Different approach to player characters.

4:38 Scooter: "most MMOs have background, and the people you MEET have a story, but YOU don't have a story" Revan and Exile had a story that included the player character's participation. We no longer have this element. You are treated according to your class.

4:40 Scooter: it's important to make you feel like you're the character class you play as all the time.

I believe the point they were trying to present that your supposed to create your own story.

I like twists. :) Making your own story is a pretty good idea; however, I will always want to be something a little more. Its a good and fresh new step for the KotOR series.

Yes, I like the twist, and I think I'm alot more excited then other people are...

But then how does the central premise fit in? Do we all have our own individual Emperor or head goody-Jedi to kill and see the end of the main story? Or do only a few get to do that, shortchanging the rest? Or worse, do NPCs do that while we stand by, bemused, and watch?

I really like the idea of how when you make decisions you cant go back. And with an online game, its so very true.

gosh, I am one happy little girl right now. Pretty sure any game out right now is going to be "unfun" because of this announcement.

But then how does the central premise fit in? Do we all have our own individual Emperor or head goody-Jedi to kill and see the end of the main story? Or do only a few get to do that, shortchanging the rest? Or worse, do NPCs do that while we stand by, bemused, and watch?

Ask the developers, how should we know? They aren't exactly releasing a boat load of details about the game.

But then how does the central premise fit in? Do we all have our own individual Emperor or head goody-Jedi to kill and see the end of the main story? Or do only a few get to do that, shortchanging the rest? Or worse, do NPCs do that while we stand by, bemused, and watch? Ouch. I didn't think about that. Who gets to kill the main bad guy? Does everyone get a chance to fight him? Are the pcs only spectators that interact soley with the environment? Good questions.

I like the idea that when you make a decision and something bad happens your no just tempted to go

*_*

Escape>Load Game>Game5

It makes you accountable for your actions.

There is also no save function; thus, you are stuck making mistakes.

Good, maybe those 12 year olds will shape up then. [/doubt it]

They also talking about a new speech element which intruges me...

I think that this is attempting to be the big jump in MMO games

What? You don't like the 12 year olds? The high pitched voices just create a lovley ring in my ear on Xbox live :xp:

Xbox Live is different. There you can own them and they shut up for a little while. Here you can't attack them, since they're on your side and in your cities and stuff just yelling random crap.

I wonder what'll be their sollution for this 'different' approach. What can they do? Set a number of backstories for us to chose from, a là Mass Effect, resulting on different NPCs jumping at your throat randonly? Or will you conserve your battle scars and/or medals and show how experienced and how much money you've wasted on the game to your buddies?

Ouch. I didn't think about that. Who gets to kill the main bad guy? Does everyone get a chance to fight him? Are the pcs only spectators that interact soley with the environment? Good questions.

You can have a plot line pretty much like one in a singleplayer game in a MMO if using instanced areas for main plot missions and quests. I.e. you form your party of players and NPCs and then head off into your party's own copy of that world region that reflects your progress along the plot. Guild Wars currently works like that, for example.

That's somewhat reassuring. If the main story is arranged like that, where everyone gets the chance to play the main events, then I will be less concerned about how the story is implemented.

I hope they give us some examples of the 'unique player stories' pre-release - I'd love to know how it's going to be structured, and just how much control we have over it!

The best plots and dilemmas are usually not huge overarching epics like Luke's story as the last of the Jedi. They are generally more personal than that and the effects that they have on the world around the people involved are incidental. Not everyone(or anyone, even) has to be the "Savior of the Republic." Luke redeeming his fallen father is much more interesting than the overthrow of the emperor. Han and Leia's love story hits home harder than "Hey we blew up the Death Star... again."

Revenge, redemption, false accusations, exile, bounties, love, love triangles, betrayal... the list goes on. There are so many ways to make one player among thousands have a unique, or at least inhomogeneous play experience. I would love for this game to be the one that tries for something like that. Not saying it will, but it would be nice.

Maybe there are some big-time in-game achievements...

I imagine 'achieving' your Darth Title and all NPC's will bow for you. Or a promotion to Jedi Master with all the younglings bowing. That kinda stuff makes a story...the way the NPC's see you.

Maybe there are some big-time in-game achievements...

I imagine 'achieving' your Darth Title and all NPC's will bow for you. Or a promotion to Jedi Master with all the younglings bowing. That kinda stuff makes a story...the way the NPC's see you.

maybe this will finally be the game where significant rank increases (like your examples) will actually be acknowledged in more profound ways by NPCs than minor dialogue changes...still waiting for that RPG, lolz

What I don't understand is that if they're essentially making this one of the most complicated RPGs ever, and I use RPG here because most of the game they're saying is with companions and not other people, then why make it an MMO? I mean, so far it sounds like an RPG with an MMO aspect.

I mean, so far it sounds like an RPG with an MMO aspect.
Exactly what Guild Wars attempts to pull off, just with a smaller budget. So far, for them, it works pretty well.

Exactly what Guild Wars attempts to pull off, just with a smaller budget. So far, for them, it works pretty well.

Which is fine, but I wish they'd stop touting it as an MMO. WoW is an mmo because every minute of the game you spend in the Massivly Multiplayer Online world. Guild Wars, and this game from the sound of it, you only go "online" for some raids and hanging out.

Which is fine, but I wish they'd stop touting it as an MMO. WoW is an mmo because every minute of the game you spend in the Massivly Multiplayer Online world. Guild Wars, and this game from the sound of it, you only go "online" for some raids and hanging out.
The term MMORPG fits here more than it does to its own genre me thinks.

MMOG = WoW
RPG = Kotor1
MMORPG = Guild Wars style.

I'm not sure at all how they will get companions to work at all without using Guild Wars style world instance running personally, but then how do you come in contact with other players in the world for PVP?

Ah, so many questions.

Which is fine, but I wish they'd stop touting it as an MMO. WoW is an mmo because every minute of the game you spend in the Massivly Multiplayer Online world. Guild Wars, and this game from the sound of it, you only go "online" for some raids and hanging out.

Which is better by me, but I believe that still configures a MMO. Contrary to you, I don't think that spending your every second on an online realm is completely necessary to make such a game.

I think I may have an idea as to how the unique character story lines work.

Anybody familiar with the 1996 game, the Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall? (Not Oblivion or Morrowind, Daggerfall :P )

Daggerfall's character creation was the best I've seen to date, you could create any character you could think of. I mean anything.

You could have a character who was extra bold against people, but had a phobia, and would fight worse against Spiders. Whatever you could possibly think of for your character, you could do.

Now, what was especially interesting about Daggerfall's character generation system was when they asked you twelve questions.

For example, one of the questions was, "Who was your best friend as a child?'

You could pick answers such as, "a monk," "a thief" or a ton more options.

Now, with twelve questions with about 8 possible answers for each question, the game was able to come up with a randomly generated character biography, meaning you could view your character's history. Another interesting thing to note is that you start with items from your history, so for example, maybe one of the questions ask "As a gift, the emperor gave you a..."

Depending on what you chose, you would start with that item at the beginning of the game.

The history's always made sense, and were very, very interesting. I would actually spend hours, just making characters to see there history. The history's were always completely different from each other.

Anyway, just one possible way these unique character story lines could work.

I wouldn't mind if they used the Daggerfall method, in fact, if they did, I might just have to spend a couple hours coming up with unique character histories as I could =)

^^

I hope they do implement something like this, you make it sound very intriguing. As long as it isn't a completely random history that we have no control over, fine by me! I don't want to end up as a bada** Sith Lord with a fear of Gizka! :lol:

Or a diplomat with a fear of people XD

^^

I hope they do implement something like this, you make it sound very intriguing. As long as it isn't a completely random history that we have no control over, fine by me! I don't want to end up as a bada** Sith Lord with a fear of Gizka! :lol:

Kinda reminds me of Klingons and Tribbles...

Makes sense for a sith lord to have a fear of Gizka. I mean can you imagine what the other sith lords would think of him if he were in a room filled with Gizka... That might put his life in danger severely... Think about how they view weakness...