Finally, I had the opportunity to play the game long enough. At least satisfying enough to write my first impressions.

Quest effecting decisions instantly remind us of the legendary game, Dragon Age, definetely not Dragon Age 2

The conversation wheel at the bottom enables us select our response; hence decide on the way we are going to do the quests.

My beloved Dashade companion Khem Val. If only he did not want to devour any living thing...

Day 1

I have landed on a stormy day. Do not get the wrong idea, the word "storm" really loses meaning in this god forsaken planet. At my homeland, we referred the storm as the pouring rain which lead to massive floods around the planet. However, once the flood was over; we would always see the nature's rebirth. Hence the people were always in conflict whether to love and appreciate the storms or to hate them.

Here, the storm means only one thing: the ever-blowing sand storms. Only to perish and destroy... As I was walking on the landing platform; it instantly hit me that this planet or to be more precise; the planet and the inhabitants of this planet were hostile. I, too, do not define myself as a friendly person; but this was totally different. You could easily sense that the very fabric of this planet was pure hatred. Hatred, agony and ambition. You could be -no, should be- asking: what were you expecting from the homeworld of the Sith, Korriban?

Korriban, home and the eternal rest place of the Sith Lords

Slave. That is what we -the newcomers- are addressed by our superiors in the Sith Academy. One overseer, Harkun is especially obsessed with this word. He calls me a slave whenever and wherever he can. I really do not understand the reasoning behind this; but he just mindlessly hates us all. Well, actually not all of us, there is a particular apprentice that he favors, Ffon Althe.

Ffon Althe

Overseer Harkun

I have learned our ultimate aim in coming here. Lord Zash, the most powerful Sith in the Academy will be selecting a new padawan. This is why us -the ones strong with the arts of the Force- have been brought here altogether. There are more interesting news, though. Only one us will be chosen and the others will be "eliminated." Let them come. This is the opportunity I have expected for all my life. Finally, I will get rid of the chains that held me back for years. I will show them who the real slave is. Or will be.

The trials will be starting tomorrow. Now, I will rest and meditate for my upcoming challenge.

-End of Entry-

This blog will consist of mainly two parts: the character progress diary in which I will tell the story of my character, Equilette, from the first person perspective. Her story will follow the main frame of her quests; but I will try to enrich the story by adding my personal feelings on what happens. I believe that is possible due to the conversation based quest system of the game.

The other part of the blog will be mostly about my thoughts about the game; may it be graphics, music, news or anything else. I will of course add my comments on the subjects that we discuss. Otherwise, it would just be a regular "game news blog".

Keep in tune and may the force be with you.

So here is my character for Star Wars: Old Republic
Server: Legions of Lettow
Name: Equilette
Faction: Empire
Race: Human
Class: Assasin

Isn't she adorable?

Hello all,

This is my very first post for my new SWTOR Character Progress Blog. I've just acquired the game and decided the share my adventure in the form of a character progress blog. Before we move on, I'd like to give a brief history about me and the MMOs.

I have played a lot of different MMOs starting from 2005 for various amounts of time. From the beginning of 2005 to 2008's autumn, I have played the mother of the modern MMOs, World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft was the first MMO experience for me, however with release Wrath of the Lich King, I realized that the game had already become way too repetitive for me. Hence, I left WoW along with the MMO genre. Should honestly say that getting into a relationship also had an effect, too.

World of Warcraft - My Very First

Finishing undergrad and studying for the MBA was what year 2010 about. I was mostly at home preparing for the test. Eventually I started to get bored around the house and thought of giving an MMO a chance. I heard that WotLK was actually balanced -was shocking news for an arena junkie who played the whole TBC with a resto shammy accompanied with a warlock- however the urge to try new and different things was overwhelming. Lord of the Rings Online was the best choice for a die-hard a Tolkien fan at that time; though it soon proved to be the worst choice I have ever made about the MMOs. LotRO simply did not have a PvP portion -well it did; but I reject to call that PvP- that was satisfying. I have played LotRO only for 1 month during the free period which you have when you redeem your cd-key. I have never ever thought that an online game would lack PvP and this experience thought me a great lesson. Never buy an online game without getting info about it first.

I can't help but wonder how LotRO would be like with a little true PvP action

After LotRO, I started to focus on my tests to pursue an MBA degree so around 5-6 months went by offline.

The next candidate was a game the major game distributer EA had high hopes for; Warhammer Online. I have met with the awesome collector's edition of the game when I went to stay over at a friend's house; who also was a former WoW player. Seeing a totally PvP-oriented game was awesome. There was no need to do forced PvE quests or always-hard-to-make group quests. So, I bought the game and started playing. The game animations were in general disappointing; however the non-stop PvP action made up for that fact. The "but" about the sugar-coated game stroke me when I started to level beyond level 20. The game was dead! You literally were unable to find anyone to play with after level 20. On top of that came the grand server mitigation. After the server mitigation, the game started to lag every minute or so, in the form of 3 seconds long lag spikes. I laid low for a while to see if the situation would heal; but it never did.

Warhammer Online - So much wasted opportunities...

Truely stunning graphics, heavenly environment, awesome in-game musics and the actual feeling of being "the chosen one with the wings." Yes, I am talking about Aion. The South Korea originated game was visiually more than satisfying and was able to lure you in the moment you watched the official game trailer. The aerial PvP concept was both intriguing and innovative, things started to be desired in the crowded MMO environment. The biggest problem of Aion was, in my opinion, the ever-grinding playstyle. I was playing with   a sorceress and I really lost the count of how many times I've done the same instance at level 25, just to get the epic scepter. Aion offered massive item modifications; so people grinded a lot to get the same item twice to combine the items etc. Another problem was the luck-based crafting style. For some, the luck element in the crafting may pump adrenaline, however for a safe-guard like me, it is just disturbing. Why in the world am I not getting a result for trying to craft an armor which I've paid a lot of in-game golds? These actully seemed to be minor disturbances as I was dreaming and drooling about the aerial PvP. Unfortunately, once again, the promising part of the game, massive open PvP action left me with disappointment as noone actually cared about the territorial fights and open-world PvP. When and if you come across with a player of the opposing faction, chances were they would be either much higher or much lower than your own level. Either way it was not fun.

Perhaps hi-end graphics and female characters in stockings & high heels are not enough for an MMO

This brings us to our last spot, a game with a creative mindset. Rift, came out with the motto of "We are not in Azeroth anymore." And that was cool for me, I've had many other affairs till my first-love; hence I was ready to taste other things. In a sentece, Rift is a complete game. The game is satisfying on both PvE and PvP extremes. Most importantly the game keeps itself playable and fresh by constantly getting patches and new content. The major problem I had with Rift was my catostrophic faction and class selection. I was literally at the side of baby-players who did not know the first thing about PvP with a warrior character. You see the flaw here, don't you? As a warrior, you are always dependent of the other players in your group, especially healers in a PvP environment. PvP-healers were non-existant at Rift, at least on my faction. So, because I loved the game, I rerolled a mage on the opposing faction of my warrior and started playing. The chronomancer was totally awesome! AoE healing while you still help your group to lay waste on the opposing faction was totally priceless. The game was awesome; but the timing wasn't, at least not for me. In the autumn of 2011, my second year as an MBA started in a rush with so many projects, reports and presentations so that I had to cut the cords with the game.

Rift was probably worth wasting hours for, too bad I did not have much

Star Wars: The Old Republic