Star Wars: The Old Republic: Light and Dark Decisions, Space Combat and Flashpoints
Star Wars The Old Republic is a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG with an emphasis on the word MASSIVE. A lot of the time MMOs don’t take on a life of their own until long after their initial release, rendering early reviews redundant. There there is the fact that there is so much content it would take an awful lot of work to fully cover this game.
As such, rather than splurging all of our thoughts on the game out at once we have decided to cover key segments of the game gradually, hopefully answering the all important question: is it any good?
And so we hand over to newbreview.com’s resident MMO enthusiast Jose Luis Pérez Zapata to tell us more. The subject of this article is the game’s Light and Dark decisions, Space Combat, and Flashpoints.
Light and Dark Decisions
In my previous article I discussed the game in general and how story is ingrained into it. In regard to that, I have to make a clarification. I mentioned in my previous post how Ligh Side/ Dark Side decisions made little sense in the context of a Jedi/ Sith because of how their organizations and philosophies work, and that by blocking the possibility of a Jedi moving to be a Sith and vice-versa, we threw some of the “world” logic out the window.
This, however, requires some reanalysis. After playing a bit more, as both Sith and Jedi, I’ve noticed that while Light/ Dark decisions are fairly clear “good” and “bad”, they sometimes work more like the Paragon/ Renegade options in Mass Effect. I understand finally what they wanted to do with this… but I still question if it really works.
In a nutshell, if you decide to play a Sith (for example), the game assumes you’re going to be evil. It makes sense after all, Sith are not know for being nice puppy-loving persons. However the “Light” responses of your conversation options allow you to act more like an even-headed bad-guy, honourable and not merciless. The same goes to the “Dark” Jedi, that walks the way of an antihero, though, as mentioned, many of their choices are definitely being bad for the sake of being bad.
"To kill or not to kill... what would Vader do?"
The idea here is that this choices don’t represent Ligh Side/ Dark Side so much, as outlooks both sides can have in regards to their adventures, which is a neat idea. However, by calling the dichotomy Light and Dark choices Bioware only confuses fans used to the traditional definitions of light and dark.
Also, it doesn’t really work… at least for the Jedi. As I mentioned in my previous article, the Dark Side works like a corrupting force in the Universe, temping force-users with easy power to achieve their goals. Taking the road of less effort, which usually implies that the ends justify the means, is a sure way to end up corrupted and the Jedi “Dark” decision should bring you closer and closer to the Sith, untill there is no point in not joining them.
I must point out that not all decisions work like this though. As mentioned at the begining, in most “common” quests, “Dark” decisions are just being bad for the sake of being bad, regardless of class. Also many Jedi “Dark” decisions are just Dark because they go against general puritan Jedi teachings, but that are completely unrelated to the Dark Side per se, like pursuing romance. Again, this works more like a “Renegade” decision from Mass Effect, but many have likely scratched their heads when playing through and wondering why some of the Dark decisions were Dark at all, it does get a bit confusing.
Space Combat
Heading into different matters, it was widely announced that the game would include something of a minigame surrounding Star Wars famous and epic space battles. You unlock said game at around level 15, several hours into the game, and I’m pleased to say that while the amount of missions is limited, the game itself is incredibly fun.
The Space Combat mini-game steals the show!
Once you’ve accepted a mission and unlocked it in the galaxy map you can activate it any time and play it as many times as you want, though you can only get its completion rewards once a day.
The minigame is an on-rails shooter, in which you control your ship around by moving a cross-hair around the screen which your ship diligently chases. The crosshair is controlled with your mouse and while I initially had my worries, the fact is that the controls are fluid and tight. The left mouse button controls your blasters, and the right one your missiles. By holding the right mouse button you can “paint” up to 4 targets for your missiles, and a quick hit at your space bar will make your ship “do a barrel roll!” (sorry, couldn’t help myself 
) that will help you dodge incoming enemy fire.
While on-rails, the missions are intense and visually breathtaking, and you will barely care that they don’t offer the same freedom as other more “pure” spaceship simulation games. My only qualm is that they are not that “linked” to the overall storyline in the game since they are completely optional, but even with that, they are, hands-down, my favourite part of the game.
Flashpoints
Flashpoints are SWTOR’s response to WoW style dungeons. They are four player missions that are substantially more difficult than standard ones and require a somewhat healthy dose of teamwork and party balance to be fulfilled.
The traditional four roles that exist in MMORPGs and that have been set in stone by WoW are here too, so you will either be a Tank (damage absorption/ threat generation), DPS (damage per second/ heavy hitting), Healer (self descriptive) or Controller (breaking enemy groups and isolating threats).
Flashpoints pit a group of friends against a tough mission
Beyond the need of teamwork and increased difficulty, they are not really all that different from standard missions. They are also story based, though optional for your character, and use the already implemented method of “sharing conversations”.
This is actually a nice time to talk about the aforementioned ”shared conversations” . Whenever you are in a party with other players and you interact with an NPC with conversation responses, the game will give a chance for everyone to respond, but will then chose randomly which character (with the response chosen by their player) responds to the NPC. While as mentioned this is random, the game will lean always towards the option that more players chose. In the case that a player chooses a “Dark” option and another a “Light” one, it’s decided randomly again by the same method who responds, but you always receive “alignment” points of the response you chose.
The system works quite well, and entices you to go around in a group to see what personalities and choices other people make, and thus, it’s a nice addition to the game as a whole.
However, it’s not without problems. Since most conversations have been voiced with the idea of just a single character, all NPC act and speak as they were speaking with an individual, even though they get responses from different people. Also, party members don’t interact at all with each other, it’s almost as if they were in different universes altogether. This is excusable in standard missions… but not so much in Flashpoints, as the whole idea of them is that they are party based missions!
Still, even with it’s jarring problem, it’s a nice addition and it’s well done, but it could have been done much better.
With this I bid you farewell for now, my next article will be a brief summary of my general experience with SWTOR, and how it holds up as a game in general.
See you soon, and may the Force be with you!
-Jose Luis Pérez Zapata
Great write up sir! Excellent points all round!
Thank you sir!