Chat corner: Free Friday

[annathecrow]

Welcome to Free Friday, your weekly free-for-all chat post. Anything SW-related is fair game.

Have fun!

Comments

[extrapenguin]

First, an announcement: space_swap (multifandom space-fandom fanwork exchange, admits fic, art, vids, podfic, and interactive fiction) is finishing up nominations! Star Wars is eligible and a lot has been nominated. Be sure to check it out! Disclaimer: yes I am the mod.

I made a SWTOR vid for the vid_bingo same song challenge! And I imagine that I'll end up making a bunch of SWTOR vids for my actual bingo card, plus vexercises.

Anyway! It's about the Jedi Consular storyline. DW post with tl;dr, AO3 work. Spoilers for the entire storyline.

I also have a PT/TCW + Babylon 5 crossover in the finishing stage. Hopefully I can poke at it over the weekend.

[senmut]

GO YOU!

[annathecrow]

Space Swap looks cool! I can't commit to any exchanges right now, but I'm keeping an eye out for pinch hits.

Also, kudos on the vid! I can't watch it because I'm trying to avoid SWTOR spoilers, but I'm sure it's great XD.

[extrapenguin]

If a Star Warsy PH lingers, I'll be sure to advertise here!

Do I need to record a Knight playthrough just so I can make something you can watch? :P Good luck with your gameplay. I'm sure you'll be able to watch the vid someday.

[annathecrow]

Re: Knight, oh lol, you definitely have a lot of time to decide! XD I'm not even done with Chapter 1 yet (almost, though, I've just finished Alderaan).

As for the Consular vid, I'm sure I'll get to see it sooner or later. Either I'll play through Consular eventually, or I will give up on spoiler avoidance and just start watching stuff. Right now I'm still naively optimistic I'll get there myself :D

[extrapenguin]

Ooh! How did you like Alderaan? I don't really like the planet, but it and Tatooine were some of the best in the Knight story imo.

Either I'll play through Consular eventually, or I will give up on spoiler avoidance and just start watching stuff.
Or, if you're forgetful, you can do both by getting spoiled and forgetting the spoilers. Though that depends on how good your memory is.

[annathecrow]

Hm, Alderaan... honestly, very meh. It's probably my fault, I've been kind of pushing through the story just to progress at that point, and it's started to all blur together. Also, the way the conflict is set up is really sketchy, when you think about it: you come to the planet, get told it's in the middle of a protracted civil war, one side immediately grabs you around the shoulders and goes "you're with us, no time to explain, go eliminate the other side for us".

I liked the story on Tatooine better, but I really disliked Tatooine as a location so it sort of balances out.

In other news, I've rolled a new character! I still plan to finish the Jedi Knight, but I wanted to try something new. So now I have a male Human Sith Warrior plonking around on Korriban and disappointing Overseer Tremel left and right XD

I started with a Sith Inquisitor, but I really wanted to play a dude for a change and I noped out on the male Inquisitor voice-over. IDK, he just has this slightly mincing tone that got on my nerves really badly. I'll probably play the class as a female, or I'll make a horrible little man and hope I'll get used to it.

[extrapenguin]

Fair wrt the conflict – I did Knight after doing Inquisitor, which at least made the evil of the Empire-aligned faction clearer. I do like the three-way civil war (Ulgo vs Organa vs Thul) in concept, even if I hate the background music and thus the entire planet. For Knight, I found Darth Nefarid and his "I've randomly targeted dozens of Alderaanians, from all walks of life. It felt ... democratic" thing absolutely hilarious. Is he likable? No. Is he entertaining? Yes. And then Alderaan has Darth Angral kill Orgus Din, which was perhaps a bit mega-referential of the OT, but was at least somewhat emotionally engaging.

Tatooine was nice too! I absolutely love the confrontation with Lord Praven, both LS and DS.

I hope you like the Sith Warrior! Playing LS Warrior has some real funny bits. And soon you'll get to sass your Sith master.

I recommend playing Inquisitor female – the VA absolutely nails the deranged power trip aspect. The male Inq voice is nothing to write home about, I agree.

[annathecrow]

The Alderaan background music is kind of... I like it! But it's very badly used, IMO. There were a few dialogues where I was like "please, could the background music shut up for a minute?" because it drowned everything out. I disliked the Tatooine background music more, but I don't have a good reason for that, it just irritated me.

Nefarid: okay, yeah, that dude was funny :D He's just so gleefully evil.

Orgus: oh lol, this absolutely did not land for me. First we're told he's dead, then he turns up and quips a few very tonally-unfitting lines (I mean, "If we die here you're fired" made me laugh, but it absolutely does not fit the rest the damn dialogue), and then goes away and very predictably dies of Mentor Disease. Not to mention that my Knight was all "oh no, my dearest mentor has perished! :(((", when she's known him for like... two weeks? Babygirl. That's unhealthy.

Lord Praven: I loved that part! I got to talk him into surrendering to the Jedi, it was so satisfying.

Okay, Inquisitor as female, definitely. Maybe I'll go for it right away and keep the Warrior for later, so I get to play with some other combat mechanics than "swing a sword real nice". EDIT: ...yes, and this is the moment when I realize that I've been saying "Inquisitor" all this time while actually meaning "Imperial Agent". *headdesk* I swear, I'm not actually a complete dumbass most of the time, my memory/attention is just crapshoot. ANYWAY. Any recommendations re: Imperial Agent?

I've been planning to play the Warrior as LS, but he has some really satisfying "I just don't give a fuck" dialog choices :D We'll see how that goes!

[extrapenguin]

Ha, there's a reason I've gone into the settings and turned down the comparative volume of the music and SFX. (Voicelines, those I want to hear, so they're at 100%.) And to each their own – I really like the Balmorra background music, which should be where your Knight is heading next.

In your Knight's defense, I think each chapter is technically supposed to happen over ~1 year, so she's known him for several months! For a large chunk of which he's been absent. Still. But yeah, he does succumb to Mentoritis, and in the same way that the Smuggler story is trying way too hard to be Han Solo, the Knight story tries too hard to be Luke Skywalker, though in a less total ripoff, and it even does something that didn't happen in the OT. (And the Knight/saving the galaxy from ten billion superweapons thing is more generic.)

Lord Praven's fate is so great! Have you read the letter he sends yet? I think you get another one later on as well.

DS version

The DS version is executing him after the duel. It's amazingly shot, with him kneeling right at the edge of the chasm and accepting his fate quietly. His body falls into the abyss. Kira Carsen approves.

yes, and this is the moment when I realize that I've been saying "Inquisitor" all this time while actually meaning "Imperial Agent"
:D Don't worry, happens to the best of us! My recs in general are female Consular (better love interest, doesn't start out on Tython sounding like a Jedi Master already, didn't record Makeb while suffering from the flu) and male Smuggler (your first companion is a sexist Nice Guy who doesn't believe in killing women, even if they're Sith Lords who just tried to kill you; he is also the love interest for female characters). Other than that, just click the gender dials in character creation and pick whichever voice sounds better for you. I found female Agent okay and haven't really tried the male one. I have a lowbie lying around. I guess I'll get to leveling him once I'm done with my other leveling projects... (Male Inquisitor, DS Knight)

Warrior actually has a few nice places where you can think about your alignment earlyish on! So play as you would and see how the new stuff makes you react.