Legends of the Jedi Forums The Next Timeline Story/plot thread (updated with proposal)
This topic has 97 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 9 months ago by Tofuergus.
Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 98 total)
    • Corey Participant
      March 30, 2015 at 6:34 pm #25063

      I think the idea of a no-force start to the timeline is one of of the worst ideas I’ve heard on LOTJ. I thought it worked horribly this last time and completely goes against the whole idea of the genre. I mean honestly, who wants to play a Star Wars game with no Jedi or Sith? That’d be like playing a Pokemon game with no Pokemon, a D&D game without dungeons or dragons (I can go on forever with this but I think people get the point). However, I do agree with disabling force purchase at the start of the TL. Select two players via app or IMM suggestion to play a Jedi and one person to play a Sith, just like Brendo mentioned above. These two players should be vetted players who we know can both handle the level of the character and are known for actually being around to play. Too many times people have been selected for the part and can’t deal with it in one way or another, and end up stop playing the character or do something dumb like suicide. With that said, a process needs to be in place to replace them if/when that happens and there’s no obvious successor. We’ve had way to many gaps in time when there is just absolutely nobody in the Master roles.

    • Bai Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 9:02 am #25069

      Or those people go inactive and…. then come back in era 3?

    • Xavious Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 9:48 am #25070

      @Brendo: I think this is a solid idea, though personally I’d still rather start out with no force. However, if force MUST be in the game from day 1, then this would be a decent compromise and prevent it from spiraling out of control. I’m sure there are tons of people already planning their Era 1 force purchases as we speak.


      @Veric
      : Great point about things progressing organically rather than teams forming through force buys, which happened pretty much from the start of the current timeline.


      @Corey
      : There are plenty of Star Wars books that don’t even have force users in them at all. Forcers are not as paramount to the Star Wars theme as you are making them out to be. They definitely comprise one of the most interesting parts of the franchise, but they are by no means necessary or required. Era 1 this timeline was awesome. I assure you Star Wars is about more than just religious magic users with light sticks.


      @Corey
      , could you give me one example of how starting without force this TL went “horribly?”

      Force is always going to be part of Lotj and rightfully so. I just think the break periods without force are a welcome, though very short lived, reprieve. The amount of time without forcers this TL was a drop in the bucket compared to the duration of the whole TL itself.

    • Andvari Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 1:23 pm #25073

      @Xavious: Regarding force buys and teams, I literally had no idea who was playing forcers when I bought my shit. I’d have totally gone a different way with things had I known.

    • Corey Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 1:40 pm #25074

      @Xavious – Just because there are a few books, within the hundreds and hundreds of Star Wars books, that don’t revolve around forcers, doesn’t mean that the genre as a whole isn’t based on it. Again, I think if you are in denial of that, you’re either really naive or just being just outright dishonest over it.

      Edit: I don’t think you fit the naive category at all, you’ve always come across as a smart guy. So my guess is that you are most likely going the extremist route because you think this is a good idea.


      @Bai
      – If a character is apped and they stop playing (without previously getting it approved through the IMMs of course), then those characters should be set back to normal or removed.

    • Xavious Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 2:39 pm #25077

      @Andvari: I wasn’t trying to throw out accusations. Certain people came together for whatever reason and it resulted in a really stacked team. I would have gone a different route if I had the foresight myself. In fact, that is what inevitably made me take the route to eliminate allies and eventually get my character out of the equation. The real point I was agreeing with is that force buys give people a chance to plan a team and clique up, which may or may not be such a bad thing. I think what’s most important is the balance of power and skill in the underlying conflict of the story line.


      @Corey
      : I haven’t even read that many books to be honest. Most of them, and even my favorites, did have force users in them. I was just making a point that there are stories that don’t have force characters and others that don’t even mention them at all. In my opinion, although I feel forcers enhance the story, they are not a fundamental component of it. Star Wars is more of a story about good vs. evil or tyrannical dictatorship vs democracy.

      More specifically, most of Lotj’s day to day role play and interaction has very little dependence on force characters. Others may feel entirely different about this, and that’s alright. This is just how I feel about it. I think Star Wars is a lot more complex and has more to it than just the jedi vs sith conflict, which essentially is just another instantiation of the good vs evil paradigm.

      What I am most curious about is in what way you felt the absence of force negatively impacted Era 1?

      I’m not going to accuse you of being wrong and I agree that not everyone feels Era 1 was as awesome as I do. I would just like to have more insight into your perspective.

    • Corey Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 3:30 pm #25078

      Oh no, I totally agree with you that the majority of the interaction in the game will have no direct 1 on 1 relation to a forcer. The problem is that you can’t take away the most significant concept of the Star Wars universe and just pretend like that’s a great idea. I mean come on, the name of the mud has the word “Jedi” in it. My issue isn’t with limiting how many forcers there are at any given time, or limiting purchasing, or limiting how many there are to start, or even outright lowering their overall power. Like I said in an another thread/post, this shouldn’t be about eliminating them, this should be about brainstorming on fixing them.

      Edit: Sorry at work so I’m not able to reply fully at a given time. How about I first answer how I thought it positvely impacted Era 1 before giving negatives. The lone positive I took from the lack of forcers for 75% of era 1 was that people had to actually attempt to accomplish something and not just rely on the resident forcer in the clan to do it. Too often people get lazy or scared about losing their characters, so they’d rather point to the forcer and send them off to do the work. However, at the same time, people continued to be attached to their characters and it was the same usual individuals that forced any action to take place. As far as the negative goes…and I’m going to exclude the whole thing about having to explain to newbies that we were a SW mud without Jedi…One aspect was how it was RPed as an overall story. Where were the Forcers during the height of the Republic? This issue is part of some of the things I had a problem with concerning how Era 1 was set up and how it played out, so I won’t go into full details on that specific one (again I’ll go into details in private, but not posted during the current TL). But how are there Jedi going into the Mist but there are none in the Republic? The next issue I had was that while it was decided to not allow forcers to start, it was suppose to be a somewhat temporary thing while the clans got their footing. We all know though, that there is no such thing as short term with LOTJ. Short term is half a year to a year. Then, while it was randomly decided to shut down forcers to start, it wasn’t mentioned to the players in regards to not purchasing force. So suddenly you have a ton of people with purchased force (again this is part of the issue I think we should address instead) who RPed and got into the flow of things before finding out there was no way they were getting awakened, so they suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth.

      Again, I think this should be about fixing the reason why we have problems with forcers. Not turning our backs on it. Every single TL we have talks about how to fix forcers and making them a more positive system, but every TL almost nothing is done. Yeah the occasional nerfing of a skill/spell comes about, but that is like trying to put a bandaid on a bullet wound. While it does a tiny bit at the time, its not going to solve the problem. Neither is pretending that bullet wound isn’t there either.

    • veric Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 4:02 pm #25079

      (speaking in broad terms here and based off what i’ve read on ooc and in this thread)
      Problem with jedi/sith being a ‘draw’ to the mud is it is that it is mostly an illusion. Like it or not it appears based off this thread and conversations on OOC that the same group of people every TL drive the direction that force goes. The system is setup for buying force with points, which can take months if not years to collect enough points and i’m totally cool with the ‘earning’ aspect of buying force, OR a ‘random’ unlock which still does not guarantee you get awakened (but chances are lightning will strike multiple times for the same people with the random aspect due to hookups.) Force GENERALLY appears to be unattainable for the average player so can we honestly wave the ‘we have forcers come play here!’ flag when it is a very very small % of the player base that will ever even play one?

      -edit-
      I suppose I should add I am not advocating for more forcers running around or a higher chance at being FS because I don’t think that is the answer. I am just tired of new players logging in and asking about forcers and while we explain the whole random or bought bit no one says it may be YEARS or never before you even taste the ‘jedi’ in legends of the jedi.

      For disclosure as a newbie to the mud I myself lucked into it via an app (imm pity?)

    • Corey Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 4:10 pm #25081

      @Veric – Yes, yes we can say that. Because we do have forcers. There have been plenty of newbies who rolled force on their first character, multiple one’s this TL and last. The odds are not in their favor though, but the odds aren’t in any of our favor. The difference is that we do have forcers and they are out there for people to interact with. Now, that doesn’t however change the fact that players can be jackasses and that interaction might not be positive. But that’s for the game community as a whole to police.

    • Kirash Participant
      March 31, 2015 at 4:15 pm #25084

      @Xavious: Regardless of accusations or whatnot, there will always be a stacked deck of Forcers on one side or another. It is just how the timelines always work simply because Forcers from both sides are treated as the Elite Ground Forces of any given clan. Even when we had Old Republic/Sith Empire when the two sides were supposed to be “evenly matched” in terms of Forcers, it was still heavily stacked to one side mainly because of the quality of said Forcers. It really isn’t something that can be solved. It is an inevitability. Think about it this way: The typical Era 1 has Jedi in numbers stacked heavily against the Sith. Typical Era 2 has the opposite. Typical Era 3 can vary depending on the outcome of Era 2, but is normally stacked back in the Jedi’s favor. So long as there are people who will gravitate toward each other whether intentionally or not, so long as there are people who dump their allies to join the winning side, there will always be stacked decks.

    • Logan Participant
      April 2, 2015 at 3:59 am #25093

      Besides this topic being completely derailed and really needing its own “My Take On Forcers” thread;

      The plot idea that yes, limit the potential forcers in Era 1 is generally a good idea though i’d lean towards more of(via apps) a one master one apprentice/knight type layout (The Knight being able to attain master levels for when their own Master eventually dies/succession). As has been pointed out you can’t really have either sides Order flourish if you’re relying on one person being everywhere at once, which is limited by real life commitments and ingame.
      The idea that they build their Order from the ground up is actually quite appealing I think, disable buying force for the first era and you remove alot of pre-planned forcer zergs that always eventuate towards the ends of Era 1 confrontations. It’d be refreshing to see more non-combat main forcers for a change due to their numbers being purely random sensitives.

      As for the OP;
      Walldo’s idea of the Clone Wars type setup is good. Limit it to one Engineering firm for the reasons previously listed, we don’t have the playerbase to support multiple from Era 1 imo, any malcontent Engineers can always create their own in Era 2 to add some diversity.

      I’d love to see warriors play a bigger role in clans across Eras 1 and 2. It not only lets people not acquainted to the pvp aspect get in there with less consequences, but the whole idea of a Clone/Droid War is that the actual fighters do look the same and can compete on even terms. Maybe you could even move to incorporate major battles as CG’s that actually affect in game politics and loss’/gains? E.g, CG ship battle Clan A decides to field 6 of their 8 Caps with 20 smalls supporting, Clan B fields 4 of their 8 but throws in 40 smalls. In-clan ranking has already decided who’s piloting the Capitols and then you can just start throwing warriors into the smalls. Ship loss’ are then reflected in game by the desctruction of X amount from the CG’s actual gameplay. It’d allow non clannies to partake and involve everyone in global confrontation if albeit remotely. It’d make for a greater potential pool of people as theres no chance for any real clan breaches as the characters would only be made for that specific CG; You could incorporate survivors from those wars into their respective clans at the turn of Era’s as veterans of the Battle X(Where multiclanning doesn’t interfere) which would then give a whole new take on Era 2’s politics and progression potential with freelance warriors who are now app only running around but bound by all ingame rules and regs.

      Synopsis:
      2 Majors slowly brewing upto conflict, 1 Engineering clan trying to make credits, 1 Crime clan trying to play the sides off against each other while sowing some discord and then the Jedi and Sith Orders doing their own thing as the wildcards they’ve always been.

    • LED Participant
      April 2, 2015 at 8:37 am #25094

      I know this is supposed to be mostly about forcers (he said ironically with irony in his voice) but what if the Engineering clan does more than just try to earn credits? What if it’s actually a business, with an agenda of it’s own, and an understanding of politics and a desire to exist beyond the next paycheck?

      Maybe the engineering clan wants to explore the galaxy, and find new planets. maybe it wants to control land so it can mine and capture resources. Maybe it is a ‘bad’ company and wants to capture a planet or eight and get itself some good old fashioned slave labor. Maybe it is a company with an eye to the future, and as such, wants to establish massive training centers throughout the galaxy to get the attention of, and likely recruit, academy graduates. (If we keep growing from high ranking in the mud connector and such, it might be handy to have a largish in-game group who dedicates significant portions of time to training new folks in an IC way.)

      I’m just thinking that there might be more to an engineering clan than getting lots of credits and being otherwise inert, politically?

      Oh.. and in order to belong.. A low-forcer population might not be consistent with Star Wars Cannon, but LOTJ is routinely inconsistent with the SW cannon. For my own part, I like the idea of a Sagely Jedi and Scheming Sith, both in non-combat roles. They could help move plots forward as well as individually creating a lot of RP roles for the beings around them. Combat Forcers tend to _be_ the RP roles. Which is good, too, of course. But maybe early on, even the forcers have to lead from behind, as it were.

    • Walldo Keymaster
      April 3, 2015 at 2:40 pm #25095

      this may not be the thread for it but i completely agree that locateship needs to change. it would fix a lot of problems.


      Correct 🙂 Lets try to keep this thread on topic

      Will there be systems of nobility or clearly defined planetary leaders who are going to be set down this-coming timeline the way they were last time? Leaders outside of Republican Senators? I speak from a very biased position but all of the political maneuvering around trying to convince and keep convinced that one side was better than the other, or arguing for certain rights, taking RP stances toward purely planetary rather than inter-planetary conflicts would be interesting. If we’re talking about a more insular set-up for the Republic and for the opposite side, there has to be motivations and things to keep them occupied within their insular setup… and help ease them toward that eventual expansionary catalyst.


      I think I am opposed to planetary politics being an inward focused thing. It worked okay this era but I think it can get distracting. Instead of planetary leaders squabbling with semi-existing ‘citizens groups’ I’d rather them focus on interacting with the rest of the galaxy. There is some room for that kind of roleplay but I’d really rather it not take up the bulk of the story.

      instead of the usual “picking a side and sticking with it” sort of attitude that makes engi clans little more than extended arms of Major Clan X when it starts coming to blows, it’ll make the scenery really more interesting when conflict /does/ begin to develop.

      How is this different? If there’s only one engineering clan, it is almost inevitable that they’d side with one side or the other and damn the other.

      People have been asking for a no-force start like the current timeline, but I have an alternate suggestion. Approve an app for 1 Jedi master and 1 sith lord, and disable purchasing force. Let these individual people build their orders from the ground up, without a bunch of apped forces or purchased people starting off. 1 and 1 and move forward from there


      We have been bouncing around a few ideas along these lines, including disabling force purchase. Nothing solid yet.

      We are not considering having a ‘no force’ start to the timeline.

      [Everything about the Smuggler’s Network

      These are some good ideas! I’m still not sure what form this would take – is it a player clan? Is it an NPC group players interact with? Is it a player clan with extensive non-member involvement? There are a lot of interesting ways to go with this

      what if the Engineering clan does more than just try to earn credits? What if it’s actually a business, with an agenda of it’s own, and an understanding of politics and a desire to exist beyond the next paycheck?

      Yes please! I have always been a big advocate of engineering clans doing more than just selling armor/ships/whatever. Whether it is political capital or something more nefarious, I love when engineering clans step up and are more than just a foil for the galactic economy.

    • veric Participant
      April 3, 2015 at 3:39 pm #25096

      smugglers / spacestations network:

      Next TL I’d love to see a clan (or a loose-knit group of people) that own a series of deepspace hub-like space stations. These would be a mixture of publicly known and hidden stations between planets that players can use as either a mid-way station or they can just completely bypass them if they wanted. At the beginning of this TL when I went to that fueling depot between Arkania and… Mon Calamari (I think?) I thought that was the coolest thing. It really enforced the whole ‘space is big and you gotta stop sometimes to refuel’ feel that starwars has and I was disappointed when it was removed from game.

      Those familiar with mass effect would understand if I said a bunch of “Omega” type stations would be great. At the start of the TL instead of being clan/owned bases it would be more of a series of not so nice meeting places where someone ‘earns’ the right to run the station how they see fit. You’d have to not only be a little politically savvy to hold it but potentially make some powerful allies as well. After a few weeks of figuring out who runs the station(s) they could then slowly move it into whatever rp/environment direction they see fit. A station casino? A smugglers port? A ship yard? etc.

      While Halticlear and the shadowports have an interesting layout I feel that the station above Coruscant has a better layout for long term usage or for people ‘living’ there on the station.

      -edit-
      I brought some of this up in the galaxy map thread. If you had to ‘earn’ your right to even board the stations properly (land on the pad but you cannot get past the security doors/NPC guards without some sort of item/flag/keyphrase/credits) it would certainly make it more immersive and potentially easier (or harder!) to travel around the galaxy via these hubs.

    • Walldo Keymaster
      April 4, 2015 at 4:47 pm #25100

      RE: one engineering clan…

      What if one of the space stations in the galaxy was a public shipyard? What if there were more public blueprints available? What if the two major clans had ship-building garages on a planet that wasn’t their capital? This would incentivize them not just turtling on their capital world and force them to spread out a bit.

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