In this edition of SWTOR Weekly, I’ll take a half-way-there look at Chapter XII of Knights of the Fallen Empire and evaluate my feelings on what’s been called “the best chapter yet.”
As I mentioned in my last article, it’s a sad reality of adult life that I can neither get brand new toys as soon as they come out nor do I have the time to devote to said toy once I have it. Such has been the case with SWTOR my whole time with it and Fallen Empire is no exception. In fairness, I haven’t gotten so far behind that I have wound up playing last month’s content when there’s new stuff already out there. Having said that, I’m only maybe halfway through Chapter XII of Fallen Empire, entitled “Visions in the Dark,” but it has certainly left an impression already.
During the April developer’s stream on twitch.tv, the presenters mentioned that players have said that this chapter was the best one they’ve released, so far. Of course, that leads to some pretty big expectations, especially considering the last two chapters. “Anarchy” and “Disavowed” were not bad by any means, but they certainly left you a little unsatisfied due to being so short and a little thin on story. Again, not bad story, just not a lot of it.
The promos for “Visions” has been all about a confrontation between the Outlander and Valkorian, who’s been living inside the head of the Outlander since early on in the campaign. With the semi-cliffhanger at the end of Chapter IX, I was very interested to see what his opinions were going to be coming into this very Force-focused chapter. Honestly, I’m never disappointed when they tell us a good story and give us some character interaction. FE has been full of character interplay, the kind of which we never really got to see in vanilla SWTOR. Again, as the chapter starts, we really feel like each of the Outlander’s allies has a particular horse in the race to save the galaxy. Valkorian, as well, has his own agenda and turns out to be far less reliant on our hero as a host for his consciousness to reside within.
Thus far, it’s been really heavy with roleplaying and story elements, and kind of light on action-focused play. That’s fine, and it really shows the versatile nature of this game over other MMO’s, in that, they can have a big chunk of it being not at all about combat. I was actually about to start complaining about having to run through EVEN MORE SWAMPS and fight EVEN MORE SWAMP MONSTERS, since the enemies have largely been that or Skytroopers, but as I gave it more though, I realized, even with those portions of the chapter, they managed to do some very different things. After landing in the swamp area, AGAIN, I was given survival gear, in the form of a temporary personal shield and a never-ending health pack. They didn’t make a huge difference when it came to fighting monsters, but it was an interesting RP thing to throw in there. The other part that makes it, at least, different from other chapters is that you have no companions. I think this might be the first time since the origin world that you don’t have a companion with you. It’s especially weird because I make very liberal use of my Legacy-wide class powers that are included in the Heroic Moment power and since we have no companions available to us in this chapter we don’t have that power available during the two big boss fights.
Later that evening…
By this point, I’ve finished Chapter XII. Compared with the last chapters, it’s definitely the best. It’s hard to gauge it against Chapters I-IX since those all came bundled together and were a very cohesive experience. This one continued to have story at the forefront and never let up. They even let you do some very Jedi things thanks to some creative uses of interactive environment. I’m sure what they do here that I find so creative has already been done in other games, but here it feels like it belongs and there is little need to mentally rectify game mechanics with what we understand of the characters and the universe they inhabit.
This is definitely the first of the individual chapters where I’ve felt like we’re actually making some progress towards our goal of ending the reign of the Eternal Throne. I shouldn’t discount Chapters X and XI too much, since they do lead to some tense interpersonal conflict within the Alliance. Some big mysteries from Chapter IX also got explained, along with some questions about what’s happened to some of the bigger heroes in the five years in which the Outlander was imprisoned. Overall, I’d say this chapter achieves the lofty goals that the SWTOR team continues to strive for. That’s shown the most by the fact that every time I think about letting my subscription lapse, I play something like this and I wind up forgetting until my renewal is already passed and I have another month of play time.
Tsaroka, my free level 60 character, has become every bit as awesome as my main.
Pacing is important, and in a developer’s world for video gaming, resources and timing has to choose that pacing. George Lucas made the fans of the first three films wait years for the sequels, and they were prequels of debatable quality. Part of the issue is that it has to be fun when someone picks it up after August and has all the chapters, and fun each month as they do just one chapter.
I’m very, very interested in seeing how your choices affect the plot twists to come. What we have seen so far is set-up and minor revelation. Even though you’re still the Chosen One, the PVP and group content aspect shows that there are many heroes in a story that mentions only you.
That’s typical MMORPG disparity. Dealing with self-importance versus culture needs is a long psych topic which is both insightful and relevant in any age, any medium. The rewards system of achievements and giving gifts for influence of companions are good starts, but the story has to somehow hint this dual existence as well.
I personally think that shot of Arcann’s carbonite trophy chamber was not enough. We need to break in there, and free the rest of the Chosen Ones. Sure, Valkorion chose you. Now, you need to free the rest of the candidates, kick some ass, and debate on who has the REAL Valkorion in their head over drinks.