VRYKERION

  • SWTOR Class Storyline Review: Trooper – Chapter One

    Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first chapter of the Trooper storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  To see a spoiler-free summary of the storyline please check this page instead.

    << Class Storyline Review: Trooper Prologue || Class Storyline Review: Trooper Chapter Two >>

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    Okay, with matters settled on Coruscant and the senator saved/Wraith dealt with, it’s time to start hunting down those scum bags who called themselves our teammates for like a day.  Yea.  I’ve been thinking about that lately.  You can actually play your trooper like these former Havoc members were the scum of the earth that personal broke your heart and betrayed your deepest trusts…  but you didn’t exactly know them that long.  The games makes it pretty clear that you are on your first mission with Havoc at the start of Ord Mantell, so some of these characters that “stab you in the back” have only said maybe two or three sentences to you ever?  Don’t get me wrong, they betrayed the republic.  They gotta pay.  But there’s no reason to take it so personally, ya know?

    Heck, your time with these people is barely enough to establish their personalities.  Needles is Hannibal Lecter MD, Wraith never stops talking in monotone and is good at stealth, Gearbox is…  nice?  And Fuse… is um…  Fuse is a Zabrak. About the only person you get a decent feel for is Tavus, which I s’pose is good because he is the primary antagonist for all this.  Well, might as well begin the hunt for the traitors.

    Taris

    Our first target is Needles.  We get to track this sick freak across all of Taris trying to find out where he’s hiding and more importantly what he’s up to.  And it doesn’t turn out to be good at all.  The sick little bugger is trying to weaponize the rakghoul virus to make sentient non-feral monsters out of other defected soldiers with a new fast acting formula.  This marks the first of two attempts in the game to weaponize the rakghoul plague, and I have always wondering if Needles was familiar with the works of Doctor Lorrick.  They seem like they’d get along.

    Needles lives up to his monsterous nature without having second thoughts of using anyone as a test subject for his experiments.  Luckily you eventually do track him down and end his life.  Made no easier by the insanely stubborn lack of support from the military base on Taris.  They spend the entire time giving you the run around, oh no we can’t help, we don’t the time or resources, etc etc etc.  The only person to actually follow orders and assist you with the mission is Elara Dorne.  Dorne is an ex-imperial that has carried over some of her strict upbringing with her to the Republic Military, with a strict adherance to orders, details, regulations and paperwork.  She is also the next companion to join you on this journey and becomes a member of your new Havoc squad.

    And to be honest, I don’t really care for Dorne.  She’s one of those companions where you’re never quite sure what decision is gonna irk her.  She seems to be a stickler for orders.  But she also sometimes doesn’t like heroics?  It’s not even that her personality rubs my trooper wrong.  They actually get along pretty well with my ruthless willingness to follow orders no matter how murderous.  But she’s hard to pin down.  I actually will get the occasional -1 or even -20 or something and have NO clue why.   Luckily I’m a commando and I don’t need her.  She’ll get her lovin’ through gifts.

    Nar Shadaa

    Next on the journey is an issue of a group of Tavus’ lackies running amok on the Hutt controlled word of Nar Shadaa with a top secret robot.  The twist to this whole thing?  The Republic’s Secret Intelligence Service is also on the trail of the renegade bot and you are needed to help them without letting on that a certain special forces team went completely rogue, defected to the Empire and is now using said automaton to do bad things.  Bad things that never really get defined.  Okay, I think what’s going on is that they’re stealing weapons and money for Tavus, but I’m not entirely clear on that.  Not to mention it doesn’t fit with the whole ‘good soldier that was betrayed’ thing that Tavus has going for him.  I mean, hard to hold the moral superiority when your tactics currently involve petty theft.

    Really, the best parts of Nar Shadaa for the trooper comes from dealing with the SIS and their cloak and dagger style of getting things done and actually interacting with the rogue robot.  The SIS parts can really be done in one of two ways: Lying or Honest.  You can totally be up front of the whole Havoc defection thing against the wishes of your commanding officer and disobeying direct orders (that’s the *cough* LIGHT side choice), or you can deny everything to the SIS who really don’t have any business knowing about your top secret mission (The uh… Dark side choice?)  Again, the trooper demonstrates how damn easy it is to be gray.  I racked up a ton of light side points doing normal questing, helping people out, not taking dirty bribes from Hutts, but then all of that goes back to zero because I follow orders.  I have no clue how this is going to end up in terms of morality, but I have a feeling it will be similar to my Imperial Agent: Gray leaning to the Dark Side (Dark II by the time she hit 50). Ultimately the SIS founds out what is really going on anyway, because they’re the freaking SIS and you get treated to General Garza arguing with the SIS at the end of the whole planet.  As a female trooper you can actually flirt your way through the planet with the SIS agent, making the revelation at the end sting even more.  Garza still gets the best burn in my opinion with the “I figured you would understand the need for to secrets in your line of work.” line.  Go Garza!

    The robot, or M1-4X or Forex for short, is hilarious.  One part indestructible tank and one part propaganda machine for the Republic.  His dialogue is mostly spent talking about the glorious Republic full of freedom and democracy, or how Havoc Squad is one of the finest units that the Republic Military has ever trained.  As soon as he figures out that he’s working for traitors, he’s all ready to join you to take them down but an override code keeps him obeying the traitors until the bitter end.  All though he happily tells you everything he can within the confine of his orders, including how to destroy him after he’s been ordered to kill you.  Eventually you are forced to blow him up, but the SIS rebuilds him and he is transferred to your command where he happily congratulates you on a job well done on destroying him and that it’s good to be serving the forces of freedom and justice again.  I love Forex.  There is never a moment where his overly cheesy GI JOE reminiscent dialogue doesn’t bring a grin to my face.  Which is good, because I was getting tired of Dorne quoting regulatons and Sgt Meowmers’ belly aching.

    After Nar Shadaa wraps up you’re sent on a little side mission to go to Tavus’ ship located in the Outer Rim and try to capture him.  Other than an annoying heat beam puzzle, this doesn’t actually contribute to the story much.  Tavus isn’t there, he holos in, you call him a traitor, he calls you a traitor and then he sicks a bunch of imperial goons on you. The end.  Nothing is really learned and it’s just a short red herring quest that you might actually face off against Tavus earlier than you would expect, and all it does is confirm any suspicion you have that Tavus is going to be the big bad of chapter one.

    Tatooine

    Well since Nar Shadaa didn’t do much for bringing us any closer to Tavus and his band of traitors, it’s time to get back on the hunt as we head to Tatooine to find that bomb wielding maniac killer Fuse.  Only not so much.  Actually when you arrive to speak to the mayor, Fuse is actually contacting you via holo and wants to help stop the Imperials from blowing up civilians for their “tests”.  Bombs that Fuse designed naturally but he didn’t apparently think that they’d use them to blow up PEOPLE!  Okay okay, civilians I suppose but he was honestly shocked by this?  Who knows but it was a fun “Pokemon shouldn’t fight. Not like this.” moment for me.  Bombs shouldn’t kill people. NOT LIKE THIS! Bombs should frolic in meadows and be free for all to see!

    Fuse’s remorse is pretty much the center piece of the entire Tatooine leg of the story.  You have little to no reason to trust him, since ‘fighting against the Empire’ was pretty much the ruse that started this whole mess. The mayor of Anchorhead however trusts him implicitly since he tipped you off to the next bomb attack.  So you have a mayor who trusts him, you who has no reason to trust him, and are under orders not to tell anyone why you wouldn’t be trusting Fuse.  It sounds interesting but honestly it boils down to: “Don’t trust him. He’s lying.” “Why do you think that?” “That’s classified. Just don’t.” “But he helped us.” “CLASSIFIED. DO NOT TRUST.” “But…” Followed by perpetual Trooper frownie face.

    I wish I could say that Tatooine picks up after that but it’s pretty much just like the planet, a big stretch of nothing much.  You stop the bombing, then proceed to chase down the bomb plans through the various outposts in an attempt to catch the Imperials before they hoof it off world. The only real interesting choice comes at the very end when you find Fuse locked in a cell as the self destruct countdown begins.  You have time to either shut off the self destruct, or stop the Imperial with the bomb plans.  The latter essentially leaves the repentant Fuse to die, the former lets the Imperials with the Bomb plans go free.  So naturally, stopping the Imperials and securing the bomb plans that could kill hundreds if not thousands more is the DARK SIDE option.  Yea, because screw innocent lives, saving the life of someone who committed TREASON but then said he was sorry was clearly the moral and just thing to do.

    This continues to astound me how stopping the Imperials and saving potentially hundreds of people’s lives is somehow the bad thing.  Who figured out this weird system of morality the troopers work under? WHO!?  I freaking killed Fuse.  Yes.  And even Fuse agreed with my decision.  I will admit though that rubbing it in his face and saying this was the execution he deserved was possibly uncalled for.  But I’m sorry, you don’t get to commit an act of treason and then get to walk away because you’re sorry AFTER the damage is done.  Gah this planet ticked me off. Let’s make a Skywalker and get the heck off this sand ball.

    Alderaan

    So with Fuse dealt with and the dirt ball way behind us, all we have left is Gearbox and Tavus (and maybe Wraith depending on what you did at the end of the Prologue.)  Well, everything is pointing that Tavus is our big bad, so this must be…  Ding ding! Gearbox!  Only you don’t spend much time interacting with Gearbox.  Actually the majority of Alderaan is spent trying to appease a noble from House Thul, the rival house of Organa and the allies of the Empire.  His demands are pretty much just help his family escape and he’ll happily tell you where Gearbox is hiding out.  Of course, you can’t just trust the enemy – unless it’s Fuse I guess.  You WERE supposed to blindly trust him. – so your first mission is to verify his claims and check out a bunch of weapons that the Empire/House Thul have been stockpiling in a third party house that has no real relevance to anything and thus I can’t be arsed to remember their name.

    After you’ve verified the Thul noble’s claims, he demands freedom for his wife and daughter. Of course if you’d like this is a place to rack up ample amounts of Dark Side points by just beating the crap out of the guy for information – which he won’t give – but its still a good way to build up those points for all you dark side troopers out there, besides he’s not only an enemy, but an enemy traitor as he’s willing to sell out his own house to get his cranky wife and entirely too bored daughter out of danger.  So work out all that Tatooine frustration with some well earned dark side points.

    His wife and daughter are for some reason chilling out at House Rist, a group of assassins allied with the current King of Alderaan. I have no idea why they are there except that the general Republic quests send you up there a lot so it was convenient.  The wife can’t be pleased no matter what you do, she’s just a mean lady through and through.  The daughter on the other hand makes me nervous.  She gets WAY too excited to see a Republic Soldier with a gun show up.  She is apparently so bored that the very idea of being kidnapped and used as a hostage is apparently enough to have her practically bouncing with joy.  Nobles, man.  Nobles.

    Ultimately, you get them out of there and escort them to an extraction point.  They tell you where Gearbox is.  You show up at his secret underground bunker and blow up his giant walking mech and him.  The end.  There isn’t even a cutscene for when you kill him.  You blow him up in battle.  That’s it.  There is some decent back and forth before he unveils his doom walker mech o’ doom that is really just a gold star elite and goes down pretty easy if you just keep interrupting its missiles.  But yea, that was Gearbox.  Just an un-exciting as he was when you met for 5 minutes on Ord Mantell and barely noticed him again.

    The actual moral crisis for the planet – because as we are learning the trooper has pretty much exactly one per planet – is do you uphold your bargain with the Thul nobles or do you just let them rot in jail now that you have all three?  And yet again, letting the enemy walk away free is your light side choice and imprisoning them is the dark side choice.  This doesn’t bug me as much as the Tatooine choice here because you are breaking your word.  Albeit your word isn’t exactly a choice to give as the game railroads you into making the promise just for the sake of this little do you/don’t you at the end, but at least you are breaking a promise to get the dark side points here.  That’s a bit of a step up.

    The Grand Finale

    Of course if you’ve been keeping track, none of these planets end up dealing with Tavus.  Well, that’s because in grand storytelling fashion that’s reserved for the finale.  One last mission at the end of each chapter that brings it to a close.  And this one has you on orders to find the Imperial starship “Justice” and wipe out the last of Tavus’ followers and the man himself.  This is actually really fun because you do pretty much take over an entire ship with just you and your companion.  You fight through tons of enemies, various lower ranked mini bosses which includes Wraith if you didn’t kill her way back at the end of the prologue.  You shut down the hyper drive so it can’t escape, and then cut your way to the bridge to face off with Tavus.  Tavus spouts his usual “You’re not Havoc! I’m Havoc!” crap that everyone else has said and then the battle begins proper.  And as you stand victorious over the beaten former CO you are given a legitimate light/dark choice at last.  Tavus offers to give you information and help get back at the Empire if you let him live.  This gives you the choice of letting him live and work with you to redeem himself (light side), make him stand trial for his crimes (neutral/no points) or kill the bastard because traitors get no mercy (dark side).  Honestly, I went dark side which is a SHOCKER if you’ve been reading these posts.  I mean, you’ve gone this long to cover up the whole defection because it would hurt morale and injure the image of the military.  So NOW you’re going to let him come back or stand trial?  No. Uh uh.  I’m X-Files-ing this thing and making sure no one knows what these punks tried to do.  NO MERCY FOR TRAITORS!

    Final Thoughts

    There is a lot of fun to be had with the Trooper Chapter One storyline, I won’t lie.  The constant question of do you let anyone know that the former Havoc Squad defected to the Empire weighs heavily over every planet you visit.  And it changes up the conditions constantly.  Do you let the Secret Intelligence Service know?  Shouldn’t they?  What about a lowly governor of an Outer Rim world that has no official ties to the Republic that will allow you to stress why a traitor should not be trusted?  What about the Republic allies whose alliance you are using and possibly even abusing to accomplish your mission?  Do they have a right to know why you are turning their heavily protected castle into a hotel for the enemy?  The constant question of where your loyalty should lie as a soldier is brought up through these questions.  Are you a dog of the military, or a soldier of the people?

    Probably the worst examples of that question is the dark side/light side moral dilemmas you end up facing.  The light side choices which are supposedly being the “Soldier of the People” choices are often reckless and pose a greater risk to the people than the dark side “Dog of the Military” choices.  I understand the idea of the eternal optimist believing that everyone has good in them is great for the Jedi, but when the choice comes down to believing that they’ve changed now and surely won’t BLOW UP CORUSCANT AGAIN.  The risk way outweighs the possibly benefit of “Hey I can change!”  And these highly potential risks don’t seem to come with any consequence other than listening to General Garza chew you out for a few minutes.

    So overall Trooper Chapter One has been a definite mixed bag.  I wouldn’t disregard completely but geeze it takes a lot of faith to go the light side route here.  Faith or stupidity.  It’s hardly a shock that I pretty much went dark side for each and every trooper choice.  It just made sense.   I can’t wait to see what awaits us in Chapter Two.

    << Class Storyline Review: Trooper Prologue || Class Storyline Review: Trooper Chapter Two >>

  • Invasion of the Poke Zombies!

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    Imagine if you will: an epidemic that sweeps across the world, turning once active sociable people of all ages in to glossy eyed, mouth hanging, grunting creatures that barely resemble the humans they once were.  They stagger around, staring downward at an object – a relic of their former lives now become their master.  And on its tiny lit screen holds these pseudo-people’s only remaining obsession.  A drive that takes priority over cleanliness, rest, and even nourishment.  An echoing call from beyond the veil of time and space to seek out creatures unknowable to this world, whose very biology is enough to make even the most studious professor go raving mad trying to comprehend and explain.  And yet these huddled masses, so devoid of anything we can definitively call humanity, work slavish to heed these creatures call…  to capture each and every one.  To catch them all if you will.

    Well, there’s my spooky horror Halloween bit for the month.  But in case you can’t glimpse through the pathetically faux-Lovecraftian prose above, I am talking of course about Pocket Monsters/Pokemon X and Y which was just released and you had better believe I got my sweaty mitts on it at the midnight release.  More specifically I have the Y version of the game, while my significant other holds the X version.  Fitting with the whole chromosome thing I guess. But it has been sucking up almost every free hour I have.  Hence why my Operative sits at 53, and I still haven’t finished the next Class Storyline Review as I haven’t finished any new chapters of a class story…  because POKEMON.

    I don’t know what it is about this generation of Pokemon (formally dubbed Generation VI from what I’ve gotten from various pokedex websites) that has me so engrossed.  I barely cracked a dent in Diamond, and before that the last one I played was Silver.  Okay, well, Pokemon Snap too.  But I don’t think that counts.  I didn’t even grab up half the gym badges in Diamond, and here I am with Y only days after release knocking on the final gym’s door.  What is up with this version?

    Well for one, I think it has a lot to do with cutting out a lot of the tediousness of the previous games.  You can run right away, in the first major town you visit you get roller skates that make moving even faster, and then a bit later you get a bike which is even faster than the skates.  So moving around before you get fly is much quicker.  The downside to that of course is trying to talk to people who move around.  Oh pikachu on a pita, is it ever hard to stop and talk to them.  Still it’s a small price to pay for greatly speeding things up.

    Speaking of speeding things up, you get the Experience Share device much earlier in this version.  Like almost at the start.  You turn it on from your key items bag and then all your pokemon who are not in the battle get half the experience gained from the battle, and pokemon in the battle all get the same amount of full experience.  That’s right, it’s not split up between them anymore.  Praise Arceus! This makes leveling an entire super easy, and getting your pokemon caught up as well.  Have a level 5 pokemon you want to use but everything else is level 40?  Just drop in the back slot of your line up and it’ll get half the experience of all the battles your up-to-date ‘mon do.  It’ll race up there.

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    The other thing that can’t be overlooked is the massive graphics overhaul. Pretty much all the games up to this point looked like something between the original Zelda and Link to the Past.  In comparison, this would closer to the leap to Ocarina of Time level of graphics.  Only less polygonal.  But the leap is still impressive.  No longer with the fixed overhead camera and 2D sprites, the whole thing gives the world of the Kalos region a much more vivid and lifelike feel to it.

    The final thing I would say that has had me so enraptured is the story.  I know right? Story in Pokemon.  Of course that’s nothing new to veterans of the series.  Diamond & Pearl had a story at least I know.  Pretty sure several of the others did, but it is still one heck of a welcome addition from the Gold & Silver days. Even the whole rival thing is changed up with a much more friendly nature of your neighbor wanting to compete with you as a friend and rival instead of constantly butting heads with you to claim glory for themselves.  The entire game has a much more accepting friendly tone to it.  Even the story seems to be about how we need to embrace friendship and sharing both the good and bad in life to make it through.  Not to say it doesn’t have darker tones with a doomsday weapon, frequent mentions of a war waged with pokemon that ravaged the region long ago, and a tragic story about a king who lost his beloved pokemon and sacrificed hundreds of pokemon’s lives to bring his pet back from the dead.  This is the pokemon I WISH they showed more of in the cartoon.  Can you imagine Ash, Brock and Misty in the plotline of Fullmetal Alchemist? Oh yes.  Yes please. Vry likey.

    Honestly, if you were ever a fan of pokemon I think X and Y is worth a look.  It does away with a lot of the tedium and makes a lot of things that were strange mysterious background mechanics much more transparent and less in the exclusive realm of the min/maxers. It does a great job of remaining true to the core gameplay of the series, while giving it enough of a fresh coat that I think people who got tired of the repetitive nature of the previous games will have something to enjoy in this, and also still be fun for the die hard fans who have every generation of pokemon on their game shelf.  Give it a look, and join in the crowds of stumbling masses who can’t tear their eyes away from the screens. You too will become… A POKE ZOMBIE!

    OH! Also, I would be foolish not to include my 3DS Friend Code for anyone out there who might want to trade or battle or something.  I’ve included it on the side bar of the site under the ‘Find Me On:’ banner, but for those using RSS feeders and don’t want to click to the main site, the code is: 1349-5385-7500.  I also still play Animal Crossing: New Leaf time to time too.  Maybe I’ll see you in the battle arena!

  • Looking Back at Mists of Pandaria

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    It’s been just over a year since World of Warcraft died.  Or at least that’s what people on the forum tell me.  I can still log in it seems, and I see people running around.  Maybe that’s the WoW afterlife.  Doing the same thing you did before WoW died.  Kinda like Dawn of the Dead and that damn mall.  But with WoW.   And unlike the time WoW was ACTUALLY overrun with horrible zombies.  I miss that event.

    Anyway, the big raid has come, we have a new “warchief” (I’m still unsure if he’s a warchief or just the leader of the Horde.  There’s a subtle distinction there that I might go into in another post) and we’ve learned what Wrathion was all on about this whole time.  Everything’s all tidied up now, eh.  So it’s time to look back and talk about what I really loved and hated about this expansion.

    Let’s start on the positive with the things I actually really liked:

    VRY’S BEST

    Grummles: Is there anything these little guys don’t make better?  They brought a smile to my face every time I ran across a camp of them.  From their on-click statements that make to giggle to the demanding of a replacement yak at the “Yak temple” in Townlong, the grummles never got old, never got on my nerves, and still get me to smile and laugh every time these little trailblazers speak up.  Especially the munchies crunchies bit since they do always remind me of Gurgi from Disney’s version of the Black Cauldron.

    The Story:  Everyone who reads this site or knows me online should know that oh man did I ever not like the story of Cataclysm.  The whole thing just felt like a giant let down.  Oh sure, the 1-60 revamp was top notch in terms of storytelling, but 80-85 was a completely divided up mess.  The events of Mount Hyjal had nothing to do with Deepholm or Uldum.  The conflict between the two factions that the entire 1-60 revamp spent building up has practically non-existent except for moments of Vashjir and the Twilight Highlands.  So would Mists be able to pull it all together and deliver a cohesive story?  The answer was Hell freaking yea!  The Shas, the killik swarms being early, the yuangol pushing outward into Kun-lai? All connected.  The battle in Krasarang and the story of the Divine bell? Wonderfully delivered.  And I will be one of those people who defends the Garrosh turning evil story and go on record as saying it was wonderfully told from Burning Crusade straight to the Siege of Orgrimmar.  The only story hiccup I didn’t like?  Well…  I’ll get to that in the Worst section.

    Pet Collecting: I am a collector at heart.  I collect things in games, out of games… furbies (currently at like 30 of them), so when they added a metric crap ton of new pets to collect, I absolutely fell in love with running around and getting them all.  Oh sure, a lot of them were just look alikes or reskins of other pets, but that was fine.  It was something to collect! And it could be done on my time and didn’t require a group!  …Until Throne of Thunder.  That’s got to be the dark spot with the whole pet collecting craze is when they made them raid drops.  Why? WHY?  Even if you could do it in LFR, the drop is so low on some of these that you’ll be running them into the next expansion getting them to drop.  You know, the old raid pets were fine.  It gave you a reason to go back to old stuff that could quite honestly be solo’d most of the time. But Throne of Thunder?  COME ON!  /sigh.  Still it provided hours upon hours of entertainment just collecting these little things and unlocking achievements with it.

    The Seat of Knowledge/The Farm:   Well after the last one on the list, I’m guessing you can probably figure out why this one is a two-fer.  Yes, they both involve collecting things. But more importantly they collect things in the actual world that you can see.  It’s not just an UI option with a list.  I can actually go to the farm and see the yak that was given to me, the cat wandering around, oh and there’s the dog I saved and fed, and the nice little house that was decorated for me by my friend.   That’s a nice feeling when you can tangibly see the reward in the world around you.  Even if no one else but you can.  It feels awesome to walk into the Seat of Knowledge and see the intact artifacts I found lining the walls in shining displays.  Now if only Blizzard would get it together and do player housing where I can customize it too.  Put trophies from defeated raid end bosses on the wall, and my old armors on mannequins for having a complete set.  I would just die for that.  But the Seat and the Farm is about as close as we can get so far and I love it.

    The Pandaren:  Much like the grummles, I found the Pandaren a joy to just mingle with.  The NPCs are given so much enjoyable life throughout the Jade Forest and Valley of the Four Winds that they have permanently embedded themselves snug into my heart.  I still find myself saying “Slow down… life is to be savored!” to people in my best pandaren voice.  Of course, it would be unbecoming to talk about the pandaren and not mention the tragic ending to the tale of Aysa and Ji.  I won’t go into detail for those who wish to avoid spoilers for the Siege, but oh man.  The feels.  There are so many of them.  Large quantities to be sure.  Surplus sale for all these feels. That’s how many.  Who knew those two bit characters from all the way back at the Wandering Isle would show up again at the end of all things?  And who could of predicted such a sad way for it to end?  Still, overall the pandaren have that love of life that I can only wish for.

    VRY’S WORST

    Golden Lotus Dailies: You know, I actually liked most of the dailies in the expansion.  I didn’t have the driving hatred of them that so many did.  It was a fun thing to do everyday.  With one exception.  The Golden F-ing Lotus.  Maybe it was the fact that as soon as you thought you were done, another link in the chain was added?  Maybe it was because you could only do the hubs in order?  Or maybe it was because all the mobs seemed ridiculously tough for a fresh level 90 and are still some of the toughest non-dungeon/raid mobs around?  I did not lament seeing them go when the Vale blew up.  I usually avoided them using the farm and dungeon finder when I could on alts.  Sure it takes longer, but less of a pain.  These dailies just sucked, and the fact that were smack dab likely to be the first thing you tackled at level 90 I can see how many people grew to hate dailies in general.

    The Throne of Thunder:  Behold! The one storyline that Vry actually hated in the expansion!  Yea, I didn’t like the story for the Throne of Thunder very much.  Mostly it came from the fact that the actual villain wasn’t very well established.  Oh sure, during the quests in Kun-Lai we HEAR about all the evil stuff he did way back when, but what does he do when he comes back?  Runs off to his island fortress and then… nothing.  We actually go up to his house and start poking the hornet’s nest with a sharp stick for not much reason either.  He hasn’t done anything since coming back to life to warrant this reaction!  I know, I know, better safe than sorry but it stills feels like an over-reaction.  So what does the terrible Thunder King do?  Well,  he came back from the dead.  He uh… sent his lackies?  And then he totally like broke that bridge and dropped us into a sewer level.  And sewer levels suck! He must die!

    I had hoped that Lei-Shen would get a bit more fleshed out as to why he’s a threat during the dailies, kind of like how the Landfall dailies showed the story of the Divine Bell and what not.   Nope.  Just the Sunreavers and Kirin Tor fighting to take over the island or each other.  That’s all.  Lei Shen shows up once to send a lackey at you ala Rita Repulsa but that’s about it.  What a fricking let down for what seem to be a great build up for a new threat.

    Battlefield Barrens: Oh geeze. The grindfest that was Battlefield Barrens.  It’s like a TV show that had a really great premiere followed by having the same rehashed formulaic episodes week after week until the season finale/next patch.  There was nothing exciting or interesting about Battlefield Barrens other than it wasn’t a daily.  It was a weekly!  I supposed it had those tap-to-anyone-who-damages-it boss mobs that would spawn.  That was a neat mechanic.  But all it did was give you more resources.  The same resources you got from everything else.  And you just grind them. Then turn them in.  That’s it.  That’s all it was.  It just seemed like small potatoes considering what it was building up to.  Heck, the new scenarios gave us more plot than the battlefield barrens quests did.  Mechanically cool, but extremely underwhelming.  The whole thing felt like a technology test for the Timeless Isle.

    Pet Battling:  Oh I love pet collecting.  But I hated battling.  Especially the trainer battles.  Right around the end of Outland going into the Northrend, the strategy quickly changed from ‘level up your favorites and battle with them’ to ‘prepare three precise pets at ze proper level with ze proper abilities to ensure victory over ze veak minded fools!’  It make me miss pokemon where yea, if I didn’t have an optimized team I’d be at a disadvantage, but it didn’t mean a guarenteed butt whoopin! See even the final bosses in Pokemon Red/Blue only used like level 60 or something pokemon.  So if you were determined and had a lot of time on your hands like High School Vrykerion did, you could level any team up to 100 and have a good chance of winning.  But with the trainer battles here, by the time you’re hitting Outland they’ve started using level 25 pets.  That’s max level.  You can’t out level the battles from that point on. So it’s level the right pets or gtfo.  I decided to gtfo.  I still haven’t beaten that undead using punk in Crystalsong Forest.  Go level three rare quality turtles to 25 to win.  F. THAT.

    Pride: The ever looming question in the expansion was the identity of the seventh Sha.  Oh there were plenty of guesses, mostly around the seven deadly sins but heck if I know why since ‘Doubt’ and ‘Fear’ are not deadly sins.  But it was eventually revealed that it was of course, Pride.  Now my problem isn’t with Pride being the seventh sha.  It’s the other stuff surrounding it.  Pride was the Sha that Shaohao could not defeat.  His pride took the form of the Mists that cut off Pandaria from the world.  So why did the Sha of Pride let the Horde and the Alliance in?  I mean, if the mists were his pride that would mean the Sha of Pride would be able to manipulate it yes?  That’s how all the other Shas seem to work.  Using your doubt, fear, hate, etc to take control of you.  So why let them in?  To unleash havoc? How would they know they’d unleash panic? To unleash the Sha?  Well, they do release ONE Sha.  But timeline indications seems to imply that the others may have been active long before the Horde and Alliance found Pandaria.  Especially Fear, who has been causing a good deal of trouble.

    So what’s the deal with the whole pride thing?  It’s stated that Shao Hao possibly parted the mists because his people had grown stagnant and fallen to their own Sha.  Well, that means Shao Hao was in control of the mists?  Did that mean he conquered his pride?  In the Seven burdens of Shao Hao he says he creates the mists because he people needed time to prepare and learn the lessons he did.  So if they grew stagnant instead, why did he wait to part the mists until now?  Why did Yu-Lon say that they parted for a reason involving you (the player)?  GAAAAAH! IT JUST RAISES TOO MANY QUESTIONS!  Nothing else in this expansion has made me pull my hair out more than that.  The puzzle of pride.  Truly it is good until it is bad.

    So that’s my best and worst of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.  Overall, it was a pretty good expansion.  Not my favorite, but far far FAR from the bottom of my list.  What were some of your best or worst moments this expansion?

  • SWTOR Class Storyline Review: Sith Warrior – Prologue

    Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Sith Warrior storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  If you would like a spoiler free summary of the storylines you can find them here.

    || Sith Warrior Chapter 1 –>

    Sith Warrior…  RIIIIIIIISSSSEEEE.

    If you ever wanted to be the dragon to a scheming master, traveling around under orders to silence his enemies and carry out his will to the masses, then you’ve selected the right class for that.  You can think of Sith Warrior as being Darth Vader.  You are at the beck and call of a dark master who you serve, you are a threat to not be taken lightly, and you will – hopefully – command fear and respect.

    I actually have two Sith warriors.  One is a strictly light side one that I only play from time to time, and the one that will I be basing most of these reviews on, the dark side (mostly) dark knight who wishes to carry out the will of his master, but is also honorable in doing so.  He will burn down and kill every enemy he finds, but takes no quarrel with the innocent souls that cross his path.  He does not kill for fun and he does not do so wantonly.  He believes in the Sith ways and the Empire, and will fight for it.  Essentially as I said, a dark knight.  So that is the mentality I’m applying to most of the decisions you will be reading about.

    Korriban

    The Warrior begins just like the Inquisitor with their arrival at the Sith Academy on Korriban.  However, instead of being treated like dirt by a racist prick you actually get immediately lumped into a conspiracy to undermine the admittance guidelines of the Academy to help preserve the Sith tradition from a “half breed” that seems to have been shooting up the ranks.  So in other words, Your new buddy Tremel IS a racist prick but this time you’re helping him.

    Despite the somewhat less racially sensitive goals of your new…  um…  tutor?  Overlord?  Well, he’s not your master.  I do honestly find Tremel to be hilarious.  Especially when he threatens to cut someone in half with all the passion that you would declare that you are planning to open your mail.  Ho hum. Murder. Pshah.  I love this guy!

    Your given various tasks like judging what to do with various prisoners in the jail and slaying a beast in the caves before the poodoo hits the fan.  It seems that you haven’t gone unnoticed by the Sith Lord that you’ve been trying to undermine: Lord Baras.  And depending on your definition of luck, he’s not planning on killing you!  Baras definitely makes his intimidating nature known though.  There are chills when he lectures you about everything that you have done wrong.  However, he’s willing to overlook it if you go back and kill the Overseer that brought you in and return with his hand.

    As Tremel points out this is a brilliant move, because either Tremel is removed from the picture, or you get killed and either way one of Baras’ problems are dealt with.  Of course Tremel views it as either killing you, or admitting that he’s breaking the rules of the Sith.  You’re given a light side way out of the whole thing naturally to just take the hand and let Tremel leave but why would you? What favors has Tremel done for you?  All he’s done is use you to further his goals.  You clearly would have gotten to this stage of the Sith training on your own in time.  I pretty much always end up killing Tremel.  And with that the black guy who wanted to keep the ‘half breeds’ out of the Sith Order dies first.  That’s like… double racism?  Or something?  I don’t know.  He still had it coming.

    So with Tremel dealt with, it’s time to have a good ol’ fashioned showdown with your rival, Vemrin.  Sith apparently always have rivals in school.  They share this lovely trait with Pokemon trainers, who also have a tendency of using others to do their bidding and make liberal use of slavery.  Really, the parallels are kind of creepy.  Pokemon is all about building a power base as an up and coming Sith Lord.

    The rest of Korriban plays out pretty much how you imagine it.  You beat your rival, Baras takes you on an apprentice, you get a lightsaber from a creepy tomb and have to fight a bunch of Sith mummies.  What? You weren’t expecting the mummies?  Oh dear, what ever did you think you’d find in tombs?  Vampires? Hahahahaha. Not yet.  But there is one more nice touch with Tremel’s daughter showing back up and threatening you.  Even if you spared her dad, she still hates you (she just will hate him more).  You get a bit of a fight and she does down easy.  Still it was a nice throwback to an earlier quest, and those are always fun.

    You also meet Vette, your first companion/slave.  And I don’t mean slave as in she’s mechanically a pet that has to do what you say, I mean she’s a slave.  She has a slave collar when you first meet her and you can shock her – A LOT.  She’s a sassy girl who likes to give lip to anyone and everyone she meets, regardless of their standing.  And about each time you are given the option to electrocute her for it.  Now, you can actually be a really nice guy and take the thing off of her as soon as you leave Korriban.  This is pretty much essential to trying to romance her, and as I understand it from others who have done so that she uh…  keeps it.  For kinky reasons.  Yea, not kidding there.  I on the other hand, left it on.  Because I’m a fairly dark side monster.  I’ve come to peace with that fact.

    Dromund Kaas

    The Imperial homeworld provides a new mystery to tackle as the apprentice of Darth Baras.  Apparently, some of your new masters deep, deep, deep, DEEP cover agents have been knocked off lately.  Baras has no idea who the heck could possibly discovered his agents, and wants some answers.  Getting this answers involves you running errands for the rotund ball of Sith all across the planet. Fetching a frozen SIS agent, eliminating some loose ends in Baras’ network on Dromund Kaas, and then finally fetching a torture device for the aforementioned SIS agent.  Really, the intrigue is in watching Baras’ paranoia grow as he struggles to get answers from the SIS agent. This ultimately culminates in a desire to ‘silence’ his spy network that might put him at risk.

    Some of the best moments are probably when you get to infiltrate the rogue Sith lord Grathan’s place and fight him.  Yup.  The Sith Warrior is only class that actually gets to interact with the nefarious rogue lord and his family.  Or can at least. But the enjoyable part is actually getting to kill the Sith apprentice that Baras had working there under cover.  He does nothing but give you crap and then ultimately tries to back-stab you to further his own ambitions.  So you kill him. And no matter if you’re light or dark side, there’s something warm and fuzzy about giving someone their comeuppance.

    Beyond that, there’s not a lot to be said for Dromund Kaas.  You have some excellent opportunities to drive Darth Baras nuts in the dialogue.  You can pester him, ask dumb questions, and at one point say something to him that amounts pretty much to a wordier: “U MAD BRO?”  Baras is shown to be a frustrated and paranoid darth who only maintains his position by having an edge over the competition via his extensive network of spies, servants and informants which is now all at risk from his old nemesis – a Jedi master that was convinced of Darth Baras’ agents infiltrating and betraying the republic a while back and made it his life mission to bring Baras down.  To top that off, it would appear that he has found the perfect tool to do just that.  A new padawan that can apparently see people’s true nature.  Frightful of the implications of this, your master gives you a ship and sends you off to silence his spies before they can be found and to hunt down this padawan, beginning chapter one of the story.

    Final Thoughts

    The Sith Warrior very much mirrors the Jedi Knight in that it seems very slow to build in the beginning, maybe even more so.  You’re given a ton of tonal establishment early on with the kill or be killed merciless nature of the Sith.  The power struggle and need to be constantly vigilant is hammered in quite a bit.  The dark and light side choices are pretty much what you would expect, with the only exception being one quest on Korriban where you are actually punished for choosing the light side.  After getting the stone tablets from the tombs, you find a guy who couldn’t get them. You can choose the light side and give him your shards, which will lead you to having to do the entire quest again.  So you have to do the quest twice if you want to be light side.  Granted, the guy you helped does lend you a hand later on if you do that, but it ends up getting him killed.  So he dies either way.

    However in terms of actual story, not a lot actually happens in this prologue it seems.  Of course, I might be wrong and all of this could come back at some point of another showing it was extremely involved. But I’ve also learned not to judge a storyline by simply the prologue. Heck if I had done that with the Jedi Knight storyline, I would have missed the extremely epic chapter 3 storyline (we’ll get there eventually, I’m replaying the Jedi Knight for these reviews instead of just trying to remember them).

    ((Vry’s Note: And with that, I have officially caught up on all my backlogged Storyline reviews.  Some of them are less thorough than I’d like but the new one’s are being written one planet at a time to help make sure they stay fresh in my mind.  Look forward to more stuff coming soon.))

    || Sith Warrior Chapter 1 –>

  • SWTOR Class Storyline Review: Jedi Consular – Prologue

    Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Jedi Consular storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  If you would like a spoiler free summary of the storylines you can find them here.

    || JEDI CONSULAR|| Chapter One –>

    The Jedi Consular is probably one of the most controversial class stories in the game.  From everything I’ve seen since the game launched people have either loved the Jedi Consular and claimed it was the closest thing to KOTOR 3, or found it absolutely mind numbingly boring.  I haven’t seen a ton of opinions that fell into the middle.  Not that I doubt they exist, but they’re hardly the most vocal responses to the class story.  I’d like to think I’m breaking new ground by making a very public voice saying that at least the prologue of the Jedi Consular is quite possibly the most meh story thus far.

    To give some context to how I’ve been playing my Jedi Consular, so you have some idea how these opinions were formed.  It mostly came from his voice.  The male voice of the consular just sounded so pompous and proud, so SUPERIOR. I couldn’t un-hear it.  So that’s the way I played him.  A fat, gluttonous, prideful, condescending prick.  He hoards knowledge in the desire to be the best and is not above murder to preserve his standing.  He believes he is morally superior and is not capable of doing wrong because of his ‘advanced Jedi mind’.  In that sense he is VERY dark side with a dash of light choices here and there.  Which might seem like a weird way to play this class, but as you’ll see it fits really well in places.

    Tython

    The story of the Jedi Consular actually begins with a mystery.  While clearing out the flesh raiders, you are given the task to retrieve the instructional holocrons created by the founders of the Jedi Order but the last one – belonging to a founder that eventually fell to the dark side – is missing.  The search eventually leads you to a village of twileks who speak of one of their local heroes, and this is where the way I played my Consular and the plot met in beautiful harmony.  You see the Twileks and the Jedi don’t exactly have a great working relationship.  The jedi for the most part refuse to get involved in their suffering of the twileks because they have an “Illegal settlement” or in other words they set up a village on Tython without the approval of the Jedi or the Republic.  So the twileks have no rights to be there, but the kind hearted Jedi won’t shoo them out either.  My pompous jerk Jedi hears this and immediately is dead set that these twileks are trespassers on HIS world.  So he treats them like dirt.  How this works out is that it turns out their local hero has set about teaching himself the dark side specifically because the Jedi refuse to help and are considered to be jerks by the twileks.  So I am pretty much enforcing the stereotype that led to this problem in the first place, and I LOVE it.

    The rest of Tython is pretty much following clues you find to try to beat the twilek who is slowly going mad with the power of the dark side to a secret chamber that the dark side turned Jedi founder created.  It feels a bit like a Jedi equivalent of Indiana Jones and such, deciphering the riddles of the past to find hidden treasure.  During your mission you find yourself teaming up with a friend of your master: Qyzen Fess.  Qyzen is a trandoshan who wishes to collect points to please his goddess the Scorekeeper.  Eventually he gets captured and apparently this causes him to lose all his points.  I’d debate about all or nothing mentality does not bode well for the religion in my opinion, how one set back can cost you a lifetime of effort.  I imagine it’s bit like coming in fourth at the Olympics must feel like.  “Oh crap, was .05 seconds slow on the turn, now my life has been for nothing.” Qyzen’s fun though, because he has delightful snarky commentary for everything.  I’m not sure if HE thinks it’s snarky, but I totally do.  Anyway, he joins you as your first companion.

    The story on Tython wraps up with you getting a lightsaber, beating the twilek and getting a pat on the back from the Jedi Council.  Even dropping the ‘Jedi’ title on you right there, and honestly I liked that a great deal more than the ‘Knight of the Republic’ one the Jedi Knights get.  For one, it isn’t missing punctuation and two it feels more like a title fit for following ‘padawan’.   But things aren’t all happy because your master collapses! She’s got a super bad unknown illness!  WHAT CAN WE DO!? We’ll clearly the most important thing is to move the body to…

    Coruscant

    Okay.  Now that we have Master Yuon to the republic capital, we need to find a cure.  Consult other Jedi!  They know nothing.  Consult the healers!  They know nothing.  Doctors? Zilch.  Okay, so how do we find the cure for this horrible illness?  Well first we need to figure out what it is.  And for that, we need to ask a bunch of datacrons that have gone missing and/or stolen and/or sold after the Jedi Temple got wrecked.  This raises the question of what a holocron is versus a datacron.  A holocron has a hologram artificial intelligence in it, a datacron has a hologram artificial intelligence in it that apparently knows something useful.  Cause the only holocrons I’ve met so far are the ones that had the Jedi founders on them, and they were boring.  And unhelpful.  And kinda jerks.  Oh and one had an evil Jedi that taught a twilek dark powers to destroy the Jedi and almost got me killed.  Datacrons thus far do not do that.

    So you end up chasing down the first datacron, and they have no clue so they tell you to find the second.  So you find the second and they tell you build a house made out of brick.  So you huff and you puff and….   Wait. Getting my stories mixed up.  But you can’t blame me.  It’s the same old thing three times from different jerks who had the cubes.  The only real neat thing to this whole chain of events is that if you are familiar with Knights of the Old Republic you will see some familiar faces.  Faces I wanted to punch in that game too, except now they’re holograms.  I can sill be a jerk to them though and they can’t do a thing about it. So there’s a perk.

    Finally, the whole thing wraps up at the ruins of the Jedi Temple where you use the datacrons to learn the ancient Cure Force Disease 3 (It’s like Cure Force Disease 2 but also replenishes all HP.  And for all you ‘new skool’ kids out there, you can call is Force Disease Curaga or something.)  But then an evil Sith smashes the doohickey and makes it so no one else can ever learn the cure.  He then laughs about evilly, name drops the big bad, and then you smack them with a big rock you pulled from the ground.

    With the thingamajig now crushed, you and you alone have the power to heal those afflicted with this terrible Dark Plague.  But each time you do it takes a bit of yourself to do it, so if you try to cure too much you’ll likely die.  Not that I didn’t just die to the Random Sith McEvilPants twice already, but maybe the Jedi Consular is just a preferred member and has used up all his in-the-field rezes?

    Final Thoughts

    The prologue of the consular is full of archaeological mysteries, secret knowledge, and the making of a villainous plot to unleash a terrible plague upon the Jedi…  and it really couldn’t go about it in a more uninteresting way.  Tython is just a big long ‘find the thing’ mission, and then when the ball finally gets rolling on Coruscant it ultimately just boils down into a ‘find the thing three times’ mission.  Really?  That’s all it is?  No matter how you dress up how you find the thing, it doesn’t change the fact that all I’m looking for is a few cubes with talking dead people in them.  All that keeps the Jedi Consular from teetering into total tediousness is the fact that the reasons you’re looking for the cubes is actually really compelling.  The Dark Plague is a constant ticking clock that first just seems to incapacitate but then you find out can actually turn friend into foe.  It strikes your master first, giving a personal stake in this.  And say what you want about Master Yuon, I can at least remember her name unlike Master What’s His Face in the Jedi Knight storyline.  Though may be the reason I remember it is because they actually CALL her Master Yuon instead of just ‘Master’ in most of the cut scenes.

    So far the Jedi Consular prologue is probably the second weakest, only trailed by the completely unnecessary Jedi Knight prologue.  The story is actually the strongest part and the only thing that keeps the tedious tasks given a float and pulls it up to an astounding meh.  It doesn’t help that for some reason Tython feels like it takes forever to get done with, followed by mindless cube finding missions like you have a mighty need to make a Tetris. Hopefully now that the Dark Plague story arch has taken off I have some fun ahead of me in Chapter 1, and if not well, you’ll hear about it here as always.

    || JEDI CONSULAR|| Chapter One –>

  • SWTOR Class Storyline Review: Trooper – Prologue

    Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Trooper storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  If you would like a spoiler free summary of the storylines, you can find them here.

    Class Storyline Review: Trooper Chapter One >>

    trooper1

    The trooper was the first class I ever played way back in the November beta weekends of the game.  In many ways it was the class that introduced me to the game and its mechanics.  Really it was a choice of elimination.  The Jedi and Sith areas were crowded beyond belief, I wanted to play a Bounty Hunter when the game launched, and I had no desire to play a squishy ranged class when I was first learning the game.  So the heavy armor wearing republic trooper seemed the logical choice for testing out the game.

    I was lucky that the trooper’s storyline has probably one of the best starts in terms of prologue.  While other classes spend the prologue establishing the status quo and familiarizing yourself with some of the major NPCs you’ll be getting to know, the trooper storyline pretty much jumps right in and uses the prologue as an establishing point from the starter world in terms of the story.  While the Jedi Knight and the Consular don’t get the story rolling until Coruscant, by the time you finish the trooper starter world you’ve already established your primary antagonists and your mission.

    My mistake was going for a pure light sided trooper.  See, light side and dark side choices are interesting for non-force users.  It seems to vary from class to class, but for the trooper the light side choices tend to be “For the People/Republic” and the Dark Side choices seem to be “For the Military”. So if you’re on orders to stop someone who may be innocent, arresting them would be a dark side choice, and trusting their word that they are innocent is a light side choice.  Whether or not they are innocent is not the question, but who do you put your trust in.  My first trooper in the beta was pure light sided.  Always took the high road.  And you know what? He was one annoying dude.  Like cheesier than Superman but with none of the depth that defines their moral path.  I wanted to smack him.  When I made the trooper that I’m basing these reviews on, SHE (FemShep ftw) is a cold, logical military cyborg.  Light or dark is irrelevant. She does the mission and chooses accordingly. She listens to her superiors and her superiors only.  That’s how she’s “programmed”.  Kinda like a bad ass military Robocop.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s just say that if you’re looking for a good place to jump in for a solid story, the trooper is far and away the best place to start.  Anyway, let’s hop into it:

    Ord Mantell

    Welcome to the Republic Military, and more specifically to the elite unit of Havoc Squad!  You’re apparently so elite, that despite your fellow squad members being armored to their teeth in the latest defensive gear, you start out wearing a t-shirt and pants.  T-shirt.  And pants.  That are heavy armor.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I really get to start out like that?  Oh well.  Pretty much most of the story for the trooper on Ord Mantell involves a powerful (and expensive, seeing how they keep mentioning the cost of the thing) missile that could easily level the whole island.  It was stolen by the local separatists who apparently don’t much care for the Republic or their planet being part of said Republic and it’s up to Havoc Squad to track it down.  Mostly you, with an occasional cameo by the other Havoc members to assist in an interrogation… or opening a door.

    It’s a constant hunt as the separatists are routinely one step ahead of you.  They kill your contact and move the device from the base just before you get there, so your only lucky break comes in the form of bribing a couple of separatists moving the thing who contracted radiation poisoning from it with medicine.  (Whether you give them the medicine or not is naturally up to you.) Ultimately, you find out that the separatists have moved the bomb to their volcano base – a plot point that I consider to be one of the most AWESOME things on the planet.  I LOVE secret evil volcano lairs.  There you find out that the Seps are receiving aid from the Empire, which pretty much shocks no one.  Still, it’s the only republic class storyline that directly involves the Empire as early as the starter planet (Yes, they’re technically there in the Smuggler storyline, but they don’t have anything to do with it.)

    Then the merciless and cruel twist happens.  You wanna know how they knew to always stay a head of you?  Turns out that all of Havoc Squad sans you is actually defecting to the Empire and the stolen explosive is their ‘gift’ to their new bosses.  The reasons given are that the Republic doesn’t value the efforts of ‘True Soldiers’ and already I’m having Metal Gear flashbacks.  Is Tavus just Big Boss with a bitchin porn stache?  Luckily you deactivate the bomb before they can get away with it.  And then it’s off to Coruscant to start the hunt for the traitors.

    We are also introduced to Jorgan Von Strangle… er… I mean Aric Jorgan.  A Cathar soldier that ends up being your first companion and first replacement member in your new Havoc Squad.  Jorgan is a career soldier through and through.  He doesn’t care for politics, he only wants to do his duty.  I find him annoying and repeatedly demean him as “Sergeant Meowmers”.  He starts out as a grumpy ass because he got demoted as a causality of Tavus’ defection, he continues to be a grumpy ass because he’s Jorgan.  Let’s be fair.  He’s just a grumpy guy.  How he ‘endears’ himself to you on Ord Mantell is constantly chewing you out for every mistake.  The only pleasure in this is that you can kick his butt once you’re his superior.

    Ord Mantell does a great job of setting up a conflict, giving you a villain, giving you a personal reason to want to stop them as well as a professional one, and does so with a satisfying totally makes sense but didn’t see it coming twist.  Tavus dismisses early concerns about the Empire being involved, no one outside of Havoc Squad and Jorgen knew about the operations to tip off the Seps, and because of the tip offs it seemed perfectly justified when they left you behind during the Volcano mission due to your perceived “failures”.  Out of the Republic classes, this one is probably my favorite starting planet story.  It’s not epic like the Jedi Knight, it’s not funny like the Smuggler, but it gives you all the groundwork in a nice neat package.  If only the same could be said for…

    The Republic Trooper moonlights as a Ghostbuster apparently
    The Republic Trooper moonlights as a Ghostbuster apparently

    Coruscant

    There’s always one planet that just doesn’t need to be there, isn’t there?  Coruscant is where most of the republic classes get the set up for their act 1 stories, but for the trooper it’s just a bunch of mini stories lumped together by the overall strand of hunting down Tavus’ mentor who might have a lead as to where the traitors might be going.

    It’s not to say there’s not some shining moments in all of that.  There’s a great moral dilemma in the mission to stop the mad scientist from turning people into living time-bomb cyborgs.  You find a group of test subjects that may or may not have been turned into weapons already.  They’re sleepers, so even they wouldn’t know until it was time to go on a killing spree.  It’s a huge risk to let them all out, and there’s no way to know if one or all of them were cyborg-ized, so the choice comes down to kill them or not.  The safest choice is to kill them really.  There’s seven of them or so and if just one of them goes nutzoid on a crowd of people that’s likely far more than seven dead.  But you don’t KNOW if they will.  So you might be killing a small group of completely innocent people.  It’s really good, and actually gave me pause to think about what to choose the first time I encountered it.

    The other scene I really liked was when you get called to a senate hearing about the rumored defection of Tavus and the former Havoc Squad.  The General does her double speak thing where she can’t TELL you to lie, but she isn’t telling you to be honest with them either.  So you get in there and you get to play CSPAN where you can be completely honest with the people who help run the entire Republic, or lie to them, or just be really really ambiguous.  I’ve seen enough ‘A Few Good Men’ to know to go with option 3.  The best part comes right after you finish Coruscant and have to go to a space station to save the one senator who gave you the most crap during the hearing.  You can choose to let him die to go after the Havoc traitor that kidnapped him, or save him and let the traitor go.  (I saved him. Mission first, revenge later.)

    Coruscant was mostly a kind of bleh planet to my trooper.  A few memorable bits, but overall there’s nothing to really get you ramped up.  Mostly I just sat there rolling my eyes saying “Can I PLEASE go kill the backstabbers now…”  You get introduced to some reoccurring characters like your superior General Garza, and the always awesome Jaxo.  Honestly my first impression of Jaxo was ‘Why isn’t this awesome chick on my crew instead of grump sergeant meowmers?’ Though a few less than spoiler free glances at TORHead may or may not suggest there’s a reason for that.  I stopped looking once I realized it might spoil anything, but I get the impression that there will be much more with Jaxo later on.  Consider me excited, Jaxo rocks.

    Final Thoughts

    The Trooper Prologue is probably one of the most solid starts to a story I’ve seen thus far in the game.  As I said before it firmly grounds you with a personal and professional beef in the events.  The biggest shortcoming was the meandering nature of the Coruscant story arc.  A lot of it felt like padding before the real adventure resumed in Act 1.  I mean, would it have been so bad to actually have Wraith, the traitor you square off with during the senator kidnapping, be the one you were chasing throughout Coruscant?  She is an infiltration expert, so sliding around the lower levels is not out of the question.  Working underworld contacts to help secure a potential re-invasion of Coruscant?  Maybe? I don’t know.  All I know is that at the moment the whole mentor thing just felt like an unnecessary bit to give us something to do.  But maybe that will change.  Maybe the mentor will come back in a later chapter, and I’ll eat my words on this.  It’s not the first time.

    Class Storyline Review: Trooper Chapter One >>

  • Going Galactic

    Thus far in my MMO career I’ve primarily bounced back and forth between two games: World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Oh sure, I’ve dabbled here or there in other games.  Occassionally I still jump in and have a swim in the waters of Dungeons & Dragons Online (Less so now that they’ve decided to abandon Eberron for Forgotten Realms, but I could write a whole other post – and might – about that beef), and my copy of Guild Wars 2 still sits firmly installed for when I just want to wander and have fun.

    So now the pendulum has swung back and I’ve decided to wander back into TOR for a bit.  Why?  Well, I won’t speak ill of patch 5.4 for World of Warcraft because by no means do I feel it was bad, but for the moment there’s not a lot of time investing fun to be had beyond leveling alts.  The Raid Finder (aka the only raiding Vry does anymore because every raiding guild I’ve ever run with boils down to petty drama bulls*&%) is more frustrating than anything when the wings are just opening.  People rushing in like cattle to the slaughter.  Best to wait until everything opens up and people start getting used to the mechanics and fights before wading into the thick of it.

    WoW vs SWTOR: The Metaphor… I guess?

    The Timeless Isle however IS content I can sink my teeth into.  It’s fun and open.  I like just wandering in circles and seeing what I can find.  I LOVE the trivia daily as you can imagine.  But the problem with the Timeless Isle right now is that it’s pretty much the ONLY thing to do outside of Proving Grounds (Solo) and raiding (slaughter house), so the Island is PACKED.  And the problem with the island being packed full of players running around and killing everyone and everything in sight is that the place becomes so ridiculously overfarmed the only chance to do anything is just to chest hunt.  Hey! A rare is up! Oh, it’s dead before I can reach it because 100 people were camping it. Oh another one! Hurrry scurry murray hurr-  Oh, dead again.

    Then if you’re lucky to find the Island at a time when it’s NOT busy as hell, good luck having the killing power to take down the big game.  I mean, I enjoy the fact that I can at least kill my 20 elites in peace, and maybe actually tag an albatross, but at the same time it seems like some of the bigger mobs require a group effort to bring down.  So when the island is bare, you’ve got yet another problem.

    Really, the only solution I’ve come to with the island is that it’s great fun, and will continue to be great fun when I’m killing things on it next expansion when I’m 95 in bad ass gear cutting my way through it solo because no one needs to gear up alts anymore.  AKA the “How Vry plans to do the Isle of Thunder achievements” plan.

    However I don’t plan to just abandon World of Warcraft for months on end.  Oh heck no.  I’ve been having a ball just going back and leveling my alts.  My monk just made it to Northrend, and for the first time in a good long time I get to explore the Alliance side stories in Northrend. Which despite all the talk of Horde bias in recent years, the Alliance stuff in Northrend is REALLY good story-wise.  The Cult of the Damned infiltrating their ranks in the Borean Tundra, recovering the Ashbringer for Tirion in the Howling Fjord, reuniting with the Westfall crew in the Grizzly Hills…  there’s a lot of good stuff there.

    Meanwhile it SW:TOR there’s a lot to catch up on.  I came back to just miss the bounty hunter week so I’m curious to try that out. I just finished up my Makeb reputation and am currently setting all my 55’s to complete the Section X one before moving on the new Czerka area.  And I’ve started a bunch of alts fresh to try out some new experiences in the game (Light side inquisitor, good guy agent, bad guy jedi, greedy bounty hunter) as well as have a refresher for the class storyline reviews.  Which for those who haven’t seen yet, you can find spoiler-free paragraph long class storyline summaries here now. I’ll be doing more reviews soon hopefully.

    I know TOR has gotten a ton of crap over it’s short life, but I still find it quite enjoyable to play.  Okay, not every aspect of the game is amazing.  The cartel market constantly swings between “That’s AWESOME” and “You’ve got to be kidding me” for one.  But they’ve also done some pretty cool things.  Like the new flashpoints, while devoid of fun conversations, are designed to be done with any combination of classes and roles.  3 tanks and one healer? Cool.  4 DPS? Fine.  (On the Hard mode, it’s still the typical 2 DPS/1 Tank/1 Healer arrangement, but that’s fine)  This is pretty much like WoW scenarios.  Which I love.  Like a lot.

    But when it comes down to it, the stories in TOR is what keeps me coming back to it over something like Guild Wars 2 or DDO.  I had 10 – TEN – different playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 & 2, 6 characters in Dragon Age 2, and yes, I loved ME3 ending and all.  Is it any shock that playing through the class stories and seeing how different choices play out is really fun for me? Even if there’s a ton that’s the same every time?  Plus they’ve done a great job of fixing up a lot of the annoyances in the game that were there at the launch.  The group finder works great, the later worlds seem to be retuned a bit, and the legacy unlocks and new travel consoles make getting around much less of a head ache.  The only thing that still drives me nuts is that with F2P or preferred, you only get 5 on-site rezes per character.  Then you have to go back to the med center always unless you buy more.  Really?  Can’t you just put a ridiculous cooldown on that one instead?  Like you can only on-site rez once per 4 hours for F2P, or 2 hours for preferred if you don’t have a medi-droid contract (first 5 is free, then you have to purchase further medi-droid contracts in the market. Or else you go on a wait list – aka long cooldown).

    So if you happen to be on Begeren Colony, keep an eye out for the Vrykerion legacy running around.

  • A Nerdy Nursery Rhyme

    Mary had a little lamb,

    It’s fleece was white as snow.

    Everywhere that Mary went,

    The Lamb was sure to go.

    Little did the little lamb know,

    This obligation would be its tomb.

    Because Mary had a special mission,

    And no one returns from Z’ha’dum…

  • Odd Aside: Vry vs Internet Acronyms

    Today’s Internet Acronym:  GPOY

    Vry’s Guesses as to What the Hell It Means:

    Good Post On You

    God’s Pity On You

    Garage Pictures of Yours

    Great Perception, Old Yeller

    Grand Party of Yaks

    Google Pities Original Yaps

    Gargantuan Purple Old Yeti

    General Presence Omits Yiddish

    Good Porridge Originates Yen

    Good Pippin, Orcs Yucky

    … And The Actual Answer:  Gratuitous Picture of You

    Seriously?  *looks over tumblr*  ….REALLY?  Geeze I must be getting old.

  • Art Mimics Life: The Game Dev Tycoon Review

     

    Can I just say how much I am absolutely in LOVE with Game Dev Tycoon?

    mediocresequel
    You don’t say…

     

    The games only been out for only maybe a few weeks tops and I am absolutely addicted to it.  Constantly trying new combinations of style and genre, laughing at the fun being poked at actual real world gaming events (The Xbox One-80, Nintendo dropping the CD expansion for the SNES only to have it become the Playstation, the PS3 launch price and over bloated ego about the demand, etc), and then just trying to create the most awesome game possible.

    I’m still not sure how much the name of the game factors into the success.  My girlfriend has had great success with “Another Stupid Baby Game” but “A Mediocre Sequel That You Will Buy” didn’t sell as well (Shocker. Truly.)  However, the game actually called me out on using the default title “Game #34” saying that the game was as uninspired as the title. So uh… maybe it does pay attention?

    If you like simulation games that have a good sense of depth but without a bazillion things you have to micro manage, I’d definitely recommend picking it up.  There’s a ton of fun to be had just poking fun at the past time we all love, not to mention easter eggs to find that unlock hidden achievements, and who doesn’t want to see how much you can make by just put out a new installment of the same series every year? (Hint: It doesn’t end well)

    So far my most successful ventures have been PC Fantasy RPGs (Griffon Age: Beginnings, Griffon Age II: Freedom Flies), PC Alternate History RPGs (Clock Punk: The Battle for Neo London, and my smash hit MMO Clock Punk Multiverse – yes, you CAN make an MMO. And expansions.  You can also make Steam.) and PC Cyberpunk RPGs (Dirk Spaceman Zero: Dirkness Rises – a prequel to my failed Space Action Dirk Spaceman series).

    Game Dev Tycoon is available on Steam as part of the Greenlight Games for $9.99. I recommend it as a great escape and fun side game to just kill time with.  Just be careful.  I sank 6 hours – SIX – into this game my first night with it and didn’t even realize.