Alignment and the added game value

[Trollsbane]

SWTOR: Play your game.

As most of you know, SWTOR features an alignment system to increase the story-telling potential. The dialogue wheel gives you different choices for how you respond in conversations, and sometime these choices will give you light or dark side points for choosing them.

These choices also have the potential to change your gameplay. For instance in the first imperial flashpoint, choosing to let a certain person live will have different bosses and gameplay than if you had chosen to kill him.

NPCs will respond to you diffrently based upon your choices. New stories will unfold based upon your actions. Perhaps you killed someone earlier in the game. You may see their relatives or friends come to exact revenge on you later on. Or maybe you chose to save someone in order to choose the lightside option during your travels. it could actually turn out that due to you letting this person live, they have now developed and tested a weapon that wipes out entire civilizations.

Another often overlooked aspect of this is character selection. A person recently said to me that they don't want to roll any Republic characters because they usually play the "good" faction in games, and don't care for the whole goody goody thing with the Republic.
This is why TOR is so great.
You don't need to play the predetermined archtype. You can play as you see fit.

Play as a selfish money grubbing Smuggler who only cares about himself.
Be a Trooper that has no morality, and instead enjoys suffereing of others to further his career.
Act out your fantasy of a Jedi Knight or Consular who defies the Jedi council's peaceful wishes, and instead goes about with a dominant hand crushing those that don't live up to a personal code.
Be a Bounty Hunter that cares more about people than money.
Play as an Imperial Agent who gets his job done, but never at the expense of killing innocents.
Become a Sith who doesn't believe in torture and puts the well being of the people above that of the ideology of the Emperor.

Play this game the way you want to play it.

[Deleted]

I love the idea, as long as I dont feel that I have to 'farm' alignment to get gear I want. By this I mean choosing things that I dont agree with just because its the obvious LS/DS choice and I want the alignment points. I assume that alignment gear will be cosmetic, and will be more about your story than getting specific gear.

e.g I am say... 2/3s light side and I need to be more LS to get the best LS gear so I need to go farm LS.

[Eyildr]

I doubt that there will be light/dark side requirements on gear. We do not know if the benefits will be purely cosmetic or influence game play however. All logic would dictate purely cosmetic for easier balancing, but hey, you never know.

[Deleted]

Im pretty sure there is LS/DS requirements on alot of gear.

[Shardik]

there is LS/DS requirements, but they said endgame wise it would be something along the lines of 3 versions of the same thing on a badge vendor, for the same price, with the same stats, but a different color or possible an entirely different look. I really hope LS/DS never gets into the min/maxing category or its just another stat you have to manage.

[Trollsbane]

LS/DS will not have stat advantages over eachother. They want you to play the game you want to play, and story choices (LS/DS) will have no bearing on endgame (statsand min/maxing).

[Jaronicity]

SWTOR: Play your game.

As most of you know, SWTOR features an alignment system to increase the story-telling potential. The dialogue wheel gives you different choices for how you respond in conversations, and sometime these choices will give you light or dark side points for choosing them.

These choices also have the potential to change your gameplay. For instance in the first imperial flashpoint, choosing to let a certain person live will have different bosses and gameplay than if you had chosen to kill him.

NPCs will respond to you diffrently based upon your choices. New stories will unfold based upon your actions. Perhaps you killed someone earlier in the game. You may see their relatives or friends come to exact revenge on you later on. Or maybe you chose to save someone in order to choose the lightside option during your travels. it could actually turn out that due to you letting this person live, they have now developed and tested a weapon that wipes out entire civilizations.

Another often overlooked aspect of this is character selection. A person recently said to me that they don't want to roll any Republic characters because they usually play the "good" faction in games, and don't care for the whole goody goody thing with the Republic.
This is why TOR is so great.
You don't need to play the predetermined archtype. You can play as you see fit.

Play as a selfish money grubbing Smuggler who only cares about himself.
Be a Trooper that has no morality, and instead enjoys suffereing of others to further his career.
Act out your fantasy of a Jedi Knight or Consular who defies the Jedi council's peaceful wishes, and instead goes about with a dominant hand crushing those that don't live up to a personal code.
Be a Bounty Hunter that cares more about people than money.
Play as an Imperial Agent who gets his job done, but never at the expense of killing innocents.
Become a Sith who doesn't believe in torture and puts the well being of the people above that of the ideology of the Emperor.

Play this game the way you want to play it.

This. Is. MADNESS!

In all honesty, though, this is something some people have a hard time grasping especially the Light Sided Sith Lord. Good post.

[Alatian]

I'm so happy about this. My favorite characters in any RPG are always the "ugly/evil on the outside, good on the inside" kind. That's why I loved Orcs in WoW, with their samurai like code of honor, or characters like Fawkes in Fallout 3 (large supermutant). Definitely going to be an IA with a "firm but fair" attitude. I'll kill people who cross my path/are massive jerks, but treat civilians of the Empire with respect and a sense of civil duty.

[Deleted]

It may be part of min/maxing in an indirect way.

take this example:

say if 90% of sith are darkside, yet drops are 50/50 LS/DS, if you run a LS sith you will have choice of tons more gear XD

[Shardik]

It may be part of min/maxing in an indirect way.

take this example:

say if 90% of sith are darkside, yet drops are 50/50 LS/DS, if you run a LS sith you will have choice of tons more gear XD

maybe, hopefully they'll keep it all on vendors, would be a pain if a guild made everyone stay at certain LS/DS just to make sure there is no wasted gear. Shouldn't matter in regular operations anyway with the bag system.

[vizzle]

What bothers me is how whatever your choices are, in the end, is anything really "different"? Is there actually anything significant that would be different from say, a Trooper who went full light side, one who was neutral, and a Trooper who went full dark side? After a few weeks of being max level, does any of it really still matter?

I'm not bashing the game, I'm just asking someone who's experienced this (ie Trollsbane) if your choices are really important at all in the end.

[Trollsbane]

Even if all choices converge to the same ending, you had fun getting there didn't you? That's my take on it.

It's an MMO. Things need to all lead to the same place.

And I don't know for sure, but I am guessing that some titles are directly dependent upon your choices.

[Gallahadd]

This. Is. MADNESS!

In all honesty, though, this is something some people have a hard time grasping especially the Light Sided Sith Lord. Good post.

aye, and I was one of them could never see the point of a light side Sith...
but then I watched that TB interview with Kermit the Frog all about the Story of Swtor, and it REALLY made me consider making my SI Lightside, or at least Grey. Afterall, being a Sith is about two things, Freedom and Power, NOT cruelty or murder, of course alot of the Sith are agro frakkers and thus do love a bit killing...

[Thornstar]

Yeah I agree with most posters, So long as it doesn't make it so one side gets more gear (light sided sith, ect.) then I am ok with the system and all that jazz. Adds a bit of flavor to the game and lets you really think about what your character would do.

[Deleted]

you can hover over to see the alignment? I dont like that at all should be an element of risk in it surely?

[vizzle]

you can hover over to see the alignment? I dont like that at all should be an element of risk in it surely?

I feel the same way, but I bet Bioware would just have a million problems with people accidentally choosing an alignment they didn't want to and then crying about it on the forums because they don't have basic reading comprehension skills.

[Deleted]

not giving one shit over here I miss when games punished you horribly for things

oh you died? START AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING!

[atrixx]

What bothers me is how whatever your choices are, in the end, is anything really "different"? Is there actually anything significant that would be different from say, a Trooper who went full light side, one who was neutral, and a Trooper who went full dark side? After a few weeks of being max level, does any of it really still matter?

I think you need to take the WOW way of thinking about reputation out of the equation here. This feature of the game is more along the lines of KOTOR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. You are impacting the STORY line, not so much your gear and stats. Yeah there might be some benefit based on how fare aligned you are to either side, but I think it is a bit too early to be worrying about min/maxing until people actually get their feet wet. For me, it will be nice to actually be able to quest and such along a story line I choose, or have an impact on, instead of the same static story line everyone follows.

[vizzle]

I think you need to take the WOW way of thinking about reputation out of the equation here. This feature of the game is more along the lines of KOTOR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. You are impacting the STORY line, not so much your gear and stats. Yeah there might be some benefit based on how fare aligned you are to either side, but I think it is a bit too early to be worrying about min/maxing until people actually get their feet wet. For me, it will be nice to actually be able to quest and such along a story line I choose, or have an impact on, instead of the same static story line everyone follows.

My post had nothing to do with gear and stats. It was more about restrictions that you would be putting yourself by if you chose a certain path or another.

[atrixx]

My post had nothing to do with gear and stats. It was more about restrictions that you would be putting yourself by if you chose a certain path or another.

They have stated that the story outcomes will be different based on your choices, so by reassessing what you said based on that...yes there will be differences. We'll have to see what that is when the flood gates are open. Right now, they keep pressing it will take about 200 playable hours to reach level 50. So we won't be able to answer the question until January (depending on how early the preorders are allowed in).