Just for Giggles

I don't usually post up other people's stuff on my own blog, but this just made me giggle. :)

Strange Choices

I'm not sure I completely understand the moral choices in this game.
I'm playing on the Republic side, a Jedi toon, and I came across a Flesh Raider baby in a backpack, just lying on the road next to a corpse. Now, wouldn't that be a perfect opportunity for some serious Light/Dark points? But no! There was no choice at all. I was forced to go hunt meat for the stinking little bugger, and the meat of a Greater Guid too. (Oh har har har.) I was seriously surprised that there were no options like: leave the filty beast to die, or kill the putrid larvae right away. I ended up taking the thing to the Jedi Temple to be adopted by some cat-person. Very odd quest.

And another strange moral choice came up a bit later. I was in the Twi'lek village and I was given the choice to become the "sister" of the new Twi'lek Matriarch. Apparently to become her sister is a Dark choice. Well, I took it! I guess the whole idea is that Jedi aren't supposed to have any family bonds or emotional attachments...or maybe we're supposed to have a racial hate for "head-things"? Strange.

Another question: I wonder if that quest is a romance option if you're playing a male toon?

That's a Taxi??

I haven't been playing SWTOR all that much lately due to RL stuff, but I found this pic in my screenshots folder and I thought I'd share. This is what you get to ride as a taxi in some parts of Alderaan. Pretty freaking cool. I call it a Sky Manta. Wish I could have one of them instead of a boring clunky ol' speeder.

Qyzen the Cross Dressing Lizard

Honestly, I only put the dress on him cuz it had good stats! And I didn't think it would be PINK! (That was an added bonus, hee hee!)

But now it makes me giggle to see my scaly friend dashing about with his pretty frock on, fighting evil and being stylish at the same time. I think he likes the way it feels on him. I'm too scared of his big teeth to ask him though.  :)

Too bad I couldn't have put such a girly dress on Big Ugly! That would have been a worthy screenshot as well. LOL

Honestly, the costume designers of this game should be shot...or better yet, forced to wear their ridiculous designs out in public for a week. I know, I know! This is not the Really Real World. But seriously, what kind of Jedi Warrior wants to wear a skirt? Or a FAB-ulous pink housecoat like Mini-Godzilla here?

Okay, enough about fashion, let's talk gameplay. Spiral 2.0 is level 16 now and doing quite nicely. I've noticed that some of the spells/skills on this toon are identical to the Sith Sorcerer side. Lame. They couldn't even give them a new name or icon? Wow. Talk about rushing the game out!

Loads of quests to do, but skipping all the Heroics cuz the server I chose is sooooo empty. I think there were 13 people on the Republic Fleet last night. Super quiet. But it's nice, cuz I'm not waiting for boss spawns or getting too much lag. And it's also cool to just focus on my own stuff for a change, rather than worrying about keeping up with my guildies or whatever. I haven't been playing Huttball at ALL. Totally bored of all the PVPs. Questing is more fun, especially since the developers have done a fantabulous job on the story lines. Very interesting. Better than watching a movie, cuz it's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure!

Private Dancer

My adventures on the Light side continue with an unexpected trip to a strip club, or dancer's den. I went there to find a guy's "beloved", whom he said was kidnapped and forced into dancing. I won't give the plot away though...no spoilers here!
But as I was leaving the joint, I noticed these two in a corner. The girl on the lighted stand was doing the most ridiculous dance moves, with kicking and a wiggling choo-choo thing and all sorts of silly stuff. And I swear the other girl was either laughing or telling her, "No, no, no!" The dance was definitely NOT sexy!
It makes me smile to think that the developers or programmers or artists or whomever have a sense of humour and put these little vignettes in the game for people like me to discover.
So next time you're out galavanting around the universe, so focused on your quests and killling 20 gang members or collecting 14 Bantha hides or whatever, stop for a moment and look around. You might just find something interesting. :)

Good vs Evil

So I got the new Spiral to the Republic Fleet and found it to be quite nice indeed. One of the best features is that there are fountains in the place where, on the Imperial Fleet, there are big gaping holes that an unsuspecting, clumsy and rushing Sith can plummet to her death if she just so happens to jump over a railing in her impatience. Not that it happened to me. No, it was this other crazy girl I knew.  ;)

I'm finding it nice to make good conversation choices for a change, although it can be a bit dull to keep saying, "It is an honour" and "I'm here to help". Gag!
But actually the Sage skills are fun and very traditional. They really make me feel like I'm a Jedi and part of the Star Wars saga. I think I always related more to the Light side when I was a bright-eyed little girl watching these movies, so playing the new Spiral brings back fond memories. And it suits me right now, as I'm feeling tried of being the bad guy, in virtual as well as real life.

People diss video games as mindless entertainment, or hopeless addiction, but for me video games sometimes act as a way to delve deeper into my ideas, opinions and feelings. Too philosophical for a blog post?  Ha! Just saying, a game like SWTOR that brings up moral choices, social responsibilities, plus the challenges of playing with a group of real people (hiding behind avatars) can be a gateway to becoming more self-aware.

Now to the Dark side. I just couldn't stay away, to be honest! I made a new toon named Scorned, a very appropriate name for me right now. She is a Sith Pureblood, and on her way to being a bad-ass Juggernaut tank.

Scorned fulfills my need to get pissed at the world and just saber men to pieces. She makes no apologies for her anger. She does not hesitate to tell people what she really thinks. She is my Dark side, full of righteous indignation, self-serving demands and yellow-eyed insensitivity. I'm hoping I can find the right balance between her and the saccharine-sweet Spiral 2.0. We shall see, dear readers, we shall see.

Changes

I've switched servers and started a new Spiral, a Jedi. I've turned my music back on, I'm reading/listening to all the quest dialog, and I'm going to try to enjoy the game for itself.
I will not be renewing when my three months is up. While I enjoy playing, it is not worth the money when other MMOs are FTP.

Always Time for Dancing

Dancing with my devils

Dancing to celebrate Foundry win

Low Graphics FTW

Spiral has a sexy new outfit. And it's actually even sexier than I had planned!
See, when I bought it at the Super Special Secret Shop it showed a preview picture like Spiral on the left, with a nice pink cloth "butt flap" etc. But when I put it on her, it showed up like the pictures on the right, a barely there white bikini! It didn't take long to figure out that it was my low Character Detail setting that was removing my clothes from me.  :)
So I guess having a fail computer does have perks after all!

I think she looks fabulous, btw, and also I really like being different than every other toon running around the Fleet. I turn a lot of heads, that's for sure! I tried to use it as a distraction techinique in Huttball, but they didn't fall for it. <shrug>

Sexy Spiral

Phishing Email

I got my first phishing email for SWTOR this morning, woot! It was the standard "you're trying to sell your account, give us your password and secret question" scam. I didn't fall for it, oh no no. I'm too smartsy for that. :)
So I displayed the message content, which shows the true sender behind the fake, copied that and forwarded it to support@swtor.com. I received this interesting reply within a half hour.

Greetings Spiral,
I am Protocol Droid K8-I6 of Human Cyborg Relations.
Thank you for forwarding us the suspicious mail that you received for us to investigate further.
After looking into this, we can confirm that the email you received was not legitimate. We would ask that you do not reply to it, or click on any links that it contains as doing this may compromise the security of your account.
(*lots of helpful advice here*)
Galactic Support is our Specialty…
Sincerely,
Protocol Droid K8-I6 (aka Andrei)

I had a nice little giggle at the Protocol Droid thing! I thought it was very appropriate for the whole SWTOR theme, plus it meshed with the fact that most customer service emails sound like they've been written by a robot. Well done, Human Cyborg Relations department. High fives and head butts all around!

Foundry Fun

LASERS!!

This is my and my boys in The Foundry, watching lasers and about to DIE. Yup, we got our butts handed to us on a large silver platter by a giant gooey momma-bug who spawned immediately after those lasers hit that tower.

Look how relaxed and calm we are.

We are so confident in our uber-ness.

We're just hanging out watching the stars and drawing hearts in the sand.

And we have no idea that in mere seconds we're going to be coated in noxious spittle that explodes our juicy eyeballs, burns our armor off and rots our flesh from our bones.

Yup, good times.

Ashara

Who is this suspicious-looking woman, alien...womalien? It's Ashara Zavros, whom I have not-so-affectionately nicknamed SquidHead. Honestly, doesn't it look like she has a giant blue and white squid wrapped around her noggin? Poor girl! And I'm truly not sure if her face is covered in clown makeup or if that's her natural pigments. I guess I need to read up more on her species, which is called (Googling....please stand by) Togruta.

One of my guildies last night said that they pass out if you punch them in the "tentacles". Or maybe that was for Vette, the other SquidHead species? I dunno. But honestly, why would you punch someone in the tentacles? And if your tentacles were so sensitive, wouldn't you keep them protected? Like in armor or tucked away somewhere? Hmm, maybe that's why SquidHead looks so nervous and shifty-eyed in this picture. She's watching out for random tentacles-punchers.


She's not a bad companion. She dual-wields lightsabers and jumps into the fray quite enthusiastically. However, she also has all these annoying cheerful sayings, like: "With the Force I can do anything", and "I hope I haven't displeased you.", and "The Light Side will protect me from people who want to punch me in the tentacles." Okay, that last one was made up. But you get the point! She's irritatingly nice and polite and optimistic and totally no fun for my Sithy badness. Except that I like shocking her with my Dark side choices.

I also read today somewhere, maybe Torhead, that she doesn't like any gifts at all from female characters. I thought that there was going to be same-sex relationships in this game, that's what I heard around the General chat, but maybe it hasn't been implemented yet. Or maybe she just doesn't go that way. Or maybe it's cuz I'm a bad-ass Sith. Who knows? But there should be a way for me to gain her affection, in order for her to do Diplomacy missions for me more effectively.
Hmm, perhaps she just needs a punch in the tentacles to motivate her...

P.S. Thanks to Heka for the "womalien" word! It fits perfectly!

Sith Corruption

Just for kicks, I turned on the Sith Corruption option in the Preferences Menu, under Social. This is a pic of the difference in Spiral. She is Dark IV right now. Yeah, the evil one is on the left! LOL

I love choosing the Dark side stuff in conversations, it's so hilarious! Spiral has the most evil voice and she relishes the demise of her enemies. I think the phrase I hear her say most often is: "There will be no survivors."

I keep being told that there is a point to choosing Dark or Light side, but so far I haven't found it. (Other than the intense satisfaction I get from watching those engineers get sucked out into deep space!) I have visited the Dark Side vendor on the Fleet, but I didn't see anything I really liked. Every now and then a mob drops a piece of gear that requires a certain alignment to wear it, but other than that, I haven't noticed a big advantage to choosing one way or another. Perhaps it's something that will be improved upon as the game evolves. I do like to idea of having Dark-specific gear as you level your alignment. I want to have purely evil clothes or jewelry or something. Perhaps a necklace of Ewok tails?

Boarding Party First Try

Dex, Aydenn and I did Boarding Party last night, with Dex's new companion, Big Fuzzy, tanking for us as we didn't have any guildies online who were big tanks. It was a long, arduous trial. We took it pretty slow and did remarkably well. We were kinda shocked, I think!

The first boss went down not too badly, and Aydenn went AFK for a minute before we looted. Dex and I were mucking about, and he accidentally looted the boss and a beautiful orange chest piece came up, all tricked out with Aim for Aydenn. We shouted into our mics, "COME  BACK!" but he didn't come back from AFK before the timer counted down, so Dex ended up getting a sweet piece of gear that he cannot use. <sigh> It was a heartbreaker for Aydenn, that's for sure. But it was an accident, so it's all good.

Aydenn showed us how much he deserved that loot too, when he took down this big-ass robot boss all by himself. Dex and I were taking naps on the floor, while Aydenn danced around the boss and kicked his metallic butt. Rock on, Mazerbeam!!

But in the end, the last fight, there were three bosses at once, and we just couldn't do it. We tried all sorts of strategies and plots and plans and techniques. We tried extra stims and more medpacs and buffs and crossing our toes while whistling "I Will Survive". No go.
I guess it was just that we were underpowered, and also I forgot to mention that I re-spec'd Spiral for DPS. (woot!!) So she was trying to be healer, and the two boys were DPS-ing like mad, and Big Fuzzy tanking, but we just couldn't kill everyone. Finally Dex gave a shout-out and a nice lvl 50 healer named Medicaid came to our rescue. Then the fight was over so quick! We were all shaking our heads.

So a good run with some great guildies and a few choice pieces of loot for all. Until next time!

Spiral Hacks!

Check me! I went into Hutt Ball last night and fell through the floor in the respawn room, before the match even started! I fell and fell and fell, and watched the Hutt Ball court get smaller and smaller above me. I ended up on a black space but the scenery around me was all a beautiful city, lit up with foggy orange lights.
Then it said "Spiral has been defeated". And I died with a horrible scream! You can see in the chat on this screenshot that Heka (Hekette) is saying, "How did you die?" It was so funny!
Except that when I respawned, it did it again. I couldn't play Hutt Ball with my guildies.  :(
I had to exit the Warzone and requeue, but the FoTDG ended up having an awesome time PvP-ing for most of the night. Cheers to my guildies! DRINK!

What Are They Up To?

I went in the cargo hold of my ship the other day and found Big Ugly and Andy hard at work on something. Not sure what they're up to. Very suspicious! Especially since when I went back to the bridge, Andy was still in his usual place, leaning against a wall by the galaxy map, and when I checked the bunks, Big Ugly was still in his place as well. Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe they know it's my birthday soon and they're making me...a new light saber?

Or maybe they're just fixing stuff that they broke during a friendly arm-wrestling match.

Or maybe that machine is just a big vegetable slicer and they're whipping up some nice Tauntaun stew.

Who knows?

Credits are Meant to be Spent

I've been on a shopping escapade for the last few days in game. I traveled about the universe talking to all sorts of vendors, from Drummond Kaas all the way to Ilum (scary!). It's kinda funny that I'm obsessed with clothes in game, because in RL I don't like shopping at all!

Anyway, the problem with SWTOR is that the clothes with the nice stats all look ugly (so far). There is no skinning option, or color customization, like I've seen in other MMORPGs. Although there is Orange rarity gear that you can mod yourself, but I still think there is some sort of natural stats that you would lose out on. I believe Purple rarity gear is better than Orange too, so you may trick out some pretty outfit with mods, then get a Purple drop and wreck your whole look.

On top of that is the whole Sith hood issue, which I've talked about before. I want to show off Spiral's pretty hair and flashing green eyes. No hoods for me. And I prefer sexy pants or a shorter skirt, or something other than a long, heavy robe. Blah. I was chatting it up with a male sorcerer and I felt bad for him...he has to wear robes too! The conversation turned a bit dirty -- of course, cuz that's how we roll in FoTDG -- and we decided that Force users need to wear robes to, errr, cool off their privates.  LOL

Anyhoo, I found this lovely little purple number on Balmorra. It's actually white gear, so I bought it just to have some dancing clothes! When I need to rend the heavens with intense chains of destructive lightning, I'll put on my work clothes.  :)