I think you need to play more classes :). Particularly Inquisitor, Smuggler, and Bounty Hunter. And have you seen Belsavis on the Republic? Going against the Republic representatives there gets you light side points. Actually, that's true throughout the Trooper class quests as well. Do exactly what your commanding officer wants at all times, and you will rack up dark side points at least as fast as an Inquisitor who goes around shocking everyone.
There are moments when you can choose doing the right thing over what your faction wants (and moments when you pretty much commit treason) but they are too few and seem more frequent early on.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this? In everything I've seen, they're not few and they happen a whole lot throughout, particularly on the Imperial side and in the Smuggler quests. For instance, if you're a Sith, you can explicitly and repeatedly say "I am going to change the way the entire Empire operates." And there's no reason to doubt you can. Further, I think there's good reason for any Imperial character to be at least loyal-enough to the Empire to want to crush the Republic. The Republic wants to murder every last Imperial citizen: not just the Sith and the Moffs, but the slaves and the children too. The entire Republic citizenry certainly does not know about this, but a very large portion of the upper echelon of the Republic military does, and the Jedi Council likely does too -- and as a Sith, you meet a whole lot of Jedi who want to murder you for not following the Jedi code, no matter what how often you say "we do not need to fight". When you have so-called nice people who want to kill you on one side (protesting that they're doing it for the greater good, sometimes for your own good), and jerks who protect you and even obey you on the other side, you're gonna go with the jerks. (Can you tell I prefer the Empire? I prefer the Empire. They're honest.)
I'm fine with ignoring the little symbols next to the choices and just choosing what my character would. Sometimes that's the thing the character's player thinks is more-good. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes I can't decide and just go with what the character's romance interest wants. I don't particularly like alignments anyway -- people in the real world don't have them. The fact that every Bioware writer seems to have gotten a different note regarding light side/dark side can be sort of annoying, but I'm used to being sort-of-annoyed with something in Bioware games and just playing how I want anyway. I argued with their writers on the forums years ago; they're just people, they make mistakes, they have deadlines, and they fundamentally disagree with me on some things. (And at least one has changed -- I'm thinking of David Gaider, who appears to have come around to what I and others were arguing he should come around to when KotOR came out.)
Also, I think I know Bioware well enough by now to sense certain things about them when I play their games. Namely: many of the writers were impatient with the light side/dark side system, and at least some of the writers hate that following authority is usually considered "good" in that system. They complained before, re: D&D, about having to follow someone else's story and ideas of morality. I see the Dragon Age games as their answer to that. But with TOR, they're stuck; they have to at least nominally follow Lucas' extraordinarily silly and immature ideas of morality at least some of the time. But I don't have to go along with that :).
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2013-01-04 09:28 pm (UTC)There are moments when you can choose doing the right thing over what your faction wants (and moments when you pretty much commit treason) but they are too few and seem more frequent early on.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this? In everything I've seen, they're not few and they happen a whole lot throughout, particularly on the Imperial side and in the Smuggler quests. For instance, if you're a Sith, you can explicitly and repeatedly say "I am going to change the way the entire Empire operates." And there's no reason to doubt you can. Further, I think there's good reason for any Imperial character to be at least loyal-enough to the Empire to want to crush the Republic. The Republic wants to murder every last Imperial citizen: not just the Sith and the Moffs, but the slaves and the children too. The entire Republic citizenry certainly does not know about this, but a very large portion of the upper echelon of the Republic military does, and the Jedi Council likely does too -- and as a Sith, you meet a whole lot of Jedi who want to murder you for not following the Jedi code, no matter what how often you say "we do not need to fight". When you have so-called nice people who want to kill you on one side (protesting that they're doing it for the greater good, sometimes for your own good), and jerks who protect you and even obey you on the other side, you're gonna go with the jerks. (Can you tell I prefer the Empire? I prefer the Empire. They're honest.)
I'm fine with ignoring the little symbols next to the choices and just choosing what my character would. Sometimes that's the thing the character's player thinks is more-good. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes I can't decide and just go with what the character's romance interest wants. I don't particularly like alignments anyway -- people in the real world don't have them. The fact that every Bioware writer seems to have gotten a different note regarding light side/dark side can be sort of annoying, but I'm used to being sort-of-annoyed with something in Bioware games and just playing how I want anyway. I argued with their writers on the forums years ago; they're just people, they make mistakes, they have deadlines, and they fundamentally disagree with me on some things. (And at least one has changed -- I'm thinking of David Gaider, who appears to have come around to what I and others were arguing he should come around to when KotOR came out.)
Also, I think I know Bioware well enough by now to sense certain things about them when I play their games. Namely: many of the writers were impatient with the light side/dark side system, and at least some of the writers hate that following authority is usually considered "good" in that system. They complained before, re: D&D, about having to follow someone else's story and ideas of morality. I see the Dragon Age games as their answer to that. But with TOR, they're stuck; they have to at least nominally follow Lucas' extraordinarily silly and immature ideas of morality at least some of the time. But I don't have to go along with that :).