Confession

I have a confession to make.

I REALLY hate Taris.

Might not come as a shock to you, Republic people, but this place is a living hell. Balmorra is a pleasant walk in the park compared to this. See, I play mostly on the Empire side. As my higher character is still on Alderaan, Taris was a new place for me. (Empire players get to visit Taris at level 32ish, right after Alderaan. Republic players go there at level 16.) 

A few days ago, I decided to start a cute little smuggler.

Captain Lyrestra - Gunslinger

For some reason, I really love Corso. He's great at tanking for me, and we're pretty much unstoppable so far. I was planning to have some sort of neutral alignment but to please him, I went full on light side instead. Why yes, she wants to have Corso's babies. But I digress.

Going through Ord Mantel was a breeze. Fun quests, pretty straightforward. And pretty too, despite the fighting going on.

Love the grey sky, it's kinda romantic.

Then I went to Coruscant, which was gorgeous. For like 3 minutes.

Why are all the quests indoors?  >_>

Then it became dirty and grey and sewersy. What the fuck? Am I on Nar Shaddaa? It really made me miss Dromund Kaas. At least there's some vegetation there, and you get to see the sky more than three times.

But it wasn't so bad. It was pretty damn decent compared to the nightmare that is Taris. Ruins, and dirt, and lakes of acid, and beasts that can turn you into more beasts. Charming.

Everything looks the same on Taris : ugly.

I really hated the yellow-greenish landscape, the death traps, the backtracking (what? I have to go back there? I was just there! I killed like a million people to get there and I have to go back? No fucking way.) the gazillion Rakghouls to kill all over the fucking place, the OMG WHERE THE FUCK AM I? I have to go up there? How the fuck do I go there? Oh right, by running around a goddamn wall that goes through half the fucking zone! I'm barely exaggerating.

And just when I thought I was finally done  with this hell-hole (thank sweet baby jesus), there it was... Taris : Bonus Series! You get to say here a while longer and curse at your screen! Enjoy! 

I'm not sure yet if I won't just give up and move on to the next zone (as I'm already level 22!) or put my brave face on and finish those damn quests. The mere thought makes me want to choke kittens, but I really wanted to see everything each planet has to offer. Maybe I'll make an exception, just this once.

Where's a Death Star when you need a planet obliterated? Sigh.

The Sniper's identity

I still don't get my Sniper's deal. Not that I roleplay, really, (not outside my head anyway) but it's fun to become the character as I play it. Makes it a lot more interesting.

There's a quest in Dromund Kaas' Citadel that's supposed to help players understand what Imperial Agents are about, or so I assume. But it only confused me more. I'm not sure what they were trying to tell me.

My Sniper, Nevie, is into the dark side stuff. She kills a lot. And she was accused of being too bloodthirsty for an Imperial Agent. Err... what? I guess it means those agents are like machines. No display of emotions regarding their work. It's like they don't get involved in the killings. It's not for revenge, for politics, for money. Killing is not something they can enjoy or disapprove of. It's just something that they do, like eating or sleeping. It's all very ... cold.

I'm curious enough about the Imperial Agent story to keep leveling this character, but I look forward to having a better grasp on her personality. In a game like this, where your choices can alter your experience to some degree, the character's personality seems rather important. For example, I don't like when my Sith ends up saying something that sounds submissive or polite, to the point that I often start the conversation over to say something more suiting instead. Even if it doesn't have such a big impact on my experience, I find it a lot more fun when my characters have a predefined attitude towards the world, and act accordingly.

My Sniper went dark because Kaliyo seemed to prefer violence (and I have to admit I love being a murdering bitch on both my Sith). My companion often influence my choice on the matter. But it's silly of me to let a companion decided for me how I want to play. It never occurred to me before, but it's no big deal if Kaliyo thinks I'm a wimp. Sure, it'll take time before she warms up to me, but who cares? If it's a problem for end game, if I ever get there, I'll deal with it then.

So I'm not sure yet if Nevie respects authority or not, if she's a patriot or some sort of mercenary. I don't know if she enjoys chaos, or if it simply doesn't bother her. I don't even know if I'll stick to the dark side or go Light or even neutral, but there's only one way to find out: play more and get to know her.

The End of Act 1

I guess you could consider that this post contains some spoilers. Read at your own risks.

Jori the sorcerer has been busy last night.

Kizu and I decided to skip the rest of Tatooine to go to Alderaan and finish our respective class quests, so we could get our damn legacy names and fancy titles.

We didn't take any other quests on the way, as our log was already full with (green and grey) Tatooine quests, and went straight for the prize.

It was quite painful at times. But also a lot of fun. I got to flirt with a fellow Sith, Urtel Moren, and share sexy time with him. I particularly enjoyed telling Andronikos afterwards not to be jealous, as I already had gotten "what I wanted out of him." In other words, don't worry, bad boy, that random Sith was my toy for a while, but now I'm done with him.

I also killed a woman who helped me, simply because I didn't need her anymore. Ha! A Sith never says thank you. A Sith uses you until you run out of usefulness. And then you're dead. Well, that's what this Sith does, anyway.

After that I got to kill some Jedi, get a new lightsaber, torture some innocent woman for the sheer pleasure of it (which scored me my Dark Side Rank4), and then, I went back to my master, Darth Zash, on Dromund Kaas.

I knew I was gonna have to kill Zash. It only made sense. But there's some stuff I didn't see coming. I won't tell you what happens; if you wanna know more, I strongly suggest you roll an Inquisitor. If you just want to know omg nao!, you can get in touch with me, I'll gladly tell you what happened.

So now I got my "Lord" title, yay! And I can choose my legacy name. Fuck me. I soooo don't know which name to take. I hate Kizu. He just thought of a name all of a sudden, tried it, and it worked. Grrr. Damn you! I've been thinking about a good legacy name for days, and I still come up blank. QQ.

The day one of my toons got the -40 of shame... from me

Kizu finally found some time to play with me today, so Jori the evil sorcerer went from level 26 to 28 and a half. It was pretty fun.

But we we're questing in Nar Shaddaa, a level 20-24 zone. Most of the quests were unproblematic. The Heroic4 quests were somewhat of a challenge at times, as we 2man'd em, but nothing impossible. It only gave me more reason to hate Khem Val as he systematically attacked the target I had just CC'd. Grr.

At the end, the quests were grey, and so were the mobs. But we've seen pretty much all the zone had to offer. Not my favourite zone by a long shot, but I guess we can't all love the same things. The Promenade looks great, love the colours, but everything is so... indoors-y, and well ... shady. I guess you could say I'm not too fond of Hutts and the likes. But I digress.

The fun part in all this is the bonus series are level 31. Mkay. Guess we'll go level somewhere else for a while, and then come back. Maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't make much sense to me to jump from level 24 content, to 31 in the same zone.

Or maybe they knew we'd outlevel the content and we'd be 28ish at that point. I do want to see as much of the quests as possible, but this a little ridiculous. I haven't been in a zone of the appropriate level since... Dromund Kaas.

In other news, my sorcerer is slowly but surely getting to the end of Act 1, which is good. I'm not especially fond of the storyline so far, but I get to be evil and that's fun. For the first time though, I've been completely flabbergasted by some things I had to say in order to get my dark side points. There were other answers that sounded better, and more evil-like, but they didn't give dark side points, so I had to ask for those people to give me all their credits so I could get myself robes made of solid gold.

Even I thought that was out of line. And just plain wrong. Slaughter a whole village if you like, torture innocents and butcher anyone who stands in your way, but don't take money from worshippers like some vile, low-life, greedy thief. Surely a powerful sith such as her would never lower herself to this level? Well apparently yes. And it made me feel terribly ashamed of my sorcerer.

I mean, even that no good Khem Val winced. It really was that bad.

It's all about power

I really enjoy being a sith, be it an Inquisitor or a Warrior. I enjoy the playstyles, but it's the interaction with the NPC's that really make it interesting.

Both my Sith inspire fear, respect and more fear. When quest giver speak to my Siths (I don't know what the plural for Sith is) they apologize for existing, for daring being in the presence of magnificent me. Even the Inquisitor, who used to be a slave, is now treated with all the respect she deserves. Because they know she could end their miserable existence without breaking a sweat, and there's actually nothing she'd love more than to do just that. And they thank me for letting them live.

And I especially love the NPCs that think they can beat me, the look on their face is priceless when I slice them into pieces.

On the other hand, when I'm playing my bounty hunter, most of the quest giver treat me like shit. But it's fine, because I get credits for my work, and I could care less what they think of me. And if they piss me off, I can use 'em as targeting practice. (Mako would sulk for a while if I did that, but nothing a nice gift wouldn't fix.)

Anyway you look at it, I always win.

Enjoying the moment

I was playing WoW today, and then it hit me. I realized how happy I am that I can play swtor right now.

Swtor is full of opportunities. Swtor is a true new start.

It's great to level a character and not know all the quests by heart. Even when I do a zone a second time on an alt, it's not exactly the same, because of class quests, but also because of the alignment of the character. The quests are pretty much the same, but some stuff changes depending on if you wanna kick the puppy or if you decide to save it. (I actually want to make a dark side Bounty Hunter just so I can redo The Musty Trail and choose to kill lady Dak'ah instead of bringing the guy back to his family. I was really sad that I had to let that bitch live. Or maybe I'd just kill the guy. Because what do I care?)

I love not having to worry about commitment. Kizu and I play when we feel like it. We level slowly. We do mostly all the quests. We explore zones, we take the time to look at the landscapes, and we also make sure to find as many holocrons as possible. (That's actually Kizu's thing, but it's nice to find secret places.)

I've always been in a rush to get to the end of things. For once, I want to take it slow, and savour the moment. I think I'm becoming allergic to commitment.

Fun times

Kizu and I have made it to level 24 today.

In Balmorra. Which is a level 16-20.

What the fuck.

We do have fun, though. We enjoy the little competition in the dialogues where he says "Let's save all the bunnies!" and I say "let's kill them in front or their children and then wipe our boots on em." Whenever I win the roll and my Jori gets to have her bloody way, he looks at me with that "you're so evil" look and then I laugh and it goes on for hours.

We also try and do all the quests in each zones, except for Balmorra. After we did the Bonus Series part, we decided to drop the quests we had left, which were very green, or even grey. And we both hate the Colicoids. So fuck it.

So back on our respective ship we are, heading for Nar Shaadaa. (Which is level 20-24...)

And as we were looking at the big galactic map, Kizu tells me how excited he is to get to Coruscant, but that it doesn't seem to appear on the map. And then we realize that it's probably a Republic zone, and that we'd have to make pink unicorn jedis and go to happy land to be able to actually quest on Coruscant. (I'm not exactly sure about that, but it's the only explanation I can find at the moment.)

Which we might actually do, since Sty made me roll a republic toon anyway, and it would be quite nice to get to see different zones and quests. It's not like we're in a rush to reach endgame anyway.

Might as well enjoy the ride for as long as possible.

The things I do to make Sty happy.

Sty is evil. He made me join the Republic!

On a new server. And join a guild. With people from WoW.

After creating many characters, I decided to roll a Twi'lek Consular and try the stealthy rogue-ish class. (I already wanted to try that - the assassin that is - but since I didn't feel like seeing the Inquisitor's story again, and suffer Khem Val for any longer than I have to, seeing the republic version of it seems like a good solution.)

But apparently all my companions will hate me if I randomly kill people soooo light side it is! All that to please (yet another) foreign language speaking frog.

And my toon's lekku annoy the crap outta me. They move ALL THE TIME!

... AND I LET PEOPLE LIVE!!

/sadface

Edit : I deleted Jorie and made her human because her lekku (lekkus?) were driving me batshit crazy. She is now level 5.

The quests are fun so far, and if the story isn't as engrossing as the Bounty Hunter's was, it's still entertaining enough to hold my interest. And I'm curious to see what the Shadow class is about.

Don't be a wuss

When Kizu and I logged on Swtor for the first time, we had to pick a side. That's the first decision (of many) that you have to make.

We quickly agreed on the Empire. Why? I don't know. In World of Warcraft, we play on the Horde side. I guess we identify with the "bad guys".

After we each picked a class, a race and a gender, we started leveling. But soon enough, you come across a new choice. Light or dark side?

Cue evil laughter. Of course I wanna kill people for fun. Dark side it is. But when we rerolled on the new server, Kizu decided to go light side. Light side for a Sith Warrior. Wtf. His BH went light side too, which mostly can work, but a Sith? Sorry, doesn't make sense to me. Go on the Republic side if you wanna be a big wuss.

Yeah I'm mean. Republic people can be dark side too. Sure. But I don't get how you can be a Sith fucking warrior and want to go to the light side. If you wanna save lives, why are you a Sith to begin with? There must be something I'm missing here. Maybe there is such a thing as a nice Sith.

But where's the fun in that?

Decisions, decisions

My boyfriend Kizu and I have been playing SW:ToR for little over a week now, and we still haven't reached the level 20 on any toons.

We started our first characters on a server that was "light population", and Kizu decided he wanted to go to a more populated server so we would have more people to run flashpoints and heroic quests with. Back then, my marauder and his sorcerer were level 19. We decided we had to switch omgnow before our toons got any higher.

So we did. On the new server, Kizu started a Sith Warrior then went Juggernaut for tanking, and I made an Inquisitor, my Jori, and fell in love with the class. I loved my marauder, and I enjoyed swinging two lightsabers, but there's something about shooting lightning everywhere that really appeals to me. I rerolled a sith warrior, but she's still level seven for the moment.

When we first did the Athiss flashpoint, we had a mercenary healer. Kizu and I were amazed to see him heal us with his pistols! Kizu instantly decided he needed one of those.

And now, my sorcerer is level 19. But I have to wait for Kizu while he levels his bounty hunter. The quests are fun, but I just did them, so I can't wait to see new content. Fortunately, the class quests are fun and interesting, so it's not exactly the same, but still. I kinda want to see more than Dromund Kaas. But while Kizu levels, I can't do much, so I decided to try a new class.

Since both my warrior and inquisitor are on the dark side, I decided I wanted to see what happens when you don't instantly kill people for no other apparent reason than for looking at me wrong. (I do enjoy that, though. A lot.) So I created a Bounty Hunter, who cares mostly about credits, but she doesn't mindlessly kill people for the shear pleasure of it. It feels weird, actually.

So any day now, we'll be seeing content past Dromund Kaas. I hope.