Jar Jar Abrams or Jew Jew Binks?

Although Jar Jar Abrams seems to be the go-to reference to him among the pseudo-squishy pop culture commentariat on YouTube, e;r has the much more biting Jew Jew Binks nickname for him. In any case, it appears his charmed career may be coming to an end, and he's been thrown under the bus by the Hollywood Reporter. I saw this first on Overlord DVD, who was positively gloating over it, but Clownfish TV has done a report on it as well. Here's the article, for those who missed it a day or two ago:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/demimonde-on-the-bubble-as-warner-bros-discovery-puts-pressure-on-j-j-abrams-1235153965/

Whatever a "Demimonde" is supposed to be. Overlord DVD, who's a pretty good source for this kind of thing—although his histrionic anger comes across as showmanship moreso than genuine, and he has the squishy, obnoxious habit of constantly have to make caveats to establish his bonafides with leftist morality, which he clearly accepts without question—calls Abrams nothing more than a con man or a grifter and compares him to Harry Hill selling defective band instruments. While I appreciate the much older pop culture reference and think its cool that he thought his audience might catch it, I do have to point out that Abrams and his teams of Bad Robot people aren't totally talentless. Alias, when it came out, was a pretty decent show, and I suspect that it still holds up relatively well were you to try and watch it again today. The Kurztman/Orci Hawaii 5-0 reboot was pretty cool too, at least for the first few seasons. While I don't love movies like Cloverfield or Super 8, I don't think they're terrible either.

To be fair, I'm not really much of a TV guy. Keeping up with long-running shows is a lot of effort for not enough payoff for me, although I do admit that that's a personal affectation. And even Abrams' "good" movies just don't really play to my tastes.

It's also true, as Overlord says, that much of the more recent product from Bad Robot has been terrible. They can be directly saddled with having ruined both Star Wars and Star Trek as viable franchises, although I suspect that if they hadn't done so, that someone else would have anyway, because Kathleen Kennedy and her Paramount counterpart are terrible people who would have engaged someone else just as terrible. Matt Reeves, another Bad Robot alum, made The Batman which, while competently and in fact artistically and stylistically extremely well made ultimately didn't attract me, and in fact pissed me off and turned me off of future projects involving DC. Not because the movie was bad, but because it deliberately had a ham-handed subtext of hatred and vitriol towards white men.

The real question to me is; what triggered this perception of weakness at Bad Robot that allowed the SJW piranhas to start a feeding frenzy on them and have them thrown under the bus, as opposed to circling the wagons and attempting to defend them?

UPDATE: As an aside, and speaking of YouTube commentariat, I have never once had any interest in any Minecraft video of any kind whatsoever. Why in the world is Youtube convinced that I must really want to watch some stupid Minecraft "I built XYZ in hardcore mode" video? They just never go away no matter how many times I click "never recommend this channel." The algorithm just can't seem to believe me that I don't want to see anything Minecraft related. Oh, and by the way, just because I've watched Street Fighter or SWTOR videos doesn't mean that I care about Minecraft, or Elden Ring, or any other video game at all whatsoever.

SWTOR Tracker 5/27/2022

Well, it's been almost a week. I'm going to spend Memorial Day weekend out of town, so when work is over today, I'm outta here with my wife and adult daughter for a few days. Good time to give an update.

Except that there hasn't been much of one. I've been on the game every day, sometimes for quite a while, but I have made absolutely no story progression. In fact, this may continue. Although I've knocked out about half a dozen raw video files and turned them into uploaded YouTube playthrough chapters after editing, I just counted, and as of this morning, I still have 37 raw video files of playthroughs on my hard drive. I have several characters where I've just now edited their first playthrough files, or haven't even yet gotten to their first playthrough video files. I feel like I need to make substantial progress on knocking those back before I add to the pile-up. And while I thought that I was making progress, an actual count of the files I've edited and posted vs what I still have makes that not really true.

So, I've messed around with some stuff. I've done the screenshot files for all of my OG characters, over on the Dark Fantasy X blog. I've made a bunch of money with John crafting stuff and selling it. I've spent a bunch of money on the GTN. And, of course, I finished off the very last of the seasons achievements and got the space cowboy duster look for Fen Zeil unlocked. I've played a bit with Hutran Thanatos, who I'm no longer recording, because he doesn't need to be recorded, so it's more relaxing. He just finished Nar Shaddaa. Ironically, that puts him ahead of everyone here. But without having to mess with recording, he's easier to just sit down and play, so that's probably why. But I haven't done anything that added more story progress video, and I've been reluctant to do so for now.

So, I'll not talk at all about my old characters anymore, or even my non-recording characters, and just give a quick update on location and level for my playthrough video characters, in the order in which I think I'll play them again, as soon as I feel like I've editing enough backlog of video to create more. And I won't give a tracker update until I've actually played and recorded something new with them either.

Anstal Tane. Level 42 Scoundrel playing the smuggler story. Sith Pureblood, male. Just finished Taris with him, but before I fly off to Nar Shaddaa, I'm going to do the bonus series, and record it.

Elemer Kell. Level 36 Sentinel playing the Jedi Knight story. Imperial Zabrak, male. Just arrived on Taris and walked out of the spaceport, but otherwise have to start all of the missions.

Vant Galaide. Level 35 Mercenary playing the bounty hunter story. Human male. Just arrived on Balmorra. I actually skipped the phone call from Crysta so I could go shop for a Mako customization on Balmorra and make her blonde, but then I fast-traveled back to my ship.

Revecca Arden. Level 34 Sorceress playing the Sith Inquisitor story. Human female. Just about to go to Balmorra. You'll notice that all three of the last characters are essentially in the same place in the story, and although the leveling between them is a little bit off, they're essentially in the same place with their level too. Anstal's the farthest ahead, but when he's done with the bonus series, the next three characters will all catch up to his place in the story right after him.

Haul Romund. Level 33 Mercenary playing the Smuggler story. Human male. Although Haul seems to be the same as the other above in terms of level, or close enough, he's actually at the earlier stopping point in the story, having just arrived on the capital planet (Coruscant, obviously, in his case.) This next group of characters are all at that same place in the story.

Vash Galaide. Level 35 Powertech playing the agent story. Human male. He's benefited from a lot of repeats of the Black Talon, so his level is the highest relative to his place in the story of any character in my collection.

Phovos Maledict. Level 28 Juggernaut playing the Sith Warrior story. Human male.

Wulf Hengest. Level 30 Vanguard playing the bounty hunter story. Human male.

Codon Veile. Level 21 Sniper playing the trooper story. Chiss male. This guy, along with the next two, has finished the starter planet, but not yet done the travel flashpoint, i.e. Black Talon for Imperials or Esseles for Republic. Because I have two troopers using different classes, I'll probably pull him ahead in the queue and do him after Haul, however. I don't want to play two trooper stories back to back without a gap of some other class between them.

Mirabeau Tane. Level 20 Gunslinger playing the trooper story. Cyborg male. I actually feel like it might be worth while for Codon and Mirabeau to go back to Ord Mantell when I get back in town and do the Heroics there for the leveling and gearing grind before doing the Esseles and heading to Coruscant. It wouldn't kill them to be a couple of levels higher so they can be approaching level 30 to leave Coruscant, or even already in the 30s, ideally. It'd be nice if we had another (and longer) double XP event as part of the 10th anniversary celebration too, for that matter. So far, the 10th anniversary hasn't been all that much to write home about.

Embric Stane. Level 19 Mercenary playing the bounty hunter story. Cyborg male. I actually only played him at all to get the Hunter's Blaster, because I had carelessly tossed it with every other character, but then discovered that it actually not only looks really good but is legacy bound. Like my other non-recording characters, I'll doubt that I'll continue to mention him in the future. I also doubt that I'll continue to play him for many more weeks, if at all. I've already got two other bounty hunter story playthroughs going on. Don't really need him.

Haul Romund

I've come to the conclusion that the best way to get screenshots out of the game of my characters is by taking regular Prt Sc images from my playback using Microsoft Photos Video Editor. Yeah, the resolution isn't the highest, and without a graphics card, the game my run fairly well on a fairly high graphics spec based on the strength of my processor, but the video editing software is a limitation. (As an aside, my brother and I, who worked on this, still can't figure out why we couldn't get the graphics card to work without causing problems. We eventually had to give up. It's not that we didn't have one, it's just that it wasn't working. Maybe I should have just bought a refurbished gaming PC from Newegg. Whatever. Now, it is what it is.) And I think that there's value for other reasons in leaving subtitles on, as well as the labels of NPCs and whatnot out in the field so I can see them better. This makes actually playing a better experience, but screenshots a marginally worse one. I still believe it's the way to go. 

Anyway, I edited some video last night, and took these grabs while I was at it, mostly facial close-ups during cut-scenes, but not entirely. Haul Romund, who might have been Paul or Saul Romund in our world, but in space many generations from now, some names have had attritional changes to their spelling and some of their letters, is an interesting guy, and I made him in look the way he does deliberately to use some of the new complexions with the "designer stubble" look to them. He's got a fairly dark "spacer's tan" which I've heard referenced in a number of older space opera stories—maybe I should even have used the goggles tan-lines complexions for him, although then I think I wouldn't have been able to get the designer stubble. He's the first character I built with "tawny eyes"—the very light green/hazel alternative that is a default alternative that all humans can choose, although he doesn't have auburn hair. Given that this is a reasonable approximation of my own actual eye color, or at least the closest to it, you'd think I'd have used it before now, but I guess I was very enchanted with the white and yellow eye options that I have to make slightly exotic but not too much-so looking characters. And I've had a couple of characters use various blue eye colors and the emerald green ones. 

Haul is a smuggler, and he's playing the smuggler class story. Because this is much of his early video, it shows him mostly on Ord Mantell. But, he's a mercenary in terms of mechanics, a bounty hunter character class. Like the smuggler, of course, or at least one version of the smuggler, it uses dual pistols as its class weapon, and doesn't focus quite as much on gadgetry built into the armor as the other bounty hunter option. I've said this before, and I'm not alone in recognizing it, but while the bounty hunter is paired with the trooper in terms of mirrored mechanics, in some ways, it's paired as much with the smuggler (who's otherwise paired with the agent). Not only in terms of the weapons used (one or two pistols, depending on the advanced class chosen) but also just in terms of the feel of the class and the type of story that each tells. The smuggler and the bounty hunter are both iconic Western freelancers; the independent gunfighter or cowboy, while the trooper and the agent are both officers and official positions within their respective governments. Without knowing anything about the class stories, years and years ago the class concepts of the bounty hunter and smuggler appealed to me the most, and while there are some flaws in the class stories, particularly the smuggler's, those are still my favorite two to play. And in some ways, I think the mercenary fits the smuggler archetype just as well as it does the bounty hunter; I've really enjoyed playing Haul. I haven't edited or uploaded a lot of video of his playthrough yet, but I'll get on that over the next few weeks. I have a lot of recorded raw video to edit and upload, and since I just finished all of the seasons and event stuff that I had going on, I'm kind of thinking it's time to get some of that backlog out of the way before playing and therefore recording too much more.

Haul's counterparts among my characters are Vant Galaide, a mercenary I created before 7.x dropped, so he's playing the bounty hunter story (and he's only one planet ahead of Haul) and Wulf Hengest, who looks more like Haul, but who is a bounty hunter story with a vanguard trooper mechanic. I somehow see the three of them as... not related, necessarily, but as similar characters.

This is my numero uno default look for Haul, and it's a bit more armored and and overt than the smuggler default in the game, but given that he's a mercenary class, it seems appropriate. Actually, it seems appropriate anyway; Star Wars is, in many ways, a Western in space, and in Westerns, people running around armed was common. Maybe not armored, but this stuff doesn't look like a military uniform. It looks like what a man of action in space might wear.

The guns are part of the look. I created this character before cosmetic weapons were available, so this was meant to be his guns for everything. Now that they are available, a few outfits have optional guns, but I still want to keep the majority using these huge mamma-jammas. 

Lies

From the Z-man:

An informal metric for measuring the stability of a society is the distance between reality and the official truth of the ruling regime. The more lies the regime tells, the less stable it and the society over which it rules. Official lies are a good proxy for the degree of authoritarianism within the regime. The degree of authoritarianism is a good proxy for the level of official insecurity. The more thuggish the regime the less support it enjoys, thus the more it needs to lie to the people.

[...] Lying has consequences. One lie begets another lie which then requires more elaborate lying to cover up the previous lies. This lowers trust in the state, but it also lowers trust in institutions and eventually lowers social trust. Step one is the lies erode faith in the ruling class of the country. Step two is people lose faith in the institutions for not having punished the liars. The final step is the people who wake up to the official lies lose trust in those who keep falling for the lies.

This is a tough place to be in, but I've been there for years now. I've lost my faith in the American people; I've lost my faith in conservatives... I often feel little but impatience and contempt for "those who keep falling for the lies" because after a while the lies become so obvious to me that it's difficult to understand why so many people still don't see it. 

Of course, many people do see through the lies, and many more than most would presume. The lies are obvious enough that it just can't possibly be otherwise. The Z-man offers one explanation for the fall of the Soviet Union; that the people being told the lies knew that they were lies, but believed that the tellers believed them. The people being paid to lie knew that they were lying but believed that the people they were telling the lies to believed them. When both the officials and the general public had a zeitgeist and everyone realized that nobody believed the lies anymore was the point at which the system couldn't bear its own weight anymore. 

I don't know that it will work out quite the same way in the West. I think many people who are skeptical of the lies still repeat them out of a sense of conflict avoidance or misplaced politeness, but it's hard to judge attitudes about some of the biggest whoppers that are at the core of the current day anti-morality cult. Will black people and other minorities as well as the people who hustle them and their "issues" just say, "Aw, shucks. Yeah, racism is a hoax. You got us," and everyone moves on? For that matter, do those inflamed with the sense of "I'm a victim" really know that racism and feminism are lies, or have they really come to believe them, especially since they offer a convenient excuse for personal failings that don't require any humility, self-awareness, or self-examination? Many of those who propagate the worst lies in the West aren't just sociopatic liars, although at the top of the pyramid that's what we see. But the rank and file liars are often broken and narcissistic people who make the lies the core of their identity, because they otherwise lack a strong sense of self. They are victimized by the lies even though they are themselves the ones telling them, and its a difficult cycle to break.

Which goes back to my loss of faith in those who keep falling for the lies. It's one thing to tell black people that they had it better before the civil rights movement told them that they were victims. If segregation were so bad, then why do the Injuns demand the ability to maintain segregation on the reservations instead of just integrating into American culture more generally? By almost every measurable metric, the general black population is worse off than it was in the 50s. Among the black population, marriages are down, unwed mothers are up, welfare consumption is up, crime is up, debt is up, etc. And many of these pathologies aren't unique to the black population, but some of them are, or at least the degree to which they plague that population is. But I can also see what the black population gains psychologically from being told that they're the victims of racism, which excuses and validates their failures, and creates a sense of community and identity for them. But what does it give to white people who constantly fall for the lies? Moral superiority? A sense of purpose for those who lacked it in the state of satiated affluence that we used to enjoy? Something to nag other people about for those who have a pathological need to nag other people? I dunno. Nothing good, that's for sure. There's a reason that there's a saying about idle hands and the devil. Lacking meaning because we lacked meaningful struggle, many of our people began struggling against the very thing that their parents, grandparents and other forefathers struggled for. Talk about ingratitude. So I trust them just as little. 

* Some sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

UPDATE: There's more from the Z-man on the same topic from a newer post.

The default assumption, popular with mainstream conservatives, is that progressives are well-intentioned, but wrong on the facts. These are reasonable people who can come to the right answer if you slowly explain it to them. Conservatives have built their entire movement around the assumption that there is some way to explain things to the Left that will trigger a revelation. They will see their error, throw down their weapons and embrace the conservatives as brothers.

Along with conservatism, this view is fading from the scene. It is a generational thing as conservatism and most conservatives were formed in the post-war period. Most people have now concluded that the Left knows they are lying, but they are consumed with partisanship, so they are fine with lying. Far-left cranks will claim men can get pregnant because it advances their interests. The blank slate is central to their program, so they defend nutty ideas like the trans business.

In a way, this is a coping strategy for conservatives. They cannot accept that there are people not driven by facts and reason. To do so would mean the whole facts and reason approach is a waste of time. If the hive is immune to reason, then there is no point in reasoning with them and therefore no need for conservatives. Instead, they fall back on the mendacity claim. That way, if they can expose the lie, the liars will have not choice but to admit the lie and receive the truth.

He then gives a lengthy example of a BS scientific study that tries to debunk the existence of dog breeds, because it's starting to become obvious that human races are analogous to dog breeds in terms of clearly being of the same species, but having sufficiently different genetics to have significantly different physical, mental and personality characteristics. His summary after this example:

That brings as back to where we started. It is clear from examples like Mx. Wu that there can be no reasoning with these people. A woman with her training should see right through that study. She chooses to promote it, ether because she is a sociopath or she is a true believer. In either case, facts and reason will have no purchase on her mind or the minds of the people like her. What motivates members of the hive is either sociopathy or faith, neither of which yields to reason.

Which; again, I've long ago accepted about the left. The more difficult thing to accept is the conservatives that refuse to ever accept this obvious reality. It's the people not only who continually fall for the same lies, but who continually refuse to accept the reality right in front of their eyes that earn my particular impatience. And I accept that the left is largely made up of lunatics who's adherence to that ideology is motivated by glaring personality flaws; arrogance, self-loathing, lack of sense of self or self-esteem so they are susceptible to joining what has essentially become the world's largest cult of crazy people, etc. But conservatives are supposed to be normal people, immune from those follies, capable of thought.

Then again, as my wife and I point out to each other, we've done certain things for the better part of thirty years with each other in spite of the fact that they patently don't work very well and we know what a better alternative would be. Maybe its just part of the human condition that we all have our particular blind spots that it is difficult for us to move past. Mine doesn't happen to be with regards to politics, so I have no patience for those who can't see what I see.

I'm obviously not very good at it, but I love the words of Jeffrey Holland on this topic of my attitude towards the inability of others to see what is so clear to me:

So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work. As one gifted writer has suggested, when the infinite fulness is poured forth, it is not the oil’s fault if there is some loss because finite vessels can’t quite contain it all. Those finite vessels include you and me, so be patient and kind and forgiving.

I don't know for sure that there is divinity in the work of the American people, although I feel that the American people have been led astray because of our naivete and niceness turned against us in many ways rather than because of our deliberate attempt to rebel against God. Maybe I'm flattering myself in believing that, but I think that God will be merciful to us and recognize the portion of our condition that we don't bear the entire blame for.

Marvel Knows Girls

This was a parody. It's pretty funny.

The one below is not. It's pretty sad. Marvel is over. I can't really tell the difference between them.

And what... "adult orphans?" In other words, an adult? Sigh.

SWTOR 5/22/2022 tracker

It's a little early for the tracker, but after doing bounty missions with twenty characters, who are all eligible to at least do some planet, even those who don't have a ship yet and have to take the shuttle back and forth between the fleet and Dromund Kaas, Hutta, Coruscant or Ord Mantell, I got kind of burned out. Yesterday was my last bounty mission. I didn't even do any kingpins, but I officially gave up for this week's version of it. I've just done too many and I don't care any more. 

I did get the bounty hunter metal speeder for two characters, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't even sound metal like the Rishi "dune buggy" Mad Max speeder does. It does look cool, but it sounds as quiet as an electric car. Blegh. And I got the bounty hunter droid customization for one character, Vash Galaide. He's an agent, and because they have the worst companion selection of all of the classes (with the possible exception of the consular, but I still give the edge to the agent) I'm gonna want that hulking death machine with me most of the time instead. I'll miss out on just a bit of banter, but most of it isn't witty, and it makes the characters even more unlikeable than they already are. That's 100 bounty hunter contracts spent. And I didn't even need any reputation, because I'm already maxed out. It just isn't worth it anymore.

I did get a good two, three, or even four levels for most of my participating characters, except those who are already too high level to level up that much, if at all. So that's something.

Anyway, that isn't much of a tracker update, but given that nobody progressed in the story at all, and I only got a few new levels on a few characters, I figure I can do another update middle of next week when I'm completely done with galactic season 2 completely completely, with literally nothing else worth doing on it at all. 

And to make this post not a complete waste of time, here's a few shots of one of my designs for a trooper who's a gunslinger. Normally I like the big, chunky, over-sized guns, but here I'm having him sport a pair that are actually reasonably sized just for variety. And then, on the fleet, I decided to give him the "stylish goggles" because they're pretty cheap on the fleet and look nifty. That's a different look, with different guns, of course. And finally, reading the map because he got lost on the fleet is in his "Han Solo" outfit. Although he's a trooper, I have no intention of putting him in anything that looks like armor or a uniform. The closest is a kind of "black ops fatigues" look, but even then, I'm saving most of those for my agent. I see him more as a kind of "space James Bond" who's attached to the military, but who doesn't really act very soldierish. And why would he? He's a warrior, not a soldier, and both his personality, his dialogue choices, most of the gameplay, and his visual design will all represent that.

SWTOR 5/18/2011 Tracker

As indicated in some inter-tracker posts and comments I've made, I've been doing other things other than my recordable playthroughs, for the most part, this last week, and will continue doing "other things" this week. There are some things I want to buy with the bounty hunter currency, so I'm spending a lot of time grinding for bounty hunter currency. This is a little bit unfortunate, because I have no need for bounty hunter association reputation. But it is what it is. Luckily (or not, depending) the event only comes around for one week every two month or so, so it's not like it really sucks up too much time. There's a good chance I'll be out of town (again) when it comes up again, so all the more reason to grind as much as I can this time around. After I'm done with bounty hunting, I'll probably feel a bit burned out from doing it, and will be glad to get back to my characters playthroughs again. But in the meantime, it's been fun to put my semi-retired characters through their paces by doing limited time events like this. 

Speaking of which, I've mostly been doing galactic seasons stuff with my semi-retirees, but I'm almost completely done with that. I've been done with the 100-level reward track for a while, but I'm only about 120 points (out of 70,000) to max out the reputation (I'm capped for the week, so I'll have to finish next week) and I'm at 96 of 100 weekly objectives to hit the 100 objective milestone, where I get the last reward that seasons offers. Again; I've got two more I can do this week, but I'll still be a little short. I'll easy hit both of those milestones on Tuesday next when the week restarts, at which point most of my Fel companions on most of my characters will pick up the pseudo-Cad Bane look.

I've also done some stuff because of the weapons in outfitter, i.e., I've been crafting and looking for legacy bound, or even not, if it needs to be, weapons that I can use because I like the look of them. I'd been crafting, for instance, and I found yet another pistol that I really like: the Bounty Hunter Blaster, which is legacy bound. Turns out that's a class reward for the bounty hunter. Although I've played four bounty hunters, I guess I never really noticed that gun before this point, but luckily I had a bounty hunter character that I'd created but never done anything with. So... on top of all of the other things that I probably don't need to be doing, I played Hutta with yet another new bounty hunter. Sigh. I've recorded him (so far) but I may ditch those recordings, and keep him as a bonus character, like Hutran Thanatos or Taul Kajak who I no longer record. I like having characters like this kicking around that I'm not recording, but can play in a more "relaxed" setting. In fact, I'm leaning heavily towards that. And that also means; no schedule. I don't have to care about keeping him moving "with the pack." I did, however, play him long enough to get the pistol and throw it in my legacy bank, as well as use him for bounty hunter missions, at least on Hutta itself, if not anywhere else. But I may not make a final decision on whether or not to keep the recordings I made until such point as I get to them in my editing, and other than the bounty association missions, I doubt I'll play him any more in the short or medium term either. 

Anyway, on to the tracker, in spite of the fact that there's been no story progress, I'll still note their story location. The third section is the real meat; in the future, I'll probably only refer to those characters and maybe a side-note or the second group. The first group will get ignored.

Semi-Retired Older Characters

• J'ohhn - Level 80 Sniper. Also, my banker and shopper for everyone, as well as my cybertech crafter.
• Lu'uke - Level 80 Gunslinger. Wrapping up Shadow of Revan and Rise of the Hutt Cartel in odd parallel (bouncing back and forth between them) except very slowly and when I just want to do something a little different. Also, my armstech crafter, so he's been busy lately as I've made a bunch of the guns of various types as part of my crafting spree.
• M'at Thew - Level 80 Sith Marauder. Ready to start Ziost, but I like my companions, so I've been reluctant to commit. Also, my artifice crafter, so I keep him especially busy making dye modules.
• Galat'tion - Level 80 Pyrotech. Biochem crafter.
• Graggory - Level 80 Advanced Prototype Powertech. Armormech crafter.
• M'aar'k - Level 80 Jedi Guardian, synthweaving crafter and most advanced in the story (still waiting on fixes and/or more content before engaging Legacy of the Sith stuff, though.)
• Phillip'ion - Level 77 Commando, and cybernetic component. He does the unattached cybernetic components gathering skill, and he's the only "retired" character who's not max level yet. Although I've been enjoying using him in the bounty event; if that doesn't get him to 80, I might grind him up all the way anyway by doing something or other.

"Younger" Characters that I'm not recording

• Hutran Thanatos - Level 44 Operative, on Nar Shaddaa. He'll tick up in levels just doing bounty stuff this week, but otherwise I doubt I'll progress him.
• Embric Stane - Level 16 Mercenary, just finished Hutta. I'll do bounty stuff with him and probably end up in the early 20s for level, and he'll go back into sleep mode after that, I think.
• Taul Kajak - Level 30 Jedi Sentinel, on Coruscant. I'd like to finish Coruscant with him so he has a ship and can be more useful in general in events.

"Young" Characters for Recording

• Codon Veile - Level 18 Sniper playing Trooper story. He'll level up a bit via bounty missions on Ord Mantell, but then he'll be in the play routine following  that.
• Elemer Kell - Level 34 Jedi Sentinel. On Taris, although still has most of that planet to do.
• Haul Romund - Level 34 Mercenary playing Smuggler story. Finished Ord Mantell and Esseles.
• Anstal Tane - Level 40 Scoundrel. Finished Taris, but then I remembered that the Taris Bonus Series comes immediately after the Taris story in the recommended order, so I can't actually leave yet. Other than to do bounties on Coruscant.
• Vant Galaide - Level 33 Mercenary. Just finished Dromund Kaas.
• Wulf Hengest - Level 27 Vanguard playing bounty hunter story. Just finished Black Talon.
• Phovos Maledict - Level 26 Juggernaut, just finished Black Talon.
• Vash Galaide - Level 33 Powertech playing agent story. Just finished Black Talon.
• Revecca Arden - Level 32 Sorcerer. Just finished Dromund Kaas
• Mirabeau Tane - Level 10 Gunslinger playing trooper story. Just did some level grinding; haven't actually played any story missions yet.

By young, I mean lower level and haven't finished the main story, of course. As I now have a decent amount of money and cosmetic stuff, I'll create a bunch of images and descriptions with these guys too, that I'll probably post on Dark Fantasy X, like I did a couple of times with my older characters, like this post and this post. Curiously, my newest character, who hasn't played a single story mission yet, is one of the ones that's the most advanced with his "looks" because I created him, in part, because I had a bunch of gear that I was excited to use.

Of my current cast of characters that I'm "working" on, I have three force users and six tech users. I clearly have a preference. Of the younger characters that I'm probably not recording, it's the same ratio; one character to two. Even of my old "semi-retired" characters, I've only kept two force users; my Sith marauder and Jedi guardian, compared to five tech users. Part of this is on accident; I ended up with two bounty hunters, and because they were crafting experts, they had to stay. But I'd almost certainly have maintained a similar ratio; I just like the tech classes better.

As I said earlier, I like using my SWTOR characters to explore archetypes for Space Opera X. Many of these creations were built with that idea specifically in mind.

More space opera

I never would have thought when I started this blog that I'd be talking more about space opera than about fantasy of any variety. I still owe the fantasy vs space opera essay too! I haven't forgotten. I have, however, been busy. 

So, a couple of scattershot items, just in a journal/diary type fashion.

1) This summer, I've got a number of trips planned. The first one, I'll have to endure a family reunion first, the only part of which I'm really interested in is seeing my oldest son and his wife and my two grandkids. To be honest, I don't quite understand why my in-laws 50th anniversary is a family affair. Seems like something they should go off and celebrate together, to me. But we'll be at Bear Lake, which I hear is tons of fun, although I've never been, and then on "the way home" for a week, I'll be able to see some premier hiking and backpacking destinations. First off, some day hiking in the Tetons area. I may even do some of what I did a couple of years ago; there's not a ton of 1-day options, and I'll have someone with me who wasn't last time. But we'll see. I'm reviewing possible routes and options now. Then, a two-night, three(ish) day hike to the Lost Twin Lakes in the Big Horn Mountains. The Big Horns may not be quite as spectacular and "pointy" as the Tetons, although this particular destination is, in my opinion, amazingly beautiful. But they get only a tiny fraction of the visitation, and most of that from locals. Then, we'll drive out via Crazy Woman Canyon and get to see some Black Hills destinations. Probably Devil's Tower and Custer State Park, and finally, after a night in Rapid City, which is a town I really like (not that I'll be out sampling the nightlife or anything) we'll hit Badlands National Park as a final destination on the way home; after that, it's just the slog of driving for two days. Sigh. This is really more the kind of thing that I talk about on my hiking blog, but I'll probably post a picture or two here, at least, after I get back.

2) Later in the summer, one of my sons, my wife and I will take the California Zephyr, the most scenic and captivatingly fun (allegedly; I guess we'll see first hand) train rides across the country, from Chicago to San Francisco. From there, we'll explore northern California a bit, see Redwoods National Park, show my wife San Francisco (which neither my son nor I are really too keen to see, for that matter. I saw it in the 80s when I was a teenager. According to all reports, it has hardly improved in the years since.) Again; I'll post some redwood pictures and maybe some NoCal mountains or something.

3) On finishing the Han Solo Adventures, I picked up another of my old books, Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars by Leigh Brackett. Although printed in the early 80s, it was a reprint of a double book first published nearly twenty years earlier in 1964, and contains the two short novels/novellas "The Secret of Sinharat" and "The People of the Talisman", both of which feature the character Eric John Stark on Mars. I say that it was first published in 1964, and while that's true, these two novellas were expansions and rewrites of short stories first published another nearly twenty years earlier than that where they were "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and "Black Amazon of Mars" respectively. Along with these two stories on Mars, Stark also featured in a story called "Enchantress of Venus" which, naturally, takes place on Venus. Although he's her most famous character, that really was it until the mid-70s when she wrote a second trilogy starring him, although now removed from the 40s space opera version of our solar system and set on the fictional exoplanet of Skaith. Which... bears a number of resemblances in some of its regions to Mars and Venus as described earlier, but that's neither here nor there.

These stories are unusual and in many ways astonishing. They're not necessarily great. They're very short, the characterization is poor in most respects, and Brackett does an amazing amount of telling not showing in some ways. But they're also very different than what you'd expect, and other than the marked telling us that things were evil repeatedly, she's an expert at her craft. Stark is a kind of spacefaring Tarzan or Mowgli in many ways, except more grim and melancholy in personality than either (Tarzan in particular is notable for his lust for life.) And while space opera was often accused (as if this were a bad thing) in those days of being too similar in plotting and set-up to typical Westerns, Brackett's space opera has an alien horror vibe, almost Lovecraftian, that runs through these most of her stories. (Some of C. L. Moore's space opera, starring Northwest Smith is similar in this regard, especially the most famous of her stories, "Shambleau.")

Space opera is often caricaturized as being about strapping, big-chinned, manly men who are always swashbuckling their way through space with a jolly laugh, or a story of cowboys in space where green-skinned Martians stand in for Injuns and Colonist homesteaders stand in for pioneers, etc. but both Brackett and Moore's space opera stories are morose, dark and brooding... while still managing to be space opera. If you've never read them, you really should. In spite of their kind of weirdness, I find that I read this Brackett double book every few years; this is the third or fourth time I've read it since picking it up now. I'll do a more detailed review once I finish the second of the double books. I read "Secret of Sinharat" last night, but I only read a few pages into "People of the Talisman" before it got too late and I went to bed.

4) I've done very little of what I planned to do in SWTOR this week so far. In fact, I haven't played any of my new characters at all, although I've gone on a weird crafting, selling and buying bender with my old characters. A new week starts tomorrow, which will include the bounty hunter event, so I probably won't play much of my new characters, or any of their story really, this coming week either.  This isn't to say that I haven't played, I just haven't played the characters I thought I'd be playing. And although I have edited and posted a fair number of videos, I still feel far enough behind that I'll probably focus more on that in the coming week than in creating new ones, even if I wasn't otherwise doing the bounty hunter event stuff.

One of the things I did was finally break down and throw some money at the cartel market for some cosmetic items, specifically the "Mandalorian" armor set, and another one that had some elements I really wanted to use. And because I have so many pistol options, I actually created yet another character so I could use them; a gunslinger who'll be on the trooper class. So, of the tech classes, I now have two of each; two agents (one is an operative and one is a powertech, and I'm only recording one of them now), two bounty hunters (a mercenary and a vanguard), two smugglers (a scoundrel and a mercenary) and now two troopers, although they're the least advanced; a sniper and a gunslinger. The new character, who I created and grinded some gratuitous XP, but who hasn't otherwise started any of his story, is a human with modest cybernetic implants, and one of my main design parameters for him was that I wanted him to fit the lyrical phrase "with auburn hair and tawny eyes" from the classic Flock of Seagulls song "I Ran (So Far Away)". That originally refers to a girl, of course, and it would otherwise be awkward if Michael Score said that his eyes were the kind of eyes that hypnotized you through.

Professor Dungeon Master made an offhand comment in a video not long ago that one thing that has changed in the RPG landscape, and computer RPGs like SWTOR may be partially the cause of this, is that in the past, people roleplayed; i.e., they played a role. Now, when "roleplaying" many players create what is essentially an idealized version of themselves, maybe with some kind of interesting exotic physical characteristics that the person playing the character thinks would be cool if they could have in real life. I admit that my approach here is kind of a hybrid (although this is a computer game, so it's different.) One of the reason I've generally been less attracted to the trooper is that I'm not much of a joiner, I'm pretty stubborn, and I resent being told what to do by people who I may or may not know to be wrong. I was truly not cut out for military life, which is good because I never had any interest in joining the military. But my trooper characters are more independent, more egalitarian and "flat" in their approach to the military hierarchy, and will only reluctantly take orders; I'll see them more as special agents who happen to be attached to the military a la James Bond rather than typical soldiers. In the case of my gunslinger, I may even see him more as an irregular outside specialist brought on to do a special job, but not even necessarily part of the military structure at all, or at least that'll be his attitude (he does have military rank, so it's not literally true. That's just how I'll make decisions and cast my dialogue, to the degree that I can.) And I'll think about how this new character, Mirabeau Tane (I kind of regretted the name almost as soon as I chose it, but I'll run with it anyway. Should have chosen Lamar) would fit into Space Opera X, even though I'm playing him as a computer RPG character in Star Wars the Old Republic.

Han Solo Adventures

Before I begin; a quick SWTOR note. I doubt that my playthrough will advance as fast as I anticipated in the tracker update, because I've spent more time yesterday editing and posting videos of the playthroughs rather than playing through and generating more raw footage. I'll probably do the same today, and maybe tomorrow too. I feel like there's a big backlog of raw footage that I've recorded, and continuing to make more without addressing the backlog is starting to feel like a poor logistical choice. So I'm playing just a bit of catch-up before I move on. But I'll address what actually happens at some point next week. In the meantime, if you follow my YouTube channel with the SWTOR playthrough updates, you've got five new videos to watch, and probably a fair number more coming today and tomorrow.

The other thing that I did other than play last night was buckle down and read the last ~80 or so pages of the Han Solo Adventures, an omnibus novel that I've been reading for way too long. This book is just short of 600 pages, and collects the three slimmer Brian Daley novels written (or at least published, I should say) in 1979 and 1980. Prior, therefore, to the release of Empire Strikes Back. Although the story has, as far as I know, no input from George Lucas other than a mandated exclusion of any use of the Empire, it is an interesting place; a window into a point in time. Like Splinter of the Mind's Eye, it's the only glimpse into a more space operatic version of Star Wars when only the first movie was out and the tone hadn't yet changed and this is how people perceived the franchise still. 

Of course, I believe that Daley (as well as Lucas himself) were bringing as much from the genre as they were from Star Wars specifically. Star Wars has been so massive in the cultural zeitgeist that even to many science fiction fans themselves its defined how we view the genre in ways that are different than how we viewed it before Star Wars. But with only one movie and one novelized sequel yet in place in the late 70s when Daley was writing this, he didn't have a lot of material to fall back to to understand the "feel" of Star Wars, so he just did what he was familiar with. Daley was already an author, although much of what he wrote wasn't published until after these Han Solo novels. His Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt novels are probably a good example of what he'd do on his own in space opera outside of Star Wars. Two space-faring adventurers in a light-hearted, sometimes humorous romp through space, dealing as much with irritating bureaucrats as with any other danger. To be fair, that's a fair enough description of his take on Han Solo too. 

Unable to use the Empire, because Lucas wanted to reserve it and its iconic characters for his own upcoming sequel, which was of course The Empire Strikes Back, Daley went a prequel route for Han Solo and described some of his adventures and set them in the Corporate Sector. Now, although the canon-aficionados have made Daley's Corporate Sector and the Corporate Sector referenced many times through the Clone Wars series the same place, its not very clear that his vision for them is very similar to that of the story overall. The vibe of this bureaucratic and amoral Corporate Sector Authority vs the Empire is very different, of course. Not that that's a bad thing, but that does suggest that it will feel somewhat different than Star Wars as we're used to. 

The version pictured here looks like mine, except that my prices were a little bit lower, so it must have been an earlier print ($14.99 and $4.99 respectively, and no mention of Canadian prices.) It is, as noted, three original slim novels that have been omnibused. Given that the omnibus is under 600 pages, the average page count of each novel is under 200 pages. 

And this is a major change from how we read now. The Timothy Zahn books are roughly the size of the Lord of the Rings books, i.e. ~350 pages each, or so, and with a much more tightly linked story spread over three books, as opposed to books that are nearly half the length and they are only loosely connected rather than part of a single epic storyline. How does this impact the end result? Well, older, shorter science fiction stories were much more punchy and focused much more on fast-moving plot, and had very little emphasis on character. In fact, I'd suggest that few if any of Daley's characters come to life at all; they're just names and plot points, for the most part, and only a handful of characters really "come to life". Part of this is certainly predictable; you just don't have time to develop them, especially if the cast starts to proliferate. Characters who really work include the two robots, Bollux and Blue Max, who are spread across all three books (which helps) and Gallandro, the dark mirror and would-be nemesis of Han Solo across this small series. A few others actually have some personality, but they're still mostly forgettable. In fact, Hasti, for example, a kinda sorta love-interest (maybe; not really, not sure) in the final novel was never more than a name and a very vague image to me, other than her role in advancing the plot. 

Whether this is a good or a bad thing is a matter of opinion, of course. Plenty of people like the punchier, plot-driven type of science fiction, although I'd suggest that in more general terms, all good stories are stories about interesting characters. I think that the novels would have been better if they weren't necessarily longer, but with a slightly slimmer cast of characters and a bit more emphasis on character vs plot. Curiously, even Han and Chewie rarely come to life as real characters. I think Daley figured that since they were known characters from the movie, they didn't need development, but curiously they were kind of boring characters in their own series. 

All in all, I'd suggest that the book is an interesting peek into Star Wars while it was still in an almost "larval" state; it hadn't yet accrued most of the details and tone that make it recognizably Star Wars to us. This is both interesting and yet also not in some ways, as the novels feel very much like they could be forgettable, generic space opera and nothing all that special when seen in that light.

SWTOR 5/12/2022 Tracker

I normally wouldn't do another tracker so soon, but I decided to go ahead and add a trooper storyline. Codon Veile, shown below in a black ops armored uniform (although hatless. He's not actually hatless, I just hid his hat for now, until I decide for sure which one I want him to wear.)

In the past, almost everything about this guy wouldn't have been playable. He's:

—a Chiss, an Imperial only race. Although unlocking races across factions has been available for a long time, and I've personally had it unlocked for most races for a long time myself. But it's still not available from the default when you start the game.

—a sniper. Until the 7.0 update, you could only play troopers as commandos (big slung autocannon as weapon; think Jesse Ventura from Predator) or vanguards, who used a blaster rifle and played like a big bruiser bounty hunter type. Snipers are, of course, an agent class by default and somehow seem "lighter."

—using blaster rather than sniper rifles on all outfits. Since 7.0.2 (I think I got that notation right) we have cosmetic weapons in the outfit designer, or outfitter. This means that you can have one weapon equipped for its stats, and another weapon displayed on the screen. Now, snipers could always equip blaster rifles instead of their default option of sniper rifles, although it wasn't advisable to do so because it did less damage to use the wrong weapon. This was the only case in which a class could use a weapon other than its default. Because of this, you can now equip blaster rifles in the cosmetic-only outfitter, while still having a sniper rifle equipped in your non-visual statistical gear.

—the ironic thing here is that although I'm using an unusual class to play the trooper story, because I have cosmetic blaster rifles, it looks like I'm a vanguard, an "old fashioned" trooper type. The sniper plays significantly different to the vanguard, however.

Anyway, let's go through the characters that I'm actively playing and note their progress. Note that I have other active characters, but most of them I consider "semi-retired" and they do grinding of seasons, events, they do crafting, and occasionally I advance them a little at a time in the post-story story (Ilum, or Rise of the Hutt Cartel, or wherever it may be that they are. Few of them have advanced very far on this track; in fact, I only have one character eligible to play Legacy of the Sith story material right now.) I'm also going to make a footnote of my characters that I'm no longer recording, although still playing, which makes up the last group of characters that I still have on my roster.

Wait; that's not true. I do have one other character who doesn't fit in any of those categories. However, since I'm not actually playing him at all, he's just there for now and I'll ignore him from this point on forever, until such time as I actually decide to play him, if I do.

Republic Stories

• Anstal Tane: level 40 sith pureblood smuggler scoundrel. Just finished Taris and hopped back on his ship. Can't remember off hand if there is an in-between mini-module or not I'll need to do, but either way, he's on his way towards Nar Shaddaa. He's also, for what its worth, the farthest advanced in his story of the classes that I'm still recording.
• Haul Romund: level 31 human smuggler mercenary. Just finished the Esseles flashpoint as the more complicated (yet story-heavy and XP friendly) alternative to zipping to Coruscant from Ord Mantell. He hasn't really started doing anything on Coruscant yet, though. Still just standing right where I got off the shuttle.
• Elemer Kell: level 33 Imperial style zabrak Jedi knight sentinel. On Taris. I'm not just sitting there in the hangar, but at the same time, I haven't done a lot yet on the planet either.
• Codon Veile level 17 chiss trooper sniper. As mentioned above. I've actually played all the way through Ord Mantell with him, and he's on the Republic fleet, waiting to do the Black Talon. He's the newest created; I actually just created him yesterday and already played this far with him. He's the least far advanced; every other character has at least done the first flashpoint and arrived on their capitol planet.

You may think it odd that I have two smugglers, and I claim to not even love that class. I'm finding, however, that with a bit more judicious use of dialogue (i.e., you don't need to pick the [flirt] option all of the time to romance your romanceable character, because most of those are cringy beta lines anyway) that you can fix some of my problems with it. I'm sometimes annoyed that the game calls my choices "dark side" especially when I have little patience with entitled, demanding bratty little princesses in exploration missions, or that I expect people to honor their commitments and agreements rather than letting them do whatever they want just because they're a girl, or whatever. Anyway, I've ranted about that nonsense from the writers plenty of times before, so I'll let it go. But the point is that I've found that the smuggler story isn't as bad as I thought it was after my first playthrough if I handle things just a little bit differently, and both the scoundrel and the mercenary play significantly differently than the gunslinger which I played through as my first time with the smuggler story.

Imperial Stories

• Vant Galaide: level 33 human bounty hunter mercenary. My first attempt at playing the mercenary (although as noted above, I later used the class for a smuggler too). He's finished Dromund Kaas and is chilling on his ship, ready to head off to Balmorra.
• Wulf Hengest: level 26 human bounty hunter vanguard. Another bounty hunter, although using what used to be a trooper advanced class. He just finished Black Talon flashpoint and arrived on Dromund Kaas.
• Revecca Arden: level 32 human Sith inquisitor sorcerer. I started her prior to the dropping of the Legacy of the Sith expansion, but I hadn't actually played her until more recently. She's now chilling on her ship, after finishing Dromund Kaas, so Balmorra will be next for her too. 
• Phovos Maledict: level 25 human Sith warrior juggernaut. Just finished Black Talon and arrived on Dromund Kaas. I actually started him with a slightly different name prior to the launch of the expansion, but I deleted him and recreated him as a different race and with a slightly improved name just in time for the double XP event last week. (Which is why his level is so high compared to his story progress.)
• Vash Galaide: level 33 human agent powertech. Just finished Black Talon also and is in the spaceport on Dromund Kaas. Three of my Imperial characters are at this same point in their story, and the other two are one planet further along on their ships. In Vash's case, his high level isn't based on the double XP event; I grinded him up to 10th level before starting the story, and I played Black Talon eight times back to back to back (ugh) to get a seasons reward. Admittedly I planned that fairly poorly, and I could have gone with another option where I wasn't grinding one flashpoint so many times, but I got pretty fast at it, and I got about another level's worth of XP every time I played it. 

Nine characters total. There's a few patterns. First off, I'm mirroring what I'm doing across Imperial and Republic stories; two of my favorite archetype in each case; the smuggler and the bounty hunter. For those, I have one that's playing an advanced class associated with the story, and one that's not. And I don't have a mirrored version of the sorcerer, because I'm just not in the mood for a consular and don't like that story as much anyway.

I'd said earlier that I'm mostly trying to keep them traveling as a pack, so that nobody gets too far ahead, and nobody falls too far behind—although I don't want everyone to be at exactly the same place either, because I'll get really burned out doing the same planet over and over again if I do. The farthest ahead of any characters is Anstal Tane who just finished his third planet and is chillin' on his ship. I just did that in the last few days, so he's going to go into "rest" mode for a while so most other characters can catch up to him a little. Elemer Kell is the next farthest, and he's on Taris (planet 3 for Republic characters.) I like to have characters at break points rather than in the middle of something, so I'll probably go finish his Taris content off as my next stuff to play today and tomorrow.

Later this weekend I'll want to switch back to the Imperial side. This weekend and early next week, I believe that I'll play a planet's-worth of content for Vash, Phovos and Vant. This will mean I still have one lingering Imperial character who needs to do planet two, and one that's finished planet three; everyone else will be in between; waiting to start planet three. 

And with most of my Imperial characters at the same exact place in the story, it'll make sense to bounce back early to middle of next week to the Republic side. Of course, I'll be in the limited time bounty hunting event at this point, so I'll probably grind a fair bit of that so I can buy at least one character the monster speeder bike associated with that event, and at least one character the HK customization. This will slow down my story playthroughs because I'll be using my time in game to do some other things this week. But when I come back, or do a bit here and there regardless, I'll be back on the Republic side and probably focus on the lingerers. At this point, that means Elemer and Anstal are still on hold and Codon and Haul will catch up and do Coruscant.

That's probably far enough to project my plans, and gets me all the way to planet three or four with every character. 

I should probably also mention my two characters that I no longer record: Hutran Thanatos level 43 Mirialan agent operative partway through Nar Shaddaa and Taul Kajak level 28 Mirialan Jedi knight sentinel halfway (or so) through Coruscant. I don't have any specific plans for them, but I like that they're out there when I want to play yet feel kind of relaxed about it. When I'm recording I have to pay attention to that a bit, so it's not like I can just turn off and play; I have to have other things in the back of my mind still. I'd like to finish Taul's Coruscant section just so I can get him a ship and have a bit more flexibility to use him in events and stuff. After that, who knows? I'll keep playing them a bit here and there, but not much. The story-recorded characters will almost certainly pass them up before too long. Taul Kajak, who ironically was the first character I started recording back when I was still recording him, is already about to fall behind all of the story characters, although Hutran Thanatos is for now out in front of all of them.

So my next week or two of playing will be, in loosely if not exactly this order: 

• Elemer will finish Taris
• Vash will do Dromund Kaas
• Vant will do Balmorra
• If it's still not Tuesday, Phovos will do Dromund Kaas
• The next week of Galactic Seasons weekly activities (almost done with all achievements here! I won't quite finish next week, though; I'll have 98 weeklies done, out of 100 needed, and I'll probably be a week or two short of reaching Legendary reputation status too.)
• Bounties, bounties and more bounties. I have more characters who can do them this time than I did last time it came around. I'll probably get burned out before the week is over, but I'll keep going until that happens, and this will almost certainly bring my story content to a temporary halt.
• In between doing bounties or when I'm done, back to Haul to do Coruscant.
• Then back to Revecca to do Balmorra
• Then back to Codon to do Esseles and Coruscant. 
• And finally Wulf on to Dromund Kaas. And then we get back to Anstal on Nar Shaddaa and start over, in a similar order again, after that.

SWTOR Tracker 5/9/2022 and the end of the double XP event

It's not really over until tomorrow, but with Mother's Day weekend and a lot of stressful and frustrating things going on at work, I haven't played as much of the Double XP as I hoped to. But I think I'm where I want to be with most of my characters. Here's a small tracker update:

• Vant Galaide: bounty hunter mercenary: level 30 or so and finished with Dromund Kaas. I haven't played him this week.
• Anstal Tane: smugger scoundrel: same, except substitute Coruscant for Dromund Kaas.
• Revecca Arden: sith inquistor sorcerer: she's in the upper 20s in terms of level and I've done most of Dromund Kaas with her. I'd like to finish that before moving on later tonight.
• Elemer Kell: Jedi knight sentinel: about the same as Anstal and Vant; hasn't changed since before the double XP event started
• Taul Kajak: Jedi knight sentinel: I've played him a bit, but he's dropping out of the recordings due to a corrupted video file, so he, like Hutran Thanatos, is just "for fun" now.
• Vash Galaide: agent powertech: I don't think I've played him since the event started, but he's already at about level 30 and on Dromund Kaas. Because I did the Black Talon flashpoint with him so many times, he's probably the most advanced considering his place in the story. I can keep him up front by continuing to do all of the exploration missions and stuff, or I can cut some of those missions and advance through the class story more quickly.
• Haul Romund: smuggler mercenary: I got him to about level 30 and to Coruscant. He's high level for his place because of the double XP. Good head-start during the event.
• Wulf Hengest: bounty hunter vanguard: I did the same with him as I did with Haul, more or less.
• Phovos Maledict: Sith warrior juggernaut: He's also in the same place as the two above, even though I created him specifically for the double XP week. That is probably all I'm going to do for now with regards to recording new characters. I really should have named him Phovos Maledictus, but too late now. It's prohibitively expensive to change character names, so forget it.

My naming conventions are a lot better than what I did with my original playthroughs of the game, where I had no idea what I was doing so I kind of just did... whatever, and doubled letters and added gratuitous apostrophes to make it work. That said, most of my names were cribbed from my own fantasy setting, although I now like them enough in this SWTOR context that I'm thinking of using them in my space opera context. Galaide as a last name won't work, because the Galaide Worlds are already from my own space opera, and are a small grouping of star systems. Vant and Vash weren't meant to be brothers or anything. Vant is actually just from the Mandalorian character Cobb Vanth with the h dropped, and Vash is just supposed to be a similar name. Revecca Arden is based on a different fantasy Revecca, but Arden is a nod towards Flash Gordon's girlfriend Dale Arden, one of the original space opera gals. Romund is a slight mispelling of a fantasy land in my fantasy setting, Normaund, and Wulf Hengest is just an Anglo-Saxon sounding name. Phovos is a slight misspelling of Phobos, the minor Greek god who is also the name-sake of one of Mars' moons, and Maledict is just from Latin for maledictus, or "curse." I like how SWTOR is informing and influencing my ideas of Space Opera X, though. Both for good and bad.

I'd like to, when I have more time, discuss the difference between space opera and fantasy. Some people, who are probably a little too immersed in genre fiction, see them as quite different, whereas I see them as two sides of the same coin. While there are some differences between them, obviously, most of those differences are more superficial than not, I think. There is at least one major, structural divide between the two, however. Anyway... tagged for another post in the future when I've got more time and energy to sit and think about things like that.

UPDATE: I'm off to bed, and when I next log on, the double XP event will be over. I finished Dromund Kaas with Revecca and got her her ship. I did the little interplanetary mission with Elemer Kell on Ord Mantell, and then brought him to Taris. And I went back to Anstal Tane and started doing some Taris stuff. More ridiculous SJWisms, but I had to really laugh when the squatters on Taris tried to claim that their old documents meant that they were the legitimate owners. I wasn't having any of it, and they kept trying to shame me by doing the "humans are still so racist" routine. Of course, Anstal Tane... is a Sith pureblood and not human at all. The whole conception was ridiculous anyway. The exploration missions in particular are pretty pathetic (that is actually part of the planetary faction quest string, but still); they rarely offer the normal most obvious thing to say, and you have to listen to someone trying really hard to set up some hoaky "moral dilemma" for you to face. Sadly, I keep falling for it, because I want to grind the XP, when in reality if I even talked to this quest giver person at all, I'd tell them to shut up and walk away almost as soon as they started talking.

UPDATE II: In remembrance of the fallen: the characters that I made and decided not to play. One of them is still on my server, but the other three have been deleted: Embric Stane, a bounty hunter mercenary cyborg (I decided against the big guy body type. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would) Osan Galaide, a big guy trooper, Codon Veile the Jedi consular, and Phovos Mal, a zabrak sith juggernaut, who was replaced by Phovos Maledict, the human sith juggernaut. While I did indeed take some names from Dark Fantasy X, I was surprised on further review that I actually took more names from obscure parts of my star sector map for Space Opera X. And I don't just mean the over-use of Galaide as a last name, although that's part of it: Codon and Osan both hail from there, for instance. Codon is a world I haven't developed yet that's part of a far-westward Seraean colony and which used to be part of the Altairan Ascendency before being conquered. It's not unheard of today for people to have first names that are also place names--I've known people named Erin, Savana, Jordan, Dakota, and others, for instance. And sometimes it goes the other way, where places are named after people: Israel being a notable example, or Georgia (sorta. Although the name of the state wasn't ever George.) I think, therefore, that even if Codon ever gets developed for the Space Opera X setting, I could still have a character named Codon Veille there too. That's the interesting thing of this second playthrough and recording phase; although obviously these are Star Wars Old Republic characters, they're leading me mentally towards potential Space Opera X characters, not further Star Wars development. 

Of course, the characters are the same. No matter how you build and customize your character, there are very few choices that you can make that are really substantive (and ironically, being a normal, non-beta type guy often ends up with the game calling you Dark Side for reasons that say very unflattering things about the developers and writers) but the point is that the voice acted dialogue is all prerecorded. You can't do very much that affects the character other than give him a "look" and maybe a glimmer in the back of your mind about some kind of backstory. I think it's silly to write backstories for video game characters, although I know of players who do that. 

To be honest, I don't know how much value there is in spending too much time writing too much backstory for regular TTRPG characters, or even actual story/novel/movie characters, for that matter. Many of my favorite characters appeared with a paper thin backstory; you could say what you knew about their backstory in two sentences, if even that. And in many cases, if the writers decide to later explore the backstory of these characters, it's usually a mistake; the backstory that they come up with makes the characters less compelling, actually.

But all that's probably the subject of some other discussion in another post somewhere.

UPDATE III: In a final slightly unrelated update, in the wake of the launch of cosmetic weapons that match cosmetic outfits, I've decided that I don't necessarily love all that many of the sniper rifles after all; most of them are way too long. When I played my sniper through his story originally, I played him after my gunslinger. My sniper became my cybertech crafter, but my gunslinger was my armstech crafter. Both my trooper and my sniper (and for that matter, my gunslinger himself) went through a progression of using crafted weapons that my gunslinger had made for them, and when they "leveled out" of one weapon, I retired it and gave them the newer one that they could now equip. It was kind of fun to see the progression of weapons as I went through them. For the most part, the range in which you use a crafted weapon is about four levels, so long enough to enjoy it, but short enough to keep the variety going. Even the ones I didn't really like all that much I tolerated because why not? And then later, of course, as mods were how I kept my higher level version of my sniper up to date, I stopped using the crafted weapons and used mostly cartel market ones. 

One of the things that I noticed is that I don't really love the super long sniper rifles. They look really, really awkward on the character's back. It's a little hard to imagine the guy running all over the landscape with the end of the barrel bumping up against his heels. While it's true that in real life, sniper rifles sometimes do have a longer barrel than "normal" rifles, this is due to the chemistry and physics of firing a bullet, and it's not clear why it would be true for a blaster rifle firing a burst of plasma, or whatever exactly a blaster "bolt" is supposed to be in Star Wars. In addition, this is to keep muzzle velocity and accuracy high at very long ranges; the sniper in SWTOR actually doesn't shoot at long range at all, and uses his "sniper rifle" more often like a semi-automatic regular rifle at relatively short range. Not only that, there's a lot of clipping issues with the really long guns, especially if you're wearing any kind of overcoat, or duster, or cape or anything like that. There's really no point at all in having the very long sniper rifles except for the visual cue of a long rifle being "sniper-like" in the minds of most people. 

Of course, snipers can equip blaster rifles, although there wasn't a good reason to do so, because your damage output was lower. But with cosmetic weapons, you can now actually have a sniper rifle equipped, such as the 320-rated decurion gun, and have the visual of a blaster rifle that's a more reasonably sized weapon for the way in which its being used. And, of course, you could already do so with your companions that use sniper rifles by default, such as Risha, Gault, Aric, HK-51, etc. So I'm going through a phase right now where I'm equipping blaster rifles on my sniper in the outfitter tab (not for real, just the visual). I just had my armstech crafter whip up the four blaster rifles that I most like the look of specifically for my sniper to consider using visually. Granted, I don't need them. I've got plenty of cartel market or other blaster and sniper rifles to keep me in use for quite some time. And I don't have any character with more than ten outfits, so I can only use up to ten weapons anyway. But I think I may like this look better than most of the sniper weapons. In fact, although I don't have another sniper in the works right now, I'm kind of tempted to see what class I can play with the sniper mechanics right now that I'd be interested in. I've already got two agents (although now I'm only recording one of them); an operative and a powertech, two bounty hunters—a mercenary and a vanguard, and two smugglers; a scoundrel and a mercenary. I guess that makes the obvious choice a trooper.

I hadn't actually planned on making a recordable replaying of the trooper or the consular. The latter makes sense; if you read my Mother of All SWTOR Reviews, you'd know that it's my least favorite of the stories. The trooper I ranked as more middle of the road. But the reality is more complicated than that. When I ranked the stories, it was more about how well the archetypal story and characters were written and less about how much that archetype appealed to me in the first place. So the answer to the apparent conundrum of how I ranked both the trooper and the smuggler at middle of the road stories and yet I'm re-playing two smugglers right now and no troopers is that in spite of my disappointment in its execution, the smuggler is an archetype that just appeals to me a lot more than the trooper, so I'm more forgiving of its flaws. I actually think that the trooper is a significantly better written story, with some of the only "moral dilemma" choices in the entire game that don't feel contrived and hoaky. It's just that the whole concept of playing a Republic trooper kind of turns me off.

In any case, I'll probably actually play a trooper after all and start it up fairly shortly. I've even played around in the character creator to get a look for him, although I might change my mind and go back to my original idea of making a Chiss trooper again after all. The parameters I picked are:

Body Type: 2 (as always)

Head: 22

Scars: 1

Complexion: 23

Eye color: 1

Beards: 1

Tattoos: 1

Hair: 20

Hair Color: 1

Skin Color: 14

If Chiss, 

Body Type: 2

Head: 9

Scars: 4

Complexion: 39

Hair: 20

Hair color: 3 (or 1)

Skin color: 5 (or 7)

And either way, I'll resurrect the Codon Veile name for him. I do really like that name for a fantasy/space opera character. Actually, even more for a space opera character. I really need to do that discussion on the two genres sometime soon...

Taul Kajak sigh

So, I've had a few minutes to play today, and I've had a tough time. First, while recording my "alternate" Mirialan Jedi Sentinel, I had the game crash on me in the middle of a recording. That was OK. I could restart it well enough and splice the two video files together But then, about forty-five minutets or so after getting it restarted, we had three little micro-pulses of power outage. Enough to reboot my computer and my modem, even though each of the outages was less than a second. My wife, upstairs with nothing on but the TV, didn't even notice it. (I didn't think to check the microwave or oven clock.) The side effect of this is that it screwed up my recording. I have a file, but I can't play it. Its a gig and a quarter, but it's corrupted and won't play, and I'll have to delete it. 

So, my Mirialan Sentinel is my backup Jedi. My Darth Maul looking zabrak Jedi Elemer Kell is my "main." It was, however, my intention to keep recording him anyway, so it's disappointing to lose that footage, since you can't go back and replay those missions (which is a complaint for another post, but it goes all the way back to the entire MMO paradigm of SWTOR, so that's a twelve year old complaint now. I need to get over it). I could also keep going anyway and just be missing that portion, but I'll have to skip some of the early story missions (and some exploration missions, although I won't miss those) on Coruscant, which are pretty crucial. What a pain. What in the world caused that stupid micro-blackout? Argh. 

By funny coincidence, the two original recording playthroughs that I had to abandon because I had story missions that I "lost" either by forgetting to record them, or now by this, were both Mirialan. I guess I'm just not intended to record a Mirialan playthrough. That's what I get for abandoning my human male only take, I guess. Although as I go through the Sith Sorcerer with a human girl character, I'm more and more convinced that it somehow just works better as a girl. No idea why. That story is borderline farce anyway, so maybe that's the reason. Her sarcasm and occasional silliness work better as a villainess rather than a villain.

Of course, I can still play through these two Mirialan characters and probably will, but I also have to decide what to do with them. I imagine that after I finish the stories, I may keep them around for a little while just in case I want to do a bit of the post-story stuff, but it may make sense to just delete them when I'm done too.