STAR WARS: the Old Republic...Anyone Playing?
POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Monday, April 23, 2012 01:53
VIEWED: 16311
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Just got it for a Solstice Present. More fun than I was expecting. Forgot how much time everything takes in MMO land--gonna have to be very disciplined not to let days go by without working on my book. Anyway, anyone else get this in their stocking?
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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I tried. I thought I could get into it because I like Star Wars. I can't deal with it, though; the controls are so alien that I ended up wanting to throw the computer. I could never get myself in a good position fast enough, and low-level monsters handed me my ass several times. Aside from that frustration, there was also the teeth-grinding repetitiveness of it, even in the short time I played. (I now find it even harder to believe that these sorts of games have eaten so many lives.)
As far as I know, my significant other has been playing it daily. He loves that sort of crap. Especially now that he has a starship, which I'll admit is pretty badass. It's too bad all the mechanics of the game drive me so batty, because it can be very pretty to look at.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Me! My brother and I preordered.
I've got the same thing, have to balance it with everything else demanding my attention. But, I got used to World of Warcraft, playing only a little at a time. I should be all right.
PR: The servers are a little laggy, and the controls aren't so crisp as I'm used to in world of warcraft. I mostly move in jerking stops so as I don't end up running into a wall or blundering into an ambush of enemies. The animations aren't so smooth, too, which makes it harder to stop right when you want to.
It's not too bad. The gameplay between races and classes don't have quite so different feel as do the races and classes in WoW, but I've found at least some mechanic that I like in most of the classes. Races at this point seem largely cosmetic though.
The Sith doesn't seem all evil and the Republic doesn't seem all good, which is also a nice change because I think both philosophies have their points and their flaws. But I just started a sith character and already most of the people in command seem like jerks and a few don't, so we'll see how long I can stomach it.
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Heya Phoenix,
I'm curious: what class did you attempt to play? The learning curve seems pretty different from class to class. Smuggler/Agent, these are the toughest I'd say, cover can be pretty counter intuitive. The most straight forward, non-ass-handing classes I've played are the Trooper/Bounty Hunter, I'd recommend those if you're having trouble with getting into the way these games play. The Jedi/Sith play kinda in the middle, melee can be tricky. If you've not played an MMO before, this one should take some getting used to. I'm not saying it's an acquired taste, just that it takes a while to figure out the controls before you can start enjoying the game on its own terms. YMMV.
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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Quote:Good gravy, you've found a Sith that isn't a raving psychopath? Which, where, how??? I find them uniformly despicable--not at all hard to find my motivation when called upon to betray/kill them later on...
Originally posted by Bytemite:
...most of the people in command seem like jerks and a few don't...
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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Well, there's one red-headed girl right at the beginning who tries to be nice, unless that's an act, but her reaction to my neutral reply indicated it's not.
I suspect she's going to be killed by the instructors for weakness, I'm wondering if there's a way to prevent it.
My plan is to attempt to roleplay the initial non-evil and non-pathetic definition of a nihilist: "we're all going to die, so let's live life to the fullest." We'll see if that's possible, I may have to adjust as I go, the game will probably shoehorn me into judgmental good instead of chaotic good.
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From what I've seen over on youtube the light side Sith story is all about anti-authoritarianism and making friends and stickin' it to the Emperor--without giving too much away there should be plenty of CG shenanigans you can get up to.
What I haven't been able to find (and I don't want to look too hard--don't want to ruin the whole story before I've even played) is a dark side Jedi story more interesting than hookin' up with your padawan and being a Class "A" jerk. Not very inspiring...
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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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I'm curious: what class did you attempt to play?
Sith warrior. (if I can't have a lightsaber, I don't really give a crap.)
I like joysticks or other things that allow for easy movement without having to adjust the camera all the time to see where I'm going. Also like being able to attack something that's trying to kick my ass without having to take time to click and target it. There's no good reason for a game to be that much of a pain in the ass. Games should be fun. Especially if they're going to be that expensive and time-consuming.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Most MMOs have an auto target function, some work better than others. SWTOR has a somewhat bothersome autotarget, it doesn't always work, and sometimes that causes me to get hammered because I'm expecting the reliable targeting system from another game.
On the other hand, you don't necessarily have to be facing an enemy to fight them or dodge and parry attacks, which is handled with some realism animation-wise.
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Hey Byte,
Just an FYI: no auto attack at all. Every attack needs keying, or right clicking. With lag, sometimes they get queued up and it looks like auto attack, but it ain't.
Animation-wise, I've pulled off some hilariously convincing fights. The smuggler is really good running and gunning from cover point to cover point. And the Bounty Hunter gets into some outrageous scrapes. He'll burn down several goons in front of him and then turn on a dime to take out the guy right behind him with a blaster to the face.
Also, I have a confession. See, I have a hugely difficult time coming up with names for video game characters. If the name isn't right--or say if I get the hair wrong during character customization, I gotta scrap it and start over. So, a friend of mine got the game and he was playing a Bounty Hunter, so I hadda make up an Imperial Agent on the spot and stole the name and (albeit blurry) likeness of our own dear Frem. I was terribly amused when the woman who was going to be his first "companion" is described as "...an anarchist" by his stuffy British handler. Good times.
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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Huh. I thought I responded to this...
Well, auto-attack is not the same thing as auto-target. I think that there's technically an auto-target in SWTOR, but it doesn't always work as intended, because in a fight sometimes it'll jump to a friendly target after an enemy is killed, which prevents further smack down of enemy targets.
Though, I am tempted sometimes to smack some of my allies... (Dark side points gained)
Rolling into cover is lots of fun, but as I've gotten around I find useful cover less often, so I often end up just crouching down in the open. But that works okay because it's creating a low profile.
Also, I am very fond of the groin kick.
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Oh, sorry, shouldn't post in the middle of the night--coulda sworn ya said "auto attack." My bad.
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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That's okay, you were only posting in the middle of the night because you were (probably?) playing.
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I finished the first quest series on Coruscant and was sent back to the Senate Tower, and not only can i not figure out how to assign ability points (left click? right click? Neither works), but I don't know where to go. I wonder if I'm underleveled, looking around the internet apparently most people are level 11, not level 10 when they're where I am.
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Hello,
I was gifted the game and will begin playing tonight on one of the RP servers.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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Have fun! You'll have to post back with some of your impressions.
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I'm really enjoying the game so far. Haven't gotten off any of the beginner planets, taking my time, played through all the starter area quests with everything except the inquisitor and the trooper. What I'm enjoying most is that all the stories are pretty great, but all for very different reasons. Hard to pick a favorite (though Jedi Knight was prolly the least memorable of these very memorable stories).
The most morally complex storyline I've played so far is the Bounty Hunter. I really found myself pushed and pulled in all directions with that one. And there's a real sense of sinking into this depraved world. There was a point when my Bounty Hunter just started hating everyone and doing everything he could to get himself off world.
Looks like I'll be playing this game for a while.
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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Hello,
I have played my character to level 10, which is the point where the starter missions finish and you are ready to head offworld.
I played a Sith Warrior, and was impressed at how the game lets you make varied moral choices. (Usually three choices in a pivotal moment, with one being 'good', one gray, and one 'evil.')
In one portion of the game, I let a man live, having faked an assassination. Later, his daughter and two of her lackeys confront me for the 'murder.' I wanted to tell her that her father was alive (which was an option) but didn't want to say anything in front of her lackeys for fear of them telling my Master that I'd actually failed the mission.
So she attacked me, and I was forced to kill her. I saved the father, but murdered his daughter. It was a little piece of tragedy, and I was surprised that an online game could make me feel the sad irony of it all.
I wonder if someday the father might not come to kill me for murdering his daughter? Is the game sophisticated enough to factor in such consequences?
It's at least sophisticated enough to make me think it might.
So far, I am enjoying it. It has the feel of a single player game with a story that feels personal to my character, but placed in a shared world. Not quite like other MMORPG's I've tried.
I am playing on an RP server called 'Lord Adrass' with the hope that I will be able to find roleplaying groups to share player-driven RP with between actual game missions.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying playing a Sith ex-slave who figures she's going to die anyway and doesn't care what the Sith think, so she's cheerful and nice to normal people and snarky to the jerks just as a big "screw you guys" to their value system.
It works surprisingly well within the dialogue choices. I thought it was hilarious that I was able to greet a fellow student who had just been introduced with a speech about how we were worms to him and he would crush us, with a "Hello! I hope your trainers treat you better than ours do!" Right in front of said trainer, no less.
For context, this was just after the main jerk trainer killed off the only other nice student, which would have been more upsetting if it wasn't totally obvious that was about to happen.
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Yeah, I'm slowly progressing through the game with half a dozen characters in play. It's impressive how coherent the world is across storylines, feels almost like reading Game of Thrones, only I'm playing through the various POV's and not just reading along.
If you haven't yet, I'd highly recommend going through some "flashpoints." Random people in the game are still nice and friendly and excited, so it's an ideal time for this sort of casual socializing. They really ramp up the moral dilemma schtick and it gets kinda volatile when there are 3 or 4 of you making these life & death decisions. The stories play VERY differently depending on the choices you make.
I was playing earlier today with a friend, watching him go through the "darkside" Jedi Knight story and it held together surprisingly well. His Jedi didn't go over to the Sith, but instead became involved with a kind of secret Jedi civil war in the making. From a certain angle, as y'all know, Jedism can look pretty effed up and the game plays into all that ambivalence nicely. Very cool.
I've played all the classes in the game up through 12 (finished the first planet) and all the stories have their particular charms. If I had to pick a favorite it would be a tie between the Bounty Hunter and the Jedi Consular, but the Imperial Agent and the Sith Warrior are pretty neat. Of all of them, the Trooper and Jedi Knight stories take the longest to get into unexpected territory, but by the end of the first planet narrative, serious shit goes down, as it were. Betrayal is a great plot element for a video game--you get to feel unexpectedly engaged in ways you didn't even realize previously. Fun, fun, fun.
I'm finding myself playing a lot of the game, but I don't feel the same kind of "empty calory" hangover that I associate with o.d.ing on other computer games. WoW would definitely hit me like that after an evening's play. Even something as engaging as Oblivion, still didn't seem to add up to much at the end of the day. Jeez, another Saturday night gone and what do I have to show for it, type o' deal.
But with Bioware's obsession with moral choices and romantic hilarity and endless shades of grey between light and dark, I find myself actually thinking about the stories afterward. The stories in SW:TOR are so engaging, it's more like reading a good pulpy novel than whiling away the hours racking up points in a video game.
Anyway. 
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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I've been doing flashpoints with my brother. We only done the first one, the Esseles one from the Republic Fleet. We had some trouble with the first boss, but eventually after three times we figured out a strategy. We needed to kill off the minions, because they were killing me and I'm the only one who can heal other party members or companions in battle. Plus we needed to manage the aggro spread better. The other bosses were easy, though I still die every time, I'm not sure if I'm drawing too much aggro for being a scoundrel. Could be.
Interesting that the darkside Jedi has more to it than first glance.
Uh oh. I think I just got spoilers for Tython. Now I'm going to be double questioning this Jedi who decided to take me on as an apprentice.
The one thing I don't like are the romantic subplots, though.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanticPlotTumor
As if it isn't annoying enough that all of the male NPCs will flirt with a female player character. In fact, that's one of the nice things about being a Sith, everyone treats you like scum.
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The Sith Warrior gets a lot of attention from the opposite sex as far as I can tell. As a slave turned acolyte you are treated as sub-human, but you're not a slave soon enough and folk start sidling up to you for all kinds of reasons, many of which boil down to power-envy.
Here's the thing, though. The game has a few "great loves" sorta planned out for each class and those stories are more than just "growths" on the narrative, plunging, as they do, the player into yet deeper moral quandaries which is the heart of the game/world/story.
The Star Wars universe exists for the reconciliation of opposits, so love stories fit right in. Now, o' course, in SW:TOR there are plenty of opportunities for "meaningless" sex, but it's unfair to use the TVtropes argument "if the story can exist without the romance the romance shouldn't be there" in a create-your-own adventure story. The romantic part of the story can be experienced as integral to the narrative by one player and seen as a tumor by another. Neither is definitively right or wrong.
Oh, and you needn't second guess your master on Tython. I didn't give anything away beyond: hey, your story is more interesting than you might think.
Speaking of spoilers (this is for the male Smuggler storyline through the end of Ord Mantell) and seeing as you've played the female...
Select to view spoiler:
The male Smuggler has a major plot twist involving a romantic entanglement with Viidu's gf and a double cross which she orchastrates that I was totally not expecting. As a female Smuggler, I'm wondering if there was anything like that going on that you could see.
Having played through the male Jedi Knight opening and seen it played through as a female as well, I know there's a major romantic subplot the male can get into that can turn pretty surprisingly dark if you go down that road, but the female JK doesn't seem to have access to that subplot at all. I hope all the best romantic plots aren't only for the boys. That would suck--and be kinda counter intuitive.
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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Nah, not so much. Though I gathered she was kinda... Well. I wasn't expecting what actually happened, but I stood up for her initially. Now I don't think I'd care to see her again.
I sure didn't get into any subplots, thankfully. I think they're pretty bad. I deliberately avoided them in the original KOTOR too.
What's a captain to do? I just want to pretend like all I want is to get paid in the midst of random acts of goodwill and charity while avoiding the law. Have these people ever heard of professionalism?
I'll probably stick my companions in my ship when I get it and go questing alone. I don't like having them judging me all the time, positive impression or not.
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On the other hand, whenever I try to write romance just to attempt to be a well rounded author and to fake understanding you humans it's also really bad, so I guess I shouldn't be too harsh.
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Quote:This is what's so fascinating about this game. I love the light/dark points and the companion points system because they mimick the kinds of pressures we feel in real life choices. You actually feel judged by a game mechanic! From an immersion standpoint, how cool is that???
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'll probably stick my companions in my ship when I get it and go questing alone. I don't like having them judging me all the time, positive impression or not.
Me, I never thought of it as judgement, so much as happy/sad, horrified/relieved. When my Sith Lord is being menacing or when I brutally kill a rival Sith who's gotten in my way, I don't imagine my ex-slave judging me, I imagine her just feeling awful--scared, empathetic to my victim, etc. Conversely, when I use my power more humanely, or defy the Sith order, she feels some amount of relief and hope that her life may not end at the wrong end of my light sabre. To me it adds dimension to my in-game life. I love the cringy feeling I get when I've made her feel bad.
In the Imperial Agent storyline I went through an opposite kind of peer pressure weirdness when I was sent to interrogate a "notorious party girl." My increasingly sadistic sidekick actually egged me on to try to seduce this woman and then turn on her, at one point telling me, "She's got spirit, now let's try to break it." Ultimately, I couldn't bring myself to beat the woman I was interrogating--as my companion clearly wanted--but I didn't make the nice deal I could have made with her--and might have if my companion weren't around--instead discretely reminding the woman what kind of power she was up against and shouldn't she just simplify her life and tell me what I need to know? I knew it disappointed my companion, but there are limits, damn it all! The whole thing kinda creeped me out, but with the fate of the Empire at stake, I couldn't much dwell on it, could I? Hilarious!
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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You're not really getting to play your character how you want to if you're getting computerized peer-pressure. I find it irritating. I wonder if I ought to just cover up that corner of the screen.
But then, part of my irritation may be that the dialogue choices don't let me play my smuggler how I want to either, or maybe I'm just too nice or something. But the game really hasn't let me be subtle about it, my smuggler is coming off as a total goody two shoes. Blegh.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Also, I have a confession. See, I have a hugely difficult time coming up with names for video game characters. If the name isn't right--or say if I get the hair wrong during character customization, I gotta scrap it and start over. So, a friend of mine got the game and he was playing a Bounty Hunter, so I hadda make up an Imperial Agent on the spot and stole the name and (albeit blurry) likeness of our own dear Frem. I was terribly amused when the woman who was going to be his first "companion" is described as "...an anarchist" by his stuffy British handler. Good times.
Oh gawd that's hysterical...
I might drop the dosh on this, but ne'er fear, I have a long list of character names I use and that ain't usually one of em - I've played a few games with Anthony but our schedules aren't usually very compatible, alas.
Anyhow, lemme see if I can't bag a copy, neh ?
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Hey Byte,
Yeah, I recall something of the sort with the Smuggler. Sure there are darkside choices all around, but mostly they're simply stupid or ill-tempered, or love this, pro-military. Like I'm gonna betray the foxy cat-girl and return the stolen meds to the pencil neck soldier who lost 'em in the first place??? Oh hell no. Or, screw the orphans 'cause the military offered me some cash to extract the doctor? Those aren't choices for a smuggler--they do work a good deal better for the Trooper when he/she gets 'em, though.
And, whuh-oh, choosing the Smuggler class and not wanting to get involved with the romantic subplots? Sounds like a recipe for frustration. Nobody gets as much action in the game as the Smuggler. Just watch out for Corso, that is NOT a blaster in his pocket, he IS happy to see you...
Sounds to me like you might enjoy the Bounty Hunter story. Over on the Imperial side being a decent person is a ton more challenging and meaningful, I've found. Once you hit Dromund Kaas the psychotic tomfoolery never lets up. I love seeing a quest giver icon on my mini-map only to discover on approach that the quest is coming from a Sith. Oh hell, what demented shit is she gonna demand I get up to? And how much money can I squeeze out of her if I do? I kinda love how you can strong-arm people and you get a little cash icon in the corner of the screen popping up like a companion opinion. It's fun when your money approves of your actions!
And the game by no means throws sexual partners at the Bounty Hunter, far as I've seen. Been chatted up by only a couple women and both of 'em were distinctly "eeew," so it was an easy and character building decision to walk away. I have this kinda hilarious relationship with my companion though. She seems to be kinda interested in me, but whenever the conversation steers in that specific direction she backs away or laughs it off or stonewalls. I'm continually impressed with how much work went into creating multidimentional characters.
I dunno. I can see how I could easily find myself at odds with the game and it's constraints one way or another, but I find myself continually willing to take it on its own terms and discover the characters the game and I come up with.
Hey Frem,
I'm kinda of the oppinion that this is sorta the best game I've ever played--prolly not the best in any objective sense, but the most personally gratifying. Maybe. At least for now. Like they sat down and asked themselves, "So, what kinda game we gonna make for HK to love?" and went from there.
I'm currently on two servers, both west coast. One's PvE, called Namadii Corridor--that's the server my friend who bought the game started on; and Lord Ieldis, RP server. I have my Sith characters on Namadii and my Republic characters on Ieldis, so potentially I can have one character of all the 16 subclasses in the game--potentially, not planning that outcome at the moment.
One thing about the game that can be a pain is it's hard to play with other real people who are more than a day behind you on any of the planets/storylines. It gets awkward with all the stories you can't share and it's really easy to overlevel in this game, I find. And then you have your friend endlessly apologizing 'cause they're "holding you up," etc. Also, playing two characters of the same class together can break immersion, 'cause they have exactly the same voice and mannerisms in all the cutscense. Much better to have a mix. So, practically, having extra room for more characters allows me to start a new character if a friend wants to join me and I've already leveled out of the area on another toon.
Finding folks who share your schedule can be challenging. I have one friend who's schedule matches up with mine pretty dang well, but our other buddy goes to bed SOOOOO early. He starts crapping out as early as 9:30 on a Saturday night! lol He's an accountant and a devout Buddhist, not exactly a party animal.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean,
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Quote:
but mostly they're simply stupid or ill-tempered, or love this, pro-military.
Omigosh yes. It's like, here's a lawwoman who seems to be injured and I ask if she's doing all right. Then suddenly she expects me to help her make an arrest of some criminal element who did the same thing I woulda done if she were coming to arrest me, but the only option to say "no" was to tell her to toughen up! I mean, come on.
With all the law helping I'm obviously going to be doing, it'll be a miracle if I'm not pegged as an Alliance snitch and my contacts stay intact. The only times I even remotely get to behave like an outlaw is the few times I can act like I only just happened to show up somewhere the law was by happy coincidence, or I ask them to keep my name off the records. Amusingly see-through, but dammit, at least it's something.
And then when I'm trying to be nice at the end of a mission, it'll be all "I was honoured" this and that. The best I can do in that case is pretend it's an artifact of the spiritualistic culture I came from. But that only goes so far before I want my dialogue choices to really reflect some good old fashioned roguery.
Don't even get me started on Corso, his "I'm a naive backwater hick, inexperienced in the ways of the universe" pick-up attempt was laughable and annoying from the start, let alone when it becomes obvious it's all an act WAY before he finally fesses up to it.
At this point I wish he'd just take off with all my cash already, because at least it would be better than his idea of puppydogging.
It's a shame, because otherwise all the tricks a smuggler can do in a fight really makes it a fun class to play. I mean, you're stealthing around, lobbing around flashbangs, diving behind cover, hacking droids to stay out of fights, kicking people in the groin to stun them, what's not to like?
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Hey Byte,
Yeah, as I ease my way into a new character/storyline I find I have to take several runs at the first dozen conversations or so to get a feel for what works. The Smuggler is best when he's cracking wise and those replies aren't marked--you just kinda need to get a feel for it. Usually, if the reply tag is straight forward it ain't the funniest line. Often, the funny lines are hiding under the least compelling reply tag. And humor can cover a whole gamut of feelings, so you have more room to live your character the way you want. Or so I've found. Your mileage, etc.
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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Yeah, I'm having to suck it up and just play my conversations as they are. I guess not everything can be a hilarious witticism.
At least I can pretend I'm more sarcastic than people give me credit for.
Oh, and also, I finally figured out why my story wasn't progressing. I had to hitchhike all the way back to Ord Mantell because the quest told me to go to the space port and board a shuttle to Coruscant, but didn't tell me I had to look for some people first. Blargh.
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Oh gee, I just love EA's disastrously broken installs... *hisssss*
Mind you, I've had the bloody game for three DAYS now and still can't get it to friggin WORK cause of technical difficulties related to EA's typical halfassery - I shoulda KNOWN better than to invest in this (which mind you, means delaying purchase of certain stuff I kinda maybe needed) after the fiasco of having to put two full days into installing Dragon Age: Origins - which required manually unpacking the files to a seperate directory and then by hand installing while correcting CRC errors up the ying-yang and then hacking at the game code in a very technical way to get their overaggressive and ridiculous DRM bullmalarkey to even *function* so the DLC works and forget about tech support, yeargh...
So now I am out damn near seventy bucks for a game that's so broken on install it's driving me up the bloody wall, and the worst of it ?
Having to download and redownload near 10 GIGS of patchfile crap... at 176 KB/s - only to have it fail, replete with (what a surprise!) CRC errors, and no way to crack the files open and manipulate them like I did to get DAOC to work, which even when it did, would crash randomly and then require me to hunt up and handpatch invididual game files *IF* I could figure out which one was bad.
Damn EA to the very depths of hell.
I shoulda known better the instant I realized they were involved with this, once they have your money, it's all a big F-U from them.
If I do not have this workin by tomorrow, imma see if my bank can't jam them up for my money back.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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I know what you mean, Frem. I was one of the open beta group that was testing server load just two weeks prior to green light. I also had the Pre-Order, where they let people play one week early.
It was a debacle. EA and Origins didn't tell anyone that people were going to get the client in waves, relative to when they signed up for the pre-order, meaning not everyone got the full week, either.
That's without getting into Origins/EA Downloader itself and the draconian spyware stuff they have going. I'm mildly assuaged by knowing apparently ALL games with online capacity nowadays have external monitoring and a line in the TOS about releasing gathered information to third parties. I don't really like it, and that kind of thing is just asking for people to hack it, but it's not a dealbreaker for me yet.
The launcher can be buggy - make sure you run it with admin settings (right click launcher menu on most computers). That seems to have solved crash issues for a lot of people. The ten gig download is pretty steep, it was like that right from launch day, which is pretty bad.
Also, when you make your account, make sure you do ALL FIVE security questions. I had a problem where I filled in only three, and the other two security questions registered as a lot of gibberish. So when I logged in on both the website and the game, it asked a security question I never answered and I had to get EA customer service to unlock my account again.
I'm sorry you're not having fun yet. :(
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Another option is a conflict with an old version of winrar or winzip.
Alternatively, here's a way to get the download files manually, by deleting your assets folder, which may have corrupt files in it already that are screwing with things.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=795&page=56
One more thing to check is if your settings aren't 32 bit. The game doesn't like that.
Apparently some new computers or installing to an external harddrive can cause the problem you're describing. You could try installing to an old computer, and then transfer the files over.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=795&page=66
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Gee and now they've wiped the forum to hide the ever growing cascade of bitching, no doubt winging the ban hammer at those revealing their wonder product is in fact, a piece of go-se.
NOT. WORTH. IT.
DELTREE SWTOR *.* /Y
*waves bye bye to seventy bucks*
*goes to immediately pirate about seven hundred bucks worth of BW/EA stuff in retaliation*
One shouldn't HAVE to go through all that crap to get something YOU PAID FOR to work.
And they'll suffer for this, they will, one way... or another.
-F
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I'm sorry Frem. I guess we should have warned you. I didn't think to mention it because I got it working, but yeah, it took me about four days.
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Yikes! I'm sorry to hear that, Frem. Me, I had the game working in the usual couple hours of downloading. It's a new MMO, not without bugs. They've been patching it at least once a week, so maybe you could try again in a couple weeks or a month and it would work?
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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Well, it's not over yet, it seems...
Okay, now I've been an avid vid-gamer since the days of Channel F and Coleco Telstar, and for some period of time I was really tight with a lot of the crew at Interplay, some of whom have over the years moved on to Rockstar or BioWare, and made some new friends along the way, you see.
So I do kinda know some of the folk who actually do the grunt work of building these things, hell we had one of them in our FFXI party for years and occasionally me and our DRK would also play PGR2 Racing with him, damn his Koenigsegg CCX to the depths of hell, meh.
Anyhows, I was playing another game earlier this morning and verbally tearing a long and bloody strip off Bioware for ever getting involved with EA in the first place, compounded by a long list of games and companies EA has completely wrecked with their rent-seeking, borg-like viciousness and exploitation, sprinkled liberally with profanity and hatred for those who seek profit at the expense of what makes games great - one reason I have mostly gone back to retro-games which while less pretty, were actually FUN.
And one of those former Interplay refugees who landed in the BioWare camp is like "whoa, whoa, hold up, give us a chance here!" and I proceeded to deliver a verbal excoriation since I don't have the ABILITY to "give them a chance" since EA's fundamentally broken install prevents me from even TRYING to, and unless he could give me back my cash I wasn't really interested in hearing it...
And he offers to send me physical copy, next day air, with updated install and a printed cheatsheet on how to get it to work if it goes flaky.
OOOOooo-KAY, then.
One thing about them ex-Interplay folk, they're not corporate drones, they're GAMERS - remember what their motto was, and as such he wasn't gonna let something like that go if he could fix it, and that folks, is what made Interplay great in the first place.
And it's the LACK of it, which is why EA sucks wookie testicles.
Anyhows, we'll see, I guess, we'll see...
-Frem
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That's really nice of them.
You know, when I was a kid, I had a lot of respect for Blizzard, this was in the time of Warcraft 2 and Diablo. Diablo is still one of my favourites: yeah, it's simplistic compared to modern games, the code is easily hacked, multiplayer was a crazy fest of duplicating and pk, and yet somehow it was still good.
I'm sad to see sometimes how the business side of things has overtaken what was once Blizzard's integrity (though I still play WoW, credit card security issues aside).
Bioware is kind of the same way now, I have these mixed feelings of respect but also wariness. But this story just goes to remind me that there's still a kernel of people who care and have integrity in the industry.
I think you'll have fun once it's working. Bioware plus Star Wars is a proven formula, I've always appreciated how their games make you think because of the moral dilemma aspects. I actually credit KOTOR for changing the way I look at the world, I became less vindictive after playing that. For people who think video games are so bad for kids, they really ought to try playing through the light side.
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You'd have loooooved this bit from an earlier SW RPG, I think...
Pretty obvious that imma Potentium-Theory Grey Jedi, who's actually viewed by most as a Sith and chooses not to disabuse them of that notion cause it's too much work and they'd prolly not believe him anyways, especially not with Jedi propagandizing.
Ergo they sent some creep to deliver their traditional ultimatum - and this is pretty much the response said creep got.
"I have no apprentice, wouldn't want one, and you know what, piss on the rule of two... if I wanted to slavishly follow someone elses damn rules I'd be sucking up to the council, now wouldn't I ?
And that's another thing, there IS no dark side, there IS no light side, the Force is the Force, it simply IS, like gravity or energy, it EXISTS - and any notion of a moral connotation comes not from the Force but from within ourselves, and it is this most of all which offends me, that the Jedi so terribly fear their own reflections that they would smash the mirror, attempt to amputate rather than embrace and guide WHO THEY ARE, give names to actions as if those names were a seperate thing, as if Good and Evil were absolutes instead of matters of perspective, and worse!
They would hold OTHERS to their own personal absolutes, projecting their own fallacies, their own weaknesses onto others and then seeking their destruction because they cannot face themselves?
Because understanding there ARE no absolutes offends them?!
And you call me a monster, do you?!
At least I know WHO I am, I know WHAT I am, and can face that knowledge without needing to blame someone else for MY flaws and failures, I am not blinded by some concocted myth of infallibility, by some... some... CRACKBRAINED, ludicrous notion of moral superiority!
Nor might I add, am I beset by any pressing need to inflict it unwanted, upon others, unwilling, by force of arms or manipulation - whether you live by my rules or not means naught to me, whether you believe what I believe means even less, and can you say that of the council, would you dare say that TO the council ?
A bunch of whimpering old fools who wish to amputate that which makes them sapient, to tear out and destroy their own grace because they fear the path it may some day take, that judge others pre-emptively on actions only in potential, that destroy emotion for fear of losing an impartiality that only even exists from their narrow and blinded perspective, if even then ?
Why not just replace them with droids... oh, wait, you can't because droids can't access the Force, right ?
How do you even know that is true ?
Because they TELL you so, THEM ?
No, you know NOTHING!
Go from here, mercenary, and tell the council that the universe does not exist to serve their prejudices, and I'll not serve them either."
Of course yon merc didn't take that too well and wound up chopped into little sizzling pieces for their trouble, so Darth Pandus shipped the remains back with a tape of that rant - woulda loved to have seen their faces when they watched it.
Anyhows, I figure that verbal rampage, near as I can remember it, would amuse you given it's unique perspective on the Jedi.
-Frem
PS. I sincerely hope there's even SOME complexity to the moral scale or whatever they use in SWTOR, since most games involving a karma meter are flat out downright stupid about it, which I know prolly irritates you as much as it does me.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmaMeter
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Hey Frem,
So far, your assessment of the Force as existing beyond good and evil is supported by the story I've seen so far. I find the light/dark points remarkably accurate, though that may have more to do with my low expectations being exceded. I like that some of the dark side choices are pretty human, and even sensible given certain contexts.
And as I was saying, so far there seems to be plenty of room, story-wise, for a non-sith, "grey" Jedi in the game--my friend is playing one and teaming up with her is hilarious and nerve wracking--ya just don't know what she'll do!!! But she makes sense at the end of the day.
"As to your other remarks, I'm troubled that you are still so ruled by your anger, my friend. Do you not find that it blunts your access to the Force, blinding you to consequences, leading you to action that you later must regret? I hear so much reget in your words, old friend.
I don't find your ideas monstrous, only...exhausting in their intensity. I've often found in my meditations the Force to be something quite beyond our human ideas of good and evil. That hardly changes the necessity for men and women to champion the cause of good, does it?
You have hit upon a pet peeve of mine, I confess, with this overworked notion that we jedi destroy emotion. That you can know me for these many years and malign my ethos in this way saddens me. We jedi do not destroy emotion, we remove the affliction that causes it. Like the flame that threatens to engulf our home, we deprive our passion of what it feeds on. And the fire is quelled but never dies. We seek peace above all things and, I am here to tell you, we find it. The quest is often difficult, the journey long, but our many masters, who have gone before, light the way.
You will forgive me if I still hold out hope that you will know that peace, my friend. Lay down your sword long enough to know the depth of joy that dwells in the heart of the Force.
May the Force be with you always."
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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Evil responses still range from mere lying, poking poodles, and pointless kicking the dog.
Neutral and Good responses are more nuanced. And at least you aren't restricted to alignment by your faction. So I imagine you could make your Grey Jedi not-a-Sith.
Though it'd be tricky if you were coming at it from the Jedi side, but even my Jedi has lied and gotten some darkside points here and there. Usually when another cadet has messed up in some minor way, like asking me for help when they shouldn't with a personal trial their trainers gave them and poorly explained, and the too strict Jedi want to kick them out. I usually take the blame for it just so they get a second chance. (Yes, apparently that's a dark side action, maybe it's relative to how the Jedi would see it in this case)
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Ooooh this is too, too fun...
The character in question, Darth Pandus(1) - was all but shanghaied initially into the order and over time that bitterness, resentment and a distaste for the dogmatic hypocrisy of the order exploded during an assignment where he felt the Jedi were "backing the wrong side" and resulted in the untimely death of his Cerean master at his own hands (there is a slight hypocrisy although understandable in the Jedi treatment of Cereans, which no doubt served to grate on his nerves) and him breaking with the Order.
He then took up residence somewhere in the wastelands of Metalorn(2), and prefers to be left alone, something the Council does not intend to do, much to his increasing ire.
In combat he relies on Form VII: Juyo - to quickly steamroller an opponent, and failing this will simply distract their attention and all but vanish, either to assess the situation, or get the hell out of dodge, leaving the opponent too confused or defensive to follow.
(Gamewise, probably going to go Sith Marauder, but with no essential loyalty to them or their agenda, cause Pandy don't care much for anyone elses rules..)
"Anger ? you mistake that which you see for it is passion that drives me, not rage, and without it no being ever develops, rather they stagnate and decay, and it is that stench which drove me from their ranks old friend, and what arrogance you show me, that the consequences of an action or inaction can so to a nicety be predicted ? HA!, the universe disagrees with your certainty, as do I.
And yes I have regrets, for I am no fool, without regret there is no learning, without guilt there is no justice, and without pain there is no growth - such a low opinion you must have to think me blind to my own failings, especially as it was this arrogance I left behind, albeit in some few pieces.
And what cause of good to you speak of, good for whom, and when ?
Such abstractions are as meaningless as our interpretations of them - each must do what they believe to be the right thing, even if all stand against them, for to do any less is but cowardice, a betrayal of ones self, and ultimately all one stands for - not only does the Council believe in their astounding arrogance that there is but one single path, they would herd others to it regardless of their will!
I find my purpose not in the answers old friend, but in the questions, the questions those old fools fear to ever ask because they suspect they may not like the answers.
Yet what then, when you have no answer ?
Then this I say to you, if you have no answer, you must then be the answer, and so shall I be, if the course they set themselves upon requires the destruction of the ideals that conflict with their own, then an answer to that they most certainly shall have, and I suspect they will find that answer as unpalatable as they find any disagreement, for it comes seasoned with the bitterness of their own failures.
So you would bank your fire, would you ?
I find I cannot but fan the flames of mine into a blaze that must consume, and not by my own choice, yet from ashes does not derive the most fertile soil of all ?
Go in peace old friend, and tell them they forment their own doom, that much like a handful of sand, the harder they squeeze, the more slips right through their fingers, and when what gently held is kept, what tightly gripped is crushed...
And perhaps, you might remind them of the merits of leaving well enough alone."
-Frem
(1) Pandus is latin for crooked-corrupt.
(2) Given what Metalorns industry is/was, and his attitude about rules, it's pretty obvious one of his hole cards is a handful of Droideka, which would come as a pretty nasty surprise for any unwanted guests, up to and including Jedi.
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Update: got physical copy, installed physical copy, AGAIN get trapped in the endless 10 gig loop-o-rama of CRC errored garbage, finally nailing down what the exact problem was and consorting with some hacker type buddies involving a hideously long IRC transfer of 3 version and 7 resource files, which then had to be manually placed by hand and followed up with some explicit editing of the client defaults file...
Another full day of hours and hours down the drain and all this I get for my trouble is "internal error 5" and a crash to desktop on the loading screen.
I sincerely hope they get class-actioned, cause the horror stories are racking up faster than they can purge the complaints and I am hearing nasty rumors of hardware meltdowns - which doesn't shock me in that days and DAYS of screwing with this garbage I can tell you it's some of the shoddiest most halfassed code I have seen in my entire life, I'd be embarassed to charge money for this go-se, but of course we all know EA has no shame.
Mind you, said former Interplay rep was all by ripping his own eyes out of his sockets over this since it's reached a point where even he cannot possibly excuse how screwed up this all is.
So another WHOLE DAY down the drain, and still nothing to show for it.
-Frem
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Aw jeez. :(
Well, at least now it sounds like for sure it's their awful launcher and downloader.
I'm reading up on it on the forums, someone suggested downloading the internet client and installing on top of the physical one.
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More looking:
http://www.savetaris.com/doctor#section2.4
This says one possibility is if the patching is just failing utterly, you can try putting it on a different computer, and if that works transfer the files over.
Or, I actually didn't have all the patcher errors (though it did take me a while to get set up), you could get the directory from me or maybe some of the other people around here, get patched up that way.
The downside of editting manually the files is that it makes you have to go to the server with all the other people who had to try that work around, and now it's getting screwed up.
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Further code hammering gets the correct login screen, but still fails with internal error 5.
And back to the endless circle jerk of their badly broken launcher/patcher.
Speaking of the code, upon examination...
This is not a beta, this is at best, a late-stage alpha, and it's unforgiveable to release something like this as a retail product in that it potentially qualifies as theft by fraud/deception...
(See Also: Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rigs:_Over_the_Road_Racing
And I am pretty sure by now there's vengeful people meaning to do exactly that, for this debacle makes the fiasco of FF14 look like childs play by comparison.
Gamers are pretty tired of getting stuck with being unpaid or exploited beta testers, alas that Sword Of The Stars II fell to this level of stupidity and that'll probably put paid to Kerebos, who at LEAST handled it with a dignity unmatched by other gaming companies, not that it's likely to help.
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/62760/Sword-Of-The-Stars-2-s-Launch-
Failure
Bad enough all that, but I have noticed a prevalence of WGC "Solutions" coming from official sources, and worse even then that - a WGC (Wild Goose Chase) Solution is basically a time-waster intended to get you out of their hair and waste your time while crossing their fingers and hoping the problem either resolves itself or that you do what everyone seems to do these days and network with other gamers given that most tech support wavers between laughable and useless...
You know the drill, pull the logs, reset, reboot, re-install - none of which is gonna solve your problem, not one bit, but hey, it gets them off the hook for a while, right ?
And when all else fails blame the user and their hardware.
But no, some of the WGC solutions being offered are downright self-destructive.
Screwing with your RAM voltage ?!
Disabling system cores ?!
Arbitrarily yanking chips, in or out of sequence ?!
Seriously folks, *NO* amount of fiddling your RAM voltage is going to solve the problem of CRC errors and corrupted files because IMHO whatever they're building these games on is thoroughly incompatible with Quad-Core, Win7 machines (which seems to be the essential ROOT of the problem with both DAOC and SWTOR), it's just NOT - what it *will* do, if you keep following that official-source "advice" is wreck your machine, frag it to hell...
Which, I suppose gets them off the hook and buys time for someone else to come through with a fix, but it sure doesn't do YOU any good, does it now ?
Man, encouraging frustrated and desperate gamers(victims) to wreck their own hardware in order to avoid blame and having to fix your screwups, that goes beyond Evil Corporation and straight into Complete Monster territory, especially on top of the forum banning, purging and censorship which fools no one.
My old Interplay buddy seems to be in the process of having a nervous breakdown (I send him back a pint of scotch in the box he sent me the physical copy) and from what I could understand of his semi-coherent, desperately apologetic rantings is that EA could care less how broken it is and has no intention of putting any effort into fixing it, dropping the whole matter on BioWare, which screws them good and proper since most of the folk who know how the code even works fell to the typical EA Death March, or routine round of pink-slipping the minute the game ships...
http://gamerant.com/eaimposed-studio-death-march-hurt-need-speed-games
-spice-41843/
So basically there's no one THERE who knows HOW to fix it any more.
I figure BioWare is gonna pay pretty dearly for this when sales of Mass Effect 3 prove somewhat lacking due to this debacle, but EA ?
Now that's another story...
Some other irate folk have decided to throw in collectively and assist in a quasilegal variation on a round-robin handoff in an attempt to purposely crash EA's stock prices, and if that proves effective, said tactic will likely get expanded and used viciously in retaliation - cause you see, they took m
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I have a quad core Win 7 machine. But it's possible it could break in the future, maybe due to a system update.
I've heard some of these recommendations to mess with the RAM, I find them questionable. When I posted above about a RAM limit, what I'd read was more about installing to a drive that falls under the limit, and less about destroying RAM. Definitely ill-advised.
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Well, as usual, it seems I am correct - the essential problem is that the Launcher/Patcher and the files it delivers are wholly, absolutely, and fundamentally incompatible with Win7/Quad-Core machines.
Now some people got lucky, those who's stuff worked BEFORE the 1.1 "Patch" mostly, but even they had to do a lot of workarounds, and what bugs me about all this is that it's a KNOWN, ONGOING problem which EA doesn't seem to have any intention of fessing up to, since Dragon Agr: Origins has *THIS EXACT SAME PROBLEM*, and it relates to how Win7 checks file CRC - I can't find it right now, but one DAOC workaround which did work, before EA/Origin wiped any reference to it, involved hacking Win7 and completely disabling that particular check...
And yanno, designing something with such high system requirements that is NOT compatible with 64bit operating systems and high end machines is insane, and EA has had plenty of time to fix this problem, and they don't.
Anyhows, realizing this I hauled out that old piece of junk laptop from the bottom of the closet, and kicked it over here, jacked in the network cable and spent all day so far installing and patching SWTOR, despite the poor little thing coming nowhere NEAR the system requirements, and wouldn't you know it, it worked without a hitch - so I grabbed my SeaGate Goflex and jacked THAT in, and am copying the whole bloody directory as we speak, good fortune in happening to have an outdated laptop that still had 20Gigs of space on the drive (just barely) AND a SeaGate Goflex 1TB USB external drive, but this is still pathetic, ridiculous and insane... especially as I know damn well imma have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN every time they patch this garbage.
I guess we'll see once I get the functional files on the external hard drive and jack it back into this one, but I am vengeful and unforgiving about this, nor am I the only one...
And on that note a shout out to FalconEvo, who has SINGLEHANDEDLY done more to support and fix the game, than the entire tech support, customer service, and dev teams combined - of his own whim, and it seems that yet-another-forum-purge has occured since I guess the users saluting him musta offended the useless trolls of their in-house staff, grrrr 
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Finally.
Lv5 Sith Warrior - and my fellow Sith are puppy-kicking idiots.
*shakes head*
Mercy can be a weapon, having someone who owes you big is worth far more than another corpse, especially if they have useful skills - and loyalty is never earned by those who cast aside those no longer useful to them.
Oh yes, and again, if I wanted to slavishly follow someone elses friggin RULES I'd be a Jedi, wouldn't I ?
I rather suspect some of my so-called peers are gonna get it in the neck at my own hands, cause they're just too STUPID, petty little fools the lot of them, unable to see beyond the now.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidEvil
Me, imma what ya call pragmatic, neh ?
Will also try Republic Smuggler, but later.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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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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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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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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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-slap
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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 refusa
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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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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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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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The Frem is placated, revenge on hiatus.
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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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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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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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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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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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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:Uh. To you, maybe. But what about the rest of us? Are we all just fools?
Good and evil are meaningless words.
Quote: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?"
In the long run they have no significance.
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: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.
Those who are holding on to some idea of someone or something being "evil" are simply finding reasons for anger and hate.
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: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.
The battle between good and evil has killed more people than anything else in the history of the world.
Quote:I don't believe going to war with evil lessens evil--actually, it's the opposite. Because war is, well, a form of evil.
Funny how it's never clear from the point of view of the people involved which side is good, and which side is evil.
[
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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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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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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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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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: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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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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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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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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Hey, leaving no witnesses is LIKE discretion...
I'll check out the holovid later.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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*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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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