Story Discussion - Shadow of Revan through KOTET

[OldVengeance]

So, I have to address this, because I think it's a relevant point in the story.... assuming that Valkorion/Vitiate takes a great interest in your character, saying that you are the only person worthy of his attention, in my opinion makes it seem like the only plausible class that could be the Outlander is the Jedi Knight, as he'd have defeated him twice by this point. In my opinion, Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne make the most sense when played as a Jedi Knight, as the Emperor is your enemy throughout the Knight's story, and I don't think his duty to stop Valkorion would end.

 

To some extent yes, the Knight does make the most sense. But I have a hard time seeing the expansions as the specifically meant to be a continuation of the Jedi Knight class story because so little of the supporting cast appears in the story, even people who you would think would be important like Kira and Scourge. Kotet's dialogue also has several glaring moments where there should have been callbacks to the class story, but there were none.

 

If the story is meant to be a continuation of only the Jedi Knight story, then it must be a soft rebooted or reimagined version of the Knight story.

 

The Warrior and the Consular also make a lot of sense as Outlanders, and arguably the Consular has the fewest issues in terms of continuity with the class stories.

Edited July 3, 2017 by OldVengeance

[Yezzan]

It’s is hard to give actionable feedback, because it often requires wall of text then ends in TL;DR. Postmortem feedback is, only, useful for future, future expansions that are in the brain-storming stage. I used future twice because production is almost always partially completed for projects in the immediate future.

 

There was a divergence from the original Star Wars experience of eight unique class stories in to a single story. While this should not have been an issue, it is my view, that the writer(s) failed to make a seamless transition for eight to one; and instead, created a singular experience that only made sense to one or two particular class(es).

 

The issue with SoR connecting to KOTFE

 

Vitiate, throughout the entire story, was an evil Emperor who ruled the Empire with an Iron fist. However, KOTFE showed him as a pragmatic leader, who raised Zakuul from its primitive state to a prominent world that rivals any of the core worlds, even the Coruscant. There was nothing to connect the player with the old Vitiate and the new Valkorian. A filler arc or a side quest could have been used to flesh out Vititate’s gradual change in perspective, similar to how he explained what he was doing, while trapped in our minds, in chapter 9 of KOTET.

 

KOTFE and KOTET did not match the Protagonist

 

Watch the movie, Vantage Point (2008). Perhaps, this will give the writer(s) some insights as to how to tell a story from several different points of views. It is possible that this is not what Bioware was doing, and if that is the case, then BW has erred, badly. KOTFE and KOTET turned SWTOR into a single-player story game, where, the story on a single protagonist was Frankensteined on to seven other protagonists who had their own stories abruptly warped into someone’s else story.

 

It wasn’t about the Imperial Agent or the Bounty Hunter; it wasn’t about the Trooper or the Smuggler; it wasn’t about the Jedi Knight or the Jedi Counselor; It wasn’t about the Sith Warrior or the Sith Inquisitor; it was about the Outlander, a totally, new protagonist, who we know nothing about. The writer(s) tried to make us believe he was someone we knew: the Emperor’s Wrath or the Hero of Tython or someone other familiar person of note, from the Core Worlds. But the truth is, we do not know who this outlander is. The writer(s) failed to sell us on who exactly the Outlander is – the story did not match the protagonist.

 

What should have happened was something similar to what happened in the movie, Vantage Point. The same story is being told from different points of views and the player gets to see how each character responds to the events unfolding before him/her. The problem is not that the story was bad; the problem is that the writer(s) failed to tell the story from the point of view of the protagonist. It was like we were in someone else’s mind and experiencing what they saw without being able to affect their actions, thoughts or emotions. In essence, we were Valkorian, who possessed someone’s body and made him do what we wanted him to do. But, of course, we were told that we were in control.

 

I hope going forward, Bioware will make us feel like whichever character we are playing instead of a possessed soul who has no control over his/her actions, while the writer(s) try to convince us that we are in control.

[stoopicus]

What should have happened was something similar to what happened in the movie, Vantage Point. The same story is being told from different points of views and the player gets to see how each character responds to the events unfolding before him/her. The problem is not that the story was bad; the problem is that the writer(s) failed to tell the story from the point of view of the protagonist.

 

That's really insightful. I totally agree, this was a missed opportunity here. Ironically too, because the JK and SW storylines *did* do this up through the Dread War.

 

This is something that WoW is really good at doing, in part because in WoW you're not the center of attention, but mostly just because Blizzard is really good at telling the same story from different viewpoints.

 

For example, this is the Legion intro for Alliance:

 

And this is the intro for Horde:

 

Same battle. Same scene. Same events. Only the first minute or so are different - but oh what a difference the different viewpoint makes, around Sylvanas' actions, around your overall understanding of the battle (no, Varian, you were not "winning"), etc.

 

Similarly, the entire first expansion of WoW was more or less about taking down Illidan:

 

Well, in Legion, we get Illidan's perspective:

 

This is just something that Blizzard is good at.

Edited July 3, 2017 by stoopicus

[Brayla_Sana]

My thoughts:

 

I enjoyed a huge portion of all three expansions. Please take the criticisms as constructive; my stating them does not mean i didn't enjoy the stories; there are just some things that could have been done to make it more "wow."

 

I agree that the Vitiate/Valkorion thing felt patched in. The extra backstory needed to be provided; it could have been done via Codex or via datapads strewn about that we could read in different places. Perhaps even a have a collection for them for a reward. This is something you could even add in now to help new players understand the stories better.

 

I feel that Lord Scourge was the missed character in all three of these. I don't know if there were perhaps problems with the availability of the voice actor, but if he would have been woven into the storyline, it would have helped tie things together. Take out Lana, replace her with Lord Scourge, and weave his story into both Revan and KOTFE, and you would have had a more believable narrative. You could have used Scourge to tie Vitiate and Valkorion together story-wise and it would have made sooo much more sense. To me, Theron and Lana are nothing characters. There's no back story to them (other than Theron having famous parents; whoop tee do).

 

Arcann was a more compelling and developed character as a reformed villain than as a villain. I want to know more about him because of this. However, I felt that Vaylin was too underdeveloped. The cutscene of her youth gave us a bit of background, but I found it odd that she was so compliant to be Arcann's underling during KOTFE and then out of control in KOTET. That was too much of a jump.

 

I think the story should have diverged on Odessen between the force sensitive and non force sensitive characters. A lot of what happened with Satele Shan in the Odessen woods made little sense to my non force sensitive characters. Perhaps make the test more of cunning and strategy instead of making me a force sensitive gun.

 

I haven't played all of Iokath yet, as I took a break to play Andromeda and a few other things, so I really don't have a comment on that yet.

[Plk_Lesiak]

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

 

You didn't? I got to all of this that you wrote here just by playing through KotFE/KotET twice. To be fair, I've also played though all the class stories and saw everything up to Ziost from both Republic and Imperial side. I think if you have enough background knowledge and think a bit about the new storylines it's quite easy to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

 

The only part I have a problem with is the claim that Valkorion intentionally got killed by us, from the last chapters of KotET I've rather interpreted it as an effect of a miscalculation on his part and everything that happened after as emergency plan to reclaim his power. After all, he had 5 years to set it all up while we were in the freezer, for me it makes more sense than risking so much just to claim a new identity. On the other hand, you can argue that he was arrogant enough to attempt something like that without expecting failure to be a possibility.

 

But that's from the perspective of a lore-nerd. People that don't give that much attention to the story can easily get lost here I guess. I still don't agree with much of the criticism the story got here, everyone was provided with means to understand it IMO.

[Eshvara]

My thoughts:

 

I feel that Lord Scourge was the missed character in all three of these. I don't know if there were perhaps problems with the availability of the voice actor, but if he would have been woven into the storyline, it would have helped tie things together. Take out Lana, replace her with Lord Scourge, and weave his story into both Revan and KOTFE, and you would have had a more believable narrative. You could have used Scourge to tie Vitiate and Valkorion together story-wise and it would have made sooo much more sense. To me, Theron and Lana are nothing characters. There's no back story to them (other than Theron having famous parents; whoop tee do).

 

This is how I feel too, which is why i also hope they wont always continue with the whole Theron and Lana theme. It's been three years already, I think it's time for them to be on the background and introduce new characters.

And yeah Lord Scourge and also Kira, I don't know how they could have been forgotten about, it's just weird!

Edited July 3, 2017 by Eshvara

[Brayla_Sana]

This is how I feel too, which is why i also hope they wont always continue with the whole Theron and Lana theme. It's been three years already, I think it's time for them to be on the background and introduce new characters.

And yeah Lord Scourge and also Kira, I don't know how they could have been forgotten about, it's just weird!

 

Replace Theron and Lana with Lord Scourge and Kira and Bam! the story is so much better.

[Eshvara]

Replace Theron and Lana with Lord Scourge and Kira and Bam! the story is so much better.

 

Yes!!! I need a like button so I can give this post the love it deserves.

[Yezzan]

 

But that's from the perspective of a lore-nerd. People that don't give that much attention to the story can easily get lost here I guess. I still don't agree with much of the criticism the story got here, everyone was provided with means to understand it IMO.

 

The issue of Valkorian's change in personality is a subsidiary matter, it's relevance would have been immaterial if the writer(s) did a better job of telling the story from each class's point of view. KOTFE/KOTET made us (all) have the same -- exact -- experience, which is impossible. Even if we were in someone's mind, reliving the same experience, we would have different feelings/perspectives about it.

 

Given the same vantage point, two individuals would see and react to the same event differently. Bioware's writer(s) did not give us that. In fact it would have been better if they had just introduced the outlander as a new character, who had no connections to our previous characters, because, in essence, that is precisely what they did.

[BenduKundalini]

an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

He has been possessed by Chris Avellone! Surely the Hall of Sensates from Planescape has a Stone for Valkorion...

[Plk_Lesiak]

The issue of Valkorian's change in personality is a subsidiary matter, it's relevance would have been immaterial if the writer(s) did a better job of telling the story from each class's point of view. KOTFE/KOTET made us (all) have the same -- exact -- experience, which is impossible. Even if we were in someone's mind, reliving the same experience, we would have different feelings/perspectives about it.

 

Given the same vantage point, two individuals would see and react to the same event differently. Bioware's writer(s) did not give us that. In fact it would have been better if they had just introduced the outlander as a new character, who had no connections to our previous characters, because, in essence, that is precisely what they did.

 

Oh, I won't argue with that. It didn't bother me that much because I played the characters that somewhat fitted the story anyways (Warrior and Inquisitor) and managed to create fairly in-character paths for them, but I know it's more a coincidence than actual good effort from the writers.

 

What I referred to in my post was people saying the story was incomprehensible or that they couldn't understand the Vitiate/Valkorion dynamics. I think KotET made it clear enough that Valkorion was still the same homicidal tyrant he always was and his whole "change of heart" was a trick, a mask. The player, Zakuul, Eternal Fleet, all were either toys or tools in his grand scheme, and while people point out to the problems with nature of Vitiate and his strategy (how many bodies he can possess, how much weakened he was when killed by JK, what stopped him for using Eternal Fleet earlier etc.), I don't see his character as that strange or inconsistent. He was exactly what I expected him to be after experiencing JK and SW stories.

 

Many other complains are either hard to argue with or are up to personal taste. At first I also felt that Zakuul didn't "feel SW", but I think it got better in KotET and Iokath is actually quite cool and atmospheric, you have multiple cases of such technological utopia/dystopia solely in the Old Republic lore and I don't see it "not belonging" in SW story. The latest story bit being a train-wreck is a separate issue. Things like that are noticeable problems, but I don't think they're as crucial as some make them to be.

 

The story of KotFE and KotET wasn't bad by itself or that confusing IMO, the real problem is the lack of skill and resources to implement it properly and that's the true curse destroying TOR - the ultimate example being in parts interesting, but rushed and borderline broken War on Iokath story. As money and time don't grow on trees and no one will ever invest huge sums into a game in this state, expect it to either get worse when it goes to quality issues or the pace of significant updates getting slower and slower.

[ImmortalLowlife]

(Taken from other thread with some slight additions...)

 

Thanks for this insight... it was a great read, although imo y'all should have taken more time to flesh out some of these facts (especially in KotET) so the story would have flowed better. I also think there should have been separate storylines for force users & non force users. And lastly... aside from the missing companions, my biggest complaints about KotFE/KotET was the need for the shield during the final Arkan fight in KotFE. You'd just shown me stopping a lightsaber attack with the power of the Force. Why do I need this random shield to block a force blast now? Also.... I'd really hoped the gravestone would have been more than it was. I hoped it'd be like the class ships in that we'd travel in it, and we'd see all the companions/ allies on the ship doing random "stuff". That we'd be able to unlock things liked GTN terminals & maybe decorate it l.

 

 

Personally, I loved the class stories, I REALLY enjoyed SoR, and I mostly enjoyed the KotFE story (KotET seemed rushed and half done, and no companions returned which was a huge turn off for me). And I look forward to the next story expansion in this game. Just please take the time to make it as epic as we know y'all can do.

[SourOrange]

If you have to take this much time explaining how your story works because your audience couldn't gather it for themselves, it wasn't told or written effectively. Edited July 3, 2017 by SourOrange

[AlrikFassbauer]

If you have to take this much time explaining how your story works because your audience couldn't gather it for themselves, it wasn't told or written effectively.

 

Good point.

[light_senshi]

I've read through about half the thread but I'll go ahead and give feedback...which is something that I rarely do.

 

I consider both KOTFE and KOTET to be a failure from a writer's perspective. Up until this point, the focus of the story has been on the player character. Once we reach the beginning of KOTFE, the focus of the story shifts away from the player character: in effect they become a bystander rather than the focus. Many of the criticisms about the expansions boil down to this, the player becomes an observer in someone else's story...and one with questionable writing to boot.

 

Unlike previously, the character has no say and nothing they do matters.

[Deewe]

I've read through about half the thread but I'll go ahead and give feedback...which is something that I rarely do.

 

I consider both KOTFE and KOTET to be a failure from a writer's perspective. Up until this point, the focus of the story has been on the player character. Once we reach the beginning of KOTFE, the focus of the story shifts away from the player character: in effect they become a bystander rather than the focus. Many of the criticisms about the expansions boil down to this, the player becomes an observer in someone else's story...and one with questionable writing to boot.

 

Unlike previously, the character has no say and nothing they do matters.

Don't blame the writers for that. I mean they had to considering the story had to fit all classes. Otherwise the story would have even been more bland.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Don't blame the writers for that. I mean they had to considering the story had to fit all classes. Otherwise the story would have even been more bland.

 

This is and always was going to be the downside to creating an MMO with 8 unique class stories. Sooner or later the development process (time and money as a couple of major factors) was going to reduce to the point they could not keep that up.

 

Just so happened it was immediately after the class stories it happened (makes me wonder what they originally had in mind for the future of class stories) - we got a wee bit in Makeb and a wee bit in SoR but for the most part that was that (why did they tease us in SoR just to never continue on with it, my sin seems to have an interesting future in the area the class story was heading).

 

Are there any other MMOs that have done something this ambitious story wise? I don't/haven't played many but I don't often hear of many with completely separate class stories like this game. So as bad and annoying as it may seem to not have it continue anymore it's sort of not as though other games are doing it better in that regard? Or I'm wrong and it's common in MMOs.

[ZionHalcyon]

Don't blame the writers for that. I mean they had to considering the story had to fit all classes. Otherwise the story would have even been more bland.

 

The reality is that I knew this was going to happen from the very beginning when James Ohlen touted "unlimited class story!" A producer would hear "unlimited budget!"

 

No Story works when you have no end in mind. I think had they planned on the definitive beginning middle and end to each of the eight class stories they would have been able to convince EA to finish the budget and wrap those up and given that the class stories and companion stories with the things that stood out most about the game and by feedback in the numbers the things that drew people the most to this game.

 

While progress with the slower it is still not too late to take that approach. I think everyone here would be patient if they were to create a story that ends at level 100, Settles each individual class story and all the companion stories, and then from that point on they go on to create brand new stories in the form of daily areas flashpoints and operations, that take place in the timeline between levels 1 and 100.

 

At least then everyone gets a satisfying story for their personal character and no one will deep deeply saddened if a new story doesn't make it in to the lack of budget after the fact since all that people will be missing is a daily area and some flashpoints.

[BorisKarloffe]

Hey folks,

 

Since the other thread got a little off-topic, I am remaking. This thread is to discuss the story of SoR > KOTFE > KOTET and your feelings on it. To kick off the discussion (again) I am reposting what Charles said about the Vitiate / Valkorion storyline from his perspective.

 

--

 

 

 

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, ...

 

SNIP

 

 

Thank you for the explanation, though, at times it puzzles me.

 

1. All the way back in Ziost, it became apparent that the plot didn't make much sense for non-force users. Why continue with that, or at least not have some alternate path? Seriously, I find the last scene in mental prisonland hilarious when Valkorion on his knees at the last goes "RAWR You will not defeat me. I am a god! Blaaarrgh!" (something like that anyway) and goes to force explode or something at the player, but if you're a non-force user, the player just goes PEW PEW with their blaster...the end. Can all the non-force users that finish that part get a title that simply says "Forget Han, I shot first!"?

 

2. This more or less assumes that players will be familiar with some, if not all, the tidbits of story about Vitiate from the vanilla game class storylines, which is fine, except a number of folks (no idea how many) probably haven't played through all that, and new players with insta-Outlander tokens won't have played through any of them.

 

3. I still don't understand why putting our player characters in a position of ultimate power over technology and resources in the Galaxy atop an actual throne was considered good narrative strategy.

 

4. Why did neither Kira nor Scourge have anything to do with KotFEET? Surely you planned for them to be involved?

 

5. Plenty of folks have pointed out Companion absences, but its the treatment of their absence that is more concerning. As the Outlander, the player character is hardly ever/sometimes never (depending on class) allowed to ask or search for their loved ones, even at times when it makes the most sense to do so. No normal person does this.

 

6. While I think I agree with your writing/story telling principles in general, I don't think I agree with the specifics of how they were applied. Having unresolved issues/lack of details/or even seemingly bizarre character behavior can work for a tv show because usually viewers only wait one week before the next episode appears that explains more, but that doesn't work for a video game with this kind of release cadence and content. You're basically asking gamers to remember what they did/happened and to trust you for 2, or originally 3, years' time to complete the arc. Do any other story based games (don't think it's fair to compare to most mmo's) make players wait that long on a story arc? Did anyone consider making the xpacs larger to accommodate everything that needs to happen?

 

7. Breakdown in continuity between KOTFE and KoTET: There was clearly a discontinuity in things that were supposed to matter: namely, accepting Valkorion's power or not and everything that happened in Chapter 12 (Visions in the Dark). There were other things, but these were two key elements that were both emphasized as HUGELY important at the time and hinted to be significant in the future, but never ended up showing up again in KotET at all aside from maybe a mention from Valkorion in the last chapter. It further alienated players who were in vain hoping that the "choices that matter" thing might yet be vindicated later, and made others convinced that what they chose to do in KotET wouldn't matter one iota since we were just going to be shoehorned into whatever plot moment was required. Since there was never any "payoff" for the bizarre stuff in Chapter 12, Satele and Marr both feel like "ruined" characters right now.

 

8. Sacrificing characters you know players care about for ones either we don't care about or aren't given much reason to: If Vaylin and Arcann are, essentially, throwaway characters to Valkorion and the narrative as a whole, why give them as much screen time as they got in KotFE? We could've been spending more of that time with Alliance members, Companions, Love Interests, or even flushing out more needed plot details we didn't get.

 

9. Gameplay Issues undercut the Story: There was nothing compelling about hallways of forced skytrooper encounters, but there were other points where gameplay issues ruined immersion. Naked Jorgan, Arcann fight glitch, Valkorion not recognizing if PCs had used his power or not correctly in Ch. 12 were all things that forced players to in many cases back out and reload the game just to get it to work right, not really ideal.

 

10. Valkorion's Rationale as presented is highly suspect: Why exactly does he consider Zakuul a "superior society" to the Sith? You mentioned "stability" to experience other things, but there are plenty of Republic worlds that could offer that, and also plenty of ways he could've experienced similar in Empire controlled worlds. Not the best explanation for a complete shift in character.

 

11. Made Revan, arguably Bioware's best contribution to the Star Wars universe, into an exploited mess: Seriously, Revan's ritual as explained here basically undoes almost everything the Jedi Knight storyline was trying to stop. Thanks Revan, you were once a ******....now you can go stand by Satele and Marr in the ruined characters line.

 

12. Inconsistencies from Vitiate to Valkorion: Others have already pointed out how and why this matters.

 

TLDR: After reading this explanation on Valkorion, it still feels a lot like one of those Agatha Christie Poirot mysteries where he solves the crime and finds the murderer, but ONLY after "sending away for more information" that ends up being crucial later. The reader never knows what that information is until the end. So Poirot shows off his deduction skills, but you never appreciate it as the reader since only Poirot knew the information and it was withheld from the reader.

 

In the end, you're not impressed, but feel a bit cheated that you weren't given the chance to figure it out yourself or that the writer got couldn't figure out how to weave the threads together well enough without resorting to sleight of hand. It also makes you second guess later mysteries since you don't know if any of what you're reading will get discarded later in favor of "other information" the reader wasn't allowed to be made aware of.

[ShadowofaMew]

I was a little confused when I saw the "Brothers" trailer at first. Since it looked like both brothers were attacking the known galaxy, but after meeting Valkorian, Arcan declares war on the larger galaxy, even though it looked like they had already done that. So my question is, were both brothers fighting in the civil war?

[ThePasserby]

I'll just state briefly that I loathe KotFE and KotET. It is a departure from being a Star Wars story into being a Keeping Up With The Valkorians story. I voted with my money and cancelled my subscription within a month of the launch of 4.0.

 

But I'd like to explore this issue from the standpoint of how the opening and endings scenes are constructed. How stories begin and how they end have tremendous importance. And what it says about the writers of the respective stories.

 

The short version of what I'm about to say is that both the opening and ending scenes of the first Star Wars movie put the emphasis on the protagonists by showing them first in the opening, and showing them last in the ending. On the other hand, KotFE shows the Valkorians first in the opening and shows the Valkorians last in the ending. Just as the audience knew who the main characters were in Episode 4 based on the opening, we knew who the stories would revolve around based on KotFE's opening.

 

Let's examine the story that began all of this: the first Star Wars movie.

 

The opening crawl has become a trademark of sorts of Star Wars. In the first movie, the crawl goes, and I'm paraphrasing here:

 

The galaxy is in dire straits and goes on to briefly explain how.

 

Then it mentions that all is not lost, as the good guys (who are the protagonists) are doing something desperate to reverse the tide.

 

Then the final paragraph briefly describes the circumstances that take place shortly before the first scene.

 

And then in the first scene, you see a small ship under attack by a much larger ship and then the scene changes to inside the smaller ship and there, right in the centre of the screen is R2-D2 and slightly to the side, is C3-P0. The audience immediately and subconsciously knows that R2-D2 is one of the protagonists. The little droid is front and centre of the screen and the scene shows how they escape from their dire predicament and R2 becoming the bearer of an important message.

 

This is important, because without using words, the audience knows that R2 and its friends play an important role in the story, simply because they are shown first. They are the protagonists.

 

Now let's look at how KotFE does it.

 

The opening crawl, like Episode 4, says the galaxy is in strive, and goes on to describe how bad things are.

 

Then it says all is not lost, as Darth Marr is gathering allies to combat the threat.

 

And then we are shown what we later know is Zakuul, and the character that appears first is not our own characters. It was very jarring for me when I played it. The first character to appear is Arcann, as he approaches Valkorian. They exchange some words, some ships appear, which then warp away. Only then do our characters appear. Our characters do not appear first. It is Arcann who appears first. I'm guessing for many others, but for me especially, already had a bad feeling that the story would turn out to be not about our characters, but about Arcann.

 

It's the same with the ending scenes. The very last scene of Episode 4 shows the famous medal ceremony. It even has a brief moment where the focus is on R2, as it displays elation at the events, and then the camera pans out to show every major character before the movie ends. This ending gives the audience a great sense of closure. The heroes have won!

 

Now compare this with KotFE's ending. the last scene is not one in which our characters celebrate the successful defence of their base. No. The last scene is one in which Vaylin claims the throne and ends with her sitting on it. This ending gives the audience very little sense of closure. It is one that says, "You have won, but ... " The ending scene of Episode 4 does not end with a "... but ...".

 

All in all, I can't help but feel that where the writers of Episode 4 strove to tell a great story for their audience, the writers of KotFE instead only wanted to tell a story that they wanted to tell, regardless of the audience. The Episode 4 writers put their audience first, by striving to put together a story that their experience told them the audience would love. On the other hand, the writers of KotFE put themselves first, and wrote a story that they themselves loved, regardless of what they knew their audience would love.

[MandFlurry]

(Taken from other thread with some slight additions...)

 

Thanks for this insight... it was a great read, although imo y'all should have taken more time to flesh out some of these facts (especially in KotET) so the story would have flowed better. I also think there should have been separate storylines for force users & non force users. And lastly... aside from the missing companions, my biggest complaints about KotFE/KotET was the need for the shield during the final Arkan fight in KotFE. You'd just shown me stopping a lightsaber attack with the power of the Force. Why do I need this random shield to block a force blast now? Also.... I'd really hoped the gravestone would have been more than it was. I hoped it'd be like the class ships in that we'd travel in it, and we'd see all the companions/ allies on the ship doing random "stuff". That we'd be able to unlock things liked GTN terminals & maybe decorate it l.

 

 

Personally, I loved the class stories, I REALLY enjoyed SoR, and I mostly enjoyed the KotFE story (KotET seemed rushed and half done, and no companions returned which was a huge turn off for me). And I look forward to the next story expansion in this game. Just please take the time to make it as epic as we know y'all can do.

 

 

I to got that Valkorian was going to use and Hollow out my body and take it over unless i could get rid of him some way. No i have Never done the Whole Iokath KOTET stuff because it was trashed By Players that only Have a 1 Track Mind. And that is the Stupid Sith Empire vs. Republic War, where right now in the present are in their near Death-throws, and will do anything to get that Tech on Iokath.

 

It's very sickining that we had our 3rd Faction, that Alliance that had the Republic Sith Empire and even the Zakuulan Empire, which we should have been able to tell both the Republic and Empire to go to hell.

 

I loved SOR and Fractured Alliance stories, they were very good, and got us out of the Stupid Republic and Sith Empire War, where both sides were losing forces and their own factions in either way in Zakuul came or not.

 

KOTFE was pretty good, but a few stories could have been a lot better. KOTET's opening was nothing but the "Reality of War at it's greatest", in this games history, and the Devs should be applauded for that. Also, the Walker fighting in KOTET's Ch:1 was really awesome, and i think most people like it, since it's usually only us whiners that even post anywhere on the Net usually. A lot of people didn't like the Walker mission also because they had No idea how to use it right.

 

Maybe i'll finish KOTET/ Iokath when the Devs, or If the Devs will do what a lot of other players want, that is to have that 3rd Faction of the Alliance , that some of us fought and grinded hard to make game reality. The Devs didn't have a right imo to trash it like they might have, and I hope they do the right things by making More stories for Our Original and other Companions, along with more Romance and romanceable options.

[MandFlurry]

wrong area. Edited July 4, 2017 by MandFlurry

[MacKMadsen]

I already kinda touched on what I liked in a thread about where I'd like to see the story go from here but here's my two bits on what's already happened.

 

Honestly, I have overall enjoyed the new expansions. Some of the cinematic scenes were breathtaking like the high orbit battles on Voss and when my trooper rounded the corner and point blanked a skytrooper with their pistol. Stuff like that I would like to see more of. I also thought the main cast was pretty good. I thought Jorgan deserved better than being paired with Kalyo but I felt like, with Lana and Theron especially, things felt more like classic starwars with a close knit motley crew taking the fight to a sinsiter bad guy around the galaxy with some so deadpan humour thrown into the mix. Those two are good and I really like having a Sith around who doesn't have a hypothetical curly mustache to twirl around every five seconds, so I strongly disagree with those who say Lana isn't dark enough.

 

As for the plot, my main alts are mainly hunters and troopers so I felt the story was too force heavy. Starwars is a great setting because it combines that mystical ancient space magic with elements from space westerns and WW2 movies. There's a lot to do there and each haracter class has their niche in one of those elements so forcing them too far into another of those is a bit weird to say the least. I can't say my hunters will take too well to becoming the head of a galactic superpower and my troopers, while at home commanding a force or even reconstruction, are not the royalty type. It does feel like we're kinda written into a corner here but I'm still interested to see what comes next. Despite the flaws it's still passable at worst and overthinking anything star wars is just a bad idea in my experience.

 

I'd really like to see a return to being just a semi-important somebody flying around the galaxy in my ship with a small, but interesting and endeering crew.

 

Vaylin and Fry Face there were kind of a mixed bag as far as antagonists. On the one hand they were sinister and their volatility made them dangerous enough but that emotional imabalance was also a huge weakness so I pretty much worked out how they'd screw up and give me an opening from early on. Valkurion, or whatever he feels like being called today, was interesting at times but given his past work on Ziost it wasn't hard to see him coming a mile away, the only question was on the fine details of the 'how'. The level of sass on him tho...

 

Personally I find the best villains are ones you root for almost as hard as the good guys and/or are just enjoyable and engaging characters on their own so that might be something to look into for the next storyline. These guys were a bit cliche at the end of the day despite having a few strengths as bad guys.

 

I wasn't really taken by Zakuul. They were a bit too much 'high fantasy in space' for me whereas the Empire and Republic balanced those jedi/sith aspects out with their own modern-esque mainstream soceties and militaries. The whole decedant Fallen empire part wasn't really interesting either since it really made them less intimidating as enemies. I'm not opposed to new factions coming in, but I'd prefer if they were complex enough to have something interesting enough for everybody, not just the force users. Also I felt like their over use of droids in their army left out a chance to give them some real personality because a civilization's soldiers and military organization can give a really interesting insight into their society. Being a former soldier who served a country that I was not born in, I could definately go much deeper into the nuances of that last point but it's not relevant for a short 'my impressions' dump like this.

 

All in all I have liked the story stuff for the new game in general and thought the good stuff outweighed the bad. Story is the main reason I play this game, strongholds and companion/PC fashion being the others . I think you guys are still doing the best work in terms of writing out of most of the recent Bioware games and SWTOR doesn't get enough credit for doing so well despite limited resources and KOTOR's shadow. If any devs are reading this I hope you also get a chance to look at and think about my thread with my thoughts on the story going forward because it expands on this feedback here and has some ideas I would be really exited to see going forward. (I did come up with them after all )

[bncsmom]

Hey folks,

 

Since the other thread got a little off-topic, I am remaking. This thread is to discuss the story of SoR > KOTFE > KOTET and your feelings on it. To kick off the discussion (again) I am reposting what Charles said about the Vitiate / Valkorion storyline from his perspective.

 

--

 

 

 

 

Hey, that's the line I was going to quote!

 

Since Valkorion is one of the biggest discussion points lately, and it's been a while so I feel like it's free range to discuss, I'll just lay out everything we had in mind for Vitiate/Valkorion and y'all can have something concrete to discuss and/or kick me about

 

**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**

 

Centuries before our story begins, Tenebrae becomes Vitiate, becomes Emperor of the Sith, and leads the survivors of the Sith into exile to Dromund Kaas. He rules directly for many years.

 

As years go by, he becomes more and more dissatisfied with the Sith Empire he's created. He finds himself increasingly distanced from the Sith philosophy that first brought him to power and sees it as a dead end (as he expresses several times in KOTFE/KOTET) and, with the immense power at his disposal, begins striking out in search of something better. This is when his "long periods of silence" begin.

 

He discovers Zakuul, which is in a comparatively primitive state (by Star Wars tech standards, anyway) and dominates Valkorion, as he describes in KOTET Chapter 2. He learns the ancient legends of the gods, of the Eternal Fleet, etc, and investigates them with his considerabe resources. By this point, he has certainly already started the collection of rare and powerful technologies and artifacts that we find in the Arcanum, his vault on Nathema, etc. He (or perhaps agents working for him, such as the Servants) finds the Eternal Fleet disabled in deep space and is able to seize control of it (based on how ARIES talks, we can be fairly sure that neither Valkorion nor his agents ever visited Iokath itself).

 

The technology of the Fleet helps him raise Zakuul still further. In his Valkorion persona, he constructs a more stable society that he finds more interesting, one that has more potential to let him explore different experiences for centuries to come (his quote above and his many claims of Zakuul being the bestest thing ever). So now, he just needs to ensure that he'll live forever, and that nothing else will threaten his new creation. The ritual (the one the Jedi Knight ultimately stops) will serve both purposes, so he sets that plan in motion, kicking off the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Republic. (I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe that he could avoid destroying Zakuul, which is waaaay out at the outer edge of the galaxy, when using a ritual that he himself is creating over many, many years, but that should've been something we at least let Jedi Knight players ask.)

 

Then, Vitiate abruptly stops the war, proposes a treaty claiming seemingly-random planets, and starts the Cold War. An obscure step in his plan to complete the ritual? Makes sense, though if we look at how old Valkorion's children appear to be, they'd be getting born right around this time... coincidence?

 

Senya tells us that Valkorion started becoming colder and more distant as the children grew up, so we can surmise that he's splitting his attention again during this period. The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

The events of Shadow of Revan give him the boost he needs to become active again - and he does so in spectacular fashion on Ziost, all while playing up his "evil destroyer of everything" Vitiate persona to the max. He's greatly reinvigorated, he's dealt a significant blow to the Sith Empire (which had been rapidly increasing in strength after Rise of the Hutt Cartel), and he's baited the player and their allies in one fell swoop. All of which leads inexorably to the confrontation in the throne room in the beginning of KOTFE - but why?

 

For this, we just have to look at the last person who ever stood up to Vitiate at anywhere near the level that the player's character did on Ziost: Revan. When Revan took a crack at him, Vitiate locked him up for centuries, picking and prodding at his mind the entire time. So we know that Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion doesn't destroy people who are a legitimate threat to him; he's fascinated by them. He entraps them, studies them, manipulates them, and corrupts them. (He did it to Vaylin, too! And Dramath!)

 

So, to review: Valkorion has been revitalized; he's got a tremendously powerful fleet; he's got the Republic in the weakest state it's been since the treaty of Coruscant and the Sith Empire not far behind; he's discovered a new threat that can actually take a shot at him; and he's got a wife who's left him and children that he finds deeply disappointing (see pretty much any time he ever deigns to speak to them) in line to take over his supposedly perfect society. Time to solve all of his problems at once!

 

He spurs his son's bloodlust and ambition by setting him and the fleet loose on the galaxy (now that they're definitely in no state to resist the fleet's power or endanger Zakuul). He lures his new enemy into a trap and captures them. He arranges his own "death", whether by the player's hand or Arcann's, and invades the player's mind. Arcann and Vaylin do exactly what he expects, which is to generally muck up the galaxy and establish themselves as tyrants in need of overthrowing. And then he arranges and guides the player in doing just that, all the while laying the groundwork for dominating their mind at the moment of their victory and commanding a newly-reshaped galaxy as a heroic liberator - an all-new experience to try out. Too bad it didn't work out for him

 

So, all of this leads to a perfectly reasonable question: why didn't we just come out and say this in the game?

• First, we only have so much room to tell a story, so we have to pick what seems most crucial. If a detail isn't vital to understanding the plot or really entertaining or personal, then we don't have time to spend talking about it. Maybe we assessed things wrong, or aimed to cover too much ground in too little time so too much was left out - perfectly fair feedback, and something I would certainly take moving forward. But in principle, there will always be details we don't explain purely because we don't have time to do so.
  
• Beyond that, I don't like explaining every single detail of everything anyway. I think it's boring. It's boring to write, and it's (almost always) boring to experience as a player. It's fun to read in a Wookieepedia article sometimes! But I don't think it's the job of the story to lay out every single thing (the movies certainly don't do so). Plus...
  
• Mysteries are fun, and I like leaving at least a few things up to players to work out, theorize, or decide for themselves. Surely it's more fun to leave some things to the imagination?
  
• Selfishly, it's good for us as writers to leave some things vague so that we can expand or change them later. For example, I never said anything about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion's original body anywhere up above, because I think it'd be a pretty cool plot element to explore someday. Maybe we won't get around to it, maybe we will, but if it's something that we can't give a lot of love now and want to do later, I won't hesitate to leave it out so that we have room to do so. Plus, as this thread plainly demonstrates, people don't like it when you retcon past details, so if those details aren't there to retcon...
  
• Lastly, and this is specific to this particular situation, but the only real source that could give the player all of this information directly is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion himself. There's clearly no reason he would tell someone about a lot of these things if his goal is to seduce and destroy them, so we used more indirect means to reference them where it made sense.
  

 

So, there's my giant post about Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion and our reasons for going about it as we did. Having a reason to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do, of course, so I'm happy to hear everyone's feedback and take it in mind going forward. But, as usual, please be cool about it and be respectful to one another

 

Though as others have clarified, I haven't been the Lead Writer since late 2015

 

 

Every bit of Charles' comment about Valkorion/Vitiate/Tenebrae I encased into a spoiler to make this more readable. I started to read it, but when it went on and on, I just stopped reading.

 

Why?

 

I don't care. It's that simple.

 

I don't care about the reasoning behind whatever the Emperor is doing. What I want to know is what MY character's place is in all of this...bologna...that's going on. And there's a whole lot of bologna around here over the past two years. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the entire time I've been here in this game and in many ways I'm really sad I stopped playing LotRO for this.

 

The reason I said that last sentence above is because while LotRO has a huge grind, it is at least consistent. We know where the story is going, how we get there is the question, because we're not the main characters in the story. We're support characters and we're building our own reputation through the lands of the story. We explore and make friends and enemies, but we don't have a huge surprise jump out at us in the form of an insane king that comes out of nowhere to try to destroy the world. We have Sauron, who does want to destroy Middle Earth as we know it, but we know what happens, if we've read the books or watched the movies.

 

Here, we have an insane family that jumps out at us from the woodwork, living on a planet that is filled with one part imbeciles who can't get by without having machines do everything for them, another part are raving mad lunatics who follow a snake god, and the rest are just lemmings being led to the slaughter by one faction or another. Why in the world would I truly want to save them? What redeeming qualities do the citizens of Zakuul actually have that would truly make me want to do anything but blow their miserable planet to smithereens? I can't really think of any.

 

Beyond that, there's Iokath, which I won't even get started on. I will say this, though, Iokath is a very big stretch of the imagination, and not a very cohesive one.

 

I, for one, am tiring of all of it. I've taken two characters through the entire story line from level 1 through all of KotFEET (thank you to the person who wrote it like this) and one through all of the solo-able content of Iokath. I'm not doing it again. Ever. I know many who are of the same opinion.

 

What began as a fairly nice game has been destroyed by KotFEET, in my opinion. Between that, being forced to WATCH the game rather than play it in much of the last two expansions, level sync (which I loathe), and the lack of interesting additions to GSF and PvP (including destroying open world PvP by forcing it to be in its own instance rather than letting people flag themselves on non-PvP servers), this game is drying up for me. I'm actively searching for a new one that might better fit what I want in a game.

 

If the Devs were to decide to toss everything from FEET in the can and return to how the original game felt, I might stick around longer. Even if they don't write a different story for each of the classes, that's fine, so long as each class views the story from its own perspective, and has dialogue written that fits that class. I don't want to have the same dialogue on my Sage as I have on my Scoundrel. My Scoundrel will say things that my Sage wouldn't dream of, and my Sage would say things that would leave my Scoundrel looking at her as if she suddenly sprouted a second head.