Thursday, February 12, 2015

Return to the Republic

It's been easily over a year since I've sat down to let The Old Republic absorb hours of my life. Needless to say there's been a lot of updates and expansions to SWTOR since I've last played it. Truthfully, I enjoyed the game previously- but the game was out of wack. There were elements that were still being tweaked and changed and ultimately I became discouraged and stopped prescribing.

Now, I love Star Wars- but what I've always loved most is the Old Republic era, set thousands of years prior to the iconic movies, it tells the story of galactic conquest in a much more uncivilized era. You can think of the Old Republic like the height of Ancient Rome. It's big and impressive, with classic enemies like Hannibal and the Roman Emperors. But it's no modern Rome by any extent. That's basically the Old Republic in a nutshell. It's Star Wars- just historically different and the writers and creators have produced a wonderfully fleshed out universe for this era.

After Star Wars was bought by Disney and much of the canon vanished overnight, it seemed like the final nail in the coffin for the Old Republic era. Which made me pretty sad to see it wouldn't be included. Fast forward to today and I recently read this article. The summary being that Disney hasn't said yes- or no. In reality, The Old Republic is no threat to the Disney franchise because it's chronologically so far away from the film saga, which has left SWTOR in a very gray murky area.

“Let me answer it the way they answered it to us,” he said. “Because we asked when this first came up, we were like, ‘What does this mean for us?’ And they were like, ‘Guys, this doesn’t change anything. You tell great Star Wars stories set in this time frame; you continue to do that, and we’ll continue to support you.’
So there you have it. But the article got me thinking back to playing SWTOR and truthfully I had missed playing the game, even if it did have a few shortcomings. So last night I powered up my computer and dropped the $15 for a month subscription and gave it a whirl. A lots changed since I last played and while my biggest fear was that the community might have become very gimmicky in an attempt to keep users attached to the game, in reality that doesn't seem to be the case. There are a few cosmetic additions to the game, such as strongholds you can purchase- which at the moment as far as I can tell are just normal homes you can choose to decorate. But it's all pretty optional.

I'm not sure how much I'll write about SWTOR in the future. It may fizzle on me yet, but for now it's been a refreshing game to return to. For those curious, I've been playing as a Jedi Guardian- but I've turned off the light/dark side indications and let my own personal opinions control the fate of the character. No surprise, but I'm already leaning dark side. The damn Jedi just don't have the stomach to do what's necessary. They'd rather see a clearly evil and twisted man live (to eventually escape or cause further chaos) then end the cycle and stomp out the Sith. It's the whole reason the Sith keep emerging from the shadows! It's ironic that the Jedi are so against killing as it is anyways- there code speaks of peace and only action in a defensive manor, but then send me on missions to root out attacking tribal forces or slaughter entire underworld mob organizations. Sure- you can argue the bad guys attacked first- but after enough blood is on your hands. It just seems like you're trying to justify your blood lust? If you're going to offer me a mission to protect the people- don't make my side mission to kill 20 additional bad guys. Worse yet, don't get pissy when I come to finish my objective and I decide to finish things rather then show restraint and let the bad guys go. Anyways- as usual I'm walking a thin line with the Jedi.

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