Unskippable: Star Wars The Old Republic

[Kinguendo]

Darth Revan: A master should only train a single apprentice at a time, because it is inevitable that his apprentices will gang up on him even though individually they weren't yet strong enough to rival the original master. Meaning that with every cycle the masters would become weaker.

Darth Bane & the Rule of Two: There should only be 2 Sith period. One Master, one apprentice. Not just one apprentice per master, but only 2 Sith in the entire universe. That's the rule of two. "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it."

I mean Revan restarted the Sith Academy on Korriban.... how does that match with the Rule of Two?

Darth Bane created the Rule of Two. He was inspired by Darth Revan. Just like planes were inspired by birds, doesn't mean planes are birds....

You lying little... how did you think you could lie to me and get away with it? You are intentionally leaving out important facts just to support your wrongness.

Here is an excerpt from the Sith Holocron from Revan to Bane:

"True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation. There can be no compromise. Mercy, compassion, loyalty: all these things will prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours. Those who follow the dark side must cast aside these conceits. Those who do not?those who try to walk the path of moderation?will fail, dragged down by their own weakness. Those who accept the power of the dark side must also accept the challenge of holding on to it. By its very nature the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order. Yet this rivalry can also be our greatest weakness. The strong must be careful lest they be overwhelmed by the ambitions of those working beneath them in concert. Any master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time, the apprentices will unite their strengths and overthrow the master. It is inevitable; axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student."

- Directly from Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

The Sith Academy trained Sith... not Masters and Apprentices! You dont even... your arguments are constructed to convince people who dont know anything about Star Wars!

Another quote from Revan to Bane:

"This is also the reason there can only be one Dark Lord. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side. If the leader grows weak another must rise to seize the mantle. The strong rule; the weak are meant to serve. This is the way it must be. My time here is ended. Take what I have taught you and use it well."

- Directly from Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

 

[Kinguendo]

Darth Revan: A master should only train a single apprentice at a time, because it is inevitable that his apprentices will gang up on him even though individually they weren't yet strong enough to rival the original master. Meaning that with every cycle the masters would become weaker.

Darth Bane & the Rule of Two: There should only be 2 Sith period. One Master, one apprentice. Not just one apprentice per master, but only 2 Sith in the entire universe. That's the rule of two. "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it."

I mean Revan restarted the Sith Academy on Korriban.... how does that match with the Rule of Two?

Darth Bane created the Rule of Two. He was inspired by Darth Revan. Just like planes were inspired by birds, doesn't mean planes are birds....

I was going to say that but it seems like the Force was stronger in you.

Also, you'd think in a Sith Empire with probably a few hundret Sith not everyone would listen to Revan's ideas.

Then you were going to be wrong... oh and what? Everyone would listen to Darth Banes ideas? You dont know what you are talking about.

 

[Quaxar]

Darth Revan: A master should only train a single apprentice at a time, because it is inevitable that his apprentices will gang up on him even though individually they weren't yet strong enough to rival the original master. Meaning that with every cycle the masters would become weaker.

Darth Bane & the Rule of Two: There should only be 2 Sith period. One Master, one apprentice. Not just one apprentice per master, but only 2 Sith in the entire universe. That's the rule of two. "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it."

I mean Revan restarted the Sith Academy on Korriban.... how does that match with the Rule of Two?

Darth Bane created the Rule of Two. He was inspired by Darth Revan. Just like planes were inspired by birds, doesn't mean planes are birds....

I was going to say that but it seems like the Force was stronger in you.

Also, you'd think in a Sith Empire with probably a few hundret Sith not everyone would listen to Revan's ideas.

Then you were going to be wrong... oh and what? Everyone would listen to Darth Banes ideas? You dont know what you are talking about.

I was referring to the part with the <url=http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sith_Academy_%28Korriban%29>Sith Academy. Read the link, it clearly states "force sensitive". So one could say it was more than one trainee per trainer.
Now I don't quite get the second part there because wtf Darth Bane?

Also, I kinda lost track of what actually started the discussion so I'm not going to respond to your previous post at all.

 

[Hagi]

You lying little... how did you think you could lie to me and get away with it? You are intentionally leaving out important facts just to support your wrongness.

Here is an excerpt from the Sith Holocron from Revan to Bane:

"True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation. There can be no compromise. Mercy, compassion, loyalty: all these things will prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours. Those who follow the dark side must cast aside these conceits. Those who do not?those who try to walk the path of moderation?will fail, dragged down by their own weakness. Those who accept the power of the dark side must also accept the challenge of holding on to it. By its very nature the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order. Yet this rivalry can also be our greatest weakness. The strong must be careful lest they be overwhelmed by the ambitions of those working beneath them in concert. Any master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time, the apprentices will unite their strengths and overthrow the master. It is inevitable; axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student."

- Directly from Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

The Sith Academy trained Sith... not Masters and Apprentices! You dont even... your arguments are constructed to convince people who dont know anything about Star Wars!

Another quote from Revan to Bane:

"This is also the reason there can only be one Dark Lord. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side. If the leader grows weak another must rise to seize the mantle. The strong rule; the weak are meant to serve. This is the way it must be. My time here is ended. Take what I have taught you and use it well."

- Directly from Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

Calling me a liar doesn't make it so....

As I said, and your quotes support.

Darth Revan: "Any master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time, the apprentices will unite their strengths and overthrow the master. It is inevitable; axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student."

The Rule of Two dictates "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it.".

So Darth Revan thinks the Sith should have a structure as follows:
- 1 Dark Lord of the Sith.
- Countless lesser masters who each tutor only a single student.

Darth Bane and the Rule of Two think the Sith should have a structure as follows:
- 1 Dark Lord of the Sith.
- 1 Apprentice.

The Rule of Two is directly against the Sith Academy, even if you don't call the students apprentices. The Rule of Two says only 2 Sith period. Doesn't matter if they're Sith masters, apprentices or water boys. Only 2 Sith total. End of story. That's the Rule of Two.

Darth Revan, as is obvious from the KotOR games, didn't create nor even abide by this rule. He had countless lesser Sith serving him. He did however lay the foundation of this rule by stating that there should be a single leader of the Sith and that each master should only have a single apprentice.

Darth Bane took this to the next level by stating that that single leader would be the only master and that he would have only a single apprentice. Thus meaning that there's only 2 Sith at all times. And that was the Rule of Two. Created by Darth Bane, 2000 years after Revan, by taking Revan's teachings to the next level.

And please, can we leave the personal insults out of this? There's no reason to call me a liar or to imply that I'm intentionally leaving out facts just to call you, a random poster on a random internet forum, wrong.

 

[Gplars]

please just let us have the game.

 

[Kinguendo]

Calling me a liar doesn't make it so....

As I said, and your quotes support.

Darth Revan: "Any master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time, the apprentices will unite their strengths and overthrow the master. It is inevitable; axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student."

The Rule of Two dictates "Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it.".

So Darth Revan thinks the Sith should have a structure as follows:
- 1 Dark Lord of the Sith.
- Countless lesser masters who each tutor only a single student.

Darth Bane and the Rule of Two think the Sith should have a structure as follows:
- 1 Dark Lord of the Sith.
- 1 Apprentice.

The Rule of Two is directly against the Sith Academy, even if you don't call the students apprentices. The Rule of Two says only 2 Sith period. Doesn't matter if they're Sith masters, apprentices or water boys. Only 2 Sith total. End of story. That's the Rule of Two.

Darth Revan, as is obvious from the KotOR games, didn't create nor even abide by this rule. He had countless lesser Sith serving him. He did however lay the foundation of this rule by stating that there should be a single leader of the Sith and that each master should only have a single apprentice.

Darth Bane took this to the next level by stating that that single leader would be the only master and that he would have only a single apprentice. Thus meaning that there's only 2 Sith at all times. And that was the Rule of Two. Created by Darth Bane, 2000 years after Revan, by taking Revan's teachings to the next level.

And please, can we leave the personal insults out of this? There's no reason to call me a liar or to imply that I'm intentionally leaving out facts just to call you, a random poster on a random internet forum, wrong.

No, calling you a liar doesnt make it so... you lying does.

Bane had more than one Apprentice, even his Apprentices had Apprentices... and there were other Sith throughout the entire time Bane was alive. Though they were being hunted... not by Bane, but by the Jedi.

Revan, on the other hand, had only 1 Apprentice. He trained other Sith as assassins and such BUT they werent Dark Lords. He was the ruler of the Sith, there is no denying this.

It was not created by BANE! He just instituted it as a rule that the Sith would abide by at that time period... Revan created it. What you are saying is that while Revan told Bane EXACTLY how to rule as Dark Lord of the Sith, which Bane followed word for word, he didnt invent it... thats ridiculous.

 

[Kinguendo]

I was referring to the part with the <url=http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sith_Academy_%28Korriban%29>Sith Academy. Read the link, it clearly states "force sensitive". So one could say it was more than one trainee per trainer.
Now I don't quite get the second part there because wtf Darth Bane?

Also, I kinda lost track of what actually started the discussion so I'm not going to respond to your previous post at all.

A Trainer ISNT a Sith Master! And the second part was referring to you saying "why would they listen to Revan?", to that I said "so why would they listen to Darth Bane?" who is much weaker than Revan was as well as being much less competent as a leader.

 

[Giddi]

Wait, wasn't the cowboy guy under arrest? Why didn't they take away his guns?

 

[Biodeamon]

Han Marstin...I was thinking the same thing...

also am i the only one who thinks the red faced guys faceplat looks alot the RIG's faceplate from Dead Space?

 

[Monsterfurby]

Can some fellow Star Wars versed Forumite please explain to me how they managed to Retcon clone trooper armor into the Sith Wars era? I mean... seriously? Couldn't they come up with something... new and cool?

 

[darthricardo]

Yeah, I really hate the whole "More Lightsabers = Better Fights" thing that seems to be so prevalent in star wars now. Like, how one of the main selling points for The Force Unleashed 2 was that it had, not one, but TWO lightsabers. Real original, Lucasarts.

 

[Sgt_Jakeman214]

[EDIT] and the reply above mine is so incredibly right, Mikodite should start consulting for MMO developers. Seriously, the amount of naivete I see in MMO developers regarding their user base and their willingness to sit through Lore dumps is flat out depressing. No, MMO developer, spending millions of dollars on awesome cutscenes will not make your game any different or more special than any other MMO. Regardless of how cool the characters are or how well directed the scene is. All MMO players want to do is level up, they don't care. Please get over it.

I wouldn't go that far, I mean James Portnow I'm not. Though as an aspiring game developer with an interest in writing that has played MMOs in the past, it does break my heart that many of these games have a background-story section on their websites. Some soul had to take the time (and possibly get paid) to write that shit up only for it to go ignored. It also doesn't help that someone went into all the trouble to write up an overarching storyline about how the ***** Queen or whatever needs to be destroyed going unnoticed because, lets face it, who reads the flavour text that goes with your quests?

OK, so the storyline is about these people, a Jedi, a trooper, and a smuggler, who...

DO YOU CARE? ITS AN MMO! WHO BOTHERS WITH THE 'PLOTLINE' IN AN MMO?

Thats kinda the whole point of this game.. bioware want to change the way people think about MMOs by bringing story to it.

Why shouldnt you be able to care about those things purely caus of the genre of the game?

Have you noticed that every MMORPG has some backstory or plot running in the background? It's sad, really, someone had to write all that only for the average player to ignore it, as knowledge of the backstory has no effect on the game whatsoever.

Unless the 'plotline' isn't simply flavour text to go with your fetch quest, Bioware is wasting their time.

Yeh.. and bioware are trying to change that, by delivering the story not via a textbox but by cinematic cutscenes, and giving you actual choices that can change things in the game quite dramatically as opposed to just the choice of 'doing' or 'not doing' the quest.

Quite simply - they're bringing the RPG back into the MMORPG, and frankly i cant wait for my mmo to actually start having some meaning and purpose. I just cant really see why people seem to be so against a genuine attempt to remove grind and increase immersion by giving all the things you do in an mmo purpose.. its like people WANT their mmo to be a dull borefest? But each to their own i guess.

You have no idea how badly I want you to be right.

The shit with the cutscenes and the dialogue choices sounds awesome on paper... then you realize that its not a single-player rpg, and you will have too many players skipping the cutscenes and mashing through the dialogue shit to get to the quest for they just want to get their numbers higher than all the numbers in the land and own everyone. I remember Guild Wars had cutscenes in it... and I remember most players opting to skip them.

You want the plotline to matter to the average player? Make the bloody thing player-generated. Have us celebrate the victory of Ray_the_Jedi who lead his squadmates to slaughter some Sith scum! Or how Nibi-Tibi has taken over Coresaunt and his first priority is to legalize death-sticks. Fuck, I would totally go down for taking on Lord_Boner of the Sith if it meant peaces in the galaxy for a few months in server.

Are they planning to do that? Planning politic systems where a player could run for senate, or be the hutt? Territory control between 'factions' that amount to whether the innocent get slaughtered or not, which changes the game world depending on who won? Will I see player names in the game's canon?

Someone accused me of not doing my homework. Tell me, are they doing that?

People enjoy it in a single player RPG, they can learn to enjoy it in a multiplayer MMO. We simply have no way of knowing whether or not it will be successful and we're scared of it because its something completely foreign to what we're used to. They sound awesome on paper because they have great potential to be awesome, and im not saying they definitely will work or it wont be a massive flop but theres no reason it cant work - we just need to give it a chance instead of outright dismissing it before the game is even released.

As for ur suggestions regarding a more sandboxey game, im sure they would appeal to some people but for me they sound completely uninteresting and i personally wouldnt enjoy them (regarding your specific examples, no, they're not doing those things). I do however enjoy a great bioware RPG and there are millions of other people who would agree with me as shown by the success of KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and all of their earlier games. A bioware RPG that i can play with thousands of other people in a persistant MMO world? Where do i put my credit card details..

I'm not saying TOR will be the best game ever, nor that it wont be awful, but we should atleast give it a chance. Saying it will fail when we have no basis for it or any previous game to compare it to is just stupid and childish (the 'cinematic cutscenes' in guild wars were absolutely nothing like what is in TOR, and yes ive played it). I'm HOPING for the best for TOR, because I think you and I would both agree that if it DOES work it will be amazing (you said on paper it sounds great, and theres a reason for that). Whether or not it WILL work neither of us can say right now with any more certainty beyond an outright guess.

The big problem I have with your logic is your saying that mechanics that work fine for a choose-you-own adventure book will work in a pen-n-paper campaign. At heart, that is the real difference between a Bioware RPG like Mass Effect and something like World of Warcraft.

An overarcing storyline with pretty cutscenes and choices in how you interact with an NPC sounds like an awesome idea, really. It works for WRPGs, where your choices have an effect on the game world and that, but this only works in a single player game. In a multiplayer game, for starters, the story and choices are the same... for every god dam player, and many players are smart enough to figure out that while their individual choices affect their character's path through this overarching storyline, it affects jack shit about the game world as everyone else is given the same tree to follow. At best, it just affects their build.

I also guarantee you that we aren't going to bother caring about what the NPCs think of us. I've seen games use faction systems regarding NPC groups, but this only works in a single player game as NPC input matter exponentially more than in a multiplayer game where we are more worried about what other players think of us (as in many circumstances we need PCs to help us on Quests in an MMO, whereas in a single player game we get NPCs to help us.)

That's why I mentioned the sandbox system. I mean, to relate to a past example of the choose-you-own adventure book versus the pen-paper roleplay. The former its just you and the author, deciding what path to take in their book and hoping its a result you want. The latter involves multiple people being directed by a GM of sorts. The design philosophy must change to accommodate each setting.

Now, I want to see the RPG get put back into the MMORPG as badly as the next person (I miss Anathema Online for that reason) however, this is not the solution. I mean, I don't want to pay $5-$20 a month in subscription fees and waste bandwidth connecting to a server to play a single player game. So really, either a player-driven storyline or just admit that the game is a meat-grinder like any other MMORPG... as this is the case with pnp campaigns.

If you really want to see Bioware RPG mechanics, which work fine for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, in an MMORPG I dare to ask if you really want to be playing with other people. Cuz unless I'm missing something their a waste of time.

Course, this is at the end of the day my humble opinion. It might turn out that there was more to it than that and I would owe you an apology. Or I turn out to be right and I end up screaming "I called it!" Sadly, we would have to wait and see.

These are all very true points, and ones that I stand behind as well. MMORPG's these days are not RolePlaying Games as much as they are MMO's that you play the main role character. The story needs to matter again, the players need to be swept up and made to believe that they are the main character. In short, RPG's don't make players Roleplay anymore. Most RPG's these days could be reclassified into Action-Adventure with no trouble at all. A friend showed me WoW the other day and tried to get me into it. I turned my latop on and showed him a point and click adventure game from the Sierra days and asked him what the difference was, apart from being online and 20 years younger and hench much larger. He couldn't think of anything.

On a different note, have you ever tried EVE Online? Sure, its ship to ship combat, and has a learning curve almost as bad as Dwarf Fortress, but the players DO RP, the economy is player based and driven, the main factions serve as lower level NPC quests and which ships you can get (which can be ignored/worked around), and the players form guilds/clans/corporations/whatever and fight each other for control of the galaxy. I would get into it myself, but I just don't have the internet connection at the moment to do so.

 

[Something Amyss]

"You were right! Triple Lightsabers!"

"Eh...They're not cool anymore."

If it's true the guy with the most lightsabers wins, I'm grabbing a six pack.

 

[YodaUnleashed]

Yeah Graham and Paul point out quite, well, pointedly that the characters and the ship are all derivative of iconic star wars elements basically making this trailer a rather expensive (in the way of pixels) yet cheap (in the way of new ideas) knock-off. The troopers look like Clone Troopers, the Jedi Master is a more athletic Ben Kenobi, the Smuggler is a cocksure Han Solo that's raided Cad Bane's wardrobe, his ship is basically the millenium falcon down to the circular padded hallway interiors and top and bottom gun turrets and the bald Sith is basically a helmet-less Vader. They also make another astute observation that in however many thousands of years have passed between the events in this trailer and the films, technology has apparently not advanced whatsoever and it's the same case in the original KOTOR games. Finally they also highlight, in a very amusing manner, how lightsaber fights are progressively becoming more bombastic and ridiculous to the point were it's all flash and no substance.

This trailer whilst visually impressive, is thematically unoriginal and rather shallow in it's content, re-hashing original trilogy elements and placing them in a time period that within any real culture, would have advanced technologically speaking rather than be stuck in a rut. Cool for cool's sake is not enough for me, but it will be enough for the masses who will lap this up and say "they should make this into a movie" rather innocuously. It's definitely a very shrewd piece of marketing that will appeal to everyone's love for the original films and help sell the game (as if it wasn't already going to sell well) whilst ultimately adding nothing substantially new or fresh to the table of the star wars universe.

 

[Monsterfurby]

I'm with Yoda here. They have just become too afraid that adding a truly original element to the Star Wars timeline outside of the EU Novels (which have a fair share of great elaborations on the original ideas with interesting twists) would piss off fans. I mean, we all know how that went down in the prequel trilogy. Too bad, really.

 

[Icehearted]

Got my biggest laugh at the last comment.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Bioware. Making Star Wars look cool again since George released The Phantom Menace.

 

[arcaspiff]

Its so true, but damn SWTOR is awesome.