Raithe

Sitting down with a plate of scampi for dinner. For some reason just had one of those days where I've been in a totally spacey headspace. Haven't really focused on anything or gotten anything done.

Pretty much having a break from TOR this weekend... although I'm not actually in the mood to play anything else. Had a short return to my SI on friday to finish off a couple of the Correllian world quests. Although without the presence of the class-quest I will say I'm having a slight loss of forward momentum...

An Imperial Walker...

There were seeming examples of Character stupidity, but that can't really be classed as plot holes. Case in point, the Council sticking their fingers in their ears and basically going "bwah-bwah-bwah, you might have saved our lives but we don't want to believe the horrible things going on". However, that can be backed up by history and how people react in general... so. Not so much plothole. I think a chunk of the background plot did tend to get overshadowed by all of the family issues you had to keep solving to get your crew focused, but apart from how quick Shephard was to forgive Cerberus, or how folks like Ashley refused to even listen to reasons of why you were doing stuff - oh, and that Human-Reaper which was just.. kind of silly - I wouldn't have said there were hordes of glaring plot holes. More just, plot annoyances. ME has always been that space opera format. And that allows a certain element of silliness to be enjoyed as part and parcel of the genre. It isn't dark, gritty, hard sci-fi that is meant to be taken completely seriously. Just watch Mordin's take on Gillbert & Sullivan to get that..

Had some rather in-depth dreaming. Very.. spy thrillerish thing going on, betrayal, intrigue, being hunted.. Then I woke up. Had that combo of just..not wanting to get up, along with wanting to go back to sleep to figure out the plot of the dream...

Ah, but if saving the universe requires trusting your team, then solving the teams problems before you go.. actually means having a better chance of saving the universe..

Actually, I can see the reasoning behind it. The Mass Effect trilogy is the story of Shephard and how he deals with it all. If he's dead, he's dead. That's it. Story was over when you chose to play the game in a way in which he dies. That's the consequences....

It also has that slight clash if you look at the Achievements you get for it. If you do the prison rescue/breakout without causing alarms or killing Batarians, you get the achievement.. and then basically a day later you do what you have to..

One comment I found interesting back during the development days, was that they wanted elements of the Republic as we see it in the films, to show up in both the Old Republic and on the Imperial side, to highlight how things actually merged and combined at certain levels as time went by...

Actually I'm not bothered b y the Imperial vs Metric split. I'm happy mixing it all up and using both. The one that bugs me is the month-day-year thing... Edit: And to move on to more amusing, but accurate things..

Well the choice you made with Wrex in ME certainly had an effect on ME2 didn't it? I'm pretty sure that's going to carry across to ME3 as well...

Chill. It's just so you can go to Korriban and do the political speech and then kick his ass in front of the Dark Council

Well they did make a few comments that there will be issues depending on romance choices and potential love triangles to deal with... so I'm fairly sure something will crop up. Hopefully not just an email for that..

They've also talked that at various stages, key "universe" altering events will happen. I imagine that when the full war breaks out again, the class stories are going to have to shift with them.. otherwise things might not make as much sense.

Well they've always said they have a plan to roll out new worlds and add depth. I guess they expected people to spend more time playing around on multiple classes from both sides , and that would give them time to extend the play and add in such things.

I caught Outlander on tv last night, and reminded that it's a fairly decent movie. Jim Caviezel, as a man from a far off planet crashlands his ship and ends up in Northern Europe, dealing with Vikings. Throw in the alien predator involved who's called a Moorwen and looks like a very funky non-winged dragon, and you get the whole "basis for myth" type of sci-fi/fantasy story. Add Sophia Myles as eye-candy and chief's daughter with a sword... Quirky fact, they actually put in some Icelandic as it was spoken in the early middle ages..

I think you have to take it that the choices and consequences matter in regards to the path you journey on, rather then whether it means a win or lose ending. The way consequences and reactions happen to things you do and choices you make effect the pathway, and that is something that's good to at least see an attempt made at in a game. Even if they don't have a direct in-game consequence, actually having something refer to it later makes it a more involving universe. As Hurl says, even a simple email can improve a certain sense of immersion in what you've done and where you're going.

I did catch an interesting article on Yoga from one of the big Yoga Instructor's in New York over how people aren't aware how much damage they can do to themselves with Yoga. Heh, he even pointed out how silly it can be that some renowned Yoga instructors have done so much damage to various joints they have hip replacements and teach their classes while laid out because they're unable to actually "lead" the routines they take the classes through. On the not so related note, I woke up from weird dreams with an aching neck and a mysterious small cut on one of my fingers. Hazy dreams, involving some massive undercover sting operation in Germany..that for some reason had Roman Legionaires involved, and kept flickering from "real world" style look to 8 bit 2d graphics. Very..disconcerting.

On a certain level, I can see the partial reason for the way it's set up. On both Tattooine and Alderaan the Imperial and Republic starports are on pretty much the opposite sides of the world maps. And the world quests don't really send you into each other's territory for the most part. And if a player is only interested in PvE, they can focus on the questing without really worrying on opposing players interfering. But if you do , you can easily wander up to those areas. On Tattooine, the Jundland is way big and you tend to have the Imperial missions in the south and the Republic ones in the North - There is that small section of the map thats a "Black Market / Smuggler's Haven" that automatically sets everyone entering it into PvP. However, when you reach the Dune Sea, there are a few quests that overlap on both sides. Notably, finding that hidden Czerka base. So you can easily run into each side, just not in an automatic PvP situation. With Alderaan, the Republic is in the South, and the Imperials are to the North - again, most world/class quests keep you out of each other's territory until you reach the end stages and the west side of the world map, where the False King's Palace is is pretty much shared by both sides for questing. But think about it, you've got a maximum of around 200 players of each side to any world instance, so 400 total. The majority of the time, unless you're on Fleet the numbers seem to bounce between 40-140 players of a faction on any world instance that I've been on. Which is spread across the levels, all running around doing their class quests, the heroic quests and the assorted world quests, bonus series and wotnot.. On what are usually, fairly wide maps. Unless you go out looking, it's not surprising you don't run into a lot of other players. I mean, the way the stories seem to go, is that your character is this ultra heroic, pretty much nexus point for how things are shaping for either side. No matter how many other players you run into, it's your efforts that shape whats going on, or tearing down what the other side is doing. - Which is kind of entertaining when you realise you're encountering s omething you set into motion when you played a character on the other side - But even when grouping for flashpoints and heroics, the story doesn't really want you to recognise that the other people in the party are just as ultra-heroic/influential as you are.

Hm, I know my SI did run into various player Republic characters on tattooine, seen them in passing, especially around the Sand People canyon area.. In fact I got partially disrupted by one git because I'd just been in a Heroic quest and buffed someone who had their PvP flag set, which automatically makes you PvP - I'd forgotten about it, and carried on questing, and just as I was trying to deal with some Sand People this git of a Jedi jumped me out of nowhere when I was in mid PVE fight and down to about 30% health. And I did run into Republic players when I was Sith on Alderaan. Possibly helped by the fact that during my exploration phase I went at high speed into the Organa Palace area without realising it..

Congratz I have to admit, although Alderaan looks pretty, and is kind of enjoyable to randomly explore for a bit.. (from the Imperial side) they didn't have any really outstanding storylines in the quests that pulled me along. Maybe it's because I was a Sith Inquisitor, and when I landed on a world that was all "noble houses, politicals, betraysl and intrigue" I thought I'd really have a chance to shine in that arena... but just didn't really get that feel. There were some moments of fun, and the actual class story was okay with some good moments, but just..failed to really sink into taking advantage of everything.

So Bioware announce they sold 2 million copies and have 1.7 million active subscribers at present.. http://www.askajedi.com/2012/02/01/1-7-million-active-subscribers-growing-ea-earnings-call/ Now it's just to see how long it lasts..