Rebel vs. Empire again?

[Tesserax]

Why not move beyond the empire, and into the New Jedi Order. Using the Vong as an enemy would be quite fresh, from my perspective, especially if you had to work with the Imperials a few times.

[StormHammer]

Originally posted by Tesserax

Why not move beyond the empire, and into the New Jedi Order. Using the Vong as an enemy would be quite fresh, from my perspective, especially if you had to work with the Imperials a few times.

 

Well, considering JA takes place just one year after the end of JO, I think it's safe to say there won't be Vong in the game.

 

Welcome to the forums, Tesserax. Here...have one of these...

 

 

And enjoy your stay.

[Spider AL]

I'm afraid that the Vong would stillbe more of a cheap plot device than the remnant at this stage. Perhaps in a few games' time, they'd be preferable... but at the moment they're comparable to fifty Agent Smiths. I will explain:

 

 

The Wachowski Brothers' kennel - 6pm

 

"We need some new enemies for Neo."

 

"Okay, let's think."

 

/Brothers sift through their piles of cash for a few minutes

 

"I got it. You know Agent Smith was like, the big bad guy last time?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Let's multiply that threat geometrically. How does... A WHOLE LOT of Agent Smiths grab you?"

 

"Great."

 

 

***

 

Compare and contrast to:

 

 

SW EU Storyline-vetting evil quango boardroom- 6pm

 

"Order, gentlemen. We need a new enemy for the burgeoning new republic. Ideas?"

 

/Several executives light their cigars with rolled up fifty-dollar bills.

 

"Umm... I have an idea."

 

"Yes?"

 

"Just imagine, for a moment, just imagine a race of alien beings that's Horrifically. Ugly."

 

"Mmkay."

 

"And imagine a race of alien beings that's horrifically ugly and that is Addicted. To. Pain."

 

"Mmkay, liking it so far."

 

"And Genetic engineering."

 

"Ooh, that's good."

 

"And they're immune to the Force."

 

"Nice."

 

"And they can FLY."

 

"Uh-huh."

 

"And they have X-RAY VISION."

 

"Cool."

 

"And they're TWO-HUNDRED FEET TALL WITH INVULNERABLE HEADS!!!111"

 

"Great, let's go with that, set the story editors on it to tidy it up. Coffee anyone?"

 

 

***

 

Less innovation, more escalation! That's the ticket! Not that JO was innocent of that, by any means. Personally I'd rather see the Remnant again because I'm tired of invulnerable space-supermen and cortosis-armoured mecha-sith. I just want the darned stormies back again, with some superior AI. Make them harder to hit, don't make them able to survive many hits.

 

And I don't want to hear anything about the Wachowskis writing the whole trilogy at once, nor anything about individual EU authors having creative control, because those are all LIES.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Personally I'd rather see the Remnant again because I'm tired of invulnerable space-supermen and cortosis-armoured mecha-sith. I just want the darned stormies back again, with some superior AI. Make them harder to hit, don't make them able to survive many hits.

Exactly. I'm a sucker for the classics. Save the rest for Star Trek.

 

The rest of your post was brilliant, by the way

[Solbe M'ko]

I don't like the idea of fighting the Remnant with jedi. The scarce few jedi that weren't killed by Vader would have bigger things to worry about and the new blood jedi wouldn't be trained well enough to leave the academy. I would accept seeing maybe Tavion come back or something, but I don't like the idea of the Remnant; it doesn't allow for dark jedi. That was one of the major flaws with JO's stroy, I think. The whole situation was too simple. Besides, the Remnant wasn't all that powerful after Endor/Coruscant (I havn't got a timeline handy, when DOES the battle for Coruscant take place?) so I think maybe a crime organization like Black Sun or the Hutts would be better. Still, I think the best way to make the story work in any event would be to:

 

A- Not have to take the whole enemy force on by yourself

 

B- Have a point, but not a galaxy saver story

 

C- Make references to political events and let the plot work on itself up. For example: "We don't want an uprising in the senate. Let's try to keep this quiet." "Yeah, let's send in the Jedi."

 

 

I mentioned the Vong idea before. It would be cool as a game in itself, but to try to incorporate the Vong into JO's gameplay style wouldn't work. YV's would require a Splinter Cell style sneak around, not a gung-ho shoot em up.

[Tesserax]

OK, I hear you about the Vong being a cheap new enemy, but I feel that something needs to be added to the game, as (in the books, at least) the Remnant is losing power left and right. There is no way for them to be able to finance the kind of operation that Desann had running in JO, especially that "Whaledon" of a ship. (I can't believe I just typed that). I also think that putting in Black Sun or some other crime syndicate wouldn't be overly effective, as there is very little that such an organization could do to defeat a jedi. Bringing in a Dark Jedi Academy would be as cheap as bringing in the Vong. Perhaps something else, maybe some bad guys who have been artificially infused with the force.. oh wait, that's been done. Maybe someone builds these super killer droids, ... <grrrrr>. How about someone implicates the remnant in a scheme, when in fact they are completely innocent. At the same time, the New Republic is implicated in a similar scenario, so that eventually the two come to a head, and it's up to the jedi to defuse the situation. Kind of tacky, I know, but I'm not a professional writer!

[Solbe M'ko]

How 'bout some of them "rogue imperial warlords" who have the last super star destroyers ever built? Well, ok, maybe not...

 

Why not have some kind of power struggle in the New Republic? There's plenty of folks wanting to stake their claim after the fall of the empire.

[SettingShadow]

Why not sit back and wait till the game comes out? I mean, it's not like any of these ideas are gonna make it into the game, they got the plot ready (I think)..

[Luc Solar]

I'd love the idea of fighting the good or semi-good guys.

 

Something like an old fellow jedi who guards the tomb of his former master or whatever "righteous" and you need to mess that up for a "greater good".

 

A scenario where you're both the good guy... you need to get that big bad ass gun and a fellow jedi sais "no you can not. I've sworn an oath to protect it from anyone, icluding you, my friend."

 

And then perhaps, if you're clever enough, you can avoid "falling to the dark side" by tricking the jedi in some way, pushing him out of your way, disarming him etc etc. Or just by kill him outright (that would probably make you feel like an evil bastard, which is kinda the whole point).

 

I don't find it cool to fight 24/7 something that's Pure Evil and only wants to destroy everything and everyone because...he is eevil.

 

Mixed emotions. Sacrifice. Make a suicidal choice of not giving in to the dark side...a choice that seems just stupid but turns out okay in the end. Make bad guys have personlity.

 

How about a split in the Jedi Academy. One side wanting to be aggressive against a threat and the other side preferring a more peaceful approach (They got this in EU, right?). Good guys vs. good guys. Perhaps they'll join forces in the end, who knows. Perhaps you've chosen the aggressive side and killed the opposing JA members leaving you to face the real threat alone...maybe you have sided with some Hutt scumbags?

 

Give us options that *really* affect the outcome. Want to stand before the once divided, but now united Jedi Academy after a great battle where you all fought side by side and defeated the enemy together?

 

Want to gain power, destroy the foolish Jedi pacifists and take control of the remaining academy, establish connections with the underworld and use them to help you defeat the real enemy?

 

I don't know how they are going to put in the 2000 saber wielding opponents that the trailer showed without using the academy or some lame plot of Sith/mecha-factories with corthosis and silly crystals..

 

Oh well, we'll see.

 

(Btw - they won't use our plot suggestions because of legal reasons)

[Burrie]

We can stil speculate, can't we? That's always the fun thing to do before we receive the full story.

[Prime]

I still think that the Remnant can be a credible threat to the New Republic. As of the time of the Thrawn trilogy, the Empire still controlled about a quarter of the galaxy. That is a significant amount. This is a few years later, though

 

I'd like to have the Remnant, but have a clan or whatever of dark siders that you stumble onto when dealing with the Remnant. They are independant, but they are both a part of the story.

 

Like it or not, since this is a Star Wars game, people are going to want good fighting evil, and that evil needs to be recognizable from the movies. And in the case of Star Wars, that's stormtroopers

[Solbe M'ko]

I like Solar's idea about the split in the Academy, but I would like to make a suggestion stemming from it.

 

The Jedi are evenly divided about their beliefs. One group feels that the restrictive, Old Republic style was the best, the other side feeling that Luke Skywalker's more open system is better. A few of the most strongly moved Jedi take action against each other. Luke, Kyle, and your character, being their favorite, try to calm down the two sides.

 

Just an idea.

 

Anyway, of course these aren't going into the game. The story is more likely than not already done. It's just fun to make up "what ifs" before you see what the developers decided to do.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Solbe M'ko

The Jedi are evenly divided about their beliefs. One group feels that the restrictive, Old Republic style was the best, the other side feeling that Luke Skywalker's more open system is better.

Interesting. But how much do teh Jedi of the new order know about the ways of the Old Republic?

[Solbe M'ko]

I don't KNOW!

 

I didn't read it, but there's a book where Luke gets all these old data files from Chu'Unthor on Dathomir, or something, and he starts the praxeum. (I read that out of the Guide to Vehicles)

 

Whatever the case, new enemies would be a good addition, but not if they are really poorly thought out like Desann was. I mean, come on! A dinosaur?

[Mazellion]

What was poorly thought out? Te fact he's an anthropomorphic dinosaur?

[Spider AL]

The fact that he was "Dark Barney" was poorly thought out. I think a different colour scheme for his carapace would have suggested less, a well-known fluffy dino.

 

Plus they didn't make him look evil enough. Not enough teeth. Not long nor sharp enough. No glowing eyes. No skeletal carapace. He should have looked scary. Warped.

 

Making it palatable for the kiddies? That's tantamount to making Greedo fire first in the SE. Crap, in other words.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Making it palatable for the kiddies? That's tantamount to making Greedo fire first in the SE. Crap, in other words.

Han fired first, baby! I don't want to hear otherwise!

[Luc Solar]

Han is bad ass! No way he'd wait for some green dude to have a go first.

[Spider AL]

People forget that Lucas had less creative input into the finished product that was the original trilogy than he has now, into the prequels. Also, he's old and he's obviously lost any talent he may or may not have possessed in the past.

 

Frankly he built a nice house in the late 70's and 80's, but he's just tearing it down now, and erecting an overpriced toy shop where it once stood. Let's hope that JA stays with the OT canon as much as possible.

[Solbe M'ko]

Well, I don't think that Lucas really had as much impact as we think. He wrote the story, but he didn't do much of the visual design stuff, which was really the highlight of SW. I mean, George wasn't over at ILM taping little models fly around. I'm not sure, but I doubt if he did very much of the clothing and so on. He just sort of made it all come together, which is the directors job, I guess.

[Spider AL]

Exactly, Solbe. With regards to ANH, Lucas had minimal creative input, as his ideas at that time were nebulous at best. It's my contention that a lot of people must have pitched in and cleaned up his whole concept, which was painfully feeble, judging by early script drafts. Not least Harrison Ford, who both prevented the character of Han from wearing a Ming-The-Merciless pink collar, and was the man to invent the flight deck proceedures for the falcon. Lucas had no idea what any doohickie on the Falcon set was supposed to be used for. Hardly a Tolkien of the stars, as he purports to be these days.

 

He didn't even screen-write nor direct the best ever SW film, ESB. With RotJ you can see him getting more and more influence over the whole project, with the addition of lovely, lovely Ewoks. Finally, we have the prequels. And they are so very sad. It's all so sad.

 

Never mind though. One day the original theatrical versions of the Original Trilogy will be available once more. No man lives forever.

[StormHammer]

*large hand descends from the heavens to pick up thread and place it back on track*

 

Originally posted by Spider AL

The fact that he was "Dark Barney" was poorly thought out. I think a different colour scheme for his carapace would have suggested less, a well-known fluffy dino.

 

Plus they didn't make him look evil enough. Not enough teeth. Not long nor sharp enough. No glowing eyes. No skeletal carapace. He should have looked scary. Warped.

 

I have to agree with you. Desann was pretty ill-conceived, IMHO. A humanoid with a tyrannosaur head didn't look frightening, and adding the purple colour...well, it attracted all of the Barney comments.

 

I hope Raven have learned from that mistake, and made the 'bad guy' a lot more interesting, in terms of concept and background.

 

In my view, it doesn't even have to be humanoid...there's plenty of scope for multi-limbed and tentacular creatures in the Star Wars galaxy.

 

I still wouldn't mind seeing a four-armed boss with four lightsabers...that would be a real headache.

[Luc Solar]

Hey...come on...the Eggs. Kenn told me it's gonna be the eggs..

 

Aaah, whatever.

 

But I really hope that they'll stir up some emotions this time. Difficult choices, doing something you wouldn't want to do, but must do to achieve a greater good. Don't make it too simple, morally.

 

Killing the "bad guy" because he is evil 'n stuff is alright, but not enough to make the game great.

[StormHammer]

Originally posted by Luc Solar

Hey...come on...the Eggs. Kenn told me it's gonna be the eggs..

 

Aaah, whatever.

 

Eggs! Eggs!

 

*runs off to find a hammer, a bowl and an egg-whisk*

 

Ah, that's better. Omellettes!

 

But I really hope that they'll stir up some emotions this time. Difficult choices, doing something you wouldn't want to do, but must do to achieve a greater good. Don't make it too simple, morally.

 

I totally agree. Just having a big, bad, hard Uber-Boss at the end of a game doesn't make the whole experience worthwhile. There has to be a very good context for why someone is 'evil'...and I'd much prefer to see a move away from clean-cut black-and-white Good vs Evil types scenarios into more grey territory, where you start to question whether you're actually doing the right thing, and have to make a decision one way or the other. That's why I love the ending to Deus Ex...it lets you decide how things will end.

[Solbe M'ko]

Spider Al: Let's not forget that wonderful title: "Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Starkiller".

 

StormHammer: I STRONGLY agree that there should be more non-humanoid characters, especially in the games. In a movie, it would be expensive to make a big puppet with eight legs, but in a game, it's just as much trouble to make 2 as it is to make 200. I would LOVE to see a Taozin in JA.