PvP Ups and Downs

I stayed up late this past weekend, running warzones on the US servers for the weekly season objective, and as the hours went by, I found myself getting quite philosophical about my PvP experience.

In terms of gameplay, SWTOR's unranked warzones are the most fun PvP I've had in any MMO I've played. Even with the annoying desync issues on certain maps, the way abilities work allows for a lot of fun combos. Balance isn't perfect (is it ever?), but it's good enough most days, and matches are set to last just about the right amount of time. The map variety is great and provides an interesting selection of objectives.

However, by its very nature, PvP also promotes a certain amount of friction, and it doesn't take much to tip the balance in that area to the point where things start to feel bad. People shouting insults at each other over who's responsible for the team losing. Bad matchmaking making you feel like you never had a chance. Just... generally annoying situations like that one guy from the enemy team deciding to pick on you all match.

I think that in general, I have a pretty good temperament for PvP because I'm usually not quick to anger. I'm not going to pretend that I don't experience moments of annoyance, but compared to some of the types of characters I regularly encounter in PvP, it takes quite a lot for my mood to turn sour. And even at my worst moments, I've learned long ago to not let outbursts of anger control what my fingers do to my keyboard. I might shout at my screen in frustration, but never at my team mates. That kind of thing just never helps anyone.

However, in recent months it has sometimes felt to me like my mood was tilting towards the negative in PvP more quickly than before, like it took less to make me feel bad and I generally wasn't getting as much enjoyment out of the game mode as I used to. I was starting to wonder what I ever saw in it.

And then this weekend came along and it was glorious. My win-loss ratio wasn't so bad, but more than anything I had some of those moments that remind me of why I do love PvP in this game. There are certain moments, usually when I find myself in a tight spot, where time slows down, the adrenaline starts pumping, and I'm completely immersed in the game in a way that's hard to achieve even in the most intriguing story update or challenging operations fight. In those moments I see my character almost like the protagonist of a movie, with key moves happening in slow motion.

My Commando healer backed against a wall of the southern bunker in Novare Coast, fighting a losing fight, until she's finally the last woman standing and all guns turn on her... when I hear a Juggernaut's roar from behind me, a Guard bubble surrounds me, and my freshly respawned team mates descend upon the enemy like the Rohirrim on the orcs in Helm's Deep.

---

Me running along the bottom ramp in Huttball and making it about halfway across the pit, when the enemy team finally notices me and comes for me. I know I don't have the cooldowns to continue and survive the final stretch, so I desperately look around for someone to pass to - I throw the ball just before an enemy has a chance to stun and push me, and a Sentinel gracefully hits Transendence and speeds into my target circle in time to catch the ball and whisk it over the finish line.

---

My lowbie Guardian in an only partially filled arena match on Tatooine, two of us vs. three of them. Somehow we manage to get the upper hand anyway and whittle down two of them before my partner dies, and then it's just me vs. a Marauder. He manages to run out of sight and get out of combat, so I quickly heal myself up (knowing that he's doing the same) before we meet again in the middle of the arena. Sabers clash, he runs and I chase, we both chain cooldowns and go down at a roughly equal rate, I can feel my blood pumping - and then I land the killing blow and we win. (When the same Marauder ended up on my team in a follow-up match, he congratulated me on the good fight, and we enjoyed kicking ass against a common enemy this time around.)

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about.

Mental and Physical Discomfort on Alderaan

Contrary to my expectations, Alderaan did not treat my pacifist Jedi well. I thought I was off to a good start, remembering right away that one of the heroics should be stealthable, and it was (the one to retrieve data spikes from the Killik cave). For some reason I'm more familiar with the heroics on Alderaan than with those on most other planets, so I knew right away what would work for Pacis and what wouldn't.

Other than that though, the planet was pretty much a bust. Despite of the sheer size of the map, I think I only found four other quests that didn't require me to fight anything. There were quests to capture either a joiner or a Killik alive, but both would have required me to beat them up first. Others seemed to tack mandatory kill requirements onto otherwise peaceful objectives almost randomly. In short, it was annoying.

I randomly ran into a DvL boss - after all the trouble I had killing them, I couldn't resist taking a picture.

One thing that was interesting though - if somewhat uncomfortable - was that I was forced to think about the limitations of Pacis' pacifism. It's a question that's actually been on my mind for a while but that I didn't really have to confront in practice until now.

Basically, I originally conceived of this project as more of a gameplay challenge than any sort of moral message. As such, the rules were fairly straightforward: don't attack any living creatures, not in the open world and not in cut scenes, and if they aggro on you first just run away.

However, over time I couldn't help but also think of the roleplaying implications of playing a character that literally wouldn't even hurt a fly, one that would rather be beaten down and revive at a med droid than throw a single punch. She must have pretty strong convictions about right and wrong, no? So what if I'm being asked to do something that isn't a personal attack but results in a lot of harm being done to others as a direct result? Wouldn't she hate that too?

This question became a very real concern when I picked up the quest Infestation at Wardpost Duvaal. It asks you to recover a bunch of "insecticide mines" and use them on the Killik hives. I didn't really have a good feeling about that but was hoping that as long as I was only destroying the hive structures I could justify it as merely doing property damage. Still, when I walked up to the first hive, I hesitated. I placed the mine. A friendly Killik appeared, walked up to the hive and fell over dead.

I just stood there and stared for a good minute. How horrible! Strictly speaking, I hadn't violated the rules of the gameplay challenge, but in in-world terms, Pacis had just been directly responsible for a living creature's death for the first time. I was kind of surprised by how intensely wrong that felt. I abandoned the quest without completing it.

I did that. ;(

Later there was another, similar moment when I did a mission to mark Imperial landing pads for bombardment, but then in the cut scene for mission completion they didn't show the pads being destroyed but rather an Imperial transport being shot down mid-air. It wasn't quite as bad as seeing the Killik fall over dead right in front of me, but it still felt wrong somehow. I suspect this won't be the last time I run into this sort of conflict.

On a more humorous note, remember the weird bug from KotET launch that caused certain characters' head and left arm to swap places when standing still on an animal mount? I posted a picture of it here. Now, this bug was fixed in relatively short order and I hadn't really thought about it in a while except when freaking people out in a Twitter thread. While doing those quests on Alderaan however, I was horrified to find that a variant of this bug has resurfaced after the most recent patch, though I'm not sure which animation exactly triggers it. I first noticed it happening when scanning databanks in Castle Panteer, but have since also seen it pop up after clicking on lore objects and some other interactables. Just what even is this, Bioware?! Fortunately it has since been acknowledged as a known bug and will hopefully be fixed soon.

A Series of Unexpected Events

When I wrote about skipping story content last year and why I'm conflicted about it, one of the arguments I gave against it was that at least for me, there can be quite a difference between imagining how a character would react to certain story beats in the abstract, purely based on their personality and alignment, and actually playing through that same content, because small details such as certain pieces of dialogue can end up making quite a difference to the way things feel in the moment.

I've had a great example of this recently in the form of my bounty hunter - or should I say "one of my bounty hunters"? I'm up to three of them at max level for some reason and have been splitting my play time between them in the most awkward of ways. Anyway, this story is about my dps Powertech T'ir (don't ask me how to pronounce that, I just added the apostrophe somewhat randomly when she lost her original name during the first round of server merges), who is the bounty hunter with the most story progression and on whom I've been making a concerted effort to get caught up with current events. In case it's not obvious, this means that this post will contain spoilers about story content from KotET onwards.

T'ir's a Chiss and tends to lean towards dark side decisions, so I thought everything would be pretty cut and dry for her. She's not exactly an Imperial loyalist, but she's been getting along with the Empire well enough, so I couldn't really picture any set of circumstances in which she would defect to the Republic when given the choice.

So the other week I finally finished the last chapter of KotET on her. Declaring herself an Empress at the end seemed like quite a high point for a bounty hunter fond of personal power. I don't think she has any real desire to rule nor interest in politics, mind you... she just likes being the strongest and punching people. Calling herself an Empress must have felt like a bit of a joke to her, to be honest.

Then it was time to go to Iokath, to find the Republic and Empire squabbling there. T'ir didn't really want to support either of them - they both seemed kind of beneath her at that moment. Acina had previously been an ally, but here she was trying to snatch some superweapon for herself behind everyone else's back - typical Sith scheming, bah!

And who was representing the Republic? Jace Malcom, a hardened war veteran with whom a bounty hunter could actually see eye to eye, and who also happened to be her boyfriend's dad. (In hindsight I honestly I have no idea how or why I ended up in a relationship with Theron on this character... they are/were a terrible match. However, the point is they were a couple at the time, so the familial relationships were a consideration.) With all that in mind: Why not side with the Republic on this occasion and bash some Imperial heads in? To a bounty hunter like her it's all the same anyway. (Fun fact: If you pause this story arc after "defecting" and then click the launch button to resume, it will put you in the wrong base and you'll get murdered by guards as soon as you arrive. Huzzah!)

Anyway, if you're all caught up with the story, you know what comes after that - the traitor story arc. Oddly, the bit I enjoyed most about that was the interaction with Aristocra Saganu. In particular, there was one line of dialogue where you get to say something along the lines of: "Really, you'd sell out one of your own just like that?" and his response is: "You're one of our own too." I actually had to pause and blink there for a moment to realise that he was talking about the fact that T'ir is a Chiss just like him. I hadn't even considered that! At the end he also sent her a letter about how she was a role model for all young Chiss, which I thought was great.

The issue of the traitor himself largely played out as I expected. While there were a couple of heart-wrenching lines about love, T'ir wouldn't have become a bounty hunter if her heart was that easily wrenched. I'm not sure she would have been able to pull the trigger herself, but simply turning her back on him when he had already been injured by someone else's hand was surprisingly easy.

Where do you go from there though? Surely not back to working with the father of the man you just left to die? Handily though, Emperor Vowrawn also wrote her a letter asking to let bygones be bygones and saying that he'd quite appreciate her working with the Empire again. He might not be so bad; he reminds her a bit of Darth Tormen... I also think she'll get along just swell with Malgus, though I don't know how well he will like someone who already switched sides twice. I guess the best way to find out is to play! I'm very curious to see how things will play out for her from here, as I never expected to have an Imperial loyalist that would be dealing with Vowrawn instead of Acina...

The Many Fates of Agent Kovach

This post contains spoilers for the storyline on Ziost. Read at your own risk!

People always complain that the choices in the game don't make enough of a difference, and I do think that this will continue for as long as the game exists, because there are those among the player base for whom nothing but seeing the whole galaxy get destroyed will count as a "meaningful" consequence to your character making some sort of choice, plus the ever-ongoing nature of an MMO puts restrictions on how much you can let a single player change the world that a single-player RPG doesn't suffer from.

I was replaying the story on Ziost the other day though (when I originally wrote this post anyway, it's been sitting in my drafts folder for a while), and it occurred to me that I feel that this storyline is actually a good example of how to make choice interesting without things getting too complicated.

Shortly after landing on Ziost, the player character is introduced to agent Rane Kovach, supposedly in service of Imperial Sith Intelligence and working with Lana Beniko. If you are a Republic player, he will quickly reveal to you that he is actually a double agent working for Theron Shan. Regardless of your faction, you later catch him talking to Chancellor Saresh on the holo, which reveals his true allegiance to Imperial players and tells Republic players that Kovach has been going behind Theron's back. You are the one who gets to decide what happens to him after that.

On my Commando, I basically told him that it didn't matter (he was still on my side, sorta) and that we had bigger problems to worry about. He couldn't quite believe it and kept expecting me to rat him out. Later he sent me a letter to say that he was extremely grateful for my silence and that he would do his best to keep working on resolving the Vitiate situation.

On my Sage, I urged him to confess to Theron. It wasn't pretty, and Theron was understandably pissed off.

On my Sorcerer, I made him confess to Lana over the holo. She was furious and asked me to execute the traitor, but I let him get away, out of a mix of pity and respect for his abilities, knowing that leaving him alive would result in one more useful ally against Vitiate.

On my Marauder, I cut him down while he was talking to Lana, and then explained to her that he had been a traitor. She then kept beating herself up over the fact that she allowed herself to be tricked like that.

Did any of that change Ziost's ultimate fate? No. But it did give every playthrough a slightly different flavour, and it certainly felt meaningful to me to get to decide on whether Kovach got to live or die, carry on with his work or be exposed. It didn't need to have further-reaching consequences for the fight against the Emperor - it was good as it was because it helped to emphasise my characters' different personalities.

One of these days I'll have to write a more fleshed-out post on what I think makes for good choices in a game like this. Surprisingly, I think it actually has fairly little to do with changing the world.

Continued Adventures on the Progenitor

In the comments on my last post, reader DualBlastersGuy expressed some concern that rushing through the levels on a new server would result in me becoming destitute quite quickly. Fear not, gentle readers: Even if I'm going to make use of the epic story XP boost, playing in the described manner is absolutely out of the question for me. I'm simply incapable of focusing exclusively on my class story. I always get distracted, whether it's by gathering nodes, datacrons, unexplored pieces of the map or what have you. With that said, let me tell you about how Agent Shintar continued her adventures on the Progenitor by going to Dromund Kaas:

First off, I bought the stronghold there. I was actually positively surprised that I was able to afford it so easily (without any expansions of course), using just the quest money I had earned on Hutta. For some reason I always think of strongholds as this massive credit sink, so the idea that a newly rolled character fresh off the starter planet and with no support whatsoever would be able to actually afford a stronghold as soon as she hit level fifteen seemed kind of preposterous. But it's true! The ones on the capital worlds are really that cheap. I'm definitely grateful for the additional travel option, and I also plopped down the free level one slicing node that you get from the introduction to strongholds. It may not be much, but every little helps!

On Dromund Kaas, I managed to suffer my first death (not counting warzones)... by falling down the elevator shaft in Lord Grathan's estate. And when I say "falling", I actually mean "jumping". Because you know, why would you pay attention to silly things like whether the lift is actually there? It was annoying too since you can't res on a moving platform, so I had to respawn all the way back at the medcenter and promptly got distracted by nearby gathering nodes again the moment I tried to make it back into the compound.

I also realised that since I soloed the Black Talon instead of running it the "normal" way, Agent Shintar is social rank zero and couldn't complete her Social Points quest. I'll have to run a random flashpoint or something purely to amend that. Having no social points whatsoever is simply unacceptable.

In the Nexus Room Cantina, I actually ran into some people who were roleplaying. (I didn't see where they were and didn't go looking, but I saw their chat.) Up until then I hadn't even thought about the fact that the Progenitor is a roleplaying server. Fun fact: I actually spent most of my time in World of Warcraft on a roleplaying server (on Earthen Ring EU), though I wouldn't consider myself a roleplayer. I always feel a bit bad for roleplayers and how their servers get invaded by people who don't actually want to roleplay but who think that roleplayers somehow make for a better community. (At least that used to be the argument back in my day.) In WoW I actually got pulled into at least some roleplay by people who roleplayed in public, but towards the end of Wrath of the Lich King that kind of seemed to die out, or at least I hardly ever saw it happen anymore. It's nice to see that roleplay is still happening in SWTOR in any case. I wonder where else the roleplayers hang out? (These Sith were discussing how they'd like to be buried by the way; seemed very appropriate.)

While uncovering the last couple of pieces of map that I hadn't explored yet, I ran into a level 55 soloing the world boss (very, very slowly). I wondered if he doesn't have Shadow of Revan, to spend his time soloing lowbie world bosses at 55.

I also did a couple more warzones and continued to get about a zillion achievements for each match. It's pretty ridiculous really. I used 250 of my warzone commendations to buy a Makeb Pergola, which is apparently going for nearly 100k credits on the local GTN right now - I'm thinking that can't be right. However, even if it's not, I reckon that it's going to be an easy way of making at least a little bit of money quickly.

The GTN seems weird in any case - I was looking to sell a skill mod that I had found and expected there to be lots of them since agents are popular... yet there were only a couple of pages of similar items, and the highest level mod of that type was only level 29. Really makes you wonder if it's true what they say about roleplaying servers... (that people are too busy roleplaying to care much about regular content). Feel free to correct me, Progenitor players.

My Characters

When I discover a new MMO blog, I always quite like it if the author has a page not just about themselves, but also about their characters. It can be quite insightful: do they play a lot of different alts or do they recreate the same character in every game? Do they focus on a particular role or aspect of the game (e.g. lots of tanks, multiples of the same class) or are they a jack-of-all-trades?

I've been meaning to make a page like that for this blog for a while but always put it off before. At last, here it is! I primarily play on Darth Malgus, but I do have characters/legacies on every single server at this point.

DARTH MALGUS

For the Republic!

I started on Republic side because that's where my friends at the time were playing, but even after most of that original crew stopped logging in, the Republic remained my home. While the Empire tells some interesting stories, I can't really think of it as a comfortable home, considering how "evil" it is in many respects. It seems general chat is also a lot worse on Imp side.

Shintar, Trooper (Commando/Scoundrel)

Shintar was the first character I created when the game launched and has remained my main ever since. I just loved the idea of the trooper class ever since I saw the "Hope" trailer. I specced into the Combat Medic tree as soon as she got her first talent point and have never tried anything else as I simply love healing. It was hard to even choose a second combat style when that option became available with Legacy of the Sith. As my undisputed main, Shintar is the character I take to all the operations and was also my first character to hit Valor rank 100.

Golu, Jedi Consular (Sage)

Golu was my first Republic alt, and like Shintar she was a healer from the start, though I've dabbled a bit in doing dps as Telekinetics in recent years. While Jedi consulars don't have the most exciting of class stories, it did resonate with me on a personal level, and the Sage's healing style reminded me a lot of WoW's priest (which is what I played before coming to SWTOR), so playing her has always felt very natural. She's my "main alt", meaning that I try to keep her geared enough that she can fill the occasional healer vacancy in another ops group, and she was also my second character to hit Valor rank 100.

Fali, Jedi Knight (Guardian)

Fali is Golu's younger sister, and I love everything about her character and story, but unfortunately I suck at playing melee dps. Before Rise of the Hutt Cartel, I would occasionally PvP on her or take her to a retro ops run, but I found my frequent underperformance too frustrating to dedicate more time to working on her consistently. Knights of the Fallen Empire served to reinvigorate my interest in her somewhat, as I found it fun to play through the story chapters as a Jedi knight (the story did feel like it was written for them!).

Shilu, Smuggler (Scoundrel)

I created Shilu as my "event main" for 2016's Dark vs. Light event. As a result of this I used her to power through a lot of content in a relatively short amount of time. Before I knew it, I had become attached and she had replaced Racelle (see below) as my "go-to Scoundrel", so it's her role these days to keep up with the story from a smuggler's perspective.

Talara, Smuggler (Gunslinger/Scoundrel)

Talara was my first ever smuggler and did a lot of her levelling with a friend, until he stopped playing that is. Since I was so bad at playing melee but still wanted a dps character, I tried to get into playing Gunslinger in occasional alt operations. I did better than as melee, but still not great, and I just don't find doing dps nearly as engaging as healing or tanking, so she doesn't see a lot of play time these days.

Racelle, Smuggler (Scoundrel)

Originally created for the purpose of doing lowbie PvP as dps, Racelle ended up being conscripted into being the levelling partner for my pet tank's Gunslinger and quickly hit max level. Seeing how powerful Scoundrels were in PvP at the time, I continued to focus my efforts in that area. Up until Shadow of Revan, she sported a hybrid spec most of the time, because it was fun to play a healer who could also pack a bit of a punch if needed. After the discipline system eliminated hybrid specs, she became a healer full time, and spent a lot of time in the midbie bracket once Shilu (see above) supplanted her as my "Scoundrel main". Nowadays she sports both a healing and a dps loadout, and I actually took her all the way through the story to become a Republic saboteur.

Tiranea, Jedi Consular (Sage/Shadow)

The inspiration for Tiranea was that I wanted to create the closest equivalent to my first real World of Warcraft character (a night elf priest of the same name) that I could achieve in SWTOR. She's probably the alt of mine that has undergone the most cosmetic changes as more hair options were added over time. Otherwise she's just another consular that made slightly different story choices and gives me another option to do group content as a Sage.

Shinkit, Jedi Knight (Sentinel)

Shinkit was originally created because I didn't have a Sentinel yet, I wanted to replay the Jedi knight story, and to play with a friend who didn't even manage to make it off the starter planet. I enjoyed making slightly darker choices with her, but it turned out that the Sentinel play style didn't mesh with my personal preferences at all.

Shey-la, Trooper (Vanguard)

The main reason I created Shey-la was because I wanted to re-play the trooper story, and why not with the other advanced class while I was at it? While levelling (mostly through heroics, back when they were still hard) I swapped between damage dealing and tanking a couple of times but eventually stayed with the tanking role, since I enjoyed that much more than melee dps. Originally I wanted to go dark side for a change of pace as well, but I always wuss out because it makes me hate my characters, so she's only somewhat neutral really.

Cheesha, Jedi Consular (Shadow)

Cheesha was created because I wanted a Cathar, and she became a Shadow because at the time, this was the only advanced class I had never played on Republic or Empire side. The idea of a cat skulking in the shadows just seemed to make sense. She quickly became part of yet another levelling duo with my pet tank and was therefore specced to tank (while he healed). I often think that I'd like to play her more, but as our duos have become too numerous and spread out over time, I don't get to play her very often.

Zeresa, Trooper (Commando/Operative)

Zeresa turned out a bit meaner than Shey-la, but I only really played her class story up to the end of Coruscant. She's another character that I created for the Dark vs. Light event, and since I found running flashpoints and doing PvP with her so much fun, I actually got her all the way to max level solely through those activities. I still don't really know how to dps as a Commando (there are like... five buttons!) but it seems more fun than most dps specs I've tried. She also has a healing loadout for when I need a Commando healer and Shintar is already locked out.

Starberry, Jedi Knight (Guardian)

Starberry, too, was created for the Dark vs. Light event, and I keep coming back to her every so often because I really love her design and because tanking as a Guardian is pretty fun.

Shin-dow, Jedi Consular (Shadow)

Shin-dow was another character I created for the Dark vs. Light event and who was levelled mostly through PvP and flashpoints. Nowadays she's my way of experimenting with the Shadow DoT spec in PvP.

Nautalie, Jedi Consular (Shadow)

This character was created when Nautolans first came out, to test the waters of the latest levelling changes by levelling purely through flashpoints. Now at max level, she doesn't really do much other than casual group content and PvP.

Pugette, Trooper (Commando)

Pugette was created during a time when I experimented a bit with making "let's play" style YouTube videos about random flashpoint runs. I mostly gave up on this due to how time-consuming it was and haven't touched her since then, just in case I do fancy a return to the concept one day.

Pacis, Jedi Consular (Shadow)

My somewhat infamous pacifist character who's never attacked a living creature in combat or in a cut scene. You can read all about her unique style of levelling here.

For the Empire!

Due to my loyalties lying with the Republic as explained above, the vast majority of my time in game is spent on Republic side. All of my Empire characters mostly exist because I wanted to see their class stories and/or because our Imperial alt guild needed a few more Conquest points.

Sigex, Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Created in spring 2013, Sigex was far from my first Imperial character, however I came to consider her my Imperial main after my pet tank and I levelled our duo of inquisitors to max level in what felt like record time and completed pretty much all the quests on Imperial side together, with the exception of some ops missions. Like her Republic mirror Golu, she's been a healer from day one - because it's fun.

Arrah, Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Arrah was levelled with my now ex-boyfriend and mostly drove home the point that I'm terrible at melee dps. While I loved the Sith warrior story, the sea of angry red faces on her action bars didn't make me enjoy the everyday gameplay very much. My interest in her saw a resurgence in Knights of the Fallen Empire however, as she was the best candidate out of my stable of alts to offer a different (dark side) point of view on the story.

Corinthe, Imperial Agent (Operative)

Corinthe was the very first alt I created in the game, and was a character that I mostly played on my own for most of her levelling. While I love the agent story and the healing Operative play style, the lack of regular engagement with other players means that I don't find reason to log on to her very often. I used to PvP with her for a while, but Republic faction pride kept pulling me back to the other side.

Corfette, Imperial Agent (Sniper)

Another character that I created for 2016's DvL event, though this one did not do any group content but instead levelled solely through her personal class story. My first Sniper, I also used her to choose the path in the Imperial agent story that lets you become a double agent for the Republic. It only felt natural to then keep playing through the newer story on her and make her an Imperial saboteur as well.

T'ir, Bounty Hunter (Powertech)

T'ir was an early alt that never really went anywhere and effectively got replaced when I levelled another character of the same advanced class right past her. I then decided to level her to the cap during 12x XP and chose a dps spec for her to distinguish her from my other bounty hunter/Powertech. Interestingly, I then ended up liking her so much that she overtook my other bounty hunters in story progression again and she's currently the only one of my characters with that origin that is fully caught up with the story.

Hekka, Bounty Hunter (Powertech)

Hekka was pretty much created as an experiment in tanking. It was quite fun, but like many of my Imperial alts she doesn't see much play time now.

Tessal, Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

I originally created Tessal because I felt it was about time that I had an Imperial character of my main's mirror class, but then I didn't quite know what to do with her... until inspiration for my first flashpoint levelling experiment struck. To this day I like coming back to her to pug random flashpoints every so often, as well as playing her in the occasional warzone.

Nettika, Sith Warrior (Juggernaut)

Nettika was one half of a Sith warrior levelling duo with my pet tank - for him it was the only class story he had never completed, and I wanted to see the light side version, including a completely different Jaesa Willsaam. That, and I simply wanted another Cathar. (Her name is "a kitten" spelled backwards.) I also enjoyed playing the tanking role again, even if it seems like none of my tanking alts ever end up seeing much play time at max level.

Dormaba, Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Like T'ir, Dormaba was part of an early set of Imperial alts I made and whose levelling stalled because I just couldn't get into their story. When I levelled Sigex, another Sorcerer, right past her, her existence felt increasingly pointless, but at the same I felt too attached to her to delete her. I used the 12x XP event leading up to Shadow of Revan to level her to the then-cap of 55 and to at least finish her class story. This also provided me with an opportunity to try out Sorcerer dps (so much lightning).

Cheriza, Sith Warrior (Juggernaut)

Cheriza is another character I created for the DvL event. I used her to explore the most evil dark side choices a Sith warrior can make and have been enjoying playing her in PvP a lot.

Shinister, Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Shinister is another character that I created for 2016's Dark vs. Light event. Assassin was the last advanced class I had not played yet at the time (only its Republic mirror, Shadow) and it turned out to be pretty fun. Still, with so many other alts that I find even more fun, she hasn't received much attention ever since the event ended.

Shi-rah, Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)

This is probably my least played alt that originated during the DvL event, mostly because I already had so many bounty hunters! However, when I do play her I mostly use her for PvP and GSF.

Shincere, Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

I tend to think of Shincere as my "pandemic character" as she was created with a free character boost during 2020 when I felt I needed more characters to run flashpoints with my guildies. She's a tank because that's what everyone else seemed least comfortable playing and I didn't mind (plus I didn't have an Assassin tank on Imperial side yet). She's technically also an Imperial saboteur but hasn't done much story questing.

Squizelle, Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Squizelle was created because I wanted a new character to do lowbie PvP with and was levelled all the way to the cap doing warzones and arenas. That's still what I do with her at max level as well - story-wise she's barely past the point where you get your ship.

STAR FORGE

Shintar, Trooper (Commando)

This character was originally created on the Ebon Hawk in 2016, which eventually ended up being merged into Star Forge. Nowadays I use her to occasionally join American acquaintances for some group content fun, as well as to do Galactic Seasons on multiple servers (the latter applies to all of my characters on other servers).

Shintoo, Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer/Shadow)

Shintoo is my other character that was created with a free booster token, to take part in Kal's Galactic Championship in 2023. Having another high-level character on Star Forge but on the other faction has certainly turned out to be handy.

SATELE SHAN

Zilek, Jedi Consular (Shadow)

My first ever male character, Zilek languished for a long time since I really struggle with motivation when it comes to playing characters of the opposite sex. However, he did grow on me over time and I imagined him to be a bit like a Clone Wars era Anakin in terms of personality - someone with good intentions but too righteous for his own good and quick to anger.

SHAE VIZLA

Apacella, Sith Warrior (Juggernaut)

My first character created on the APAC server when it launched, Apacella ended up being a Sith warrior purely because it aligned with a Galactic Seasons objective that week, however she also reminded me of just how much fun it can be to PvP and distinguished herself by doing most of the heavy lifting to carry me to full achievement completion for PvP Season 4.

TULAK HORD

Shíntar, Trooper (Commando)

I created this character for Galactic Season 2 (originally just to claim login rewards!) and decided to make her a "clone" of my main who looks the same and largely makes the same choices. I just had to add the accent to the name since the original Shintar was already taken on Tulak Hord.

THE LEVIATHAN

Fangirl, Jedi Knight (Sage)

Fangirl was created around the same time as Tulak Hord Shintar and was also one of my first characters to choose a combat style that wasn't originally available for her origin story. I named her Fangirl because on a whim I pictured her being a fan of Commandeur Koshiran, a prolific French artist whom I often saw post on Twitter and who tended to draw himself with lots of twi'lek ladies admiring him.

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In addition to all of the level 70-80 characters listed above, I have a bunch of lowbies that I'm still levelling. The reason I'm not listing all of them is not that I think that the game starts at endgame (which I don't), but rather that I feel that both their characters and their role in my "play schedule" are not sufficiently fleshed out to write about them in much detail yet.

Last updated: January 2024

Making Faces on the PTS

Guys, when did logging onto the PTS become so easy? I remember looking into it briefly several patches ago, and it involved manually downloading some stuff and what not, which led me to the conclusion that it was too much hassle at the time. Now you just have to click on the little gear icon in the bottom left corner of the launcher window, select "yes" on "Enable Public Test Server Access", pick "Public Test" as your environment and off you go! Downloading all the data still takes ages, but at least it all happens automatically through the launcher, just like a normal patch.

Anyway, one of the comparatively minor 1.4 patch notes that caught my attention was this one:

Players can now set their moods, altering your character's facial expression. You can find these moods in the emote browser near the chat window.

This may not be something big and important, but it delighted me since I've always thought that it's a bit of a waste that they made all these art assets for facial expressions in the cut scenes, and didn't give the players any access to them. What a great tool for roleplaying and video making!

Anyway, so I made my first character on the PTS purely to have a look at the different "moods" you'll be able to set for your character in the future, and I thought I'd share:

You change your expression by going to the "Mood" menu in the drop-down for emotes. "Neutral" is the default facial expression we all currently have.

I'm not sure I would call this one "alarmed" so much as "slightly worried", but it's a solid choice.

This is the default expression I expect to see in warzones in the future.

Uh, you're going to swallow a fly or some other space insect if you run around with your mouth open wide like that all the time! I can't see anyone picking this one except as a joke.

"Awed" is basically a milder version of "astounded", though the mouth is still slightly open. Reminds me of the most popular female troll face in WoW for some reason.

I like this one, though I would personally prefer something with a slightly less pronounced smile.

"Dejected" basically means "slightly unhappy". Looks about right.

Now this is a seriously depressed face. If I saw anyone wearing that on the fleet I'd feel an instant urge to /hug or /comfort them.

Not bad, though it looks slightly constipated to me. Then again, "discomforted" is an apt description for that state, isn't it?

Almost scary, that grin.

This is my favourite of the bunch, though I would describe it as "cocky" instead of "flattered". This should be the mood of choice for smugglers most of the time in my opinion.

I'm not sure I'd want to run around with my eyes closed all the time.

That does look like she just got shot in the foot. Appropriate.

This is basically a slightly toned down version of "eager".

Another one with the eyes closed! This is more suitable if you're going for the peaceful sleepwalker look I guess.

Another sad one.

I could barely tell the difference between "mournful" and "saddened". Just a little bit of eyebrow movement I think. Note however that neither of them is nearly as sad as "depressed".

Okay, maybe this will be the default expression in warzones instead.

Finally, this appears to be about halfway between "astounded" and "awed". The open mouth is still too much for me personally though.

From what I could see, your portrait in the UI doesn't currently update with your mood. I don't know whether that's working as intended or will be changed in the future.

Also, we all know that pulling your weapon usually causes your expression to change from neutral to slightly scowly. I call it my "I'ma gonna shoot you" face. You know, this one:

However, it seems that if you select anything but neutral as your mood, that mood will "stick" even with your weapon out, which is something to keep in mind: it's only a small step from being cheerful to being a disturbingly grinning, giant-gun-wielding psycho.