*With regards to Katy Perry (though I prefer Karen Gillian‘s version myself).
When one of my Guild Wars alliance mates offered up a SW:TOR buddy key a few weeks ago, I took her up on it since I have been curious about how things would play out given more time to explore other storylines in the world. Since I discovered during the SW:TOR beta weekends that I liked the Bounty Hunter playstyle best (but didn’t care for the story), I rolled a Trooper this time, and had a better time of it. Something about the fact that I was a soldier made it easier to accept the game’s conceits (and most quests) and “just go along” with whatever was going on – I have orders, after all – rather than playing a civilian where I always wonder why they don’t just decide to up and leave. This is true of most MMOs I play, by the way – I like my grunt status, thanks.
Look at Aric checking me out, there.
I liked playing a Trooper enough to get past many of the other niggling things that I already noted rub me the wrong way about Bioware and traditional MMO style games, and the sad fact is that since Mr. Randomessa refused to join me on this experiment, leveling was easier because I never had to wait on or catch up with him either. So it was with regret that I reached level 15 on my Trooper and the game informed me that I would no longer be able to progress, nor would I be able to continue my storyline to the point of getting to ride in the ship I’d just acquired, or travel to another planet. I’d have known that if I’d read all the fine print, of course. Well played, Bioware.
I then rolled a Jedi Consular and an Imperial Agent and hated the gameplay, and further ran into the complication of my Consular being sent to the same planet as my Trooper and therefore running into the exact same quests I’d just completed a day earlier. I also had the frustrating experience of my Consular outright stating in her quest dialogue that she would try to find a peaceable solution to the quests my Trooper had previously solved by “lighting it up,” only to be faced with the same sea of red names that my Trooper had. I think I got the option to use Force Persuade at one point, which I guess is the game’s way of letting you have a peaceable solution, but I was kind of hoping I could do things with actual diplomacy rather than Jedi Mind Tricks. I know, I know, I was asking for too much.
At any rate, I liked playing the Trooper the most, but I didn’t like it “price of the box at launch cost for 30 days of play” much. If and when there’s a nifty discount on the box price of SW:TOR I’d like to free up her leveling path and see where I can get her, but in the meantime, she’ll remain in the hangar, ineffectually trying to board and re-board her brand new ship. For what it’s worth – which is not much – I would have bought the game at full launch cost in a heartbeat if I could play my Trooper at my leisure, instead of trying to get her as far as possible in a month’s time. But it was not meant to be. This is much more an indictment of the subscription model than Bioware’s game at this point, so I feel I’ve come a long way since that beta weekend so many months ago.
In a week’s time I expect to be very very busy, but it would have been nice to at least see if I could put the moves on Aric in the meantime.
Casual Is As Casual Does 
Is your Trooper a Mirialan? Having only been on the last public beta myself, I don’t know if the headgear hides Twi’lek headtails, so I suppose it could be a green Twi’lek. 🙂
I played a Twi’lek Consular at first on my beta, only for 4 levels due to the immense lag at the time. After I found a fix for the lag down to playable level (though still a little sluggish), I started a Mirialan bounty hunter and really liked her, though I only made it to level 5 before the evening ended.
BTW, Queeg just made Rear Admiral last night on STO. 🙂 Amusingly, she actually got her final XP for it off a storyline mission (even though most of her advancement has been DO stuff), so I can feel like she made Rear Admiral for saving a whole sector of space from certain death in a classified incident rather than being promoted for successfully running system diagnostics and scanning for particles. 😉
You made RA! Grats!! 😀
And no, my Trooper’s a regular brown human – it’s just the lighting that makes her look greenish :). I came thisclose to rolling a Mirialan though – I love their facial patterns. 🙂
Check out this post to see an artist’s rendition of my Mirialan from the beta amongst the list of contest winners:
http://jedigambit.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/the-jedi-gambit-2nd-portrait-contest-winning-portraits/
She’s the first portrait on the list. Also, credit to the artist for the dominant coat color. I had mentioned Firefly when we were chatting and that turned up when he colored the final inks! I felt slightly guilty winning a contest for a portrait of a character that only existed in beta, but his drawing is too gorgeous to feel guilty about! There’s a framed one on my shelf now.
Thanks for the congrats on RA! I’m up to 41 as of yesterday. Still only partway through the Klingon storyline, so I’ll have a lot left to do when I hit 50. I picked up a Collector’s Edition off Amazon and started a Klingon alt once it unlocked (or, actually, an Orion) and a low-level Federation Caitan.
That Mirialan was you? I had been admiring those fan works for some time now! That’s great :). I do wish I’d enjoyed my time in SWTOR more (more to the point, more playstyles/storylines). I would have made room for a Mirialan in there somewhere.
It was indeed 🙂 I’d been watching the comic and saw the contest, and entered it on a lark, never expecting to be one of the winners. 😀
If I can get my hands on a free weekend key or something I intend to recreate her on the live server so the name will at least be preserved. Hopefully one of these days TOR may go to some variety of f2p or other circumstance that would enable me to play it. :>
I’ve been playing rather casually once or twice a week and was level 45 or so when they announced the free month, and then 46 when they announced a 7 day window to make it to 50. So i power leveled the crap out of it and made it to 50 so I’ll probably be playing another month at least. Okay off topic but I don’t get to talk to anyone about swtor.
One thing I noted about playing smuggler is that I’m way too eager to take a lot of the jobs available to me and I’m way too boy scout. Especially if I’m trying to please my first two companions. Corso doesn’t like *anything* unethical, which makes no sense because he’s supposed to be a criminal or at the very least on board to be a smuggler. It took a bit of the fun out of story for smuggler for me but I did have fun. Think i’d have more fun on agent though.
Oh feel free to talk about SWTOR here if anywhere – I had been hoping you’d post about your experiences once or twice more on your blog :).
And yeah, Aric makes me do things with just the proper amount of military efficiency. If I show the slightest bit of enthusiasm or too much mercy he’s all disapproving glares, ha. I wanted to do the Jedi thing and be all goody-two-shoes but I just couldn’t get into the kinda-melee-kinda-channeled-rangey stuff.