Does anyone else think the Sith in Old Republic are ridiculously evil? To a cartoonish degree

[Dejawesp]

I mean through a lot of these quests they aren't even goal oriented any more. They are not just evil for the sake of evil (itself a cardinal writing win) But they are evil to the point where they jeopardize their own plans and goals just to be evil.

A good example is the Black Talon instance where evil characters kill the freaking captain of the ship you are on while on the way to an important mission. This turns out to be a pretty grave mistake as his inexperienced lieutenant makes judgement errors in how to proceed which lets the enemy board the ship with sabotage droids. Its only the game balance alone that saves the mission but what kind of logic is this?

This is not just evil but stupid-evil and dark side oriented characters are forced to do it anyway.

Good and evil are just 2 different ways to approach a problem with each side thinking they have the best solution with varying degrees of moral compromise but the Sith in Old Republic seem to use Evil as an end rather than a means to an end.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Welcome to the Star Wars setting.

 

[Viridian]

Welcome to the Star Wars setting.

Basically this. If you aren't force pushing puppies off of cliffs, you're probably doing something wrong.

 

[Moriarty]

don't confuse the dark side with simply being evil, it's more about passion and emotions.

Also, you can't really blame the star wars setting for this, bioware always struggled to seperate being evil with being an asshole.

 

[9thRequiem]

Also, you can't really blame the star wars setting for this, bioware always struggled to seperate being evil with being an asshole.

Both have that problem. Combine the two, and things get silly.
Likewise, you get light side choices that are ridiculously stupid.

I pick whichever fits the situation / character I'm in, but this hasn't really worked out for me, since neutrality is punished and crazy extremes rewarded.

 

[Pandabearparade]

As a Sith you can choose light side options, which are often the more diplomatic and merciful evil choices. The evil choices on the evil side are going to be ridiculously stupid and evil.. that's just Star Wars.

 

[sifffffff]

I haven't played a Sith character yet but some of the dark side choices for the Smuggler don't make since. There seems to be actual good dark side choices like help this guy find a stolen diamond and then keep it for yourself but a lot of them are just killing somebody for no discernible reason.

Actually I've noticed that a lot of the light side choices are Lawful Stupid and a lot of the Dark Side choices are Chaotic Stupid.

 

[Akihiko]

As others have said, it's pretty much an issue with the idea of Jedi and Sith in general. Jedi Light choices are ridiculously goody goody, and the Sith Dark choices are stereotypically evil. I think the worst thing is, at the moment you lose out on crystals and relics by not going completely light or completely dark. I mean sure you can grind out the points, but it's far from ideal. Neutral relic/crystals please.

 

[RJ 17]

Yeah, that's pretty much how Bioware works the morality system in all it's games. It just doesn't make sense to walk the grey path, you've gotta pick blue or red and stick to your guns or else later in the game (I'm just guessing since I haven't play TOR, but this is how it was in Mass Effect and the Knights of the Old Republic games) you'll miss out on certain key things that require either being a godly saint radiating a brilliant golden aura that fills those around you with hope and courage or being a demonic hell-spawn who's spit can melt faces and who doesn't wake up in the morning unless it's to the sound of a thousand orphan kittens being burned alive in a church.

On a side note, and I have no idea why this gave you Dark Side points, but my favorite "dark side" conversation option comes from Knights of the Old Republic 1 when you get captured and you're trying to decide who should break you out of prison...one of the options is "THIS SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR A WOOKIE!!" Just imagining Revan getting all worked up and excited about the prospect of unleashing a wookie makes me chuckle.

 

[AppleShrapnel]

Dark side choices on the Empire side simply cater to the generic evil bastard-type players that permeate morality-based games. They don't need a discernible reason to off an npc. It's "bad", so that's what they wanna do... because it's "cool" or whatever. :|

My Republic trooper is light side, through and through, and I have to admit there's been a few instances where the high road felt wrong to me... I've got an Imp on his knees, blaster leveled in his face, and he's begging for his worthless life... but despite the blood of hundreds on his hands, serving justice with a bolt between the eyes is considered dark.

In such cases, I begrudgingly choose to let him go, as stated previously, t'is better to deal in extremes instead of straddling the line. For two simple reasons:

1) Light/Dark side vendors have alignment restricted items, the best being fully moddable equipment that generally looks pretty sweet. As well as unique speeders for being committed to one side or the other.

2) Color crystals. If you go dark, you can only choose between red, orange and yellow. Light has green, blue and... I think yellow's a neutral color. There are two "leet" color crystals that are end-game content; one being magenta/purple, the other being straight-up white. Most colors jive with neutral aligned characters, but I speculate the two big ones are more restrictive.

 

[Ranorak]

2) Color crystals. If you go dark, you can only choose between red, orange and yellow. Light has green, blue and... I think yellow's a neutral color. There are two "leet" color crystals that are end-game content; one being magenta/purple, the other being straight-up white. Most colors jive with neutral aligned characters, but I speculate the two big ones are more restrictive.

Only Red, Blue and Green are restircted.
Red is unusable for Light I
Blue and Green are unusable for Dark I

Orange, Yellow and the very rare purple are neutral.

 

[AppleShrapnel]

Only Red, Blue and Green are restircted.
Red is unusable for Light I
Blue and Green are unusable for Dark I

Orange, Yellow and the very rare purple are neutral.

Ah, ok. I never really took notes I guess. I just prefer blue and green, and know that darkies can't use 'em. Thus all my Imp characters are... believe it or not, light oriented.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's no worse than it was in KOTOR. As the narrative tends to be less high minded, it's actually a little better than KOTOR, as the story is more directly focused on you and you alone. "This is the story of an insanely evil idiot", you can say to yourself, and have a good little chuckle while you force lightning innocents.

Whatever the case, Star Wars is about as Black and White as universes get, and Bioware have always struggled with shades of grey even when they're at their best, so it's not really a winning combination when it comes to presenting the player with moral complexity.

 

[RJ 17]

On a side-not, the News update for Penny-Arcade on Wednesday actually touched on this very subject. "Gabe" was complaining that even in the SW books, the Sith are just ridiculously evil with names that specifically state how evil they are, apparently in one of the books there's a tale about an ancient Sith Lord who was some sort of necromancer and his name was apparently pronounced "Darth Undead-u".

 

[Viridian]

It's no worse than it was in KOTOR. As the narrative tends to be less high minded, it's actually a little better than KOTOR, as the story is more directly focused on you and you alone. "This is the story of an insanely evil idiot", you can say to yourself, and have a good little chuckle while you force lightning innocents.

Whatever the case, Star Wars is about as Black and White as universes get, and Bioware have always struggled with shades of grey even when they're at their best, so it's not really a winning combination when it comes to presenting the player with moral complexity.

I think the best example of neutrality in KOTOR was Jolee Bindo. That guy was awesome, although if I remember Jolee correctly, he was less "balance in the force" and more "I'm a nice enough guy, but mostly I just don't give a shit."

 

[Samechiel]

George Lucas hates shades of gray.

Bioware has difficulty making shades of gray.

No matter who wins, we lose.

 

[LilithSlave]

Yeah, that's pretty much how Bioware works the morality system in all it's games. It just doesn't make sense to walk the grey path

Sounds like Bioware's "roleplaying" needs some work.

Actually, shouldn't most choices in video games(which definitely add to gameplay), be ones in the grey area, or rather have to do with wisdom or personal preference rather than doing right or wrong.

Most decisions beings make aren't particularly in the "blatant good" or "blatant evil" path.

 

[RJ 17]

Yeah, that's pretty much how Bioware works the morality system in all it's games. It just doesn't make sense to walk the grey path

Sounds like Bioware's "roleplaying" needs some work.

Actually, shouldn't most choices in video games(which definitely add to gameplay), be ones in the grey area, or rather have to do with wisdom or personal preference rather than doing right or wrong.

Most decisions beings make aren't particularly in the "blatant good" or "blatant evil" path.

That's how it SHOULD be, yes. In fact that's actually one of Yahtzee's biggest complaints about most Bioware RPGs that incorporate a morality system. There is no reward for picking some good, some bad, depending on the situation. Playing a neutral character, as I mentioned in my previous post, often cuts you off from certain conversation topics towards the end of the games because you can only charm/intimidate if you're maxed out in good/bad.

Personally I would love to see a game that actually has viable options for playing a neutral character, but sadly as far as Bioware is concerned, you should start the game thinking "I'm gonna play a goody-goody" or "I'm gonna play a royal asshole".

That said, however, at least in the Knights of the Old Republic games, many of the Dark Side choices were so ridiculously evil that they were actually comical. The type of stuff that you can't help but chuckle and say "Good god....that's just flat-out MEAN!"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That said, however, at least in the Knights of the Old Republic games, many of the Dark Side choices were so ridiculously evil that they were actually comical. The type of stuff that you can't help but chuckle and say "Good god....that's just flat-out MEAN!"

Look at their source material though. Look at Palpatine. Look at Vader. Look at the insufferably noble Rebellion. We can hold Bioware's feet to the fire all day long for their silly binary morality, but they're actually being loyal to the source material in this case. If they tried to do Star Wars in shades of grey Lucasarts would probably have a fit.