Lit Legacy & TOR vs. the movies

I thought the biggest critiques of swtor were how it has a ftp/pay-to-play segregation that only serves to exploit customers, especially since it barely releases new content ever. It also rips off a bunch of gameplay elements from wow shamelessly, even the dancing animations, etc.

I agree that some of the swtor storylines are epic. The Inquisitor story I found amazing although I like the Empire's stories more than the Republic's by far. There are parts that are unoriginal and afraid to take risks when compared to Star Wars canon (Mainly that most the prominent Jedi and Sith are human instead of alien species.) However, I think the entire EU is guilty of this instead of just swtor.

 

World of Warcraft also rips off Dungeons and Dragons. That's a bit like saying it's horrifically wrong for someone to use Alan Moore's characters after the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

For me, the biggest problem with The Old Republic is it feels like a single player RPG and it would have probably been better to have Bioware release it as "Knights of the Old Republic 1-6, Old Republic: Trooper, and Bounty Hunter" with a massive tacked on Multiplayer world.

Like Defiance.

Everyone would have been happier and it would have made them more money.

 

Jolee: "Look, everybody always figures the time they live in is the most epic, most important age to end all ages. But tyrants and heroes rise and fall, and historians sort out the pieces."
Revan: "Are you saying what we're doing isn't important?"
Jolee: "Malak is a tyrant who should be stopped. If he conquers the galaxy, we're in for a couple of rough centuries. Eventually it'll come around again, but I'd rather not wait that long. So we do what we have to do and we try to stop the Sith. But don't start thinking this war, your war, is more important than any other war just because you're in it."

I haven't read Legacy (although hopefully I will soon) so I can't comment on it. TOR, otoh, I really love. It introduces us to a whole new galactic era brimming with stories, and it has enough familiarity to have mass-market appeal, but with enough nods to KOTOR to satisfy fans of those games.

As for 'ripping off the movies' in the visual design - I actually like this, as I feel it enhances Palpatine. It seems that, in-universe, Palpatine now based the structure of his Empire off that of Vitiate's (as it was the most successful Sith Empire prior to his own). Furthermore, he did so to thunderous applause. Palpatine turned the Republic into its ancient enemy by popular vote.

THAT, my friends, is a Sith Lord.

 

I don't like TOR because it missed the awesome opportunity to give the Imperial Sith Russian accents -- there's even a cold war!!! -- and instead gave them Core accents.

 

Personally, I really want to see the Imperial designs stay with the Empire and not see a load of quick knock-off imitations cropping up millennia before! That's what irks about TOR. In contrast the idea, in Legacy, that having not been exterminated by a vengeful New Republic a century earlier, that the Empire would continue to develop those designs was perfectly logical.

As to Legacy's effect on the character's sense of legacy, I have a fairly simple take on it:

First, the galaxy had a legacy from Luke, Han and Leia and, in the style of the world's most bratty teenager, it threw it away in a binge of booze, hookers and drugs and then bitched about not having anything. Then along came Uncle Krayt and he's got presents!

Second, the books from DN onwards have done a far more systematic destruction of any sense of a legacy for Luke, Han and Leia than anything the Legacy comics did. If anything Ostrander and Duursema were guilty of being too respectful and professional towards their DR collaborators, who they may have expected to have been more careful than they were. Their respect was repaid with numerous wrecking balls.

Legacy isn't flawless - it suffers from too much focus on Cade at the expense of other, more interesting characters. It's large cast is utterly unsuited to the US comic format of 20-22 pages a month. Its ambition is boundless but exceeds its grasp.

Yet, part of that ambition is only being realised now, in that the first run of Legacy was clearly intended as just that, there would be successor creative teams to pick up the baton - that's how the big superhero books have racked up hundreds of issues - why shouldn't SW seek to do the same?

I do think that in creating Cade though, John and Jan pulled off a masterpiece because, beneath the being high as a kite on death sticks, beneath the broken pieces, Cade has a very legitimate critique of the GFFA: Why be a hero for a galaxy that despises you? Looking at the continuity, as it is, the galaxy pretty much does wreck Luke Skywalker to the point where he reaches burn-out. Why should Cade desire that? Should he do it because being a Jedi is the "family business"? But if so, what of the freedom that the Rebellion fought for over a century before? Must a Force-user only be able to be Sith or Jedi? Is that really all there is? Cade is an exasperating and, at times, infuriating lead - he relapses often, it's 1 step forward, 2 back - until the end when he has his final break through and confrontation with Krayt and the dark side. It's the height of cynicism to say he immediately relapses after The End panel.

What I liked about Legacy is that it threw open the doors of possibility - only DR could have seen what Legacy did, decades down the line as being restrictive. If you really think that nothing can happen in 70-80 years, then there's nothing further to say - you're as wrong as can be and have dismissed an entire lifetime. New ship designs, new characters and a healthy mix of Force and non-Force using characters and another masterstroke in the attempted atonement of the Vong, backed by the GA and the Jedi and sabotaged by the Sith. Legacy actually dared to posit that the government would be effective and moral and be working with the Jedi, it now seems even more radical a proposition than 9 years ago! The GA in Legacy's backstory is everything the Rebellion fought to restore - a democratric and principled government. It even fights and loses the Sith-Imperial War due to staying true to its principles - had they handed over the Vong to a vengeful Empire and its supporters, the Sith would have been sunk, but of course, their calculation that the GA and Jedi would neither do that or betray the other proved accurate. And the Jedi backing of the Vong to the hilt is a very moral move embodying the Jedi ideal of forgiveness and rehabilitation, again, given what's happened since that's more radical now than it was.

Also the galaxy, at the end of the Legacy is in a better comparative position than either ROTJ or TUF - in the latter there's 365 trillion dead and thousands of worlds destroyed and but 50 Jedi. At the end of ROTJ, there's no government, the galaxy's in chaos, there's 1 Jedi and that's it. Legacy? The GA is resurgent, there's likely more than 50 Jedi, a handful have been poisoned before Vul Isen got killed by Cade and Krayt's kill-everything-to-see-if-the-dark-side-revives-it plan is toast. Legacy II will likely only build on this considerably-less-than complete cataclysm.

And then there's Luke Skywalker, Force Ghost Jedi Master. My own personal theory is that Luke and Krayt were playing a game with the other. Krayt gambled by waiting until Luke was gone, then crippling Cade Skywalker, who he foresaw as the biggest threat to him that victory would be his. That Skywalker would intervene from the afterlife to coax his broken descendant back onto the path he needed to walk to defeat Krayt in the right manner and fashion was a blinder of a move. Luke gets rejected by Cade numerous times, yet enough goes in that Cade is able to choose to avoid sleep-walking into a dark side abyss, he sidesteps that most potent lure of thinking he must do this alone, he reconciles with those he pushed away, he comes to accept that he isn't beyond being healed and that he can be the Jedi he deemed an impossibility. Luke's role in that is key, Cade couldn't have done it himself, he was to broken.

Finally, what I liked most about Legacy is the agendas and motivations of the characters. I didn't agree with all of them, some acted morons and paid for it, but it did a great job of conveying this. I always knew at least why a character was acting as they were and it had a sense of logic to it I hadn't gotten from other works.

As to the movies, it was one of the first EU stories, along with KOTOR, to really mine all 6 films. Instead of doing what others had done and focus on the PT, it instead drew from both OT and PT to make something new yet recognisably SW. Nor does it have any real impact on the films unless you think ' balance of the Force' means eradicating evil for all time, which it can't do because that'd annihilate free will with it.

 

Extremely well spoken, Jedi Ben.

The irony is that I actually LIKE Cade Skywalker and DISLIKE what he represents. This is a confusing thing but I didn't really GROK my feelings in a manner which could be put into words until I ran a Star Wars: Legacy tabletop game where Cade Skywalker showed up in our game. It was quite surreal running a character I initially loathed and discovering, once Cade was NOT the hero of the piece, how much I enjoyed him.

I like everything about Cade Skywalker that is an emancipation of himself from the Legacy of Luke Skywalker and Anakin both. He is is his own man and I think of him as the character who everyone wanted from Ben Skywalker. The guy who doesn't have the Force who goes on to do his own thing. Except, that's stupid because it would be GOD saying you can't be a Jedi. Cade Skywalker is the character who has the Force but CHOOSES not to be a Jedi. It's like Mozart's son not being a composer even if he somehow inherited the potential. They're his gifts and he can use them as he wants.

Unfortunately, the message that Cade Skywalker represents is ruined by the narrative. Cade Skywalker is not allowed to be emancipated from the Skywalker bloodline. He is forced, quite literally at lightsaber point, to be the hero of the SAGA even if he doesn't want to be. This isn't handled like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant where there's a certain irony to the whole proceeding. No, it's played dead straight that Star Wars cannot exist without a Skywalker or Skywalker substitute hero. The Jedi are useless, Gar Stazi's cause is doomed, and Roan Fel is a madman.

Cade Skywalker is like Grant Morrison's Animal Man in that he's trapped in the monomyth of the Heroes Journey whether he likes it or not. The Force is malevolent here as it forces Cade into a mold that he has tried to escape like AM from I have no mouth and must scream. I support Cade Skywalker going back to bounty hunting because it is a blow for freedom and self-determination. Cade is manifestly unsuited for being a Jedi Knight. But, more than that, it is his right to say no to the Skywalker legacy and live his own life. The fact that the rest of the universe chooses to reject this is NOT Cade Skywalker's problem.

The destruction of the Skywalker-Solo legacy is manifested not in Cade Skywalker's choice of being a violent antihero and lech. More power to him. He could be the star of "Grand Theft Starship" or "Jedi Row." No, the destruction of the Skywalker-Solo legacy is the pathetic response from the rest of the universe to Cade Skywalker's refusal to play the hero. Without King Arthur, they are confused and pathetic. Gar Stazi is, IMHO, so popular because he seems to be the only man willing to go off script. He's going to continue to fight the Sith even if the Dark Side cannot be defeated by Muggles alone.

We really needed a Neville Longbottom for Cade Skywalker. A guy who, if the Boy Who Lived wouldn't step up to the plate, was willing to take up the sword and strike off the head of Darth Voldemort. That, for me, would have been a message I could get behind. That if Cade Skywalker isn't the Chosen One of this era, the Force will find another one. It's more or less the heart of "Star Wars: The Old Republic" in many respects as the gameplay hints that the characters are all destined for certain things but you can and will defy them.

The Sith Warrior is the Emperor's Wrath and Darth Vader replacement for Scourge's Darth Maul. The Sith Warrior can, instead, embrace the power of the Light.

The Sith Inquisitor is meant to be the Dark Councillor of Dark Side Wisdom. They can choose, instead, to seek a way to kill the Emperor forever so the Sith Empire can be redeemed.

The Jedi Knight can serve the power the Dark Side. Ignoring his destiny and joining the Sith.

Kira, his companion, was meant to be the Emperor's host body. She is redeemed by the power of love.

Hell, in the Prequels, Anakin was meant to destroy the Sith not join them. Humans have control over their destiny in Star Wars.

That's what makes it awesome.

Cade is denied that right and it's tragic. Because it not only demeans him, it demeans every other sapient in the galaxy that if a Skywalker didn't take up the torch of freedom....no one did.

 

I hope it turns out that Ania Solo could have taken up that baton in absentia of Cade - it'd be a nice touch. OTOH, it'd be cool seeing a Horn or Durron (or Katarn!) in that position as well.

 

My fanfic fanficiest idea would have been to have a Kyp Durron or Kyle Katarn-esque Jedi who was Cade's rival on Ossus.

Someone people constantly overlooked because of Cade and had personal issues.

And who was trying to be a big hero while the other Jedi dithered but failed. Mostly because no one would rally behind Bail Antilles/John Smith versus a Skywalker.

Then they'd partner up because he's a big enough man to admit he doesn't care about the fame, just saving the galaxy.

 

Not really though. The bad guys had vaguely triangular ships and the Jedi wore bathrobes, that's about it. The general aesthetic was a lot closer to the movies than to TOTJ, but there's a difference between being visually consistent outright stealing. KOTOR ripped off the OT's structure and character archetypes a lot more heavily than its visual designs.

Yeah not really buying it. KOTOR was a huge success despite having only superficial similarities to the movies (the enemy foot soldiers wear armor and people in the navy wear uniforms, what a ripoff!). If they were so worried that the audience they were marketing to wouldn't understand they were playing a Star Wars game unless they imported designs wholesale from other eras, maybe they should have just scrapped the MMO idea and done another single-player RPG. But I guess they wouldn't be able to milk that as long or from as many people.

Pretty sure they advertised TOR as being KOTOR 3-16 or some ridiculous marketing hyperbole so idk why people shouldn't be upset that they were given a completely different story in place of the conclusion to the story they were already invested in.

Nah it's just kind of lazy and uninspired. Hey Palpatine come up with something new!

But if they didn't sound British no one would understand that they're the bad guys.

 

Of course, it could simply be that triangle space cruisers are a common ship design.

 

The market that allowed for KOTOR to be a runaway success no longer exists! The gaming industry has changed and the money in directly plotted strictly controlled RPGs isn't there anymore. They are expensive to make, have low returns, and are highly vulnerable. The only company still doing this outside of Japan is Betheseda, and their RPGs are open world. KOTOR II, despite it's supposed success, is a game missing around 25% of the content it was supposed to have, in ways that are shockingly obvious.

Would a single player RPG have had higher potential for Star Wars storytelling? Yes, it almost certainly would have. Did the circumstances allowing that single-player RPG to exist occur? No, they absolutely did not. TOR needs to be critiqued as what it is, an MMORPG, not in comparison to a hypothetical SRPG that was never going to be made.

By the way, there are advantages to the MMO format: TOR adds a far greater quantity of background content (characters, weapons, vehicles, animals, etc.) to the universe than any SRPG ever could have, and that is a great thing. Yes some of those designs - for battlecruisers and heavily armored soldiers - are highly derivative, but much of the material is quite original. Details on the Hutts, weird creations like Voss and the Esh-kha, a droid rebellion, that's all good stuff a smaller game wouldn't have contained.

 

Nah, they'd still be bad guys, just not cool bad guys - for that, you need Brit accents!

Charles,

Yeah, the willingness of the universe to opt for:

We need a Skywalker!
We haven't got one?
He DOESN'T want the job? Why not? Pay's lousy, 0% appreciation and infinite hours - what could be more attractive?
WE'RE DOOMED! LET'S DIE NOW!

Irks greatly and yeah, it is likely one of the reasons I like Stasi so much, his attitude is: Don't care, we'll fight until we die or win and he gets a whole load of people to follow him on that basis!

The other reason it irritates is there was a load of characters who could do the job in Cade's absence - may be not taking out Krayt, but everything else is surely up for grabs? Why couldn't we see more of Wolf and Shado kicking arse? Pergaps alongside Treis Sinde? The side stories where we saw fleet action and the minor characters were often utterly superb and it's a shame there were so few of them!

 

As much as I like the Big 3 generation and I like them a lot I was excited to move on to the future and new characters. Props to them for having the guts to move on from Luke and Company.
Rebellion against the Empire. That is Star Wars to me. Jedi and Sith are still important (and are more prominent in this war than in the OT) but there are other groups. Imperial Knights, A Sith Empire, A Fel Empire, Galactic Alliance Remnant, Smugglers, Criminals, Starfighter pilots etc. K'Khruk and Tra Saa were terrible choices to put into the Jedi Order. A New Jedi Order should be new Jedi and not Jedi from before the Purges. Krayt OTOH makes some sense since he fell to the Dark Side from the end of the Clone Wars. A consequence from the war.
Legacy was far more different from the OT than LOTF was from the PT. That was terrible.

 

My own personal opinion on TOR is, sure the designs are based on the movies to bring more casual fans in. But even if the designs are blatantly ripped off straight from the movies, they still make the designs work. For example, even the trooper helmets that look most like the clone helmets from AOTC have distinct differences; i.e. wires running across the back of the helmet and a breath mask on the chin area. See:





And the ones that look more like the Phase II troopers have even more distinct differences from the actual clone armors:







To me, this just means a minor retcon. It was always said that clone trooper armor was based on Mandalorian shock trooper armor. So, it still was, but modify it a bit. The external part of the armor was designed after the ancient troopers who fought in the Old Republic; the thinner visor and the helmet's internal systems are based off of Mandalorian armor. Now, as to Malgus...I have no excuse. He's a crossover between Malak and Vader and it's very apparent. The only thing I can think up is that, maybe, Sidious based Vader's armor off Malgus'. Or something.

As to Legacy, I've never really gotten into those comics like I did into KOTOR, but I couldn't stand Cade Skywalker until, like, the final issue of War. I wasn't a big fan of the era, either; the Sith were all different aliens with Maul tattoos (meaning the only Sith I actually liked were Krayt and Nihl), the Jedi were nearly destroyed again, and so on. The only issue of Legacy I absolutely loved was the one about Hondo Karr and the Mandalorians. Go figure.

 

^ This.

Eradicating evil for all time doesn't sound like something even remotely possible, and it certainly doesn't fit any kind of legitimate meaning of the term balance.

 

Even if you like something, it is easier and more fun to discuss its flaws than its strengths - mentioning what it did right often comes off as redundant fanboyism.


Anyway, I think the reason most would give is that Legacy is closer to the OT, so it makes more sense that there would be similar designs and plots.


....Though personally, I do prefer swtor over legacy myself, as *is skinned by angry mob*

 

I'm not sure how you can look at Legacy and come to that conclusion.

To me Star Wars needs a few things that help to make it Star Wars. It needs Jedi, it needs Sith, it needs the Empire. There is more but I'll cut it off there, at least for now.

The biggest strength of Legacy is that it gets what Star Wars in suppose to be about on a lot of levels. In terms of fans Star Wars has a very diverse landscape. Some like Jedi, some just like Skywalkers, some like Sith, some like Rogue Squadron, some like Mandalorians, some like the scoundrel types, some like Stormtroopers - and in that way I can see why it may look like the films on a very basic level. But that is very deceptive.

You can't write a story about James Bond without 007, without Britain, without it being about spies, so on. Well maybe you could.........but you shouldn't.

Not to say that Star Wars can't be about other things because you can have great stories tightly focused on on just one or two of the aspects I mention above. But as a whole, particularly something with the scope of Legacy, needs to have all those things.

Yes, the Sith attack the Jedi and take over the Republic(or Galactic Alliance) and a Skywalker defeats the Sith leader in the end. But the Sith do this by using the Empire, which causing an immediate splinter that leaves the galaxy with two Empires and two Emperors, plus the Alliance Remnant and the sections of space loyal to them.

Even in its most pure form it doesn't match the plot of the films. Granted the changes are familiar, because they are central to Star Wars thematically, but that doesn't make it a recycled plot.

The Empire, aided by the Sith, conquer the Galactic Alliance by force and retake Coruscant. They then are betrayed by the Sith who take control of a large portion of the Empire, but with Roan Fel escaping it creates a massive schism in the Empire itself. That leaves us with the two most powerful groups in the galaxy both having ties to the Empire. Then we have the GA Remnant as the third wheel in the conflict.

Add in all the different twists, like the Jedi not being destroyed and Imperial Jedi(presumably formed from those of the Skywalker bloodline) and you really get a very different plot than we have ever seen before. Familiar themes and characters, yes, but not a recycled plot.

 

I disagree with this.

WOW has cemented it's popularity in it's genre. (So has Dungeon and Dragons). Swtor has not. Why buy a game unwilling to be creative when you can just play WOW for the same price, and they release more content? There is a difference between being 'inspired by something and paying something tribute, and just trying to profit off a popular formula that another company has already cornered the market in.

Even I have to admit the only reason I started swtor was because of the 'Star Wars' label slapped on it, not because of I heard of its quality as an mmo.

 

I thought Warcraft ripped off Warhammer.

 

I look at Legacy and see an Empire ascendant, Sith triumphant, and the Jedi defeated and the Skywalkers at the center of it a century after an Empire was ascendant, Sith triumphant, and the Jedi defeated with the Skywalkers at the center. I concede that Legacy is not point-for-point derivative of the films but I don't think something has to be on every level to still be considered derivative.

Beyond that, it seems we have entirely different standards for what constitutes Star Wars. To me, Star Wars is about good and evil; it doesn't have to be Jedi vs. Sith, Republics vs. Empires, etc. All we need is a hero and a villain and an entertaining conflict that links the two. Star Wars obviously makes use of recurring archetypes and themes but I don't think it has to follow the same plot template to be Star Wars.

In my opinion, what Legacy did was diminish the events of the films even though its creative masterminds assured the readers that they intended to take every precaution not to do so. (Which only enhances the offense, in my opinion.)

For me, all it did was waste a genuine opportunity and inadvertently affirm what we already know: the films are vastly more important precisely because things like Legacy and TOR rip them off so shamelessly. When you can't (or rather, elect not to) escape the shadow of that which came before, all you do is reinforce that it's greater than you are.


I'm pretty critical of that which undermines the movies and the movie-era. I think you can tell new, interesting stories about Jedi, Sith, heroism and villainy without trying to "one-up" Luke, Sidious, Vader, etc.

 

The problem with TOR is that it could have been so much more but it's choices limit it and it's future.

As previously mentioned the Trooper Armor is basically Mandalorian and the story has minor references and even a chance to join at one point.

By doing it that way it makes the Trooper look cooler and allows a few nods to the Mandalorian's but it also makes it more difficult to ever add Mandalorian's to the game in the future.

The Imperial Guard looks just like the movies Imperial Guard which was partially based off the Sun Guard who were active around the same time. We could have had an interesting new faction either working for the Sith as guards or working against the Sith and being so effective that the Sith remember them and use them in the future or something in between. We could have perhaps had rivalries between the Echani, Sun Guard, Mandalorian's, and Iridonian's.

Most of TOR is like that it has good parts but pretty much everything could easily have been better. It's difficult to respect many of the other characters when they are so weak or they never demonstrate any power or intelligence. It's fun being the hero but at times looking back much of the plot can feel stupid. As an agent I destroyed a group that wants to reduce/destroy the power of force users in the galaxy. But, does my agent have any interest in actually doing so? I'm screwed over or betrayed by Sith over and over and the Jedi I meet aren't any better.

Legacy: I believe falls to personal preference if you like it or not parts were new and parts weren't. It is disappointing in a way that the galaxy fell apart so fast but in other ways it is to be expected at least based on recent books. The old guard was saving everything rather than having new hero's step up. In the end the old hero's die and the galaxy is bound to fall. I liked Roan Fel and Morrigan Corde but I really hated Cade, Stazi, and Darth Krayt's Sith Trooper but I'm sure plenty of people like the reverse.

 

The Old Republic is guilty of the same, particularly with respect to the Sith empire and Vitiate. In TVTropes terms, the Big Bad is a Chessmaster Complete Monster Magnificent Bastard Evil Sorcerer probable Humanoid Abomination Badass Longrobe obsessed with eternal life who rules an empire. He's a one-dimensional expy of Sidious from methods to goals to kriffin' fashion sense. To say nothing of Emperor's Hands, Imperial Guard, etc.

 

Sable,

Do you really think that any EU story that actually tried to be more important or better than the films could really ever succeed? I'd see it getting shot down on flames, or carpet-bombed before it ever got into flight!

To look at the EU in terms of diminishing the films, for me, assumes they can be diminished - I don't think that's the case.

I think for a lot of people there's a basic hierarchy of films then EU, why? Because what's the EU an expansion of in the first place? The films. That's where we all start from be it PT, OT or, in years to come, ST. I'd see this as applying to those who've contributed to the EU with various stories too, I'm reasonably certain the one common strand to all of them is that they were SW fans first, EU contributors later.

 

In my opinion, that's exactly what both Legacy and TOR have attempted to do. It just reeks of gratuitous gamesmanship. I'd much prefer that people take existing archetypes and elements and use them in such a way that doesn't belittle the films.

KOTOR is actually a great example of that; many elements pay homage to the films without actually trying to outdo them. Malak is without question inspired by Vader, but he's much more like Tarkin in terms of wanton cruelty; Revan is an expy of Thrawn and Anakin but is neither an infallible strategist (the entire game's premise exists due to Revan's enormously inept miscalculation of the Jedi's resourcefulness and Malak's loyalty) nor a prophesied demi-god; the Star Forge is an obligatory superweapon but one with vastly different function. In some ways, it has more tactical use than the Death Star in that it creates a nigh-infinite supply of ships, but we also know the Death Star was vastly superior in terms of firepower and as a terror weapon.

Viola, homages are made and tributes are paid and a great story is crafted without Palpatine, Thrawn, Anakin, Vader, Tarkin, the Republic, the Empire, etc. being belittled or "outdone."

 

Well said, and I completely agree. For all the flak Cade gets for being a junkie and running away from the Jedi Path, I think he had one of the best character arcs we've seen in recent years, and certainly broke the mold in terms of what we expected a Skywalker to be like.