A New Hope

So I did it. I bought STAR WARS The Old Republic (SWTOR or just TOR). I wasn't planning to. I couldn't afford it. I wasn't even sure if it would run on my ancient computer...but my online friends, Heka & Maze, were doing it so I decided to be a lemming and jump off the cliff with them.

My first day playing TOR was good and bad. The download took for-EVAH! While I was waiting, I Googled like a madwoman to find out if I could actually run the game on a single-core Pentium 4. And just to be on the safe side (and to spoil myself) I ordered a new dual-core CPU online to upgrade my saggy processor.


Turn on the lights please!

The good part was that the game started up and ran fine, albeit on the lowest possible graphics settings. I was impressed! I didn't meet the minimum specs and the game ran! Woot! The main thing I noticed was that loading screens were super long, and also that sometimes in high population areas it would look like someone turned off the lights. That was actually kinda fun, running around in the dark shadows. I found out later that Heka was having the same issue, and he was running the game on a snazzy Alienware laptop. So I was glad I wasn't the only one.

We decided to go bad-ass and chose Empire instead of Republic for our first toons. I made a Sith Inquisitor, Heka became a Sith Warrior, and Maze chose Bountyhunter. We all chose humans as our race. Not sure why. I don't even know if there is a race bonus to any class or not!

Actually, as I'm writing this, I realize that I don't know much about this game at all! This blog might be all about me trying to figure what the heck I'm doing.  :)
For example, I had to have Maze explain to me why he wasn't Sith. I thought all Empire were Sith. And then I was confused cuz I thought Sith was a religion, but it turns out there are Sith Purebloods, who are a race. I think.
I'm very careful to keep my mouth shut about this in game with other players. There are some really hardcore SW fans out there who get on General chat and start sabering each other new buttholes when someone screws up a "historical" fact about the game...er, world. They take this all very seriously!

I can't say that I'm NOT a Star Wars geek though. The sound of the original score music played in the game's opening scene brought a huge smile to my face! I remember playing Star Wars with my next door neighbour when I was a wee kid. I had a Star Wars lunchbox, Star Wars bedsheets, and last year I finally sold my Star Wars figurines to a very excited toy collector. They were original 1974 figures, and right now I'm kinda sad they're not standing on my desk admiring the power of my Force.

So I've been playing for a few days now and have lots to blog about, but I'll save that for another post. That is, if I can tear myself away from Hutt Ball for a few minutes!