DISCLAIMER: The following images have been taken from a Work In Progress version of the mod and don't represent the final product. 

Today’s dev diary will be looking at storytelling in the mod. LOTOR is covering a period of galactic history where the only “skywalkers” are in the Chiss Ascendency. This timeframe is incredibly dense with several wars, crises, and events on both a galactic and empire level. This mod will by no means try to tackle every single event/moment from the numerous books and comics, as well as quests from KOTOR and SWTOR. Instead, we’ve focused on major events, major flashpoints, and major wars while sprinkling a bit of extra flavor from these periods throughout. We’ve also approached storytelling and immersion through other means as well: visuals and audio.

In short, this won’t be a 1:1 retelling of events from the end of the Great Hyperspace War through the High Republic. Some events will happen as they did in lore, others can occur differently. Others will be omitted but will be explored as if they happened within other quests. 

In LOTOR, there are a few different types of quests and events that mirror vanilla gameplay in some respects: anomalies and dig sites, galactic events, country events, and generic events. Some quests and events will help introduce the eras to new players or ones who aren’t familiar with galactic affairs prior to the Clone Wars. Additionally, some galactic and country events also act as story events for that era. 

These events are more in-line with vanilla game play and need barely any explanation when it comes to people familiar with the game; however, for new players, these events can be described rather briefly. Anomalies and dig sites are found while science ships are surveying new systems and can be studied by scientists. The rewards may vary, ranging from scientists gaining more experience to uncovering an ancient artifact of immense power. 

Generic events in LOTOR are very similar to ones you’d find in New Civilizations, New Dawn, and vanilla. They can happen to any empire at any point in time and can yield benefits such as gaining unity or unique resources to some less positive benefits such as a dianoga infestation or increased crime due to illegal swoop bike races. 

Country events are the ones that will occur only for specific empires. Some of these events will allow the player to improve various aspects of their empire. This can range from new ship architecture to powerful new leaders or schematics, and in some cases, the creation of new empires and threats. Some of these include the Duros colonization of Neimoidia and the Alsakan attempts to usurp Coruscant. These events can also snowball into the last type of events, Galactic events.

Galactic events are the major story events for LOTOR that happen to the galaxy as a whole as opposed to a singular empire and can have far reaching effects such as the rakghoul plague and the Cold War between the Republic and Sith. Some galactic events begin at a country level and as the quest chain is followed, it builds toward a larger event. Other galactic events act as crises such as Mandalore the Ultimate’s crusade and in later releases, the return of the Sith Empire. 

In some cases, galactic events will result in new leaders appearing for planet states and in some cases, player-controlled empires. 

Quests and events make up the bulk of the storytelling in LOTOR but at the same time, we try to visually and audibly capture the essence of the period and galaxy as well. Most major empires and planet states will have their own unique rooms that reflect the culture of the founding species. For example, the Trandoshans of the Hsskor Dominion have a room that is adorned with hunting trophies and the Mon Calamari have a room set in the watery depths of the planet . In the same vein, some of the rooms intend to capture the distinct look of their homeworld in this early period in galactic history, such as the Coruscanti Union (See Dev Diary 2 for examples of both.) 

Another way we’re approaching immersion is through event pictures and clothing. Although a relatively minor aspect of the mod, the team is making sure that all of our new events, as well as a few vanilla ones, have event pictures that fit with this broad period of galactic history. These event images are sourced from a variety of places ranging from the “Galactic Timeline” video series made to promote SWTOR to images from RPG and reference books and concept art from other Star Wars related material. We’ve also decided to use clothes and uniforms that best reflect appearances around the KOTOR/SWTOR eras. Some empires like the Chiss Ascendency and the Sith will have unique outfits while others will have fairly generic but still era appropriate clothes.

Music is another area we’ve addressed as well. We wanted to avoid using music that largely represented anything outside of this era and for that reason we opted toward using music from KOTOR and SWTOR with some additional tracks from Republic Commando, Samuel Kim’s renditions of Revan, Malak, and Bastilla’s themes, and a singular track from Rogue One. We’re also adding additional tracks with major content updates as well while maintaining this philosophy. If it gets too out of hand, expect a music add-on. 

And with that we wrap up this dev diary. Next week we will be looking at the new mechanic of planet states and discuss their role in our mod.