Knights of the Eternal Throne [Expansion Discussion]

[Edge-]

speaking of the gear in kotet, i'm hoping they'll move away from the zakuulan aesthetic and get back to imperial and republic style gear.

i'm really not a fan of the zakuulan style.

I wish they would to...but I'm a bit skeptical. This whole storyarc has entirely destroyed the Republic vs. Imperial battle and everything that came with it. KotET is bring "light vs. dark", but that's quite a different ball of wax.

Honestly, it's one of the things that's bothered me the most, I miss the normal storyline. And You know they're not going to just roll with the whole thing and remove factions and never bring the Republic vs. Imperial war back up again, unifying the population into a single group and allowing them to actually focus on stories without needing to constantly reference the faction war. If they're going to keep Republic and Imperials separate in gameplay, then I expect the story to do so as well. Especially in a game that focuses so much on story like this.

[xuros]

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/...ema_zealot.jpg

just wonder if anyone had seen this yet? nathema zealot. nathema is the birthplace of vitiate. are we going to go there? god, i hope so.

but, beyond that, look at the belt. is it just bioware reusing assets or what's up here? cause that snake is supposed to be zakuulan, right? or, it is related to the celestials? i had read of serpentine imagery in things related to the celestials. maybe that's where zakuulan religion comes from, or maybe it is vitiate's symbolism and he shaped their idea of zildrog being serpentine.

Did you read the novel Revan? It goes into details about the planet and how the emperor wiped out all life on the planet. Everything even animal and insect life. Its a great book even goes into Lord Scourges background and how he became the first Emperors wrath in detail.

[ranzino]

Bioware is teasing again..... and tempting the outlander.

First Look: Your Knights of the Eternal Throne Destiny

dont watch, if you dont want to know the tempting offer until late in november.

[derpkitteh]

Did you read the novel Revan? It goes into details about the planet and how the emperor wiped out all life on the planet. Everything even animal and insect life. Its a great book even goes into Lord Scourges background and how he became the first Emperors wrath in detail.

yeah, i know what he did to nathema. which is why i'm confused about the zakuulan imagery on the nathema zealot gear, and wondering if we'll go there at any point in the expansion and get to tell koth that this is what he did to one of our worlds, too.

[xuros]

yeah, i know what he did to nathema. which is why i'm confused about the zakuulan imagery on the nathema zealot gear, and wondering if we'll go there at any point in the expansion and get to tell koth that this is what he did to one of our worlds, too.

Im just curious as to how its going to work with the planet since its supposed to be a "dead zone" and not a comfortable place to stay for long for people who are attuned to the force. Unless they decide to go back on their own story line.

[derpkitteh]

Im just curious as to how its going to work with the planet since its supposed to be a "dead zone" and not a comfortable place to stay for long for people who are attuned to the force. Unless they decide to go back on their own story line.

well, clearly he that's where he took vaylin to do whatever he did to her. maybe the uncomfortable nature was a part of it. maybe being touched by him will stave off that feeling and lana will be the one complaining about it.

[Ladyoftheforest]

For some time now swtor's story arc has been very unimpressive. Can't see myself resubbing. There is just too much wrong with the game to get me interested.

[Sills]

For some time now swtor's story arc has been very unimpressive. Can't see myself resubbing. There is just too much wrong with the game to get me interested.

That was my reaction following the release of Ch 16 of KotFE. I stopped my sub and haven't subbed since. I went into the leadup to KotET with a lot of skepticism. I wanted to wait and see what they had to offer before I would even consider resubbing. I know it's their job to market the game but everything that I've seen and heard makes me feel like the story of KotET will be what KotFE should have been. They are scrapping the filler content where you go get companions that you never cared about and focusing on tying up all of the key story lines of KotFE that are left hanging.

They have even said that we will be able to exact sweet vengance against all of the people who have betrayed us (Arcann, Senya, Koth will all be eligible to be killed if you choose). KotET has been referred to numerous times as the "bloodiest single expansion to date" by Devs (Charles said this again twice in the livestream today) referring to the number of characters that we will be able to axe. Just the idea that I can put Koth deep into the cold, cold ground is enough to make me want to resub.

These story elements are exactly what I wanted to hear and I will be resubbing in about a week for the launch of KotET. I never could let a story go unfinished...

[quras]

SNIP...

These story elements are exactly what I wanted to hear and I will be resubbing in about a week for the launch of KotET. I never could let a story go unfinished...

That is a similar situation to me and why I'm staying subbed. I want to wrap up the story. For all it's "downs" and not nearly enough "ups". I want to see it end. I want to see if bw will let us do what they claim we will be able to do or is it just more BS.

If you have been playing SWTOR at all, you have been doing some really old content. Come the Expansion, there really isn't enough new content to stay subbed for very long after the story as Story will be wrapped up fairly quickly and 5-6 4 man FPs (now called Uprisings) wont last nearly as long as bw imagines. bw seems to have a rather bad gauge on how quickly gamers consume content.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

This game is pretty much dead after this expansion. What way will they continue the story? This is most likely the last expansion.

[Sills]

This game is pretty much dead after this expansion. What way will they continue the story? This is most likely the last expansion.

I too expect that the plug will be pulled, but they are probably waiting to see how successful/unsuccessful KotET will be before deciding. That having been said, it was stated in the most recent livestream that they do have plans for after KotET, so they are at least talking about being prepared to move forward. Who knows though, right? We will just have to see.

First things first, before we get too "gloom and doom" here, I am at least curious to see how things shape up on Nov 29th/Dec 2nd. If they generated content that is intriguing and (for longer lasting subs) repeatable, then maybe they have a chance.

[quras]

SNIP.....

First things first, before we get too "gloom and doom" here, I am at least curious to see how things shape up on Nov 29th/Dec 2nd. If they generated content that is intriguing and (for longer lasting subs) repeatable, then maybe they have a chance.

From what we know so far NEW content at launch will be little.

9 new chapters and if they are the same length and design of the others. There 40 min or less in length and very hit miss miss as far as entertainment goes.
5 or so uprisings which are watered down 4 man flash points.

Other than leveling and hitting 2 new planets while leveling (and they have no daily areas). You are once again expected to grind out some really old content to fill the rest of your time.

Come January bw said they "hope" to talk about new group content but thats just their hope. Pretty much means you're not getting any new content just the hope they can talk. Not very interesting. They said they have a few more uprisings to release that wont be in at launch as well as harder a harder difficulty but how much retention power does that really have if the first 5 are no more than what we have seen? Not much.

New content at the launch of a new expansion is really scarce in SWTOR. Way to much "keep grinding 2-5 year old content" to have a strong player retention I think.

[WoWGoneBad]

This game started dieing a slow death the moment they started with Ziost.


Star Wars was ALWAYS about the Sith Fighting the Jedi and the Imperials fighting the Rebellion. With SWtoR they had a GREAT starting point to make it Jedi vs Sith with armies assisting and running with it. But NOOOOOOO why would we EVER want to keep the Sith vs Jedi story going even though it has been going on for MILLENNIA!!!!

Now.... they totally crushed both the Republic and the Empire and once Vaylin is done they will be hard pressed to find a good reason to going back to Imp vs Pub.

As Edge has stated so many times, they have SQUANDERED this IP and now it is just another sad husk of a game that failed to deliver that Star Wars feel.

I cannot even begin to state the rage I feel at how this game has gone down story wise. They did a good job with the Hutt Cartel powergrab but they should have went back to the War rather than going to Ziost after the Dread Masters.

Making the Emperor the main focus so soon in the games lifespan was just FUCKING STUPID!!!!!!!

I do not see much life left in this game with their current game design REQUIRING a sub to get GC points for gear and locking ALL gear behind the GC crates.

[Edge-]

Star Wars was ALWAYS about the Sith Fighting the Jedi and the Imperials fighting the Rebellion. With SWtoR they had a GREAT starting point to make it Jedi vs Sith with armies assisting and running with it. But NOOOOOOO why would we EVER want to keep the Sith vs Jedi story going even though it has been going on for MILLENNIA!!!!

Because creating two storylines with each expansion/update is twice as expensive as finding a way to get the two sides to work together and merging it all into a single storyline.

I've had such major issues with the design decisions behind this game since before it even launched. It was clearly not very well thought out overall, the fact that they ever had any intention of keeping eight storylines going for any amount if time is ludicrous to the extreme. And now we're left with this storyline which I've found largely uninteresting and not even remotely "star-warsy".

It actually makes my decision to largely stop playing the game outside of tinkering around to finish the last few 1-50 storylines I have less painful. Sad that I won't continue my journey on my sage or sniper, both of which I enjoy playing, but honestly I can't say I'm very interested in the direction that the story has gone with KotFE and is continuing to go with KotET.

[WoWGoneBad]

Idont care about the 8 individual storylines, I knew that was an unrealistic goal and was never gonna be kept.

But if you look at how they made each planet story for Pub and Imp, the stories are nto that great in detail and could theoretically be done in the same vein. Hell, they could have used the same planet and just different locations added to them rather than going to new planets and these KRAP BULLSHIT stories.

Yes there would need to be two story lines Imp and Pub but the amount of garbage they put out with these two "expacs" could have been used to continue the Imp Pub things and they used this material further down the road.

The problem is that they tried to do the WoW thing with Alliance/Horde combined goal, while a great idea in theory, the Alliance and Horde are STILL fighting their wars throughout the last 12 years AS WELL as their combined threats. There may not be much in the way of player interactions of the war, but they are there and you can still see the war raging even during the lulls between combined threats.

With SWtoR they went and killed BOTH Factions...... They could have kept the Emperor as the "main threat" and had instances where both Repub and Imp are fighting Arcann on ALREADY EXISTING planets. That would have stretched their content farther than what they came up with their lazy design.

Now as things stand the Pub and Empire are in an infancy stage in terms of rebuilding their war capital and we STILL need to deal with Vaylin. And with this whole KotFE and ET story, there is no way to go back to an open war since EVERY PLAYER is the Outlander and there is no story arc or inclination of a Pub or Imp Outlander trying to rebuild their respective factions since both factions are co-existing.

Essentially the Imp/Pub war is over. I can only hope that in another 100 years of SWtoR both sides will have found leaders who want to bring the conflict back...... But the game will long be done unless they decide to time jump us players again number of years into the future again.

[Edge-]

The problem is that they tried to do the WoW thing with Alliance/Horde combined goal, while a great idea in theory, the Alliance and Horde are STILL fighting their wars throughout the last 12 years AS WELL as their combined threats. There may not be much in the way of player interactions of the war, but they are there and you can still see the war raging even during the lulls between combined threats.

Honestly, in this case I think it was less about copying WoW (which they've been unabashedly proud of during the development before the game launched) and more a development necessity. They simply didn't have the time/budget to continue two separate stories even. That's why even Shadow of Revan merged the two stories more or less into one, after Makeb managed to keep Imp/Republic storlines going. But at least with Revan we got a lot more of "Star Wars" via the continued conflict between the two sides and the unease of the temporary truce between them.

Now...it's just so bleh. And the fact that the faction war is all but gone causes plenty of other issues. The game has always been a compete and utter disaster when you try to resolve the conflicts that exist between narrative and gameplay/design from start to finish. It's one of the reasons why I wish they'd have never gone the story focused route. With a property like Star Wars, it's too potentially restrictive if you want to pretend like your story matters and especially if you want to make it canon (like SWTOR initially was before Disney).

Essentially the Imp/Pub war is over. I can only hope that in another 100 years of SWtoR both sides will have found leaders who want to bring the conflict back...... But the game will long be done unless they decide to time jump us players again number of years into the future again.

Yep, at this point if they wanted to pull the lazy plot device they pulled during KotFE and freeze us in carbonite again, this time for a few hundred years, just to get the story back on track...I'd be totally alright with that. Zakuul is probably one of the least interesting storylines I think I've encountered in the Star Wars universe.

[Katchii]

Yep, at this point if they wanted to pull the lazy plot device they pulled during KotFE and freeze us in carbonite again, this time for a few hundred years, just to get the story back on track...I'd be totally alright with that. Zakuul is probably one of the least interesting storylines I think I've encountered in the Star Wars universe.

I enjoyed the Zakuul storylines, at least on my Force wielding characters, felt ridiculous as a non-force user (Bounty Hunter) and the KotET will feel even more so going up against Vaylin who we've seen literally rip an entire city sector apart with her mind. How the hell can a non-force user contend with that on "equal footing" it's stupid.

Anyway, I feel like this story was fun, and after KotET it will have done a good job at allowing for the rebuilding of the Empire and Republic. There has been allusions to the Empire still being around, just in a weakened state, haven't heard much about the Republic though. If at the end of all this we time jump ahead to a point where that conflict or any kind of interaction between the two is back in play this game will have more fuel to keep going.

As you've stated though, I don't think this game has the resources or the expertise to run two separate story campaigns. I think we're stuck with mediocre single "faction" stories for as long as this game can keep itself from drowning.

[Edge-]

I enjoyed the Zakuul storylines, at least on my Force wielding characters, felt ridiculous as a non-force user (Bounty Hunter) and the KotET will feel even more so going up against Vaylin who we've seen literally rip an entire city sector apart with her mind. How the hell can a non-force user contend with that on "equal footing" it's stupid.

Eh, even force fuckery aside (which is why I imagine you enjoyed it less as a non-force user, because that whole nonsense makes zero sense at all) I just didn't find Zakuul very "star warsy" and the direction it took the story (i.e. away from the imperial vs. republic/sith vs. jedi storyline) to be pretty piss poor.

In terms of Vaylins power...yeah, that's whatever. SWTOR has never once even bothered to maintain any level of consistency with how powerful player characters are from moment to moment, cutscene to cutscene, or between players and NPC's. At this point I don't think they ever have that as a consideration, so I fully expect a non-force user to end up defeating Vaylin in a straight up fight. Despite the fact that by all rights Vaylin should literally be able to kill all non-force users in a blink and given her current levels of power compared to the player character force users should be able to crush them pretty easily as well.

This is why SWTOR's story-centric approach is a terrible idea. Because when you make the story matter, people are going to pay attention to stuff like power consistency. You can sweep all that stuff under the rug when you're shining a spotlight on it.

Anyway, I feel like this story was fun, and after KotET it will have done a good job at allowing for the rebuilding of the Empire and Republic. There has been allusions to the Empire still being around, just in a weakened state, haven't heard much about the Republic though. If at the end of all this we time jump ahead to a point where that conflict or any kind of interaction between the two is back in play this game will have more fuel to keep going.

Honestly, I'd be much more interested in storylines centered around the Republic and Empire waging their respective wars against the Eternal Throne, occasionally working together but largely just functioning under a very temporary and delicate truce. Players need to engage in a mixture of offensive attacks against Eternal Throne strongholds as well as defend against attacks on their planets, all while working to rebuild and reinforce their faction.

It allows for the nonsense Zakuul storyline to play out while grounding it all in the Empire vs. Republic storyline that's so pervasive throughout Star Wars. It also allows for a smooth and easy transition back to that conflict once this line wraps up.

As you've stated though, I don't think this game has the resources or the expertise to run two separate story campaigns. I think we're stuck with mediocre single "faction" stories for as long as this game can keep itself from drowning.

Sadly, yeah : (

[Katchii]

[SNIP]

Sadly, yeah : (

All very fair points. Bottom line for me was that I had fun playing the game through the KotFE story. Honestly though, that may have a LOT more to with the fact that I just love playing as my Rage Juggernaut than with the actual story....it just gave me an excuse to play him and beat shit up with my lightsaber, and I felt awesome doing it.

As long as the story is somewhat decent, I'll have a good time playing through it. I'd much prefer it go back to the Imp vs Pub, but at this point I'm not sure that conflict holds enough of a threat for either side. I mean, the player character is basically a freaking god now...what threat does either side hold that could contend with us? Would be like Darth Vader at the beginning of Force Unleashed in Kashyyyk...just mowing EVERYTHING down, even the big baddies.

[Witchblade77]

http://dulfy.net/2016/11/23/swtor-ko...ream-coverage/

I....

to summarize.

subscribe or gtfo is official. no alternative to ops/flashpoint passes, no way to earn gear at lvl 70 outside of subscribing (technically crafting doesn't count as technically end game recipes are ALSO in crates)
GC makes artifact weapon grind look like nothing. its like the worst of ESO's champion system with none of the benefits. oh yeah. pay to win via CG leveling boosts on cartel market.