[Retrospective] Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic & Bioware

[Fkiolaris]

To comment on a couple of topics:

1) I played KOTOR on release and it was one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played and it really is (for me) one of the highlights of "old" Bioware. The combat was nothing special, true, but as an RPG it was immense. I haven't played it lately so I am not sure how it aged.

2) I do not agree that a single class story from SWTOR is better than KOTOR, at least not from the ones I completed (JK, Smuggler, Trooper, SI) and most definitely the world is not built with as much depth as I remember KOTOR having. However, having said that, when you put ALL the class stories together in SWTOR then yes, it is quite special (they are meant to be complementing each other, to begin with). Plus, what I do like on the separate class stories is that they had more freedom to have variety of character styles (ie my smuggler was a joking Han Solo all the way through)

3) Because I see a lot of people making that statement, IMO in terms of story and single-player experience, no MMO beats The Secret World and I say that as a massive Star Wars fan. SWTOR, for my taste, shares the second place with ESO in that department.

[Rotted]

I play KotOR 1+2 atleast once a year, but only recently started playing with mods, can't wait to try the restored content patches when I get enough free time

[Tenjen]

I’ve yet to play either KOTOR game or Jade Empire. I keep meaning to but I never get around to it for some reason. Dragon Age Origins is hands down their best game though. Mass Effect 2&3 are pretty good too.



The Jedi Knight is one of the worse class stories. Sith Warrior and Inquisitor are way better.

Light Side Sith is very interesting.

Played KOTOR ages ago and i just got them again on Steam since my old game copies are long dead.

[Dakhath]

I’ve yet to play either KOTOR game or Jade Empire. I keep meaning to but I never get around to it for some reason. Dragon Age Origins is hands down their best game though. Mass Effect 2&3 are pretty good too.



The Jedi Knight is one of the worse class stories. Sith Warrior and Inquisitor are way better.

While Sith Warrior is my favorite overall, its all subjective. Ive never heard the JK called the one of the worst, but its fine if you feel that way. It is, however, the most KOTOR story out of the bunch.

[RadasNoir]

The Jedi Knight is one of the worse class stories. Sith Warrior and Inquisitor are way better.

I've never understood why I always see people gushing about the JK class story. Maybe it gets better later on, but having only played up to a little past Coruscant, there was nothing about it that really wowed me, especially when compared to some of the other, earlier class storylines. If any thing, it really bugged me that everyone seems to worship the ground you walk on in the JK missions; all of the other classes get this from time to time as well, but it seemed by far the most apparent with the NPCs in the JK storyline.

Light Side Sith is very interesting.

Ugh, I could never find a way to justify playing a Light Side Sith in my head, as much as I kind of like the "a light in the darkness" aspect. After a point, it just seems odd that either the Light Side Sith in question wouldn't just full on defect to the Republic/Jedi, or that certain elements of the Empire wouldn't find out about some of the more particularly compromising decisions you can make, and have you hunted down for treason.

That, and there's no getting around the fact that, even if you help certain NPCs out from time to time, your missions still consist of stuff like murdering rebelling slaves or resistance fighters, or otherwise advancing the cause of the Empire, a faction that supports things like slavery and bloodthirsty conquest.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I've never understood why I always see people gushing about the JK class story. Maybe it gets better later on, but having only played up to a little past Coruscant, there was nothing about it that really wowed me, especially when compared to some of the other, earlier class storylines. If any thing, it really bugged me that everyone seems to worship the ground you walk on in the JK missions; all of the other classes get this from time to time as well, but it seemed by far the most apparent with the NPCs in the JK storyline.



Ugh, I could never find a way to justify playing a Light Side Sith in my head, as much as I kind of like the "a light in the darkness" aspect. After a point, it just seems odd that either the Light Side Sith in question wouldn't just full on defect to the Republic/Jedi, or that certain elements of the Empire wouldn't find out about some of the more particularly compromising decisions you can make, and have you hunted down for treason.

That, and there's no getting around the fact that, even if you help certain NPCs out from time to time, your missions still consist of stuff like murdering rebelling slaves or resistance fighters, or otherwise advancing the cause of the Empire, a faction that supports things like slavery and bloodthirsty conquest.

When I played a light side sith warrior I played it as a imperial truest who thought there was better ways to go about the ideals of the empire without all the useless power struggles and back stabbing. It makes a lot more sense to try and stick to the empires ideals but also try and change away from
The cartoonishly evil sith ways.

I do believe there is even a light side option in eternal throne when talking about the republic as a sith warrior where you lay out how the empire can be a better place but how democracy like the republic is doomed to fail.

[Big Thanks]

When I played a light side sith warrior I played it as a imperial truest who thought there was better ways to go about the ideals of the empire without all the useless power struggles and back stabbing. It makes a lot more sense to try and stick to the empires ideals but also try and change away from
The cartoonishly evil sith ways.

I do believe there is even a light side option in eternal throne when talking about the republic as a sith warrior where you lay out how the empire can be a better place but how democracy like the republic is doomed to fail.

Thank you for recommending me SWTOR, im loving the game and its a "worthy" story campaign.
I dont feel any issues from being free to play...yet.

I did some exploring and it seems that if i want to pay a sub, they accept PaySafeCards. Perfect for me so far

[Kharadin]

Kotor 1+2 were some of my all-time favourite games, admittedly I thought 2 was better due to the narrative but they were both excellent. Swtor has similarly good world-building and epic overarching narratives but misses out on the minutiae of the tiny random encounters that can occur anywhere, and also a lot of the humorous encounters throughout the game, too.

Swtor also misses out on the character-building you can do in Kotor, - though that's probably due to being an MMO - which is quite tabletop-RPG-esque (I mean hits/damage/saves are literally calculated as d8/d10 etc) which is another reason I love those games so much. This was my first game by Bioware (and then by Obsidian) and that really got me following both those companies and keeping an eye on their releases. I keep meaning to replay them but the graphics just hurt my eyes so much.

[Dakhath]

I've never understood why I always see people gushing about the JK class story. Maybe it gets better later on, but having only played up to a little past Coruscant, there was nothing about it that really wowed me, especially when compared to some of the other, earlier class storylines. If any thing, it really bugged me that everyone seems to worship the ground you walk on in the JK missions; all of the other classes get this from time to time as well, but it seemed by far the most apparent with the NPCs in the JK storyline.

So you played 5 percent of a class story and that is enough to see if you like it or not? Its fine if you don't like it, but I'd expect one would need to play more than a couple hours to see if they like it or not. I think its probably in the upper third or so out of the stories, but 100 percent the successor to KOTOR. It gets way better in act 2 and 3 by the way. As an aside, light side Sith generally put the well being of the Empire above personal gains. Light side SW is probably my favorite class+side in the game.

[Essem]

KOTOR 1 and 2 were amazing games. SWTOR if you just isolate the vanilla storylines were very good too. It's definitely worth playing through most of them. Sith Inquisitor was probably my favorite, but all of the Jedi and Sith ones were entertaining.

I've heard good things about Imperial Agent too, but never played it as i only really care about Jedi and Sith stuff.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Thank you for recommending me SWTOR, im loving the game and its a "worthy" story campaign.
I dont feel any issues from being free to play...yet.

I did some exploring and it seems that if i want to pay a sub, they accept PaySafeCards. Perfect for me so far

Most of the problems with F2P are just annoyances like credit limits bag limits ect. I personally can’t stand it but if your just gonna go though the story it isn’t that big of a deal. You can also use a referral link to get a free weeks sub which will also give you things like character customization unlocks title useable unlocks ect there should be a thread on here where you can find some ones referral think it’s recommend using one just for the box of goodies that stay after the free sub runs out.

As far as story goes you’ll get a lot of different opinions on what’s best but if you want the highest stake one you should go Jedi warrior as it deals directly with the emperor. My personal favourite is sith inquisitor as it really gives you the feel of a slave coming up to dark lord and a lot of sith culture. I also think sith inquisitor has the most extra stuff if you pick an alien race as your both a slave and alien.

Sith warrior is ok to but it doesn’t really give you the sith cultural experience as your mostly just hired with muscle who skips the real sith steps.

[Ealyssa]

Jade Empire was such a great game.

Obviously lacked the "Star Wars" skin to reach cult status. Sadly didn't aged that well.

[Big Thanks]

Most of the problems with F2P are just annoyances like credit limits bag limits ect. I personally can’t stand it but if your just gonna go though the story it isn’t that big of a deal. You can also use a referral link to get a free weeks sub which will also give you things like character customization unlocks title useable unlocks ect there should be a thread on here where you can find some ones referral think it’s recommend using one just for the box of goodies that stay after the free sub runs out.

As far as story goes you’ll get a lot of different opinions on what’s best but if you want the highest stake one you should go Jedi warrior as it deals directly with the emperor. My personal favourite is sith inquisitor as it really gives you the feel of a slave coming up to dark lord and a lot of sith culture. I also think sith inquisitor has the most extra stuff if you pick an alien race as your both a slave and alien.

Sith warrior is ok to but it doesn’t really give you the sith cultural experience as your mostly just hired with muscle who skips the real sith steps.

I picked "Shadow" which i hear is the most boring story because is only "politics"...but i prefer gameplay. I made my choice.
On the bright side, my "companion" is a badass and he enjoys watching me being "assertive" and a "brute" to save my Jedi master from some kind of disease.

I also enjoy being a badass, and seeing my companion happy while doing so is cool

Great game. So far.

[Dakhath]

Counselor is usually picked as the least enjoyable story, so if you're having a good time with it, that's great for things to come. It picks up after the first act as well, but the important thing is that you're having fun!

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I picked "Shadow" which i hear is the most boring story because is only "politics"...but i prefer gameplay. I made my choice.
On the bright side, my "companion" is a badass and he enjoys watching me being "assertive" and a "brute" to save my Jedi master from some kind of disease.

I also enjoy being a badass, and seeing my companion happy while doing so is cool

Great game. So far.

The Jedi counsellor (shadow/sage) story ties directly into the Jedi knights story so it’s a good pick even if it’s not as big game as the knight. Last time I played though I did it with a freind with me being a knight them when a sage and being able to see the emperors plans that the knight doesn’t directly deal with and then also dealing with the emperor was rather great. Only real downside is that even though the story’s are some what connected you can’t actually have any input to a friends story if your doing it with them.

[RadasNoir]

So you played 5 percent of a class story and that is enough to see if you like it or not? Its fine if you don't like it, but I'd expect one would need to play more than a couple hours to see if they like it or not. I think its probably in the upper third or so out of the stories, but 100 percent the successor to KOTOR. It gets way better in act 2 and 3 by the way.

I did acknowledge the possibility that it got better later on, but again, pretty much all of the other early class stories had an interesting enough "hook" that I genuinely wanted to see what happened next. Even the Trooper storyline, despite the fact that it's the class I'm the least interested in aesthetically. But the early JK storyline just felt super trope-y; I almost felt like I already knew, at least in broad strokes, how the rest of the chapter was going to go. At any rate, it's probably something I'm going to have to see for myself eventually, since it's getting harder to ignore the fact that JK/SW are the classes I enjoy the most from a gameplay perspective.

When I played a light side sith warrior I played it as a imperial truest who thought there was better ways to go about the ideals of the empire without all the useless power struggles and back stabbing. It makes a lot more sense to try and stick to the empires ideals but also try and change away from The cartoonishly evil sith ways.

I do believe there is even a light side option in eternal throne when talking about the republic as a sith warrior where you lay out how the empire can be a better place but how democracy like the republic is doomed to fail.

As an aside, light side Sith generally put the well being of the Empire above personal gains. Light side SW is probably my favorite class+side in the game.

I did initially go into playing a Light Side Sith as hoping I'd have more "pragmatic" or "Lawful Evil" choices for Light Side dialogue options, but there are quite a few instances where you're just being full blown altruistic or even outright treasonous. For whatever reason, I don't have the same mental hang up when it comes to the non-Sith Imperial characters: the Light Side BH still needs to earn a paycheck and I sort of head cannon the IA as being a double-agent, so they need to go through the motions to avoid suspicion. As always, it's possible I'm just overthinking things, when it comes to the motivations of my Light Side Sith characters.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I did initially go into playing a Light Side Sith as hoping I'd have more "pragmatic" or "Lawful Evil" choices for Light Side dialogue options, but there are quite a few instances where you're just being full blown altruistic or even outright treasonous. For whatever reason, I don't have the same mental hang up when it comes to the non-Sith Imperial characters: the Light Side BH still needs to earn a paycheck and I sort of head cannon the IA as being a double-agent, so they need to go through the motions to avoid suspicion. As always, it's possible I'm just overthinking things, when it comes to the motivations of my Light Side Sith characters.

I see it the same way as say Darth malgus. The empire is stuck in a state of stupidity if you have to be treasonous to fix that and ensure that the true ideals of the empire win over the back stabbing power grabbing sith then you gotta do what you gotta do. I was actually really disappointed when they didn’t let you join Darth malgus when he wanted to start letting aliens into the empire proper and reform it to not be stupid.

[Uurdz]

I stumbled onto KOTOR on Xbox when my cousin shared it with me.

I've played it through about half a dozen times, taking different gender, light/dark and companion story paths. I've also played KOTOR 2 a similar number of times, disappointingly that game feels about 70% finished, with some of the best story development i've ever played through (Kreia & Atton being favourites).

(1) The story development was really exciting - something that I enjoyed in the SWTOR game, but i found the repetitive MMO-standard elements (kill 10 mobs) negatively impacted the replay-ability. The story makes the game play a little like a movie, like Until Dawn, and you can choose to follow whatever threads you want to. Future games could add in far more complex decision making outcomes.

(2) Combat is fine although i found the space fights very boring and repetitive. SWTOR improved on the spacefights, but largely I never felt the combat needed to change. I see critics pointing out it's too similar or not fresh etc etc but i feel that often those design decision in games are immaterial to actual enjoyment. If you're playing it for combat and want it more dynamic then playing SW The Force Unleashed meets that need.

If they were going to make a KOTOR 3 i'd love to see them explore force power customisation (force lighting + more psychological/+ more fire dmg etc) along with a far stronger blaster/non-lightsaber melee customisation. I'd also like them to approach it with the Sportsgame mentality. Don't materially change how the game plays, simply develop new stories, add cool new side activities (pod racing was decent but underdeveloped) and churn out a new version every couple of years (Like the NBA/NFL series).

SWTOR was a great game but i feel it really hurt the single player genre (which is largely WoWs fault) which as an aging gamer is something i'm wanting to see more/pour more $$ into.