I think I first really fell in love with them when Luke and Vader fought in the Sky City on Bespin.
There is something indefinable cool about a lightsaber that is hard to describe.
The glowing blade that gives it a distinct visual presence and the eerie low level buzz that promises ozone scented mutilation and/or dismemberment.
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| This picture can still give me goosebumps |
And of course, the awesome sight and sound of two lightsabers striking each other, sending sparks flying every which way, with a sound that leaves no doubt about the deadly potential of these weapons.
Finally, lightsabers are very rare weapons in Star Wars.
The are carried by elite samurai-like warriors that use them with expert skills that make them much more deadly than a solider with a common blaster.
All this has made lightsabers become possibly the single most recognizable science fiction weapon in movie history.
Endlessly parodied and copied in other movies, games and various other media.
The Old Republic is not the first game to let us play a lightsaber wielding character.
This has been done many times before with various degrees of success in games like the Jedi Knight series and Knights of the Old Republic.
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| Jedi Outcast probably had some of the most satisfying lightsaber play in any Star Wars game |
I have had a problem with how lightsabers have been portrayed in almost any game that I have played.
It is a simple problem of game balance versus staying true to the fiction.
In the Star Wars movies a lightsaber can cut through pretty much everything in a single swipe.
It will happily dismember people/aliens/droids or cut through a vent on the underside of an AT-AT.
However, in almost every Star Wars game I've played, you cannot kill your enemies by simply hitting them once with the blade.
This makes sense from a game balancing perspective of course.
It becomes really hard to make a game challenging to the player, if he can just run up and swing once to kill the enemy.
Nevertheless this has always cheapened the feel of lightsabers to me, making them feel less like a weapon of incredible and barely harnessed power, and more like a glowing stick that you thwack your enemies around the head and neck with.
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| "C'mere a minute and let me hit ya with my glowing club" |
Of course this will be much the same for The Old Republic, judging from everything that I have seen so far.
And I can accept that in the name of balance, even if it makes me a little sad.
What I am more worried about though, and what is unique about The Old Republic, is the sheer proliferation of lightsabers that we are going to be exposed to.
For me, the point about lightsabers, and force users in general, being rare has always made them more interesting and fascinating.
With The Old Republic it's very likely that we'll see at least half the player base using a lightsaber wielding character (unless people somehow skew away from those classes, but I don't see why that would happen. Probably the opposite is more likely).
This means that in any given four player group, you're likely to see two lightsabers at any given time.
Walk out onto the Senate Square on Coruscant and half of those 200 people will be sporting a lightsaber.
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| "And you get a lightsaber! And you get a lightsaber! And you get a..." |
In short, you'll be seeing a lot of glowing sticks and I am worried if it will simply ruin some of the "heck yeah, awesome!" feeling from seeing lightsaber combat, once you are seeing so much of it in every play session.
Of course, this is not going to stop me from making my Sith Inquisitor, as I decided on in my class selection process, but will I still have the same love and appreciation for my intricate blade of carnage, when I am hitting max level and I can't swing my lightsaber without hitting... another lightsaber?
I really hope that Bioware has managed to still make lightsabers feel as the most awesome weapon ever.
At least seeing touches such as characters swinging the blade around to deflect blaster bolts and rudimentary lightsaber on lightsaber combat shows that it is something that the are consciously trying to deliver on.
Only time will tell in the end.
A long time ago.
In a galaxy far far away...
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I think you are stuck in the mindset of the Lucas film's. Back in the times of the Jedi civil war in which in Old republic is based there is an abundance of Sith and Jedi, hundreds of times more than there is during the Galactic Civil War of the films. It was only due to a holocron discovered 1000's of years later by Darth Bane regarding Revan's teaching's (rule of two) that there are less sith and so less need for hundreds or thousands of Jedi as he learnt from Revan that a master should teach no more that one apprentice as it would be easier for a greater number of apprentices to bring down their master.
ReplyDeleteLightsabers were not rare weapons in the millenia prior to BBY (Before battle of Yavin); great wars were fought with them, the only time it would have been rare would have been before the technology need for them had yet to be mastered; around 15000 years BBY. You only saw less of them in the era of the films (19 bby, after order 66) because it was outlawed for anyone other that Palpatine and anyone he personally authorised to carry them (Vader) and so the Jedi had to refrain from drawing them if they did posses one. So no they are not essentially rare weapons only wielded by a handful of people it was only made this way so that Palpatine could tighten his grip on the Republic + Jedi Order.
Hi Clsaunders1.
ReplyDeleteI see your point but I don't quite agree with you.
The Jedi, and thus the lightsaber, were still extremely rare during the height of their power. There aren't any canonical sources on exactly how large the Jedi ranks were at their height of power, but most numbers I've seen are in the realm of maybe 10.000 individuals.
Being Force sensitive, and to such a degree that a person is able to become a Jedi is a very rare thing.
Sure, 10.000 Jedi are a whole lot more than 3-4, but compared to a galaxy with thousands of planets and many billions of sentient individuals it's incredibly rare.
By contrast, in SWTOR the Jedi/Sith classes make up 50% of the available classes, which would be equal to every second person in the Star Wars universe being a Jedi/Sith. This is obviously completely out of whack, even if you take into consideration that we are in the period where there are the highest number of Force users around.
It's a bit like Space Marines in the Warhammer 40k universe. There are around one million Space Marines around in the 40k universe. That's obviously a damn big number of power armor clad super soldiers, but when taken into consideration against an empire consisting of hundreds of trillions of people, then they are insanely rare and most people will never live to see a Space Marine throughout their life.