A Weekend in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

This weekend was a fairly productive one at the "Blaze" household. My lovely bride had work to do, and I helped my daughter move stuff out of her dorm at the end of her semester. Luckily, we also had time to spend in SWTOR. While Scooter was at work, I started a new Sith Inquisitor. More about her later. (With apologies to Galactrix, since I was frequently interrupted for extended periods due to meatspace activities, I didn't run my new Juggernaut.)

After a discussion on Twitter, I installed FRAPS video capturing software because apparently the SWTOR client doesn't take screenshots during the cutscenes, something I had not remembered from my time in the game at launch. That, combined with me actually remembering to upload a a few shots last night, means I have some decent pictures today.

Scooter and I are working through Taris on our Trooper and Smuggler. While enjoyable separately, I think the various stories going on in SWTOR are a bit disjointed, and that can get distracting. Granted, figuring out how or why a smuggler and trooper would be hanging out together in the first place might be difficult to do, and it would be even worse if Bioware had tried to account for even more combinations of characters. Imagine running a regular group as a bunch of troopers in a squad, though; or a Jedi and some clones (to borrow from a different era). The possibilities are endless, but the resources of the software developers are not.

I have a certain concept going for Lieutenant Achillea Sunsage. I've gone completely with light-side choices, which puts Achillea at odds with her military superiors on a regular basis. She's bit idealistic, generally respectful of authority, but possesses a healthy skepticism toward both her chain of command and the Senate. Being a U.S. Army veteran, I am bit put out by some of the vibe (and light/dark choices) of the Trooper story. Do the folks at BioWare really think that's what the military is like? On the other hand, maybe I am just as idealistic as Achillea is.

Scooter's Captain Harllie Sunfleur is the nicest Gunslinger you'll ever meet. Sure, she's not above getting paid, but she always does the right thing. And she's generally very polite.

Despite the 12x XP incentivizing a quick run through just the main stories, we are taking our time with the planet quests. We are just about done with Taris, I think, but have already far out-leveled the zone. With the appropriate level mods in our orange gear, this makes running through most of the bad guys an easy breeze. I did have to remember how to heal—or more specifically, that I was supposed to heal at all—during the Heroic +4 quest.

When I got to the end of the first chapter of the Sith Inquisitor story with my Assassin, Tollkirsche, I thought that the events of the story would fit better for a female player character. After spending some time running TK through the end of the second chapter this past Saturday, I couldn't resist the urge to start another one, this time as a Sorceror. Taking the female thing a bit further, I decided to make her resemble as closely as possible her own mentor, Darth Zash, with one notable exception. Young Valerija is the curvy body type 4 instead of Zash's type 2. One day I'll create a truly despicable Dark Side character (TK is only mostly evil), but yesterday was not the day. Valerija is pure goodness wrapped up in an electrical storm. She was even respectful to the slug Harken. I know it's not an original idea, having a "good" Sith. But I find the idea amuses me. I want to rush TK through to the end, so I can then create a Sith Pureblood Jedi (another perverse idea). But I will probably take my time on each planet with Valerija.

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