The Longest Journey

I've mentioned previously that I've not been very good at getting new alts through story content ever since 4.0 dramatically increased levelling speed. It used to be that I just engaged in a variety of activities to level up - including my class story - but since 4.0 changed it so that doing multiple things is not a requirement anymore, I always end up outpacing it by doing group content, and level sync or not, I just tend to not feel very inspired to hang out and do story quests on Coruscant once I'm past 50 or so. It just doesn't feel good.

As a result, it always takes a concerted effort for me to get high or even max-level characters back on track story-wise. Being able to (slowly) earn Conquest points that way too has certainly helped my motivation.

There is one character though whose journey I've been putting off for longer than any other: my Sage Tiranea. She was the second Sage I ever created, and possibly even the second consular? I don't recall for sure whether I created my first Shadow before or after, but I'm pretty sure it was after.

Tiranea was created for the express purpose of levelling with a couple of friends whom I tried to get into the game after it went free-to-play in late 2012. I had helped them out with heroic quests on my main, but I wanted to be able to just level with them organically. Unfortunately, by the time she had caught up to them in the mid-twenties, they had already lost interest in the game again (because that's how these things always go for me for some reason).

So I let Tiranea idle for several years, just in case they were going to come back. Once level sync was introduced I realised that trying to stay around their old characters' level was pretty pointless, and I started to log her occasionally at least, to help the guild with Conquest or to play a midbie PvP match here and there. But she always remained neglected, and never hit the level cap in any expansion. Until now that is, as I finally finished her class story the other night.

I realised that for all the countless times I've played through the Tython starter experience on new alts, I hadn't actually seen the end of the consular story since 2014. In the final boss fight I got one-shot by the cave-in ability and it was like meeting an old friend: Oh yeah, I remember that!

On the whole though, dragging her class story out over eight years has not done the experience any favours. In the confrontation with the final villain he talks a bit about your previous deeds, and when he referred to me killing the boss at the end of chapter one (instead of redeeming him) I was like: "I did that? I guess I must have."

This did bring back vague memories of how my original idea for the character had been to go slightly dark side (since I had just experienced the light side on my first Sage) but over time I found myself drifting back to making more light side decisions. I'd like to come up with some sort of roleplaying excuse, such as that she had impulsive tendencies when she was younger but grew and matured over time, but the truth is that I just forgot and going light side is simply my default.

The character has been malleable in other ways as well: I tend to pick a look and spec for my alts very early on and then pretty much stick with it. Tiranea on the other hand alternated between healing and dps several times, changed both her haircut and her hair colour (I even wrote about that at the time), and I gave her a completely new outfit about three times as well. I'm still not sure what her exact role's supposed to be in my stable of alts, which means that she probably won't see a lot of play time after this. But hey, at least she actually got to complete her class story.

On the subject of that, defaulting to my usual light side options meant that I didn't really get to see anything new in terms of content variations, but I did romance Lieutenant Iresso for the first time. It was a decision that came about on a bit of a whim after I'd just recruited him and I read in a reddit post that his romance was supposed to be quite enjoyable.

Ultimately I agree with the comments made there that he seems to have one of the most "mature" romances - no crazy advances or awkward shuffling of feet as someone struggles to express their feelings. Iresso and the consular just really like each other and say as much. There was one conversation cut scene where instead of the default smoochies animation he just gives her a peck on the cheek and funnily enough that was more memorable to me than anything else; it just felt like such a small but natural thing.

Anyway, that's that done - next on my list of characters that are working on finishing their class stories is my Jedi Guardian from the DvL event.