Another one goes down

Finished the Sith Assassin last night, kind of early even. Some of the lines of dialogue and other things that this most sarcastic of characters does was pretty funny, and some of the plot points were genuinely sorta clever. That said, the story never managed to rise above average. I think that there are three reasons for this:

• In spite of what the game is telling you, the character isn't very clever. He runs along from one thing that he's told to do by someone else to another, blundering into obvious traps, because the plot demands that he does. He rarely feels "in charge" or active, rather he comes across as very reactive and almost passive even. To be fair, this is very difficult to avoid given the medium in which it's told. Players themselves can't have so much control over the game environment that they really make their own decisions and drive the game, like in a table-top roleplaying game. All computer RPGs have this issue to some extent. But in this case, it's a little bit more obviously executed. The smuggler has this problem too.
• Most of the companion characters were only OK in terms of interest, and few had any real chemistry with the main character. This is especially egregious when the obvious (in fact only, in his case) romanceable option is one where you kind of think... meh. I thought of my playthrough of the Jedi Guardian that that character was really, really bland, but he's kind of saved, if you will, by very interesting companion characters, particularly his love interest Kyra. Of course, I also admit that I'm not hugely interesting in making love to weird alien girls with strange things other than hair on their heads. Which... if you think about it... is true for every single female romanceable non-human character in the main game. I'm not going to get into the weird woketarded romance options of the DLCs, or the one-off flirtation options, because I don't remember them, but of your main story companions, every single time there's an alien girl to romance, she's either bald, or has weird, fleshy tentacles on her head instead of hair. No wonder I can't get into them. In any case, the personality that they wrote for her was only OK, and as with most of the pushier girls in the game, your behavior towards her that is supposed to be successful at romancing is sometimes a bit cringey and beta.
• (Curiously, an exception to the chemistry with the characters is Darth Vash after she gets trapped in the body of your "morose monster." Too bad that wasn't explored more. There was some genuine chemistry there... not romance-like chemistry, but friendzone chemistry... and the whole question of whether she actually wanted you to succeed against her or not was referred to but never developed. Somewhat disappointing missed opportunity there.)
• Another problem with some of these stories is that they are only as interesting as the villain you're chasing for much of the arc. What's going on in the first few planets is actually kind of interesting, but after you're just Darth Thanaton's rival, but where he really comes from or why he cares is never really established to anyone's satisfaction, making him a kind of by-the-numbers villain who never has any charisma or impact. That's another aspect of the Jedi Guardian playthrough that saved it from its boring main character; between his companions and his rivals/antagonists/villains, they make up for it. It would probably be even better if he were a somewhat more interesting character, but it actually works OK with him being the "straight" man in a collection of weirdos who are all more interesting than he is to some degree. In the case of the Inquisitor, he's arguably more interesting than most of the characters around him, but not necessarily, and all of those around him feel like they were thought up by the writers from pretty bland central casting tropes that have little real emotional connection to the main character or the events going on around them. Again, with the exception of Darth Vash, who sadly doesn't feature enough. 

Anyway, because I finished it earlier than I thought I would, I jumped into my Republic commando. I'm pleasantly surprised so far; for some reason, I'd expected that storyline to not be all that great. To be fair, all I've done is Ord Mantell (and even then, I've got a handful of exploration missions to clean up before I leave). But so far, the story has been better than I expected. You don't have to play the cringey "sir yessir!" recruit very much at all, and the whole "the Republic is corrupt and useless and the Separatists are kind of sympathetic" vibe isn't really as bad as I feared. In fact, there's some real interesting twists and irony there. It was done more maturely and less overtly politically than I definitely feared it to be.

There were two moments when I got dark side points for reasons that should not have given them, though. When you decide that you need to bring the stolen medicine back to the base to treat wounded troops, as you're asked, instead of letting the thieving refugees run off with it, that's not dark side. Why should the soldiers be less worthy of being saved than thieves? When you tell the middle school aged kid that he should go back home to his parents who miss him instead of giving him money to run away and leave the planet, that's not dark side either. Both of those boggled my mind. What the devil is wrong with the writers? They have some serious emotional issues. However, those moments stood out because they were so strange, not because that's normal. Plus, both were exploration missions that you can simply ignore, and probably should, quite honestly. I always thought that the lady that wanted you to go back out in to the battlefield to find her grandmothers necklace that she lost was dumb too. Lady, it's a battlefield. Be glad you are alive, not entitled to send someone out to go find some trinket that you took a fancy too for sentimental reasons. But again; an exploration mission, not part of the story per se.

r-selection is a real thing with the Old Republic writers, as I've written about before. Sometimes it's almost painfully obvious, though. Some of the exploration missions on Ord Mantell are among those sometimes.

I'm also surprised how far I've gotten in terms of level. I still have a few local missions to wrap up even though I've finished the class story, but I'm almost level 20, and will probably be 21 or maybe even 22 by the time I leave the planet. Insane. The game (originally) only went up to level 50, and even now it only goes up to level 75! The double XP event that we're in right now is surely a big part of it. I wasn't going to do it this way, but I have less than a week until double XP ends. Maybe I should do the same thing in the next day or two that I just did with the trooper to my bounty hunter. Play both of them through their starting planet, including all exploration, heroic, etc. missions, using the double XP and the XP boosts that they give you, the flashpoint voyage, and get them to the capital planet before the double XP wears off. That way they'll be starting their second planet at level ~25 or so. A nice kick-off. 

As I get a bit further in, I won't be interested in doing exploration missions, or planet story missions (the starting planets don't really differentiate between class and planet stories) but I like to give starting characters a bit of a good start so I never feel like I'm worried about bumping up. Speaking of which, I've sent quite a bit of money and gear to these guys to start with too. Starting the game off with two alternative outfits of good-looking gear, as well as more weapons than I can shake a stick at has been kind of fun (I crafted every single cannon that you can craft with my smuggler and sent them to this character. Plus, I have a cartel market cannon and sent modifications to him. Every couple of levels I feel like I'm changing out my gun.) I've got some money to burn, so I can have modifications ready to go when I meet the level requirements while on Coruscant, and I'll want to dive into my legacy bank to create a third outfit. I'm going to try to be a little less of a clothes horse this time around; some of my characters I go a little crazy trying out different outfits to try and make the character have the right look. In the end, I almost always seem to settle on two or three that are my favorites, and then use them. I may yet decide that I don't think the ones I have right now are quite as cool as I think that they are now, but I've been playing around with elements long enough now that I'm a bit more settled down. Sure, sure... I haven't actually played a trooper before. But I've played enough other classes that I'm pretty sure I have an idea what kinds of suits will look good on one without having try dozens of options before settling down. Sadly, of all of the Alliance crate armors that I most wanted for the trooper, I still can't seem to manage to get the Remnant Underworld trooper pieces that I want. The helmet and chest piece are gold. 

And although I actually like the color variant of those pieces that you can get as the "concentrated fire" armor set, those pieces cost a million each, I think, and you can't buy or wear them until you're level 75. Isn't that just the thing, though? You trash a dozen copies of something that you already have and don't even want, and can't seem to get the pieces you most want no matter how many Heroics you play with your high level character. I really struggled to get the Remnant Underworld Warrior pieces I wanted too; the gloves and the helmet. And the alternatives are the set-bonus armors that you can't afford and can't wear anyway, unless your character is already maxed out.