This Week in Aurebesh

It has been tradition for me to kick off a new year of Star Wars: The Old Republic with five bold predictions of what we might see in the weeks and months ahead. Last year I went two for five which is pretty good by my standards especially since the two biggest swings I took last year were hits. That said, I’m going to skip predictions this year. When it comes right down to it, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA voice actors strike which seems to be affecting SWTOR makes it very difficult to guess what might happen this year, particularly in regards to two topics that most interest me: where the current story might go and whether we might get an expansion or at least an expansion announcement this year.

Until the strike is resolved, speculation about the story and expansion ought to be put on hold. I support the aims of the voice actors and their union, and I think it is entirely reasonable to believe that a humongous corporations like Electronic Arts, SWTOR’s publisher, do not have the best interest of their contractors and employees as their highest priority.

I am in no position to say exactly where SWTOR stands with regards to the strike. There has been some voice work in both the newly added Relentless Replication operation and the Dynamic Encounters, but I am very reluctant to speculate about those additions and whether they count as exceptions.

I have no doubt that Broadsword fully intends to continue development despite issues caused by the strike. Galactic and PVP Seasons require little-to-no voice acting, and plenty of non-story content from flashpoints to Dynamic Encounters could be implemented without it as well.

Dynamic Encounters are SWTOR‘s version of “Group Quests” and I’ve very much been enjoying them. They are semi-random quests of various types, many without any combat at all. I always enjoy taking my characters out into the world, walking from place to place, meeting people, getting into adventures. Unlike Dailies and Heroics, the pace of the Encounters is less hectic, and I don’t feel like I need to race from quest to quest or objective to objective. I go where I want and complete the encounters I want. It’s not an efficient source of Conquest or Tech Fragments, but it is relaxing and that’s a greater reward to me.

What is SWTOR without Story?

In light of the strike, however, I think this is a fair question to ask. Patch 7.6 “Galactic Threads” launched without implementing its story, Until the strike is resolved, I think any future “Critical Path” story updates will be delayed as well. SWTOR‘s story and it’s fully voice acted interactions remains one of its biggest assets and strongest selling points to new and returning players. But if the story is delayed, where does this leave players?

I don’t imagine they will present the story with subtitles. At the very least, we have all seen the community react poorly to this style of gameplay when it appears during important moments in the story.

The game’s last major story update, Desperate Defiance, shifts between SWTOR’s traditionally fully voiced staging and the “KOTOR” style in which our character’s responses are related in text and the character animations are limited. Last June, Ashley Ruhl, SWTOR’s narrative director, took to the forums to discuss why and how the choices to use these styles of interactions are made.

Any discussion of this topic must acknowledge the reality that players of  Star Wars: The Old Republic have a lot of very different expectations when it comes to the content the game ought to produce, and that these expectations come from very different points of view. First off, SWTOR is expected to regularly produce the kind of content that every MMO offers: solo play, group content, PVP, raids, dailies, cosmetics, achievements, and gear. On top of that SWTOR is most well known for creating story and character development at a level that frankly other MMOs do not match: fully voiced dialogue, regular cinematic cutscenes featuring 48 lead actors across three languages and a huge supporting cast.

Let me be clear, none of these expectations are unreasonable. Nevertheless, we also have to accept that SWTOR is not the biggest MMO on the market. SWTOR hasn’t changed its subscription pricing in the United States since launch, and it hasn’t charged for an expansion in a decade. I am certain the costs associated with every aspect of creating this game has gone up, and the development team has the challenge of doing what they can with the resources they have.

As a player, I also understand the frustration. I was disappointed that my first major conversation between my character and Sahar, the expansion’s major addition to the cast, was done in the KOTOR style. For me it deflated much of the drama leading up to that moment.

I’m not going to tell anyone how to value their subscription and their play time. If you only want to pop into SWTOR once a year to catch up with the story, I get it. I’ve often called SWTOR the theme-parkiest of theme park MMOs and how often do most people go to DisneyWorld or Six Flags in a year? If you’d rather challenge yourself against the constant stream of new raids only World of Warcraft can supply or the large scale PVP of New World, I completely understand. We live in an age of subscription services, and no one can or should keep up with them all. For example, as their fees have increased and their quality and quantity of their shows gone down, I’ve gotten into the habit of juggling my streaming services. I don’t see any point in subscribing to Netflix for more than one or two months a year, and it makes sense that others view their MMO subs the same way.

I can only answer the question for myself. I use SWTOR’s 180 day subscription plan, and every six months I ask myself if I’m getting my money’s worth from my sub. It costs me more to go out to a movie than to play SWTOR for a month. I truly believe I get more fun from a month of SWTOR than I do from two hours at the cinema, so it’s always been a short conversation. But other people may feel different. A great many players are just here for the story, so taking a break from the game until the strike is resolved is more than reasonable. Should SWTOR add other types of content to tide us over until the strike ends? I’m certain that’s the plan. The next Galactic Season should start in a month or two, and I imagine we’ll get more Dynamic Encounters and perhaps a new Venture. Will we see extra emphasis on group content? Maybe. I don’t know. Honestly I don’t think SWTOR has the resources to satisfy all the expectations players have of the game. As always, it will be a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Don’t look to me for solution to this problem. I understand subscriptions remain SWTOR‘s biggest source of revenue, but Broadsword has introduced the “Join the Fight” and “Master the Fight” bundles to entice players to subscribe for more than a month at a time. I believe that these bundles are solid deals if you want some extra Cartel Coins to spend, but they are skippable if you don’t. I don’t relish the thought of paying more for SWTOR, and I don’t believe SWTOR should or will raise its subscription price unless World of Warcraft does so first; I imagine they are rather like two competing gas stations across the street from each other, forced to match prices. Should SWTOR charge for expansions again? Shadows of Revan, SWTOR‘s last paid expansion, cost $19.99 US, and I would gladly pay that for an expansion with the same scope and content. Would other players? I don’t know.

For me, a big part of the appeal of the game comes from the fact that I get to play with so many fun and funny people both within my guild and the community of people I’ve gotten to meet over the years. I love raiding, I enjoy dipping into Galactic and PVP seasons. There is almost always something I want to do when I log on.

But I can’t speak for other players. All I can really do is hope that the strike is resolved quickly, and the voice actor’s are satisfied with the agreement.

Yes, Chef

Ok, I lied. I do have one 2025 prediction to make. It is obvious to me that the next Venture will revolve around Porgs. This Venture will introduce players to the months long process of breeding, hatching, nurturing Ahch-To’s beloved and delicious avian friends. That’s right, I said “delicious.” This Venture will be the means Broadsword finally introduces the cooking crafting skill to the game. Players will need to journey across the galaxy collecting rare ingredients, uncovering ancient recipes from lost ruins of the Sith, Jedi and Rakata. We will learn to build campfires in the wild, construct fusion ovens in our strongholds, navigate crowded, tension-filled kitchens and battle the fiercest Beskar Chefs to discover who reigns supreme in the kitchen stadiums of the galaxy. At the end of our journey, we will finally earn a vaunted Mandalorian Star proving that we are worthy to stand with the greatest chefs in all of Star Wars lore.

And it all starts with the humble Porg. Of that I have no doubt.

During SWTOR’s 7.6 livestream, Eric Musco announced to everyone’s surprise that the game’s character models were being updated, and my initial reaction was this: “I hope they know what they’re in for, because if they don’t get it exactly right, people are gonna freak.”

And they did. I was one of them. The very first version of the updated characters we saw on the PTS was very rough indeed. I posted my shocked first impressions on the forums, but I kind of regret it. I fear I helped stir the pot and encouraged the frenzy that we are seeing in some corners of the community. That was never my intent. I believe what Broadsword wants to do is a good idea and I want them to succeed. I want to be careful in my comments and criticism, because I think we’ve seen improvements since the initial version of the PTS, and I believe the team is determined to get it right.

First and foremost, I have no experience with 3D modeling and I don’t know what specific challenges the art team faces in working with SWTOR’s teenaged game engine. My initial gut-reaction has been these aren’t the changes I would’ve made. Let me be perfectly clear, that is not useful criticism. To say “I would have done differently that thing I don’t know how to do” is not helpful at all.

If you’d like the perspective of someone who does know what they are talking about, definitely check out the commentary on this subject by Sultana on Bluesky. Sultana has experience with 3D modeling, has played with the game’s assets and has fascinating insights.

As for me, I do think I can fairly talk about the aesthetics of the changes and how I am reacting to them. I am absolutely not the first to point out that SWTOR’s characters tend towards a more animated style, and swinging too far towards realism clashes strongly with how we’ve come to see our characters over the years. The sweet spot would be for our characters to appear naturalistic without necessarily being realistic. This is a tough line to walk, especially as the environments and objects and outfits around us have become more realistic in recent updates.

We have seen, to different degrees, animated properties from Star Wars’ own The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch shows to Arcane on Netflix and the Spiderverse movies blur those lines between the semi-realism of their setting and the stylistic flourishes of their character designs, and I believe  SWTOR should be able to strike that balance as well.

The main focus of the developer’s attention right now is on our characters’ faces, and I think what we saw with the launch of 7.6 is on the right track. Star Wars is predominantly a cinematic property, and I think ultimately the goal is that we should feel like our characters look like movie stars, as dashing as Harrison Ford and Oscar Isaac and as beautiful as Natalie Portman and Daisy Ridley.

For the most part, I think the male faces are there. I like the heavy lower eyelids, but their lips still seem dry and parched to me. As for the females, while they’ve come a long way, they’re still not quite there. For better or worse, hard contours work on males, but on female faces, they need to go, especially on the neck and where the cheeks meet the the mouth and upper lip area. Light and shadow should be all we need to define those shapes when the character is smiling or shouting, but the transition between the two areas should be smooth as possible in neutral expressions. My main issue is that sometimes the characters’ appearances can change dramatically in different settings and lighting. On the character select screen a character can look fine, but in darker location with higher contrast, the textures on the skin comes off as too stark.

Regarding changes to the bodies of characters, Musco has made it clear that these are even more so a work in progress, and it shows.

The six pack abs on the portly Body Type 4 males has long been the source of jokes, and we can see with the new iteration that they have given these characters a more naturalistic appearance. That is a very good change. Comparing a Nautolan that still uses the old textures to an updated human, we can see more definition around the collarbone, shoulders and arms on the Nautolan, but because they’ve turned down the intensity of the textures on the human to soften wrinkles on other parts of the model, those details feel soft now.

Looking at the back of one of my female characters (on the left, below) we can see the opposite problem. The updated model seems to use the original textures (as seen in the middle) but they are now more intense; those old textures have not aged well. The Trapezius muscles are overly prominent, and the textures on different parts of the bodies don’t quite connect to each other You can see this in the shoulders, especially in how they don’t quite match front to back and in the gaps of the armpits where they should join the torso.

My larger point is that I would like to see the character updates focus less on muscles and anatomy and more on flesh and blood. Yes, there are all sorts of muscles on the back, but in real life it’s the shoulder blades and the curve of the spine that define a person’s back. The result of the over-definition of the older textures is that characters can look literally thin skinned and even emaciated (especially Body Type 1s). The emphasis on sculpted muscles works for Body Type 3 characters who are supposed to be jacked, but everyone else should look like a real person and not a greased up body builder.

“Just make the hard parts look hard and the soft parts look soft!” That’s easier said than done, but it doesn’t mean I want Broadsword to give up. I do believe many of the changes have been improvements. The extra glint of light in the characters’ eyes is a subtle touch that adds a lot of extra life to our characters, and to me, that Body Type 4 human looks better than his Nautolan counterpart.

MMO-RPGs are works in progress, and sometimes not everything works the way we want it to. That sucks sometimes. I don’t love that my characters look off right now, but there are things about games like this that I hated more and have endured longer. As players and customers, we should be engaged with the developers about this process in constructive ways. Screaming and shouting feels good and makes for solid click bait, but it doesn’t help the good people at Broadsword make the game better.

That’s the goal. That’s what we all want.