Taris

Taris was and still is one of the most ambivalent experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). The third chapter of any hero´s story takes place on a planet which has had a thriving republican life 300 years ago, destroyed by a dark Jedi during the evens from the previous game, Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). The Old Republic finally came back and tries to re-settle this world, which still is a post-apocalyptic jungle scenery.

This is a very spoilery retelling of my heroine accounts, but the goal of this blog is for me to remember my virtual adventures, so... this was my warning to any reader.

 

- at least the colour sceme fits to my heroine...









I can take back part of what I complained about in my last post: Here, my heroine "dies" her first time. This is during a so called "heroic 2+ mission", so it was made for two players minimum. So far, I did not have problems with these kind of sprinkled in-between missions. However, this time, there are groups of four, I might have overlooked one or the other area effect, and my companion Kira was specialised on damage dealing instead of healing. Whoops. Once Kira got switched to healing, my Guardian Jedi Knight of course was unstoppable again. Tank+healer combo always wins, because the game must accomodate all those nifty damage dealer players who are much squisher even when accompanied by a healer.

And also to take back about making it "too easy": The sheer numbers of enemies on your way to your next goal, it would indeed be tedious to fight them more than a few seconds. As much as I like tactical challenging combat, please not so without meaning on trash mobs who just seem to be placed there to slow you down... I better take that easy-going combat, then!

The missions there were in my past games, four years ago, exhausting. The landscape is huge, you are sent back and forth, up and down in the labyrinthian sceleton of former mega cities. It always seemed hard to keep track what you are doing why right now. This time, I am resolved to keep focus. But even still, after I am mostly through, I still might remember not all of what transpired down there:

Helped routing Rhakgouls around Republic base.
Rescued items for evacuated settlers.
Saved SIS agent and imprisoned "Locust".
Hunted clues about the former former lead scientist on the Old Republic´s weapons of mass destruction. Encountered Empire head of intelligence "Watcher One".
Solved dispute of alien refuges vs human "invaders".
Helped arrest a criminal mercenary, "The Locust". 
Found ancient antidote versus Rhakgoul bite.
Let myself infect by Rhakghouls in order to help develop a new antidote.
Erased sensitive data in the middle of a pirate hideout.
Prevented a bad chemistry mix in a factory from blowing up.
Got again deceived by Watcher One.
Found deserters and let them, well, desert.
Found some more clues about the former former lead scientist on the Old Republic´s weapons of mass destruction. Raced to save a settlement from a Sith instead of catching Watcher One.
Supported a military research team in the Endar Spire (wink to KOTOR).
Helped a doctor find a cure versus a specific Tarisian cancer.
Found out about "the lost ones" (emotionally shattering nod to KOTOR).
Finally caught Watcher One in his lair, rescued the scientist.

My most annoying back-and-forth mission ever, is the one involving the lost ones. Imagine a game designer. And the player. The player will efficiently solve all missions before moving on, so he does not have to walk back long distances for something left behind and loose time with boredom. The game designer usually knows this and places the mission tasks accordingly. Now, this particular game designer decided to be a bit too helpful. Instead of following the long path of video messages from the lost ones, I go for some more near missions first, because they require less backtracking (short path). However, after being through with the long track, the game designer sends me exactly where I went first, making me back-track that long path plus the shorter path.

This made me already upset when I had played this part on my first time, four years ago. And I still freaking remembered this nuisance, tried to avoid it but did not remember anymore how the proper order was, and promptly did it the unefficient, backtracking way again... I think this was also in the past the point where the whole Taris chapter shifted from a relaxing to a tedious experience. And so, again.


Also still shaken from that "the lost ones" experience (played it already three times in the past, and it still is depressing to follow their downfall from civilisation to primitive and then to extinction), I can finally leave Taris, but the Governor stops me once more, for an emergency once more. I feel somehow reminded of real life; there is always something to do, right? The completionist within me obeys.




- behind my heroine, Taris´ derelict swoop tracks; another nod to KOTOR










It takes a while to leave Taris. Bonus missions lured my completionist side. It turns out that the Rhakghoul have evolved, so far as even having force sensitive speciment. An entire Jedi platoon gets wiped out by one of them (yeah, another heroic mission here). Sentient Rhakghoul means, the prime directive takes effect... erm... means that Jedi should not take life of indigenious life forms who basically only repel invaders. A Jedi holocron, kind of an AI-construct, is found and it promises to try to teach the savages the light side of the force. Of course, despite the losses of life, my heroine leaves it at that and hopes that this new race does not become like Sith...

Little tourist hops to Bejik´s hideout are another nod to the places and events of the precedessor game KOTOR. Some humorous episodes with scientists trying to preserve animals which want to eat them and the usual tragic losses of peaceful settlers round the picture.

After I am through with all those additional missions, I almost feel at home on Taris. One of the last codex entries talks about how Taris was already severely harmed before the obliterative bombing by environmental pollution, and that nevertheless nature has adapted and reclaimed the planet after so called civilisation had left. Yes, I think I can feel the force flowing freely on Taris, now.

Anyways, there was a call for a flashpoint mission in between, and after Taris, it is time to go into this one. So I think. Since the game is too easy otherwise, I choose the four-player version of that particular flashpoint mission. What can I say; I get my ass handed to me after the first few trashmobs. Somehow, my companion does not heal as effectively as she could, preferring to swing her staff lightsaber instead. How annoying, but I am sure the game designers implemented this intentionally, to keep a player-only challenge in the game!

Which leads me onwards to the next chapter of the story missions, Nar Shaddaa.

A new attempt on Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR)

With the new Star Wars movie so close, the temptation to fire up this almost venerable MMORPG finally got to me. A new expansion, The Eternal Empire, promises a storytelling game experience, and I still have a Jedi Knight somewhere around level 30 of whom I wanted to experience his class storyline.

The game has evolved. Or should I say, devolved? For casuals and some short game sessions, it has become perfect. There is almost no difficulty anymore. It does not matter which of the (all too)  numerous buttons on your skill bar you have to press; you will survive, anyways. And even if you are called away in the middle of combat; no problem, your companion will take care of it even without you.

Despite my disappointment about this no-tactics-required style of combat, the game prooves to be quite relaxing. I am very tired again these days from real life challenges, and SWTOR just serves to give me that ounce of relaxation which I need before falling to sleep. (If it not even being itself the cause of me falling asleep asap...)

Of course, as always when I try to take up a long left old save file, I cannot get back into this particular story. Also, the missions have been cut down by the game designers, cut out all that useless filler-missions, focus on a few main story-threads. But, alas, I already have forgotten what had happened before and why I am doing this and that. Especially with the Jedi Knight class, every missions seems to revolve around another freaking superweapon to be disabled. And, how on earth, could I ever just sustain that slimy do-gooder character voice set of the Jedi Knight? It is torment!

After a while, I realized that there was just one sollution to my predicament: Restart a Jedi Knight from scratch. This time, a female one. And indeed. This voice set was much less nerve grating, and the imagined female counterpart to a Luke Skywalker made things interesting enough again.

You want to feel as an uber hero: Play the Jedi Knight story! This lass already arrives like a top class student who has jumped three semesters, and she only gets better from then on. If you accept and can suspend your disbelief and actually enjoy being a Jedi super hero, the story might be even a bit enjoyable.

SPOILERS

It starts on planet Tython, where the indigenious flesh raider race suddenly attack aggresively, very apparently being riled up by some player behind the scenes. Of course, my newly arrived elite student-heroine dispatches the dangers easy handedly and quickly rises to the padawan of one of the most venerable Jedi Masters of the Jedi Council. She helps out some Twilek-Settlers and of course uncovers the true master behind the scenes, who turns out to be a former student of your same master. On the sideline, she also enters the ruins of the infamous Rakatha race (nobody knows that race, it is not denominated yet, but you know them when you played the precedessor single player game Knights of the Old Republic - KOTOR). Of course, the crowning achievement as a padawan is that you actually save your master from his former student and are finally knighted to a full Jedi, receiving your first own lightsaber.

The second chapter sends my heroine off to Coruscant, captial of the Old Republic. Frankly, I totally do not understand how and why the Empire let the Old Republic keep it, after they essentially defeated that same Old Republic in the trailer. Oh well, plot device in order to have to warring factions and enable players to play either as Empire or Old Republic citizens.
Of course, my heroine also prooves to be pivotal to save Coruscant from certain doom by a super weapon, which ironically the Old Republic developed by itself and got itself stolen. The "planet prison", once fired, would encapsulate all inhabitants on the planet in a damaging super shield without any chance to get into space ever again. One of the lead scientists is reveiled to be Sith, and the son of a Sith on the Empire´s Dark Council, to boot. On her way to dispose of this nuisance, Sith and super weapon alike, my heroine has the occassion to meddle and foil the claims of three mafia like gangs in the underbelly of the capital (Merchant Guild, Black Sun, Justicars) and earn friendship with the mysterious Gree race, along with saving upper Coruscant from multiple and lethal system failures of their life and health sustaining machinery, down there in huge industrial cavernous metallic sub levels.

As I said, these plotlines provoke yawns if you are not willing to totally enter a kind of "super hero-white-knight" mode. Despite the innumerable fully voiced over dialogues, character interaction is scarce, focused on a padawan who will at the end of the chapter become a crew member of yours. Some nagging feeling tells me, less could probably have been more in this case. Anyways, the crowning achievement of this chapter is the ownership of a nice, proper and of course overpowered spacecraft. Which tempts me to enter some of the sideline space shooter aspects of this game. But I sense danger of loosing focus again, so, no thanks. By then I also discovered how to turn back on all those numerous filler missions; hey, I am a completionist, it is a compulsive thing!

The storyline can be followed in different orders from there on. Planet Taris invites with its post-apocalyptic jungles (and frequent, often very chilling, references to the past events from KOTOR). Or, a visit to the crook´s paradise Nar Shadaa would be in order. The goal is to catch up with that Dark Council member´s spy network and get back the knowledge about several of the Old Republic´s own designs of super weapons. Ah, what compelling gey-lined story line could that have been; the supposedly good guys, and not the evel Empire, having conceived and being ready to use deadly super weapons! But no, we are reduced to chasing the even more evil Empire and getting back that stuff. Already, a second super weapon is being armed by Sith Darth Angral, a kind of planet climate killer, working similar to the planet prison, but this one lets no more heat off the planet, therefore quickly turning it into an inhabitable rocky lava planet. Off we go to hunt after it!

By now, my heroine has reached level 25, and is supposed to to the story-line´s game content which originally was designed for level 10 to 16 (Taris). And this despite me being a free-gamer with a supposed slowed down advancement! Something is wrong here. And all the game designers did so far to mitigate this predicament is to cut down your level to the maximum allowed level for the particular story chapter. I.e. landing on taris reduces my heroine´s strength back to level 22; which still is more than over powered for the game content there, anyways.

Despite my discontent about the game´s imbalance and that super trashy, B-movie like story line for the Jedi Knight, I am resolved to at least once have a complete play-through with the Jedi Knight. The net whispers that in the end, my heroine will enter deadly combat with the dark emperor himself. I want that coolness-factor, just for being able to say, hey Luke, you´re lamer, been there done that myself! (The famous child in the man.)

I write my progress down here just in case I am loosing steam again (not very improbable, of course) and want to pick it up later again, in order to get back into the main story so far.

My motivation to continue lies largely in my own imagination. The trashy parts of the story get ignored or replaced in my imagination with more interesting, personal motivations and some imagined additional interaction with the encountered characters. Besides this, firing up a light saber and smashing your enemies, while looking cool by means of one the myriad equipment available, never gets old!

From before Hiatus

Some leftover screenshots from before my hiatus, Kerbal Space Program.

Tinkering with a Mk-3 sized cargo-or-fuel spaceplane.

It is big enoug to bring a whole Münbus-class spacecraft into orbit. Or alternatively, a big fuel tank. Untested yet.

My biggest spacecraft design so far. Behold the "Candlekeep", a modular designed interplanetary spacecraft. Top level, here, an evolution of the old Scientia-class ship design. Used for orbital explorations and low-gravity landings. Untested yet.

Bottom level of the Candlekeep. Quadruple Poodle engines, lots of fuel tanks and an ISRU-unit to mine fuel out there for independent and indefinite operation. Used for interplanetary transfer and as a fueling station in orbit.

The middle level, visible on both last screenshots, is the habitat and docking ring, with luxury apartments for 8 tourists, or cram in 36 kerbonauts!

Trying to capture the Candlekeep as a whole is difficult; it really is big.

Another project, a maximum deltaV vessel for this stupid tourist contract to enter a low orbit on the sun. Untested yet.

After these rather construction focused screenshots, back to some action. My Moon-Buggy design was not tested yet, so I gave it a spin.

Descending near the north pole of Mün.

Almost down... it IS steep slopes there!

Very disappointing to realize that the rover wheels don´t give more push for this lighter design, compared to the Yawl, which I had quite extensively tested before this Mun Buggy.

My planned itinerary led me from the Mün polar highlands to the polar crater. Catching some biomes also in between, I realize later that most of them were already recorded from previous landings. It might have been the steep slopes, but I found it hellish difficult to keep the Buggy from not sommersaulting. High speeds, like with the Yawl, were simply not possible. This was probably due to the higher center of mass, making the thing less table on a bump. On top, the wheels blew up rather quickly, even though I tried to use the indestructible landing gear as often as possible.

Test unsuccesful. Product line discontinued.

This all was done during two or three rather short and unispired game sessions. It is interesting for me to note; when I am not sure how to continue the "big picture" ventures, I become rather unfocused on the smaller ventures in between.

The big question, which I am still pondering even during/after my hiatus, is, whether the new Candlekeep design should travel to Duna in place of my existing Omniscient-class vessels. And, which dinghy´s/landers should I bring along. The Yawl was a success on Mün, but will it be on Duna, too?

I really hope this blockade of what to do how does not keep me from just going on. After all, the Kerbal way is "just do it, goddamnit!"

Since three monthes have passed already since my last blog entry, some interesting game opportunities and unfinished "want to plays" await:

- The upcoming Star Wars movie and the seeming excellent new expansion for the online-game Star Wars: The Old Republic make me want to fire up the latter again, after three years not touching it anymore.

- A game of the year edition of Dragon Age: Inquisition includes all expansions which I haven´t played yet. A good time to do a second playthrough, again an elf mage, or trying a different character? Same problem as with Kerbal Space Programme: Blocked by not being able to decide which way to go. I am weird sometimes.

- I never finished Pillars of Eternity, which is a shame. There is also an expansion in the meanwhile, tempting me.

- There is this nice retro-style Shadowrun: Hongkong. I had played the precedessors and liked them a lot. I really should keep up here, too!

- Coming out in January 2016 is Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. A must to play!

- And last, but not least: Elite: Horizons is very near. Landing on planets in my favourite galaxy simulation! It might be tempting to leave it be until the Oculus Rift VR goggles are finally out in Q1 2016. Frankly, ever since I played that game at the Premiere Event back in October 2014 with those VR goggles on, I am so spoiled and don´t want to play it anymore any other way!

Sigh. And there is this "little issue" of my wife having jumped the ship. Would be nice to find somebody new to continue my now shattered little family, maybe even being able to understand and share this weird passion my blog here is about. However, life is probably too fast and too short in order to have everything, right?

Review on Rebel Galaxy

With still little time and other things preoccupying me, I tend these days to rare game sessions and only smallish ones, which require only little immersion into the game rules and systems. E.g. Sid Meier´s Starships, for a few turns in between. And then I found Rebel Galaxy.

I just finished the main story line, which really is not the main attraction of the game. It rather is a nice little distracting game when you don´t have the time or the mindset to involve yourself with deeper, more complex games like Elite: Dangerous (ED) is.

It is a similar combat system to StarTrek Online, but also brings in some Homeworld and Eve Online feelings, by virtue of commanding a big ship and destroying small fighter vessels like annoying flies. It is watered down to a mere two dimensional maneuvering on a plane (just the NPC fighter and gunships are allowed to zip around above and below you) and spiced with the broadside-style ship combat which hails from Assassins Creed: Black Flag, which I never played. But it for sure is quite a difference to the classic cockpit style of ED. Add to this the ability to pause and to have a pure offline game experience, resulting a much more "family friendly" game than ED ever can be.

The little lively universe, with constantly changing market prices and faction presence, makes your actions do show up some consequence there. The ships all look gorgeous, just the right mix between practical and exotic. ED ships look bland, in comparison.

Also, Rebel Galaxy demonstrates how some sprinkled-in NPCs with dialogue can make a game world suddenly seem much more personal and alive. This is certainly something which Frontier should really start working on for ED, hopefully after Horizons. I also read some guy´s post about an idea to make NPCs as procedural as the environment, mentioning Shadow of Mordor´s Nemesis system, where NPCs would also level up and adapt, according to how successfully they managed to harass (read: kill) the player avatar. Yes, please!

In the end, though, I did not expect much depth from Rebel Galaxy and thus could not get disappointed. It is indeed very easy to construct yourself an overpowered ship, as any kind of scissor-stone-paper balance between weapon and defense systems is missing. Also, defense system strength is independent from ship size, so a small frigate with Mk 5 shields is almost as sturdy as a dreadnought with the same system (just the hull strength is supposedly different, but your shields should never get whittled down firsthand).

My op-ship is a Barracuda, which has insane and totally unbalanced speed and maneuverability for its considerable medium size. Mining lasers are, opposed to in ED, actually the strongest turret weapons available (which probably makes sense, but not so in combination with a deadly instant targeting capability). Also, there is hardly a space craft which allows for more than four turrets aimed at the same target, so any bigger ship just has too little advantages compared to the increased vulnerability due to loss of speed and agility, it seems. As broadside weapon, I chose the tachyon cannon. A ramming deflector completes the setup. For combat, I fist lure the annoying fighters and gun ships a bit away from the big pots and let my turrets take care of them. Then I boost in, ram the big ships and make use of the tachyon cannon´s fastest firing cycle, by buttong mashing from close up so that I do not need to aim the broadsides at all. Add in the high-damage dumbfire missiles as secondary weapon, and, together with the turrents, this obliterates even the largest enemy vessel in a blink of the eye.

Really, it is a child´s play, since the NPC ships only do fire at a much slower pace than the cannons actually would allow for. This is why this game is more for your mood when you just want to quickly blow up something on a short relaxing evening or just want to relish in some mini game of trading, doing missions or some mining. For this, Rebel Galaxy is indeed perfect.

Repost: That Star Wars Trailer

From this website:
"It's amazing. Enjoy this feeling for the next two months, because if this movie turns out to suck, a lot of us will never love again. We will be husks, dead inside, shells of our former selves, hollow-eyed and pale, huddled together for warmth, not because we care to be warm or social, but because our instinctual lizard-brain tells us that was something our former selves used to care about back when we were human and "hope" was a word with any meaning."

Indeed, a perfectly executed trailer. I think it is the music, mixed in perfect timing with sound and speech. Just close your eyes and follow how it develops from that single crystal drop reassambling back to that incredible and famous old symphonic theme of Star Wars, changed and throbbing with a new power. If the film industry will not show its very best with this movie, it will be a dissappointment.

Just a link in between

Stumbled upon this article in The Guardian. Would be nice if mainstream would get there one day, understanding the place of computergames in society.

Will hopefully soon be able to continue flight.

Hiatus

Shit hit the fan in real life. Pause for VR.