How SW:TOR is a major step BACKWARDS for MMOs

[steverivers]

...And here was me thinking the major backstep MMOS are taking is that they all are copying WoW...

How silly of me.

Basically the OP is an SWG fan not wanting SWG to end. I played SWG. Ive met them. They cant admit what an awful game it is to play, and cant understand why it has such low subscribership; and know that when TOR comes out it'll mean the deathknell for what few players are left playing it.



RPG in the videogames industry these days means RPG = stat progression, not the actual RP element. The industry doesnt recognize Roleplaying.

Thats the OP's beef. Levelling it at Bioware is simply misguided.

 

[kingcom]

...And here was me thinking the major backstep MMOS are taking is that they all are copying WoW...

How silly of me.

Basically the OP is an SWG fan not wanting SWG to end. I played SWG. Ive met them. They cant admit what an awful game it is to play, and cant understand why it has such low subscribership; and know that when TOR comes out it'll mean the deathknell for what few players are left playing it.



RPG in the videogames industry these days means RPG = stat progression, not the actual RP element. The industry doesnt recognize Roleplaying.

Thats the OP's beef. Levelling it at Bioware is simply misguided.

Indeed, that game was great fun...until it came out.

Its a sad truth about the RPGs but atleast I'll always have tabletop roleplaying for that.

 

[Gemore]

1) "The game will be story-driven, and your choices will affect your destiny!" - Great, so that means each situation will boil down to one of three choices (aggressive, defensive, or passive, basically). You can either be a dick, a saint, or a gray blob in the middle. But what's more, it means your character is not YOUR character. It is one of a select handful of pre-made characters that you will rent. And when in these games has it ever really been the BEST idea to "mix and match," rather than go all one way or the other? SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

2) "The game will be fully voice-acted." - So you can't even decide what your character says or how he/she says it. The game will be giving you a script and voice. And, due to the expense of such projects, expect the selection of voices (if there are any) to be extremely limited. It might be that your character gets no voice at all (silent protagonist syndrome) which, to me, is better than being forced into a pre-made voice. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

3) "You can choose from one of these iconic professions!" - So all smugglers will be expected to behave in X way with personality Y, because that's how Han did it. All Bounty Hunters will be X, Y, and Z, because that's how Fett did it. This is exactly what the NGE did to RUIN SWG. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

4) "You'll get companion characters to will add spice and variety to your gameplay!" - This one actually sounded GREAT... until we found out that EVERYONE gets the same companion based on his/her class. Yes, ALL smugglers will not just have A wookiee companion (like Han!), they'll have the SAME wookiee companion. You don't even get to pick the name. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

5) "You'll get your own ship, which you can use to travel or complete missions!" - Again, sounded great... until we found out that you get the same ship as everyone else in your class AND that all space missions play out like Starfox as rail- or arena-style episodes. You can't choose your ship, and you can't choose where it goes. SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Any ONE of these could put a game on shaky ground... but to do all of them at once? This puts SW:TOR firmly in the realm of an action/adventure game that happens to have online co-op. It's not an MMORPG. It's just a big single-player rent-a-character game for which they'll be expected a subscription fee. BioWare has a lot of strengths. It is unfortunately bringing all of the wrong strengths to this MMO.[/b]

Honestly, i fail how to see any other MMO gives u more freedom.

1) Character stats and story are, too use their words, two separate pillars. They are unrelated. This argument seems redudant to me. Isnt the choice to be a blob or a dick freedom?

2)Uh... Well in WoW you cant talk, and in most RPG's you get a choice from selected responses.
So... what?

3) This isnt galaxies, and from the outset this game is set to be diffrent.. I understand now why you posted this..

4)Ok ill admit there is less freedom here. But most mmo's dont have companions, and my understanding is u can kick out certain compainons, get them killed etc.

More importantly, in most rpg's (offline) that DO have compainions, you dont get much of a choice either.

5)Starfox is awesome. Im happy for this to be linear, as long as it is fun. Sides, what has a VERY SPECIFC action sequence got to do with character freedom?


Look, you are obviously an ex player of Galaxies. So am I. I LOVED the freedom. I LOVED the choices.

But I also loved KOTOR, where i didn't have as much choices.

This MMO is not aiming to be Galaxies. If it where, I would be complain. It's aiming to be KOTOR, but online and with friends. And bigger.

And i cant say that it seems like a bad thing to me.

 

[Kreett]

I dont know about you guys but im looking forward to playing this with my friends

 

[Bretty]

As I think a ton of people have already said, we think you are just plain wrong.

The biggest MMO in the world doesnt allow you to interact with NPCs. Each class has three skill trees. WoW

SWTOR has 4 classes each with 4 different specialities... You can actually TALK with NPCS

Your rose tinted SWG glasses are getting in the way with your appreciation of another product. My advice.... stick with SWG, we will be happy without you.

 

[Brotherofwill]

I completely agree with you on almost all accounts. SW:TOR seems to have an amazing production standard but all they'll produce is an online single player game. I've been dissapointed by the latest few Bioware games because of the way they receded into action games. The action was good, but that's not exactly why you'd want to play an RPG.

Wait so being fully voiced is a step backwards? You ever play Knights of the Old Republic? That was FULLY voiced except for 1 character YOURS.

Fully voiced is always a step-back. Every positive it brings adds multiple negatives.

Hey, good one. The long text nearly got me.

Ooh, ooh, next tell everyone how COD:Black Ops is a step backwards for FPSs because you liked GoldenEye more.

Oh, and how Fallout:New Vegas is a step backwards because Oblivion was totally better.

Yes, and how Minecraft is a step backwards because it's just singleplayer Dwarf Fortress.

Oh man, you should do a weekly editorial on this.

Amazing, just amazing. These are the kind of posts on the Escapist that just make you quietly shake your head and wish people would actually pay attention once.

 

[snow]

This post just made me miss the old SWG, oh how I loved that game. When I first heard about this new SW mmo, I was hoping it would be like how SWG used to be, but of course it seems that MMO's these days don't succeed unless the developers put in those addicting elements that every single MMO has.

SWG didn't have that, it was the community that kept everyone around, roleplaying as a squad leader who was secretly training in the ways of the force was the coolest thing ever, but then they decided to make force-sensitive characters an option you can choose at the very start of the game and it no longer was about the community.

 

[steverivers]

@snowfox

Yeah i laughed SO hard when they added the force village, and jedi started popping up left right and center, when SWG was starting to hit the rocks.

Everyone was trying their hardest to be a jedi, and, after having a conversation about immersion, the current timeline setting, the era and how it'll be ruined with jedi running around - (and will COMPLETELY lose its authentic "original trilogy" feeling) - i offhandedly said one day "You do realize if the subscribership hits a certain level - SoE care so little about the product and only about the money they'll end up make jedi a starting profession?"

I got laughed at and called names. And told i was an idiot because they would'nt have added in the village otherwise.

I just responded with "You do know this is SOE? Right? Havent you been playing this game since launch? They'd sell their own mothers to turn a profit."

A year or so on - the NGE hits. I pointedly laugh at them all for their naivity!

Jedi starting profession.

 

[Dastardly]

snip

snip

snip

snip

snip

snip

snip

snip

Group reply, due to post volume. Please forgive me for not making these more personalized. Hitting the high points here:

a) When I presented a definition of RPG, I kept it very broad on purpose. It IS about taking ownership of some small portion of the subject IP. For some, that ownership exclusively includes stats and equipment (I view this as a hyper-distilling of the original spirit of RPGs, which simply happened because some RPGS, like D&D, were so packed with rules that some simplification was required. This is the pendulum swinging the other way). For others, it has more to do with developing character-as-character, instead of character-as-trophy-case. This includes look, feel, personality, skills...

MMOs, in particular, were about creating a persistent world in which players could leave a footprint. A lot of modern MMOs have lost that, and TOR is continuing that trend. When you log out, there is basically NO sign that your character was ever there until you log in again. No house, no ship, no nothing. MMOs used to have these features. Taking them away is a step backwards.

b) Nowhere have I said that TOR looks to be a bad game. It looks to be a fine game. It's just that the game it looks to be is a single-player RPG with co-op elements. There are many of those out there, great quality, that do not require a subscription fee. If you are buying someone else's character to play someone else's story, you should only have to pay once. A subscription fee for MMOs used to be like paying "rent" on your little corner of the virtual space (and server real-estate, yes). Now, it's just companies charging it because the population is desensitized to the idea.

The points I made above have been called minor. And they are, when taken separately. Each is a small step backward--the removal of just one bit of freedom that other MMOs (SWG being the comparison I made due to the IP) in the past have provided. Taken as a whole, it represents a pretty big erosion.

Instead of taking the existing features of MMOs and adding to it, BioWare has replaced the features with more limiting features... and they've made their #1 selling point for this MMO an element that can already be found in plenty of pay-once games. This puts the burden of proof on BioWare to explain WHY these freedoms were taken away.

It would be one thing if no games out there had these freedoms. It would be up to us, the consumers, to demonstrate that the ideas are viable and appealing to audiences. But these have been tested and proven in MMOs... and in fact, the only thing that killed SWG was the removal of some of these freedoms by SOE. Instead of asking the question, "Well, why should they include this feature?" it is right to be asking, "Why did BioWare choose to remove it?"

If a major franchise were to suddenly go from 3D gameplay to a 2D platformer, customers would expect some pretty compelling reasons for WHY this was the case. This represents the removal of... well... an entire AXIS from the game world. They'd want to know where it went and why.

c) Regarding "Two choices are better than none," I often find myself disagreeing. When the game provides no prescriptive choices, the character can proceed in any way they want. When you present the character two choices, you are ALSO taking away dozens. Sometimes, it's better to let the character decide how/what they will say things when they accept the mission... it's better than forcing words into their mouths.

When a game decides to step in and "do the work of the imagination," this carries the expectation that the game will provide enough tools to DO THE WORK of the imagination. If you're not going to include more than 3 styles of hat, don't include hats. If you're not going to let character sit down in chairs, don't put them in there. Including a limited number of choices, more often than not, serves only to highlight what's missing.

And yes, they are each small things. You can't choose your own dialogue. You can't choose your own ship. You can't choose your own companion. You can't choose your own type of character (certain races are locked into certain classes). You can't choose where you GO in your ship. All of them small things. Separately.

Together, they just make the game look more and more like a very expensive single-player game.

 

[kingcom]

OP, a RPG is a Role-Playing game as in you thrust into the roll of a character (Acting). You most
certainly role play in Mario games as in your role is to be mario and do what he would, whether you think
it or not that is the role you are playing. Some of your complaints are less about ROLE PLAYING IE
PLAYING A ROLE and more about features you think will hurt the game role playing isnt about character freedom it is you doing what your character would do and I think we should feel lucky they are including these features and if they urk you so much then you shouldnt buy the game.

While i disagree with the OP, i also disagree with this. Playing a role is not acting. Acting is following the lines of a preconcieved script. Roleplaying is allowing the role player to make a decision based upon their information of the scenario. Playing a Mario game is acting because the story is outlined before you. A video game can never truly be an rpg because it is always pre-programmed. It can however contain rpg elements which, is primarily the idea of freedom of choice.

 

[Kanlic]

*SNIP*

Wait so being fully voiced is a step backwards? You ever play Knights of the Old Republic? That was FULLY voiced except for 1 character YOURS.

The companion is actually just there if you decide to do the ENTIRE game solo you don't actually need to take him out of the ship EVER.

Why is using iconic classes a bad thing? How is that a step backwards? So what happens if they decided to throw in some random ass class like school teacher. Oh hey I am going to run around the Star Wars Universe as a teacher wait they were never mentioned so why the fuck are they a playable class?

The Ships weren't part of the original design of the game so they decided to do an on the rails style and give you random on the rails fighting missions. GUESS WHAT THOSE ARE OPTIONAL!!!

Now I pose to you these questions:
Have you played the Beta? Have you seen anything besides the random news that pops up?
Have you seen any number of countless videos that destroy your point about the companions all being the same?

this, but also

SACRIFICES CHARACTER FREEDOM.

Have you ever played an MMO? The only character freedom you really get is what abilities your character gets, and even that is pretty limited in even the best MMO's. Besides, the characters are really just a bunch of boring avatars, what put life into them is the player behind the character. You know, the people you can voice chat with or text while you are questing, and then if you want to go solo, just play through the carefully crafted campaign.

 

[kingcom]

a) When I presented a definition of RPG, I kept it very broad on purpose. It IS about taking ownership of some small portion of the subject IP. For some, that ownership exclusively includes stats and equipment (I view this as a hyper-distilling of the original spirit of RPGs, which simply happened because some RPGS, like D&D, were so packed with rules that some simplification was required. This is the pendulum swinging the other way). For others, it has more to do with developing character-as-character, instead of character-as-trophy-case. This includes look, feel, personality, skills...

MMOs, in particular, were about creating a persistent world in which players could leave a footprint. A lot of modern MMOs have lost that, and TOR is continuing that trend. When you log out, there is basically NO sign that your character was ever there until you log in again. No house, no ship, no nothing. MMOs used to have these features. Taking them away is a step backwards.

b) Nowhere have I said that TOR looks to be a bad game. It looks to be a fine game. It's just that the game it looks to be is a single-player RPG with co-op elements. There are many of those out there, great quality, that do not require a subscription fee. If you are buying someone else's character to play someone else's story, you should only have to pay once. A subscription fee for MMOs used to be like paying "rent" on your little corner of the virtual space (and server real-estate, yes). Now, it's just companies charging it because the population is desensitized to the idea.

The points I made above have been called minor. And they are, when taken separately. Each is a small step backward--the removal of just one bit of freedom that other MMOs (SWG being the comparison I made due to the IP) in the past have provided. Taken as a whole, it represents a pretty big erosion.

Instead of taking the existing features of MMOs and adding to it, BioWare has replaced the features with more limiting features... and they've made their #1 selling point for this MMO an element that can already be found in plenty of pay-once games. This puts the burden of proof on BioWare to explain WHY these freedoms were taken away.

It would be one thing if no games out there had these freedoms. It would be up to us, the consumers, to demonstrate that the ideas are viable and appealing to audiences. But these have been tested and proven in MMOs... and in fact, the only thing that killed SWG was the removal of some of these freedoms by SOE. Instead of asking the question, "Well, why should they include this feature?" it is right to be asking, "Why did BioWare choose to remove it?"

If a major franchise were to suddenly go from 3D gameplay to a 2D platformer, customers would expect some pretty compelling reasons for WHY this was the case. This represents the removal of... well... an entire AXIS from the game world. They'd want to know where it went and why.

c) Regarding "Two choices are better than none," I often find myself disagreeing. When the game provides no prescriptive choices, the character can proceed in any way they want. When you present the character two choices, you are ALSO taking away dozens. Sometimes, it's better to let the character decide how/what they will say things when they accept the mission... it's better than forcing words into their mouths.

When a game decides to step in and "do the work of the imagination," this carries the expectation that the game will provide enough tools to DO THE WORK of the imagination. If you're not going to include more than 3 styles of hat, don't include hats. If you're not going to let character sit down in chairs, don't put them in there. Including a limited number of choices, more often than not, serves only to highlight what's missing.

And yes, they are each small things. You can't choose your own dialogue. You can't choose your own ship. You can't choose your own companion. You can't choose your own type of character (certain races are locked into certain classes). You can't choose where you GO in your ship. All of them small things. Separately.

Together, they just make the game look more and more like a very expensive single-player game.

a) See i entirely disagree. A video game will never include true freedom, not even anything remotely close to it. If i want freedom i go out to my regular rolepalying group. The sacrifice i make with a video game is a limitation of freedom so that i can play it anytime and an MMO lets me have that experience with a group of people. MMOrpgs were never about creating a persistant world. The only one to have truly done that is Eve Online, Ultima Online tried, SWG tried but neither actually had a direct impact on the game world. You know why? Because if they do the next person to come along cant.

The only way to properly implent static and continuous buildings/ships/etc that is not the players avatar, is to instance it (Lord of the Rings Online style). This means your reduce to playing with only a handful of people. Now i see you find having a persistant physical imprint of yourself important but the problem is, your footprint effects me. This unfortunately means that my footprint becomes irrelevent. Whats the point in me doing anything when someone more powerful than me can do it anyway? It means i have no reason to exist within this universe. I like that in a video game i can be of some significance. I like that an MMO offers the opportunity for a group of people to grow together in significance, a group of significant people, working together, solving a quest.

Freedom is not a good idea when other people are concerned. Eve Online demonstrates how it can work, with entire sections of space completely unaccessable for most people because the player freedom is intersects with that of another player.

b) When i pay for my monthly subscription you know what i am paying for? A table. Im hiring a gaming table for myself and my friends to play an rpg. What i am excited about for swtor is that its giving me a pre-generated campaign for my friends and I to try out. I get to take a break from GMing, a break from measuring stats and inputting my imagination into everything and let the game take me for a ride AND my friends can join me and help me on MY journey, and i can help them on theirs.

Ok, thats seems a bit silly to list the entire star wars universe as a single game type. Your example of a franchise moving from 2d to 3d is a straw arguement. Star Wars has done this, they have also done rpgs, flight sims, action-adventure, beat-em-ups etc. This kind of franchsie is far bigger than a single game type. Bioware did not remove features from SWG, they added features to KotOR.

c) When the character has no pre-scripted choice they can proceed any way they want? You will never ever have that in a video game. It is always going to be limited to waht is progrommed. I fail to see how giving a quest a choice from 1 to multiple is taking away freedom. Its giving more than any other MMO with a cotinuous story. You seem to be under the belief that swtor will somehow prevent you from the whole explorative aspect of an mmo. Forcing words in your mouth? As opposed to having your character a mute? I think your trying to say that you wont be able to pretend your character is saying certain things in response. How will that stop jsut because there is an actual response. You cant pretend that didnt happen?

You can't choose your own dialogue: Yes you can, simply because a choice is provided, doesnt stop you from doing anything else as you would pretend with another MMO.
You can't choose your own ship: Its so wierd to find ships come out the factory as a single model eh? If choosing a ship is really important to you then i guess this game is a complete and utter failure, I personally want what the ship offers, the capability to choose what im doing and where im going next.
You can't choose your own companion: Yes you can, they are call people, you can talk to them and choose who among them are playing the game with you. A companion are for people who want to play by themselves, something you've stated you dont want to do.
You can't choose your own type of character (certain races are locked into certain classes): I have seen no indication to support this point, please show me otherwise.
You can't choose where you GO in your ship: Ok this is a little childish, you want a specific location? This only serves as an explorative environment which is again, apparently something utterly vital to you. Makes me wonder what you think of a game that doesnt let you enter every room in every building in every city on every continent on every planet in every system. Again, no videogame will ever do that.


That seems to be your personal gripe with the game and good luck with you for that but I can almost predict that you will never find a game thats going to fit those aspects, I could apply those exact complaints to any MMO ever (well with the exception of Eve and MUDs of course).

 

[Dastardly]

Have you ever played an MMO? The only character freedom you really get is what abilities your character gets, and even that is pretty limited in even the best MMO's. Besides, the characters are really just a bunch of boring avatars, what put life into them is the player behind the character. You know, the people you can voice chat with or text while you are questing, and then if you want to go solo, just play through the carefully crafted campaign.

The point I'm making is that this didn't USED to be the case. What you are saying is very true of recent MMOs, but older MMOs didn't have this same problem. What we are seeing isn't the result of gradual improvement of MMOs as a genre, it's quite the opposite... and it happens all the time.

Someone creates a new and exciting product, and it's risky--like MMOs were in the beginning, with that subscription fee thing. Over time, folks see it pay off, and now they want in on it. Well, now there are several reasons they don't have to put QUITE as much into making it innovative:

1) Anything newer will look shinier, so that provides some automatic momentum.
2) The audience has already been softened up to the idea of sub fees, so you don't have to be quite so feature-stuffed in order to get people "over the hump."
3) While the game-focused folks tend to innovate, the business-focused folks tend to follow and try to make more money. Once the game-focused folks broke ground on MMOs, the business-focused folks sat down and said, "Okay, how can we get the same money with less expense?" This is good business, so it makes sense they'd do it. The result, however, is they include fewer features, so there's less they have to support with personnel. Other expenses are cut, too, depending on the company.

What MMOs used to have, in the Ultima/SWG/Everquest days, is very different from what they've got now. These older games had a little something for everyone--not just the combat-and-trophy hungry folks. They were about you creating an avatar to participate in a virtual world. They had so much more potential for "emergent gameplay," which is a GOLD MINE for keeping people interested and keeping things fresh.

And yes, they had many flaws, too. They tried to fix them, but some lessons had to be learned with time. PvP has changed drastically since then, for instance. Some of the "tweaks" to the old standards are good... it's just that some of them (the ones made for business purposes) are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[theevilsanta]

Ok, I get the OP. He loved SWG and likes to role play in some sense and was able to in other mmos but TOR makes it a lot harder.

I like to role play too, never with other people, just in my head and building my character, mainly in LOTRO. I had a fire-haired female hobbit affected by a case of wanderlust and bravery, a cranky old man always reluctant to get involved despite his power, and a somewhat dimwitted bodyguard that was loyal to a fault to his young ward (my gf's character).

In TOR I'd like to have similar characters, but the moment one of them opens their mouth it will break my immersion. I love the single player Bioware games, I get to interact with an awesome story and roleplay my character in a totally unique way, on my own. But in MMOs the only real individuality you get (atm) is what you make up in your head about your character, everything else is limited. And hearing the snarky comeback from my jedi who is supposed to be authoritarian and stolid when I choose the "aggressive" option will kill my character. I can't do what I do in other mmos, I have to play a single player bioware game, while thousands of other people can be the exact same character as me and I can watch them be it.

Yeah, I get it OP. But people love the Bioware games, I just wish they'd stick to single player.

 

[steverivers]

Considering SWG destroyed its own era, and ruined the RP element itself by allowing overt Jedi everywhere in the Original Trilogy era where there is meant to be *NO* jedi, the OP really is riding a high-horse of paper mache.

If i "choose" in SWG my freedom to RP that i'm in the Original Trilogy era, i have to MOD THE GAME to get rid of 10001 jedi flying about in Darth Maul speeders half dressed in clone trooper armor weilding their glowsticks like no one can touch them.

SOE are forcing me to live in a world of jedi where there should be none.

At least TOR picked the right era to allow jedi to roam free and not break immersion.


All the points he's made so far arent backwards. At worst they are a side-step. They are choices made by a gaming company. Just as APB chose to let people run amok.

Mafia 2 is far more linear and claustrophobic than GTA 4, and its a far worse game. Does that make it the apocolypse? Nope. And neither does TOR.

 

[Vankraken]

The biggest problem with a Star Wars MMO is that jedi are in there very nature game breaking compared to any non force user. There isn't much that blaster user can do to a jedi because in the SW lore jedi are the extra special elite select few (long winded but the point is there aren't a lot of them) and jedi are skilled enough to mow through countless non force users. If everybody can be a jedi then you completely ruin the point of jedi being special and you ruin the gameplay of someone who wants to be a stormtrooper(solider), "smuggler" (imo it should just be called a "freelancer"), or bounty hunter (again a freelancer). If non force users can kill jedi 1v1 then the whole point of jedi is completely trashed.

Honestly if i had it my way a Star Wars MMO should have jedi as NPCs and players have to use a range of non force users (soldier, medic, scoundrel, droid, engineer, etc) and some force using caster type classes (i believe in the Star Wars canon there are races that have some force capability but aren't considered at the level of jedi capability). Fighting against jedi as bosses or elite mobs (elite in similar terms to WoW elites) would give players the feeling of working together to overcome a tougher enemy like jedi through team work.

Of course i know people want to play jedi but from a game balance and staying true to the source material i don't see how players can play jedi can keep the game from being broken.

 

[Nex Vesica]

So, to sum up the OP, you're disappointed because the Star Wars MMO is designed like an MMO. Actually, it seems like you're peeved that it doesn't have a housing system as that was really the only valid complaint I saw in there and the only example you gave of how you can make an impact on a MMO world, something which is pure flavor and completely pointless. The whole entire point of an MMO is to get millions of people playing...obviously the focus isn't going to be on individuals. Because they're focusing on millions they also become extremely limited in what is and isn't possible, if 1 million people, or even just 1 hundred thousand people all were making world effecting actions/changes the system would explode, there's just nothing that could handle that.

Classes...really, you're complaining because they said iconic classes. I'd complain that they included that at all as a feature and really, how can you complain about that? It essentially boils down to "in this game, you play as a character" I mean...no duh, how could it not have classes? I don't see where any of your assumptions are coming from though, yeah it has classes but that doesn't mean every class will be the same. Point in case EVERY GAME EVER WITH CLASSES. Equipment/skills/powers/heck, even just basic playstyle alone distinguish players. I also have no idea where your complaints about "every smuggler being like Han, having a wookie etc." are coming from given that the KOTOR games in the past have never done that, at most they'll give a few nods to the original through lines like "I have a bad feeling about this"

The story complaint...my rebuttal, EVERY GAME EVER MADE, EVERY GAME THAT WILL EVER BE MADE. Quite simply, its physically impossible to have a game that allows for more then what can be programmed into it, so no matter what you'll always have limited conversation and story options. Using that as an argument against this specific game is incredibly moot since its a technological limitation and applies to every game ever.

As an avid RPGer, the last place I'd ever go if I wanted any "role play" aspects like the ones you seem to desire is an MMO. RPG is really just a fancy term for a fantasy/sci-fi system.

TLR- If you want freedom, play the Star Wars PnP, if you want something that was programmed and thus impossible to give complete freedom, play a game or even a skynetesque system that can somehow shape the world based on the decisions hundreds of thousands people are constantly making...that people could run on their computers.

 

[Brotherofwill]

It's called wit. I highly recommend you invest in it, for you appear to only have a half.

This is wit?
I only have a half wit? I'll take that over no reading comprehension.