Unskippable: Star Wars The Old Republic

[therockdemon]

that cutscene was two thirds star wars and one third firefly

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm not going to play it, I'm not going to follow any storylines from it, and generally I'm bored with Star Wars ever since Legacy of the Force held the likable characters down and forcefed them George Lucas home brand stupid pie, but this still looks pretty cool.

Then again, it's Star Wars, all of the lightsaber fights look cool, the gamble is whether the story around them will be any good, and Han Solo, Cowboy edition just isn't doing it for me. However, the concept of having a Republic Trooper, a Smuggler, and a Jedi Apprentice who just lost her master all on one ship is one of the better beginnings for a SW story I've seen in a while.

Of course, that it basically is Star Wars Episode IV probably takes some of that cool away. When the trooper and Jedi went for the gun turret I just had to shake my head at how badly they were ripping off the original.

Legacy of the Force was the result of Troy Denning being an egomanical jackass, Sue Rostoni dropping the ball big time on editing, and Karen Traviss shoehorning Mandalorians in everywhere. Only Aaron Alliston was able to make a decent story, and he was stuck cleaning up while the other two bitched at each other over whether Mandos or Jedi were better.

OT. Funny episode. This trailer was probably the weakest of the three by Blur, and that's disappointing. They keep showing off all the eye candy, while the gameplay trailers look the same as they did two years ago.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care. I'm still free. You can't take MY SPICE from me!"
-Republic Gunslinger

I'm still playing that class when TOR comes out.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Has ANYTHING good come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy?

This franchise needs a stylistic reboot so badly it's not even funny. GET ME 50cc of CHRIS NOLAN STAT.

Every single thing I've seen about TOR since they've started releasing videos has just had me going "meh". I didn't think it was possible for things to get MORE mediocre (I mean, shouldn't more and less move you up and down on the scale?), but apparently you can produce entire avalanches of the stuff if you try hard enough.

Hearing about the "operations", giant raids where you have multiple groups doing different things, almost made me choke. DDO (my MMO) has 12-man raids where people have to split up and do radically different things at the same time, and they are a TRAIN WRECK. (One of them, Accursed Ascension, has something like a 90% failure rate. Most of the time you expect to do that raid 3-4 times with a really good group before you manage to complete it.) Someone invariably screws up and you have a big ol' raid fail and have to start all over again. Some of these raids take an hour or more to complete. Now expand this to tons more people. Yeah. Unless they made it so that it's easy enough to go back and fix other people's screwups, doing one of those operations is going to be hell.

I still want to have a look at it just to see how they implemented some stuff, but I doubt it'll pull me away from my current MMO.

 

[CleverNickname]

Unskippable: Unskippable? What, did someone riff this week's Unskippable? Did Paul and Graham riff this week's Unskippable (cuz it's still Unskippable)?

Unskippable

 

[Kimarous]

There is no emotion, there is under-reaction.
There is no ignorance, there is stupidity.
There is no passion, there is mildly irked.
There is no death, there is- ...oh.

In all seriousness, I like the trailer and your riff. Good job.

 

[CaioBrisolla]

So how come they allowed the smuggler to carry his guns even though he was a prisoner?

 

[tehweave]

Dear god... That intro was EXACTLY that one scene from Episode 4.

Has ANYTHING good come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy?

HEATHEN!

KOTOR is the greatest Star Wars story ever told! The original trilogy is good and all that but the story of Revan is better in every way!

Good! Okay then, KOTOR! So far, the list includes:

A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Knights of the Old Republic

Now, are there any other good Star Wars anythings? Stories, movies, games? Because there are tons of each, but are there any good ones beyond the list above?

 

[Slaanax]

I enjoyed the trailer when I saw it, but that was pretty funny.

 

[Fumofu]

One of the best Unskippables to date. I also thought I'd let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed this week's Checkpoint as well.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I watched all 3 of the Star Wars movies, and nobody used more than one lightsaber.

 

[samsonguy920]

I don't care if there is controlled environments; I don't care if it is in space. That hat is pure awesome. Besides it might be a culture thing on the planet he is from.
Seriously, if dressing for controlled environments was that much an issue, everyone may as well be naked.
And get over comparing it to the movies. I think the movies counting the prequels covered every cliche and meme you can think of where you will find something like it in every cinematic in the game. Next you will be whining BioWare ripped off the novels next.

Why must every single Star Wars game reuse the same John Williams scores from the movies? There's a million Star Wars games already and only 8 hours of music between them.

X-Wing Alliance actually used original score, which was reminiscent of William's music but was damn good in its own right.
So, no, not every single Star Wars game reuses the same canned music. The Old Republic game may not even recycle Williams' score. This was just a cinematic released long before the game even goes gold.

 

[samsonguy920]

So how come they allowed the smuggler to carry his guns even though he was a prisoner?

Who said he was a prisoner? They were probably throwing around the fact that he did have contraband in order to get a favor out of him. Deception is a tool of the Jedi and smugglers are quite sensitive about being caught with cargo they shouldn't normally be carrying.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

You know what ?
You are right, that is a pretty interesting start for a story.
I think I should play that game.
And by "that game" I am of course referring to the Star-Wars PnP-RPG we got going every saturday WHICH STARTED THE EXACT SAME WAY.
Seriously, when your creative efforts produce the same results as those of a bunch of drunk CS students, you might want to take a hard look at yourself.

Some people produce their best work when they're on drugs or alcohol. Did you not like your campaign? I've personally always been proud of the PnP RPG campaigns I've been a part of.

You and I look at it in different ways. I would tend to say "They are good" rather than "I suck" if someone had the same story idea I did.

 

[Graham_LRR]

...dissing SW about a space cowboy, when the Jedi is more than a copy of a samurai...we've passed the whole "this is a space version of something" way long ago.

True. The point I was making is that despite the Jedi being samurai, none of them actually dressed exactly like an actual from-Earth samurai. That was guy was just straight up, a cowboy.

 

[bdcjacko]

...dissing SW about a space cowboy, when the Jedi is more than a copy of a samurai...we've passed the whole "this is a space version of something" way long ago.

True. The point I was making is that despite the Jedi being samurai, none of them actually dressed exactly like an actual from-Earth samurai. That was guy was just straight up, a cowboy.

Don't you just love literal interpretations of throw away lines just meant to be funny.

 

[Tharwen]

What? Not a single mention of the fact that destroying a door control panel will completely lock down the door, making it utterly impassable from both sides?

It's always annoyed me, at least.

 

[runnernda]

Oh man, this one was awesome. It had me crying with laughter. At work. Great job, guys.

"The hat just seems like a liability."
"Get off my space lawn, you rebels!"

 

[Baresark]

Off topic: I hate how these movies have become one giant cliche. Flippy spinny lightsaber battle. I'm relatively sure that same trooper without the helmet was in the second old republic trailer we saw, with the same gatling laser type gun. And, why are all the Jedi only one single character?

I think the Trailers are working in reverse so in chronological order this is the first, also the female jedi is in the second trailer and so is the sith, no space Marston though.

Anyway I really loved this episode, well done guys!

I see, I haven't watched in a while. So they have been spoon feeding us ingame cinematics in reverse, that makes sense.

I still find the lightsaber battles annoying.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

So I think the video was pretty funny. I was a bit worried at first that it would just come off as antagonistic and spiteful, but the fun seems to be poked amicably enough. The thread is another matter.

Why do people have such vitriol for this game? Bioware is trying some genuinely new stuff in trying to bring story to the forefront in an MMO. It may end up being a failed experiment, but I, for one, am glad that there's someone giving it a try. I also like the direction they're taking Star Wars. The prequel trilogy and The Force Unleashed make jedi and sith the only interesting or worthwhile characters. Bioware's take on Star Wars has been that jedi and sith are important, but that there's more to the universe than lightsabers and force powers. Sure, it was a big part of this video, but at least they're letting the other characters be cool too.

The game may not live up to expectations, but if it doesn't, isn't that a disappointment? Why does everyone seem to be taking such pleasure in deriding the game before they've even had a chance to sit down with it?

I shall remain cautiously optimistic, and I hope this game doesn't fail simply because people refuse to give it a chance. Seriously, before anyone writes me off as a fanboy, let me say that I am a fan, and I really just don't see what's wrong with that. I mean, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun. Maybe it'll suck, but why on earth would you *want* it to? It seems a lot of people would take some perverse pleasure if this game were awful and it crashed and burned.