As far as I know it has to meaningful impact on gameplay. Heck, you can even roll Republic and gather up Darkside points.

What is the point of all that? Just equipping some random items that require that much of Lightside/Darkside points?

Err ... why do you post a thread about a specific problem of SW:TOR into the general forum ?

And you already said why there are Lightside/Darkside points. There are items with restrictions. Also, it helps the story. Or some such.

Originally posted by Adamantine

Err ... why do you post a thread about a specific problem of SW:TOR into the general forum ?

And you already said why there are Lightside/Darkside points. There are items with restrictions. Also, it helps the story. Or some such.

To answer your first question, because I fail at posting :)

Regarding the second aspect, it makes no sense to implement those choices as they are, I was expecting someone would say there's more to it.

Well, I hear there's also cosmetics involved, heavy darkside characters developping nasty facial features and such (this I like, actually).

What's absurd about it is that you're encouraged to either always choose the light option or always choose the dark option. There's absolutely no benefit to doing anything else. So it's a useless series of choices, really. Might as well just ask ‘Light or Dark?’ at character creation and let it automate your dialogue choices from there.

Really obnoxious. My biggest problem with this game.

Originally posted by Saerain

What's absurd about it is that you're encouraged to either always choose the light option or always choose the dark option. There's absolutely no benefit to doing anything else. So it's a useless choice, really. Might as well just ask ‘Light or Dark?’ at character creation and let it automate your dialogue choices from there.

Really obnoxious. My biggest problem with this game.

Good point. Also, what is the meaning of making worthless choices, such as in dialogues with quest givers that only change the first reply they give and nothing more?

Originally posted by bronecar

Good point. Also, what is the meaning of making worthless choices, such as in dialogues with quest givers that only change the first reply they give and nothing more?

Well, I can at least defend that by saying that there's immersion value in even the illusion of choice. The same goes for the Light/Dark choices, but I'd say it's undermined by the alignment gear basically removing even the illusion.

Also in some of the flash points, maybe even quests your choices between light and dark give access to different bosses in them. Like going light for not lettign a guide you captured go to show you around adn such, could end wiht you having to fight them as you fing out they were a sith looking for a artifact in there. Also the fact f light or dark side points for questions leads to replay. As you might get different story quests based on choice also or compainions. I would love to see a epic  story quest that has you gain a compainion that is based on choices you  made in the game to free or gain them.

Originally posted by Saerain

Originally posted by bronecar

Good point. Also, what is the meaning of making worthless choices, such as in dialogues with quest givers that only change the first reply they give and nothing more?

Well, I can at least defend that by saying that there's immersion value in even the illusion of choice. The same goes for the Light/Dark choices, but I'd say it's undermined by the alignment gear basically removing even the illusion.

Hm, but think about it.

This system is flawed not because of Bioware, but because of the lore, of the whole Star Wars universe fiasco.

Why is it there's no middle ground, as there was in old D&D games?

Not asking for True Neutral, I could never figure out such a possibility, but still.

Why would one necessarily care about Good or Evil?

We need an alternative, a balance to the force.

Err ... actually no, Star Wars as a setting does no such thing.

Lightside and Darkside only affect Jedi in the first place. It doesnt affect any non-Jedi.

Also, Sith in Star Wars are free to do whatever they want. They have fallen to the Dark Side, they arent forced to obey any code any more.

The light and darkside of the Knight of the Old Republic games, and the new MMO The Old Republic, is created by the game developer. The setting doesnt demand it.

In fact what the setting demands is that a Jedi that commits a truely evil act falls and turns into a Sith. And that a Jedi might decide to join the Darkside by themselves by joining the Sith in secret. Both of which would require a completely different coding.

Lightside are for peace, wealth and unity

Darkside are for painfull living and constant fighting and corruption.

Lightside and Darkside, probably just the dreams most of us for a better world. At the end it doesnt exist, bad people live in every system or in every part of the world.

yeah i always thought that was the most comical, the SWTOR fanboys saying "omg a game that gives you choices in your conversations". no actually you don't, you get rewarded for high light or darkside so that takes the whole choice out of the system.

if i pick darkside I ALWAYS have to pick darkside and the same with lightside. if i don't im screwing myself later on

not much choice in that.

I think they are working on something in this regard OP. I know there are some side quests that get unlocked when you have a certain amount of light/dark side points. I also believe they are working on some gear and stuff for neutrel type characters as they got a lot of feed back from beta testers on this. It's a very good question OP, BW should be aware

Originally posted by Ecoces

yeah i always thought that was the most comical, the SWTOR fanboys saying "omg a game that gives you choices in your conversations". no actually you don't, you get rewarded for high light or darkside so that takes the whole choice out of the system.

if i pick darkside I ALWAYS have to pick darkside and the same with lightside. if i don't im screwing myself later on

 

not much choice in that.

Actually, I do see it as choice. I had originally planned to try to take my Trooper to a more darkside stance but I wasn't paying attention to what the light/dark responses were (which I disagree with the choices being outlined in such manner). In my first opportunity for alignment, my natural responses gave me darkside points without me realizing that is where I was going. In my third alignment choice, I noticed that the choices were labled and the darkside choice was not something my character would do so I ended up with lightside points by staying in-character.

I'm sure this doesn't make much sense to non-roleplayers, but it really does add a great deal of depth when you are making choices in-character, rather than just spamming the dark choice or the light choice.

Choice does not matter in this game, really, other than from a humerous and entertaining single-player /character build story standpoint. For a cinematic rpg, that's great.

I would like to have more plot, story and game-play features, consequence and unique rewards that distinguish me from a massively-multiplayer standpoint as a Republic Character that makes dark choices, though.

Originally posted by Adamantine

Err ... actually no, Star Wars as a setting does no such thing.

Lightside and Darkside only affect Jedi in the first place. It doesnt affect any non-Jedi.

Also, Sith in Star Wars are free to do whatever they want. They have fallen to the Dark Side, they arent forced to obey any code any more.

The light and darkside of the Knight of the Old Republic games, and the new MMO The Old Republic, is created by the game developer. The setting doesnt demand it.

In fact what the setting demands is that a Jedi that commits a truely evil act falls and turns into a Sith. And that a Jedi might decide to join the Darkside by themselves by joining the Sith in secret. Both of which would require a completely different coding.

Actually there were force user characters, able to walk the middle path in the KOTOR series. I see no reason why not expanding that to TOR. Here is a SW wiki quote

"Even during his days with the Order, Jolee allowed emotion to drive his actions, and thus walked a fine line between the light and dark sides of the Force, claiming that he saw "only in gray."

Darkside FTW.

If you think about it jedi suck so bad that every single Sith needed at least 2 jedi to take them down.

Darth maul > 2 jedi

count duku > 2 jedi

General...whatever > 2 jedi

even the emporer was killed by Vader, not luke...

Originally posted by Dewm

Darkside FTW.

 

If you think about it jedi suck so bad that every single Sith needed at least 2 jedi to take them down.

 

Darth maul > 2 jedi

count duku > 2 jedi

General...whatever > 2 jedi

 

even the emporer was killed by Vader, not luke...

 

 

Ye mayn they WTFBBQPWNZORZ!

Goooooo darkside yaaaay! *does a cheerleader highkick'

Originally posted by Adamantine

Lightside and Darkside only affect Jedi in the first place. It doesnt affect any non-Jedi.

Bah. Has Obi-Wan tought you nothing? The Force affects everything, and the Dark Side is associated with ‘evil’ people whether they are themselves sensitive to the Force or not.

Remember, for instance, how Mace Windu, before realizing that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, says, ‘The Dark Side of the Force surrounds the Chancellor.’

LIght and Dark side points should be two different XP bars really.  No need to set them in opposition given the current mechanic and reward.  The choices seem to have little impact on the overall story.  

As a Sith, what's weird is that some of the seemingly 'evil' choices are considered light side choices.