Because I Wanted to Post Something in November

I've been wanting to write a post for the blog for the past two weeks. But about what? My ideas so far had all resulted in that common condition where you get a great first paragraph and then it fizzles somewhere in the second. Writing about what I'm thankful for in this season of thankfulness? No, there wasn't any way I could write it that didn't sound smug when I re-read it. Writing about my growing dissatisfaction with people whining on Facebook? No, that's easy enough: you don't complain about it, you just stop looking at Facebook frequently. A paean to my new girlfriend? No, that kind of intimacy isn't what I intended for this blog, and in any case we're both rather private people. (If you're curious you're welcome to ask about us through some other, more personal communique.) And then I thought of The Old Republic.

The Old Republic is the new Star Wars MMORPG being released in December by BioWare and LucasArts, and my World of Warcraft guild is switching, whole-hog, away from WoW and to the new game. If you remember my August 2008 and March 2010 posts about WoW, or if you just clicked through and re-read them, you'll know that I've been playing WoW with a sizeable handful of Bluebell and Pondicherry folks for, at this point, just over 5 years. Why the switch, and why now? The first answer, of course, is that it's a Star Wars MMO, and a highly anticipated one. While some of us were passingly interested in the Lord of the Rings and Star Trek MMOs, they didn't attract enough of us to really move towards and weren't overly well received by the gaming community generally, and while the Firefly MMO might well have persuaded us, that game never got out of the planning stages and died an early death. As of our guild's current configuration, the three most consistent gamers were all really excited about The Old Republic, or TOR, and convinced the rest of us to go with them. For my part I wasn't all that thrilled about starting over again in a new gameworld, but at the same time, was intrigued by that gameworld being set in the Star Wars universe, albeit thousands of years before the events of the movies we know and love (along with the movies we know and are acutely unpleasant to watch).

The final nail in the WoW coffin, however, happened because of Blizzard itself: when they announced earlier this fall that the next expansion would be Mists of Pandaria, involving a new race of intelligent pandas who know kung fu, and that a new hero class called the Monk would be added to the game, we all had to admit that WoW has jumped the shark, and we're ready to call it a day. There's other, more behind-the-scenes reasons we don't like Mists of Pandaria too. The expansion seems to be modeled mostly on the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, in that there's to be a newly discovered continent in the gameworld which, frankly, has no connection to anything that came before in the game, and has to be awkwardly patched into backstories about the world. This feels very artificial. Like Burning Crusade, there's a new race with new starting zones for that race, but then players are dumped into the regular gameworld and don't get to go back to the new one until their characters are at level 85. The Wrath of the Lich King expansion introduced the first hero class, the Death Knight, which could perform several roles in a raiding party and started at level 55. But the Monk class starts at level 1 and seems geared towards only one role. Additionally, Blizzard decided to, with the Cataclysm expansion, greatly increase stats on enemies and gear and weapons, so by the end of that expansion attacks could hit - at "critical" or high levels, with the best gear - for somewhere approaching 10,000 damage, and bosses had health points in the hundreds of thousands. Now they've realized such exponential stats will grow ludicrous if they continue along the same trajectory, and they need to "nerf" stats throughout the game to compensate. This is, to use an expression from our guild which evokes disdain and dissatisfaction, "weak sauce."

TOR, from what we gather so far, has some similarities in execution and gameplay to WoW, but story and choices that characters make will have a much greater effect on how the game develops for each person. With WoW, it's a set path - which in many ways can be accomplished by various means - but the storylines of characters are all of a piece. Events happen in the gameworld which all players must respond to in the same way. With TOR, after picking one side or the other, Galactic Republic or Sith Empire, there are only 4 character classes per faction. However, each class has two specializations which are developed as the character goes along, and decisions that players make - for example, how they interact with NPCs, as there are often at least 3 different responses a character can make in a single interaction - affect which quests they're given, what rewards they receive, how they advance in their respective faction, and even, for Jedi and Sith, how they stand with the Light or Dark side of the Force, which further affects what opportunities they're given. Also, WoW groupings for cooperative play in instances involved a minimum of 5 players, scaling up to 40, whereas in TOR it seems the largest groupings involve 8 players. For us, a small guild with (likely) around 10 members, this is really good news, as there can be more cooperative gameplay since it will require fewer players overall.

I can't go very much into the mechanics and play of TOR simply because I haven't played it yet, and won't until it releases in mid-December. However, one of the decisions our guild made, along with choosing to be a Sith Empire guild, is that we would play on a role-playing (RP) server. For RP, you interact in character with your guildies and with other players in the gameworld. This means we are all creating characters with backstories and personalities we'll inhabit while we play. My own character will be a Sith Inquisitor named Raymus Qel-Davro, and I've been working on his backstory with helpful input from my friends Frosty and TBO. Here's what I have so far, for your reading amusement:

As an only child on Alderaan known as Raymus Davro, I was nephew of the king, cousin and playmate of the prince; my mother, the king’s sister, had married one of his counselors. The union was, from the little I remember, more pragmatic than suited, my father often away on the king’s business, and distant even when present. As I grew, certain traits and abilities, some of which I had no control over, became manifest and my mother grew concerned. After much research, she concluded that I had a connection to the Force, something none of my family possessed as far back as our genealogies could tell. She pressured me to hide my abilities best as I could, and soon enough I understood why: along with the galactic war raging around us, the king was dealing with several factions from other clans anxious to rule Alderaan. He would try diplomacy with them first, but if that failed, more and more frequently he began exiling those who challenged him or any with authority the clans could co-opt.

Inevitably, his jealous gaze alighted on me, and before my 14th birthday I was banished from Alderaan. Because of the royal blood in my veins, and because my father was not of royal lineage, I could both choose the planet of my exile, and keep my name. My father, concerned more for his own position than for his son, removed himself from the deliberations and decisions, but my mother encouraged and helped me as much as she could. Secretly contacting the Jedi Order, who were popularly blamed for the war, she made arrangements for me to travel to Coruscant, to train under them and also to research and discover from which long-forgotten ancestor I had inherited this blessing and curse. My training, under the Duros called Falnlee, made for long and frustrating hours. Falnlee, an awkward and shy being, commanded my respect only by his powerful mastery of the Force. Though I learned my lessons, I was an almost constant truant, pushing at his boundaries and, after a while, seeking only to anger him. There was a small group of us who felt similarly and we often escaped together into the alleys and deserted parts of the city to practice our combat skills.

One day, soon before I turned 18, from a chance remark about my stubborn persistence in these little games, it occurred to me that my unknown ancestor had perhaps been Sith, not Jedi. Sneaking into the Jedi libraries over many nights, I finally unearthed part of an ancient hierarchy of Sith warriors which included a secret child, a daughter, born to the Sith sorceress Aleema Keto by Ulic Qel-Droma, the Jedi who became a Sith and later came crawling back, a traitor to both Orders. That daughter had a daughter, who had a daughter, whose name I clearly remembered from my bloodline in the dusty genealogies my mother had poured over on Alderaan. I had my answer, and it was a double-edged sword, for Ulic disgusted me, but my heart thrilled to know that the blood of Aleema Keto was my own. I began referring to myself as Raymus Qel-Davro, taking the least offensive part of my ancestor’s name as I took his conflicted nature and Keto’s Sith blood.

The remaining few years of the war were restless ones for me, for while the galaxy seethed around us, care was taken for nothing to trouble the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and our lessons continued as if a great wall had been erected around us. My “friends,” who before were only too happy to escape our masters, now turned traitor and either squealed to Falnlee or refused to acknowledge me any longer. More of my time was spent alone in the dark alleys and empty buildings outside the Temple, where I devised games to amuse myself, using the Force to torment animals and shifting pieces of concrete which had crumbled from the decrepit walls. My subtleties in using Force powers grew, and when Falnlee caught me I was punished severely, though the torment made less and less of an impression on me.

The peace talks on Alderaan were announced, and I was in a black mood. Falnlee had caught me yet again, and for much of the past week I’d been in solitary confinement, nursing my rage in one of the tower cells. The day came, and started like any other, but suddenly the Sith attacked; from the tower window I could see three huge battleships advancing through the sunlight and then the world was one of smoke, ash, and fire. An exploding battery of shells hit below and I could feel the earth and the Temple tremble and shake, and the door to my cell was shifted off its hinges. I ran, heedless of anyone around me. Someone shouted and gave chase, some other acolyte who had been among the better behaved set, and without a second thought, I used the Force to bring an already-tottering guardpost hut down on top of him. The surge of power in the Force I felt as he died was like nothing I’d had felt before: a sense of cold control, and of destruction, like an icy grip which simultaneously enveloped me but which I ruled. Almost before I’d realized it, I’d stolen a speeder and was deep into the maze of streets and alleyways. The next three days were savage, as I slunk among abandoned buildings which were still standing and killed whatever animals I could find for food. Though the calamitous noises grew more distant, the smoke only settled down further on the cityscape, and the wind merely moved ash from here to there. On the fourth morning, I was awakened by a sudden pain, seeming to course through my whole body, but then it suddenly stopped. Retching from the violence of it, I sat up to see a hooded figure in the doorway of my hiding place, a handful of soldiers behind him. I felt a hard, dark presence in my mind, which I strove to understand but eluded me, and then a voice thick with controlled anger dismissed the soldiers.

The conversation was brief, and I was eager. Lord Vermis of the Sith Empire became my true master, and told me all of how our glorious Emperor had tricked the Republic, sending the Sith to destroy the Jedi Temple and much else on Coruscant, holding it hostage for “peace terms” on Alderaan which were nothing short of surrender. Lord Vermis took me to Korriban, where I was to complete my training in the Academy, and where I have been for the past four years. When news of Prince Panteer’s departure from the Senate became known, and Alderaan’s secession from Republic, he earned a modicum of respect from me, this childhood playmate, though it gave me great pleasure to hear of his assassination soon after. I only wished I could have twisted the knife. For I am an Inquisitor and further, an Assassin for our most powerful Emperor. One day I will sit at the Emperor’s table of twelve counselors, with all power and authority of the Sith in my hands, and judge entire planets, entire races, perhaps a quadrant of the galaxy to terrorize for my own delight. The years will be long but I have now, at 27 years, come to the end of my training, and I am ready to serve the Emperor and the Empire in its magnificent victories over all in the galaxy who oppose us.