STAR WARS: the Old Republic...Anyone Playing? by HKCavalier

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

STAR WARS: the Old Republic...Anyone Playing?

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POSTED BY: HKCAVALIER
UPDATED: Sunday, April 22, 2012 15:53
SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/vThk8I
VIEWED: 13485
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Saturday, January 21, 2012 1:02 PM

Congratulations! So, what did you do with the prisoners? I got the first two right according to my handler (sent the assassin to Imperial Intelligence, killed the old failure in cold blood), but I let the faux forger go. He seemed an insignificant creature, too insignificant to waste my power on. Got a lecture on how I have to keep my mind on the big picture: even if the man is innocent, he is in posession of state secrets having seen the inside of the Sith Academy. I was like, oh, right, the Sith version of Abu Ghraib and MIT are the same thing. I won't be making the same mistake again, Maw-staw. Priceless.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, January 21, 2012 3:13 PM

Somewhere, an employee of Bioware breathed a sigh of relief, and said "At least this guy I play with isn't going to corpse camp me over this."

My Sith Consular is still level 3. I really liked how well the dialogue choices matched up with how I want to play the character, but, well, I may not like Jedi, but I'm even more uneasy about the Sith...

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Saturday, January 21, 2012 8:44 PM

Well hell the first one was obvious - tough, resourceful, immoral (although IMHO, a bit of a whiner) I considered that she did pull off the assassination, and arranged payment in such a fashion that she couldn't betray the client even she wanted to, very professional, that.
Imperial intelligence could do a lot worse, and usually does...

The second one, I made a different call - again you don't inspire loyalty by take, take, take - even Vader knew this, Thrawn ever more so, and the old fool did give many years of service.
What made up my mind is that he never questioned the necessity of his own death, he accepted willingly the penalty for his failure like the warrior he was, and am I not a Sith *warrior* ?
Is not he ?
So yeah, he dies standing, a simple enough gift and one that costs us NOTHING, but pays off in that loyalty given is loyalty earned, something the other Sith are too damn stupid to see - if you agents get the notion you'll sell them out in a heartbeat, they *will* turn on you when someone makes them a better offer.

The third was even easier - okay, he's not innocent, I mean he's done time in a Republic prison for this, and now one of ours, which means he don't take sides, AND he held to his story even under pressure, on top of managing to cover his tracks well even though he was likely sold out by one of his own clients.
Bloody hell, he'd be even MORE useful for Imperial intel but as usual they're too stupid to see the big picture - but let him walk, and now he OWES me, and someone unaffiliated with either side who's a damn good and professional forger could come in very handy in the future, oh yes indeedy.
And the idea that the forces of the Republic don't already know the layout and operations style of a freakin Sith academy is flat out ludicrous, that's the same kind of hidebound, shortsighted ignorant blindness which got their butts kicked so hard the first time around, that whole this-is-how-we-do-things mindset they can't seem to step out of which makes them ultimately predictable and easily defeated, morons.

Speakin of which, you would have enjoyed the conversation which followed, cause I really do mean to kill the bastard I am currently working for if I can contrive it, he's a coward and a hypocrite even for a Sith, working at cross purposes for his own benefit at the expense of our goals and has the nerve to get on MY case and tell me I ain't lookin at the big picture ?
Please.
Most of my responses to him are in the "Yeah, whatever" category, but when he started into that little bit of stock-stupid kick-the-puppy garbage I told him right to his face I didn't HAVE to justify it to him, and I liked the way it came across as a quite, quite malicious when I told him so.
Especially when I pointed out that I really didn't give a rats ass what Darth whoever thought - damn wuss didn't even have the guts to try and intimidate me himself, but has to threaten me with someone ELSES wrath and pass the buck ?
*chuckles darkly*
I do mean to kill him, he's a fool, and I've never suffered those gladly.

If I am reading the guage right I walked out of there en route to the taxi station with 150/50 Lightside/Darkside, but not that it matters to me, I'll do what I will do irrespective of what others think about it and without regard to someone elses rules - and if the Force approves, so much the better.
I rather liked that snarky Twilek, too - I get a chance to spring her, imma likely do so.

ETA: A better understanding of how this is gonna go can be had simply by comprehending the inevitable Tropes backing it.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NobleDemon
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AboveGoodAndEvil
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PragmaticVillainy

As opposed to card-carrying stupid-evil, which prettymuch describes the rest of the Sith IMHO, and also encompasses why they usually LOSE, cause they're morons.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, January 21, 2012 11:07 PM

Okay, imma maybe rant a bit, cause I was thinkin on this while doing the rounds...

That jerk I am working for ? (Sith Warrior storyline)
I know this guy, I know wHO he is, and WHAT he is, and he's gonna die for it.

He is the Sith version of the corporate ladder climbing buttsucker toady, too stupid and incompetent to advance himself and so he means to use me to further his own goals and then step forward and take all the credit while quietly disposing of me - kinda like how corporate america treats contractors and temps, really.

And by the rules of his game that might work, IF I was playing his game...
What really convinced me to do for him though was that pureblood comment though.
Most stupid bad guys, where they FAIL is cause they're not alphas.
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/alphabehavior.htm

If the only "reward" one can expect from you is being sold out or a horrible demise - WORD GETS AROUND.
Feh, even other bad guys won't help you cause there's nothing *IN* it for them, and if you can't appeal to even the greed and self-interest of others you're an incompetent failure as a villain.

The amusing part is that I have begun to suspect Darth whoever actually knows this, and has poison-pilled the bastard by forcing him to rely on me, knowing full well that this'll prolly get the useless dimbulb killed, and keep ole Darth maybe-not-so-stupid with clean hands...
And yanno, I might pull this by proxy too - the guy is such a coward he not only passed the buck on trying to intimidate me, but also introduced me to his daughter (adding nepotism to his list of stupidity) as what HE thinks is a check against me assassinating him, which I found laughable cause his daughter there doesn't seem cut to be Sith, although the thought of manipulating her into offing him for me does hold some amusement - I suspect though that she lacks the guts since that apple prolly didn't fall far from the tree, leastways it looks like it didn't.
Still, ya never know.

Anyhow, the REASON top villains get to BE top villains is cause they know power flows up from the bottom, not down from the top - people give it to you in order to advance THEIR own interests, and if you consistently fail to do that, you wind up thrown down and crushed, often by your own power base.
The Sith don't seem to comprehend this - for a fact the only reason the Jedi purge worked for them is that AT THE TIME, a damn lot of their power base supported it cause they were sick of living under that oppression, right up till the Sith decided to enact their own brand of oppression and thus sparked the rebellion via people withdrawing their consent.

Fact is, without mooks, triggermen, flunkies - without people willing to carry out your orders, it doesn't matter how grand or brilliant your agenda is, you'll lack the resources to pull it off, and thus you MUST secure the loyalty of your grunts.
Now fear may work, in a short term sense, while you're there and watching - but they will only do the minimum necessary and the instant they can get out from under your wrath they'll turn on you, and worse it's INEFFICIENT, cause you have to set watchers on them, then watchers to watch the watchers...
(See Also: US Government, DHS, TSA, etc..)
No, the best coin with which to secure loyalty, is loyalty - a mook who loves you and believes in you is gonna stay true even if captured and tortured - but only if you PAY UP when your end of the deal comes.
(This is why the mission-failure Sith got to die standing)

This is what killed Palpatine, his constant shortening of command lines, trying to shove more and more under her personal hand, refusing to repay the trust of his officers and troops with anything but suspicion - an act which is strongly hinted at to have caused the original death star operator to delay firing on Yavin 4 for an inexplicable amount of time, and eventually caused sufficient resentment amongst Imperial forces that his death was considered less of a loss than Vaders flagship.
Mind you - Mon Mothma kind of gets inadvertently verbally dope-slapped by Leia for exactly this conduct in the Thrawn trilogy, and rightly so, but at least it comes in time to reverse some of the damage it caused.

Now Thrawn, and even Vader, they knew when to let a mistake go, and they ALSO knew enough to hold up their end of the loyalty deal when it was necessary - honestly do you think that was the first time Ozzel screwed up when Vader choked him out, cause it sure didn't sound like it to me, and if you ARE gonna make an example like that, pick someone who's already pissed off enough of your grunts that they'll be cheering you instead of hating you - his XO didn't look too sorry to see him go did he now ?
And when they do well, YOU PAY UP - it was his willingness to do so which lead to the best of the Imperial officers being on Vaders flagship, which unfortunately fell in great part due to Palpatines jackassery.

Anyhows, this is why the Sith are ultimately doomed - why give loyalty to those who will not reciprocate ?
Cause at some time in the future imma ask the question "What's in this for me ?" and they won't have any answers for me, will they ?

I think it's a pretty sorry state of villainry in the SW Universe when most of the bad guys seem to have scored an F in villain 101, but yanno, imma rectify that situation if possible.

If yer gonna be a bad guy, at least be COMPETENT, fer cryin out loud.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Monday, January 23, 2012 8:04 PM

So yeah, I finally got to whack Tremel-the-toady, and even better, on the express orders of Darth not-so-stupid, it was like xmas came early, it was...

To his credit, he went out like a Sith, no pleading or whining, though he did prattle on and on till I was like okay just SHUT UP and chopped him - unlike the four? five? (I stopped counting) acolytes who've tried to murder me, only to get pounded into the ground and then have the nerve to pule and whinge and WHINE while begging for mercy - survivors could tell em they'd do better standing their ground, if there were any...
Seriously, is THIS what the Sith have been reduced to, cowards and bullies scrabbling for scraps in musty old tombs, whimpering about the glory days and blaming a legacy of FAILURE on impure blood, REALLY?!
And yeah, Tremel-toady's daughter tried for me too, only to get mocked, then killed, prolly for the best cause she was so not cut out for this anyways.

Darth not-dumb starts going on about throwing off yon toadys shackles and I call BS on him and point out they've just been exchanged for his, and rather than deny it he goes on about them being comfortable, with more room to grow, and then starts on the whole tradition rant only to get brutally cut off and snarked at by me - a conversation which I cannot help envisioning with me bearing this I-am-so-gonna-kill-you smirk and him just beaming with paternalistic pride...
But what *IS* it about these guys that they gotta rationalize and justify everything three times over, like they're trying to convince themSELVES, seriously, shut up and go DO something.
(Side note: Voice acting is very very good, nuanced, too)
Funny that when I get snarky, snappish and downright insolent with him and he calls me on it, I can tell it's just for forms sake and that he's actually enjoying it.

Oh yah, and I told that stupid brainwashed Jedi the straight truth NOT as an act of mercy(1), oh no, not even close, but because the inquisitors are totally incompetent - he goes back with his all-too-easy and convenient escape and they're gonna KNOW anything he has is false, but if I give him this to work with they'll turn right around and suspect it might not be and we're covering our butts - at the very LEAST it will confuse them and rile up their inherent paranoia, meh heh heh.
This is what's known as Third-level deception, one of the BASICS of intelligence work, but the Inquisitiors in their hide-bound stupidity have apparently never been introduced to it - at the very least using that trick sends things into the trainwreck confusion of escalation...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKnowYouKnowIKnow
As I said, incompetence galore, *sigh*.

At least I did get to spring the Twilek, which is good, cause if there's one thing the freakin Sith need desperately it's a sense of humor - I let her speak her mind freely cause she's a natural Jester, and the inherent role of a Jester is truthsayer, to tell you the things no one else dares.
Like when we finally made it off that dustball and on arrival we find that Darth jerk has sent us a message, and the messenger is this whiny, servile, bootlicking milquetoast-quisling that I guess Darth lazybum couldn't be bothered to choke out hisself cause he HAD to know what was gonna happen to the sodder - wasteful old coot coulda just sent e-mail, instead.
So when he gets chopped I hear from behind me "Wow, starting the bodycount early, are we?" and tell her "You bet, let's go.."

Cause, yanno, there's WORK to be done here.
*strides off humming the imperial march*

Afterthought: So far most of the imperial troops and officers I've run into have been polite and respectful, something I heartily reciprocate - these guys do the often inglorious grunt work which keeps the Empire running smoothly, and as such they deserve our respect for it, and when they bring something to me, ask my help for something they can't handle, I get on it, cause that's *MY* job.
You wanna be one of the big guns, you better be willing to heave to battery.
I think it is their refusal to understand this, the tension and friction caused by that - which is more than anything going to doom the Sith, the fundamental failure to conceptually understand that WE work for THEM, they do NOT work for us.
(See Also: Alpha Behavior)

-Frem
(1) - I find it really, really ironic that my most cold-blooded act of pure malice netted me light-side points, and yet some of the actions I considered necessary or even noble went the other way.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality

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Monday, January 23, 2012 8:15 PM

I do believe Frem has been seduced by the dark side. Or at least the rather grey snarky side.

Yeah, but something tells me it probably is kinda fun to tear through the Sith when they're being so dumb.

I won't manage much play this week, though I might finish the Smuggler's storyline on coruscant sometime this weekend, I might have thoughts.

Eventually I'm gonna have to actually play my Sith more so I know what ya'll are talkin' bout.

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Monday, January 23, 2012 8:35 PM

Oh, but Frem, you like cute things, right? There's this droid companion that makes playing a Jedi Knight almost worth it.

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Monday, January 23, 2012 10:27 PM

I dunno about that, I reeeeallly dislike Jedi...

But I do have a smuggler - and damned if that Sullustan law enforcement officer don't remind me of Anthony, I was gonna let him die till the thugs got stupid with me (i.e. suicide-by-smuggler) and wasn't real happy with him but his infallible politeness and moral stance won me over, heh.

Companionwise, Corso is kind of a bonehead, not sure about him, but I do like Vette, she is quite entertaining.

As for the path of carnage I am leaving as a Sith, yanno IF after tryin to kill me and getting pounded into the dirt, instead of whimpering they played the "My Life is Yours" gig, I might spare them to avoid being wasteful, or even if they stood their ground and were willing to die for their belief...
But that whimpering-cowering crap, combined with the attempt to murder me in the first place, usually by ambush, just convinces me that sparing them will immediately lead to perfidy and having to eventually kill them anyways - and from a slightly different perspective, I'm doing the Sith a FAVOR by cutting loose the deadweight.

But yeah, it's quite entertaining to finally have a game LET you chop down such cretins, I'm sure the moral guardians will scream a fit soon enough - hey, maybe we could encourage them to try installing to multi-core/Win7 machines, that'll keep em busy a while..

(Not that they'd actually play it before bitching, but we can dream...)

Tremel-toady was VERY much a case of STOP HELPING ME.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHelpingMe
And I really, really did get mucho satisfaction out of putting paid to him, mocking his wuss of a daughter and finishing the job - I am sure Darth jackass did too, considering the second fight took place right outside his open office door.

Not a complete goon though, I did lie to the temple guard about his kid - no harm in it, hell if the game woulda let me I'd have dragged the remains down in there and left a bunch of chopped baddies to make it look like an epic last stand for the poor blighter, let him die a hero - cause IMHO how far he actually got is meaningless, it's that he was willing to sell his life in the trying...
As opposed to the pricks who probably used him for bait and then snuck by while he was getting chopped.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 4:42 AM

The Frem is placated, revenge on hiatus.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 9:18 AM

Darth Frem maybe ?

I can dig it... I had to SERIOUSLY intimidate some yahoo in the real world today, after running around all over town trying to get this key cut, and finally this one podunk hardware store has a blank that's close enough - but he starts goin on about how they're not supposed to...
*cue death glare*
And then just slowly backs away as I proceed to cut the freakin key myself and do a little rough-n-ready work on it by hand (apparently there's some kinda petty stupid legal issue about this) and toss five bucks on his counter and walk out, snagging one of his business cards on the way just in case he had any notions of carrying tales.

And to my great amusement I was picturing that little "Darkside Points" Icon poppin up the whole bloody time..

-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 9:51 AM

Well, according to certain interpretations, there's no evil or good actions. Balance isn't broken except by acts of creation or destruction. Positives and negatives are imposed by the experience. Over the long term, very little is actually ever significant, and balance, once skewed, is not broken but reasserts itself, sometimes slowly, sometimes like the snap of a rubber band.

To crusade for any of the principle ideals - good, evil, creation, destruction, and preservation - is a fool's errand and has it's consequences. Good and evil are relative and actions thought to be good may seem evil to those they are perpetrated against. Society, upbringing, and inborn personality will attune a person more strongly to creation, destruction, or preservation, but never all one way, and never all positive OR negative.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 3:27 PM

Hey Byte,

That kind of reasoning will only make sense if you objectify good and evil, construe them as some kind of matter like freon or zinc. Some form of "stuff" that can be measured, quantified, mixed and purified. It's false logic and the sire of all manner of ugliness when applied to the real world.

At the end of the day, "good" and "evil" are words subject to interpretation. My own interpretation of good would include a fair amount of the balance you're talking about so the polarizing materialism simply doesn't work for me.

That said, I think there are actions that are good and others that are evil, depending on circumstances. I will say this: slavery is evil. One of my definitions of good is that it's not dependent on perspective--good's gonna be good for all concerned or it ain't good. Now, some folk are so twisted in the head that they don't know what good is and may perceive goodness as evil (for example, a certain man may believe that not beating your children does them harm), or evil as good (the happy slave). So, I'm not saying that good and evil are subjective, not remotely. But they aren't elements in some funky alchemy that conveniently self-destructs like some quasi-neitzchian strawman so we can give up trying to do right by one another.

Getting back to the game, for the most part the light/dark points seem to boil down to a pretty simple measure: does the action, here and now, promote life or promote harm and death? If you stay your hand you get light points, even if the ultimate fate of the one you spare is a lifetime of torture. It's nice, 'cause it doesn't pretend to know the future. It's not an ethos of control.

Hey Frem,

You may find some amusement in playing a jedi, if only in how far you can undermine and pervert the message and still have your masters glad-handing you at the end of the day. As I said upthread, my friend is playing a "dark" jedi and it's pretty entertaining. Not stupid--I'll make all the dark choices 'cause they're dark--but more playing a character who, basically, thinks she's right about everything and kinda immortal. Kind of Dirty Harry with a light sabre. The other night she force persuaded a group of security guards to go on a suicide mission with her. She did the little hand wave and said, "You will fulfill your duty no matter what the cost." And they replied "We will do our duty no matter what." Creepy as hell.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 4:23 PM

Quote:

That kind of reasoning will only make sense if you objectify good and evil, construe them as some kind of matter like freon or zinc. Some form of "stuff" that can be measured, quantified, mixed and purified. It's false logic and the sire of all manner of ugliness when applied to the real world.

That would be an interesting feat, considering that I just said good and evil don't exist and are entirely subjective.

Good and evil are meaningless words. In the long run they have no significance. Those who are holding on to some idea of someone or something being "evil" are simply finding reasons for anger and hate. The battle between good and evil has killed more people than anything else in the history of the world. Funny how it's never clear from the point of view of the people involved which side is good, and which side is evil.

As for slavery, everyone has at some point in their lives used someone else for their own ends. Some instances of slavery are more egregious than others, and on the whole it's a destructive practice, the lives of those involved on both sides of it are destroyed. And it is rife with negative experience. It would be easy for someone to call it evil. But slavery is just a thing, done by people. Should we sort every action into some category of good and evil? Is life a Star Wars game, and you are a bad person if you have ever lied? Should I exact some kind of justice or punishment on you if you have?

I oppose the things I do because they are destructive, contradictory, counter-intuitive, and inefficient. Slavery is one of those things. But I don't think the people doing the slavery think they're evil anymore than you think you're evil. Similarly, something one person might see as constructive, like procreation (if rather unhygienic), someone else would see as destructive, like overpopulation. To see everything as a duality like good or evil is needless, they are the same thing no matter what lens you look at them through.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 6:07 PM

Also, I really hope that there's some point that you can tell a jerk force user exactly where they can stick their lightsaber.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 8:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:

That kind of reasoning will only make sense if you objectify good and evil, construe them as some kind of matter like freon or zinc. Some form of "stuff" that can be measured, quantified, mixed and purified. It's false logic and the sire of all manner of ugliness when applied to the real world.

That would be an interesting feat, considering that I just said good and evil don't exist and are entirely subjective.

Hey Byte,

Um. What just happened? I think I hit a nerve somehow and I'm sorry.

You began your post with "according to certain interpretations." How could I have known that they were *your* interpretations? A phrase like that suggests to me that you don't have a lot of stake in them. I thought you were discussing ideas, and I responded with what I thought about those ideas.

You say you don't believe good and evil exist, but your post had a lot to say on the subject of good and evil and those folks who find meaning in these terms. I thought I understood this and that's why I called the argument a "quasi-nietzchian strawman." It's always troubling to me when people go into detail describing and defining things they don't believe in. Not the most authoritative pov on the subject then.

Quote:
Good and evil are meaningless words.

Uh. To you, maybe. But what about the rest of us? Are we all just fools?

Quote:
In the long run they have no significance.

Um. Says you? I don't know how I'm supposed to take these absolutes of yours. In my life, good and evil have had a profound significance. I've experienced some of the most extreme forms of human destructiveness and hate, witnessed a terrible will to annihilate and erase another human being first hand. Chilling. Completely fucked me up for decades of my life. Why shouldn't I find meaning in the word "evil?"

And I've known extraordinary human kindness and love. And I've seen that this kindness and love is instrumental in healing the wounds caused by our terrible destructive will. Why should I have to resort to the mouthful, "terrible destructive will" when "evil" does the job?

I guess, you demonstrate an answer to that question in your latest post: because people harbor a metric butt load of assumptions about what these words mean and all manner of confusion ensues.

Quote:
Those who are holding on to some idea of someone or something being "evil" are simply finding reasons for anger and hate.

What? No? I can see how believing that people, in themselves, can be evil leads to hatred. Sure, I'm with you there. There are no definitive "evil" people. But the rest of this sentence is nonsense to my way of thinking.

As I've said, I find a lot of meaning in these words and see no justification of anger or hatred in them. None. Three guys I've read up on, the Dalai Lama, Gautama Buddha, Jesus of the Bible, all of 'em have said things about good and evil, right and wrong. None of 'em are close up buddies of anger and hate, are they? Sure, there are all manner of self-described Christians in the world positively brimming over with hatred, we know this, but they do not comprise the sum total of people who find a use for the words "good" and "evil." (They don't even comprise the sum total of Christians!).

Quote:
The battle between good and evil has killed more people than anything else in the history of the world.

Who are you arguing with, Byte? You think because tremendous evil has been done in the name of goodness that good and evil do not exist??? To my way of thinking, wars are orgies of evil. Anybody fighting a war under the delusion that they're doing capitol "G" good in the world is in for a rude awakening if they live long enough.

Quote:
Funny how it's never clear from the point of view of the people involved which side is good, and which side is evil.

I don't believe going to war with evil lessens evil--actually, it's the opposite. Because war is, well, a form of evil.

Quote:
As for slavery, everyone has at some point in their lives used someone else for their own ends.

How does the fact that most everyone has, at one time or another, participated in an evil, nullify evil's existence? Yeah, using other people is wrong. You shouldn't oughta do it. It's evil. To my mind, one of the most dangerous things folk do with regard to evil is deny that they have any of it in themselves. When people start thinking that they are wholly righteous and pure, that's when they start up building gas chambers. To my way of thinking, we all have evil thoughts, evil intentions even (yikes!), and it's important to recognize 'em and do our level best to neutralize 'em before they blossom into real, active evil in the world. To my way of thinking, the word "evil" is uniquely useful in this context.

Quote:
Some instances of slavery are more egregious than others, and on the whole it's a destructive practice, the lives of those involved on both sides of it are destroyed. And it is rife with negative experience. It would be easy for someone to call it evil. But slavery is just a thing, done by people.

What distinction are you making? Seems to me it's easy to call slavery evil because it is...y'know, pretty evil. What's the problem?

Quote:
Should we sort every action into some category of good and evil?

Nope. I don't recommend it.

Quote:
Is life a Star Wars game, and you are a bad person if you have ever lied?

You seem to be suggesting in both of your recent posts that people who find meaning in the words "good" and "evil" are therefore living in a Star Wars game. That seems to be, more or less, your point: finding meaning in the words "good" and "evil" inevitably leads to simplistic thinking and profoundly unjust behavior. Is that what you're saying?

And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, no: you are not a bad person if you have ever lied. I don't think lying makes you a bad person at all. Immature, maybe. Letting your fear get the best of you, perhaps. It's much more to do with *what* you lie about that might put in the "you did a bad thing" category.

Quote:
Should I exact some kind of justice or punishment on you if you have?

I'm not talking about any of that. I don't believe in exacting punishment, period. Punishment, revenge, blame--these things are all pretty much on the evil side of my personal equation.

Quote:
I oppose the things I do because they are destructive, contradictory, counter-intuitive, and inefficient. Slavery is one of those things. But I don't think the people doing the slavery think they're evil anymore than you think you're evil.

And I said as much in my post. I do not, however, therefore conclude that good and evil are purely subjective. Only that a lot of people have some pretty debilitating delusions on the subject.

Quote:
Similarly, something one person might see as constructive, like procreation (if rather unhygienic), someone else would see as destructive, like overpopulation.

Doesn't invalidate a less black and white interpretation of "good" and "evil." I'm of the opinion that good and evil are highly contextual. And, yes, there are plenty of grey areas, areas of doubt and ambivalence. Doesn't mean "good" and "evil" are meaningless concepts. Not to me.

Quote:
To see everything as a duality like good or evil is needless, they are the same thing no matter what lens you look at them through.

I don't think of good and evil as absolutes, but I don't find them meaningless either. And I have no personal context for the proposition that they are one and the same. That doesn't make a lick o' sense to me.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 8:35 PM

Quote:
You began your post with "according to certain interpretations." How could I have known that they were *your* interpretations? A phrase like that suggests to me that you don't have a lot of stake in them. I thought you were discussing ideas, and I responded with what I thought about those ideas.

I'm not sure yet. But the more I think about it, the more it seems correct. Speaking on the level of society, people arguing about what's good and what's evil cause a lot of problems.

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Uh. To you, maybe. But what about the rest of us? Are we all just fools?

No. But any conversation about good and evil would always depend on the point of view of those involved. Because no exact definition can be agreed upon, it's meaningless.

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In my life, good and evil have had a profound significance.

I'm not intending to belittle your experiences, but on a macroscopic level, most of the problems a person has to cope with in their lives are every day problems, individual problems, that end when the life of the person ends.

Quote:
Three guys I've read up on, the Dalai Lama, Gautama Buddha, Jesus of the Bible, all of 'em have said things about good and evil, right and wrong. None of 'em are close up buddies of anger and hate, are they?

Perhaps talking about religious leaders isn't the best conversation to have. Even they have their intolerances. The Dalai Lama has some rather unfortunate things to say about homosexuality, for example.

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You think because tremendous evil has been done in the name of goodness that good and evil do not exist?

What someone sees as good will always look evil to the opposite point of view. From there, I can infer that good and evil aren't distinct from each other. And if that's true, then good isn't really good, and evil isn't really evil. Therefore they don't exist.

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Only that a lot of people have some pretty debilitating delusions on the subject.

One thing we do agree on then. The justifications some people come up with to explain their actions to themselves are often very flimsy.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:01 PM

Simple solution for me - I simply do what *I* think is right and be damned to what anyone else thinks of it, problem solved.

S'funny though, Darth bonehead didn't get on my case about chopping his little quisling messenger, in fact he seemed quite amused by it - his attitude towards me seems the paternal-possessive aspect of someone who has just been giften with a well trained but extremely vicious guard dog... which, maybe ain't THAT far from the truth, meh heh heh.

I do find it amusing that now TWO of my most vicious and intentionally malicious actions earned me lightside points - messing with the captive Jedis head, and now threatening to kill and eat a couple goons who were interfering with Darth nitpickers delivery... that was a hi-larious conversation, especially when the imperial officer complemented me on such an excellent bluff and my response winds up "What, don't you eat what you kill?"...

I guess the light-side points out of that were for letting the goons live, but I didn't send them howling in terror out of kindness, oh no, hows the rumor that imma cannibal gonna get around if there's nobody to spread it, yanno ?

My main gripe against the rest of the Sith is that they're just no GOOD at this, mostly a case of Stupid-Evil, puppy-kicking idiots - there's no point in ARBITRARY malice if you don't gain from it.

Oh, also, Vette is a font of hilarity, when I took her shock collar off.. oh wait, here's the EXACT conversion, heheheh.

And hoo boy, I also found the gonna-eat-you conversation too, mind you that's even MORE hilarious coming from a smallish human female, that being my Sith Marauder.

Seriously, LIGHT SIDE points for that ?
Bwaahahahahahah.

-Frem

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Sunday, January 29, 2012 9:18 AM

Okaaayyyy...

Who's brilliant idea was it to give the psychotic little Jawa a freakin rocket launcher?

Wandered into a PVP zone on accident and the little creep shot me in the arse with it!

-Frem

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Sunday, January 29, 2012 10:02 AM

:o

Okay, I suck at PVP, but this I gotta see. It'll be worth all the dying and screaming and such.

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Sunday, January 29, 2012 1:33 PM

Oh it's HI-larious...

Not only does he have a rocket launcher, he also has a flamethrower and a harpoon gun in that bag on his back, which is really wild since due to weight differential instead of using it to yank stuff to him (like Corso does) he uses it to yank himself at them like a freakin zipline charge.

And the really crazy thing ?
His decided game role as a companion, is as a TANK.

I rolled a Bounty Hunter this morning(1) just for the eventual payoff of having this crazy little bastard on my side!

(1) - I made said bounty hunter an extremely tempermental youngish girl in sort of an ad-hoc homage to Katie Ka-boom, side order of psychopathic sadism, and heaping helpings of pure greed for dessert, we're talking pure laughing mad psycho here.
And it SO WORKS for the story, it does.
(Cue Screams, fleeing in terror, that sorta thing - she made a HUTT cringe...)

-Frem

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Sunday, January 29, 2012 6:59 PM

I'd say it'd be worth rolling a bounty hunter based on what I've heard from you and HK.

Katie Kaboom? Villianous breakdown/meltdown in 3,2...

(I haven't watched animaniacs in so long. Classic)

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Monday, January 30, 2012 12:07 AM

Well, as you know, I play these games in part to placate my inner darkness, which, combined with a certain dark bent of humor, means I am enjoying this bounty hunter gig prolly a little more than is entirely healty - cause I gotta tellya, the Bounty Hunter (played as an amoral nutjob) is pure dark-comedy GOLD!

Select to view spoiler:

Accountant, Wife, "Nothing Personal"...oooh my - and it just gets worse from there.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Also, I really hope that there's some point that you can tell a jerk force user exactly where they can stick their lightsaber.

Does this qualify ?

EPIC LuLz, this is... really, in twisted sorta way.

And now, off to completely sack the hell out of someones palace, meh heh heh...
"Please, try to be discreet.."
Yeeeah, like THAT's gonna happen.

-Frem

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Monday, January 30, 2012 4:55 AM

Hey, leaving no witnesses is LIKE discretion...

I'll check out the holovid later.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:22 AM

Now that I think of it, the worst thing my smuggler has done was call another chick a hussy after she was caught two-timing pretty much all the guys and she had thoroughly pissed me off. And I got light-side points for it.

This calls for a drawing. It will be posted tonight.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 7:46 AM

You are nicer than you believe yourself to be, most people are.

Wendy has this annoying-as-hell tendancy to point out all the little "nice" things I do without even realizing it cause for me it's habitual reflex, and SWTOR seems to have said tendancy as well, see - I rolled a Trooper a while back and patterned him off a slightly younger me (with a little more hair, lol, vanity!) and errr, well... he might be snarky and a bit arrogant, but he comes off as downright heroic in a sorta good-is-not-nice kinda way.

He kicked a lot of butt over what you'd call "conduct unbecoming" amongst the Republic forces on the starter planet, up to and including some blue-on-blue action and nearly gunning down the prison staff, but what convinced me was the logic chain which occured when upon crashing an enemy base I stumbled across a makeshift infirmary full of walking wounded, one of which implored me not to engage.
Wounded-> non-hostile -> unarmed = NONCOMBATANT.
I actually took the time to evacuate them, pointing out the clearest path and advising them to use proper cover since there was still some action going on, and yeah, after the fact one could rationalize it as less than selfless since it encourages reciprocation and a comparison of my characters conduct versus that of their own, thus encouraging defection...
But at the time it was pure split-second reflex, it's pretty good storytelling when the non-obvious decisions actually make you think about who you really are.

One quibble I had with it was on cornering an enemy officer with another member of my squad - when I say "interrogate" I mean a different thing than most peoples concept of it, and when my squaddie went hands-on with it was the moment I realized my own squad was off-the-rails and no longer trustworthy, something fully confirmed when said squaddie needlessly shot him after he spilled - which is, IMHO a damn piss poor way to encourage folk to talk... had it presented the option I woulda laid out said squaddie right beside him.

S'funny, when playing yon wackjob Bounty Hunter, I actually have to focus and pay attention to being nasty cause it goes against those inherent reflexes, although admittedly it's satisfyin in a different sort of way, oh yes indeed it is...
And yes, no witnesses is even BETTER than discretion, cause they live on their rep, and being suspected with no proof is a real good way to kickstart the rumor mill and puff up that rep without sticking your neck out too far.

So far my favorite companion is Vette, by a longshot, cause she's good humored, snarky, and I can make her reallllly uncomfortable just by being nice to her - reminds me of someone else, just a little, that does.

-Frem

PS. Why oh why, does everytime I set aside time to play an MMO, almost without fail - it's down for maintanence ?
Seriously, that's frustrating enough to have caused me to dump at least one other over it, although in this case as broken as a lot of this one is still, I shouldn't complain.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:04 AM

Blegh, don't remind me. My villainous pride has no need for personal revelation, rumination, and insight.

Quote:
I rolled a Trooper a while back and patterned him off a slightly younger

One of the first classes I played in the beta. Was a little worried about whether I'd end up too lawful and kiss-ass, but as it went on I realized that character's personality was a lot like Zoe. That resolved most of that problem.

Right down to the scene you're talking about, my character had about the same response to that as Zoe did when Mal shot the kid and left him for the Reavers in the movie. (Player Character Disapproves)

Still haven't remade that character, though I should.

Quote:
PS. Why oh why, does everytime I set aside time to play an MMO, almost without fail - it's down for maintanence ?

The machine god demands a sacrifice.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 9:15 AM

I actually have two bounty hunters going, just now. One, the first one, I've been playing largely by myself and he's been trying to be someone he can live with and it's not easy. His experience on Hutta was pretty scarring. The second, playing with Lady Cavalier and that one seems to have acquired a taste for sawing off heads.

One of the deeper aspects of the game I keep running into on several characters is moral fatigue--where a decent person gets so fed up with the corruption around him that he just says fuck it and breaks things/hurts people according to what affords him the quickest exit from a situation, or where a murderous bastard becomes weary of the charade and does the right thing just so his mind can have a few moments of peace for once in his life. It's a testiment to the game that the characters are given such nuanced options.

The first major instance of this was with the Bounty Hunter on Hutta. He'd been going along, unwittingly shaping a notion of his patron Nem'ro that was just a shade lighter than Nem'ro's rival Fa'athrah (sp?). Of course, that's b.s. but I found that it wormed its way into my Bounty Hunter's thinking. Then there was a moment inside a wretched factory full of slave laborers, all with shock-collars in place, when the stupid fucking smuggler I was there to extract demanded that I rescue all the other slaves in the whole building before we got out of there and I said no fucking way. You're coming with me. I was through with playing nice, through with trying to improve anyone's life condition but my own and get out of that swamp for good. Well, the smuggler pauses, looks at me, and then says, "I'm calling your bluff. Either you rescue the other slaves, or I'm not going anywhere." He called my bluff, and I didn't even know I was bluffing! And my Bounty Hunter got so pissed off. So funny. So there he goes, running around the factory liberating slaves and hating every last one of 'em in the bargain. Priceless.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:12 PM

Or last night, I was playing a trooper and I had to testify at a Senate hearing.

I love the way the game exerts subtle pressures on your actions.

So, my CO was already pissed at me for doing the right thing one too many times when it wasn't strictly within mission parameters--that is to say, I disobeyed direct orders. My somewhat myopic companion wanted me to protect the honor of our disgraced brethren in arms at all costs and I wanted to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth until I met the senate committee and realized that they were a bunch of shills and scheming schemers themselves. I loved the moment when my trooper got fed up and demanded to know, "Why are you asking me questions you already know the answers to???"

So, I ended up neither telling the whole truth nor lying to cover anyone's ass and succeeded in pissing every-goddamn-body off. Never had so much fun being humiliated in all my life! lol

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:37 PM

Ah, you mean that bitch Garza - as I said my Trooper is based on, more or less, me... and I got no problem with a boot-to-ass-a-thon or playing hardball with bad people, but that lady crossed a line with me about an hour ago in a really irrevocable way.

I didn't care about her justifications, not one whit, there was no way in hell imma kill someone for what they MIGHT do, and I made sure *NOT* to ask them for ID cause what I don't know can't be squeezed out of me, and on top of that you start with the whole pre-emptive tracking of people you *will* open a nightmare can of worms - I realllly put my boot down about it and told her off, and she (ironic, this) throws my own personal logic about doing the ugly things so decent people don't have to in my face...
But that is a decision which MUST be made *individually*, you can't ORDER someone to do it, while your own hands remain clean, if you wish to walk that road you do it *personally*, you don't sit in your nice safe, pretty little office and then pretend it bothers you when you don't have to face the results, oh no.

So I completely lit her up about it, and frankly she just blew to hell any kind of respect I mighta had that would maybe encourage me to follow orders - the rest of this is gonna get done MY way, and if they don't like it they can hire some other goon to do it, but best make sure they don't run across me cause they'll need another one for sure.

And when this whole nasty business comes out, and it *WILL* come out (remember how I feel about the whole notion of state-secrets) I plan to tear a great big bloody strip off everyone involved and hang them out as chum for the sharks, cause if they'd come clean about it right up front a lot of really nasty business could have been avoided - they did more damage trying to keep a lid on it to protect their own asses than woulda happened if they played it straight from the get-go.

As to yon CO who dared even give me an order like that, and in a fashion where they can deny it and try to pin that on me, which I felt was the obvious intention - while continuing to push me about it...

That hit home for me, I've been through that for real, although the stakes weren't as high, and while they didn't dare throw an Article-15 at me cause that'd involve coming clean about the matter to officers not initially involved, they did throw me in the brig and were on the verge of drumming me out entire till another logistics branch desperately needed someone with my talents.

There will come a reckoning there, cause just as when my Squaddie back on Ord Mantell showed their "True Colors", so too has this CO - and those colors are pretty dark, which means something is going to have to be done about it....

But first, I have a holorecording here imma all but ram down a certain Senators throat even if no one else has the guts to call them on it, cause I for damn sure do.

Comes down to it though ?
Just Following Orders is NO EXCUSE, none whatever, for anything, period.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:32 PM

http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/bytemite/
ItsAProblem.jpg

Based on a true story. My companions have a tendency to glitch out into hologram lights, as though I had just called a shuttle. My in-game explanation is that they got hungry and took off for a sandwich.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 9:00 PM

*wheeze, wheeze, huff, puff*...
I should NOT find that as funny as I did.

Oh, just in case anyone else is crazy enough...

Server: Keetael
Republic
Kettra - Scoundrel
Fremdfirma - Vanguard
Kamiketh - Shadow

Empire
Mollyanna - Sith Marauder
Katiekaboom - Bounty Hunter

ETA: One solution I've found to pain in the ass judgemental companions like Mako is conveniently sending them off Treasure Hunting before any conversation likely to upset her pathetically weak stomach - honestly, how did a total wuss like Mako ever get involved in this in the first place, did she think it was gonna be all fluffy bunnies and happy rainbows ?

Corso is something of a straightlaced bonehead as well, seriously, we're CROOKS you naive chump, get with the program!

-Frem

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 11:02 PM

I think it's funny how powerful that little "-1" at the bottom of the screen can be. I figure, I give Mako a present worth 54 affection and I'm good for 54 disappointments. Thing is, she may be "judgemental" but she's also a push-over, no companion seems to be even half as interested in what I say as Mako. I opened her 30th level loyalty quest line at 18 pretty effortlessly. All ya gotta do is expect to be paid for what ya do, engage in some light hearted snark and inquire after people's health and she'll give you rivers of affection. That and give all the "right" answers when she wants one of her private chats.

And Corso has a dark side, you just need to find it and fan the flames. He's given me some pretty high approvals for taking darkside points in Corascant.

I think my favorite companion is Kaliyo 'cause she just cray-zay. You want somebody who isn't rainbows and lollypops, Kali's your girl. With a name that reverses to "Yo, Kali!" one would think you'd be all over that, Frem!

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2012 5:11 AM

I dunno, I kinda like the -1. My highest character is my smuggler and she's still on Coruscant, so you know what that means. But my own nature is working against me. I really haven't done much besides lie once or twice (darkside points) and I've only raised my voice about three times total (harsher dialogue choices). It's approaching the point where all of my player characters belch rainbows.

But I can't really bring myself to be any worse, it kinda makes me cringe. So yeah, whenever I resolve to myself to be more evil, or at least amoral/neutral, I usually end up doing what I do anyway.

I guess at least when I unlock light side gear I'll get some nice bonuses. But it would be nice if I could be a bit more pragmatic. And the other downside is that there's seemingly no consequences sometimes for doing the right thing. NPCs will still pay you if you come back and tell them truthfully that the situation wasn't what they thought. Since when does ANYONE do that? I should be penniless, seriously.

I picked up underworld trading, so I'll probably start taking advantage of that sending my companions away on trade skill missions tactic. But the few times the glitches have struck and left me without one have been kind of a relief.

It's interesting how the female versions of the classes have a much less developed storyline. The male versions have a lot more interactions available with both NPCs and their companions. I guess Bioware figured most people would only play the guys.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2012 6:57 PM

Catching up on looking at the youtube videos. That bounty hunter one was pretty good. Always fun to see Force Persuasion backfire.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2012 9:04 PM

Really, -1 eh ?

My Bounty Hunter managed to score back to back -30's off Mako and get called stupid and evil in the same conversation!

Really, she whinges that we're desperate for cash, and there's a ripe juicy bounty sittin right there and what, imma let it just walk out the door ?
Hardly.

Speakin of really upset, there's a Grand Moff out there who is now totally pissed at my Trooper and a pair of Jedi who shall remain nameless..

Trashing his ship real bad mighta had a little something to do with it.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 2:47 AM

Ha, yeah. That was a fun flashpoint.

I've been tinkering with making a Bounty Hunter and a Sith Warrior myself. I'm modeling them after two characters from a Final Fantasy game.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:02 AM

Oh it was even more fun cause we went through that completely in roleplay character - which isn't much of a stretch with a character based on your own younger self - at one point he starts having a bit of a meltdown about how corrupt everyone in the Republic seems to be, and was all but grinding his teeth half the time since Jedi as a rule don't seem to know anything about tactics beyond a headfirst rush.

And that ship was seriously trashed, given that he had a plasma emitter on his rifle and no qualms about using it on anything that looked important or fragile, had he the chance he would have blown their engines too and called in a Republic task force to bat cleanup - as it were, getting to rifle-butt a Sith in the face and then pound him into the floor was, for a grunt soldier, enormously satisfying, as was mauling some puffed up mercenary and THEN taking his gear as a final post-mortem insult.

Alas, snarky and arrogant as he is, the character really does come acrpss as a pure old-school hero, he seems to have even developed his own catch phrase - "Tough missions are what I do best!" - and in a storyline sense has nudged many away from conduct unbecoming, some with a quiet word, some with a boot up the arse, but overall your basic gentleman-soldier, mainly cause if the Republic stoops to the same levels as anyone else, what betterment of the situation do they really offer?

Far as the female storyline being less developed, from what I hear its just that the payoff comes a little later due to which people you meet when.

Once you start nearing Lv20 though, it becomes obvious the abilities system could use a little simplification, on top of some abilities being confusing, poorly explained, sharing cooldowns, it's so tricky to keep on top of it that you usually just find one thing that works for you and do that instead.

Oh yes, the senate hearing for my Trooper was a slam-dunk, because without factual, accurate information the people as a whole and their representatives cannot effectively decide and present their interests, which is the PURPOSE of a Government and something I have a big issue about in real life, since when the military/intel keeps Congress in the dark or even outright lies to them, it begs the question of who is really running things and why bother to pretend the people have any input at that point - ergo duty required the straight, whole truth - and that this annoyed Garza and Jorgan made it that much more satisfying, cause if Jorgan had spent less time trying to make me look bad he might have caught them out, and my job isn't to make Garzas job easier, it is to enforce the will of the people as a whole and their representatives, with force if necessary, as well as defend their rights, persons and property.

And anyone in the Republic who loses sight of that, will without fail, shortly thereafter receive one standard-issue to the posterior!

That said, gamewise my Trooper is pretty awesome, armor plated, heavy shielded, HE-slinging steamroller he is, average baddies are like wheat in a combine when he shows up.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 11:33 AM

The best part I've seen with the trooper is that missile AOE you can open with, seems to take out most baddies in seconds.

My brother and I had a little bit of trouble with the mercenary since it was just the two of us, but we eventually figured out that we did have to try to take out the minions that spawn. Since then, I've also figured out the proper use of my interrupts - they're so you can heal everyone up before continuing the fight, provided everyone stops attacking so the effect can last for the whole timer.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 12:18 PM

Yep, pick off the minions first, then gangbang the boss, and yes, stuns are great for buying time to heal, *IF* your companions (lookin at YOU, Jorgan!) didn't have a really bad habit of immediately breaking them.
Seriously, you hit someone with a cryo-grenade, 100% Guaranteed the first damn thing Jorgan will do is shoot at them, defeating the purpose entire.

And agreed, the mortar barrage is downright awesome in a carnage inspiring way, but even BETTER is the Bounty Hunters DEATH FROM ABOVE, quickly followed by a double-blaster smackdown - hotkey one, drop the circle and then hotkey the other and drop THAT circle just offset to where they landed, and hoo lordy they are dead, dead DEAD, especially since you have, yanno, a flamethrower.

I was thinkin about the events of the Trooper storyline which are coming to light, and imma spoiler this bit...

Select to view spoiler:

Okay, so Havoc Squad was on Ando Prime, got in over their heads and the Civvie authorities refused to extract them - but I notice nowhere whatever did they have authorization to BE on Ando Prime, nor was their mission authorised...

Which leads me to conclude that just like a lot of our own actions during the Cold War such as IVY BELLS, the Republic military/intel was hell bent on scorning the will of the people and their representatives and trying like hell to PROVOKE a war in clear defiance of the civil authority they were supposed to answer to - this is at best insubordination and at worst, downright treason, and one notorious way to start a conflict in defiance of the will of the people is a flat-out setup, either by deliberately provoking an attack while offering up your own as sitting ducks (Pearl Harbor), faking an atrocity (or committing one and blaming it on the enemy), or other chicanery such as deliberately leaving a famed commando unit swinging in the breeze and then sending in a task force to extract them, which is IMHO, rather much EXACTLY what they were trying to pull on Ando Prime.

And from all the info so far it seems Havoc Squad was knowingly complicit in this and less angry about not being extracted as they were pissed that the civilian command structure didn't take the bait, fall for the ploy, and commit to a war the people they represent DID NOT WANT.
AGAIN: It comes back to who is in charge and who is supposed to be.

So, IMHO they were off the rails to begin with, and frankly if I had been in command of the craft they managed to extract to I would have blown them out of space when they asked for clearance to land and felt fully justified in doing so - the military exists to serve the people, NOT vice-versa, although one could make a certain case for it here in america and elsewhere, the INTENTION is *NOT* that the people exist and serve only to support the rule and intentions of the Military-Intel-Industrial Combine, and any military, intel, or industry official who forgets this should be dragged out back and shot, period.

As one can imagine, viewed in that light - if and when my Trooper DOES catch up to Havoc Squad, there's gonna be a certain hell to pay, and given General Garzas obvious sympathies and repeated attempts to go easy on them and slip them off the hook, AND her willingness to order deniable atrocities, I suspect she too is/was complicit in the whole mess as well, and you know what that means, right ?
That means, much as I might prefer to - none of them bastards will be taken alive.

Think it through, we get them back, and with a little coverup, blackmail and threats, any real punishment falls by the wayside, and since their plan to provoke a war discretely failed, the NEXT step would be a military coup, quietly or otherwise, with Havoc Squad front and center leading the charge into war, war, war, running roughshod over both the will of the people AND their purpose.
That's not even assumption, although I wish it was - their motives here are so transparent they might as well hold it up over their heads in neon signage.

Remember what I said about ugly decisions having to be made by the individual ?
They DIE, and so, if I can at all manage it, does General Garza - at the very least I will see about discrediting her and/or removing her from power.

Soldiers serve the Republic, not vice versa.
(Funny that, how eeriely compatible my Sith and Trooper are in the aspect of Duty Above All)

So yeah, it's gonna be like that.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 12:25 PM

Ha, it just occurred to me, you're on an RP server. I bet those Jedi you were playing with at least got an earful about actual military tactics, and maybe even learned something.

As for the rest, with a name like Havoc Squad... Kinda says it all, what they value.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 12:25 PM

Hey Frem,

Glad to hear your Senate hearing went well. I wish my trooper could say the same. Gotta love a game that actually elicits remorse. Now, my trooper is onto Garza and done taking orders that don't square with her personal discernment. Took her long enough, I guess. Seems my trooper's a little younger, more naive than yours.

Now that I've played most of the classes to somewhere near 20, it's fascinating to see which characters are more influenced by external pressures and which characters don't give a damn. So far, my Bounty Hunter seems to be the most mature in terms of making his own decisions, although he's pretty committed to not making Mako cry--he's fine with the "-1's" but if Mako says, "But we can't kill the doctor!" I listen (oh, and my Jedi Knight, but he hardly counts because everyone but the darksiders he deals with loves whatever he does, so far beyond goodie-two-shoes is he--I just love the fact that I can lecture people about the emptiness of revenge all day and sometimes they actually listen--if my Jedi has a catch phrase it's, "I'm sorry things came to bloodshed, but I'm glad to be alive").

My Imperial Agent hates war zones and his morals go right through the floorboards after a brief while in any one of the Empire's many "elective theatres" (to the delight of the sociopath he pals around with), but then when he comes up against a real live Sith, he bounces right back, so profoundly does he despise (and fear) those people. He dreams of the day when the Sith way is just some backward, hokey religion only followed by hermits and mouth-breathing mad folk.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 5:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ha, it just occurred to me, you're on an RP server. I bet those Jedi you were playing with at least got an earful about actual military tactics, and maybe even learned something.

Well, it's not TECHNICALLY an RP specific server(1) - but yeah...

And oh boy did they ever, not to mention a few snide comments about one of thems skirt-chasing, imma get him a fancy hat, you just watch.
(And I wouldn't mind hearing their perspective given one of em is a browncoat, but I shall leave the "reveal" if any, to them)

My Sith is mostly an evil-done-right, pragmatic villainry kinda girl, she comes across like the Imperial version of Wolf from Pulp Fiction, the highly competent problem solver sent in when things get all out of hand, and affably evil as well - the kind of character you could see honestly working for either side since she has no taste for stupidity, foolish malice or arbitrary cruelty.

The Bounty Hunter on the other hand, wooo - she's like the lovechild of Katie Kaboom and Mr Teatime (discworld), very much a flame-em-all and see who's got bounty on em type who pretends a slight Imperial partisanship as a mere excuse to hurt people, I figure soon enough her name alone will begin inspiring knee-quaking, puddle-leaving terror, and rightfully so!

My Consular/Shadow so far comes across as just plain weird, kind of like a mad-science researcher, who leans heavily toward the potentium theory and considers other Jedi more than a little twisted for their desire to dehumanize themselves, and can't seem to wrap his mind around why humans try so hard to hold nonhumans to THEIR cultural mores they likely don't share and may not even comprehend.

The most morally ambiguos one is my Scoundrel, who did experience a little moral fatigue (based in part on bad game design) after running in one too many ridiculously contrived circles and started leading every conversation with WHERES. MY. SHIP! and a blaster for emphasis...
But mostly she's okay with just about anything that doesn't cause lasting or grevious harm, just so long as she's gettin PAID, cause if there's a buck in it, she's down for it - mind you this whole treasure vault thing is meaningless to her since she believes it's a complete farce, and Corso is a goody two shoes chump, but mostly she operates on the principle of "I'm gettin paid for this, right ?", which is a smugglers nature - excepting bad business like Spice, Slaves and other things which'll bite you far worse than the profit margins justify, cause lookin the other way for a little discreet biz is one thing, but either side is likely to come down with a bang if you make THAT kind of a nuisance about yourself.

She does however, like winding up people who take themselves too seriously, some of those conversations are tremendously entertaining they are - and there IS a darkness within, cause if you rip her off or backstab her, you're gonna die - that bimbo who offed the guy I was workin for on the first planet got a blaster to the face in much the same didn't-break-stride fashion that Dobson did, cause anyway she broke Rule Number One: DONT KILL THE MONEY... shootin my payday before I get paid is a bad, bad idea.

Sometimes this game does really get into your brain though, as I said a lot of the Trooper story hits home with me in a personal way, but this latest bit takes the cake, platter and table!

Okay, my Trooper rather openly despises the Justicars, considering them brownshirt facist terrorist scum of the worst possible stripe, that for-your-own-good and demanding fanatic "loyalty" crap is enough to stoke the flames in a serious kinda way already and y'all know that, yes...
So headed through their turf fully intent on causing them serious hurt along the way, and he runs across a young girl in trouble who has nowhere else to turn, and it seems that her brother has been forcibly conscripted over a supposed curfew violation...
Hoooo boy.
There's had-it-comin, then there's askin-for-it, but this is more painting the death mark on your face in flourescent neon red and inviting a meth-amped bull to dinner, it is.
Honestly, they couldn't have intentionally designed a more perfect quest to make me wanna kill the everliving snot out of the Justicars.

Re: Bad Game design, the Smuggler quest towards the end of Coruscant seems needlessly padded, it FEELS needlessly padded, to where it starts breaking immersion and inspiring player, rather than character, annoyance - there's only so long you can hold the carrot just out of reach, a smarter way would have been to get the ship back but have it be damaged or missing critical components, throw the player a bone, yanno ?

(1) - I try to pick low population servers cause I have a serious pet peeve about chumps following me, letting me do all the grunt work and then when I am engaged with the last group of baddies, rushing in to jack the resource/mission objective/bonus mob - that got RIDICULOUS at points in other MMOs to the point where I did a full build Rogue in WoW designed for the express purpose of killing those jerks, by using a technique to disappear mid-combat and thus draw the aggro onto them, so when someone would wait for me to engage and then go try to jack that mining point or whatever, I'd round up a BUNCH of nasties and THEN do it, right on top of them - and get to watch as they got pounded into paste...
Alas that a lot of jerks who did this crap were really high level and that wouldn't kill em, but it's still inexcuseable in any fashion and bad manners besides.
Ergo, I pick servers with low population and actively try to AVOID other players.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:11 PM

Loot ninjas. In some games you can call them out, I've actually seen more decent people than jerks, who'll stop if they're overleveled or you make it obvious what they just did. A simple /pout emote often works well. But there was one time a guy watched me die, then killed the special boss I was after and looted a nice chest when there was no way anything in it would've been worth his level. That kind of scumball will get it coming to them though, because they're the kind of person who'll do that in a party too. So I suspect the reason most of them resort to that kind of thing is because everyone else already blacklisted them.

Kinda bothersome: I can actually go out of my way to not kill the rebels representing the exploited native creatures before reaching my mission target, but the game doesn't give me credit for it.

Quote:
So headed through their turf fully intent on causing them serious hurt along the way, and he runs across a young girl in trouble who has nowhere else to turn, and it seems that her brother has been forcibly conscripted over a supposed curfew violation...

Well, you took them down like you have anyone like them in real life.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 7:53 PM

Yeah, there's that, there's also the irony of the so-called peaceful jedi getting handed "kill X badguys" type quests, I'd pay good money to see them try to justify that one in-world.

And yes, even as I reamed the Justicars good and proper, I went out of my way to avoid blowing away the conscripts, most of whom were yellow-neutral and probably much in the same boat as that poor girls brother, so better to mop up the Justicars and let them quietly slip away - although the also yellow-neutral surveillence droids hadda die, cause you know how that goes.

Finally gave the space combat a shot, it's a simplified rail shooter, but entertaining enough, I suppose, although not having full flight control annoyed me a bit - plays a bit like Freelancer with less formal control, and being that I play the Freelancer Discovery Mod (which includes a Firefly class, but mine is armed to the teeth!) quite a bit, those poor bastards never stood a chance.

Oh, and my Bounty Hunter is rackin up the evil quick, got that glowing eyes and mecha voice thing goin on already, and got to dish out a tremendously satisfying, and utterly humiliating, curb stomping on a rather prideful female Sith, followed by a mocking and two to the dome, pop, pop.
As paydays go, that was one of the more fulfilling.

Oh, and yanno, I think I got a concept of why there's so much stupid-evil in these stories.. it's cause the writers have no experience with real evil, and thus it is beyond their comprehension to fully understand motives and drives behind WHY people do things, or that they simply do not wish to examine them because it'll tell them stuff about themselve they don't wanna hear.

I think that, in order to write competent evil, you have to BE a little evil, at least.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 8:37 PM

Quote:

Yeah, there's that, there's also the irony of the so-called peaceful jedi getting handed "kill X badguys" type quests, I'd pay good money to see them try to justify that one in-world.

Ha! I know what you mean. Even as I was drawing my comic above, I was thinking about adding a panel where my scoundrel starts moping when she realizes how badly she's failed at being evil, and the trooper companion points out that she HAS kinda killed her way through probably thousands of people by now. Which isn't exactly "good" by any definition of the term.

All RPG characters are actually mass-murdering psychopaths.

I just stealth around surveillance droids. Something that bothers me about this game is it doesn't treat them like humans. There was one quest in Coruscant that I outright abandoned because I wasn't expecting it and I used something on a droid that was like locking them up to steal something, and a guy ran in angry about the attempted theft. And I thought to myself, you know, what I just did to that droid is some combination of mind rape, inducing the droid equivalent of a seizure, and a date rape drug, and some guy is getting pissed off about a datapad I stole from the droid instead of the other worse stuff?

Something is kind of wrong with the star wars society...

You're probably right that they don't really know the ways of EVIL-evil, but I've been impressed at how much they understand corruption.

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Friday, February 3, 2012 11:08 PM

And Kleptomaniacs, let's not forget that, now THERE is a comic idea for ya, offa my character in Skyrim.

I walk past a town guard, and just for snickers, I lean over, empty his pockets, his pack, and proceed to THEN jack his sword, his bow, THE ARMOR HE IS WEARING, *AND* the torch he was holding...
(in like, less than a second even, i'm quick indeed)

And stroll off whistling with him apparently none the wiser - I mean, seriously, the breeze around his nether regions didn't clue him in, given that it's midwinter in the northlands ?!

Oh, and yes, I am fairly nice to any droid intelligent enough to communicate with me as well, I don't find the light side ship droid as annoying as most...

And my Bounty Hunter, hoo boy, she did not, uhhh, aquire that thing legitimately, and I about snorted my coffee when she runs smack into spaceport security (who someone tipped off) and her response ?
"What are you doing in MY hangar ?"
Oh that didn't end well for em.

But anyhows, the droid that came with the ship I have nicknamed please-don't-kill-me, cause his excessively polite, barely restrained terror is just so damn funny it gives me the giggles.
Not like I'd be minded to harm him anyway, droids cost money, and he does his job effectively.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, February 5, 2012 10:28 AM

At least in Star Wars you generally talk to people before taking their stuff. Or double-crossing them/ gunning them down and then talking their stuff. Well, except for resources which are sometimes piled in someone's house or the lockboxes the hostile factions will leave lying around the streets for you.

In other games you can just barge into someone's home and ransack it without even a hello, right in front of them, and they won't even say anything.

Everyone needs a nickname.

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Monday, February 6, 2012 7:50 AM

I got a ship! But I discovered, to my dismay, that I may have to fend off Sith fighters. Also, I can't kick any of the people on my ship off. There's a girl who was still on the ship when I got there and makes me think getting the ship was a set up (I even looked for explosives). And then of course there's Corso, who not only seems to be a pathological liar, but won't leave now that his flimsy excuse to follow me around has fallen through.

I also think he might actually have been behind everything, secret partners of maybe even the man BEHIND the man. I don't have proof so much as frenetic conjecture, but I've decided this is sufficient for me to blame Corso whenever anything goes wrong.

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Monday, February 6, 2012 10:00 AM

Also, when you're on Coruscant, and if you don't have something better to do, watch how your character flies around in traffic.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DrivesLikeCrazy

Might be a joke about taxi drivers.

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Monday, February 6, 2012 10:33 AM

That was SOOOO not my fault, he cut me off!
Admittedly the grenade into his fuel cells was excessive, but still!

-F

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