Old Republic Log I

And we're back.  After a month trying NaNoWriMo (and failing, but learning some valuable lessons)  and then taking a couple of weeks off to de-compress, it's time to get back to daily blogging, or as near to it as possible.  So I thought I'd start with something easy, a log of my journeys through the new Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic.

Astute readers will note that the game doesn't officially release until December 20th, but there is a pre-order bonus called Early Access which allows players who've pre-ordered the game to play as much as a week early, depending on when they pre-ordered.  And, as it happens, I pre-ordered back in August, which gets me the full week, which started yesterday.

So I'm in the game.  I've decided to crib my character concept from the ongoing Star Wars RPG game I'm a player in, because it allows me to play both sides of the game with functionally the same character.  Also, since I'm a firm believer in Ottoman's Law, said character will be female.

With that in mind, allow me to introduce Tasia.

As you can see, Tasia is a Twi'lek Sith Inquisitor.  She will eventually go down the Sith Sorcerer path, becoming a ranged damage dealer.

And this is her future counterpart, Alia.

You see, in the tabletop game we've been playing we discovered that our characters weren't who we thought they were.  To be precise, we found out that we were the subjects of the Phoenix Project, a Republic initiative to duplicate the accidental success they had with Revan by mind-wiping captured criminals and  giving them new Republic-friendly identities.  The fallout of which once the truth came out being the core conflict of the game.

I'm cribbing that idea for Tasia/Alia.  The way I'm running it is that Tasia comes first, runs through her adventures working for the Sith and then eventually gets captured by the Republic, mind-wiped, and given a new identity as Alia, who believes herself to be a Jedi Padawan freshly arrived on Tython to complete her training.  The Jedi Consular starting quests even support the notion, because the player is considered to be an especially wise and powerful Padawan.  So much so, that you're sent out on dangerous missions from the get go because you have so much potential.  That actually makes more sense in my version, because rather than sending out an inexperienced Padawan to her doom, they're sending a veteran Sith Sorceress who just doesn't know how powerful she really is.

So that's the storyline I'm going with.  To play out her conflicted nature, and because it's more fun, I'm playing Tasia as a Light Side Sith, and Alia as a Dark Side Jedi.  Alia will be a Female Twi'lek Jedi Consular who will advance into Jedi Shadow, the stealth and lightsaber Jedi variant, and there's a very good reason to do it that way, which I'll get into when we discuss classes.

Let's talk about gender, race, and class, shall we?

Race and gender are purely matters of aesthetic.  There are no mechanical bonuses for either choice.  You do get a unique social emote based on your species, and some of the dialogue with NPCs changes based on whether you're a man or a woman, and on what species you are, but that's all.

While I find the lack of racial bonuses a little disappointing, I suppose it does eliminate the problems you get in late game raiding in games like World of Warcraft where the "elite" players know there are certain perfect builds, including what races to play for which class, that can get your level 85 character excluded from a group because of a choice you made years ago in character generation.  Still, I've never seen that be a problem in any but a tiny number of the most elitist jerk of guilds, so it seems like something of an over-reaction on the part of the designers to eliminate something most players were expecting to have in the game just to solve a problem that only affects 0.1% of the population, if that.

Which brings us to your class.  Bioware claims that there are effectively sixteen classes, since each of the eight base classes can evolve into one of two different Advanced Classes.

On the Republic side you get:

Jedi Knight, which evolves into Jedi Guardian or Jedi Sentinel.
Jedi Consular, which goes into Jedi Sage or Jedi Shadow.
Trooper, which promotes into Commando or Vanguard.
Smuggler, which has Gunslinger or Scoundrel.

Meanwhile, for the Empire you get:

Sith Warrior, which has Sith Juggernaut or Sith Marauder.
Sith Inquisitor, who can go Sith Sorcerer or Sith Assassin.
Bounty Hunter, who learn Powertech or Mercenary.
Imperial Agent, which develop into Sniper or Operative.

Sixteen classes, right?

Not so fast.  First of all, if you're looking at it from a story standpoint there are only eight classes.  Your story doesn't change when you pick your advanced class.  You're on the Smuggler storyline, regardless of whether your specific Smuggler is a Scoundrel or a Gunslinger.  As far as the rest of the universe is concerned, there are only eight classes.

The thing of it is, mechanically, there are only eight classes too.  That's because the Republic and Sith counterparts are exact duplicates of one another.  The powers look different from one another but from a purely mechanical standpoint, they function identically.  A Sith Inquisitor starts off at level one with a couple of basic lightsaber moves and a short bust of Force Lightning that can stun weaker enemies.  A level one Jedi Consular gets the same lightsaber moves and a ranged telekinetic attack where she pulls debris from the ground and hits her enemy with it.  Which does the same damage and has the same stun chance as the Sith Inquisitor's Shock ability.

Hence my decision to have Tasia go Sorcerer and Alia go Shadow.  Otherwise I'd be stuck with the same powers from character to character, and I'd prefer more variety than that, especially considering the amount of time an MMO usually requires over the long haul.

There's another difference between my two characters, and that's their guild participation.  Tasia is a crazed loner who will only be working regularly with her companions (something I'll discuss in a later entry once I actually have one) and only plans to work with other players on a ad hoc basis.  Alia, on the other hand, is Guild Leader for the Kessel Midnight Runners.

That's the guild I've put together with my brother and a few friends.  We're still working out a schedule, but it's almost a certainty that Alia will get much less playtime than Tasia will, since she'll only get used for Guild runs and those will only be a few hours a week at most.  But that's fine, since that way we'll see much more of Tasia's past before we move into Alia's future, right?  Makes sense to me.

So here's where we stand right now:

Tasia, Level 7 Sith Inquisitor, Korriban
Alia, Level 2 Jedi Consular, Tython