A perplexing thing

[IoNonSoEVero]

Well, my dark side V Nox, was very happy to see her pirate hubby back. Love makes a person overlook things. My Nox always hated Ashara and would've dropped her cold dead on the spot, if she'd had the chance. She loves Andronikos, so she got what her 'lunkhead pirate' was doing.

 

Yup, because people are willing to make excuses for male LIs.

 

On the same theme, a SI who romanced Ashara probably would have forgiven anything she said.

 

But look at that scene as a non-romanced SI. Do you think the average DS Sith Inquisitor would have been happy with Andronikos's actions? That SI would NOT have just said "oh, I know you meant well and hey, it's not as though I have been all over the Holonet or anything. Of course you didn't know who was running the galaxy. Don't worry about it, bro" for raiding and damaging Alliance ships if they were the same sort of SI who would throw Ashara into a wall for her comments.

 

Both of those things would warrant an attack/kill option, but people only push for it for Ashara, and it's uneven.

[IoNonSoEVero]

They got this so-called writer to write the returns, who likely watched all of 10 minutes worth of youtube vids to create the returns. Corso's was atrociously awful for one. But I digress. The SI should've had the chance to accept her, reject her, or outright kill her dead. That would've covered it.

 

On this I am in complete agreement. I don't like to bash any writers but the returns are beyond atrocious. There are mistakes with characterization for both the PCs and the companions that the story players on this board could have fact-checked.

 

There have been one or two I've liked, but for the most part, these two minute returns have been so bad that I don't care anymore. I now just grab all the characters I want out of the terminal and I make up my own reasons for their returns.

 

Even the years in the returns are off. You cannot get Andronikos, et al until after KOTET. In the timeline you're frozen in 3637 and defeat Valkorion's House of Pain in 3630. Quinn confirms in Iokath that it's been nearly 7 years since the Outlander was put in carbonite. But these returns that are set after KOTET all have characters that say "six years." Something so simple and it's just not checked.

[Lunafox]

Yup, because people are willing to make excuses for male LIs.

 

On the same theme, a SI who romanced Ashara probably would have forgiven anything she said.

 

But look at that scene as a non-romanced SI. Do you think the average DS Sith Inquisitor would have been happy with Andronikos's actions? That SI would NOT have just said "oh, I know you meant well and hey, it's not as though I have been all over the Holonet or anything. Of course you didn't know who was running the galaxy. Don't worry about it, bro" for raiding and damaging Alliance ships if they were the same sort of SI who would throw Ashara into a wall for her comments.

 

Both of those things would warrant an attack/kill option, but people only push for it for Ashara, and it's uneven.

 

 

Reason being that male love interests for female players (and gay male) are usually the ones that are made to betray or get kill options placed on them. No female character aside from Vette and Kaliyo has a death option. But how many males? Quinn, Theron, Koth, Arcann, Torian, Aric, and who knows, the rest haven't been brought back yet.

 

I suppose anyone romancing Ashara would've forgiven her, like I said, love is blind.

 

I don't presume to speak for other people's characters and mine were fine with Andronikos, even my male dark 5 and my light V. They saw Andronikos as loyal. At least he was trying to find the Outlander while Ashara was out spoon feeding gruel to orphans or basking on a beach somewhere. No one knows what the heck she was doing while you were saving the galaxy against the evilest people in the galaxy and then she has the nerve to call herself an equal.

 

Wanting a death option for Ashara isn't uneven when so many other male companions have the death option.

 

I don't' want to fight with you because this will go round and round and round. You have your precious and most of the females are unkillable. Be happy. I'll likely never see Quinn or Theron in a story properly ever again, but yeah, go ahead and tell me how it's uneven toward Ashara.

[Lunafox]

On this I am in complete agreement. I don't like to bash any writers but the returns are beyond atrocious. There are mistakes with characterization for both the PCs and the companions that the story players on this board could have fact-checked.

 

There have been one or two I've liked, but for the most part, these two minute returns have been so bad that I don't care anymore. I now just grab all the characters I want out of the terminal and I make up my own reasons for their returns.

 

Even the years in the returns are off. You cannot get Andronikos, et al until after KOTET. In the timeline you're frozen in 3637 and defeat Valkorion's House of Pain in 3630. Quinn confirms in Iokath that it's been nearly 7 years since the Outlander was put in carbonite. But these returns that are set after KOTET all have characters that say "six years." Something so simple and it's just not checked.

 

 

Well, at least we can agree on some things. I don't like bashing writers either. I am one, but those returns were the lamest things ever. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. I hope they never let that wannabe near the game ever again.

 

For me, Vector was nice, Andronikos too, even if there some holes in that plot, like him not knowing whose ships those were. And I agree the time line is a bit dodgy.

[IoNonSoEVero]

Reason being that male love interests for female players (and gay male) are usually the ones that are made to betray or get kill options placed on them. No female character aside from Vette and Kaliyo has a death option. But how many males? Quinn, Theron, Koth, Arcann, Torian, Aric, and who knows, the rest haven't been brought back yet.

 

It would be naive to think that my precious won't be written out like everyone else in this GoT world. Charles Boyd even confirmed that, so she'll be eventually bricked like everyone else, and the only LGBT female representation in the game will be erased, just like the LGBT men already have been.

 

I don't want to argue with you on this either, but just to give the tally:

 

The two big betrayals that happened to all PCs in KOTFE/KOTET were both female companions (Senya and SCORPIO).

 

Senya, SCORPIO, Kaliyo and Vette all had kill options.

 

Vaylin had to be killed regardless if the player wanted to keep her. Arcann could be kept if the player wanted him.

 

A male trooper can lose a romanced Elara involuntarily, while the female Sith Warrior has a choice to keep romanced Quinn.

 

For all Sith Warriors, they can choose to keep Quinn even if they change factions. For all troopers, Elara leaves them if they go Imperial.

 

NONE of the class story female LIs except for Raina Temple are still in the main story. They might not be dead but since they have Alliance Alerts they will never be seen again. Mako, Akaavi, Risha, Ashara all had AAs and according to the devs' info, so do Nadia and Jaesa. They're gone.

 

M/M have had three LIs, and Scourge is rumored to be a LI for both men and women.

 

F/F have had ONE LI, and there don't seem to be any prospects for more. Even if one does appear it will still be a 2:1 ratio between available M/M and F/F LIs.

Edited September 20, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[Kiesu]

Well, my dark side V Nox, was very happy to see her pirate hubby back. Love makes a person overlook things. My Nox always hated Ashara and would've dropped her cold dead on the spot, if she'd had the chance. She loves Andronikos, so she got what her 'lunkhead pirate' was doing.

Yeah, and people like to forget to look at things evenly when they have their own interests to defend. It's ok for characters to have biases, especially Sith aren't know to be just in any way of the imagination..

But when the bias reaches to players behind the characters to the point we can't see the script clearly anymore it becomes an issue. At that point anything they don't personally like is a bigger issue than anything they liked, even if the issues are perfectly comparable, and create an uneven protesting ground.

On this I am in complete agreement. I don't like to bash any writers but the returns are beyond atrocious. There are mistakes with characterization for both the PCs and the companions that the story players on this board could have fact-checked.

 

There have been one or two I've liked, but for the most part, these two minute returns have been so bad that I don't care anymore. I now just grab all the characters I want out of the terminal and I make up my own reasons for their returns.

No disagreements here. I still wish they would have just waited for a proper story returns for everyone instead of caving in to angry fans to deliver a quick alert band-aid pretty much nobody ended up being happy over. Characters baked into the story worked great, Arik is still my favorite romance reunion (I wasn't even a big fan of him in class story) it was just written better than all the rest and nothing felt OOC in the chapter. Kaliyo was very true to herself too in her own chapter too.

And I'm not demanding a chapter for every companion here, even a quest-chain similar to vanilla planetary quests would have been perfectly fine and probably even more desirable for me. It would have let us quest and have more dialog with them than a loose single-cutscene alert with just a kill-notkill options. Even Guss had us running and talking and making stuff happen more than any of the romance alerts did!

Edited September 20, 2018 by Kiesu

[Goreshaga]

Well, about Andronikos, i've only played the alert on my Imperious who was romancing him, and he was pretty sweet.

The fact is that even though his way of doing things is a bit stupid he was actively trying to find and save you, while Ashara just didn't care, even if you were always nice to her and once you meet her she directly goes to "i'm your equal now" when she did absolutely nothing to prove it.

And on Taris iirc you have 3 options : take her, leave her there of kill her, but she's still forced on you no matter your choice, so i really see it more like we have no choice here rather than she has no choice.

And i'd say too that i never felt that strongly about Andronikos, he always was in the i don't dislike him but i don't really care either category, while Ashara's personnality is one that really don't fit well with me irl either, people who one day are nice to you and treat you like you're the nicest person and the next treat you like trash have the ability to really get on my nerves.

 

And about saying that male LI get free passes when male LIs have more kill options than female LI that's a bit ironic. You only have 2 female LIs who are killable, while you have at least 6 male LIs who are.

 

That being said i'd not kill Andronikos but considering his return is SI exclusive, i'd not have minded if he had a kill option, as it would not change anything anyways. Same for Vector and he's one of my main romances but his return being IA exclusive effectively locked that romance away anyways.

[IoNonSoEVero]

 

And about saying that male LI get free passes when male LIs have more kill options than female LI that's a bit ironic. You only have 2 female LIs who are killable, while you have at least 6 male LIs who are.

 

That being said i'd not kill Andronikos but considering his return is SI exclusive, i'd not have minded if he had a kill option, as it would not change anything anyways. Same for Vector and he's one of my main romances but his return being IA exclusive effectively locked that romance away anyways.

 

Every single female LI for men only in this game has been bricked, either by being killable or being an Alliance Alert, other than Kira and Raina Temple. And it remains to be seen if Kira will be for everyone or just an AA as well. Regardless if they are killable they're still written out.

 

Three out of four female characters in KOTFE and KOTET - Vaylin, Senya and SCORPIO - have kill options. With Vaylin you have to kill her even if you don't want to.

 

Since Lana's for both genders she is also a LI for women but that constantly gets overlooked. But according to Charles Boyd she'll leave some players so she's getting bricked too, more likely than not.

 

So that should make everyone happy, once everyone is finally dead and there are no companion romances left for anyone at all.

Edited September 20, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[Kiesu]

Well, about Andronikos, i've only played the alert on my Imperious who was romancing him, and he was pretty sweet.

The fact is that even though his way of doing things is a bit stupid he was actively trying to find and save you, while Ashara just didn't care, even if you were always nice to her and once you meet her she directly goes to "i'm your equal now" when she did absolutely nothing to prove it.

IMO it's a completely unrealistic expectation to think everyone should obsess and actively keep seeking you out 5+ years when they've had literally no word of you. For all they know you died with Marr. All of the romance companion letters after your beauty sleep are filled with doubt if you're even alive, or simply clinging to hope that you are.

 

Ashara's "love" letter during your carbonate is hearbraking, she thinks she is sending a letter to a dead person.

 

She moves on with her life having your death in her heart. Personally I cannot blame her. Imagine if we never did come back, at-least she got her life in order, while Andronikos would still be blindly raiding ships because he refused to accept that you might be gone. We need to remember our companions had no idea if we were even alive for years. And everyone deals with death differently.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Kiesu

[Lunafox]

Yeah, and people like to forget to look at things evenly when they have their own interests to defend. It's ok for characters to have biases, especially Sith aren't know to be just in any way of the imagination..

But when the bias reaches to players behind the characters to the point we can't see the script clearly anymore it becomes an issue. At that point anything they don't personally like is a bigger issue than anything they liked, even if the issues are perfectly comparable, and create an uneven protesting ground.

 

 

I haven't forgotten anything. How my character reacts to situations, pertains only to them. We all have our own individual characters, many of us assign personalities and backstories to these characters. I've written an entire series for them with a work count of well over 600K words lol. My Sith can be quite evil and dark, but they also have intelligence and react to things in the way they're going to react. You can't dictate my characters thoughts, feelings, or opinions, any more than I can dictate yours. That's why I said in my post that I can only speak for my characters and _____ is how they felt and reacted.

 

The way you talk there about player and character it sounds to me like you think it's some kind of mental issue or deficiency if a character and its player have things in common. I make up personalities for all my characters. Do they have things in common with me? Sure, some do. There are people who play their characters exactly like they are themselves. I see nothing wrong with that, it's a game, and whatever is fun for people to do. You make it sound like it's wrong or that people are mental for doing that.

 

My Nox had always hated Ashara, and yeah, we have that in common. If I'd had the choice to kill her off at the very start on Taris, I wouldn't have the problem I have now, where they make the dark side Sith look like a weakling and an idiot. Equal my foot. The PC saved the galaxy, what was it she was doing? No one knows...

[Lunafox]

It would be naive to think that my precious won't be written out like everyone else in this GoT world. Charles Boyd even confirmed that, so she'll be eventually bricked like everyone else, and the only LGBT female representation in the game will be erased, just like the LGBT men already have been.

 

I don't want to argue with you on this either, but just to give the tally:

 

The two big betrayals that happened to all PCs in KOTFE/KOTET were both female companions (Senya and SCORPIO).

 

Senya, SCORPIO, Kaliyo and Vette all had kill options.

 

Vaylin had to be killed regardless if the player wanted to keep her. Arcann could be kept if the player wanted him.

 

A male trooper can lose a romanced Elara involuntarily, while the female Sith Warrior has a choice to keep romanced Quinn.

 

For all Sith Warriors, they can choose to keep Quinn even if they change factions. For all troopers, Elara leaves them if they go Imperial.

 

NONE of the class story female LIs except for Raina Temple are still in the main story. They might not be dead but since they have Alliance Alerts they will never be seen again. Mako, Akaavi, Risha, Ashara all had AAs and according to the devs' info, so do Nadia and Jaesa. They're gone.

 

M/M have had three LIs, and Scourge is rumored to be a LI for both men and women.

 

F/F have had ONE LI, and there don't seem to be any prospects for more. Even if one does appear it will still be a 2:1 ratio between available M/M and F/F LIs.

 

I honestly don't think you have anything to worry about where Lana is concerned. Bioware loves their "L" named females. She won't die or be left out. She'll probably be with us til the bitter end lol. I do agree thought, that I dont' like Charles's GoT mentality. This is Star Wars he shouldn't be imitating another popular franchise. It shows a lack of imagination to have to resort to that.

 

Yes, Senya and Scorpio betray and have kill options, but neither are romances. You mention Vaylin, and she was never even a companion, she was a plot point/character, never meant to be our companion. You can't really include all the other females you mentioned in this, because they haven't returned and we don't know their fates, so for the purpose of this conversation we have to stick with what we know.

 

The way I see it, straight women and gay men get the shaft in terms of romance companions who betray and who have kill options.

 

I will say this, they've made a godawful mess, and I hope they have a way to fix it, so that we can have the ones we like included in our stories. I don't see how this would be a huge deal, just make different people record the same lines. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, I don't' know, but it doesn't seem like that big of a challenge to me.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Lunafox

[Kiesu]

I haven't forgotten anything. How my character reacts to situations, pertains only to them. We all have our own individual characters, many of us assign personalities and backstories to these characters. I've written an entire series for them with a work count of well over 600K words lol. My Sith can be quite evil and dark, but they also have intelligence and react to things in the way they're going to react. You can't dictate my characters thoughts, feelings, or opinions, any more than I can dictate yours. That's why I said in my post that I can only speak for my characters and _____ is how they felt and reacted.

 

The way you talk there about player and character it sounds to me like you think it's some kind of mental issue or deficiency if a character and its player have things in common. I make up personalities for all my characters. Do they have things in common with me? Sure, some do. There are people who play their characters exactly like they are themselves. I see nothing wrong with that, it's a game, and whatever is fun for people to do. You make it sound like it's wrong or that people are mental for doing that.

 

My Nox had always hated Ashara, and yeah, we have that in common. If I'd had the choice to kill her off at the very start on Taris, I wouldn't have the problem I have now, where they make the dark side Sith look like a weakling and an idiot. Equal my foot. The PC saved the galaxy, what was it she was doing? No one knows...

You sound like you think I was speaking of you personally because I just happened to quote your post about it... No, I was speaking in general terms about this, not at you personally, your comment was just a good one to relate to since you recognizes feelings are often blind to logic. And this extends to player feelings. That's why we say things like "I feel personally like X and Y...". I'll add I was agreeing with you there not disagreeing

No hostility intended there, just an extension of thought.

In RL situations we are also hasty to defend who we like faster than we would anyone we don't, even if their situations we were looking to defend were the same. Or one might leave the party they dont like undefended completely out of personal convenience.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Kiesu

[Ner_idia]

My Nox had always hated Ashara, and yeah, we have that in common. If I'd had the choice to kill her off at the very start on Taris, I wouldn't have the problem I have now, where they make the dark side Sith look like a weakling and an idiot. Equal my foot. The PC saved the galaxy, what was it she was doing? No one knows...

 

The issue with Ashara ultimately boils down to her being a whiny (spoiled brat, no matter what your character's alignment is. Darth Nox would have either long since broken her of the jedi nonsense or turned her over to someone like Harken in order to have it done.

[casirabit]

Kiesu;9649615]IMO it's a completely unrealistic expectation to think everyone should obsess and actively keep seeking you out 5+ years when they've had literally no word of you. For all they know you died with Marr. All of the romance companion letters after your beauty sleep are filled with doubt if you're even alive, or simply clinging to hope that you are.

 

Really? I have had family members that went missing while they were stationed overseas and fighting in a war but yet their spouses never gave up searching. Yet for you it is unrealistic? Family members of the military may expect something to happen but when a person goes missing they don't stop searching until a person is found, either alive or dead. They may think you are dead but until they are found they will continue searching and sometimes that will take a long time.

 

I know if something like that happened with the person I love I would not give up or stop searching until I found him one way or the other.

Edited September 20, 2018 by casirabit

[IoNonSoEVero]

I honestly don't think you have anything to worry about where Lana is concerned. Bioware loves their "L" named females. She won't die or be left out. She'll probably be with us til the bitter end lol. I do agree thought, that I dont' like Charles's GoT mentality. This is Star Wars he shouldn't be imitating another popular franchise. It shows a lack of imagination to have to resort to that.

 

I wish I could believe that. Charles came out and said that Lana will be driven away in some people's stories, apparently if you commit war crimes against the Empire. And we know that gone for one = gone for all. So she's on borrowed time too apparently.

 

The GoT mentality irritates me very much, though. We can agree on that. They have created a situation where one doesn't even want to be attached to the companions because they will be killed off.

 

Yes, Senya and Scorpio betray and have kill options, but neither are romances. You mention Vaylin, and she was never even a companion, she was a plot point/character, never meant to be our companion. You can't really include all the other females you mentioned in this, because they haven't returned and we don't know their fates, so for the purpose of this conversation we have to stick with what we know.

 

But they are still female characters, and it's not just about who is a romance when we're talking about how Bioware treats gender and characters. SCORPIO and Senya are both companions that people form attachments to, particularly SCORPIO because she is in the class story. They're also the only main story female companions Bioware ever gave us that were NOT romances, so it's important from that angle that they are killable too.

 

At the time we kill Arcann, he's not a romance or even a companion any more than Vaylin is. Like Vaylin, he's been scripted as a villain. He didn't even have a romance until a year after KOTET was released. He's not someone who was attached to the player as a romance and then killed.

 

As for the others, the only female LI that is unknown at this point is Kira. The dev announcement for 5.10 said that Nadia is only for JCs and DS Jaesa is only for SWs, so we do know that it's an AA, it's not conjecture. The others (Mako, Akaavi, Risha, Ashara) have already come back as AAs or have faced kill options (Vette, Kaliyo) or have left some people's stories (Elara).

 

So yes, we do know that every female LI from the class stories except Kira and Raina has been bricked.

 

The way I see it, straight women and gay men get the shaft in terms of romance companions who betray and who have kill options.

 

The way I see it, queer women get the shaft for romance companions overall, with only one in the history of the game - which is why I wish Lana would be left alone and people would stop complaining about wanting her gone. It's like, the devs don't care about us, other female fans think we're invisible, and we've been thrown a bone with one companion, can you at least leave her be?

 

And yes, I'd say gay men come in second, with only three romance options that are all killable.

 

I don't think Bioware has done well by female fans overall, with less flirt and one night stand choices, male LIs that are frankly not very nice in some cases, only one F/F option, and the betrayals.

 

I will say this, they've made a godawful mess, and I hope they have a way to fix it, so that we can have the ones we like included in our stories. I don't see how this would be a huge deal, just make different people record the same lines. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, I don't' know, but it doesn't seem like that big of a challenge to me.

 

We can agree on that. In the class stories they seem to have figured this out. It didn't matter if one person killed off Praven because he'd still be in someone else's story; you could have DS or LS Jaesa, etc. They've lost the plot with it now, though.

 

What they've done with bricking companions even for those who have saved them and skimping on the romance content for most of the LIS really stinks, and it makes the game far worse. If we save a character they actually should be saved for us, and if we're romancing someone we should be assured we'll get some content with them. But that's not the case right now.

 

I really feel bad for people with class story LIs who haven't heard from them in a year (since the Umbara letters) or waited two years for them, only to get one of those horrible little two minute reunions.

Edited September 20, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[Nefla]

The "Ashara should die for thinking she's not my servant anymore but Andronikos is cool and fine" still makes no sense for me. It makes sense in that a player would like one character but not the other but is inconsistent storywise. For one, Ashara may have gone with you but she was never a sith, both she and Zash say as much and you can never turn her like with Jaessa which is why you get an actual sith apprentice later in Xalek. Holding her to sith standards would be like getting mad at Lord Scourge for not adhering to the jedi code since he traveled with you as a jedi. They should have kept the option in the beginning to kill Ashara or not recruit her and I think that's where the OOC bit lies(thanks stupid people who don't understand consequences and whine about it later!). It doesn't make sense for evil characters to bring her along and not turn her. If we are playing campishly evil characters that every other character must be subservient to then we100% should have been able to challenge Acina's right to be empress of the sith. She just waltzes in with no challenge and takes the title and we can't be like "actually I was a dark council member too, I will fight you for it." The only way we can defy Acina and end up with her dead is to side with the freaking Republic ***? Also that kind of super evil maximum DS character would not realistically be forgiving of other people's mistakes. Did Vader ever look to an underling that had failed him and be like "it's cool bro, you tried" no, he killed them. Andronikos effed up bigtime. He stole from you, jacked up your ships, disrupted your operations, and wasted your own personal time. A consistent DS sith would kill or at least shock into submission both Ashara and Andronikos. I'm not arguing that Ashara shouldn't have a kill option but that there is quite the double standard here.

 

As for the general brick-status of the companions, Arcann getting a little screen time after he can be killed makes me a little hopeful that they MIGHT stop treating the "kill everything" edgelords as the default 100% of the time. Unfortunately I think any companions returned through the class specific alliance alerts are gone since getting them to make content for the more than half of players who don't kill everything is hard enough, getting them to make content for 1 out of 8 players who played any given class is almost certainly not going to happen. So say goodbye to Ashara, Andronikos, Risha, Corso, Akaavi, Felix, and Mako (I don't remember if I'm forgetting anyone). There might be a glimmer of hope for those brought back in KotFE/KotET even if they had a kill option and there is hope for those not yet brought back (though I REALLY hope they don't force Doc on us).

Edited September 20, 2018 by Nefla

[Nefla]

Really? I have had family members that went missing while they were stationed overseas and fighting in a war but yet their spouses never gave up searching. Yet for you it is unrealistic? Family members of the military may expect something to happen but when a person goes missing they don't stop searching until a person is found, either alive or dead. They may think you are dead but until they are found they will continue searching and sometimes that will take a long time.

 

I know if something like that happened with the person I love I would not give up or stop searching until I found him one way or the other.

 

For a love sure, but for an evil boss who killed your teachers and never liked you and you hated everything they did? In any case it's not like your character vaguely went missing, they were on a spaceship that exploded. In space. I have no clue how our character and Marr survived other than "because plot" it makes no sense.

[Kiesu]

Really? I have had family members that went missing while they were stationed overseas and fighting in a war but yet their spouses never gave up searching. Yet for you it is unrealistic? Family members of the military may expect something to happen but when a person goes missing they don't stop searching until a person is found, either alive or dead. They may think you are dead but until they are found they will continue searching and sometimes that will take a long time.

 

I know if something like that happened with the person I love I would not give up or stop searching until I found him one way or the other.

Yes, it is. Unless you're looking to rule over someones life you cannot expect them to keep waiting/searching for someone who might not ever come back in any form. If they want to mourn and let go, move on with their life, let them. If they want to search for a thousand years, let them. Who are we to tell anyone how they should deal with their grief. But saying anyone is a bad ungrateful person because they didn't search for someone as long as you would have personally liked, is not fair nor justifiable.

 

If it were me who disappeared without a trace, I would like my loved ones to find the strength to look forward, than fret on the past. If I'd come back to their lives 5 years later, I would understand if they wanted to move on during that time, I would not blame anyone. It would be unjust of me to demand they drop the past 5+ years of their life without any sign of me for me now because "now I'm back".

Edited September 20, 2018 by Kiesu

[IoNonSoEVero]

Really? I have had family members that went missing while they were stationed overseas and fighting in a war but yet their spouses never gave up searching. Yet for you it is unrealistic? Family members of the military may expect something to happen but when a person goes missing they don't stop searching until a person is found, either alive or dead. They may think you are dead but until they are found they will continue searching and sometimes that will take a long time.

 

I know if something like that happened with the person I love I would not give up or stop searching until I found him one way or the other.

 

I've got military in my family too who have done some work with POW/MIA Vietnam groups, and Holocaust victims. Yes, I think it's fair to say that if a loved one goes missing, AND it really is a loved one, the surviving family always wants to find them. There's a wish for closure, whether that's knowing definitively the person is dead or finding out where they are.

 

But at the same time people can and do move on. If someone's spouse has died or gone missing, some people get remarried quickly, some never have another love in their life. It's personal.

 

There's often a limit to what you can do to search. Like with POW/MIA, a lot of the surviving family call and lobby and put pressure on elected officials to find out what happened, but it's not as though they can get on a plane and go literally search the jungles. So they have lives to live at home, and they do.

 

In Andronikos's case, if searching for the SI was his chief focus, I would think he'd learn everything he could about the Eternal Alliance, including who was leading it.

Edited September 20, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[Estelindis]

In Andronikos's case, if searching for the SI was his chief focus, I would think he'd learn everything he could about the Eternal Alliance, including who was leading it.

I think this is just a broad issue of inconsistent writing. Several of the companion returns present implausible scenarios in terms of who could be expected to know what. I like to imagine that characters who care about each other would do everything they could to find each other, but then we have cutscene after cutscene where our characters aren't allowed to ask plausibly-connected NPCs about missing companions. For instance, in no cutscene can my consular ask Aric Jorgan or Jace Malcom about Felix Iresso - even though, in-universe, there's nothing preventing her from asking. Some writer has simply not determined to give the player such a possibility (whether they actively decided against it or it passively never occurred to them). Similarly, some writer didn't present a particularly plausible vision of what Andronikos would know about the Alliance. In both cases, and others like them, I can't blame the characters for what so clearly seems to be an issue with the writing. (I know that, of course, the characters are fictional and don't exist outside writing... but, in a sense, they do. Their established characterization exists in our minds.)

 

I'm not even saying it's an issue with a writer. Near as I can tell, writers seem to be assigned word budgets for story content, and they probably have to make very difficult choices about how that budget is spent. Maybe if they'd used some of those words as I want them, they would've left out other crucial things. So from my perspective it's really not a comment on their skills at a personal level... just on the writing, the content as a whole that we now have as a result of their efforts.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I think this is just a broad issue of inconsistent writing. Several of the companion returns present implausible scenarios in terms of who could be expected to know what. I like to imagine that characters who care about each other would do everything they could to find each other, but then we have cutscene after cutscene where our characters aren't allowed to ask plausibly-connected NPCs about missing companions. For instance, in no cutscene can my consular ask Aric Jorgan or Jace Malcom about Felix Iresso - even though, in-universe, there's nothing preventing her from asking. Some writer has simply not determined to give the player such a possibility (whether they actively decided against it or it passively never occurred to them). Similarly, some writer didn't present a particularly plausible vision of what Andronikos would know about the Alliance. In both cases, and others like them, I can't blame the characters for what so clearly seems to be an issue with the writing. (I know that, of course, the characters are fictional and don't exist outside writing... but, in a sense, they do. Their established characterization exists in our minds.)

 

I'm not even saying it's an issue with a writer. Near as I can tell, writers seem to be assigned word budgets for story content, and they probably have to make very difficult choices about how that budget is spent. Maybe if they'd used some of those words as I want them, they would've left out other crucial things. So from my perspective it's really not a comment on their skills at a personal level... just on the writing, the content as a whole that we now have as a result of their efforts.

 

I would agree with this. The returns have not been particularly well done. It seems to me that they were written by a writer who was not overly familiar with the class stories and characterization, or perhaps didn't consult the SWTOR Bible closely enough. Some of the inconsistencies, like saying it's only six years after KOTFE chapter 1, should not have made it past QC. In a number of the returns the companion has seemed out of character and in some the PC has seemed OOC too.

 

I felt that some of the NPCs in Nathema came across a lot better and more IC, particularly the ones that showed up in the Sith Inquisitor and agent stories.

 

That's not a bash on the writer as a person or their other work, of course.

[AureliaSulis]

I'm not even saying it's an issue with a writer. Near as I can tell, writers seem to be assigned word budgets for story content, and they probably have to make very difficult choices about how that budget is spent. Maybe if they'd used some of those words as I want them, they would've left out other crucial things. So from my perspective it's really not a comment on their skills at a personal level... just on the writing, the content as a whole that we now have as a result of their efforts.

 

I would suggest that BioWare doesn't have a Structural Editor on their staff because a Structural Editor is usually the one who would pick up problems like plot holes, logical inconsistencies and other issues that we as players are seeing in the character returns.

[Lunafox]

You sound like you think I was speaking of you personally because I just happened to quote your post about it... No, I was speaking in general terms about this, not at you personally, your comment was just a good one to relate to since you recognizes feelings are often blind to logic. And this extends to player feelings. That's why we say things like "I feel personally like X and Y...". I'll add I was agreeing with you there not disagreeing

No hostility intended there, just an extension of thought.

In RL situations we are also hasty to defend who we like faster than we would anyone we don't, even if their situations we were looking to defend were the same. Or one might leave the party they dont like undefended completely out of personal convenience.

 

Well, it did appear that way to me, but thank you for clarifying, I appreciate that. Sometimes it's hard to tell the emotions behind text, so I misread you, sorry about that. It seems we're pretty much in agreement on things. I see it as love being blind, if you love the companion, odds are you'd over look some things. Still I don't see that Ashara and Andronikos' situation is alike, inefficient and uninformed as Andronikos was, he was still looking for the PC in the ways he knew how. Ashara, was quite fine with moving on and doing her own thing and not giving two craps about the PC. I think the actual plot the way it played out flew in the face of the letter she wrote early on, at least in that she seemed somewhat sad and remorseful, instead of the uppity twit we get on Voss.

 

The issue with Ashara ultimately boils down to her being a whiny (spoiled brat, no matter what your character's alignment is. Darth Nox would have either long since broken her of the jedi nonsense or turned her over to someone like Harken in order to have it done.

 

Exactly! And you know, I'll never understand, why someone who is as powerful as Nox wasn't allowed to break their apprentice. The Wrath could...so why not the Inquisitor? Both are powerful. And yeah, no one deserves Harkun inflicted on them more than Ashara. My Nox would make her life hell and then pass her to Harkun and I'd instruct him to be as savage as he can be.

 

 

I wish I could believe that. Charles came out and said that Lana will be driven away in some people's stories, apparently if you commit war crimes against the Empire. And we know that gone for one = gone for all. So she's on borrowed time too apparently.

 

The GoT mentality irritates me very much, though. We can agree on that. They have created a situation where one doesn't even want to be attached to the companions because they will be killed off.

 

 

 

But they are still female characters, and it's not just about who is a romance when we're talking about how Bioware treats gender and characters. SCORPIO and Senya are both companions that people form attachments to, particularly SCORPIO because she is in the class story. They're also the only main story female companions Bioware ever gave us that were NOT romances, so it's important from that angle that they are killable too.

 

At the time we kill Arcann, he's not a romance or even a companion any more than Vaylin is. Like Vaylin, he's been scripted as a villain. He didn't even have a romance until a year after KOTET was released. He's not someone who was attached to the player as a romance and then killed.

 

As for the others, the only female LI that is unknown at this point is Kira. The dev announcement for 5.10 said that Nadia is only for JCs and DS Jaesa is only for SWs, so we do know that it's an AA, it's not conjecture. The others (Mako, Akaavi, Risha, Ashara) have already come back as AAs or have faced kill options (Vette, Kaliyo) or have left some people's stories (Elara).

 

So yes, we do know that every female LI from the class stories except Kira and Raina has been bricked.

 

 

 

The way I see it, queer women get the shaft for romance companions overall, with only one in the history of the game - which is why I wish Lana would be left alone and people would stop complaining about wanting her gone. It's like, the devs don't care about us, other female fans think we're invisible, and we've been thrown a bone with one companion, can you at least leave her be?

 

And yes, I'd say gay men come in second, with only three romance options that are all killable.

 

I don't think Bioware has done well by female fans overall, with less flirt and one night stand choices, male LIs that are frankly not very nice in some cases, only one F/F option, and the betrayals.

 

 

 

We can agree on that. In the class stories they seem to have figured this out. It didn't matter if one person killed off Praven because he'd still be in someone else's story; you could have DS or LS Jaesa, etc. They've lost the plot with it now, though.

 

What they've done with bricking companions even for those who have saved them and skimping on the romance content for most of the LIS really stinks, and it makes the game far worse. If we save a character they actually should be saved for us, and if we're romancing someone we should be assured we'll get some content with them. But that's not the case right now.

 

I really feel bad for people with class story LIs who haven't heard from them in a year (since the Umbara letters) or waited two years for them, only to get one of those horrible little two minute reunions.

 

I don't think that's going to pan out with Lana. I think it's just a matter of she might be put off if people decide to have faith in Theron. She had her back up and was all nasty about Theron, so I can see that she'd be mad if the PC told her to chill. Still, I don't see her getting mad enough to leave the PC. I'm of the mind that she's quite safe.

 

I think where we might be coming at odds is that I'm solely considering romance companions, not the other ones.

 

Honestly, and I know this will cheese off some of the Arcann fans, but I think the only reason they gave in to giving him as a romance after the fact was because they caved to the padawan writer that did the 2 minute returns. She wanted him more than life itself, and so he was made romanceable. Originally, I think he was made to be a villain, and one that would die during the course of the story--this would make more sense. Reason being is that after Arcann trashed all those planets and waged war and framed the Commander, I'm pretty sure, if the PC came to the base hand holding with Arcann, the base would lose their sh*t. These are people who came from both sides because Arcann had wronged them in some way...and then to see their Commander snootching up with their greatest enemy...it's a wonder they didn't kill them both on sight. The lack of Alliance member reaction creates a huge plot hole and makes the whole romance...not make sense. Now if they were willing to explore it in the future, it could make for an interesting story, if the base turned on the PC for loving their enemy.

 

Actually Kira's plot is more or less known. It was said that she's working with Scourge to find a way to remedy his condition and together they were working on a way of defeating Zakuul/Arcann etc. I'm relatively sure they're going to figure into the next xpac in a fairly big way, which I'm looking forward to.

 

As I said, I don't see them doing away with Lana, for just that reason. She's the only love interest that is bi and thus the only one available for F/F. The way I see it, if they're making Scourge available to male and female players, then they should do that to Kira too.

 

I agree, Bioware didn't do right by the female players, whether they're straight or LBGT. Straight males get all the bells and whistles in spades. I suppose they thought straight men would be their main clientele. Just by spending time on the forum and getting to know people a bit, I see that's not true, but I think they still subscribe to that old idea that gamers are guys. All wrong, that. I hope they figure that out, sooner rather than later.

 

Definitely, agree with you on that last point. I feel bad too for the Consular players, the Knights, it's like they've waited forever for their loves and friends to return and any other class that is still waiting. I've lost track of who has who back lol.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Lunafox

[Lunafox]

I would suggest that BioWare doesn't have a Structural Editor on their staff because a Structural Editor is usually the one who would pick up problems like plot holes, logical inconsistencies and other issues that we as players are seeing in the character returns.

 

Agreed, they need one of these like they need air. So many holes and inconsistencies could be properly dealt with, rather than leaving it off kilter for the players to sort out.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I don't think that's going to pan out with Lana. I think it's just a matter of she might be put off if people decide to have faith in Theron. She had her back up and was all nasty about Theron, so I can see that she'd be mad if the PC told her to chill. Still, I don't see her getting mad enough to leave the PC. I'm of the mind that she's quite safe.

 

Again, I hope you're right, but in SWTOR: GoT Edition, I don't think anyone's safe.

 

I actually thought Lana was very protective of Theron in the Nathema story once she figured out he was telling the truth about being a double agent. She's the first one to run to him when he gets hurt and if the player wants to leave him behind, she disagrees and tries to talk the PC out of that. You can tell she's not happy, and when you're all back on Odessen, she again conveys that she didn't like leaving Theron to die.

 

(FWIW I have never left him to die because that scene is horrifying, but some of my Commanders have kicked him out of the Alliance on Odessen. I've watched it all on YouTube, though.)

 

I think where we might be coming at odds is that I'm solely considering romance companions, not the other ones.

 

Honestly, and I know this will cheese off some of the Arcann fans, but I think the only reason they gave in to giving him as a romance after the fact was because they caved to the padawan writer that did the 2 minute returns. She wanted him more than life itself, and so he was made romanceable. Originally, I think he was made to be a villain, and one that would die during the course of the story--this would make more sense. Reason being is that after Arcann trashed all those planets and waged war and framed the Commander, I'm pretty sure, if the PC came to the base hand holding with Arcann, the base would lose their sh*t. These are people who came from both sides because Arcann had wronged them in some way...and then to see their Commander snootching up with their greatest enemy...it's a wonder they didn't kill them both on sight. The lack of Alliance member reaction creates a huge plot hole and makes the whole romance...not make sense. Now if they were willing to explore it in the future, it could make for an interesting story, if the base turned on the PC for loving their enemy.

 

I agree with you on all these points. I personally am not a fan of his story arc, and do not think the 'light side' choice should have been to letsomeone who killed millions of people and oppressed the galaxy off the hook without any punishment at all. But Arcann had a fan in his corner in that writer who advocated so heavily for him. IMHO it's also why Arcann had screen time in the Nathema flashpoint when Koth did not.

 

The plot holes with that are huge. IMHO half of the Alliance base, if not more, would have rebelled or walked out the moment Arcann walked in, and the Alliance would have lost at least some of their allies. There would have been huge protests. People would not have accepted that they were suddenly supposed to welcome the person who destroyed their planets. I cannot imagine Koth and his crew not objecting loudly. Or any of the Zakuulan refugees, or Shae and the Mandalorians, or most of the others. I think even Lana would have realistically been furious since she didn't spend five years of her life trying to find and rescue you so you could be buddies with Arcann.

 

I think it realistically would continue to make people angry after the Commander wins the Eternal Throne. I really hope that if the Commander chose to keep Arcann alive, there will be some pushback about it. I can't imagine walking into Dromund Kaas or Coruscant with him without protest or calls for punishment.

 

Actually Kira's plot is more or less known. It was said that she's working with Scourge to find a way to remedy his condition and together they were working on a way of defeating Zakuul/Arcann etc. I'm relatively sure they're going to figure into the next xpac in a fairly big way, which I'm looking forward to.

 

As I said, I don't see them doing away with Lana, for just that reason. She's the only love interest that is bi and thus the only one available for F/F. The way I see it, if they're making Scourge available to male and female players, then they should do that to Kira too.

 

Good to know, and I agree, if they make Scourge available, Kira should be, too. IIRC she was one of the companions scripted for SGR before that was scrapped in the original game and some of her lines to a female Jedi Knight could be interpreted like that.

 

But given how Bioware treats female fans in general, and how LGBT women seem especially invisible to them, I'm always cynical about how they will handle things. It does seem like there's a specific demographic, straight men, they cater to, and the player base is far more diverse than that.

Edited September 21, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero