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The content of this game is really Bogus
Rudder
Member UncommonPosts: 80
When does Star Wars: The Old Republic take place in relation to the movies?
Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place more than 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader
So, with that in mind, please explain why this entire universe has been basically stagnant for 3500 years? Star Destroyer like ships, Jedi with Lightsabers, The Sith, The Jedi and so on.
What was the Earth like 3500 years ago for comparison?
Comments
Heres the real question, what does that have to do with anything?
In case you didnt know, star wars isnt Earth, and just because somethings basic design hasnt changed doesnt mean nothings changed.
And on top of that, techonology has a limit, just look at things like guns, teh same basic gun designs have been used for over 50 years with some weapons.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
3500 years ago on earth we didnt have ipads. 3500 years ago for star wars they already had ipad2
Did they have guns 3500 years ago? No - they had slings, spears,bows, and arrows.
I would guess that ship design would change in 3500 years - civilizations come and go in less time. I know IRL comparisons may be flawed here since this 'Is only a Game', but it is a product being produced using Real Life Money.
OP it's scifi fantasy who cares, it's not RL so you can't compare the two.
Humanity's Stone Age lasted over 6000 years.
Humanity's Bronze Age lasted almost 2000 years.
What exactly is so weird about a technological time period lasting for 3500 years?
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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Because developing the game requires a large amount of freedom concerning lore and background but it still has to look and feel very much like Starwars to appeal to the fans and use all the distinct aspects of the IP which they will pay a lot of money for anyway.
My brand new bloggity blog.
*thinks someone is trying to apply realism to Star Wars*
Something you need to remember is technology does improve. In 3500 years Ewoks engineered a fin stabalized, discarding sabot armor peircing log, able to take out an ATST. Their spear tips, seeminly mere stone, can penetrate storm trooper armor with the use of special, Unobtanium armor peircing tips.
And you should have *seen* the size of the exhaust port on the Mark I Death Moon built 3500 years ago....It was *waaaaay* smaller when Luke blew it up.
So don't tell me there was stagnation....seriously.
Some ares of civiliastion (Central Africa, Amazon, reindeer-herders in the vast forests of Siberia, Polynesian tribes to name a few) have remained the same for far longer than 3500 years.
Might want to break out of the idea that America and Western Europe = the World. Not everywhere had such rapid advancement and meteoric civilisations rising and falling.
A person from 3500 years ago from any one of the aforementioned cultures could fit in quite easily and quickly with his current, distant relatives.
RIFT was a *crushing* disappointment; a shallow, loveless, generic MMO the likes of which hasn't been seen in a P2P format since, well, forever.
Eagerly awaiting: World of Darkness, ArcheAge.
... 'stable' doesn't mean 'stagnant' - how long did the ancient Egyptian civilisation remain basically the same? They had those slings & arrows for thousands of years.
That said, the 3,500 year thing slightly bugged me way back in KOTOR for the same reason; I'd have been happier with maybe just a thousand... but maybe the civilisation fell and started again from scratch in the intervening 3,500 years?
11.000 years ago Humans used wood and stone.
6.000 years ago Humans still used only wood and stone.
3.500 Star Wars years ago Humans used lightsabers and blasters.
0 Star Wars years ago Humans still used only lightsabers and blasters.
How exactly doesn't it make historical sense?
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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3500 years ago humanity was doing pretty much what it's doing now: ccnsuming, shagging, warring and reproducing. We can kid ourselves all we like but the only thing to have changed is the tools. The most advanced tank in the wold is nothing more than a pimped out high-velocity rock thrower. Even our most advance medical science consists of getting our bodies to do what they do anyway just faster, better and for longer.
The starwars universe is FILLED with the remains of dead races and scorched planets. The remains of once powerful empires' technology is fought over like scraps. Things change but on a different timescale than for planet bound cultures. Persistent galactic social structures after the advent of FTL allowed a certain amount of advancement but you can only get so big before one of the bigboys takes notice of you and knocks you back down.
Humanity's progress is not in doubt. Keeping that progress as a united species for the next 3500 years is where the real challenge lies. Ask you self honestly if you really think humanity can continue as we are now for event the next 500 years. Do you really think that this way of life will continue unchanged? This is about the long game. Anyone who plans to be around to see the next millenium better get their planet's act together and realize that unending rapacious growth isn't always the answer.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
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"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I guess what I'm trying to say get rid of the Lightsabers and semi Star Destroyers - Use swords and the like.
Any society that becomes stagnant usually self-implodes.
That was always my pet peeve with books like lotr or any fantasy book really. You'll have some kind of event, then it will cut to thousands of years later, but society will be identical to what it was thousands of years ago.
The force all around us (in Star Wars universe) influences our creations. As result of the force's influence, Star Destroyers have always been and will always be similar. It's like one of the natural laws of the galaxy.
The two main points are that SW:ToR is a space opera/science fantasy, not science fiction.
Also, Star Wars has an iconic feel to it, and so when Bioware got the ability to do KOTOR, they couldn't really stray that far from the whole look and feel... both because they'd alienate fans, and possibly because George Lucas would sue their pants off. This applies not just to the technology, but the basic culture and things like that.
In space opera/science fantasy, the science of it is often the SETTING, it isn't really... real. It's not even trying to be real science. It's just an arbitrary setting to put things in, it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to look cool.
That being said, I do tend to prefer science fiction and/or fantasy that actually has a progression of society and technology, and takes various factors into account. ... but sometimes the background is just a background, and isn't really meant to be modeling a world properly.
Some fantasy lore does it better than others. D&D had a pretty good mechanic. Every universe had a sliding scale of what the physicval laws were like. In some magic was stable, repeatable and ubiquitous while chemical reactions like combustion were wildy uncontolable and destructive. Universes like our on the other hand favor magic lock into physical objects: combustion and nuclear science unlocking the power via devices and technology. Whats the point of hiring a wizard if your gunpowder workis fine in your guns. On the other side why invent the birth control pill when you can get a one-year "no babies" spell for a tenner down the local market.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I know it's hard to wrap your mind around the idea that a 100 years isn't a lot. But on the larger scale of thing it's the blink of an eye.
History didn't start 2.000 years ago. Humanity started 2.3 million years or so ago. Earth started 4.5 billion years or so ago. The Big Bang, if it occured, is estimated at 13.7 billion years or so ago.
So how much is 3.500 years really? It's 0,15% of the lifetime of Humanity. 0,000077% of the lifetime of Earth.
Technology as far as we know it improves exponentially. Technology as far as we know it has existed for, at most, 12.000 years or so.
The Earth is 4.7 billion years old. So technology has existed for 0,00025% of that. Do you really think it's a valid conclusion to say that technology will always improve exponentially based on only 12.000 years of it?
To put that in comparison, let's say the Earth is a 100 year life. Technology has then existed for 9 days. If something grows exponentially for 9 days straight do you think it's a valid conclusion to say that it will do so for years as well?
Edit: To put it in math terms. It's possible technology grows exponentially. But it's also possible that we're on the first half of logistical growth. Or maybe technology is described by a diffirent growth model. Maybe it can't be described by a growth model at all.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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I can think of only one other game that uses a premise of s stagnant universe for thousands of years:
What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.
I'm sure that some of the Old School Gamers would recognize that line from Cavedogs TA - Now owned by Atari.
This is a fantasy universe not real.. simple as.
There is nothing even remotely troll-like about the OP. I think expecting there to be huge differences over a period of 3500 years is entirely reasonable. In fact, it is absolutely ridiculous to argue that the many advanced societies of the Star Wars universe would somehow remain stagnant in both technology advancement and style.
Did the scientists collectively decide to stop doing science? Did weapons manufacturers decide that they weren't going to make new products? Starship designers felt like the same models every year was a good business plan? Did culture stop changing on its own? I guess consumers everywhere were happy with the current slate of products and would refuse to buy any products that had any hints of stylistic changes or technological improvements?
Sure, the human bronze age lasted a really long time. That's not even a remotely fair comparison, since technology breeds further technological advancements. With the invention of faster and better computers comes the capability to invent faster and better computers. And so on.
Over 3500 years, a lot would have changed. How can anyone deny that? "Because it's a Sci Fi series," isn't a good enough answer. When watching movies and reading stories, there are certain aspects of the fictional reality that are assumed to be based in actual reality, laws of physics, human nature, things that aren't subject to change without changing entire atmosphere, genre, believability, and target audience of the movies. In short, what was once a great storyline is ruined by the insanity of a 3500 year period in the storyline where so incredibly little changes. This is bad writing at it's worse: taking something great and making it terrible.
I'm sure someone will want to pick out one or two sentences in this post and make some mostly irrelevant point, while ignoring the main substance of my post. The only trolls here are the people who don't get this. Whether it bothers you or not is another story, but only the most self deceiving fanboys could find it within themselves to not see why within a science fiction storyline it is ridiculous to have 3500 years pass with about as much cultural, technological, and style changes as about a decades worth here on Earth.
{mod edit}
The OP is commenting on the lack of a reasonable canon explanation. These are stories we are talking about right? Should a reader come up with explanations for terrible plot holes, or should the authors take care of that in advance? That's the difference between good writing and writing not worth reading.
I love how everyone is so stoked that Bioware is handling this game due to Bioware's great reputation at storytelling...yet when it comes to the very fundamental basics of the story, a majority of the people are more than happy to turn a blind eye to the ridiculous setting. These aren't the intelligent gamers you're looking for.