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haledamage · 3 years

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"you deserve good things." for whoever strikes your fancy ;D

I realized after I finished this that I don’t actually know if you’ve played Neverwinter Nights 2 before 😅 but it’s written now, so here you go! if you haven’t played NWN2, you should, this game is for me what KOTOR is for you 💖

Etain/Casavir, mutual pining my beloved, sometime in the early days in Crossroads Keep, spoiler-free except for one very vague reference to in-game events

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Etain found Casavir right where she expected to, in one of the rooms that hadn’t yet been furnished enough to see much use beyond one paladin seeking solitude. This one was fully constructed, at least, and had a fire crackling merrily in the hearth, though it wasn’t quite enough to chase away the chill that seemed to radiate from the very stones of Crossroads Keep.

There was a pile of old furniture against the wall opposite the hearth, some of it little more than splintered wood while others seemed to be fine except for a bit of threadbare upholstery and a lot of dust. Casavir had managed to find a few chairs that were in working condition, and had saved them from their fate as firewood. One of them had been repurposed into a table, holding a well-loved book and a steaming mug, while he sat in another one with a piece of his armor in his lap, meticulously repairing a ripped seam. The rest of his armor lay in a neat pile next to him, his sword and shield propped against the wall next to the fireplace - within reach, as always, just in case.

A third chair sat across from him, empty and inviting. Etain took its presence as offer enough, and slid into it cautiously in case it couldn’t support her weight. It creaked loudly before settling, announcing her arrival with more fanfare than she would have preferred.

Casavir looked up from his sewing, the warmth that bloomed in his pale eyes as they met hers doing more to dispel the cold than the roaring fire. He bowed his head to her, as formal and solemn as always. “Good evening, my lady.”

“Hey.” She flushed at her own comparative lack of decorum, and added a mumbled, “I mean, good evenin’.” He chuckled quietly, the sound clearly intended to be kind rather than mocking, though it also made her blush darker.

“Is there something you need of me?” His voice wasn’t quite hesitant, but it was the closest to it she’d ever heard. While his face betrayed nothing - it rarely did - he tensed, sitting up straighter in his chair. He looked like he was about to reach for his sword, as if he expected trouble; she was starting to realize that he always expected trouble.

In his defense, trouble did tend to find them - and her in particular - more often than could be explained away as coincidence.

“Relax. There’s no emergency or anythin’. I just, um…” Etain bit her lip nervously, digging around in her pocket until she found the little cloth bundle she had hidden in there.

“You what?” he asked patiently. He set his sewing down on the floor next to him and relaxed back into his chair, slowly untensing.

“I have a gift for you,” she said in a rush, thrusting the bundle at him. He took it much more delicately than she had presented it. “A little bird may’ve told me that your morn day was a few days ago. I wanted to get you somethin’.”

The ‘little bird’ had been Katriona, but truly his birthday was just a convenient excuse. She'd bought the gift weeks ago - not that she would tell him that.

Casavir ran his fingers over the soft green cloth square as if trying to map the shape of the item within it before unwrapping it. The corner of his mouth rose with the beginning of a smile, though he didn’t let it fully bloom. “It was kind of you to think of me, my lady, but you did not need to trouble yourself on my account.”

“It’s no trouble. Really.” She laughed as he still made no move to open the gift, and nudged the toe of his boot with her own. “C’mon, open it.”

He studied the cloth for another long moment before carefully unfolding it. In it was a bronze cloak pin about the size of his palm, simple but well-made and shaped like a sword and shield. On the shield was a crescent moon, curved like a bow and crossed by an arrow - the symbol that had been chosen as Etain’s heraldry when she’d been knighted.

His old cloak pin, a dented and battered shield bearing Tyr’s scales, had been his gift to her before her trial, a token of his faith in her that had helped her through one of the darkest nights of her life. But that had been over a month ago, and he hadn’t gotten a new one yet; he’d been using an unadorned one since. It was only appropriate that she replace it, since she’d taken his old one.

Part of her felt like it was arrogant to give Casavir a pin with her own mark on it, but she knew his bond with Tyr was a complicated thing, and his relationship with Neverwinter was tenuous at best, so they were both out of the question. He’d cut so many ties that, when you took those two away, all he had left was… this. This room, this half-ruined keep, and its Harborman commander.

“It’s lovely,” he said eventually, oddly subdued. He traced the crescent on the shield with his forefinger. “I do not deserve--”

He moved like he was about to try and hand it back, and one of her hands shot forward to stop him. He froze as soon as her skin touched his. “Yes, you do. You deserve good things, Casavir. In all the months we’ve known each other, you’ve never asked me for anything.” Sure that he wasn’t going to try and give her gift back, Etain loosened her grip on his hand, though she didn’t pull away completely. “When’s the last time you let yourself want somethin’?”

“What I want…” His hand unfurled under hers, the rough pads of his fingers brushing light as spring rain over her palm before coming to rest at the inside of her wrist, where her pulse raced at a hummingbird pace. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, a small catch in his normally smooth, deep voice. “What I want is irrelevant.”

“Not to me.”

He met her eyes again, and he looked at her in a way no one ever had before. The normally wintery blue of his eyes turned as warm and intense as a summer storm, and made her feel the same way, powerful and wild.

The smile Casavir had been holding back finally settled on his lips, small but real. “Etain…”

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway. “Knight-Captain.”

Etain jumped back, her face burning as she realized how far she’d leaned toward him. She turned toward the door, relaxing a little to find it was only Kana. As far as she knew, her right-hand woman wasn’t much for gossip, so there was a small chance that they might be spared from the rumor mill for at least a little longer.

“I apologize for interrupting.” Kana seemed to mean it, though if she had any opinion beyond that she kept it close to the chest. “A group arrived at the gates, and the leader is requesting an audience. He says he knows you.”

“Of course he does,” she muttered sourly, then louder she added, “Thank you, Kana. I’ll be right there.” She saluted and left without another word, and Etain turned back to Casavir and his poorly concealed amusement. “I guess duty calls.”

“It always does,” he said, a hint of either sadness or disappointment behind his voice. He rose to stand, his movements stiff from the unhold hours he probably spent in that chair before she disturbed him. But when he bowed and offered her a hand, the motion was as graceful as ever. “May I accompany you?”

“Are you sure?” Despite the uncertainty in her voice, she still took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “You were in the middle of somethin’ when I came in.”

Casavir tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “It can wait.”

Arm in arm, they left the room to go see what trouble had come to find them this time.

#etain torren #casavir #etain/casavir #neverwinter nights 2 #nwn2 #these two were the og for me. the first ship I ever wrote fic for like 15 years ago #all my love of stoic men and mutual pining and slow burns stems from them #though I was too shy to ever share any of it then #this is the first nwn piece I’ve ever written that has been seen by anyone but me!#better late than never :D

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sith-shenanigans · 3 years

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I would love that half-fix! My biggest gripe with KOTOR 2 is that the alignment system weighs politeness the same as wanton murder, which is incredibly immersion-breaking and makes it impossible to play a believable DS character. A dropbox would work great of course, but I'd also suggest maybe putting it on Deadlystream or Nexusmods, I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in it.

Oh, incredibly same, it drives me up an absolute wall. And I do intend to put the mod up eventually, when I’ve sorted out the 3-4 variants I want to set up—I just haven’t had the brain to hack up more intensities. (I’m going to try to put up a variant for “always treated as somewhat light for alignment gain purposes, unless you’re already very light” and a variant for “always treated as very light for alignment gain purposes,” and when I figure out how to modify the lowest point gains properly I’m going to add a sub-variant of each of those for that fix.)

The problem is that you can’t earn fewer than the lowest number of points, so those options currently give you as many light points as they always do—this mod just means larger light side decisions should give you fewer points, and larger dark side decisions should give you more.

Here it is, and let me know if you have any trouble!

Edit: I accidentally uploaded without a necessary file. Please use this link instead: https://href.li/?https://www.dropbox.com/s/wby2160rw7idjto/K2%2520alignment%2520mod.zip?dl=0

#i just cannot put it up when it doesn't have the function i most wanted from it #which was controlling all those kriffing minor light gains #asks

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azems-familiar · 3 years

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2, 4, 19, 39 for that pairing ask thing, for revan/alek/bastila of course

2) how’s their team work? do they share well?

so this Really depends on what era/verse of the gang but in 90% of them Alek and Bastila have this Silent Petty Rivalry going on for ages while Revan is utterly oblivious because holy shit Two Whole People. Revan is not smart. given that i write them as a V (haaard headcanon Bastila as a lesbian), Alek and Bastila utterly refuse to admit they’re friends for ages - oh my god the rivalry in the hp au is especially hilarious - but they Band Together the moment anyone threatens Revan. there are petty contests over who gets to get the closest seat next to Revan and many other things, it’s objectively hilarious, especially since they’re all completely awful at communication.

they do eventually get their shit together though and end up a good, solid team. there are a lot of things Revan shares with Alek that Bastila just can’t in the end understand, especially related to the war in my canon verse (i could give you a whole other set of paragraphs about them in the hp au ask me on discord if you really want that ramble), but post Star Forge there’s also a lot that Revan can only really talk to Bastila about - re the Council, the mind wipe, and Bastila understands the fall and return a lot better given that Revan post-Reveal went a little off the deep end into the Dark Side before realizing that oh, she doesn’t actually Want That. so they manage to find their footing and a good dynamic because Alek and Bastila both love Revan a lot and so are able to put aside their differences for her. (although there’s a whole lot to work through immediately post-SF re Bastila’s whole. imprisonment. which is a bit of a mess. but that’s another subject i’m rambling OOPS)

4. first impression of each other? was it love at first sight?

Revan and Alek met in the creche when Revan was five and Alek six. they Instantly Bonded. Alek’s realization of oh shit i’m in love happened the night they were knighted - Revan was nineteen and Alek twenty, and look he knew he’d had feelings but he’d been trying to avoid them, but then they went out and stole a speeder together and took it for a joyride and Revan was laughing into the wind and oh. oh no. then he spent four YEARS suffering in silence because she was too stupid and oblivious to pick up on it or realize her Own feelings until midway through the first war.

meanwhile, Revan’s first impression of Bastila was her fighting Brejik after the swoop race. Revan watched her and went oh no and Carth, who had previously been rebuffed because “i don’t do romance”, went “yeah i think i’m just not your type”. he was very right.

Bastila on the other hand has had a sort of hero worship crush on Revan since midway through the Mandalorian Wars, when she would hide bootleg holos of Revan’s fights under her mattress and even though she had no idea what Revan actually looked like it was a Whole Thing. meeting Revan as Shala did not help this crush in the slightest.

19) what do they fight about? what are their arguments like? how do they make up?

Actual Arguments are pretty rare; most of the times their fights are about incredibly small, stupid, petty things and they’re just bickering. all three of them bicker with each other as a form of affection. the Real Actual arguments tend to come over things like Revan deciding to abandon a planet to save Alek’s life during the war (because oh Yeah does that come out at some point post-amnesia) or about Revan’s sacrifices in general or about Revan running off to do something incredibly stupid alone because clearly that’s her best plan.

Revan and Alek get extremely sharp and cutting with each other if it’s bad, or they just get snappy in general because Revan is Determined and Alek is equally determined because he’s worried, damn it, Revan, and then Revan storms off and there are shields for like. a few hours. HOURS max. they’re too codependent to be apart longer than that especially with the bond. post SF it’s a bit different but i haven’t quite worked out all the details of their relationship there yet. they generally make up with a lot of silent apology and promises of affection across the bond and a lot of cuddling. Alek is almost always the one who gives in first.

Revan and Bastila’s arguments are a lot more explosive because Bastila also has a temper, they are vaguely less codependent, they tend to say things they’ll regret later and then Revan will go complain to Alek about it and he’ll get very annoyed. (on the Hawk it’s Jolee who plays relationship counselor. he is so tired. s o t i r e d) eventually Revan finds a way to apologize without actually apologizing and generally attempts to like, do something thoughtful or bring Bastila something nice to help. Bastila, who is less ridiculously proud, can actually say the words “i’m sorry” without having an allergic reaction.

Alek and Bastila.... well. they can go for days on end without speaking to each other, while remaining perfectly unified on Revan’s Behalf. is this a healthy dynamic? perhaps not. but when has this triad ever been healthy.

39) who initiated the relationship? who kissed who first? when did they realize they were in love?

oh my god you’re hitting me with ALL the juicy questions today. SO.

i’ve already written a little of this and in the answers above, Alek realized he was in love with Revan on Coruscant when they were both knights, but he and Revan have a Force bond so clearly she Knew and thus if she Felt The Same she’d do something about it, and she never did, so clearly his feelings weren’t reciprocated, so it’s F i n e, clearly, he suffers in silence until a year into the war - i have written this scene! - at which point Revan kisses him while they’re back on Coruscant for her promotion to Supreme Commander. she’s going to figure out that she’s in love with him (as opposed to just loving him) either after Fett injures him on Lantillies or during the whole. Clefar shenanigans, i don’t know the specifics, i haven’t written it yet and i didn’t think they’d get together this early in the war so there’s that. they don’t actually Talk about being in a relationship like, at all, ever, they just don’t talk about this Thing between them, because there’s the war and then there’s Vitiate and then there’s the Sith and then there’s another war and then-

they do end up talking about it post-SF at Bastila’s encouragement because Revan finally gets most of her memories back and is Clearly Moping and Alek is Also Moping. god i’m going to have to write that aren’t i.

with Revan (should i say Shala?) and Bastila, hmm. i’m honestly not so sure on this one in my canon verse? it’ll make itself more clear as i write that fic, but i know that Shala has a hell of a lot of realizations post-Leviathan and i feel like this is one of them. i really want to say their first kiss is in the fucking, submarine thing on Manaan on the way back post-Star Map, because that was a Hellish experience, and then they do things Bastila regrets (except she doesn’t except she does except-) on the Hawk after, and then ofc the Leviathan happens. Bastila definitely kisses Revan first and i think she might realize she’s a little in love on Kashyyyk when Revan does the whole free the Wookiees thing? hmmm i’m going to have to poke at that more.

anyway they have this whole scene at the temple of the ancients which is one of the few things from the kotor fic i have visualized in my head because it’s the moment Revan decides she’s going to choose the Light over the Dark and it’s massively important character-wise and i’m actually super super excited to finally get there so i can write it. post-SF they’re actually dating because they finally have a Sort Of Talk about it.

oh my god this got so long but i’m Not Sorry and i have approximately 30k more words to say on the subject especially related to the HP AU but i will shut up now lol. thank you for the questions!

#revalek #revastila #kotor #long post

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dgcatanisiri · 5 years

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So... Let’s see how this works. We’ll adjust the format as needed if this doesn’t work, but hey, here we go.

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway.

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway.

Our first installment takes a look at Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously, as this game predates the modern DLC model (there was the Yavin market, but that was maybe a grand total of ten minutes tops of content, if we’re generous), so there are some awkwardnesses involved in making DLC for this - if nothing else, when the game ends, it ends, to keep playing, you have to start a new character. On another, there’s the level cap, stopping our leveling up after hitting Level 20. As the game presently exists, that should happen after being locked into the endgame combo of the Unknown World/Star Forge, but adding more content means that cap gets hit sooner.

So understand that we’re assuming that there is the ability to play post-game and a higher level cap, as well as other quality of life style additions (in this case, probably among them are various additions from KOTOR 2, but that’s a subject for another day). I’m also willing to assume that there is content for characters (even if the respective voice actors have passed, retired, or just wouldn’t return), in the same style as modern games. The assumption here is that these DLC ideas would have been written, produced, and published during the active production cycle of the respective games.

As this is the inaugural edition, let me explain the format. There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable (unless it’s part of a hardwired point, like the above mentioned point of no return of travelling to the Unknown World, as an example), and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

And a further note - I reserve the right to come up with more ideas for any given game that I have already written up, naturally. I haven’t decided how I’ll handle that yet, but it’s entirely possible there will later be more ideas.

Okay, housekeeping matters out of the way, let’s get down to business!

The Yavin Excursion

Yavin 4 was the site of Sith Lord Exar Kun’s power base. In understanding more about him and his fall, the Jedi Council believe it may be able to shed light on the fall of Revan and Malak. But the secrets of the Massassi temples hold more than just the ghosts of the past, but a threat for the present...

(Available after Dantooine)

Tack this on to the existing content of the market in orbit of Yavin, I suppose. But the connection to the Tales of the Jedi comic seems like a good starting point here – investigate one Sith Lord to examine the motivations of another, find out why the first guy fell to the dark side, which will hopefully explain why the other guys did.

I see this as both a lore exercise – to offer the players more exploration of this era, considering that the Tales of the Jedi comics have been harder to come by as time as gone on, so allowing some more in depth portrayals of the time – and a chance to kind of approach the question of what drives someone to the dark side. Exar Kun fell by an overwhelming curiosity, Ulic Qel-Droma, his apprentice, fell by a desire for revenge, and later lost his connection to the Force (put a pin in that fact – we’ll be back to that come the DLC for KOTOR 2). Millennia later, Anakin Skywalker falls because of his fear of the loss of those he loves. Two of these people were redeemed, one refused to give up his power.

If anything, this would be a good chance for some foreshadowing of Bastila’s eventual fall (so perhaps this would be locked to before the Leviathan catches the Ebon Hawk), on top of asking the question that later drives KOTOR 2 – what were Revan’s motivations in turning to the dark side? Obviously, this is up in the air from a character perspective (and, honestly, so far as I care, from the player’s too, because I despise the whole “the Sith Emperor warped their minds” BS, and I’m ready and willing to disregard it, even in acknowledging The Old Republic). The first KOTOR never really focuses on the why of Revan’s fall, since Malak is the game’s big bad, and the Revan reveal is a plot twist – since this is DLC, the player would probably be expected to know it going in, so why not explore that, right?

As for what this threat is... I’m a little shakier on this. I’m thinking a Massassi warrior/beast of some kind, the same kind of Sith alchemical abomination we see in the terantatek or hssiss, only a much more powerful end boss kind of thing, a living relic of Exar Kun’s evil (given that, canonically, Exar Kun’s spirit survived to the Jedi Academy novel trilogy, he certainly can’t be the final boss), perhaps fed and kept alive by the powers of the remaining Massassi who worshipped Exar Kun as a god – in this case, looking to take advantage of the Ebon Hawk’s arrival to spread their master’s will across the galaxy and speed his return. Sith alchemy played a part in a lot of the Sith portrayals from this timeframe, and it’s kind of disappointing that KOTOR never really utilized these mutants, just had them as mindless high level bosses.

Vector

The rakghoul plague infested the lower levels of the planet of Taris. When the planet was bombed by the Sith, it managed to escape among the many refugees as well. With their experiences on Taris, facing the rakghouls, the Jedi Council sends the crew of the Ebon Hawk to investigate its spread to the planet Ralltiir – and stop the Sith from obtaining it as a weapon!

(Available after Dantooine)

The rakghouls were just kind of dropped into KOTOR with no explanation – they were a threat as a creature and as a plague in the Undercity of Taris, but no one ever spoke about what the plague’s origins were or where the rakghouls came from. And then along came the Vector mini-series of comics (hence the name for this) that put the creation of the rakghouls down to a Sith Lord, Karness Murr. Sith alchemy, the gift that keeps on giving.

But either way, considering that the rakghoul plague is something that even the Upper City of Taris was concerned about, that clearly says that it could easily have gotten off planet, especially in the panic of the evacuation. And really, with the added knowledge that this was originally Sith alchemy, it’s almost certain that some aspiring Sith would discover this and try to twist it to their advantage.

I pretty much pulled Ralltiir’s name out of a hat, primarily because it’s a fairly common named planet, but with little actually associated with it. It also makes a great place where the Republic would demand an immediate concern, because it’s a Core World and an economic hub. It’s a great place to have a plague that Republic heads would say would draw in the Ebon Hawk, whose crew had familiarity with the rakghoul plague, despite the threat of Malak and the search for the Star Maps.

I also see this as a way to give Mission and Juhani more content – Mission is a hard character for me to really justify remaining with the crew after Taris, given that she’s a teenager, I feel VERY uncomfortable taking her around on what is effectively a commando mission, while Juhani was very nearly hacked out of the game. Both of them grew up on Taris, in the lower levels of the planetary city, where the rakghouls aren’t just a distant threat. So give them this additional portrayal and focus because they’re familiar with the plague, maybe even knew some people who were infected and transformed by it.

The villain would be a Jedi-turned-Sith, someone who had turned to the Sith at some point after being a Jedi historian. A part of me wants to draw on one of the Jedi who would later show up in the Exile’s vision on Korriban, mostly because those were the Jedi we see recruited by Malak, and so less aware of Revan’s face, though that seems a touch much. Regardless, they’d previously acted as a historian, and is driven by the potential power of the rakghoul plague – Muur’s talisman is lost by this point (again, see the comics), but the rakghouls themselves remain, and, while I’m ignoring the whole “the Sith Emperor did it” thing with Revan, I also like the concept of the rakghouls evolving into the nekghouls, gaining sentience.

This is also a way to add a little bit more of a question to the results – do these evolved rakghouls deserve the consideration of being considered more than mindless beasts? Are they at all a continuation of the person they once were? Or are they just violent creatures that need to be put down? Is the guy trying to control them being corrupted by the dark side, or was he always evil?

So the central question here would be asking “what makes a monster?” Is it the mindless savagery of beasts, or the knowing cruelty of intelligent beings, and where is that line?

Sleheyron

The volcanic world of Sleheyron holds a Star Map. The Ebon Hawk and her crew set out to discover the secrets hidden there, but must be cautious, for the planet also holds a group of Darth Malak’s most powerful apprentices, who have, in their isolation from their leader, created their own plan for the fall of the Republic...

(Available after Dantooine)

Sleheyron was planned to be part of the hunt for the Star Maps – six environments are described in the Rakatan ruin on Dantooine, the life-giving worlds (oceanic – Manaan, grassland – Dantooine, arboreal – Kashyyyk) and death-giving worlds (desert – Tatooine, volcanic, barren – Korriban). Sleheyron was the volcanic world, but got cut for time, early enough that there really wasn’t a lot of material that made it out, with the planet just becoming part of Yuthura Ban’s back story. So, hey, free reign to develop something here.

Honestly, one of my big questions is, if Malak was with Revan as they travelled the worlds to find the Star Maps, why doesn’t he do something about the fact that these locations led to the big secret weapon that gives the Sith Empire its power and forces? Wouldn’t he have thought that maybe some form of guard or another would be a good idea? Sure, the Korriban one was guarded by virtue of being in the tomb of Naga Sadow, but the others? Here, we get a chance to have a group of Sith having taken control of this planet where there is a Star Map that can add to what our heroes have assembled (but, being DLC, this isn’t required to take on). They’re specifically there to guard the Map.

This becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse – how to act before the Sith apprentices (probably former Jedi themselves) can find them, capture or kill them, hand them off to Malak. (Probably also means that this should be a later stage planet to visit, but hey, player choice of direction, right?) How do these Jedi move around a planet while the people in charge are out to get them? Draw on the mechanic from KOTOR 2, where the people on Dantooine recognize if the Exile goes there while a lightsaber is equipped, maybe.

Actually, I’d like to see some mechanic that tracks how much the player uses the Force while wandering around – the more they use the Force, or the more powerful the Force effects they use, the more likely they are to summon Sith execution squads or something. Sort of like KOTOR 2 and Nar Shaddaa, where the Exile’s actions drew the attention of the Exchange and Visquis, only in reverse – the player and company need to avoid catching the attention of the Sith until they’ve raised a rebellion against the Sith overlords, or at least gained enough public goodwill that the Sith can’t just openly take them away and execute them, something like that.

I like this idea because it allows an opportunity to play more with non-violent approaches, alternatives that aren’t “murder everyone because combat gives more experience!” Here, the idea is that you WANT to fly under the radar, avoid combat. And, if combat happens, you also have incentive to not use the lightsaber for a stretch – gives players a reason to put points into blasters or non-lightsaber melee combat, because I don’t know about anyone else, but the second I get a lightsaber in these games, I don’t ever use a different weapon. Here, the player is in the position of HAVING to switch up their play style, or, if they don’t, have to be that much more cautious in their actions here. This is a story piece that hinges on what you do with your words.

The ultimate confrontation with the Sith and the Star Map, in my mind, takes place in a cavern of an active volcano (or maybe one that has been dormant, but, because what’s the Sith without random acts of evilly evil, they’re managing to coax back to life). Here’s where there’s a pretty big question in the construction of this DLC – are we working in the confines of the game engine of the time or with newer, more modern systems? Cuz I’d kinda like something that took place within the volcanic areas of the planet, given that’s what the planet is described as. But I don’t think that KOTOR’s original engine would really be able to explore that to its fullest, given the limitations on it. My big idea would be to have the climax of the planet’s arc have the threat of a volcanic eruption, potentially with the base of operations for these Sith being flooded by lava.

If that is an engine limit... I really have no idea what the alternative would be, but, hey, since this is pie in the sky as it is, why not call for the engine advancement that lets it be a thing, where we have to outrun a lava flow or something.

Echoes of the Past

The strike team that fought Revan is being targeted by Malak’s assassins. The crew of the Ebon Hawk take a journey to the graveyard of the attack on Revan’s ship, the battle that led to the defeat of the dark lord. But the dead don’t rest easy, especially amongst the ruins of the Sith Lord’s vessel...

(Available after the Leviathan)

The strike team that captured Revan is kinda the forgotten element of the game as is. This is a team, and yet we only hear about Bastila’s involvement. Which, sure, she is the member on our squad, she does have the Force Bond with Revan, but... Who were the others? Where have they been during the war?

And it seems like Malak would think of them as a threat period – they were the Jedi who were there to face off against Revan, the Jedi thought they’d have a chance against this great Sith Lord, the leader of the Sith forces of the time. But Bastila is the only one the game ever concerns itself with, and doesn’t even mention if the others lived, who they were, why they were chosen... None of that.

So here we get to explore them. The added bonus is that I see this as a post-Leviathan mission, one that we play with full awareness of our player character’s identity. How much of that awareness we pass on is one thing, and it really allows us to explore the idea “who was Revan before, who is Revan now?” Because that’s going to come into play when dealing with the people who were at one point sent in to kill Revan – sent to kill us, the player character.

I also like the set piece idea of a graveyard of ships, where the characters are walking through the husks of dead vessels – the Harbinger sequence in KOTOR 2 is still a favorite of mine. Granted, this would probably be a bit of a conceptual retread of that part of that game, but hey, why not get some variation of the same old gameplay, right? Plus, it’s different here for the fact that this will have some personal connection to Revan – this was their ship. Did they consider it a home? Just a place?

That leads to the bigger plot element, though. These Jedi know Revan as a threat. They’re going to be suspicious of Revan the whole way through – “are you the Jedi the Council thought you to have become, or are you the Sith we were once sent to kill?” Like I’m sorta thinking this is a case where we’d get these teammates as companions proper now that I’m considering this in detail, and this all builds to the main confrontation. Like we wouldn’t take our Ebon Hawk buddies on this one, but two of these guys.

That confrontation would involve the assassins being revealed to be loyalists to Darth Revan, with their mission having begun with attempting to avenge their fallen Lord, but now, with Revan returned to them, having tested their skill over the course of their luring Revan back to them, they are willing to take up their banner once more, leading to the choice – be Revan, the Sith Lord, or Revan, the Prodigal Knight.

And yes, I know, this is the same thing we see with Bastila later. In some ways, that’s the point. Choosing the light or the dark is not one you make once and are one that path forever. It is a constant, repeated choice, one that must be made, again and again. It’s something that has to been affirmed and reaffirmed, because it will always come up again. Here, it’s just “we offer you power and loyal servants,” while Bastila has the offer of their Force bond – hell, if this were real DLC, I’d say patch in some element to the endgame of Bastila trying to use their bond to lure Revan over to her side on top of things.

What Remains

Darth Malak’s assault on Dantooine was meant to destroy the Jedi. The Ebon Hawk is the one ship that might be able to break the Sith blockade and rescue the people trapped behind their lines, as well as recover irreplaceable Jedi artifacts hidden away at the enclave. And Revan has a need to confront the Jedi Council...

(Available after Leviathan)

This one has always been in my mind as something that, in many ways, we needed to see happen. I look at this as being the necessary confrontation with the Jedi Masters that we need, because they’re using Revan. Revan was reprogrammed to be their weapon against the Sith, and what exactly were they going to do if and when the war was over and they’d no longer had need of Revan?

A mission to Dantooine, done by the ship that could escape the blockade of Taris, to attempt to rescue and recover the Jedi, break the people there out of the iron grip of the Sith, at first does seem somewhat at odds with the portrayal of Dantooine in KOTOR 2, but it still makes sense if you think of the first priority being to evacuate the Jedi and the relics they were saving – the Jedi become the reason that any rescue comes, not the people stuck there. The Jedi and their artifacts are prioritized over the people now under the thumb of the Sith.

Especially if the only real encounter we have is with the Jedi themselves, seeing them in the midst of their exodus, dealing with the Sith occupiers and executioners, all of whom would have once had friends here – I see this also including a Republic military outpost to Dantooine prior to the attack there, because there honestly should have been one anyway (this I chalk up as much to the more limited engine of the game as anything else), and that providing some extra characters to events, which makes it all the more devastating having their former comrades in arms now there to kill them.

As much as this is about confronting the Jedi for the way that they intended to use Revan, this is also an exploration of the divide of Republic and Sith, that those now calling themselves Sith were once the best and brightest of the Republic. Yes, the Jedi failed to come to the aid of the Republic in the midst of the war, but that doesn’t explain the violence these former soldiers engage in against their own people. What made the rank and file Sith soldier agree to this?

That examination of motivation would, I feel, be a part of why the resulting confrontation with the Jedi would matter so much – what drove Revan? What drove the Sith? What drove the Jedi? Because they mindwiped Revan and implanted them with a personality to use them as a weapon. They didn’t “turn an enemy to their cause.” They violated Revan in an effort to use them. When the war was over, what did they really think would happen?

Specifically, we need to confront Zhar, who, given Kreia’s utter disdain for him in KOTOR 2, I get the impression that he was the major proponent of this idea. His actions may have been justified as “for the greater good,” but it always seems like the greatest of morally questionable actions are justified with those words. Do we confront him with rage, forgiveness, or... something else? Because this is a case where I can see both condemning him to death and condemning him to live as a punishment. I could even see this being a case of him bowing to Revan’s judgment, and no option having a light side/dark side shift, because this isn’t about the Force. This is about justice.

Whether or not the Jedi admit it, a life was taken the day they implanted a personality into Revan’s body. The Jedi need to be called out and recognize that they do not have clean hands after what they’ve done.

Revan’s Shadow

Although Revan’s legacy, the Star Forge and the Sith army, have been defeated, there are still questions of Revan’s journey. There was more to it than Star Maps. The crew of the Ebon Hawk reunite on the planet Belkadan to find out more of the Rakatan Empire, and its ties to the dark side of the Force. And along the way, Revan will find more of their lost past...

(Post-Game)

The fact is, we get very little of Revan in the game proper, little about who they were as a person before the fall. This is conceptually to hide the fact that the player IS Revan, of course, but... It creates a lot of little issues for me – I mean, like half of these prospective DLCs are about expanding something of Revan’s motives and past. Obviously, this is a blank slate for the player, because they wanted to leave this open for us to decide, but they DID make a few definitions of who Revan was with the existing content, with the case of the Star Map on Kashyyyk.

And for me, personal identity is a big lingering question for this character – again, I’m choosing to ignore the handling of Revan as a character in The Old Republic, and I’m gonna include the tie-in novel in that, so no one is allowed to say “the novel said [x]!”

This is someone whose entire concept of who they are is in question once they learn that they are a constructed self, created by the Jedi Council as a weapon. Who ARE they? Who have they chosen to be, and, if they could reclaim the parts of themselves that they lost with the Jedi’s mind wipe, would they? Obviously, there’s no time in the main plot to focus on these questions, but I feel like this would eat at them afterwards, leading them to having to find answers. And what kind of friends would the others be if they let Revan do this alone?

I picked Belkadan pretty much because it’s an out of the way planet that has been identified as part of the Rakata’s Infinite Empire, so it made as much sense as any planet to be the site of this. I mean, the involvement of the Infinite Empire is certainly a good option for a place that questions who Revan is.

This would be a place where Revan had gone, after the Mandalorian Wars, a place where they were trying to connect to the Force, to understand the questions – why did the Jedi Council believe they shouldn’t be involved in an existential threat? Why is Revan drawn to these Star Maps and the destination they point to? What awaits them if they go, and what will change about them? What answers are to be found in asking an energy field that can offer no direct response?

Obviously, I’m thinking in terms of finding recordings of Revan, so requiring a voice for Revan – Rino Romano did the little soundbites when male Revan interacts with things, while I don’t know who did the voice bites for female Revan, so they’d be options, or new VA’s altogether. While part of me does want to go forward and make Revan a fully voiced protagonist (because I’m just used to that nowadays), I could accept this as being something only for old!Revan, not present!Revan.

The idea is simply to explore the driving motivations of Revan and decide plainly who Revan wants to be now. I kinda see the ending reach a point of ‘hey, you can reclaim your old memories, you can decide what personality is dominant, what do you want?’ and Revan being able to choose who they will be from here on out.

This is also a good place to require at least Bastila and Carth. Obviously I’m kinda leaning more into the light side ending for this, but... Well, the dark side endings tend to be untenable for future content anyway – Revan as the reclaimed Sith Lord, leading the army against the Republic was never really a viable future, because the Republic had to survive. So yeah, we’re gonna take the easy route and assume light side here. So Bastila and Carth, as Revan romances, would also have a contribution to make, building on the questions of “I’m in love with the person who was Darth Revan, can I accept this?” Like I said, a lot of questions that the game sidestepped, and this one matters for the sake of the relationship being able to continue after the ending of the game.

The Rakatan Prize

The Unknown World – Rakata Prime, Lehon – has become a subject of a great many conversations. Now that the Star Forge is gone, the planet is accessible, and many are eager to investigate its mysteries and forgotten technology. Having had firsthand experience, the Republic has asked the crew of the Ebon Hawk to return...

(Post-Game)

And then, there’s the Rakata. Not that Star Wars isn’t full of ancient empires that rose and fell millennia ago, but this was KOTOR’s contribution. And really, they’re almost superfluous – hell, if the Unknown World were rewritten so that the Rakata had gone extinct, the only thing that really would be necessary would be finding a way into the temple. I kinda think that would even tighten things up a little, especially given how often I’ve hit the level cap before meeting the Council of Elders.

The Rakata are a mystery, and the idea here is to investigate that. Build up the whole element of the Rakata having lost their connection to the Force, and the fact that they’re trying to explore this (because we’re assuming light side against here and that the Elders survived, including the scientists investigating this).

Because this is one of those things that stands out in Star Wars lore, when beings are stripped of their Force connections. Ulic Qel-Droma, the Exile, this is something that is traditionally a case of an individual, not a species.

We also have the remains of a galactic empire to examine here. If a species once ruled the galaxy, it’s inevitable that there are those who would see that empire be reborn. The threat of this DLC becomes this group who aspire to reconquer the galaxy using the mind transfer technology that puts the Rakatan prisoner in that white space box that would allow them to trap the minds of Jedi and other Force users to take their bodies and use them to go forth and conquer the galaxy.

Ultimately, the question’s going to be whether or not to restore their connection to the Force – do the Rakata, a race of dominators of the galaxy, whose humbling by the forces of nature has not managed to truly change them, deserve a second chance, or should they have their attempt to restore their own connections to the Force wiped out, leaving them vulnerable to an inevitable extinction?

Because this is one of the big things with Revan, the idea of redemption, change, second chances. Does Revan extend this chance to these people, people who clearly have more than a few members who have no interest in peaceful coexistence? But if not, do they deserve to be condemned to extinction?

And, as a bonus...

Romance Content – Bisexual Carth, Bisexual Bastila, Gay Canderous, extended Juhani romance

Because Carth and Bastila should be bisexual, and Juhani’s romance deserves to be more proper. Meanwhile, Canderous should totally be an option as well, and yeah, I’m gonna be selfish here and say that he should be gay, rather than bi (because, again, I’m ignoring the novel, there is no wife). Because this means that there’s a favoring for same-sex romances, and that never happens. My list, my way. Star Wars is gay culture.

#dg rambles #dg talks video games #dg's hypothetical dlc #knights of the old republic #kotor

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bearpillowmonster · 2 years

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Mass Effect Review

(This is Legendary Edition btw)

I hear so many good things about this series, moreso about the later ones than the first one though. So I got the ME2 demo on Steam and...I didn't like it. I liked being able to customize a character but it looked plasticy and the gunplay felt rubbery. Part of that might have been me preferring to play third person games on console and first person on PC though. So Legendary Edition came out and I thought I'd give it another shot, especially if they fixed up some of my gripes. I always hear how great the characters and choices are, which were some of the things I liked from BioWare's previous games and wanted to see come to fruition. This time we'll start with the first game proper.

When you hover over an item, it makes a circle but no button appears in the middle, instead, it's at the top of the screen, which is weird. There's a map but you have to go into the menu to access it and it's kinda uninformative sometimes, or maybe I'm just using it wrong. But once you visit an area, you can fast travel to it, if it's a world that allows it. The pause menu itself doesn't tell you a whole lot when it comes to controls either, in fact, it doesn't tell you anything, some stuff it doesn't demo for you so you kind of just have to experiment.

The sprint is shaky like a high school student's Powerpoint presention transition so I prefer not to use it. The music is pretty nice at times, it's really noticeable on the Normandy.

I don't think I would've had the patience for this sort of thing back when I first tried it but playing KOTOR made me a bit more tolerant for the things that it carries over. In fact, I was hoping that it'd be better playing it versus watching it and I think that's the case, there's a certain atmosphere to it that you can get into.

You can definitely tell it's aged, despite being a remaster, the graphics are fine for the most part (Feros makes you blind as a bat though) but the lines can seem robotic (specifically with Shepherd) and animations stiff, there are good animations though too, just some are stiff. The photo mode is fun to play around with but limited in the elevator. Why would I want to take pics in the elevator you might ask, well that's when Liara does her-

Twitter flagged this one as NSFW, lmao.

Uh anyway, sometimes choices can seem like a Telltale game where you pick one thing and it says another, some options have the same dialogue or responses, I'm not going to really complain about it though since it's not just this game that does that.

The elevator rides give you context to current quests as if it's breaking news or an infomercial. Depending on who you have in your party, different characters will have different things to say and have conversations with each other, even remarking at the landscape and certain things in the area. This isn't the only game to do that but it's all these elements combined that just add to the atmosphere I was talking about. When Liara's mother dies, everyone that I had in a party with her by that point had told me that I should check on her, is that chemistry or what?

Seeing the societal structures of all these aliens is very diverse and interesting to pick apart, it makes me interested in not only the character but think twice when I come across one of their species. Like say there's a krogan, I'd start out by just taking it out but after getting Wrex you decide to just not equip him when fighting them to avoid making him slaughter his own species. Then when he tells you about the Genophage, you feel guilty for killing them yourself. Then when he asks to be the one to bring an end to it, it makes you feel sad. In some ways, these guys are betrayed by their species, that and they're the ones betraying them to be on your team. Deep stuff.

You know I like making in depth character analyzes so I guess I'll do it for this game too but in a separate post, that way I can just add to it when I finish 2 and 3.

I think eventually it even gets to be like Fire Emblem where you have optional recruits and if you're not careful, you can lose party members permanently but for now that's not really a problem. You sort of make what you will of the combat, you can choose to command your party members around but you don't have to. You can choose to do stuff with your weapons (ie upgrading, switching out) but you don't have to. You apparently pick a class at the beginning but I don't think I did that. I think you need to make a custom character while I just picked plain old default John Shepard, which I wouldn't normally do but when I tried the ME2 demo, my character looked funky to stare at all the time. Worry not, what you lack (in my case, decryption) can be resolved by equipping a party member with that ability so yes, there's a "skill tree" of sorts but I don't find it all that complicated, maybe to use but not to upgrade.

I think it'd benefit from having actual bosses, there are special characters you fight but they aren't all that different from regular enemies. And the villain is a little cliche with his "if you can't beat em, might as well join em" mentality and only speeding up the process. I know he thinks he's doing people a favor but I think it would've been better written if there was more than that. Say Sovereign gets revealed and now Shep knows what he's up against, Saren could've revealed that he wanted people to find out through him so that people would be made aware (like the council that never listens) and do something about it. And yeah he knew it was inevitable but he wanted to act as the warning. Something like that seems like it could've serviced the story better but we have a lot of other great stuff to look at.

I actually expected a lot of what I got to be in the later games and that this one would be bare bones but this is far from bare bones, I actually have no idea what to expect for the later titles' gameplay because this one introduced everything I knew of. I clocked in around 17 hours, it was a good experience that I found myself excited to come back to. 4/5

#mass effect #game #review #legendary edition #liara

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renegade-skywalker · 7 years

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It’s a shame how underappreciated Mical is, really, especially since I think he gets the Luke Skywalker treatment when it comes to dudebros complaining about how whiney he is. But he is actually rather similar to Luke in many respects. Not just in appearance and temperament, but even in how they react to the things that happen to them, and unlike everyone else in kotor 2, Mical manages to remain a beacon of hope in a way that I think he may be some strange fictional past-life of Leslie Knope’s.

I may be jaded by nearly 12 years of fandom, but Mical is usually depicted as this goody-two-shoes, and he kind of is, but it’s not really his defining trait. Sure, he’s a nerd but he’s incredibly intelligent, and his opinions don’t actually differ from many of the other characters - namely Atton who has a distinct dislike of him and would probably rather die than ever admit that they’re at all alike. In most ways, they aren’t, but their opinions are actually far more aligned than I think either of them realizes, and if this game were ever remade with updated graphics/party banter/npc interaction etc. like many modern rpgs, this sort of interaction would be something I would totally want to see.

Okay, okay, I’m already all over the place. Let’s start with when/where/how we meet Mical. Depending on whether you play as male/female, Mical’s role differs. If a female, he joins your party and you learn more about him bit by bit, but if male he has a Jedi-heavy conversation with you in the ruins of the Jedi Temple and then again back at Khoonda militia HQ aaaaand that’s it. Mical has a wealth of knowledge regarding Jedi history, and as an agent of the Republic can also provide insight regarding how the Jedi conflict(s) have also affected the galaxy at large. As eager as Mical is to become a Jedi from the onset (as a companion) he does have a very objective view of the Order. He’s more up-front with his view-points if you talk to him the second time as a male Exile, but he basically lays down the law for you. Like Atton, Mical understands how the rest of the universe sees the Jedi. Common folk don’t see a difference between Jedi and Sith, hence why the Jedi Civil War is called just that and does not at all reference the fact that Revan and Malak returned as Sith. Which is his main point. What makes Mical, well Mical, is his insight. He finds it curious that Revan made certain choices as a Sith Lord, such as keep Onderon untouched (even if it is plagued by its own civil war, currently) while other worlds were demolished, as if in preparation for something else, something unseen and unpredictable. But despite his astute observations, and regardless of what he believes Revan was actually trying to do, he does condemn both sides, Jedi and Sith. He mentions the fall of Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma, and how it was potentially their masters who are at fault for what happened, the same going for Revan and Malak. But instead of shrugging it off and condemning the lot of them, he goes on to say why the Jedi are still important regardless. I think this is a lesson TLJ tried to teach us but didn’t give it enough time to really sink in. The image of the Jedi, what they stand for and what they mean in theory is part of what keeps other, larger gears in motion, like the Republic, and he believes the Jedi should be held accountable but also that they could do better. I think this is where Mical and Atton really differ.

One of the first, most poignant, conversations with Atton revolves around the events of the previous games. Atton acts as a bit of a conduit for the player establishing their world state as much as he acts as a representative for “average space folk”. Despite his past, Atton believes himself to be like “everyone else”, so his experiences during the Mandalorian Wars and even the Jedi Civil War are from that of an average non-Force Sensitive person. Since the discovery of the latter is what causes him to leave his Sith station, Atton’s experiences are still that of someone unfamiliar with the Force or the two ideologies surrounding the use/manipulation of it. He’s the first one to tell you that the average person sees no difference between the Jedi and the Sith, though namely because of the Jedi Civil War. Mical is the one to further explain why, and while he disagrees with how both factions handled themselves and essentially fucked the galaxy over because of what many saw as a pissing contest, Mical also sees the advantage of hope or at least the idea of it. The Jedi, despite their faults, do have the capacity to do good for the collective people at large. The Sith Code is not inherently evil, per se, but is a very self-centered ideology, whereas the Jedi Code does at least attempt to “protect” and “preserve” the whole of humanity versus the interests of a single person or party.

But what makes this perspective so meaningful for Mical is that he was overlooked as a padawan, he wasn’t even granted the opportunity to train despite his Force sensitivity, and he was essentially denied ever becoming a Jedi, at least formally. Despite the circumstances and despite his luck, Mical still has trust in the idea of the Jedi and finds hope in it. Perhaps it has something to do with his time before being called away, but he could also easily be bitter for it as well, but he isn’t. His bitterness could have been multiplied if he was holding a grudge against the Exile for not taking him on as a padawan and instead leaving to join Revan’s war. But, again, he’s not. This is a lesson that the other companions learn in one way or another, and even if they don’t trust the Jedi as a conglomerate, characters like Atton and Visas agree to train with you because they trust you and they believe that learning the ways of the Force can help them grow as people and to help you in your quest more effectively. Even if they don’t believe in the Jedi, they believe in you. Which does tie into Mical’s hopes for the future of the Jedi Order. As messy as things are, especially considering the whole Revan/Exile business is not really canon but has plenty of additional material what with the book and the SWTOR DLC and other related content, the Exile and their companions form the foundation of the Jedi Order that follows, which I guess is the only thing that makes sense since everyone else literally dies by the end of TSL.

But for all its lessons, TSL is still a precursor to the Jedi Council of the prequels, which we know is just as fraught with issues as the Council that dismissed Revan and the Exile yet sort of started this whole mess, so no matter what the Exile learned or changed about how the Jedi operate as a whole didn’t stick. I feel like this was a lesson missing from TLJ. Luke focuses on the failings of the Jedi that preceded him, and his argument for the Jedi to end is a good one. What we were missing is the thought-process behind keeping the Jedi alive, not because their foundational texts were law, but in that they represented hope and goodness and that’s what should continue, even if the rest of it changes (which it should).

Anyway, this started out as a post about Mical… and he is essentially what I was hoping Luke would be, though he was missing a bit. He eventually came to the same conclusion in TLJ, that the Jedi are flawed but are needed, but he didn’t get to see that journey. What I also like about Mical is that he’s experienced the failing of the Jedi first hand but he still sees a use for them. Not only was he denied becoming a Jedi or training as one, but he was then sent to the corps so he ends up seeing the Mandalorian Wars up close, and as a medic he get’s a front row seat to the atrocities of war as well as the suffering that the Jedi at large are wholly ignoring. Even as a Republic officer or whatever he is, his interest in politics and history are what allow him to see through Revan’s ruse, he finds out where the Council went wrong and what could be done to stop it. There was even cut content from the game (not in the restoration mod, though, I don’t think this ever got to production) where Mical would lead you to hidden Jedi and Sith holocrons, perhaps in his attempt to preserve the teachings of the Jedi and any information about the Sith once it appears that both are gone from the galaxy. While the other characters either see things as dark, grey, or are just incredibly jaded, Mical is always as objective as he can be (and he admits his biases) as well as positive. In a game that is so dark, and often so defeating, it’s nice having someone like him on board. I feel like a lot of the (especially old) fandom view of him was skewed and only highlighted his more “annoying” qualities but I feel like it’s a nice counterbalance to the rest of the game and the characters in it. Honestly, the only other people as helpful and positive are the Ithorians and let’s be honest, it’s kind of a chore to get through those dialogue bits.

#mical #the disciple #kotor 2 #star wars #kotor #sw meta #my meta #idk if this even is meta anymore I just can't stop talking about this game #also this didn't even really have a point this was more of just a mical/sw eu appreciation post

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cheesedoodlesurprise · 7 years

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Dragon Age 2 Rant

Someone brought it up in some random Facebook Group and it got me thinking that I should finally just put it down in words.

Dragon Age 2 is so horribly underrated that it hurts.

The game gets so much hate that people didn’t understand what it did right

–BUT let’s get this out of the way fast: The below rant does NOT include the Level Design. The same 4 locations used over and over. There is no excuse for that. It is bad and it should feel bad for it. However much the points i will make can also be transferred over to this failure as well, that is just warping a point to excuse lazy or rushed design.

The people I have spoken to tend to cite one main example of its failure as a Role Playing Game(barring the above shit level design) and that is simply that it fails due to its action-style gameplay when compared to the original Dragon Age:Origins. And I understand that. There’s two radian wheels(unless you have a computer) and you’re running around and there’s not really much Party Maintenance like it had in the original. It is not what a traditional RPG should be, and the party direction system was not the best(it reminded me way too much of Kingdom Hearts and Donald’s proclivity to use mega-elixers every time he loses one bar of mp unless you jump in there and hit him with the no-no can) especially when you realize that capitalizing on Condition Statuses is a main feature in felling your enemies. It is just a gross departure from what a Role Playing Game should be, compounded by the fact that this was the Second Installment and it was already deviating so much from the turn based-lite party management norm.

The answer to this is simple. Think back to the beginning of the game. What happens?

The Hawke family gets attacked by a big fuck-off dragon and the story immediately cuts to Cassandra giving Varric shit for telling her something as stupid as “A Dragon Appeared” and you see that this whole game is now a narrative work; a retelling of events by someone being interrogated.

Not just anyone, A FUCKMOTHERING BARD!!!!

Have YOU ever played a tabletop with someone rolling a bard?

You can’t believe a word they say, because the truth is boring and never makes for a good story. So when asked what they did when separated from the party, instead of ‘Oh, there was a goblin so i stabbed it in the back” you’re told of a daring battle with a Bugbear King, where after felling the horrid beast, you found the princess he was holding prisoner and after releasing her from her bonds, she then had you free her from another trapping: that of virginity.

The point is this: Bards Lie.

If you take nothing else out of not just this long, badly punctuated, rant, take that. Bards Lie about everything and anything. It is who they are. The story is all that matters. So what is a Bard to do when being tortured by a bunch of Zealots, demanding knowledge on what to expect when they track down and try to kill one of your best friends?

Punch. That. Story. Up!

You make what originally is just a standard-if not slightly above average-fighter look like a whirling dervish of death to any who would cross him.

That’s what makes the story so well, this isn’t just an unreliable narrator, it is THE MOST unreliable of narrators. One that tells you, right off the bat, that a lot of this never even happened. You never know what really happened to Hawke and his Band of Merry Murder. So, yes, the gameplay is a lot more action-oriented and you don’t have nearly as many combat options(especially if you are a mage) but it’s punched up to 11 the whole time because the person conveying the story is giving it all a nice sheen of ‘this is what happens when people cross them.” You are not watching the Story of Hawke in this game. You are watching VARRIC’S story of Hawke.

But that only answers the main issue people have with the game. The change in controls.

What I never got is this: How can you rip on an RPG about its controls? They are just mechanics, nothing more, and I have to say Bioware games always kinda sucked at their Turn-Based-But-Not-Really Mechanics. KOTOR had a lot of issues and the crux of it was the clunky interface and squad controls. I would love to have a party on a set it and forget it mechanic and not having to constantly pause the gameplay to switch over to one of the characters because they chose to not move out of fire. How is that better than a little bit of AI that will give your party even SOME autonomy? Because if you wanna talk about immersion, a character who is, in the narrative of the story, talked up as the quickest cutpurse on this continent and can never be caught by anyone but for some reason can not even fathom the idea of moving away from a giant spike pile he can see on the ground and instead walks right through the damn thing and kills himself is example 1:3 under the definition of Ludonarrative Dissonance.

….My point is this: Combat in Traditional RPGs is kinda trash to begin with and the main reason you play them is not combat. It’s story. The story is the big pull. And this game has story falling out its ass. It suffers in some places, sure, with what you can tell is rushed design and you are pigeon holed in a lot of places. Case in point:I was a Mage who hated Blood Magic but put a lot of faith in the Apostates, so when every time you choose to help runaway mages and they come back and, whelp, looks like they are Blood Mages now I was so VERY angry at the game. Livid. I honestly don’t think people who played Rogues or Warriors and got DEEP into their characters(@meonlyred, I’m looking at you) can really match that level of anger and disappointment in the story of a game. No matter what I try, these people just kept failing me.

But that is the point. I got so invested into this story that I was disappointed in 1s and 0s. Here I was, trying to change the whole of Kirkwall by action alone: proving that having Magic does not mean you will become a monster(and, yes, i HATED the goddamn teaser trailer because in it, HAWKE USES GODDAMN BLOOD MAGIC JUST BECAUSE THE FUCKING BULL MAN WAS TOO MUCH FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and yet every one I was putting faith and and having others trust my judgement on have been utterly betraying that faith and trust.

Because this land never functioned on the same as me. I was the outsider. The Fereldan immigrant, assuming that this world will function the same as the one I left. Granted the land I left also had a jihadist attitude to my way of life, this new one in Kirkwall had a civil and social structure completely Foreign to me. There was no way to change the way they viewed the world because I was just one person. One Outsider, no matter my lineage, who couldn’t change anything. This land was going to burn itself no matter what I did.

And that was the point of Varric’s Story. Hawke wasn’t the cause of the things that doomed Kirkwall. The Expedition, the one that found the artifact that corrupted everyone? Hawke just helped with the last leg of its setup. They would have got it together eventually. They would have found it. Bartrand would have found it regardless. And Anders still would have…. You know what, let’s save that shit til the end because I don’t want to upset myself early.

Anyway…. All of this would have happened no matter what(maybe a few things would have changed slightly, but not by much) Hawke did, but he was still in the middle of it all. I know a lot of people like their stories to be centered around them, but those can get boring. Let’s use Fallout as an example: The Sole Survivor, wandering the wastes of The Commonwealth? When you spend your first 100 hours farming Duct Tape instead of finding your son, you come out to be an asshat. But The Courier? NOPE! He was just a guy living in this world. He isn’t the center of any story, really. He is just a guy out for revenge, but he has no idea where to get it so him wondering around and dealing with random crap isn’t nearly as a disconnect as the game before or after it. They are really fun and enjoyable protagonists. Heck, one of my favorite Final Fantasys is 12: the one where you are NOT the main character of the story. Thats the Sky Pirate and the Princess. You are just tagging along for the ride, experiencing their story like a good audience surrogate.

The only reason you are always being thrust into the middle of everything is because the Powers of this Town are throwing you at them. The Qunari menace? You are asked(told) to go deal with it, and it all blows up in your face because of someone else. Hell you even tried to STOP the hellscape to be with Anders(that motherfucker) by being a good person and talking to him. But nope. He had his crappy agenda and nothing you could do would stop it.

….you know what, sure let’s talk about it now. That whole ending arc just pissed me off to no end. There is Anders killing the ONE person in this whole city trying to hold everything together and treated people with even an ounce of trust and faith JUST TO PROVE A POINT THAT SIMPLY BY DOING IT DISPROVED HIS GODDAMN POINT!

“Mages aren’t evil so I’m going to kill the beacon of peace in this whole shitty city which will lead to EVERY GODDAMN MAGE to just flipping a ‘whelp guess i’m an abomination now, time to murder everyone, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee blood magic is fuuuuuuuun!’ switch and I guess completely dismantle my entire point. It’s a good thing Hawke stabbed me for being a fucking idiot” and then you come across the Mages who are holed up to protect themselves but, wouldn’t you know it, their leader turned himself into a Tentacle Death Monster and now you have to kill the one mage who had your back and was a beacon of not being a dickhole.

All of this just constant “Mages are all evil dicks, lets torch them all’ just upset me so much. I was playing the entire last part of the game with a giant grimace. Angry at this whole damn city and making me kill all these people I tried to make better.

Yes, me. I got so deep into this game(if you read up, I dropped the possessive pronoun a bit when talking about the story) that I was upset that they were betraying MY expectations of them as people. Not Hawke. By this time I got way into the game and imprinted.

No matter what faults it has, in the end its story caused me to become so engrossed with it that even when it took a turn I did not like, I was so invested I was still hooked and responding to it as if it were happening to me.

I know it was a long rant that just sort of cut off, but Anders will do that to me. Hell, I hated what he did so much, I even tried making a toon to romance him so I could see if there was more dialogue options or how it would shape with him actually having a loving relationship and nope! He still acted the same. Just pleaded more for me to understand.

I STILL had to gut him. I was still so damn pissed off at him I had to kill him even as a character romancing him!

[nothe: wrote this up at work when I was bored so there is a very good chance I have odd stops and idea changes due to the nature of writing something while also having to work on projects so it may be updated frequently]

#dragon age #da:2 #dragon age 2 #rant #anders #bards lie #story trumps rules

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allronix · 7 years

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Salty asks: 1-27.

Assuming this is the fandom of your namesake.

1. OTP that I just don’t get. Probably Sam/Tron. Not to say some folks can’t REALLY fucking rock it (see the “We Are Pilots” verse), but it takes a lot of work. Their only meeting in canon was in a duel to the death with the Program being brainwashed and crazy, and Sam has very little if any reason to even like the guy, even in a post-Legacy setup.

2, Fandom OTP I only BroTP: Probably Tron/Ram. Ram had too much chemistry with Flynn, and Tron was single-minded enough about Yori to put his deity on hold. While I can very easily see group marriage as a normal part of Program society, it’s not something I can see in canonical circumstances.

3. Unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Nope. But if they trash my faves, I hope they can back up their dislike with a very good argument.

4. A NoTP for my fandom. Not touching Sam/Alan with a 10-meter Rod Primitive. The age gap for one, the paternal role Alan took for two, the fact Lora is not dead in this timeline third, the fourth is the possibility of OT3: Shall We Dance making this ship even more brain-breaking.

5. Has fandom ruined a pairing for me? Not in this fandom, but I’ve avoided the hell out of some shows because I saw the fandom for them was such a big ball of crazy that I wanted to avoid it like kryptonite.

6. Has fandom made me enjoy a pairing I previously hated? I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, and I’m not sure I’d call it “enjoy,” but there are some Clu/”Rinzler” fics that almost make the whole thing come out as something marginally less squicky and more interesting than “sadist and his sex slave.”

7. Anything I used to like but dislike now? Y’know, I kinda used to dig Flynn/Alan slash. But after I realized I could make a drinking game out of them (take a shot if they mention Lora, chug the whole thing if they mention Jordan - stay sober the whole night), they lost a lot of appeal. I’ll make an exception for “Shall We Dance” scenarios. Heck, I love Shall We Dance because it’s a very different matter if Lora’s aware and on board with the whole thing. Heck, if someone upgrades it to an Ot4 of “Shall We Dance With Jordan,” then I owe them a six-pack of top-quality beer or cane-sugar soda and my enthusiastic gratitude.

8. Anon hate? Yes. Received it. But over politics, not fandom. It’s to be expected. The Galaxy Rangers list used to have “don’t talk to Allronix about politics” as one of the bylaws.

9. Most hated character? Probably Pavel. He’s such a transparent slimeball with little in the way of interesting motivation. Tesler? While he’s a nasty piece of work, there’s wiggle room to argue that he’s doing what he’s doing for the good of the system and doesn’t like doing what he does. Sark? Incredible ham and definitely one note, but David Warner plays the best creeps ever. (He out-creeped Malcolm McDowell, that’s near-impossible)

10. Most disliked arc. Probably the Isos. I’m still not sure what they were, or why they were special or what was so great about them, or how they would change everything, aside from the implication they were partly biological. Which is great and all, but the way it was handled has an “organics rule, synthethics drool” vibe that is pretty insulting when everything else in the franchise shows that the Programs are just as capable of love, hate, morality, humor, and free will as the humans who built them.

11. Unpopular character I like that the fandom doesn’t? I just had to have the bad luck…or the good luck…to latch on very hard to the Tron 2.0 characters. Good luck in that it’s unexplored territory. Bad luck in that I seem to be the only one who writes Mercury, or Crown, or I-No.

12. Unpopular arc I like the fandom doesn’t? 2.0 again. What got me about it is that the 1982 and Legacy films dealt with malevolent AI who were cruel of other AI and wanted to extend the cruelty. 2.0 inverted it; the uncorrupted Programs were, with very few exceptions, wanting to protect themselves and their home. The corrupted Programs were driven insane by a User who embraced the worst parts of the role. And then you had F-Con who planned to crank that up even more so that they could rule both worlds from the shadows. It really needed to be explored more, as it was a great start.

13. Unpopular opinion about a character: Sam Flynn kinda spooks me. He has no reason to be merciful or benevolent to Programs. As far as he saw, his dad believed in them, and they stabbed his dad in the back, kept his dad away from him, tried to kill him, tried to kill Quorra, killed all of Quorra’s people, and eventually killed his dad right in front of him. And he’s taking over command of a software company with barely any time to process that trauma. It’s probably not going to end well for the Programs unless something intervenes.

14. Unpopular opinion about the fandom: They have very little interest in reclaiming the female characters from the margins, and that’s quite frustrating. Quorra and Paige get some fics here and there, but even those petered out. Yes, this fandom is VERY heavily skewed male, but you’ve got Quorra, Paige, Mara, Gorn, Lux, Yori, Lora, Gem, etc. in Legacy canon, and some great potential with Mercury, Ma3a, and Eva Popoff if you import from 2.0. I was hoping to see at least SOMEONE write up a fanfic about Jordan. What kind of woman could handle a brilliant, cheerful, crazy ball of energy like 80′s!Flynn?

15. Unpopular opinion about the canon: Legacy is very difficult for me to watch. Even though it totally brought the whole thing back from the dead, it’s just frustrating to watch. Not to say everyone didn’t bring their A-game to it, but it took everything that made the first film so much fun and destroyed it, ending up as a depressing waste where everyone loses, and Dillinger Jr is just waiting in the wings to cause even more trouble.

16. If I could change anything about the canon, what to change? Tron 2.0 totally happened. It would not be hard to come up with a workaround for Ma3a that keeps Lora alive. There’s probably about three or four ways I could come up with other than the made of crack one I’ve got going in my fics.

17. Instead of X happening, I’d go with Y: If you want something other than “instead of 2.0 being thrown out the airlock, it’s part of canon,” I would have loved to see Sam get rescued by Bartik’s crew (Bonus points if Yori’s running the damn thing) and then meet up with his dad and Quorra. That way, there could have been a little more complexity to the Grid situation and a way to avoid the whole “Programs are evil!” thing Legacy ended up with.

18. Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? Shipping, IMO is shorthand for schools of character interpretation. Someone who ships Quorra/Sam is going to have a different take than someone who ships Quorra/Zues, or Quorra/Paige. They’re all looking at the same data, but the interpretation of the data is going to vary.

19. One thing I dislike most about my fandom: It’s a back alley of the 80′s that its own company barely wants to admit they did. This makes canon and newcomers a little hard to come by.

20. Purest ship in the fandom. Tron/Yori was my first OTP. They’re still my OTP, because 82!Tron was such a sweet, earnest dork and Yori was such an adorable, sneaky badass. Post-Legacy? It’s going to be one heck of a climb no matter which guess you take about Yori’s fate (And seriously? Morgan got gypped), but having those two limp off into whatever digital sunset there is would be the closest we get to a happy ending that’s canon-compatible.

21. Crack ships? A crack ship for the sake of a crack ship is a “no thanks!” But there are ships that look like someone did them on a three-drink dare that actually manage to work. I’m thinking to KOTOR fandom where someone made a REALLY awesome case for Canderous/Bastila that should not have worked and totally did.

22. Popular character I dislike: It’s not so much “dislike” as “I’m not sure what to make of them.” Really wanted some development on Sam. Quorra got Evolution and a nice episode of Uprising, but Sam…he’s still a bit of a blank to me.

23. Unpopular character I adore: I especially latched on hard to Jet Bradley after reading the Ghost in the Machine comic because he had clearly done a lot of thinking about what being a User means in that setting, and was bringing up points no one else bothered with. As such, he makes an excellent foil and walking deconstruction fleet while still being, ostensibly, one of the good guys.

24. Would I recommend Tron to a friend? Only with a ton of disclaimers. This was made in the EARLY 80′s, by people who apparently had no fucking idea what they were doing, and Disney probably signed off on it while under the influence of something. But the combination ends up as something inexplicably brilliant and probably launched thousands of computer animation careers and hundreds more IT careers.

25. How would I end it? I’ve got fics in mind for it. I kitbash 2.0 and Legacy shamelessly. The ending I have in mind? Well, Alan and Lora end up giving up their lives in analog to rebuild the Rome Flynn started. Jet ends up dedicating his life to serving the Programs and goes a bit native. Mercury and Tron act as the primary “knights” of Alan and Lora. Sam and Quorra handle much of the rest in the analog world, slowly trying to open up the world and make it ready for the revelation of the digital one. And Yori runs a reformation of the Program religion so that they are prepared to accept the Users as fallible beings who are still powerful, but less “worship as deity” and more “we depend on one another - don’t screw it up.”

26. Most shippable character? Probably Flynn. I can see him as a fellow who would (prior to the coup) enjoy himself and his opportunities to the fullest, including trying anything twice sexually.

27. Least shippable character: Probably Esomond Baza. He’s a coward with so little self-esteem, self-respect, or a moral compass that he needs a few months of therapy before even thinking of a date.

#tron #tron legacy #tron uprising #tron 2.0 #ask post #salty fandoms

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ncfan-1 · 8 years

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K, M, and P for the meme please :)

This got long.

K - What character has your favoritedevelopment arc/the best development arc?

Ibelieve that one of the last few times I played this meme, I answered LondoMollari from Babylon 5. I still standby believing he has a fantastic character arc (And if you’re curious about Babylon 5, it’s a fantastic show, and he’sone of the best parts of it). A lot of people, I know, would put Zuko down forthis one. But having replayed KOTOR 2 recently, I think the Exile (when youplay Light Side) has a great character arc throughout the course of the game.Granted, this is kind of dependent on player choices even beyond being LightSide, and is kind of dependent on my head canon, but me, I play that game andwatch a broken-down, apathetic woman regain her sense of purpose, refuse to letgo of it again, and save the galaxy in the process. The whole game is heremotional journey, and it’s incredible to watch.

M - Name a character that you’d like to havefor a friend.

IdrilCelebrindal, and also her husband, Tuor, from the Silmarillion would both make very good friends, I think. Idril iswise and perceptive, and Tuor is optimistic and determined.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (wealways need more ideas).

(Thisactually happens to be a fic—or fics—idea I’m planning on writing eventually.)

Okay,after the events of KOTOR 2, the Exile—Kalani—goes looking for Revan. Atton’salong for the ride, because no matter what TOR or that novel have to say on the matter, the trajectory of the game wasdefinitely pointing towards him going with her. So it’s them in the Ebon Hawk, with T3-M4 and HK-47.

Theystop at Citadel Station to drop off everybody else, since as it happens,everybody else has other plans (Asides from rebuilding the Jedi Order, that is;it’s an important goal for them all—asides from Mandalore, and maybe Atton andMira—but secondary to their concerns right now). Bao-Dur’s getting back in withthe Telos Restoration Project. Mira’s heading back to Nar Shaddaa to settle oldaffairs there, and for other reasons that she doesn’t want to share with therest of them. Visas has hitched a ride with Mandalore and the Mandalorians backto Dxun; why, no one but her and Canderous really seem to understand. Mical isresuming his search of various Jedi Academies across the Outer Rim, and he’sbeen given clearance to enter the Temple on Coruscant, so he’s going to gothere and see if anything can be salvaged (He’s also planning on readying it asa base of operations for what admittedly is going to wind up being an extremely decentralized new Jedi Order).They’re also dropping off the HK-51 droids that showed up out of nowhere on theship after they were done on Malachor V, much to everyone (sans HK-47’s)relief.

Kalaniinsists on taking Atris with them in the EbonHawk. Atris isn’t really good to be left to her own devices right now—thoughKalani is more worried about Atris doing harm to herself than others—and needssupervision. There’s also the matter of getting her away from all of those Sithholocrons, and figuring out what to do with them (Kalani is seriouslycontemplating putting them in a box and letting them drift into the neareststar; it seems the safest way of disposing of them). Brianna is coming alongfor the ride, too. Atris had sent the other Handmaidens home to Eshan, buttheir family wouldn’t take Brianna, thanks to the stigma against children bornout of wedlock in their culture, and the fact that Yusanis is no longer aliveto shelter his youngest child. Brianna doesn’t really have anywhere else to go,so the Ebon Hawk and the search forRevan is her only real option.

Somebodyelse hitches a ride on the Ebon Hawk atTelos: Bastila. Carth can’t join the search, as much as he would like to.Revanasi is not part of my fic head canon, though I don’t mind the ship itself.Instead, I imagine their relationship as being rather like Marlin and Dory’s inFinding Nemo and Finding Dory, and a good quote for it would be Guinan’s from TNG’s ‘TheBest of Both Worlds’: “closer than friends, closer than family.” Carth ishorribly, intensely worried about Revan—whose post-brainwashing name is Jìngyī Yuen—buthis duties in the Republic fleet don’t allow him to leave to go looking forher. Bastila is also horribly, intensely worried about Jìngyī; she wants to findher, bring her home, and she feels that the bond the two of them share mightallow her to help Kalani in the search.

It’s…not a fun trip.

Atton,as you can imagine, is extremely tense with Bastila and especially Atris on board, worried of one or both of them digginghis past out of his head. He and Kalani have an understanding that what theyspoke of was between them, and Kalani agrees that it would be bad, really bad, if Atris found out, even asshe is now. Atton is okay with Kalani; he’s okay with Bao-Dur, with Visas andMira, even somewhat okay with Mical nowadays. But he is not okay with Atris and Bastila, especially as, to him, they’reboth the embodiment of the Jedi who could not give less of a fuck as the OuterRim burned during the Mandalorian Wars, but were more than happy to try to tearthe galaxy apart during the Jedi Civil War. He avoids Atris and tends to becool, bordering on hostile, towards Bastila.

(Thefact that Atris is his girlfriend’s ex doesn’t help matters. He knows thatrelationship is stone dead, but the fact that the two women still have suchstrong reactions towards each other, pretty clearly still have feelings for oneanother, well… Atton is both more than a little insecure, and more than alittle worried for Kalani’s well-being.)

Kalaniis still recovering from everything that happened with Kreia, and the idea thatshe is a Wound in the Force and may or may not be unconsciously psychicallydominating her companions is weighing heavily on her mind, even with Micaltrying to reassure her that the Council was full of shit and were so ready tochalk up every success of hers to her being a Wound in the Force that they didn’teven take into account that she is genuinely a very inspiring person withouttaking the Force into account. Her history with Atris complicates mattersfurther; all the old wounds there, the scar tissue slowly pulling open.

Andthere’s the fact that she’s dreading having to meet with Revan again. She knewRevan the legend much better than she knew Revan the person. They didn’t getalong very well, and there’s the fact that Revan basically set Kalani up to beeither killed or turned to the Dark Side at Malachor V; I feel like evenwithout HK-47’s comment about Revan ‘cleaning house’ at Malachor V, she couldprobably have extrapolated that. Kalani isn’t like Bastila. Kalani doesn’t knowJìngyī Yuen, redeemed; she only knows Revan, whom she once idolized, and whonow inspires mingled fear and loathing in Kalani. Kalani is trying to trackdown Revan because she believes that that’s what’s best for the Republic, butthat doesn’t mean she has to like it.She and Bastila, who was close to Jìngyī, after all, get into arguments aboutit from time to time.

I headcanon Bastila as having once been a student of Atris’s. I’ve noticed as I playthrough KOTOR I that she has some mannerisms in common with Atris—the way she gesticulateswhen she talks, for instance. Her tendency towards dogmatism, her (stronglyimplied) isolation from her peers, going far beyond what I would expect fromeven a Jedi, and the fact that Bastila is frankly the most tightly-wound personI have ever come across in a piece ofStar Wars media, have Atris’sfingerprints all over them. I imagine Bastila as having come under Atris’s careafter the Mandalorian Wars broke out and Kalani left to fight. Atris would havebeen a stern teacher even at the best of times, but after this happened, yeah,Atris was not the sort of person who should have ever been put in charge of a child, especially not a naturallyhigh-strung child like Bastila probably was to start with.

MyBastila actually left the Jedi Order a few months after the events of KOTOR I.She had a strong desire to proactively go good that she had no outlet for nowthat the Jedi Civil war was over and the Jedi were expected to file back totheir surviving Enclaves and Academies, withdrawing from the affairs of the galaxyat large. She had questions for the Council that they had no answers that theywere willing to give her, like why they’d been treating Bastila more like aweapon than a person over the last several years. And Bastila had noticed adifference in the way she was treated post fall and redemption, a differencethat made her feel even more isolated and alone than she already had.

Soyeah, Bastila left the Jedi Order, and proceeded to become the second personthat year to have a nervous breakdown/existential crisis in Carth Onasi’sliving room (I head canon Jìngyī and Bastila both as having crashed with Carthafter they, independently of one another, left the Jedi Order after the eventsof KOTOR I). Bastila’s feelings towards the Order are extremely complicated.She wouldn’t have left if she had felt like she had any real choice, if she hadeven the slightest chance for a life she felt like she could actually live with them. She has no lightsaber,and is no longer part of the Order, but verymuch still considers herself a Jedi. After a while of trying, to no avail,to find a job (life in the Order left her extremely ill-equipped for lifeoutside of it), she, with Carth’s help, gets involved with the planetaryrestoration efforts, and being able to do real, active good helps her come toterms, somewhat.

As forher relationship with Atris, Atris came down on Bastila pretty hard after herfall and redemption, but when Bastila actually left the Order for good? Then,the two of them had a truly horrific falling-out, nearly as bad as Kalani’sfalling-out with Atris was, minus the added complication of a previousromantic/sexual relationship. So for the two of them to have to be on the sameship at the same time is, umm, not pleasant for anyone.

Atrisis not murderous, and understands that what she did, regarding the Order,Katarr and Kalani, was wrong, but she is extremely brittle, extremelyshort-tempered, and just kind of broken. She rarely ventures out of the starboarddormitories, and just tends to sit on one of the beds, staring at the wall. Shecan be coaxed into speech, can be coaxed into ‘life,’ but something’s justsnapped inside of her—or, rather, something snapped in her a long time ago, andshe’s just now realizing it, just now feeling it. She’s not sure how to makeamends for everything she’s done, not sure if she even can, and this uncertainty leaves her paralyzed. She gets intobitter arguments with Bastila, into screaming matches with Kalani that leaveone or both of them in tears.

Briannais just sort of left to cope with her surrogate mother having completely fallenapart, and with her surrogate mother’s ex-girlfriend and ex-student being onboard and all of the messy baggage that comes with that. There’s also heremerging Force Sensitivity, and her desire to explore that clashing with thevows she swore.

Juhanimay or may not join the crew at some point. Yuthura Ban, too. This is really, really not a fun trip, and it’s only thedroids who aren’t dealing with baggage.

That’snot to say it’s unrelenting fear, tension and misery. There are a few softerspots.

Kalaniand Atton, with the events of their game taken care of, actually have time todevelop a romantic relationship. PDA freaks Bastila out like nothing else can,which is annoying, but it freaks her out in such an amusing way that they almost don’t care. Kalani and Bastila, whenthey aren’t arguing about Revan/Jìngyī, find common ground commiserating overtheir miserable relationships with Atris. Brianna gets kind of starry-eyedwhenever she speaks to Bastila and especially Kalani, and when the matter isbrought up, Atris is surprisingly okay with the two of them teaching Briannathe ways of the Force; Kalani and Bastila find further common ground inteaching Brianna. If Juhani’s on board, she and Bastila are of course friendlywith one another, and they support each other emotionally. If Yuthura is onboard, she actually gets on fairly well with Kalani and Atton both. Atriscan occasionally be persuaded to come out of the starboard dormitory and spendnon-miserable time with Kalani, Brianna, and/or Bastila.

Whenthey actually find Jìngyī, well… It’s a mess. Partially because Jìngyī is,herself, a complete, fucking mess of a person. Her memories are fractured; sheremembers that Revan found evidence of a Sith Empire beyond the Rim, but solittle beyond that that she’s just stuck searching worlds in Unknown Space fortraces of it. Her sense of identity is fractured. She remembers only bits andpieces of her life before being brainwashed and having the false memoriesimplanted; there are huge, gaping holes in memory. My Jìngyī basically fellapart after the events of KOTOR I, because with the Star Forge destroyed, therewas nothing to distract her from her crawling fears regarding Revan and her ownidentity. Her mental state can be best summed up by the phrase “afraid to sleepbecause every time she does she fears that she will never wake up again, butthat the shadow in the back of her mind will wake up and walk away wearing herskin.” ‘Revan’ feels more like a shadow to her than something, someone she actually was, once. It wouldhelp if her implanted memories had more substance to them, but they’re onlybare bones; they were designed that way, the better to avoid inconsistenciesshe might pick up on (And thinking about a life she never really lived ispainful and confusing anyways). She’s desperately trying to find traces of the SithEmpire almost more because she needs a distraction from her crawling fears thanbecause she’s trying to protect the Republic.

Kalaniwants to hate her. She is, when she finds her, genuinely extremely frustratedwith her, and loses her temper with her easily (Atton is genuinely surprised,but this is easily the angriest he’s ever seen her get). But she can’t hate Jìngyī, because she’s not theterrible, towering figure she remembers. She’s just a frightened, miserablewreck of a person who’s trying in her own fumbling way to do good. She can’tremember Kalani at all. She can’t remember using and using Kalani, and thenbreaking and throwing her away once she wasn’t useful anymore. Bastila has toexplain to Jìngyī who Kalani is and why she should know her. And it’s not goodbecause, oh, look, here’s yet anotherpiece of closure permanently denied to Kalani, but she just can’t bring herselfto hate someone so genuinely pitiable,and that’s just the story of Kalani’s life, having to find a way to move onwhen closure is denied her. Jìngyī is eventually wrangled onto the Ebon Hawk and carted back off toRepublic space. It’s easier than Kalani thought it would be.

#Ask meme #Star Wars: KOTOR 2 #KOTOR #you will be able to tell immediately #at what point I lost control of this post #chidorinnnnn

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thesummerstorms · 8 years

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KOTOR/KOTOR 2 for the top 5 things you'd change?

I’m gonna hit Kotor 2 in another ask, so this is all strictly Kotor 1. (More ranting space that way!) It has been a few years since I played 1 though, so add grains of salt to taste.

SHIPPING: Give me a way to opt out of the Carth romance wayyy earlier/give me a more robust Juhani/fem!PC ship for those who want it/ romance Bastila as a girl (not my taste but the option should be there)/ more ship options in general and the way to opt out of them **

Give me more nuanced choices? I know there’s options that won’t shift your early alignment, but the nuance of the possible replies and perspectives (as opposed to eventually getting to the later levels and basically having the “kick puppies for no reason while laughing cartoonishly” and “certified angel” options) is a big part of while I ended up liking 2 more as a game. Revan, Bastila, the Jedi Council’s choice to give a mass murderer false memories all could have used more consideration honestly?

But hear me out, instead of the Endar Spire and Taris everytime, alternate DLC that gives you a Jolee Bindo or Mission & Zalabaar playable prologue instead.

WALK FASTER ON MANAAN. FOR THE FORCE’S SAKE

Canonize female Revan (instead of the weird dude bro… thing in SWTOR) and restore the balance in some of her relationships that got shafted (playing through and interacting with Bastila as different genders is eye opening if I remember properly, though I only did it once.)

** Ngl, I owned and mostly played Kotor at a period of life where the only games I owned were K1&2, RepCom, and Oblivion. So like… I enjoyed the Carth romance as a 12 year old playing the first time, but after a while it got exhausting to hear the exact same dialogue and play a new version of the character for whom the relationship made no sense and still be limited in what I could say/do while getting LS points. Plus, my main Revan I ship in (not necessarily always… wonderful) relationships with my fem!Exile and Canderous at various points, so, in general. (I’m actually not sure what I’d make of the Carth relationship now if I played it, actually?)

#kotor #rev answers #soundwavereporting

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spiffinessabounds · 8 years

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Potentially unpopular confession time...

As is probably pretty dang obvious based on my Tumblr posts, I love SWTOR. I’ve been playing it for almost 2 years now, and I have loved getting into the lore and backstory and developing my characters and version of canon.

I started playing KOTOR and KOTOR 2 within the last month. I’ve already read the much debated and often hated Revan novel (because I was super curious about Scourge’s backstory) and here’s the thing... I will eventually do playthroughs to try and get a feel for Bioware’s “canon” Revan and Meetra. And quite honestly, they will be my canon as well.

I know so many people hate the canon versions and I 100% understand that. If you played the games before this whole canon stuff was a thing, of course you’re probably unhappy with Bioware’s canon--you already have your canon that you are emotionally invested in, and quite honestly that is how it should be for you! Own your canon and love it, and feel free to ignore Bioware’s. Because the great thing about fandom and canons is that you can absolutely build your own.

In the meantime, I don’t have that KOTOR history, so my canon is going to more or less follow Bioware’s. That doesn’t mean I don’t love everyone else’s canons.

TL;DR you rock your KOTOR/SWTOR canons and hopefully people won’t hate me when mine follow Bioware’s.

#i honestly don't think it'll be that big of an issue #but people can get real fired up about revan and the exile #and sometimes i worry #kotor #kotor 2 #swtor #bioware

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Five of the Best: Villains • Eurogamer.net

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the small details we rush past when we’re playing but which shape a game in our memory for years to come. Details like the way a character jumps or the title screen you load into, or the potions you use and maps you refer back to. We’ve talked about so many in our Five of the Best series so far. But there are always more.

Five of the Best works like this. Various Eurogamer writers will share their memories in the article and then you – probably outraged we didn’t include the thing you’re thinking of – can share the thing you’re thinking of in the comments below. Your collective memory has never failed to amaze us – don’t let that stop now!

Today’s Five of the Best is…

Villains, or baddies as I like to call them. For me, everything revolves around the baddie. They’re the threat, the goal, the quest, and they have to be convincing. If they’re a bit flimsy, the whole thing goes wibbly-wobbly and I’m left thinking what’s the point? But if they’re on point and menacing and, let’s be real, probably quite alluring too, then I’m all in. Take Palpatine in Star Wars: I can’t get enough of him. He’s irresistibly evil and lights up every scene he’s in, sometimes quite literally. His pantomime menace sells (maybe one too many of) the films.

It’s the same for games. If the villain is limp we won’t feel spurred on to defeat them. So let’s celebrate the baddies for a change. Here are five of the best. Happy long weekend!

M. Bison in Street Fighter 2

I broke my fancy see-through SNES pad because of M. bloody Bison. It was in the Street Fighter 2 days and he was the end boss, and whatever I did, I couldn’t beat him. It was that jump he did on top of my head and then the backflip back around. And his spinny forward jump, and the frontflip leg kick – I’m pretty sure I’m nailing the technical terms here. I just couldn’t get a handle on him.

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Actual, tangible proof Bison is evil!

Again and again he beat me, and you know what he did every time he won? He smiled about it. The arrogant bastard. And one day I just couldn’t take it any more. Like a toddler I let loose, jumping up and down on my controller before bending and snapping it my hands like a strongman (or petulant child) bending a metal bar. What a wally. I tried taping it back together but it never worked in the same way again. And it was all M. Bison’s fault. I think.

-Bertie

Darth Traya in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords

I almost wrote the Nameless One here, the protagonist from Planescape: Torment, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure if he actually was a baddie. He definitely did bad things but he wasn’t really the baddie.

My gut wants to go with someone else, one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever come across in a game: Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2. Perhaps it’s no surprise KOTOR 2 and Planescape: Torment come up in the same breath, given so many of the same people were involved in both games, Chris Avellone in particular.

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This a nice, detailed explainer.

Kreia begins KOTOR 2 as your friend. In fact she’s more than that, she’s your mentor. She’s the person you look up to and who teaches you in the ways of the Force. But what makes her so unusual in regards to other Star Wars mentors is she’s neither good nor evil, not for the longest time. She’s the one who chastises you for your charity to a homeless person because they’ll get robbed by other homeless people who saw what you did. She makes you think. She is Obsidian making you question how you approach a game like this, and a licence like this.

It’s not until you deal with the game’s two other, equally memorable villains – Darth Sion, a person whose body is crumbling apart and is in constant pain and rage holding it together; and Darth Nihilus, who’s not a person at all but a wound in the force, sucking everything into itself like a black hole – that the real villain, their former ally, is revealed. And of course it’s she who has been beside you the whole game, steering you. It is Kreia, or to use her Sith name, Darth Traya.

-Bertie

Below is a Making Of KOTOR 2 podcast I recorded several years ago now with members of the Obsidian team and the Restored Content Mod team. There’s an adjoining article too.

Kefka in Final Fantasy 6

I mean, of course Kefka’s on this list. How could he not be? Final Fantasy 6’s villain has every right to call himself video game’s ultimate baddie, a cackling clown who is a thing of pure evil. Psychotic foes are ten-a-penny in games, of course, but Final Fantasy 6’s masterstroke is – spoiler alert – showing you what happens when evil wins out. And boy is it not pretty.

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This is a good explainer too.

Even before that point, Kefka’s wrongdoing takes Final Fantasy 6’s adventure to some surprisingly dark places, killing off an entire kingdom by poisoning the water supply – and that’s him just getting started. It’s like pre-Hays Code cinema, before video game’s burgeoning popularity meant a new kind of morality swept across the medium. Even then, there’d never been anyone quite as evil as Kefka in games – and I doubt there ever will.

-Martin Robinson

Mahatma Ghandi in the Civilization series

Nuke-mad Gandhi endures as the ultimate not-a-bug-but-a-feature of video games. But it was a bug once. In the first Civilization game, the story goes, Gandhi’s hidden aggression value was set to the lowest possible value on the scale, which was 1. But if he adopted the doctrine of democracy, which lowered his hidden aggression statistic by two points, he accidentally became the antithesis of himself. It’s because instead of going falling to -1, his aggression counter would loop back around to the maximum value of 255. (An interesting aside here for the real nerds: 255 is a significant number in a lot of games, like Pokémon’s EVs for instance, if you’re into competitive training. In my admittedly limited understanding, this is apparently down to storage. A single byte stores 256 different values, but because it begins from zero, 255 regularly occurs as the maximum value, as in our good old friend Gandhi’s aggression.)

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Anyway! Gandhi, as a result of this little quirk, became the most aggressive Civilization leader ever when adopting democracy. Ever since, he’s been intentionally programmed to be nuke-heavy as a nod to the bugs of the past, though Firaxis has made him a bit nicer for the rest of the game, which is probably fair enough.

-Chris Tapsell

Loot boxes in everything

Surprise! Or should I say… surprise mechanics?

I bet you weren’t expecting to see loot boxes in the mix here, but can you think of a more hated villain in games history? The backlash to EA’s implementation of loot boxes in Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was so severe that multiple countries eventually banned them. Players have spent thousands of dollars on them without even realising, and even the NHS has weighed in to say they’re “setting kids up for addiction” to gambling. That’s quite the portfolio.

For me, and many other players, loot boxes are so hated because they prey on basic human weaknesses rather than just giving the consumer value for money – if you’re chasing a particular skin, you’ll often end up with duplicates and other guff rather than what you want. Then there’s the fact they often exploit those most prone to gambling addiction, relying on big spenders (whales) to sink hundreds into their favourite games. And if you add gameplay-affecting elements into loot boxes, that pressure to spend becomes even more problematic.

An artist’s impression of an evil loot box.

You might think we’ve started to move on from loot boxes towards other forms of monetisation such as battle passes, but unfortunately that’s not the case. Loot boxes are still prevalent in our games, with a recent study finding 71.28 per cent of their sample were playing Steam games containing loot boxes as of April 2019. The European games regulator PEGI recently introduced a “paid random items” descriptor for game boxes – a good start – but while the UK Gambling Commission recognises a potential risk to children, it argues loot boxes cannot be classified as gambling as no money can be withdrawn. Will loot boxes ever get their full comeuppance? I guess we’re still waiting for that chapter.

-Emma Kent

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/five-of-the-best-villains-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-villains-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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