136642-gomg-did-they-actually-listen-to-us-dominion-ark-story-change

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Hey everybody,
 
So even though i have a bunch of mid and high level toons i decided to create some new ones to try out other races.  I made some new Dominions because Dominions rule and Exiles drool :P  But anyways on a whim i made some of my new toons start out in the Ark ship despite me having done it 2 dozen times already.  And zomg i saw that they changed the intro quests!  i remember a year ago a bunch of us, myself included said that they should change the ark quests.  I actually specifically said that the tone of the cattleprodding and shooting the spy in the back might rub people the wrong way especially if they didnt read the quest dialogue.  I remember saying that the cattleprodding should be replaced with something like a /point emote.  And that they should put in a VO to make it a little more obvious that you are dealing with a spy.  And i see that there is no more prodding /cheer  and that the spy is now an Aurin in disguise /double cheer.
 
I'm only back as an F2P for now, but i'm actually excited to see what all has changed.  I only got as far as the Spy when the servers had to go down.  I just hope that i dont get back in and do the rest of the Ark and find out that Mondo is now a used puppy/kitten salesman and that Toric is all psycho now hehehe.	
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			Sounds like the Dominion has gotten soft if you ask me. 	
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Sounds like the Dominion has gotten soft if you ask me. 
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And have any of the changes caused any veteran Dom players or new players to reroll to Exiles? because it made the Dominions feel "soft"?
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And have any of the changes caused any veteran Dom players or new players to reroll to Exiles? because it made the Dominions feel "soft"?
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I have to agree with @hellhound_omega
 
This was actually my exact feedback during the beta. I felt like they ruined the lore feel of the dominion.
 
I'm sorry but, by and large most people pick their factions on looks and population. Those of us that care about lore found the dominion to be cool, and everyone else will see red (dominion) as bad and exile (blue) as good regardless of what is written in the lore. And since that's the case, why soften up the beginning? It's not true to the dominion and why they're so cool. Plus, removing Toric is really the punch to the dominion's morality. If you want to see our good side you gotta keep him there, not tone down Mondo Zax and Axis Pheydra.
 
I'll still be Dominion but, I really disliked the story changes.	
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I have to agree with @hellhound_omega
 
This was actually my exact feedback during the beta. I felt like they ruined the lore feel of the dominion.
 
I'm sorry but, by and large most people pick their factions on looks and population. Those of us that care about lore found the dominion to be cool, and everyone else will see red (dominion) as bad and exile (blue) as good regardless of what is written in the lore. And since that's the case, why soften up the beginning? It's not true to the dominion and why they're so cool. Plus, removing Toric is really the punch to the dominion's morality. If you want to see our good side you gotta keep him there, not tone down Mondo Zax and Axis Pheydra.
 
I'll still be Dominion but, I really disliked the story changes.
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I have to agree with @hellhound_omega
 
This was actually my exact feedback during the beta. I felt like they ruined the lore feel of the dominion.
 
I'm sorry but, by and large most people pick their factions on looks and population. Those of us that care about lore found the dominion to be cool, and everyone else will see red (dominion) as bad and exile (blue) as good regardless of what is written in the lore. And since that's the case, why soften up the beginning? It's not true to the dominion and why they're so cool. Plus, removing Toric is really the punch to the dominion's morality. If you want to see our good side you gotta keep him there, not tone down Mondo Zax and Axis Pheydra.
 
I'll still be Dominion but, I really disliked the story changes.
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I haven't played the new Arkship yet, but I'm really happy about the spy part. So many people tried to tell me that there was no spy and no one was brainwashed! 
 
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It seems like quite a lot of people got irritated with the change to lore. It felt like a punch to the gut without visiting the Church and learning more about Dominion ideals. Even more so, did anyone ever see that Luminai governor/person walk into the Church after your quest there? If you followed him in there and eavesdropped he talks about your toon, by name. But I agree, people care more about looks and what advertisements show. If people thing Dominion is evil, why go against it? Embrace it. Like EQ2, if you were from Freeport, you were evil. But damn, you enjoyed it!
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I have to agree with @hellhound_omega
 
This was actually my exact feedback during the beta. I felt like they ruined the lore feel of the dominion.
 
I'm sorry but, by and large most people pick their factions on looks and population. Those of us that care about lore found the dominion to be cool, and everyone else will see red (dominion) as bad and exile (blue) as good regardless of what is written in the lore. And since that's the case, why soften up the beginning? It's not true to the dominion and why they're so cool. Plus, removing Toric is really the punch to the dominion's morality. If you want to see our good side you gotta keep him there, not tone down Mondo Zax and Axis Pheydra.
 
I'll still be Dominion but, I really disliked the story changes.
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I have to agree with @hellhound_omega
 
This was actually my exact feedback during the beta. I felt like they ruined the lore feel of the dominion.
 
I'm sorry but, by and large most people pick their factions on looks and population. Those of us that care about lore found the dominion to be cool, and everyone else will see red (dominion) as bad and exile (blue) as good regardless of what is written in the lore. And since that's the case, why soften up the beginning? It's not true to the dominion and why they're so cool. Plus, removing Toric is really the punch to the dominion's morality. If you want to see our good side you gotta keep him there, not tone down Mondo Zax and Axis Pheydra.
 
I'll still be Dominion but, I really disliked the story changes.
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But arent the domanian evil? They remind me of the empire in star wars.
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I haven't played the new Arkship yet, but I'm really happy about the spy part. So many people tried to tell me that there was no spy and no one was brainwashed! 
 
 
My issue is that I didn't feel the Dominion was that evil when I quested after the Arkship. It kinda felt like they went really overboard with the Arkship and it drove away many potential players. And yes, I did see that Luminai (pretty sure the same one in Deradune) but I didn't follow him. I found other silly things like that one emoting couple and that one mutated Dominion officer.
 
In terms of actual gameplay, I do feel more evil playing a Dominion character but the difference isn't as big as everyone is making it out to be. All the quests are pretty much the same.
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I know it made me question my allegiances. I made a thread about it in the Lore section. To me they took away the very fabric of what the Dominion stood for. I found the cattle prod freaking hilarious and I loved the experiments Mondo did on the Exile sympathizers. However, that was all removed. I was very disappointed. I still am.
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My memory is a bit rusty on the Ark Dominion storyline.  But iirc the mutations in Mondos lab were not sympathizers at least not willingly. Cryo pods were tampered with by the spy and their memories or whatever were changed so that the person in the pod would be sympathetic to the Exiles.  Basically they were brainwashed, and Mondo was attempting to undo the tampering but it resulted in the mutations.  Most of that is in the actual quest text and not in the VO dialogue. Like the reason you cattleprodded the people was to get them into the mind scanner thingie to see if they had the Exiles thoughts implanted into them and that was explained in the quest text.
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First off welcome to the game! 
 
Second off... The Devs do listen! That is one of the things I love about Carbine is they listen. Not always are they able to do everything that we ask for or want but they are doing their best to listen to the community and get us what we are asking for :) 	
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Exactly--not willingly. But Mondo didn't care.Some of the ways to "fix" them were flame throwers to the face. We all know that is not how you unbrainwash someone. His VO for each experiment was funny. He made side comments about each one. He even used the Chua catch phrases (Cosmotronic and Great gears of Bezgalor!). You get a sense of what Mondo and Chuas are from that.  I guess that is the point I'm trying to make but unable to do cause I'm tired.
 
The removed little things like that that gave the Arkship and the Domininon meaning. For this example, you are introduced to Mondo as just a weird scientist. Previously you were introduced to his as a crazy scientist--the loose cannon of the Dominion that even Pheydra couldn't control.
 
Of course, this is all my opinion on what they meant and I could be looking into all of this way more profoundly than I need to be :P
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First off welcome to the game! 
 
Second off... The Devs do listen! That is one of the things I love about Carbine is they listen. Not always are they able to do everything that we ask for or want but they are doing their best to listen to the community and get us what we are asking for :)
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It probably would have been better if a lot of the offensive stuff had just been explained better with better dialogue, quest text or whatever.  In one of my posts a year ago i had actually suggested to keep the spy-getting-shot-in-the-back part in there but just explain why you are shooting the guy.  For someone skipping dialogue it looks like you are shooting one of your own people.  But explain to them in text or VO that you cant skip that this is a spy that brainwashed the people you just cattleprodded then maybe players would have been more understanding instead of getting offended.
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Well a long time ago, I actually posted screenshots of some of the suspicious things those Brainwashed citizens said. Some of them didn't seem so brainwashy, but others did. These screenshots weren't enough to convince some players that brainwashing took place. I think I even included the chatlog that says that Exiles were even detected in certain parts of the Arkship. So I'm a bit skeptical that people would have listened even if they couldn't skip stuff.
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The most disappointing thing is less interaction with Toric. He is literally the most objectively good character in the entire game, and a major badass. 
 
P.S.
 
The dominion is no more or less evil than the exiles, just different types of society and different types of equaly valid morality. The Dominion morality takes after the Heros of greece and rome, while the Exile morality takes after the hero / antiheros of the Wild West. 
 
The Mordesh Alchemists match the Chua DREDD in chemically and technologically killing innocent stuff, and the Black hoods match the ICI in terrorizing their own faction as spys and secret police.
			
				
	Edited October 4, 2015 by Nazryn	
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But even with good proof it wouldnt surprise me if people would not listen.  I bet you if you took pics or fraps'd the one Exile quest where you are tampering with medical supplies in an NPC Dominion or the group of NPCs in Auroria that infected civilians with plague people would cover their eyes and start yelling LALALALALA didnt happen didnt happen!
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Thank you hehe, but i've been playing the game on and off since last June.  Though i have been gone for i think 4-5 months this last break...so more like a "welcome back to the game" =D
 
When going on gaming forums i like to pick names that end in --newbie.  SWTOnewbie, STOnewbie, notanmmonewbie because it draws a certain response from certain people. Stuff like "ohh you're just a newbie what do you know" lets me know which people i can filter out.
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story change BECAUSE - it dragged on forever.
 
so they chopped it shorter to get you on planet faster	
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			Honestly, the whole undertones that had the player questioning if the people were actually 'brainwashed' or uprising, and Mondo's possible exploitation of his position to conduct weapon experiments gave the game some depth and established the motives of the races and how they work. Now I find it predictable.	
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Honestly, the whole undertones that had the player questioning if the people were actually 'brainwashed' or uprising, and Mondo's possible exploitation of his position to conduct weapon experiments gave the game some depth and established the motives of the races and how they work. Now I find it predictable.
 
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I kinda liked the Dominion ark ship before the revamp if only because they were fleshed out a bit better, right off the bat they made you do things that might seem cruel (kill the spy,brainwashing test etc.) and then you got to join the Vigilant Church, which for most(including myself) was a surprise to find it there. I thought they were just power hungry but, they just really believe that they were hand picked by the Eldan and dedicated to that decision.
 
Not saying i don't like the stream lined version but you know...i'm just a lore guy.
			
				
	Edited October 4, 2015 by xRaymanx	
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@ Spiderbro
 
With the badass thing it was more like how Boba Fett was a bad guy but he had the "strong silent" thing going on with him.  Darth Maul because of the ninja-like fighting two Jedi with a lightsaber type not seen before in the movies.  And Darth Vader the guy who will force choke you on the TV screen if you even think of making fun of his religion.  We have Toric but he's a goodie two shoes.  Artemis Zin i thought was pretty cool but with all the reality TV stuff going on IRL a lot of people ended up comparing her to the like of Kim Kardashian or Snooky or whoever.  Even though she would kick butt in the quests people were still hung up on how she was a TV personality on the Dominion.  They need to put them into more badass flicks imo.	
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@ Spiderbro
 
With the badass thing it was more like how Boba Fett was a bad guy but he had the "strong silent" thing going on with him.  Darth Maul because of the ninja-like fighting two Jedi with a lightsaber type not seen before in the movies.  And Darth Vader the guy who will force choke you on the TV screen if you even think of making fun of his religion.  We have Toric but he's a goodie two shoes.  Artemis Zin i thought was pretty cool but with all the reality TV stuff going on IRL a lot of people ended up comparing her to the like of Kim Kardashian or Snooky or whoever.  Even though she would kick butt in the quests people were still hung up on how she was a TV personality on the Dominion.  They need to put them into more badass flicks imo.
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Yeah, the Dominion is not what one would consider classic movie-villain evil - i.e. they're not Palpatine's Galactic Empire. For the most part they truly believe what they're doing is right, just, and what the chaotic galaxy needs to become a true galactic civilization that will last for millennia. By and large they see the Exiles as dangerous terrorists working against this effort.I agree we did lose some flavor in both arkships in an effort to streamline the experience and get you down to the planet (and the action) sooner rather than later. But I think the general attitude of each side is still there, and is still fully fleshed out over the course of 50 levels once you hit Nexus. I especially liked the addition of the saboteur leader to the Dominion arkship, putting a face to the terror cell aboard the ship. And hey, if it helps, all the lore collectibles that used to be on the arkships are now available in each of the four landing zones (Northern Wilds, Everstar Grove, Levian Bay, or Crimson Isle).
 
And don't worry, just because he's doing it off-camera doesn't mean Mondo's not up to some nefarious science. He's not evil either, but he has what the Protostar Corporation likes to call a "flexible moral code."	
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And don't worry, just because he's doing it off-camera doesn't mean Mondo's not up to some nefarious science. He's not evil either, but he has what the Protostar Corporation likes to call a "flexible moral code."
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Haha, Toric is extremely noble and honorable.. but he's no goodie two shoes. He's boinking the cupcake out of Zin, and he has literally no fear. If you haven't, run the public quest in Auroria where he and 4 elite Radiant legionares take out the Osun Warlord. Toric just walks right in and starts smacking a 50 foot Osun with his sword... guy's got cupcakes made of titanium.
 
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Where did you get that he was "boinking the frosting off of Zins cupcake"? do you mean the Ellevar questline where one of his subordinate suspected that Toric and Zin were boinking? and it turned out that Toric was just out hunting/gathering food for the settlement? the quest where its a holdout and you protect the supplies that he had gathered? I'm actually about to level another alt through Ellevar and i'll keep an eye out on that quest, but if thats the one you are talking about i'm pretty sure he was just out getting food.
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			all chua should come out of the cyro pod in underwear.	
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Journal entry in Ellevar:
 
http://wildstar.gamepedia.com/Interview_with_the_Radiant_Star
 
Just because you didn't discover their antics, doesn't mean they don't exist ;)
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So some lore bit exists where they were flirting back and forth? and here i thought you found a cambot pic showing Toric and Artemis with their pants down or something.
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			Yah i kinda guessed that you got hung up on the word "relationship".  But you are aware that there are relationships other than intimate ones right? Also even if there was something going on between the two is there some lore bit out there saying that Vigilants cant have personal or intimate relationships? they arent Jedi after all.  Besides when i referred to him as "goodie goodie" i mean when compared to people like Mondo "let me light your face on fire for science" Zax.	
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Yah i kinda guessed that you got hung up on the word "relationship".  But you are aware that there are relationships other than intimate ones right? Also even if there was something going on between the two is there some lore bit out there saying that Vigilants cant have personal or intimate relationships? they arent Jedi after all.  Besides when i referred to him as "goodie goodie" i mean when compared to people like Mondo "let me light your face on fire for science" Zax.
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You're not seriously suggesting an interview where Zin and Toric are physically messing around (note the onomatopoeias), and he for all intents and purposes tells her he loves her while talking about their (obviously romantic) relationship constitutes something "other than intimate ones" ???
 
Dey boinking cupcakes mate :3 
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Ehh its just that i need something a bit more concrete then flirting and words that could easily be misconstrued for something else.  Now maybe if Artemis pulled a Kim Kardashian and there is a sex tape of Toric and Zin floating around somewhere then yah i'll believe it :P
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