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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic No Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic Good/Evil?
Projectseph
Member Posts: 18
So, after watching a few "let's plays" of KOTOR, I seem to find that MOST choices you can make seem to be VERY heavily weighted towards either the utterly evil, or stupidly good.
Let's say a gambler can't pay his debts:
-You can be an absolute goody-two-shoes and say:
"Here fella, take all your debt money from me...learn absolutely nothing. Oh, and while you are at it, take this extra 200 because you will probably need it to p!ss away."
-Or you can pretty much say:
"Hey f**k you and your problems. Also, give me all your cash you currently have. Wait, I'd rather just loot everything from your corpse."
-Or you can walk away.
There doesn't seem to be any 'middle ground options where you gain a minor light/dark side point/s.
Such as possibly saying:
"You are a fool for gambling in the first place. Own up to your mistakes. Perhaps I will help you find a job so you can support yourself better and learn to be self-sufficient...(blah blah)"
Or, maybe:
"Show me to this "kingpin" so I can meet and usurp him. Your debts will be erased, but if I hear of you f**king up again, I will end you."
There doesn't seem to be any sort of concept of "Lawful Evil/Good or Neutral Evil/Good."<---realistic speech options that a non-robot might have.
..which sucks, because I truly would like to play/buy this game, however, I can't role play an absolute Self-reightous d!ckhead who doesn't understand that giving a man a fish instead of a fishing rod teaches him nothing.
And I cant play a guy who literally just wants to threaten to kill anyone/everyone for barely stepping on his toes.
Do the game-choices get better? Or do they stay so heavily weighted to the utterly good, or truly evil?
So Far I have only seen the game up to Taris.
On that note, does KOTOR II improve on this good/evil concept in any way?
Comments
It doesn't change really, the choices are the same obviously evil/good ones you see now and some of them don't even make any sense sometimes.
Then again this is SWTOR not D&D so a neutral good alignment isn't going to be on the cards anyway. SW has always been more black and white than shades of grey.
Hmm...that always rubbed me the wrong way regarding the SW universe.
Always wished they pushed the issue that "balance" through use of BOTH light and dark side abilities was better than 'Light Side' only.
And that a power was not inherently dark. It's how you use it.
I feel that they try to push the agenda that "Light Side is the highest aspiration of a Jedi." And even daring to consider being angry will just corrupt entirely. AKA..you feel slightly mad now..and it will fester until you destroy cities because that one time you gave in to vengeance.<---which, let's face it, is sometimes totally justified for the "good of all things."
The problem here is that you want something "else".
Star Wars has always been Good/Evil
The issue is that you don't see the draw in that. It's not inferior it's just different.
And given some of its inspiration (hero of a thousand faces for one) it makes sense.
It's like with Elder Scrolls games vs witcher games. Elder Scrolls is always about you fighting some big bad. Very broad strokes very iconic. Witcher is about politics, the nature of people, maybe even fatalistic.
Sometimes it's cathartic to have one and sometimes one wants to get down into the mud.
If you change the large pillared "under structure" of Star Wars you change the world into something it was never intended to be.
So the issue is not that it's a flaw in the Star Wars "universe" the issue is that you just don't like it. Which is fine of course.
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Creating those middle ground choices you're asking for is really hard because morals are not objective. A computer game that assigns values to moral choices (like +3 light) has to make moral choices so obvious that different players from around the world playing their game agree with the moral assessment or the players will become incredibly frustrated as they have to make choices they personally consider evil to gain good points, or choices they consider good to gain evil points. That's one large reason why script writers usually write moral choices that are so obviously good or evil it feels almost childish.
The only good way around the problem is removing alignment gains altogether, like Witcher has done.
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I guess I was just surprised that there were such a shallow level of choices.
Especially after playing games such as 'Arcanum' (I have been diving into a few older games recently). Where dialogue options make you feel like the character can be one of MANY types of hero/anti-hero.
Though I thought that, even in the SW movies, even the "Good" Jedi still made choices similar to 'Lawful Neutral' etc. And that they weren't bound to such obvious portrayals of "Right and Wrong".
I could stand corrected there as I am not a SW fanatic.
well, that's revan's story. he tried to walk the path between light and dark.
his story is in the game, with some quests in low level, an instance and raid.
not much choices to do here tho.
and obviously those revanites aren't really liked among the empire or republic, they won't fight for them
ps: about that general black and white discussion:
star wars ain't that black and white at all.
actually, the good side is HEAVILY influenced by the dark side throughout the whole movie, i kinda dare to say the dark side nade nearly all decisions for the jedis at the end of ep3 (all hail palpatine!)
the whole movie is about one person's struggle to be good, and his failure to walk the path he wanted to - due to his JEDI MASTERS, what chance did ani ever had but to turn dark. he loved too much
if you think star wars is black and white, you might wanna watch the movies again, and try to look beyond the gangen and eewoks
pps: that beloved smuggler of yours? not a good char at all. he acted tooootaly outside of the law (and he DID shoot first).
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Again, to bring up the example of "Arcanum". I found in that particular game that there were a great many dialogue options. Especially if your character was more intellectual/charismatic.
And the options felt quite 'spot-on' with respect to their 'moral aim'. As in, they effectively represented themselves in your characters alignment.
Not true. It doesn't change it into something else. Look at the EU (which KOTOR falls in) you have 30 years of books showing how it really isn't black or white, and that you can go down the wrong path with the best of intentions. Jacen Solo is a prime example.
No longer correct. They moved away from the alignment restrictions even before the first expansion came along.
The only items that still have these are a few of the low level ones, and you have other (better) options like grabbing stuff from the commendation vendors, or simply making your own gear.
I also suspect that in the upcoming overhaul of the original 1-50 content, this remaining trash is getting removed, since people keep getting the wrong impression because of it.
As for the topic, you can easily achieve what you want buy choosing a combination of Light and Dark Side choices, the problem with a lot of "lets plays is that they focus on one side", which leads to a shallow character. You're better off not worrying about the alignment.
Spoilers (for the purpose of providing some examples):
You're dispatched to Nar Shaddaa to get rid of one of your Master's rivals (well, technically of a spy that is being protected by a rival), along the way you run into a squad of Republic soldiers who are fighting Imperial troops controlled by your rival. Afterwards you have a choice to:
A) Kill them on sight (CE)
C) Spare them and let them go (The good option)
D) Spare them, but remind them that they owe you a favor now, and that you intend to collect on it soon. (More LE/NE)
Later on when facing your target, who smugly announces he's not going to play fair, and sticks a bunch of his goons on you, you can call in that favor and go "You're not the only one that brought friends" if you chose option D (or of course single-handedly whoop their asses).
After the fight you once again have the option to part peacefully with the soldiers, or to turn on them now that they've served their purpose.
With the rival you also get the choice of simply killing him, setting him free or telling him that you basically own him now (turning him into your lackey).
Many of the dialogues lead to another branch of conversation (especially when you pick neutral options it seems).
Of course it's always going to be more limited than a PnP game, or one of the deeper single player RPGs (especially some of those sans voice acting), but they still did a pretty good job with it. My own Sith Warrior is more Lawful Evil, he doesn't kill just for the sake of it, and he's more than willing to show mercy when he thinks it'll get him something, or if there's no obviously value to killing (such as with civilians who didn't witness anything important and just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time).
Another spoiler (and I really wish this site had collapseable spoiler tags at times like these): On the above Sith Warrior I spared Jaesa's parents, and provided them with a cozy life on Dromund Kaas instead of killing them, having them tortured or simply letting them go. (The purpose was to draw her out, so the other options would've worked as well, but my Warrior figured this approach would make it easier to bind her to him.)
Of course there's also nothing stopping you from trying it, the base game is F2P, and more than enough to see whether you like the stories and gameplay or not before you ever decide to spend anything. And if you do play, don't get fixated on the Light/Dark Side choices. Go with what seems fitting for your character and ignore the alignment (or pick up Diplomacy along it to push it to the direction you want it to go, without impacting dialogue choices).
Edit: All of the comments made me think you were talking about Swtor, but it seems you're asking about Kotor. In which case... you're more limited, yeah. =/
The items in that game are most definitely restricted by alignment choice, and many of the DS options you have to take not to miss out on DS points, are often those of a lowel level thug nature, rather than those of a criminal mastermind.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Hey man, thanks for the post ...and I hate to tell you this buuuut....
...the topic was about SW: KNIGHTS of the old republic...not the semi-new mmorpg SWTOR.
And sadly in this game it seems that dialogue choices and options are far far more limited to polar opposites. (Less middle ground).
Again, yes it's an old game. But many other older games circumvent the issue with deeper writing (it seems).
Though thanks again
And yes, spot on.
I hate this "ANYBODY looks at me wrong and you are all dead" attitude.
It is one of those ideas that look good on paper but you know developers are cheapo and lazy so they will just make an EASY automated system.
I knew when they were doing this with SWTOR it would be a crap system and to be honest i felt they did too much copying of Kotor with the game.
For those still wondering,this is the same thing that the Storybricks is going to do and why i never cared that EQNext got rid of it.I know it is asking a lot that developers hand craft each quest and idea but i just hate automated systems that are repeated over and over.
A design like this instead of having different ramifications on the game is just a 3 choice spreadsheet that the code keeps going back to on every occasion.Something like Storybricks could expand on it a lot and still keep it automated but i prefer a developer puts the passion and work effort into each quest/storyline/interaction.
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Ok that's probably fair as I only know Star Wars from the movies and completely forgot there were books. I don't know what tha says about the original intention of the original creator and what others have done to the "Star Wars Universe".
Also, I don't know what EU is.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
EU is the expanded universe. Basically, Lucas had a guy named Leland Chee hired in as the keeper of the holocron. His job was to try to keep the story straight, and maintain continuity between all the the various forms that the universe was growing in so that there was only one canon (although some inconsistencies did occur). All that has been relabeled as Legends and is now non-canon so that Disney wouldn't have to pull off the impossible by trying to create new movies that people that hadn't followed the books could understand. Even though it is no longer the official timeline it is still entertaining for anyone that enjoys SW.
This is probably why you feel disappointed. We're not talking about Arcanum or any other IP, it's Star Wars and as you point out you're not that big of a fan, so to say.
If you look at any of the films you see the same thing. Jedi are taught to be wary of the dark side because it corrupts. Therefore they shun dark powers or using the force in a dark way. Or they become seduced by the dark side and fall further under it's sway. It's always black or white, there's no middle ground.
You can either be a Jedi, good, selfless, defender of the weak etc etc, or you can turn to the dark side and become a selfish, power hungry sociopath.
What you have to bear in mind is that Star Wars isn't really science fiction. It's based on a fairy tale, with a beautiful princess, a brave young (jedi) knight and an evil wizard. As with all fairy tales there is never a middle ground between good and evil. This is where it started out from in '77 and it's pretty much followed that same morality all the way through.
Haha, whoops, you're right, *brainfart* Did the Xbox version show the light side or dark side shift? I seem to have forgotten.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The first one was really just TOO Good...and just everyone for themself so long as it helps me.
The second introduced a more gray as a number of jedi and sith were in the middle.
Jolee and whatever her name was, kreia. She speaks about how you should use any conflict or action to improve yourself. Giving someone money to repay a debt does nothing. Nor does just killing them and taking what they have if they are no threat. Getting rid of the ones he owes a debt to as well as taking all his money would be the proper thing, in her mind.
At least thats what I got from her. Jolee is more like...Just help out when people who are actually trying need help. Otherwise, I'm going to just hang out and smoke.
My guess the reason most games that have this sort of branching system use extremes so it will be easier for the player to pick the path they want (DS/LS, paragon/renegade and so forth.) Especially back in the days when Kotor was made. We se more than a few modern games moving away from this. Life is strange being the best example as not only do you not know what option is good/bad but you get no direct indication what impact your choice had most of thie time.
So i am sure that had kotor been done today it would have had some slightly more gray options. But Star Wars as others have pointed out is still Star Wars and the force is very much like karma, every action either give good or bad points and for most people it is a constant balancing
This have been a good conversation
imagine this: a neutral superman, doing nothing, to keep the World, as it is
exciting, yes?
some realistic Things would make awful gameplay
Thats not really what neutral means, it effectively means they are as equally likely to do something evil as they are good, and doesn't really equate to keeping things as they are, although if you are confusing it with AD&D's neutral Druids, who were actively involved with maintaining a balance, that would involve actively doing bad things in areas where too many good things had been occuring, and vice versa.
The old AD&D alignment system is probably far too varied to implement in an MMO, just having good vs evil choices is hard enough.