Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)
What prompted this post is a comment one of the mercenaries on
Dantoine made. When asked which side of the Mandalorian Wars he fought
on, he says something like" You were a soldier, you know that sides
don't matter." Which makes me say "Hmmmm...." because, while I wasn't
a soldier, I was a Marine, and I don't know anything remotely like
that. I've never heard anybody in teh US military say anything like
that. If a soldier didn't care enough about a cause to care which side
of it he's fighting on, then why is he fighting? How committed would
he be? How much risk would he be willing to take? What would his
morale be like?
There's a name for soldiers like that. Conscripts. There's another
name for soldiers like that. Dead.
And while I love the storyline in KOTOR 2, I've noticed this flaw
throughout the game. Sides really DON'T matter in this game. The story
plays out pretty much the same way no matter which side of any issue
the player takes. The only real difference it makes is whether the
player gains dark side or light side points, and that only matters as
far as what powers the player can use best and how his own party
member NPCs react to him. Nobody *else* seems to notice whether the
player has an angelic halo or if his face is rotting off from darkside
corruption.
But my main issue is teh way they cover the backstory. The writers
seem at once perceptive and naive. They seem to understadn some of the
reasons people go to war, but they display very little understanding
of what motivates people to fight. In the case of this story, the
Mandolorians and the renegade Jedi were both true believers. They
were's fighting because they had nothing better to do, or because
theyw anted power, or any of the other implications made in this game.
They were there because they thought they were right. People don't
fight that hard for any other reason.
No, the writers seem to be associating the political motivations of
governments or other power structures to individual soldiers. That
isn't the way it works. Soldiers are the ultimate believers in a
cause. Good ones are, anyway. Pitting fanatics against cosncripts
yields a one sided battle. The conscipts will die in droves, they will
route, they will surrender, they will desert... they will do anything
except fight. The mandalorian wars were not described that way.
What prompted this post is a comment one of the mercenaries on
Dantoine made. When asked which side of the Mandalorian Wars he fought
on, he says something like" You were a soldier, you know that sides
don't matter." Which makes me say "Hmmmm...." because, while I wasn't
a soldier, I was a Marine, and I don't know anything remotely like
that. I've never heard anybody in teh US military say anything like
that. If a soldier didn't care enough about a cause to care which side
of it he's fighting on, then why is he fighting? How committed would
he be? How much risk would he be willing to take? What would his
morale be like?
There's a name for soldiers like that. Conscripts. There's another
name for soldiers like that. Dead.
And while I love the storyline in KOTOR 2, I've noticed this flaw
throughout the game. Sides really DON'T matter in this game. The story
plays out pretty much the same way no matter which side of any issue
the player takes. The only real difference it makes is whether the
player gains dark side or light side points, and that only matters as
far as what powers the player can use best and how his own party
member NPCs react to him. Nobody *else* seems to notice whether the
player has an angelic halo or if his face is rotting off from darkside
corruption.
But my main issue is teh way they cover the backstory. The writers
seem at once perceptive and naive. They seem to understadn some of the
reasons people go to war, but they display very little understanding
of what motivates people to fight. In the case of this story, the
Mandolorians and the renegade Jedi were both true believers. They
were's fighting because they had nothing better to do, or because
theyw anted power, or any of the other implications made in this game.
They were there because they thought they were right. People don't
fight that hard for any other reason.
No, the writers seem to be associating the political motivations of
governments or other power structures to individual soldiers. That
isn't the way it works. Soldiers are the ultimate believers in a
cause. Good ones are, anyway. Pitting fanatics against cosncripts
yields a one sided battle. The conscipts will die in droves, they will
route, they will surrender, they will desert... they will do anything
except fight. The mandalorian wars were not described that way.
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