Gaming In Focus: Is the Jedi Consular a Sith?

This.

"Force-heal abilities are a clunky way to introduce healing into a video game at the expense of consistency with the source material."

Force heal was a major Jedi ability in KOTOR 1 & 2, if Clive doesn't know that what the hell is he doing writing about The Old Republic. If anything is to be taken as canon here it's KOTOR.

 

I think the fact that I use KOTOR terminology means that I'm aware of the games. But just because someone has made an error in the past doesn't mean it should be repeated. Is it too much to hope that a new Star Wars game would try to keep to lore created by (at least) the original trilogy, rather than cop out with generic game mechanics? Apparently, yes.

I didn't mention this in the article, but even the stupid way that the Consular jumps before the shockwave power annoys me - he's surely not actually creating a shockwave from his jump, he's using Force-push in 360 degrees. So why the stupid school-girl jump? A Jedi-esque wave of the hand would be a more fitting animaiton.

Everything I've seen of the game, apart from the cinematics, make me think SW:TOR is just a generic MMO with a Star Wars skin rather than a genuine addition to the Star Wars universe. yet another trampling of fond childhood memories.

 

To give a visual effect of creating a shockwave? Pretty silly question.

Reading through the SWTOR articles it's obvious none of the bit tech guys like MMO's at all, and barely seems like they even like Star Wars. Why did you waste time making an article on something you obviously don't like? That would be a good question to ask yourselfs there.

All the articles on SWTOR on bit tech, are full of wrong information. You're making a perfectly good game look bad, any MMO that gets created is going to feel like a generic MMO, there's not much deleveopers can do to change it. MMO's aren't created for those 0.5% of gamers that can aford a new rig everytime a game comes out, it's aimed at everyone with a ~5year old computer.

No MMO in the near future will innovate this genre.

 

In some of the books, Jedi do have the power to heal with the force. "Medstar 1: Battle Surgeons" and Medstar 2: Jedi Healer" both by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry

 

As I pointed out earlier, Force Heal was a Light Side power in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. A game developed by Lucas Arts themselves over a decade ago, hugely predating the prequals you refer to.

So you're saying you're right, and George Lucas' own development and publishing teams are therefore wrong?

 

I think people get too "hung up" on the movies and seem to take everything it states as verbatim simply because it's the most "mainstream" thing people have seen.

As stated numerous times in the thread and over on the SWTOR forums, there's a wealth of lore outside of the movies and many of the things included in the prequel were established in the books/expanded universe etc. first.

If you're going to be picky about that, why not about how people physically "push" objects around in the films etc.? Especially the prequels... it's obvious that they're not creating a "push" from their hands, they're just using the Force to push an object... so why the "stupid" pushing gesture?

Then on the other side you'd argue that they're channeling the force through themselves and the "motion" acts as a focus for their action. As such, if you were to ask people what you'd do if you wanted to "mimic" creating a shockwave, then jumping up and "slamming" the ground would be an adequate focus.

Also, i'm sure that people would just be annoyed if their Jedi/Sith was all arty-farty "i wave my hand around and epic stuff happens" sort of motion. People like having feedback from their character and i'm sure that bit-tech has more than once criticised a game because it didn't "feel" as if their character was doing the thing that they were supposed to be, as if there wasn't enough weight behind a gun and/or melee swing etc.

And lastly, i'm not going to accuse bit-tech of being unnecessarily biased here, but i do see the points of other posters which have stated that the site seems to be on a bit of a "negativity spree" here with regards to the game. I don't recall seeing any other game featured so much and ever since the preview in April, there's been one negative article a month with the exception of July (Preview (April), Critical Hit: Lightsabers (May), Cutscenes (June), Consular (August)).

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sensei

"The thing is, I loved the first 2 KOTORs and so yes, I would like a newer more polished version of them with a brand new story.
The main things I disagree on is SWOTOR does not look at all impressive to me. ....Ive never been one to care about playing online either, so perhaps Im being a tad selfish but these are my opinions."

This.

That's it for me in a nutshell. I never walked around in KOTOR I and II feeling like, "Geez, I wish all these NPCs were real people!" Sometimes I wished my party members were my friends, and so I understand the appeal of The Old Republic. If there was a way to forgo the multi-player aspect or have it as a drop-in option, that might appeal more to me, but I'm sure I'm the minority on this, and this game is aimed at the majority so that it turns a profit. I really don't enjoy online games all that much, give me a good ol' LAN party any day with people that I know and can have a few drinks with while we trash talk and laugh over ridiculous stunts.

A great example of this is ArmA: Hate getting online because everyone's awesome and I drag the team down. I don't want to play it for 20 hours a week to get amazing [okay, okay: decent] at it. However, make some quick maps, invite some mates over and either play seriously at our level or combine the Scud Missile and Bunny Rabbit NPC mods to our hearts' collective content...that sounds like fun!

 

I also basically want a KOTOR 3, and in fact I think TOR will be worse, since it's pay per month means I most likely won't play it

 

I have to agree with this. Not that the reviewer hates games, but that he clearly doesn't like or understand swtor.

Bit-tech, I am disappoint.

 

In my opinion what Clive is mistaken when he attributes force powers to the dark or light side of the force. Force powers are neither inherently good nor evil, but it is how one uses them that matters. (Think this is actually a quote by Kyle Katarn in Jedi Academy, but can't remember)

In fact, addressing Palpatine's quote directly, when one considers that it is during this time that Palpatine is attempting to lure Anakin to the dark side with promises of the power to save Padme, it's highly likely that Palpatine is simply making it up, telling Anakin EXACTLY what he wants to hear.

Throughout the star wars universe force powers have been used by 'sith' and jedi for different and opposite gains (KOTOR games with force persuasion especially). If Nietzsche philosophy is to be believed, force powers are really the epitome of moral actions that go 'beyond good and evil', that is to say it is the intended result they are used for, rather than the action itself, which indicates the morality of the user.

I would, however, agree with the rest of the article. The same abilities we've seen a dozen times over (heals, buffs etc) are here again, just given star wars names. Despite all the hype, the (amazing) cinematic trailers, and the enormous potential from one of the best sci-fi universes, TOR just looks like any other MMO, with nothing to make it really stand out from the rest. In addition, the gameplay animations look incredibly clunky, and the art style seems barely a step up from WoW, and definitely a step back from Guild Wars or Age of Conan. Thousands of people will still buy it though, so who cares.

 

Not if the developers do their job right. There are a ton of MMO's out there that don't feel "generic" (which at this point more or less means "similar to WoW") EvE, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Fallen earth, Conan, APB, DDO (I Could go on)

 

He has a point. Anyone who played the original Star Wars Galaxies can tell you that it was one of the best games of all time.

As much trash that gets talked about WoW it is a decent game. It wouldn't have like 11 million subscribers if it was bad. Its just to bad that is seems like ALL MMO's that come out today are based off it. I would kill for SWG to come back.

Force healing is not new to Star Wars games. If you ever played SWG and unlocked Jedi as I did, you would know that a Rebel or Imperial Jedi could have healing skills. And most ever Jedi went up a branch or two.

 

I'd personally disagree with that statement... not that i think it's a bad game or anything, but that statement is basically stating: "Those who liked SWG though it was one of the best games ever".

The fact is that it didn't appeal to everyone and only those who were "into" that sort of thing found it amazing... a "cult following" similar to Eve Online. To the majority of people, it wasn't that fun/engaging and thus they needed to revamp the gameplay mechanics which had the side effect of alienating even more of the previous subscriber base and thus putting it on the slippery slope into its closure.

I for one don't want an updated SW:G (simply because the original doesn't appeal to me) and there's been a lot of flak on the community forums from ex-SW:G players trying to push the devs into implementing SW:G features (like removing the Jedi Classes and Player-Owned Housing etc.).