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May 23, 2012

Tag: Knights of the Old Republic

June 16, 2009

Racial Tension in Star Wars: The Old Republic

The original soundtrack album
Image via Wikipedia

Recently, Syp of Bio Break did a funny post about races that should be in SW: TOR. I personally think that Ewok Jedi would be hilarious and amazing, and would totally implement them despite the rage that fans would feel. I guess that’s probably why I’m not involved with Star Wars: The Old Republic, right?

Anyway, it got me thinking about the presence of races in the game in general. Bioware did a pretty good job of not doing what I would make Episodes 1 – 3 guilty of, and that is shoehorning in the presences of races and elements. There’s a difference between creating a world that naturally you would expect to see various things like racial diversity, and one in which it is forced.

I’d have to say that Bioware was probably, strangely enough, more successful than the prequels because in Knights of the Old Republic, it never brought or pushed a race to the forefront, just to point to it and say “LOOKIE A JAWA”. In short, they made other races mostly background, occurring only when it was natural for the player to interact with them.

Bioware’s got to be careful about this when it comes to MMOs. Players, in general, love that racial diversity, but it’s pretty different in  Star Wars, where I think races honestly are more of a way to present a universe of aliens to the viewers. Racial diversity is more of background than it is center stage. Let’s not forget that mechanical beings also occupy this stage as well. The droids, from R2 to C3PO and beyond, are put up front because despite some thought, they are still, in essence utilities and tools for the human characters to employ.

We haven’t seen many prominent videos or articles about different races in SW: TOR. The folks at Bioware have been content to tease with pictures of human characters doing the things you expect the human characters in Star Wars to do. When they do introduce a character that is a different race, though, we’ll see if the community will respond positively. Frankly, I think that in every MMO, there are always people who will want to play something different – that is why even though you may see thousands of Jedi in SW: TOR that you’ll always see someone playing another role to be different, unique, or because it’s their preference. But if Bioware sticks to what they’ve been doing, expect them to focus in on the character’s story, and not what color they are or whether or not they have fur.

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October 13, 2008

The Evil Geek

Darth Vader Christmas

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Recently, I happened to be at a friend’s house as he struggled through a session of that old classic, Knights of the Old Republic.  As I tried to pat him on the back and explain that his skills at gaming were really not as bad considering most children actually don’t learn how to destroy you at Counterstrike until at least 7, I took the controller from him and proceeded to take the shortest path to success – that being lightsabering the cowardly lazy person who sent you on the quest, taking what you were going to give to him, and force choking people on my merry way. Imagine his surprise at my sudden turn for the worse – because I’m as sunny a person offline as I am in this blog, you know.

Why is the evil side of “choice” games more appealing? Simple – becasue geeks like us are so bored of playing the hero, the good guy, or the slightly-bad-ass-anti-hero-yet-still-goody-goody guy. Being evil is simply more fun.

Why do you think Peter Molyneux, creator of such gems as Populous (Evil Gods), Fable (Evil Child to Evil Adults) and Black and White (Evil Pet Owner) is so rich? It’s pretty easy – evil is just more exciting. Maybe some people out there who play a Wii more like a status symbol than an actual game system are more content with saving a princess over and over again, but some of us just want to experience the siren call of world domination and shaky morals.

I mean, without evil choices in video games, what excitement would there be, anyway? Knights of the Old Republic is, after all, our fantasy into becoming more than just Luke Skywalker minus the bad haircut and terrible wardrobe choices. Want to know why the largest Star Wars costuming organization is an Imperial Army? It’s because geeks like evil. Heck, some of us even turn it into a living by becoming supreme evil overlords of our websites, our forums, and even our jobs, where people’s dependence on techmnology makes them slaves to our Jabba the Hutt (bring me the Cookies!).

Don’t worry though – there’s nothing wrong with geeks who do this. After all, we’re just making up for the fact that our meaningless lives are filled with solitary moments of loneliness, inability to get laid, or silent weeping. We’re just ensuring that the bully who put our head in the toilet in high school gets theirs back because the only time they play a Halo game is at a frat party. And we’re just making sure that at least in a fantasy world, geeks are the ruling force behind every single guillotining of nubbish players around the world.

Aren’t you glad these skills aren’t used for evil in the real world? One could only imagine.

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