MMO Factioning and the Allure of the Evil

Star Wars: The Old Republic (called TOR from here on out because I am lazy and do not want to type so many words the next 70 gadgillion times I mention it.) launches on December 20th. But since every one of my gaming friends already knew they would play it, they preordered it. (Early access for preorder customers started December 13th.) That was far too much planning for me. I pride myself on my spontaneity-- I'm never completely sure what I'll be doing later in the day, much less in later months. Planning that far ahead uses too much brain space that could be dedicated to whatever instant gratification I'm courting this very moment. So I showed them. I'm sitting at my computer reading all their updates on Facebook about it instead of actually playing the thing. Yeah. That makes me the winner.

Invariably, my conversations with these individuals have been turning to the game. What's great, what's frustrating, what their character progression is. In TOR, you choose a faction (determines your "side" or group in a game) and a character class (determines your powers and abilities) just like in any other MMO. As per usual, the faction you chose affects the story you're told throughout the game. Factions are usually portrayed with a difference in art style-- there is usually a "light" and a"dark" side to choose from. This provides players with a choice in what sort of style they would like their character to have. The background story to these factions have traditionally been lore-rich but ambiguous in terms of which side is the correct or the "good" one. Motivations for factions have spanned political, religious, and economic disagreements.

Not so in TOR! The two factions presented are the Empire and the Republic. Never before has there been such a blatant non-moral gray area in MMO factioning. Anyone who has briefly popped their head into the realm of western pop-culture knows the moral implication of these sides. In their creation, every stereotypical good vs. bad trope was used. The Sith have billowing cloaks and bloodshot eyes and a fondness for black. The Jedi have light robes and fresh-faced youths and far more sage old men than are truly necessary.

Honestly, I don't think there is any real argument as to the "goodness" of the Empire. Which leads me to wonder who would want to play Empire? This is the side that explodes planets full of people, burns farmers alive, and only wins in one out of three movies.* (I'm fairly certain that there is puppy-kicking, balloon-popping and candy-stealing antics off-screen as well.) The Empire isn't just evil, it's eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. It comes complete with a cackle and a rasp and a dramatic turn in an elaborate office chair-throne.

And yet, even with the pure evilness of the faction, I could still see reasons to play Empire. There's the allure of going rogue, for example. The character who becomes impatient, or fed up with the establishment and the rules and hoops to jump through, so decides to take a more volatile path. But that's not what happens here-- the Sith is "The Man" and is fully embracing all that comes with it. Or maybe if the game was the path to evil. (Like in those movies about Anakin Skywalker which were never made.) Where you start off and you just want some extra money, or if you cheat it's slightly faster to achieve your goal, or rationalizing that it's okay to kill just this one perso--whoops! I accidentally became evil. But again, this is not what happens. The steps to the Empire are:

1. Purchase the game
2. Choose an account name
3. Choose a subscription plan
4. Choose evil

So when I ask "who would want to play Empire?" it turns out the answer to that question is "the majority of my friends," which has me seriously questioning the choices I've made that have lead me to this social group. When I tell them I just cannot come to terms with playing pure, undeniable evil I am informed that I need to come to terms with MANNING UP AND GET TO THE MURDERING.

Of course I understand choosing Republic-- I'm sure most of us who saw the only three Star Wars movies that matter played Jedi at some point with large sticks that inevitably ended with someone being punctured or dinged. But why Empire? Is it the desire to act out things you would never do in real life? Is it the darker art style? Is it a backstory pre-written in a player's head? Are the stories more interesting? Is it the lightning? (Actually, I would totally understand if it's the lightning.) The only way to find out, I suppose, is to try it out. I hear you can be a light-side Sith-- is that even a thing?!

*Edit: Husband tells me that the Empire technically is winning in A New Hope, to which I countered "Yeah, but they weren't winning the BATTLE that was portrayed in that film." And he replied, "That's correct, the Empire did not win the Battle of Yavin" which sounded like he was saying that I won, but it doesn't feel like winning should and I think it may be because he out-nerded me, but I'm going to ignore that feeling since it doesn't suit my needs at this juncture.

Sickness, Science and Superheros

I'm sick and sorely disappointed about it. It's a violation of all the rules. And that probably needs some explanation.

Two years ago, I attended PAX for the first time. And not being one to miss anything, I was sure to hit every party, panel and playtest I could. I was a flurry of movement across the convention floor. I wanted to experience everything PAX had to offer. This even continued well into the week after PAX-- when I realized that I had also picked up H1Nerd1. I considered it the cooldown for the epic awesomeness that was PAX. But I was confined to a bed for a week, and barred from work for two.

Months later, I was devouring my morning knowledge when I read that Swine Flu survivors were less likely to get the flu. What I thought was a cooldown was actually a quest. A horrible, mucus-ladden, cold-sweat-inducing quest, but it awarded the phat purp of being immune to the flu! I became a superhero, able to stop viruses in their tracks. In fact, every time I told the story about the new finding, the resulting effect became more incredible-- last week when I told this story, I informed my listener that I could now be ressurected by the mucuses-that-never-were, surrounding me like a cocoon and absorbing whatever it was that killed me. Pretty cool, I know. But I can't take the credit. I am an unwilling hero, but with great power comes great responsibilty. The responsibility of keeping up the legend by never getting sick.

So I woke up this morning with a tickle in the back of my throat. I'm hoping it goes away by tomorrow, so I can continue working on my 270-verse ballad called "Cy's Amazing Battle with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and His Henchmen Prions, Which She Won and Then She Threw a Party" (working title). To affect me with even a slight tickle must mean that this is a fearsome opponent. B tells me that what I thought was a epic was a green at best. Only providing a 20% resist to rhinoviruses and orthomyxoviridae and, if the status effect is applied, a 25% reduction in effect and duration. I suspect he is just jealous of my superpowers and wants me to live a normal life, but such a thing cannot be, and I will not be convinced. The only explanation is that someone is cheating, it's a violation of the rules and I demand retribution.

He did also say, however, that eating ice cream will help heal any virus-related throat-tickles. I've decided that I do believe that and I hearby resolve to eat a pint for good measure. Just until this grevious oversight is righted.

Post-Summer Holiday Wrap-Up

Once my summer class finished, I promptly took off to cram as much summer holiday I could into the two weeks before the fall session started. (Spoiler: Fall session started this week.) This included a week-and-a-half's worth of cajun food crammed into a long weekend (NOLA pictures being compiled) and a fabulous week tromping around Austin with a favored aunt. (Tip: Wander around your city or the nearest city for a few days as if you are a tourist. You'll generally find that your city is a lot more interesting than you thought it was. Exception: Phoenix. Nothing good happens in there.)

The aunt left, the diet has been blown and classes have started. I do make vaguely elated trilling noises at the concept of certain things: nerd conventions, morbid victorian-esque ballads, getting a robot body, cupcakes, etc. Fully devoting oneself to studying of things can be added to that list. My brain has been in a constant state at /cheer since classes started. And while broad general studies are big fun (Huge fun. Like a bouncy castle in zero gravity kind of fun.) the knowledge that I will soon need to choose one set of things has me nervously fretting. How do you choose just one thing? Or just two things even? There are so many spectaculary awesome things to learn and do, the concept is impossible in my mind.

The husband tells me that as I take more classes, there will be some topics that will have me gleefully bouncing and explaining at 800 words a minute, and there will be some topics that will have me shrugging and recounting. I'm supposing that my fretting is this-side-of-schooling worries. That when I get to the other side of this adventure it'll make sense. But right now I feel like I'm in a candy store and I'm sugared up on knowledge. Not a terrible problem to have.

Getting the first post out of the way

Trying to start yet-another-blog on a whim. I wonder sometimes if my hobbies would stick more if I wanted them longer. But I'm such a creature of instant gratification with most news acquired by my RSS feeds headlines, most debates won with a quick Wikipedia search and updates from my family received in 140 characters or less. (Though not arguing about that last one-- sometimes family contact is best when limited to Facebook updates.)

There's definitely something to be said for longer journal entries (The ability to fully plumb the depths of a concept, for example.) but keeping it up has always been a problem. I like to think that it's because I have to cultivate writing regularly the same way I cultivated smoking when I was 15-- I have to keep at it until it's a habit. Forcing myself to do it because, by god, how awesome will it be when all the other kids find out I'm a blogger? Until one day I'll find myself waiting for that moment in the week when I can sneak off by myself and fully sink into a good topic.

Maybe the smoking reference was a poor choice. (And does anyone think blogging is cool anymore?) Oh well, fuck it.

The last time I had a personal blog, I was 16 and very serious about every single thing that happened to me in a day. I had thousand-word posts about tripe and crap. You can be sure I locked that sucker down the moment I became self-aware enough to realize how stuck up my own ass I was. I haven't gone back. (Maybe I should print it all out and put it on my mantel as a cautionary tale.) But it was nice to have a space where anything was allowed. It wasn't a videogame review site or a political commentary blog or chapters or a novel or any other of the restricted blogs I've started and then forgotten about. A place for everything in one big, disorganized mess. Yes, that's much more my style.