When Role-Playing In An MMO Doesn't Suck

 

When I created Sanyj, I had a character archetype in mind: Action girl with a bit of biker babe thrown in for flavor. Tough, dry and unwilling to put up with your sass. She likes her money and likes it well, but not so much that it’s all that concerns her.  Kind of a jerk with a heart of gold, if you will. (I know I'm hitting the TV Tropes pretty hard, but I swear that's the last one.) The Old Republic allows me to play that role.

 

I’m attached to my Rattataki Bounty Hunter in ways I never was to any custom game character. I created them, but they weren’t mine. They appeared as I wanted them to, but my absurdly muscular Draenei Paladin wasn’t a character, just a vehicle through which I killed X amount of wolves (which respawned minutes later) or recovered Y amount of priceless artifacts (which were thereafter never mentioned).

 

This is Sanyj. ...Shut up, the armor has good stats.

 

Sanyj (and my handful of other characters of varying race, sex, class and faction) is different. And while the game remains unchanged—let’s face it: TOR is less an innovation than a refinement—it feels different. Her decisions affect her relationship with her crewmates; they might leave if she pisses them off a few times too many. Quest choices and outcomes affect later interactions—Sanyj killed a smuggler on Hutta, and his siblings confronted her a dozen levels and two planets later on Balmorra.

 

Forming a party can be rewarding, but it carries a risk. Are you used to finishing quests your way? There’s a good chance that won’t happen if you form a group. Venturing into a heroic questing area forced Sanyj to seek help in the form of an Imperial Agent and fellow Bounty Hunter. There were disagreements and the Imperial Agent won a roll, allowing her to complete a quest in a way that hurt civilians.

 

“Dick move,” I jokingly remarked in Party Chat.

 

“stfu bitch,” the Agent explained, disbanding the party immediately.

 

Sanyj avoided groups following that incident; things suddenly began to look up. Whether or not there was any correlation, I'll let you decide. But the answer is yes.

 

And this is the bridge of her sweet ride.

 

After leaving Hutta, interactions with the Empire and the Sith became more frequent. A heretofore unmentioned aspect of Sanyj’s character is that she plays by the Empire’s rules, but only so much as it will benefit her. I tend to use aspects of my own personality with characters in games developed by BioWare or Bethesda, and my dislike for authoritarian entities became core to Sanyj. At face value, she’s another loyal (for a price) citizen of the Empire, unless presented with opportunities to subvert its government without harming innocents. Hey, as long as she gets paid, right?

 

Oh, bite me, it’s fun.

 

I should point out that I’m not acting out these scenarios in chat with a party of basement-dwellers who claim their characters are Half-Demon Blood Elf Sith Purebloods (point out to them the contradictions in that character description; I dare you). Every aspect of Sanyj’s character is present in her dialogue choices during cutscenes. BioWare should be commended for that. The preset responses allow players to navigate conversations how they like, shaping their characters along the way. Does it cheapen the role-playing? You could say yes, if you’re very much into role-play in video games. But for those who, like me, want to enjoy a good story and play with a few friends in their free time, it’s great.

 

It isn’t a revolution, or even an innovation, but TOR is very well-executed, especially so close to launch. How other MMO developers will try to compete with this new emphasis on storytelling, should they do so, is of interest to me. TOR has all the usual MMO trappings—grinding, kill/fetch quests, instances, crafting, and so on—but it has a distinctly “single-player” feel. For that, I can see myself sticking around for some time—at least long enough to finish a couple of class-specific stories. Guess we'll see.