW, you're probably good at writing dialogue. I know that speaking for myself, it's one of the easiest things for me to write.

 

Of course, in their case, they have to go through something of an approval process for each line, I'm sure. But, dialogue, I will say this, can be easy, comparatively. If they are organized enough, they may even have charts somewhere that say stuff like... this is the style of smuggler (witty, greedy, wry). I might be giving them too much credit in that regard, but it's probably something I would encourage if I was working on a project of this scale. The idea being that you know at a glance what style of dialogue you need to write and what the tone of the mission should be.

[DarthCasus]

What about the writing for those story elements? All too often we focus too much on the animation and play time elements and writing is dismissed or forgotten. Writing takes time.

 

Considering they all are crafted as mostly stand alone continuations but not direct (based on previous choice), not needing to take into account previous choices from class stories (thus cutting down on time necessary), I wouldn't say it took too much time. I know there HAS to be revisions, rewrites, decisions made on what to go forward with and writing the dialog but it wasn't expansive considering how short all 8 were.

 

Only one I can see a lot of work really going into was the Agent. Maybe the Warrior and Trooper as well but the rest seemed to be lacking. This is 1 class mission per class after 3+ years of nothing but faction continuity we're talking about after all.

[psandak]

You both need to watch a fairly old

[Rolodome]

You both need to watch a fairly old

Not to sound arrogant, but very little of that is something I haven't heard before.

 

You were focusing on the writing itself and saying it takes time, so I was looking at it in isolation. I realize fully that it's all intertwined. But BW is a company that has a lot of experience doing moral choice RPGs and in many cases doing it well. So it's like... of course the work is work and takes time. It's not easy overall. But it's sort of like saying writing good rap songs is hard when someone asks Eminem to do more, or do things a little differently. It's true that it's hard, but Eminem is experienced at it too; he's known for being one of the best.

 

In other words, I'm not going to apply the same standards to professionals that I would to amateurs. And BW is not a studio of amateurs.

 

None of that changes that we have to be realistic about what all they can do with the resources they have. I just wanted to address your point about writing a bit more deeply.

[crabios]

It's more simple... KotfE is big giant pile of ****. I enjoy more buying companion gifts than doing this cursed 'weak' story.

[Aehwe]

Didn't you get the memo? This is a single player game now.

[SerraShar]

Didn't you get the memo? This is a single player game now.

 

If it were really Single Player..the Story would've been better...and it isn't .

[Rolodome]

Didn't you get the memo? This is a single player game now.

If this was now a dedicated single-player game, there would be more class content, not less.

[SerraShar]

I know you can only do so much, but I really feel this is something to keep in mind going forward. Short of deleting the classes and merging them into one, you aren't going to escape this problem over time. That little touch of one quest for each in SoR is huge to me as a player and no matter what you wipe out in the story, we aren't going to forget our characters' histories.

 

Deleting ? not so much..

 

But you know , I was thinking . They couldve easely asked the players to start a new character for Kotfe . Someone who is special and has no ties to the old repb and Imp and take it from there .

 

Instead of dragging characters with huge baggage and then just erase everything they have done trough a goddamn cutscene .

 

Hell then we could've heard of our characters by using their formal names used by the game aka Nox or wrath and hear how they are fighting back Home instead of everyone Gone..let's focus on Zaakul .

[SithKoriandr]

Deleting ? not so much..

 

But you know , I was thinking . They couldve easely asked the players to start a new character for Kotfe . Someone who is special and has no ties to the old repb and Imp and take it from there .

 

Instead of dragging characters with huge baggage and then just erase everything they have done trough a gosh darn cutscene .

 

Hell then we could've heard of our characters by using their formal names used by the game aka Nox or wrath and hear how they are fighting back Home instead of everyone Gone..let's focus on Zaakul .

 

Then we would have complained about that.

[Tieru]

I was just talking about this issue with some friends of mine.

 

I too really liked the class specific side quests. They added a more nostalgic element to the expansions, harkening back to good old vanilla story and characters. For the Sith Inquisitor, it made you feel more like an active Dark Councilor, the Sith Warrior story on Rishi was a great prelude/transition to Ziost. They all were great!

 

In KOTET, I hope to see some of these as well, maybe bringing back some unresolved characters/plots from Vanilla. Like Jadus for the Agent, Vowron for the Warrior, Pyron for the Inquisitor, Chancelor or Tormen for the Bounty Hunter (depending on what you chose), the Togruta Jedi for the Smuggler, Terek Morage (I think I got that name right) for the Consular, etc. (others I haven't delved into too much thought).

 

Many of these characters were unresolved and still out there. What happened to them since? I for one, loved the strong characters they created in Vanilla, and would love for them to come back (within reason of course).