22/12/2011

About Shintar

I'm a 40-year-old Austrian who's been living in the UK for more than ten years. I consider myself a gamer, but a fairly monogamous one - I generally devote myself to one or two games at a time, and that devotion usually lasts for years. Gaming is an incredibly cheap hobby when you approach it like that.

I got into MMOs by purchasing World of Warcraft in late 2006, shortly before the release of the first expansion, and I loved it. At first I just gushed about it on my personal blog and on various forums, until I created a separate blog dedicated to WoW only in mid-2009. I certainly had a good time with it, made many friends, and even met a special someone in my guild for whom I eventually decided to move cross-continent. Unfortunately I grew increasingly dissatisfied with WoW during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and then Cataclysm, until I stepped away from both the game and writing about it in early 2012. (I've since reconnected with it on a more casual level since the release of Classic.)

As far as Star Wars goes, I'm just young enough to not have seen the original trilogy in theatres until the special edition came out, which I loved. (And I don't really care who shot first.) As a result I went through a big Star Wars phase in my late teens, reading EU novels and everything, though my enthusiasm kind of fizzled out with the last of the prequels. I initially had no interest whatsoever in playing The Old Republic, until I saw a simple video demonstrating the group conversation system and heard that some of my friends were intending to play it. I then ended up making a complete turnaround from being utterly disinterested to becoming massively excited about the game within only a month or so, and even ended up pre-ordering to get into early access.

As the blog title implies, I play a Republic Commando, specifically a combat medic, on the EU server Luka Sene The Red Eclipse Darth Malgus, though I have many alts of course (as you do). I named her Shintar, after my old troll priest main from WoW.

I started my career in the game as a proud member of the Brotherhood of Remiel, a tightly knit social guild of mature players that did a little bit of everything, though they have now mostly moved on to other games. Fortunately I found a new home with the friendly folks from the Twin Suns Squadron since then. If you ever see Major Shintar O'sirisen around during your travels, or any other character with the O'sirisen legacy name on display, feel free to say hi. You can find a list of my most frequently played characters here. If you'd like to contact me out of game, you can e-mail me at shintarcommando [at] gmail [dot] com, find me on YouTube as @ShintarsVideos, on Bluesky as Shintar or on the website formerly known as Twitter under @ShintarCommando.

Or you can leave a comment on one of my posts here of course... I read all the comments, I just don't always have anything meaningful to say in reply. You can also comment on older blog entries if you have something to say; don't be shy - I receive automated e-mail notifications for those, so new comments will be seen.

Last updated: January 2024

12 comments :

  1. Hey Shintar,
    I don't know where to put this but I figured here would be better than anywhere else.
    I just wanted to thank you for your great blog!
    It's almost always an interesting read and imho it beats all other SWTOR blogs I know by leaps and bounds.
    Actually the only two SWTOR pages I regularly visit are your blog and Dulfy's.
    Keep up the good work!

    Tundarak

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  2. Hi!
    Im just passing by...
    I like when find some ppl that love SWTOR just like me. :)

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    1. Always nice to see another fellow SWTOR fan. :)

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  3. Finally finished reading through 4 years of your blog posts. I must say that your posts are very informative, well-structured and witty. It is enlightening how SWTOR has changed and evolved over the years; through your lenses/viewpoints.

    It seems that many new/newbies players such as myself might have taken (the current incarnation of SWTOR) for granted..because we will never know the trials/tribulations of the SWTOR veterans who went through the evolution of SWTOR.

    I do hope SWTOR can continue to be successful and evolving for the better; likewise your blog as well.

    I do hope that you will eventually have time to play through KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2 (with the Steam patch); though having known the ultimate fate of Revan in SWTOR might make the plot a tad redundant. However, I do agree with some sentiment that these are the best/definitive Star Wars RPG ever created; with KOTOR 1 being the heroic story; and KOTOR 2 being a philosophical one about the nature of the Force. Most average runtime quoted for both games are around 40-50 hours (I did both in 60 hours each; and that is doing almost all side-quests). At the least, we can see the precursor that SWTOR was based on (admittedly the graphic is showing its age quite a bit).

    I would also like to hear your thoughts about the music in SWTOR, because I think the music enriches the playing experience (for me at least). I am also curious about your thought regarding the aesthetics in SWTOR, e.g. the class starships or the different strongholds. But I understand if music/aesthetics are not your focus for your blog.

    Keep up the good work, Shintar!

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    1. I feel like I need to both thank you and congratulate you on actually making it through the entire archives! I frequently refer to them myself, because as you say, they give quite interesting insights into how some things have changed and developed over time.

      I have thought about playing the two KOTORs before, but I just struggle to spend time on single-player games these days. They just feel so lonely to me without other people. MMOs have spoiled me in that regard.

      If you're interested in SWTOR's music, I can recommend this OotiniCast episode, where they had a guest that was very knowledgeable on the subject. I've also added music and aesthetics to my file of blog ideas for a rainy day, so you might see a post about them at some point... or not, depending on how many other things worth talking about keep happening in the SWTOR-sphere!

      Anyway, thanks for your many thoughtful comments. :)

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  4. Thx Shintar for the OotiniCast link..it is informative. I never know that there are music made out of different samples..which make me respect Jeremy Soule, the composer for KOTOR even more. Those KOTOR music still give me the chills. (The Manaan soundtrack in SWTOR is one example; evoking wonder, mystery, and the sea).

    SWTOR is my 1st and currently only MMO; now I can see why after playing MMO, some people might be hesitant to go back to single RPGs. In some ways, the MMO interaction is more organic and unpredictable.

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  5. Hi from an old timer :) I have finally gotten high speed broadband and a tight gaming PC so I might see you soon :)

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    1. My god, there's a name I haven't seen in a long time! As you can see I'm still gallivanting across a galaxy far, far away...

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  6. I'm coming back to SWTOR after a few years and am thrilled to see that you are still blogging about it! I'm hopeful that the Republic versus Empire theme next year will mean lots more story, which is my thing.

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    1. You're welcome? ^^ I'm excited about the new story as well, though I'm trying not to get too excited to avoid setting myself up for disappointment.

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    2. There should be four sub-stories to play through, sort of: Republic, Empire, and the traitor version of each.

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Share your opinion! Everyone is welcome, as long as things stay polite. I also read comments on older posts, so don't be shy. :)