Star Wars: The Old Republic/Headscratchers


 * As a fan of KotOR 2's excellent writing, I'm quite disappointed to see almost no mention of this game. Apart for the tale of the Exile after he left, it seems like fondamentally important characters like Kreia or Atris are completely left out. Even worse, when I read the Homage line, it talked about characters created by Bioware like Carth or HK-47 but nothing made by Obsidian. Do I miss something or is Bioware really not taking into account the work made by another company? That would be quite petty but it's the fan who is talking.
 * I'm still holding out hope that we'll learn more when we actually play the game. But still, its been 300 years, and most of the events of the second game were kept private. Part of Kreia's schtick was erasing herself from history, and Atris was a crazy hermit who died alone. So we might get hints here and there, but don't expect too much.
 * As you say, KOTOR 2 was made by a different company. Negotiating the rights to use someone else's intellectual property is always tricky (and bear in mind that KOTOR was written as a standalone piece - the sequel idea was something that Lucas Arts came up with, and handed over to Obsidian), and can get very ugly later on, if the second party decide they don't like what you're doing, regardless of what papers have been signed. So considering the scale of SWTOR, I expect Bioware is just being vague about the canon-as-added-by-Obsidian to avoid potential future conflicts with the other company.
 * Well, one of the 3rd tier Archaeology missions is finding writings by Jedi Master Mical, so not all mention of KOTOR 2 is gone. Besides, the Jedi Exile is also in the game as a Force Ghost, and she has a name now.
 * Not even close, there are major plot points building from deleted content of KOTOR 2 even.
 * In the Sith Warrior storyline, someone who is heavily implied to be Kreia appears in force ghost form.
 * A major running theme in the first two games and expanded universe as a whole is criticism of the Jedi requirement for no romantic relationships. In this game, you get dark side points for even casual flirting as a Jedi, and light side points for turning in other Jedi having a love affair. Remember that the best ending for a male Revan in the first game is using your love to redeem a fallen Bastilla.
 * You can flirt as a jedi without gaining dark side points, it depends on when you do it though.
 * To expand on this, quite a bit of the light side vs. dark side system is nonsensical in this game compared to the original. A Sith Warrior can get light side points for being focused on ideals of honor in one conversation, then get dark side points for it in the next. An early smuggler / trooper quest has you decide who to give recovered medicine to, dying soldiers or dying refugees, and saving the lives of the soldiers it was originally stolen from is dark side. This forces morally grey roleplaying decisions into black and white, and is bungled so badly that a PC who makes decisions based on alignment shifts (which you have to do to use high-end equipment) will be effectively schizophrenic.
 * But none of the alignment restrictions for items are really that strict - the only items requiring Alignment Tier 5 are cosmetic items and a few relics, and the only things needing Tier 4 are some open item sets. Provided you're not actually selecting at random, you'll still reach Tier 3 quite comfortably by choosing mainly one side, rejecting the choices you find totally ridiculous. Compared to the benefits you got maxing one side in Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords, it's quite understated here.
 * Tied to this in the Republic Trooper's storyline,  Alright, fine, so be professional and say "I'm sorry, sir/ma'am, but I'm under orders not to speak of the details, only enough for need to know." This is absolutely fine on Taris, where you effectively tell an operational command's Colonel (as a Lieutenant!) off with no light side/dark side issues. However, once in Nar Shaddaa, you get confronted by a Republic SIS agent who didn't get audio (but the visuals) of your confrontation with an treasonous officer, during which the entire issue of   was spoken about plainly. Suddenly, you can't even say "I'm sorry, Agent, I'm under direct orders to not speak of this." without getting darkside points. What? How is this consistent?
 * I think the problem is that the game is so huge (and story intensive) that it's been hard to enforce consistancy across different writers. The idea of Light Side and Dark Side is kinda hard to pin down, especially for non Jedi.
 * And as for the romance angle regarding Jedi players, a huge part of that is due to the prevalent viewpoint that Love Makes You Crazy, and is thus not desirable to The Stoic Jedi, but much sought after by the Sith.
 * It should also be mentioned that a number of the romance options for both Jedi classes are their own students, which stumbles into other moral concerns.
 * Special items for grey alignment have been announced as coming in a future patch, which alleviates things somewhat.
 * Just thought I would throw this out there - but during my playthrough as a Jedi Consular, I recieved no dark side points whatsoever whenever I would flirt with someone, or even when I bedded and eventually married my romantic interest.
 * When questioned about this, they actually state that the Jedi council frowns on, but doesn't actually ban, Jedi Masters in good standing getting into relationships.
 * So, why can't we make a Twi'lek Bounty Hunter? The Bounty Hunter trainer on Hutta is a Twi'lek for Pete's sake. Race/class/faction restrictions in general seem a bit arbitrary here.
 * Headgear. The Trooper has the same problem and yes, Twi'lek trainers multiple times. If it weren't for the full helmet headgear those two classes probably would get Twi'lek race options. There just isn't space in those helmets to stuff the lekku into.
 * I'm not sure that's it either. They can be Sith Inquisitors, but that class is all about headgear that basically puts your entire head into a hermetically sealed faceless ball. Inquisitor helmets seem even less likely to have holes in them for various head-appendages. I'd be perfectly happy if they just lifted racial restrictions on classes entirely, as there seems to be little rhyme or reason to it as it stands.
 * A video of the upcoming legacy system showed a Miralukan sith warrior, who have so far been the Jedi locked species. It's possible that it's going to let you use any species for any class, but I could be wrong.
 * During the climax of Act I the Emperor possesses Kira without difficulty; yet why didn't he do this on the run? It's stated that he only knew where she was after she helped kill Tarnis.
 * What on earth is up with the Sith Academy? I mean how do they produce enough Sith for the empire to function at all when it seems like there is only a very small number of them who actually become Sith?
 * Some speech seems to indicate that there are other sith academies as gaining an apprentice from Korriban specifically is mentioned as a status symbol. There's also the fact players see a small portion and there are likely far more than than what we see. There's also the ulterior motives in each sith storyline which may make it different from most standard cases.
 * One Inquisitor quest involves getting information from a weak acolyte who witnessed a murder. The light-side solution ends up with him assigned as apprentice to a distant Sith the quest-giver knows. There are also acolytes wandering around Dromund Kaas. On the other hand, there don't actually seem to be that many total Sith any more than there are really that many Jedi, maybe a few thousand of each (discounting player characters) spread over an entire galaxy of quintillions of people.
 * On Alderaan there is a mission to resuce people from the local hive-mind creatures that are holding them hostage. Most of them are grateful to get out of there but the daughter of the quest-giver has clearly been brainwashed and is speaking of no longer being herself and using first person plural like a proper hive creature. If you choose to rescue her against her wishes, you find out that the pheromones of the species suck people into their hive mind. How is rescuing her a dark side option? Is it really the right thing to do to enable her pheromone-induced Stockholm Syndrome? It's basically leaving a kidnapping victim with her kidnappers because she thinks she's happy.
 * Lore nerd coming in here. The brainwashed girl is a Joiner, someone who's been connected to the Killik hive mind and in constant telepathic communication with them. Joiners as a whole enjoy their experience and connection to the Hive Mind, it's not stockholm syndrome.
 * They force her to be a part of the hive mind and even taking her away from there doesn't seem enough to break the connection. She's forever altered and has a lot of trouble adjusting to her normal life as she doesn't even identify with herself or the people around her anymore. Just because she enjoyed the experience doesn't make it not Stockholm Syndrome or a terrible thing that the Killik did to her.
 * It's quite possible at this time in the lore that the transformation into a Joiner is irreperable, and as such, taking her away is only going to cause her more anguish.
 * I am rather early in the plot for both so maybe im wrong (nearly finished Balmora for one and just finished Chapter 1 on the other) but has anyone else noticed that the Sith Warrior and Inquisitor have the quest lines you would expect for them reversed? The Warrior plot is all about espionage and politics while the Inquisitor has mostly consisted of going into places killing stuff and taking something. Not really a big complain I just dont expect to be doing the political manipulator and plotter on the Sith Warrior while brutalizing the myriad living things in the galaxy as the inquisitor.
 * Speaking as someone who has completed the Sith Warrior story, it does fit the role of Darth Vader Expy rather well, first with Darth Baras acting as the Warrior's "Palpatine" equivilent, until Chapter three . I'm afraid all I know about the Sith Inquisitor's late game story is, and I quote, "crazy" in the words of a guildmate.
 * Regarding the civil war on Ord Mantell: why are the separatists accepting help from the Empire? I realize the Empire would funnel weapons and funds to any force with a chance of upsetting the planetary government, but wasn't the entire reason for the uprising in the first place because the separatists didn't approve of the Republic making a treaty with the Empire? I know "the enemy of my enemy" and all that, but seriously, why would the separatists accept help from the people they hated enough to start a war over?
 * A lot of different reasons, most of which are not mutually exclusive. For one accepting aid now doesn't mean they can't turn on the Empire later, when they are more self sufficient. For another... the separatist movement is a fairly crappy organisation full of brainwashed soldiers and press ganged kids, it would be really easy for the Empire to place operatives into their command structure. Depending on how cynical you want to be they whole 'Fight the power' think might just be a cool recruiting slogan for what is secretly just an outright tool of the Empire.
 * Also, I don't think anger at the republic is the only reason for the Civil War - other reasons include justifiable anger at the horribly corrupt planetary government, and some people might see the order of the Empire as preferable to that.
 * The original Havoc Squad's defection to the Empire in the Trooper's storyline. I understand why Tavus and his men are angry at the Republic for basically throwing them off the bus and leaving them to die after one of their covert-ops gone bad, but of all the choices that they have for revenge against the Republic, why in the name of the Force did they defect to the Empire? Especially since the Imperial culture not only permits, but actively encourage people to betray, backstab, and pot behind the back of each other. Also, when it comes down to it, all non-force sensitives are viewed as nothing but expandable pawns foe the Sith in the end, the very thing that Tavus resented about the Republic in the first place. And it isn't like that they are fooled by Imperial propaganda either, since they have seen how things work in the Empire first-hand when they fought on the front lines. It just makes much more sense if they become pirates and attack Republic shipping or something like that.
 * I think it's more the idea that while the Republic views its military as a nessecary evil, the Imperial Military is a very viable way to advance one's self in Imperial Culture. Soldiers, war heroes and the like are actively respected and lauded as Imperial Cultural Heroes. Furthermore, the Empire comes across to most as a lot more of a meritocracy than the Republic, where incompetence and corruption reign supreme.
 * Don't confuse Sith culture with Imperial culture. The Sith are permitted and expected to struggle within themselves for power and use non-Sith as expendable pawns, but the normals and Badass Normals who actually run the day to day business of the Empire can certainly understand what it's like to be treated like a Red Shirt. There's something to be said for the relative honesty of the Empire compared to the Republic, which does things just as horrible as the Empire but tries to pretend it's the good side.
 * Ok, maybe this is something that was explained in one of the Expanded Universe books or in the codex or something, but the over use of Carbonite in this game just gets to me. It's one of the Bounty Hunters main tools, and a particularly egregious use of it in one of the side quests on Taris just pushed it over the line for me. Do people not remember that when they froze Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back, they had NO IDEA if he would survive the process or not? It was kinda just them utilizing a resource they had available on location as a make shift way to trap Luke to gift wrap him for the Empire, and they were just testing it out on Solo to see if that was even an option. But apparently 4000 years ago people were freezing dudes down in Carbonite left and right. Did they just lose all records of that between then and the original trilogy? How come no one went "Dude, Vader, we don't need to test this thing out, we know for a fact it will and has worked." Just rips open massive plot holes whenever Carbonite is used pre-Empire, but this game just over uses it to the point where just relying on Rule of convenience doesn't cut it anymore.
 * IIRC, the doubts about freezing Han in ESB were because the facilities were not built for freezing humanoids. They needed to check the calibration is all.
 * Carbon freezing living beings for sublight travel has been practiced since pre-Republic times, tens of thousands of years by the time of this game. That fact's only mentioned in a few EU references, though. This is why Leia already knew Han would be suffering from hibernation sickness when he's thawed.
 * The Expanded Universe does this in other instances, as well. Another example is the Egregious overuse of the word "Cantina" as though it were a Star Wars-y word for a bar instead of a word for a bar appropriate for desert areas only.