SWTOR: The grumpy nice guy

Aw, don't act all surprised on me now!
(Click on the image to get to the full gallery)

Spoiler warning: I'm about to describe my experience with the SWTOR alignment system. If you're just getting started on the game and you do not want to know how your alignment can influence the game, don't read this. You've been warned.

One thing, which has always frustrated me about MMORPGs is how my character is basically just an assortment of gear, skills and numbers. Some games allow you to add a biography, many games have RP-servers, which let you act and talk 'in character' to give your alter ego a bit of a personality, but at the end of the day, it's all really just make-believe. Your characters don't have any real history or motivation, aside from the stuff you make up about them.

SWTOR promised to make things a bit more interesting by giving you light side and dark side actions and dialogue options as you progress through the story and quests. I wasn't expecting the whole system to have a huge impact on my gameplay experience and for the most part on my way through the first 30 levels I was right, some minor dresscode limitations aside - bad guys swing red lightsabres, good guys swing the colourful ones. You get the idea.

But seeing as the really interesting parts of the story are beginning to unfold before me, not only am I starting to feel that I have made the right choice when picking my class and alignment, but I'm also getting more attached to my character than I'm used to from any other online game. Through his story and his actions, that is, rather than meaningless achievement points and purple gear. But I'll get into that in a minute.

If you had asked me what kind of character I would like to play before the beta stages, I would have chosen a Jedi knight without hesitation. You see, the Sith get the fun outfits and the fancy magicks (sorry, force powers) and all, but the way those guys run their business reminds me too much of my old office job at a Korean electronics retailer: Everyone has their own hidden agenda, you only advance by killing your superiours and by taking credit for stuff you haven't actually done.

I have never been a huge Star Wars fan and I'm not familiar with much of that fictional universe, aside from the obvious crap everybody knows from the films. I knew the basic black and white stuff: Jedi = Good, Sith = Evil, that's that. So when I rolled my Jedi Knight, their whole philosophy, their mindset, the starting quests, which are meant to give you an idea of how it all works... it simply put me to sleep.

You see, when I play a character in an RPG, I want him to reflect my personality at least to some extent. And all of that crap about abandoning all emotions, letting go of all anger and passion and wasting every single boner (falling in love will get you booted!), sounded equally boring and cowardly to me. Nobody told me the Jedi were firm Catholics!

Turns out all the fun is with the Sith. They enjoy a good rage. And you know me. I'm all about rage. If I think you're an asshole, and chances are I do, then I'll say so to your face. I listen to my gut, I act and talk first and think later, no matter the consequences. But unlike your typical Sith Lord, I'm not very big on torture and mindless killing and what not. If someone's being a real dick, sure, torture them a bit, but I get no fun out of harming the innocent.

And that's where the alignment system kicks in. I'm a Sith Warrior and I'm enjoying an internship with this really mean prick, Darth Baras. Baras tells me to kill some guy he doesn't like, I just kick the guy's ass and tell him to run to the furthest corner of the galaxy and never come back, then I come back and pretend he's dead and my Master is none the wiser.

Basically, this is what a huge part of my storyline has played out like, so far. I'm being told to do something really nasty, I'm trying to be as compassionate and nice as possible, then act all badass in front of the boss and cash in on cool new titles and rewards. Sweet!

Of course, the whole thing started to get a little stale after a while. Me cutting off a bad guy's hand and telling him to run and hide, then present the hand to Darth Baras, all like, 'Look, this is all that's left of the poor fucker' and that moron is oblivious of what's really going on. It's an alternative way to solve quests, but it's not really all that 'light side'.

But things got gradually more interesting when I was told to kill a promising new padawan or, if I was feeling really hardcore, convince her to join the Dark Side. Naturally, I pretended to play along, secretly trying to save her in the process. And that's when the storytelling finally began to pick up. In order to reach the padawan, I had to talk to many of her former Jedi buddies in order to find out how to reach her. And when you're Sith, you're pretty much labelled a complete asshole, no matter what you do.

Imagine you walk in on some cranky old Jedi and the first thing he does is draw his lightsaber, threatening to kill you. You can stay cool, leave your weapon where it is, tell him you mean no harm to either him or the padawan and that you only want to talk. They don't give a shit. And they most certainly don't believe you. And whether you like it or not - in most of these situations you simply cannot avoid a fight. You may, however, choose to let your opponent live when you beat them, which usually gives them something to chew on for a while. It really is quite, funny, actually. "But... you guys are supposed to be evil! You're supposed to kill me! Maybe the Dark Side isn't so bad?"
-"Dude, it's awesome! We're allowed to get pissed off at stuff, we have comedy night on Fridays and best of all, we get to shag!"

I might be paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the idea. After 20 or so levels of goodie twoshoes I was actually attacked by my own mirror image, freaking out on me for being too nice. A very interesting touch, seeing as my own dark half told me how I was weak and how the Dark Council would eventually find out and plot to kill me and all kinds of stuff about me not being a proper Sith.

When I finally managed to get a hold of that fabled Padawan, her master would attack me relentlessly, trying his hardest to kill me, no matter how many times I told him I meant no harm or how many times I avoided dealing the killing blow. As the fight raged on, he started to show more and more signs of Dark Side corruption, i.e. his skin turned pale, his eyes turned red, his face turned into an 80 year old scrotum and all that.

After defeating (and sparing) both him and his padawan, she had to realize that it was her own master, who was being the dick here and that I was being nice about it all along. And in the end, she joined me, pretending to become my Sith apprentice, so together we could try and restore peace from within the Empire.
What's so interesting about this turn of events is how, up to this point, my character had always been a bit difficult to read. So I could spare and save people's lives, show compassion and empathy, but to what end? By the end of the day, I was still a Sith, right?

But that's where the elephant in the room had been addressed. It's all for show. We play along, do what we have to do in order to limit the damage done by the Empire as much as possible. It's the only logical explanation to a 'Sith' character, who spends all day saving lives and being nice to people. But unlike those boring Jedi dudes, I'm allowed to get angry. And I get to shag!


Speaking of which - one of my crew mates seems to be wanting exactly that. Sweeeeet~♪

Below you will find images of cutscenes and dialogue involving some of the events described in this entry. Click on an image to enlarge it and read the dialoge. Be sure to read the name at the beginning of a line of text if you're not sure which character is talking.

-Cat