drug_cartel
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I would recruit Special Ops agent Ava Jaxo into Havok Squad. As M1-4X keenly observed, the training and outfitting of a single Special Forces agent is more taxing upon Republic Resources than the training and equipping of 400 generic troops, so technically saving Jaxo is the preferred choice. And I would feel far better about saving her if I could keep her on my ship and take her on missions, instead of just letting her go AWOL and retire to Nar Shadaa.
My Sith Warrior would have stupidly believed Guss during his recruitment mission and would have started calling him "Lord Struction" and claiming that Guss is a powerful Sith Lord.
When my Jedi Knight was denied the rank of Master by the Jedi Counsel, but given the rank of General in the Republic Army, it would have actually NOT given me the title "Master" and instead would have given me the title "General", like the way it did back at launch.
My Smuggler would have romanced Bowdaar instead of being forced to choose between Hillbilly Corso or no one at all.
I would have had the option to save Vaylin, provided that you kill both Senya and Arcann first. One of those nice either-or choices where she will only listen to you if you've killed off the rest so she doesn't feel like she's rejoining them.
I would be allowed to select Gamorrean as a playable race.
And my new class would be the "Imperial Trooper" and "SIS Operative" parallels, to create Republic Snipers and Imperial assault canon users. The Imperial Trooper story would star the player as a defecting member of the original Harron Tavus Havok Squad, and showcase getting abandoned by the Republic and left to die, and then joining with the Empire because they respect your talent and ability.
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Most of my stuff gets covered in the Weekly Short Fanfic Prompt thread. But in a nutshell...
Pansey, the Mirialan Sith Warrior.
Pansey was born on Hutta and raised as a Huttball Cheerleader in Fathra's Palace. She was a powerful force sensitive. The Emperor dispatched his Wrath, Lord Scourge, to abduct the child and bring her to Korriban for training. Pansey is placed under the care of Overseer Tremmel for the purpose of preparation. Tremmel is an anti-alien racist and old-ways Sith, so he intentionally neglects Pansey's Sith training; she grows strong in the force, but never is taught any of the code or politics that she would need to succeed in the Empire, making her stupid and naïve by Sith standards.
Tremmel unwittingly steers Pansey down the wrong path when he describes Darth Baras as a Sith Lord who accepts aliens, values non-force users, and threatens to end the "old ways" which Pansey only interprets as more equality and less racism and injustice. Pansey sides with Baras immediately, putting the man on a pedestal and trying everything she can to support his agenda. Pansey has zero personal ambition and is loyal and faithful, which results in her making many (but not all) Light Side choices in the interest of a reformed Empire under Baras, with equality and fairness. When Baras betrays Pansey as a threat (not because of ambition, but because her increasingly Light tendencies threaten his own reputation and agenda), Pansey is forced into the world on her own, ascends as Emperor's Hand, and ultimately defeats Baras.
The Emperor finally comes face to face with the child he has been watching for years towards the start of Knights of the Feet. Pansey builds her Alliance on tenants of equality and peace, to overthrow a corrupt Dark Counsel and change the Empire for the better. After the Quinn's second assassination attempt on Pansey, this time at the behest of Empress Acina, Pansey severs most ties with the Empire and becomes truly independent of either faction.
While accompany Blizz to recruit a powerful force user that Blizz only calls "Jedi Man", Pansey comes face to face with Guss Tuno. Guss is afraid when he finds himself face to face with the Emperor's Wrath, and so he alters his con-man story pretending to be a powerful Sith Lord named "Lord Struction". Pansey… is stupid enough to believe every word he says, and so has taken him in as her partner, believing him to also be an Alien Sith Lord who is battling for equality, with both Pansey and Guss now going on adventures around the Galaxy to help preserve alien races in the face of the facist Empire.
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It was good. Not perfect, but thoroughly enjoyable. There weren't so much "parts I didn't like" as there were "parts that would have been even better if done differently".
Case point #1: "Rey, there's something I have to tell y-"
We are treated to three separate scenes where this is addressed. Finn has some secret. He wants to tell Rey his secret. He does not want to reveal it in front of Poe. And then, in the end... nothing. This is a Chekov's Gun moment; if you're going to throw something out like that, then you need to answer it. Leading with that early in the film and then delivering towards the end makes it foreshadowing and scene-building. Leading with that, but then NOT delivering just makes it a distraction that pulls away from the existing story. Either it needed addressed, or it should have been left out altogether.
Most people seem satisfied with the idea of some unrequited love story: Finn is crushing on Rey. If that's it, that's fine. Not something groundbreaking, but it's fine. Alternatively, if it was something of a fake-out, with it being a case of "I just wanted to thank you for believing in me when nobody else did" or "Han told me he recognized you. Ben used to draw pictures of you when he was a kid."
But my personal preference would have been a reveal that Finn was just faintly force sensitive. Every time Finn says that he's "got a feeling" or he "just knows". When he tries to give credit to the force, only for Han to say "that's not how the force works." The long distance connection to Rey. The fact that Finn was able to pick up a lightsaber, having never touched one before, and survive a six minute duel with a master force user like Kylo Ren. There were plenty of clues that would have supported it. If, later in the film, Poe had manifested a small amount of Force power in order to help Rey, complete with nosebleeds or something to suggest that it's really hard for him, then he could have explained afterwards that he also felt a connection to the Force and didn't know how to handle it. That certainly makes likes like "You don't know what she's going through. // And you do? // Yeah. I do." resonate a lot more powerfully.
Case Point #2: Leia's jedi training.
I was thrilled to see that Leia had gone through Jedi training. I wish this would have been presented earlier in the story. Leia force-pulling herself through space after the explosion of the command deck, Leia projecting herself to see Ben, Leia feeling Han's death from across the galaxy, Leia handling the force illusion dice and being aware that Luke was just a projection, all her Force moments deliver just as well if we know that she's had some training. But specifically Leia completing Rey's training felt awkward without that reveal happening in advance. Leia was not actively participating in that training, not dueling Rey or even talking to her about what to do. Basically it was Leia watching Rey run around a jungle, and then Rey thanking her for completing a training that Leia didn't actually seem involved in.
A simple moment of Rey kneeling in front of Leia and calling her "Master Leia" or "Master Organa", only for Leia to counter with a dismissive "Don't call me Master. I completed my training, but I never moved on to even become a Padawan. I chose the path where I could save the Galaxy and still have a family." That would have presented a stronger feeling that Leia actually did train Rey, and that Rey has had guidance since that time.
Case Point #3: Scruffy Finn.
Finn has some scruffy, longer, unkempt hair throughout the film. I would have loved for him to also have a tiny amount of beard scruff as well, as though he'd been too busy to keep grooming. Then, after Lando arrives and saves the day, at the party at the end Finn would be cleaned up and presentable before going to make his move on whatever girl he ends up deciding on, except Finn would have trimmed his beard to a very obvious Lando-esque mustache, as though he's trying to copy the coolest man he's ever met. That would have been the sort of tiny glance-and-you-miss-it moment that would have been awesome.
Like I said, the movie was really good, but there were just several tiny places where I felt like a little change would have made it even better.
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Just a quick new chapter in the Pansey story. I still enjoy writing these, but I just hate dealing with the email authentication in order to get onto the forums.
"I told you this was a bad idea!" Guss panicked, firing off his blaster pistol wildly down the dark corridor. Each flash of the blaster briefly illuminated the caves, casting a momentary glimpse of the haunting image of hundred's of grey skinned monstrosities that at one time were people. "Why would we go into a cave? When has anything good ever happened in a cave?"
Pansey went back to back with her boyfriend, somersaulting over him and landing a few feet in front of him where she deftly began deflecting Guss's inept blaster fire, redirecting the shots so that they downed the nearest of targets on either side of them. "There are plenty of good caves," Pansey insisted, "You can't decide you just hate all caves."
"Why not?" Guss insisted, spinning around as one of the bloodthirsty rakghouls reached him from behind, unloading a burst from his blaster directly into it's face, just as it clamped it's hands on his shoulders and leaned forward to bite him. Guss's eyes were always large, so his face didn't betray exactly how terrified he was. Which was good, since he still had Pansey convinced that he was actually a powerful Sith Lord.
"I don't know," Pansey stammered for a moment, a broad, arcing swing of her pink shoto lightsaber clipping away rakghoul hands and heads, "It's, like, racist or something. You can't judge all caves the same."
Guss desperately shoved the double-deceased headless corpse backward, accidentally sending it crashing into another wave and causing the infected husks to topple like dominos. Pansey pivoted in mid-swing just in time to see him in an act that strongly resembled fighting off at least twenty of the creatures. "I'm not a cave racist," Guss insisted, "But seriously, name one cave where anything good happened."
Pansey flipped over Guss's head, landing on the opposite side of the pack of rakghouls, slamming her fist to the ground as she landed and sending a ripple of lightning fanning out in all directions, shocking and stunning the waves of mindless infected. "There was that cave on Tattooine," Pansey reminded him, "Do you know how hot it gets there? Tell me it wasn't nice to get some shade."
A legless rakghoul that had once been some poor Rodian crawled forward, gripping Guss around the legs. Guss tripped backwards, kicking it in the face to force it backward, his lightsaber falling from his belt in the process and clattering across the stone. "Wasn't that were that Sand Demon tried to eat you?" Guss reminded her.
"Oh yeah," Pansey laughed, shouldering herself forward into the pack of rakghouls, a flourishing swoop of her lightsaber clipping back arms and legs, "But there was still that cave on Quesh. I swear, that was the one place on the whole planet that didn't smell like Taun Taun guts."
"That was where Darth Baras betrayed you and tried to bury you alive!" Guss exclaimed, frantically kicking at the rakghoul while flailing his arm out behind him, trying to reach for his lost lightsaber.
"Well how about Voss, huh?" Pansey tried, finding herself in a genuinely awkward situation of realization that she couldn't recall a single positive cave experience, "When I met the real Voice of the Emperor. I mean, how cool was that?" Pansey thrust her hand forward, a wave of force energy knocking backward the never-ending throngs of rakghouls.
"You mean the Dark Heart!" Guss says flabbergasted, "In the Plague Lands! Where some million year old ghost tried to kill you!" Even Pansey had to admit that Voss had been a terrible experience. Guss struggled against the severed-half rakghoul as it dragged it's torso up over his body, pinning him to the cave floor. Frantically Guss scrambled and strained, his fingers just inches shy of his lost lightsaber, before he remembered that his work with Pansey had developed his force talents just slightly above the Youngling levels he had been discouraged by on Tython. Guss used the force to pull his lightsaber the six inches he needed to move it in order to return it to his palm, and with a backwards slash, he removed an arm from the already legless rakghoul. It did not seem amused.
Pansey, on the other hand, skirted over the mob of mindless creatures, skipping along with her feet dancing across the tops of their heads until she made her way to the far side of the pack, finding at last what she had hoped for. "Over here, Lord Struction!" she called to her boyfriend, using his duplicitous false identity, "I found a way out!"
They were hopelessly outnumbered, and despite the great power and skill of the Alliance Commander, Guss knew that if they didn't escape soon, they would be overwhelmed. With an awkward turn of his lightsaber, he finished off the only rakghoul he could take full credit for killing, and then rolled back to his feet, his black robes fluttering out around him. He felt the ripple on his disguise, and he realized what was about to come, but there was nothing he could do to stop it, so he simply closed his eyes and went along for the ride. As Pansey channeled the force to pull Guss wildly through the air, over the tops of the rakghoul pack and land him beside her, the fishy Sith impersonator could do nothing more than let out a raccous laugh. "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" he exclaimed, soaring through the air.
"This way!" Pansey pointed with her lightsaber, turning towards a narrow opening in the cave wall. It was pitch black ahead.
"That's not a way out!" Guss panicked, "You said you found a way out. That is not a way out. That's a cave. It's another cave. It's.. it's like a cave inside of a cave. You cannot DOUBLE CAVE us!"
"There's no such thing as a double cave!" Pansey insisted, hugging one arm around Guss and leaping ahead into the darkness, bounding over a rocky outcropping and putting distance between the throngs of rakghouls and the two most unlikely of Sith Lords.
Guss scrambled frantically at his belt, removing a thermal detonator and tossing it behind them, it's muffled explosion collapsing the cave behind them, trapping them inside the large, cavernous room. Guss pointed around at their surroundings. "Double cave," he insisted.
The enormous, hulking figure of a beast from his worst nightmares then rose to it's full height, shambling forward in pursuit of the explosion's sound, it's face Eyeless but it's senses still keen. Pansey put a finger to her lips, shushing her silly boyfriend.
"I told you nothing good ever happens in a cave," Guss whispered at her in frustration, "Why would you Double Cave us?"
The Eyeless twitched at the faint sound of Guss's whispers, roaring and barreling rapidly towards them. Pansey sighed, igniting her pink lightsaber again. "Sorry, Lord Struction," she apologized, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
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Tanno Vik
M1-4X
Guss Tuno
Lt. Pierce
SCORPIO
Zash-Possessed Khem
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Personally, I prefer an Empire without an Emperor. A rise of a new Dark Counsel, with several names vying for power. The only reason an Emperor works is because he normally seems so untouchably powerful that even the Dark Counsel fears to openly move against him, which both Jadus and Vowrawn do not seem to be on that level. Acina, while a nice face for the Empire, never felt like a real Empress, and I believe she only lasted as long as she did because she basically inherited the position by surviving the majority of the Dark Counsel being destroyed, so there were few people to rally against her in any real power play. Rather than replace the dead Empress, I want to replace the dead Counsel, and keep the Emperor a more distant and detatched concept, rather than a humanized and punchable face.
Though to replace Malcom, it's Garza all the way.
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Prompt: Friends to Enemies
Pansey, the Mirialan Sith Warrior of Satele Shan server
"If you were really the Voice of the Emperor," the Pink Wrath declared, lifting the steel mask from her face and allowing her blonde pigtails to spill down over the shoulders of her pink robes, "Then you would sound like the real Emperor... SILENT!"
Darth Baras looked at the Emperor's Wrath, the pink robed assassin who had derailed his meticulously plotted schemes. The one-eyed mask he wore never betrayed his emotion, and he felt power in the Force as he sense the anger and hurt raising from his former apprentice, the innocent green-skinned girl finally giving in to her darker emotions. "Ah, Apprentice," he greeted her, a condescending tone ignoring his place as a full-fledged Lord of the Sith, "I was wondering when you would show your face again."
"You thought you could kill me!" Pansey shouted, the Dark Counsel watching the two from their thrones, surrounding the room as silent spectators. "You thought you could replace the Emperor. I WANTED you to replace the Emperor.. and still you betrayed me. Why? I would have done anything to help you."
Baras laughed. "The stench of the Light hangs heavy on you," Baras proclaimed boldly, to a varied reaction amongst the Dark Counsel, "You claimed to be my faithful servant, Deceiver, but you were no more loyal to me than you are the Emperor with this foolhardy ruse, 'Wrath'."
"I AM the Emperor's Wrath," Pansey insisted, "He chose me. Chose me because of his anger with you, because you attempted to replace him."
"Think of it, child," Baras offered in a condescending tone, "Were it the Emperor who was angered with me, who believed me attempting to replace him, why would he select you, who so openly believed me to be a more worthy leader than the Emperor himself? Any offense he may have found in me was redoubled in your own deeds. Or would it not be more likely that I speak the truth, that I do speak for the Emperor, to bring change and prosperity to our Empire, and you were simply manipulated by my enemies to move against me, because you are foolish and weak."
"I'm! Not! Weak!" Pansey's anger burst forth from her as a wave of force, and Baras had to raise his arms to block it, sliding back several feet against the unseen pressure of her darkness. "I believed in you!"
"Oh really?" Baras replied with a snide undertone to his echoey voice, "Did you believe in me when you spared the Jedi Yonlach? Or when you made the Willsaam girl's parents nobility? Perhaps when you have my bitter enemy, Noman Karr, sent to Tython for healing, you believed you were doing my will? Or were you foolish enough to think I would not sense your looming treachery."
Pansey was speechless. All her good deeds, laid bare for the Dark Counsel, while whispers fluttered amongst the spectators. "You were supposed to make things better, to put an end to all of this," Pansey cried out, gesturing towards the Counsel, "To care for the people and bring peace to the galaxy. Instead... you're just like everyone else."
"There are none others like me," Baras shouted, "I am Eternal!" Lightning crackled from the fingers of Darth Baras towards the pink-cloaked Lord. Pansey brandished her humming pink lightsaber, swooping it's shortened blade in a circle, deflecting the lightning and redirecting it back at her former Master. Baras reeled as his own power was brought to bare against him. "See! See how she defies her Emperor!" Baras declared to the Counsel, "Destroy this insolent whelp!"
"If Darth Baras truly is the Emporer's Voice, as he claims," Darth Vowrann phrased delicately, "He should have no trouble in dispatching of his mere apprentice without aid. While if Lord Pansey is the Emperor's Wrath as she has declared, then surely the Emperor will have taken measure to remove his imposter."
"None shall interfere," declared Darth Marr, "Darth Baras, Lord Pansey, let your strength prove whom among you is right."
Darth Baras fought viciously, with overwhelming strength and determination. It was the Pink Apprentice, Pansey, however, who turned aside his every blow, maneuvering with a speed and agility the rotund Darth was unprepared for. Finally smiting down Darth Baras, Pansey found her former master at her mercy. "Do with him how you will," Darth Marr passed judgement.
Pansey looked over Darth Baras appraisingly, the man seeming so much less impressive without his mask, simply a feeble, old, overweight man. "You were my friend," Pansey said sadly, "And I still believe in you. You are exiled to deep space, outside of the Empire, to see what you can build on your own. Perhaps you'll finally create something you can be pleased with."
"You can banish me. You can make me an Outlander," Baras spat viciously, "But I was never your friend. You were a tool. A pawn. Less than nothing. But now? After all this? You finally have some significance in my life. You are worthy of my notice. I should have known, after the way you conspired to spare Noman Karr and train his Padawan as your own; you stand at the head of the ranks of my enemies."
Pansey looked towards the floor, hurt by his words. "Guards," she whispered sadly, "Take Darth Baras away."
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Sadly, the only way to reliably get a decent amount of UCs is PvP. As somebody who loathes PvP, I tried to do it through Flashpoints and Ops, but it was just impossible. It takes months to outfit just one character. Even at Command Level 300, the stuff I disentigrate from the crates barely counts as a drop in the bucket towards that a piece of gear that is equal level to the one you're destroying (why on Earth should we need to destroy like 50 pairs of pants in order to buy one chest of equal level?)
Unfortunately, since it was so impossibly slow, I eventually just gave up and started doing my terrible job PvP'ing in solo ranked and dragging down my teams, because unless I ruin everybody else's fun, while doing simultaneously doing something totally un-fun for me, just to get the gear I need if I want to do the Hard Mode/ Nightmare Mode raids.
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The current dye system is horribly flawed. There are 47 different colors currently accessed in their system. When combined in 2 color combinations, that means that there are a potential of 2209 different unique combinations. There are not 2209 different unique dye modules. There are fewer than 200 unique dye modules currently; that's less than 10% of the total options there could be. And at the current rate of release, with a new pack containing 5ish new dyes, once every 4-6 months, we only need the game to continue for about 500 years before we'll get them all.
OR!
They could just break up the dyes the way they should have from the beginning. The dye has ONE color on it. Instantly we already have every dye finished. Then the gear has TWO slots for dye on it, the same way that the gear can have an Augment, Enhancement, Armor, Mod, and Dye slot already, it would just have Dye #1 and Dye #2. You would have to buy two separate dyes (meaning the Cartel Market sells twice as many), but you could always get exactly the combination you want, without having to hunt down rare combos from expired packs, or finding yourself in a situation where the combination you want simply does not exist.
Deep Red/Deep Red? Sure. Just buy 2 Deep Reds.
Medium Pink/White? No. You don't have to find somebody who bought one during Breast Cancer Awareness Week five years ago and selling it for 100 million credits. And you don't have to settle for the backwards White/Medium Pink combo from Bounty Broker, or a Dark Pink/White that's too dark. You can just buy what you want and socket it in the combination you want.
All problems solved, plus more Cartel sales, from fixing their stupidly limited dye system to what it should have been from the beginning.
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I've said from the beginning that making Space WoW was the mistake. Being the "WoW Killer" was not going to happen by providing the same experience as WoW. The WoW players are not going to swap games and give up decade-plus investments to start something fresh unless it is something different. If they want to play WoW, they will just keep playing the WoW they are already in.
Bioware rocked it with KOTOR and Mass Effect. Those games were amazing and did incredibly well. They should have essentially been making KOTOR Online. A strong single player element, and a strong push for PvP as player interaction. Something like Galactic Star Fighter, instead of the original on-the-rails Space Missions. Push the social element into the player-versus-player, rather than trying to shoehorn raids into a setting where they do not feel appropriate at all.
I mean, when I can think of five different classic Star Wars characters that solo'd a Rancor, it feels really sad that it takes my character a 16 man group to beat one. We're like the Galactic Wannabes who can't actually accomplish anything significant alone.
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Pansey - (Mirialan Sith Warrior). Pansey was born to an impoverished single mother on Hutta, and sold to Fa'athra the Hutt to serve as a Huttball Cheerleader at a young age. Lord Scourge tracked her down to collect the force sensitive child, delivering her to Overseer Tremmel, who had purchased her from the Hutt. Tremmel was incredibly racist and hated Pansey for being an "impure" alien force user; however, he recognized her incredible connection to the Force and great strength, so he intentionally sandbagged her training. He physically honed her to ensure that she was strong, fast, and skilled with a saber, but purposefully neglected to teach her any of the doctrines that would be required to be successful as a Sith Lord, leaving her entirely ignorant to the Sith Code and Sith politics. Tremmel believed this kept Pansey as his own personal weapon, to be used to smite down his enemies, but without the knowledge required to ever climb the ranks of the Sith and disgrace their order with her inferior Alien genes.
Ultimately, Tremmel finally brought Pansey to Korriban and enrolled her into the Sith Academy, entirely unprepared and rushed through her training, to use her in a play against Darth Baras. This backfired on Tremmel when it turned out that Pansey's lack of education in the Sith ways had left her entirely too trusting. When Tremmel criticized Baras for being too accepting of Aliens and impure bloodlines, Pansey grew to see Baras as an Imperial revolutionary who was shaping the future of the Empire for equality and fairness, and pledged her unquestioning loyalty to Baras, helping him in every way possible, too ignorant to the Sith ways to ever realize how manipulative he was until it was too late.
Radigan Rist (cyborg Agent) - Radigan is the child of Rehanna Rist and jedi Nomar Organa. When Rehanna found herself to be pregnant, she feared the Jedi would some day come to take her child. She implanted a cybernetic databank in the young child's mind which allowed her to lock many of his memories until such time as it was safe to return him to his rightful place at House Rist. She then made arrangements for her handmaiden to take the child off-planet and hide the child where even Rist herself would not know his location, awaiting the time when his implant would be activated to give him the knowledge for his safe return. The handmaiden, however, died in a pirate attack by the Red Blade, and the child was sold into slavery to Karraga the Hutt, raised as a manka caretaker in the pits.
Radigan, along with his Gamorrean friend, Goliath, escaped from Karraga's Rancor pit following an attempt by the Hutt to casually sacrifice them while dropping an assassin to his beasts. Though the assassin died, Radigan and Goliath escaped, riding out of the Palace on the bank of one of Karraga's mankas. Holos of this daring escape were uncovered by Keeper and Radigan was contacted and given an assignment, infilitrating a Hutt cartel house, in exchange for Imperial assistance getting off-planet. Imperial Intelligence quickly roped Radigan into their service, with one assignment following the next, Radigan's already tampered mind prime for Imperial brainwashing, as well as vulnerable to Republic conditioning, honing his skills in combat and espionage, while Radigan remained ignorant to the truth of his identity, awaiting the day he would be returned to the noble houses of Alderaan.
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Honestly, the best RP experience I've had in SWTOR is here on the forums in the fanfiction section. Writing our own stories and collaborating with other players, it runs more smoothly when there's more imagination involved.
In game, it seems rare to see something go more than 30 minutes, and even then, most of it is character interplay (like flirting) because any sort of action scene gets halted when in-game combat limits your ability to type.
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The "one time (EVERY TIME) password" is a garbage system. More than half the time, the password doesn't get delivered before the 15 minute window expires. There's no way to simply opt out. The only option is to download their authenticator thing on your phone and then use that as a second teir login of hoops to jump through.
Basically, if you don't use a smartphone, you are only marginally allowed to play the game.
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Prompt: Scary Stories
Pansey, the Mirialan Sith Warrior of Satele Shan server
Lord Scourge stood massive and imposing over the malnourished woman, her green skin sunken around her eyes to the degree that it was difficult to tell where her facial markings began and ended. She looked up at the imposing Sith Lord, her eyes filled with fear, the woman hugging her knees to her chest, rocking her body to and fro on the floor in fear.
"Woman," Scourge said coldly. He looked her over appraisingly. She was half-starved, with boney protrusions at nearly ever joint. Her skin was blotched with the telltale signs of the signs of Hutta Swamp Pox; she would be dead within the week. Killing her would have been a mercy, but she still had not revealed the location of the child, and so she had done nothing to warrant mercy yet. "We have heard the whispers of your daughter, strong in the force despite her youth. I can take her to Korriban, see her trained to someday become a Lord of the Sith, to bring great honor to your family name."
"My Pansey is a goodly child," the woman said, tears streaming down her cheeks, "She is beautiful and delicate, like the flowers I named her after. I've always feared that she'd be taken away to Korriban, forced to fight or die. She's too kind of that, too nice and trusting. Please. You can't take my daughter."
Scourge's anger seethed, his nostrils flaring as he struggled to hold back the anger boiling inside of him. Dealing with these poverty stricken people was delicate; he had learned that in his role as Emporer's Wrath. Most gladly welcomes death so threats served little purpose, and in the poor health they maintained, even marginal amounts of torture often ended in premature expiration. Exacting information from these dredges of the Empire required instead a certain amount of finesse he had worked long to develop. "We must train the children to fight," he expounded to the woman, "To defend themselves, for the Jedi are coming."
The woman remained quietly apprehensive. "No one will take my daughter," she whispered.
Scourge shook his head. "The Jedi come for the children, in the dark of night," he cautioned her in ominous tones, "Plucking them from their beds as they sleep, or cutting down the mothers to steal the babes from their nursing bossom. They steal away the children, to enslave them in their Temples, forcing them into a life of subjugation under their self-proclaimed 'Masters'. They brainwash and indoctrinate the children, poisoning their minds, isolating them away from their families and friends, indoctrinating them into their cult until they believe they must avoid all whom care for them, and abandon any semblance of family or community outside the Jedi Cult."
The woman's eyes grew wider with fear. Her bottom lip trembled. Scourge smiled deviously, his lip tendrils curling backward into a malicious grin. "Worse still," he continued, weaving his ominous tale, "The children the Jedi steal spend years being brainwashed, told to have a disdain for their feelings, to never follow their hearts. They are poisoned until they feel no love or connection towards their fellow man. They are purged of any feelings of compassion or mercy, until they become the soulless killing machines of the Jedi. They are programmed to feel no fear, no regret, turned into the very monsters who had plucked them from their cribs, conscripted into the Jedi's personal army of murder and kidnapping. And they will never, ever be permitted to see their families again."
The woman wept with fear. Her precious little Pansey was the target of a murderous, brainwashing cult. And even more terrifying, she knew, if the Sith had learned of her daughter's abilities, the Jedi could not possibly be far behind. "What do I do?" she asked, trembling with fear.
"You tell me the location of the child," Scourge repeated, "You allow me to take the child off world, to Korriban where the Jedi will never dare come for her, just until she can be taught to defend herself. You give your daughter a chance. So that when those cloaked monsters come for her, she can protect herself, protect you, defend your family and fend off the monsters this galaxy has created. You can allow me to turn her into a champion of all that is right in the Galaxy. Perhaps some day, she herself will reflect the Emporer's Wrath towards these soulless savages."
Pansey's mother bowed her head meekly. "She's at Faathra's palace," the woman surrendered, "She was taken in for training, to become a cheerleader for his Huttball team."
Scourge struck the woman dead without another word. The Emporer's Wrath carved a path of destruction through the slave pits of Faathra's Palace until the Hutt surrendered the young Mirialan girl. The young Pansey was terrified of the towering Sith Lord, Scourge dragging the girl kicking and screaming to his ship. Upon their arrival on Korriban, Scourge opened the ship's gate and Pansey broke away at a sprint. Lost on a strange world, she knew only that she needed to escape this cruel man. She ran as fast as her young legs could carry her, reaching the bottom of the ship's platform before Scourge halted her cold in her run, lifting her into the air with an invisible motion of his hand. Pansey floated there, kicking and punching against the air, doing anything she could to break free from the invisible force that bound her. And then she saw him.
"Oh. You're an alien," came the distasteful worlds of a grey haired old man. Pansey threw her gaze towards the man, her eyes pleading for help while Scourge's invisible grip locked vice-like around her throat, choking back her words. The old man responded in kind. "Release the child," Overseer Tremmel barked, and Scourge dropped Pansey to the dusty spaceport floor, "That will be quite enough, Scourge."
"It is Lord Scourge," Scourge countered the insolent whelp, his position at the Sith Academy only a token compensation of his own shortcomings and failure to climb within the order. "The child-"
"The child is mine," Tremmell reminded Scourge, and the Emporer's Wrath backed away. His Emporer had been clear about retrieving this child, this one so powerful and unique in the force that the Emporer had taken note of her for his own future. Scourge's orders had been to deliver the child to Korriban for training, and Tremmel was the Academy's overseer. Begrudgingly, Scourge backed away from Pansey, turning back up the ramp of his ship. Pansey ran to the side of the old man who had saved her, hugging him around the legs.
Tremmell had a look of digust on his face as the alien child actually touched him. He had not been told the girl was of impure blood. Still, his orders had come from the Dark Counsel, and he was in no place to fail in this assignment. "Come, my child," Tremmell said invitingly, "We must prepare you to fight."
"Thank you for scaring away the bad man," Pansey sniffled.
"Yes," Tremmell grinned deviously, "That Jedi shall bother you no more. But more shall follow him. We must prepare you if we are ever to keep you safe from the Jedi Order."
<-=O=->
The young apprentice, Languss Tuno, stood over the dead Mirialan woman, her savaged body causing him to lose his appetite. Setting down his fish sandwich on the table, he shook his head in disappointment. "I should not have stopped for lunch on my way over," he reluctantly admitted, having failed his first ever task he was given by his master to perform alone, the woman dead and her child nowhere to be found, "The counsel is going to be so mad at me."
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Population is down. But honestly, I could give a flying fig less in most cases. I do not require a million people lagging my server in order to have fun. Having Fleet Chat style stupidity on every planet would not be an improvement in any way. The game boasts a strong solo-player element, something that the game's head lead, Ohlen, acknowledged should have been the focus in the first place. PvP still pops. Flashpoints are still popping. GSF is... something I never do so I don't know.
The only problem is Ops, and that's not because of the game's total population. It's because Operations no longer have passes or anything for the FTP guys. I know that is supposed to make it so that FTP feel pushed to sub, but in reality it makes it so that many subscribers (especially outside of peak hours) struggle to find groups because 90% of the players online cannot enter an Op.
When there are 100+ people on fleet, but I can't get a TFB gf together, which is a pretty easy Op, and what we are missing is literally 4 DPS, that is just sad. I don't think that all 100 of those people do not have a DPS that needs the XP or components. I think most of them are FTP, so me and a few of my friends just have to miss out on our raid because of a lack of potential partners.
We need CC op passes back. Allow FTP people to fill in the cracks. The whole purpose why an FTP model is necessary is that, without it, there is not a playerbase large enough to support the group content. So why then block off those potential teammates from the largest group content which requires the largest numbers?
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Is the Cartel Market hurting the game? No. The Cartel Market is pretty much sustaining the game, since so few people subscribe. What the original poster proposes, awarding Cartel Market items as endgame drops, would pretty much be a deathnell for the game, because the last items that people are paying for would suddenly become free.
A better question: how do we improve the Cartel Market system? What stops me (or you) from spending money in the Cartel Market?
First off is the 95% gamble approach. I am not afraid to spend money in the Cartel Market; I've spent quite a bit in fact. But I rarely buy the Packs. When the game was younger, I could buy a hypercrate and sell the contents to make credits. It was a lucrative market. Now, if I open a full hypercrate, I will get MAYBE one item that actually sells at any significant amount. And that's only a maybe. Almost everything that gets unlocked is going to be stuff that I don't really care about, and nobody else is really interested in either. Yet the packs are incredibly expensive, so that means I'm not going to waste my Cartel Coins on them just to get junk I don't want. These days, I pretty much exclusively buy things that are up for direct sale. So, for me at least, I would spend more money if more items were available for direct sale. I spent a ton when there was the "almost everything" sale (and would have spent a lot more if that "almost everything" sale had included a few key items that I wanted to buy.
Second deterant is the weird social items and recovery items. I HATE anything that involves permanently losing an inventory slot in order to gain what amounts to essentially an emote or animation. Forget that. Those items need to be consumeables that are then selectable from the abilities menu. No more paying money for inventory clutter.
Third obstacle is dyes. If you're not going to put all the dyes up for direct sale, then you need to include an option to unlock them in collections. I've got Medium Pink dyes that haven't been available in ANY way in years, and if I socket them into an item, they're gone forever. There's no way to research them, no way to craft them, no way to buy more. The idea of many color combinations being unavailable because those packs are out of circulation is just nonsense. Seriously, when players primary financial support comes from cosmetics, the dyes system should be as openly available as possible. (In fact, I still thoroughly support Primary and Secondary slot dyes being separate sockets, so that combinations like Medium Red/Medium Red, or Dark Brown/Dark Brown can actually exist.)
Last obstacle for me in spending money is just a lack of stuff to buy. Not only is 90% of what's available stuck inside gamble packs, 90% of what actually exists is flatly unavailable because of the constant retiring of packs. When I want to buy something, the answer is almost always "Well, you can't." Even if I bought a million dollars worth of packs, what I want is just not available in them most of the time. Instead, the only way to get those items is a bloated credits cost on the GTN (if they're even available there). In order to cosmetic my characters, it's nigh impossible to do it with Cartel Coins; it has to be done with credits. Which makes many players simply give up. We just can't cosmetic every character and multiple companions. We're stuck, and eventually we accept that.
If they want to get our money for those Cartel Coins, they actually have to sell stuff. The newest pack can contain random new items to force people to buy the gamble packs, but when the next pack comes out, the contents of the old pack need to be added to the store for direct purchase, and they need to stay there FOREVER. That one change would cause players like me to instantly spend a ton more Cartel Coins.
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The new trilogy entirely has suffered from poorly defined characters. It's not like the prequels where there were characters (Anakin, Jar Jar) that I actively hated and thought were stupid. Instead, the new trilogy has suffered from a huge amount of indifference. None of these characters have really done a good job of making me care about them in slightest. Not just in Last Jedi, but Force Awakens as well.
Prime examples of huge failures on their part:
If Kylo Ren was supposed to be the intimidating bad guy we fear, then he needs to feel like an actual threat. That Kyle/Rey battle against the Royal Guard really gave that impression, with Kylo fending off 3 guys at a time with ease, while Rey struggled against one. But that isn't what I remember and define him by.
Instead, what I remember most about Kylo Ren is that he challenged Finn. Finn, a freaking janitor, a First Order Trooper who had been on exactly one mission, and had panicked and had a breakdown during that fight. Finn picks up a lightsaber, not only not having been trained in it, but literally never touched one before, and then proceeds to use it with such great proficiency that he actually fends off Kylo Ren and gives him a solid run for his money for four straight minutes. No part of that fight made me forget how pathetic Finn had been made out to be, but the fact that Kylo Ren with years of elite training under Luke and Snoke was still struggling in a fight against an untrained Finn just established that Kylo Ren was apparently a bumblingly incompetitant duelist.
If Vader had got his butt kicked by Princess Leia, he would not have worked as a villain. If Count Duuku was getting beat up by Jar Jar Binks, he would have lost all credibility. That's what happened to Kylo Ren. He felt pathetic by the end of Force Awakens, and when Last Jedi tried to remedy that, it just felt like the character was inconsistently written and poorly defined.
And the same is true for Finn. One minute Finn is supposed to be a cowardly janitor. The next, Finn is supposed to be the ultimate bad-a. And then he's supposed to be right back to being a coward in over his head. He flip flops so constantly that the character is terrible.
Poe, Rose, Phasma, Snoke, all these new characters that they do nothing with and so it's almost impossible to make me invested in them. The new trilogy is giving me a huge amount of 'Don't Care'.
But the worst transgression of Last Jedi was Luke Skywalker. The best part of the whole film is the force projection duel between Luke and Kylo. It did a lot for lending Kylo a bit of credibility. It gave us a glimpse of the Luke we wanted to see. It was amazing. It ends on this great high note of "I'll see you soon". Luke has declared that he is coming to hunt down Kylo Ren, to redeem himself and save the galaxy. Luke is back... nope. He does the lame fadeaway, and EVERYTHING they worked to build up just falls flat with absolutely no payoff.
What should have happened, instead of Luke disappearing, is that Luke walks over to the cliffside where you can see his ship underwater, force lifts it out of the water in a throwback to Degoba. Then looks at the ship in huge amounts of disrepair and sighs, saying "Time to get to work". This would allow him to show up in the next movie at the perfectly right moment to save the day, accomplish something big, and then die heroically.
I understand they probably wanted to kill an original cast member this movie, but Leia was the better choice. She got blown out into space right in front of Kylo Ren, after teasing that he was afraid to do it himself, and then she spends the rest of the film in intensive care. LEIA should have been the one to lightspeed the carrier into the fleet, dying to save her people and letting her go out on a high note. Then Luke could have been saved for Episode IX. I understand that the original cast is being phased out to push the new characters; but pushing characters that we have nothing we care about, and eliminating their strongest asset in casual and lackluster ways, is flat out poor writing and poor directing.
They know how to write a good film with new characters. Almost every character in Rogue One was done so well that I cared when they died. Even the droid. Solo was about 50/50 for brand spanking new characters who were done well and we were made to care about them. But Force Awakens/Last Jedi has entirely failed in that department, to the point where the films aren't terrible, they're just not interesting.
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You guys should stop writing such nonsense because it is MMO game. Of course main content with best rewards MUST BE A GROUP CONTENT LOL. Otherwise everyone will start running it in solo mode due to laziness and faster profit. This is not a single-player game ffs even though it has some elements of solo mode
Coming from Bioware's chief developer, James Ohlen, he says his biggest regret in SWTOR is that the playerbase overwhelmingly wanted KOTOR-Online (a solo player game with a few online social elements), and instead they essentially gave us World of Star Warscraft (enormous emphasis on group content, with a few solo alternatives). That is the chief developer's biggest regret, that the game's design from the ground up was flawed and alienated a majority of their biggest supporters and enthusiasts.
Facts remain, if people want to play WoW, they're playing WoW, and every WoW-clone ever since won't budge them from the top because those people already have several thousand hours of gameplay along with about a thousand dollar investment into the game; they regularly hop over to test other games, but they almost always go back to WoW due to the investment they already have. A KOTOR Online focus would have been something different, with a different playerbase, and ultimately it could have stood on it's own as a powerhouse story-driven game.
Now, this might shock you, but there is NO RULE THAT SAYS MMOs HAVE TO BE RAID FOCUSED. The only defining traits of an MMO are that there is a persistant world that continues after you log off, and that other players share that world with you. The very concept WoW pushed of "instancing" instead of the older EQ/UO open world area focus is designed to eliminate large amounts of the annoyance of that multiplayer element. Getting rid of griefers messing with your fight. Getting rid of kill-stealers or ninja-looters who were not invited to join you. Getting rid of things like trains-to-zonelines, quest derailers, and generally reducing the "Massive Multiplayer" element so that instead of having a Massive number of Multiple Players, we have a Massive world, but you exist in your small, pocketed instanced world with only the handful of players you choose to play with. WoW killed off the idea of forcing players to have to work with everyone, and it was amazingly successful for it, clobbering all previous MMOs and setting a new benchmark. Turns out, an overwhelming number of the old-school MMO players wanted to have a game where they DIDN'T have to play with every single Troll the internet could produce. SWTOR could have been (and still could be) a step further in that direction.
As for the absolutely illogical idea that "Raids need to give the best rewards", something that has absolutely no factual basis, let's look at the real facts.
Raids are inherently the EASIEST content. The more players are required, the less any individual's contributions matter. In an 8 man raid, you can do everything perfectly right, and still fail, because you are only 12.5% of the group. We've all been there, performing flawlessly, but failing because our PUG morons don't know what they're doing. In contrast, you can do everything 100% wrong, and still be successful, because the rest of the group makes up 87.5% of the group. Your individual contributions don't matter. Don't believe me? Look on the server forums. There are guilds that are selling Machine Gods runs where they will take unexperienced, ungeared people with them, and they can succeed the whole thing as a 7 man regardless of what you do, giving you all the gear and achievements. Raids are the laziest form of content because essentially other people play the game for you, and you can get the rewards for that. Those "best drops" you're talking about are not rewarded based on merit. You don't earn them. You can do everything wrong, and just get carried, and the result of being carried is that you get the "best drops" in the game.
Contrast that to a REAL bonafide solo challenge. I'm not talking about playing the solo story on storymode. I'm talking about a real, solo challenge where nobody else can help you and you will succeed or fail 100% based on your own skills and abilities. You know where you can find that in the game? Eternal Championship tournament.
I don't know about you, but I know over 50 different players who have completed Nightmare Mode Machine Gods. I do NOT know 50 different people who can complete wave 10 of Eternal Champion on solo mode. Top end raiders in their full 248 gear with top end augments are still failing before Wave 7. And yet, the REAL best players, the ones who don't use the crutch of other players to make up for their mistakes, they can breeze through all 10 waves without a death, and do it when their item levels are still lagging behind at 240ish with no augments. What's the difference? In solo mode, you have no other players to carry you through, to make up for your mistakes. You succeed or fail 100% on yourself. And most players are simply not good enough to handle solo'ing. Solo content inherently has the highest potential difficulty in the game, and so it should be Solo content, not raids, that give the best rewards. But instead, the hardest content in the game right now, the stuff that hardly anybody can complete, gives absolute trash rewards.
Lastly is just the immersion issue. In a Fantasy MMO, those big raids made sense. It was a throwback to classic Tolkien era novels and old school D&D, where several heroes would band together to take down a threat larger than any of them. By making some dragon so impossibly tough that it takes 20+ players, it really felt intimidating because you knew you were entirely in over your head. And that is great FOR A FANTASY SETTING. But for Star Wars, it just doesn't work. Classic Star Wars is not about huge groups ganging up to take down one guy. It's not Luke Skywalker and 15 of his closest buddies that duel with Vader, it is Luke alone. To kill the Emperor, it takes Luke and Vader. To kill Grievous, it's Obi Wan working solo. To kill Duuku, it's Obi Wan and Anakin. Luke solos the rancor. Leia solos Jabba. Nearly every major Star Wars anon boss battle is either a solo fight, or a solo+companion fight. So when we log into a game and our Jedi needs seven of his closest friends in order to take down a random Bounty Hunter or big droid, it is so anti-climatic. It makes us feel pathetic and like less of a galactic hero. Star Wars is an intellectual property that NEEDS a strong SOLO endgame in order to be fulfilling.
"That's how WoW does it" is not proof that Bioware needs to do the same. "That's how WoW does it" does not mean that it is a requirement for an MMO. Real, challenging solo content is the future of MMOs, where the true best players will be able to show off because they can do something all the mediocres can't. And any game that allows the crutch of grouping to let people fake their way through pseudo"Challenges" while claiming that group content is "Harder", that's just a lie that is told to mediocre players so that everybody can make it to the finish line and feel special.
Real challenges happen without help. If it takes 15 of your closest buddies to get you through, then you got no room to brag about how YOU did anything, because chances are they would have been just fine if you were asleep at your keyboard.
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"The Pink Apprentice" -- I really enjoyed this, but that may have been the best. Even better than Pink Lord.
Light side, I take it? Or more halfway?
I keep LS/DS turned off while I play so that it never shapes my decisions, but at the completion of Knights of the Feet, Pansey ended at LS2. She did make plenty of Dark decisions along the way as well, like killing Tremmel and backing Baras, because Tremmel was a racist and Baras accepted aliens into the Empire, or killing Quinn after his second attempt on her life.
If you ever see me in game, I'll probably be running around with the "Apprentice" Pansey title, because I love that whole "Pink Apprentice" schtick. Many top members of her Alliance have started wearing pink as well, forming a sort of "Pink Counsel" on Oddessan.
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I'm the one in a million on this, but I want a Belsavis base. A prison/vault/fortress type thing that is less of a casual apartment and more of a way for me to imprison my enemies and lock away my most important artifacts.
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To each his own. I'm glad some people enjoy the Bounty Hunter story, because I really grew to dislike it after the first chapter. The Bounty Hunter seems to go through a bit of identity crisis where (s)he becomes a lot less about hunting bounties and a lot more of basically being an Imperial special forces unit. By the end I was so sick of the Empire acting like I belonged to them that I just wanted to hunt a few Sith Lords to prove a point.
I get the same feeling with the Smuggler. The opening chapter feels right, but then by Chapter 2 he's basically just a Republic soldier doing covert ops for the Republic, who has no interest in actually SMUGGLING anything. Sheesh.
But then again, my favorite story, the one that I feel stays the most true to what I wanted it to be, was the Trooper. I've gone through vanilla story as a trooper 6 different times, and I've done Knights of the Feet on a trooper twice. And I've heard plenty of people say they find Trooper the most boring one out there. So I guess there's room for all kinds.
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Prompt: Once In A Lifetime
Pansey, Mirialan Sith Warrior on Satele Shan server
Everyone called her The Pink Apprentice. Pansey had thought the name was cute when she first heard it on Drommund Kaas, through the whispers in the streets of Darth Baras's new ward. It was a title she wore with pride. Darth Baras himself never called her by her proper name; at times Pansey found it hard to decide whether he was just incredibly professional, or instead if he had simply never bothered to learn it. He had called Vemrin by his name, but Pansey had only ever been 'Acolyte', or since being taken under his wing that honored title of 'Apprentice'.
Pansey wore that title like a badge of honor. Far too many Sith plotted against their Masters, coveting power or prestige, conspiring to replace those who were only seeking to train them. 'The Sith Way' as it was called was a disgusting example of everything wrong with the Empire, a handful of selfish individuals willing to betray all that was important, just to get their own five minutes of fame. Sadly, despite all the treachery and plotting they conspired, most would be forgotten, and those that were remembered were seldom more than a cautionary tale. People like Zhorrid rose clear to the seats of the Dark Counsel only to still be regarded as a joke amongst their peers. But Pansey was unlike other Sith. Pansey knew that Darth Baras was a man of great vision, and she believed in him and his ability to shape the galaxy into something better. She never wanted to replace Baras; there was only one man who had that great wisdom and vision. All Pansey ever wanted to do was play her own small part in helping Darth Baras reshape the Empire, and so it wasn't the title Apprentice, but the fact that it was Darth Baras speaking it that made it such a compliment.
That was also what made it so devastating to hear his disappointment in her failures on Alderaan. Pansey had found the Willsaams, but she could not destroy them as Baras had ordered, and the disapproval of Darth Baras, looking down on her from his cold, unchanging mask, was something that made her feel sick to the stomach. Pansey retreated to quarters, trying hard not to cry.
"Pansey?" came Vette's tender voice, rapping her knuckles against the opened doorframe to announce her presence.
Pansey rolled over on her bunk, wiping the back of her hands across her eyes before turning to face her spunky friend. "Yes, Vette?" Pansey said, forcing herself to smile and put on a brave face.
"There's a holo for you," Vette said hesitantly, "Are you.. are you okay?"
Pansey rolled off her bunk and straightened up her pink skirt, taking a moment to compose herself. "Yeah," she sighed, "I'll be fine. I guess Darth Baras wasn't done yelling at me yet."
Pansey began to shuffle down the corridor towards the ship's holo, while Vette followed timidly behind. "You could just ignore it," she suggested, "We've got a spaceship. We could just take off. Go anywhere in the galaxy. You, me.. maybe Captain Stick-up-his-butt. We could just run."
"I can't run away from Darth Baras," Pansey replied, shaking her head.
"You can!" Vette insisted, "You've seen what he does to his people. He kills people who did everything right! Tubbo does not accept failure."
Pansey looked at Vette sternly, letting her know this was one issue that was not up for debate. "His name is Darth Baras," Pansey scolded her, "And both of us will give him the respect he deserves. I knew what I was doing when I helped the Willsaams, and I accept whatever consequences come of it."
"I would end up property of the one honor-bound Sith in the whole Empire," Vette groaned, rolling her eyes. Pansey didn't look at Vette as a slave, even if that was technically her station when she was assigned to the Pink Apprentice by Darth Baras. These days, Pansey couldn't honestly even remember where the shock collar control was at.
Pansey pushed the button on the holo-terminal and it lit up, but it wasn't Darth Baras's disapproving mask looking back at her. It was a young Alderaanian girl, confused and frightened. "Sith," she addressed Pansey, "You've been looking for me. I won't see my family and friends pulled into harm's way on account of me any longer. If you want to find me, come to Hutta. I'll send you the coordinates."
"Jaesa? Jaesa Willsaam?" Pansey marveled. Noman Karr's young padawan had sought her out, despite Pansey's refusal to hurt those closest to her. "Yes! Of course. You have no idea how long I've been needing to talk to you."
"I won't be brought in by your lies, Sith," Jaesa responds cautiously, "But I felt the connection with my parents.. their fear.. and their relief. I don't know what you did to them-"
"You can ask them yourself," Pansey encourages brightly, "Ask for DUKE Willsaam at House Ulgo. They wanted me to tell you they love you."
Jaesa looked taken aback, confused for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief. "Whatever you've done, I won't see anyone else dragged in to protect me," Jaesa insists, "If you wish to find me, come to Hutta and I'll face you myself."
"Oh, thank you!" Pansey bubbled over with joy before Jaesa ended the holo-call. Pansey wanted to Holo Baras immediately, to tell him the great news and assure him that she had not failed him. Her hand was almost on the key panel before she stopped herself. She had disobeyed a direct order from Darth Baras. And in the end, she had been right and he had been wrong. It was almost unfathomable to comprehend, but Pansey felt a decided amount of apprehension. Would she sound too much like a know-it-all? Was it disrespectful to assume? And what if this was some trick of Noman Karr's padawan; was it fair to Darth Baras to get his hopes up, only to fail him again? And worse still, what if his confidence had been shaken to the degree he no longer wished for Pansey to pursue the assignment? What would happen with the Willsaam girl if it wasn't Pansey who arrived to meet her?
Pansey drew her hand back away from the holo. "Captain Quinn," she declared, "Set us a course for Hutt Space. We have a Padawan to find."
And find her she did. While Noman Karr himself confronted Pansey in Willsaam's place, the Jedi Master channeling both light and dark sides of the Force in his efforts to kill the Pink Apprentice, Pansey overcame, fending off the Jedi Master's assault until he was downed and at her mercy. When Willsaam did arrive, she was shocked and horrified to find her Master ranting in uncontrollable hatred, while the Sith not even Jaesa's age sat back mercifully, barking orders at the Imperial troops to transport Master Karr back to Tython where his Jedi Counsel could judge him according to their own laws, and heal his fractured mind. Jaesa used her powers, looking into Pansey's heart and uncovering her secrets, the mercy she had shown to Noman Karr, to Master Yonlach, to Jaesa's own parents. The fairness with which she struck down true threats and fought against the wicked people of the world like Tremmel and Vemrin whose only enjoyment came at the expense of others. Jaesa looked into Pansey's heart and saw that it was pure, and the young Padawan pledged to follow the Pink Apprentice and learn from her, to keep herself spotless in a world where secrets and lies seemed to creep in from all sides.
This time when she stood in front of her holo-communicator in her ship, Noman Karr's padawan by her side, Pansey felt nothing but confidence. She had atoned for her transgressions, redeemed herself in the eyes of her master and done the unthinkable. Baras didn't even mention the fact that she had released his longtime bitter rival back into the hands of the Republic, rather than striking him down. He only marveled at the willing presence of Jaesa Willsaam, and the incredible potential she presented to assist in Darth Baras's own great work. "You have done well, my Apprentice," Baras congratulated Pansey, "With Noman Karr's mettling finally ended, I am being called up to the Dark Counsel. And with this advancement in station myself, I have the power and opportunity to elevate you as well. You have served well as my Apprentice, obedient when required, though independent enough to accomplish results without being directed in all things. I find you no longer have need of my continual oversight, and you can be trusted to succeed in my work without my direct supervision. You are beyond being an Apprentice. Today, you rise to the ranks that few in the Empire are ever entrusted. Today, I name you a Sith Lord."
Lord Pansey. It sounded a bit silly, if she was being honest. Within the noble houses of Alderaan, a female Lord would be known as 'Lady'. But the honor and reverence was there nonetheless. Pansey, the young alien girl whom her own Master Tremmell had called a blight on the empire, was now being elevated to the rank of Sith Lord. Pansey always imagined she would need to wear a mask and take some cheesy fake name, like 'Lord Exploderkill' before the Dark Counsel would consider entrusting her with such power. A small part of her wondered how many of the masked men on the Dark Counsel were secretly aliens of whom no one had ever seen their faces to realize. But regardless of what minor victories had been accomplished in racial equality in the past, today was a monumental day, not just for Pansey but for the entire Empire. Today, an alien was openly named a Lord of the Sith. Today, Darth Baras's stance to bring equality amongst the races came to fruition, and those bigoted racists like Overseer Tremmel and his ilk were finally put in their place, the Empire celebrating a new golden age of freedom and equality. Pansey beamed with pride at all she had accomplished, her happiness causing Jaesa to feel momentarily overwhelmed and dizzy from the sensation. "Go and celebrate your accomplishements," Darth Baras dismissed Pansey, "For you shall receive your next assignment soon enough."
Pansey beamed a toothy grin that was impossible to hide, turning to her friends. "What do you say?" she asked, "Party on Nar Shaadda? Club Vertigo penthouse is on me."
Vette looked on at her, shaking her head in amazement, having been the victim of all too much racial bigotry herself at the hands of the Empire. "Pansey," she marveled, "This is the start of a whole new Empire. From here on out, I'm besties with a Pink Lord."
Pansey laughed. These were the moments that shaped a Galaxy.
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Honestly, I am quite surprised that these haven't started to be released to the Cartel Market as CC purchase companions.
Just saying, compared to even the new droid companions, pulling models from the story means that their model is already done, animations already exist, heck, there's probably even one or two generic lines already recorded that they could use for a voiceover with essentially no work (and literally no work if you make them as the silent companions). It requires very little from the art and engineering teams to make it happen, but they easily get re-introduced as those 4-5K CC prices like the Droid Companions (companions that often require the art team to create new models and animations and actually take MORE work).
And the playerbase would pay it. It would be such an easy and quick cash-grab, and a good way to get a quick influx of funds to help bolster the next expansion. And, much like the animal and droid companions, they wouldn't require extra conversations or anything, because they already get plenty of speaking time in the actual stories.
Overall it seems like a quick, easy, win-win situation. One would think Bioware would have jumped on it years ago.
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I made my first dedicated healer, a sorc, and leveled him 90% through Flashpoints. I hoped to have experience with healing and feel confident by the time I reached 70 and started into Ops.
Instead, while I'm trying to heal the group, even when I'm doing a good job keeping everyone topped off, every 30 seconds there is somebody hitting one of those kolto stations. This renders me essentially useless and tries to guilt me into DPSing, but even more importantly, it saps me of any confidence in my actual healing abilities. I can't tell if I'm keeping things up well enough because the Kolto Stations do 3/4ths of the work. I can't tell if I'm managing my mana well enough, because of huge lulls where I can recover while the Kolta Stations carry us. So when I reached level 70, and people expect me to be experienced and know what I'm doing and how to play my class... I just basically shelved my healer and stuck with my Tank and DPS characters.
Firsthand, players cannot learn if there is no way to be given the opportunity. I would say that creating a "story mode" difficulty level queue that remained role specific would be the answer, but I don't think many players would actually use it and the results would be that it never pops. I don't know what the right answer would be, but I would like to be able to play as a role other than DPS and actually be allowed to get a feel for my abilities and hone my craft prior to being thrown into 8 man Ops that annoy 7 other people if you're still figuring out your basic abilities and rotation.
Limited weapon choices limited even more during mty absence. Sad panda here!
in General Discussion
Posted
I know when I played as a Smuggler back in the day, Guss used a pistol.
My Sith Warrior unlocked Guss during the Alliance stuff and uses him as my chief apprentice. Guss uses a Lightsaber now.
So there were some changes made.