History has been made: I have acquired Dark Side points on my second agent.
Up to this point, none of my characters have made Dark Side choices. My Consular, of course, as a Jedi, felt it her duty to follow the Light, and my first agent had a quiet conscience in her which sometimes made her relationship with her Empire leaders somewhat tenuous.
But there was one scenario with my first agent in which I almost chose the Dark Side. (Class story alert!)
It involved Watcher X.
Watcher X is somewhat mysterious and dangerous, even though he is working on our side. He is obviously familiar with everything relating to agents, as indicated by the standard routines he cites when we first meet him. (Hardly surprising, given his background.) He freely admits he is only helping Intelligence because he'll be punished if he doesn't (his programming), which means, of course, his trustworthiness is in question. (The adage "Never trust a snake" comes to mind.)
Toward the close of my interaction with Watcher X, he escaped from his Intelligence-imposed prison cell and presented Kaminoko with a choice: naturally, she could come after him, as would befit a loyal Imperial Agent, or she could let him go, and he would give her information she would not be able to get from other sources.
"You sure know how to tempt a girl."
With Hikarinoko, I pondered, agonized, and then chose the Light Side, ending up having to kill Watcher X, which was actually rather heartbreaking, as I considered him something of a sympathetic character. This time, since I was trying to see how the story might change if I made different choices, I followed the example of Mother Eve and chose transgression in pursuit of knowledge.1
Kaliyo chewed me out, and I felt dirty.
But as in life, once a choice is made, you've got to live with it. With a slight hollowness in my stomach, I returned to my ship, told bald-faced lies to Watcher 2, which made me feel even more dirty, and headed out to Tatooine.
Watcher X did not lie. When I checked my mail the next day, there were three which looked at first glance as if they were spam, given the garbled nature of their subject lines. (The effect was aided by the fact that the message above them really was spam.) They were sent via a nonstandard code from Watcher X, with juicy tidbits about Watcher 2, Kaliyo, and so forth, with promises of more later.
They were definitely things to make you go "hmmm". I wonder if he'll follow through with his promise. I wonder if it will be worth it.
1 The Biblical story states that the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. She didn't transgress the law simply in pursuit of tasty fruit; she did it in pursuit of knowledge. "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat . . ." (KJV Genesis 3: 4-6)
Showing posts with label Class Quests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Class Quests. Show all posts
Friday, January 11, 2013
Friday, December 14, 2012
Surprises in the Mail
Recently, I expressed sadness that because Hikarinoko has reached the end of her story, she will never again hear from the Minister of Intelligence or from her husband, Vector.
I reckoned without considering the mail.
Today, for a lark, I decided to log on to Hikarinoko, to run a warzone and keep my fingers in practice for the time I raise my next agent. I was surprised to see I had four new items in my mailbox.
One was from the Minister of Intelligence, a form letter to all former members of Imperial Intelligence, encouraging patience and perseverance.
And three were from Vector. It was filled with the poetic way he would speak during the conversations with Hikarinoko and made me a little wistful.
See what I mean? It reminds me of the things I used to write in my own journals (or in my young single days, in the letters to the guys with whom I would correspond, because I tended to write very long and very detailed letters, full of speculations or observations . . . or sometimes, even attempts at poetry).
Or this one . . .
I reckoned without considering the mail.
Today, for a lark, I decided to log on to Hikarinoko, to run a warzone and keep my fingers in practice for the time I raise my next agent. I was surprised to see I had four new items in my mailbox.
One was from the Minister of Intelligence, a form letter to all former members of Imperial Intelligence, encouraging patience and perseverance.
And three were from Vector. It was filled with the poetic way he would speak during the conversations with Hikarinoko and made me a little wistful.
See what I mean? It reminds me of the things I used to write in my own journals (or in my young single days, in the letters to the guys with whom I would correspond, because I tended to write very long and very detailed letters, full of speculations or observations . . . or sometimes, even attempts at poetry).
Or this one . . .
/sigh . . . . I miss Hikarinoko greatly, but I also miss Vector.
You know, I am very fortunate in my RL husband. He may not have as poetic a bent as Vector, but, knowing how much I love words, he does try to speak my language and sends me messages. (Letters, e-mails, PowerPoint presentations . . .)
Monday, May 7, 2012
Hikarinoko Surprises
First, after a full evaluation of the Imperial Agent quests on Hutta, minus the one where a spice dealer was asking me for help and one of the Heroic 2's, I have one thing to say: Hutta is fun! And I found myself actually able to do some good, like saving a child from becoming a "monster" in Sith training (believe me, I understand the issue there . . .) Or slightly disobeying orders by allowing a man to escape instead of killing him . . . Sorry, he'd been such a nice guy, I couldn't see the point of killing him, when advising him to scram would accomplish the desired ends, no matter how he ended up seeing me, personally. Of course, when I received this mail from Keeper, I just sort of ignored it and pretended it never arrived. (I must be better at this than I thought, if all those Watchers at HQ couldn't figure this one out . . . /wink)
And here's the rest of the message . . .
 |
| Hmmm? Who me? |
It was kind of sad to have to leave Hutta, where I understood everyone's relatively straightforward motivations, and go to Empire territory, where you have to deal with . . . nonsense . . . Although it is nice to not have people look at me and start to cower in fear, unlike my poor Inquisitor.
Next, I actually like Kaliyo. When Keeper first talked about taking her with me, I suggested it might be simpler just to kill her, but since then, we've really hit it off. (She apparently bears no grudges for that comment.) About the moment I found her suggesting a way to avoid a bloodbath, I decided there was more depth to this gal than I had first anticipated. She might brag about her abilities to slice and dice (figuratively speaking, of course), but she apparently still has a soft spot carefully hidden behind all that bravado. (Besides, we've already decided how to split up any male prospects we meet: I get the smart ones, and she gets the rich ones.)
I love the recuperate ability for this character! I have a cute little droid which gives me an information board, on which I can quietly update my status or look up stuff while I'm resting. Nice, efficient use of time. (And much more restful than glowing red and pacing . . . I always liked the Consular Meditation, too; it almost made me feel peaceful, just looking at it.)
I find that Keeper is a rather sympathetic character, so far, anyway. I was touched that he seemed genuinely concerned this promising agent would become disillusioned as she learned more about the work she would be doing. And it's much nicer to be dealing with him than a Sith who would stab you in the back as soon as look at you, and from whom I had to conceal most of what I was really thinking. You get the idea he's actually "got your back", so to speak, although I'm not sure yet about Watchers Two or Three. (I'll be frank: I don't think Keeper was blinded at all when he sent that mail I referenced above. I'm sure he knew exactly what happened and was just trying to let me know a) he knew and b) questions might arise.)
 |
| "For what it's worth--I tried to shield you from this. But it seems it was unavoidable." |
And here's what he was trying to shield me from . . .
 |
| Yeah . . . the Sith don't mess around. And this guy is wanting me to work for him! |
All in all, so far, so good! (Now if only I can rearrange my action bars and keybinds to my liking . . . Still working on that one . . .)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Lord Vivicar's End
Normally, my husband and I run all our SWTOR quests together. Not only do we gain social points in the process, but we have the opportunity to see each other's class quests without having to raise a character of that class.
But when the time came for our climactic adventures at the end of Chapter 1, we decided to run those separately.
We knew we could, if we wanted to do so, board each other's ships and help out. But when we discussed it, we decided it would be more epic if we did these particular quests with only our companions. (After all, between the two of us and our companions, we routinely succeed at green Heroic 4 quests. It might take away some of the joy of achievement if we found ourselves rolling over these quests--the culmination of all our class quests to this point.) We were higher level than many players tend to be when they finish their Chapter 1 adventures, so we figured it would be no big deal, even if our gear was a few steps lower than our levels. What's more, we did no research beforehand, to experience all the fun of meeting an obstacle without prior knowledge of the challenges.
Accordingly, I set out to defeat Lord Vivicar accompanied only by Qyzen Fess and armed with my lightsaber and the "persists through death" stim I had in my backpack. My husband sat in a nearby chair to watch the proceedings.
Clearing the hanger upon boarding the ship was not a problem. Step by step, Qyzen and I worked our way around the room, pulling and defeating groups. ("You play like a rabbit," my husband said. "Like you're frightened all the time that something is going to attack you." Well . . . it might . . .) Finally, the hanger was cleared, and we were on our way.
Everything went fine until I had to shut off a force field on the way. It must have set off some kind of alarm, because suddenly, a huge group of mobs ran down the hall, over Qyzen and me, and before I could do much more than try to heal and Force Wave some of them off me, I was dead.
I laughed, shaking my head, then rezzed. "Ok, seems I've got a gauntlet here," I commented to my husband. "Not sure how I can handle quite that many mobs at once."
When I returned to look at the situation, however, I found the mobs lined in neat rows, ready for controlled pulling. "Well," I thought, "Perhaps it was worth dying, if this is what I find afterward."
The first pull went without a hitch, although I was surprised it didn't end up pulling two groups, as they seemed to be very close to each other. The second pull consisted of one strong droid and a couple more mobs. I pointed Qyzen toward the strong droid and prepared to hit one of the other mobs. To my surprise, he walked completely past the row before attacking something which seemed to be in the far distance. It was the droid. Although it had been displayed in the second row, it was in reality a couple rows beyond that. This meant we ended up with three rows' worth of mobs beating the two of us up, which, of course, resulted in another death.
I sighed and made some sort of comment about bugs, then rezzed again. This time, the droid was showing up in its proper spot, and the rest of the pulls went without a hitch.
Qyzen and I continued our slow progress until the next time a large group of mobs appeared and lined themselves up for neat pulls. As we rushed out of the room to face them, I found to my horror that Qyzen ran down the hall and around the corner. "Qyzen! What are you doing?!" Sure enough, he ended up pulling everything in the entire zone . . . . which ended up being Death #3. (I had never been so happy for a preponderance of medical droids.)
I was about to beat my head against my keyboard. With this many deaths, I would have considered myself something of a failed Sage, except for the fact I recognized much of my trouble was due to bugs of one sort or another, about which I could do little or nothing. My husband had abandoned me, deciding to go start clearing his own trash, commenting as he went that he'd most likely take much less time than I was on my quest. (Thanks, Hon . . .)
Qyzen and I rezzed, cleared the remaining trash, and managed to make it to Lord Vivicar's presence without further trouble. And after the opening conversation with said Lord, we were one-shotted in very short order.
Great. After all the wiping due to bugs, I was wiping to my main challenge, which as far as I could tell, was working as intended. I was tired and annoyed, and I wondered if I should just walk away and come back later. How could I hope to fight something which could one-shot me with an ability about which I knew nothing?
By this point, my husband was watching again, and we realized Vivicar's success had been due entirely to a single attack which had a cast time. Even if it was an attack which could be dodged, there was no way I could get Qyzen to dodge anything. Perhaps it could be interrupted.
Yet again, Qyzen and I rezzed and stared at Lord Vivicar. (Thank goodness my stim was one which lasted two hours and persisted through death . . .) With a sigh, I sent Qyzen in to start tanking and my husband kept an eye on Lord Vivicar's casting bar.
Yes!! It was called Force Crush, and it could be interrupted. At last, there was hope!
Eventually, there came a moment when I lost Qyzen. Desperately, I kept myself alive while keeping DoTs and some other damage on Vivicar. It was a very slow process, but if I could keep it up, never missing an interrupt, I knew I would succeed. The question, as I stared at my Force bar with some concern, was whether or not I could keep it up . . .
As I watched the relative lengths of my and Vivicar's health bars, while also watching out for that Force Crush with the power to one-shot me, it became more iffy. Finally, my husband pointed to a med pack on my right bar and said, "Hit this." I did.
To our great amazement, out of nowhere Qyzen showed up with a small amount of health, ready to tank. I stared at him, wondering what on earth happened, as I let him take the aggro and worked to keep him alive. Together we defeated Lord Vivicar and proceeded on the course of redemption for Parkanas Tark.
In the calm after the battle, I took a look again at that med pack. It was not an ordinary med pack; it was a med unit, which would restore health to both the player and the companion. Somehow, although Qyzen had been defeated, using this med unit had brought him back to life. (I'm not sure it was supposed to do that, but you know what they say about gift horses.)
All in all, this questing adventure was definitely a memorable experience, made even more so by the bugs encountered along the way. While I wholeheartedly support tests of skill, especially at pivotal moments along the class story chain, and while I enjoyed the actual encounter with Lord Vivicar, I hope the developers take a minute or three to correct a few of the unintended challenges of this quest.
(Oh, and by the way, my husband's Trooper ran his class story quest with nary a problem. Made me want to scowl in his general direction . . .)
But when the time came for our climactic adventures at the end of Chapter 1, we decided to run those separately.
We knew we could, if we wanted to do so, board each other's ships and help out. But when we discussed it, we decided it would be more epic if we did these particular quests with only our companions. (After all, between the two of us and our companions, we routinely succeed at green Heroic 4 quests. It might take away some of the joy of achievement if we found ourselves rolling over these quests--the culmination of all our class quests to this point.) We were higher level than many players tend to be when they finish their Chapter 1 adventures, so we figured it would be no big deal, even if our gear was a few steps lower than our levels. What's more, we did no research beforehand, to experience all the fun of meeting an obstacle without prior knowledge of the challenges.
Accordingly, I set out to defeat Lord Vivicar accompanied only by Qyzen Fess and armed with my lightsaber and the "persists through death" stim I had in my backpack. My husband sat in a nearby chair to watch the proceedings.
Clearing the hanger upon boarding the ship was not a problem. Step by step, Qyzen and I worked our way around the room, pulling and defeating groups. ("You play like a rabbit," my husband said. "Like you're frightened all the time that something is going to attack you." Well . . . it might . . .) Finally, the hanger was cleared, and we were on our way.
Everything went fine until I had to shut off a force field on the way. It must have set off some kind of alarm, because suddenly, a huge group of mobs ran down the hall, over Qyzen and me, and before I could do much more than try to heal and Force Wave some of them off me, I was dead.
I laughed, shaking my head, then rezzed. "Ok, seems I've got a gauntlet here," I commented to my husband. "Not sure how I can handle quite that many mobs at once."
When I returned to look at the situation, however, I found the mobs lined in neat rows, ready for controlled pulling. "Well," I thought, "Perhaps it was worth dying, if this is what I find afterward."
The first pull went without a hitch, although I was surprised it didn't end up pulling two groups, as they seemed to be very close to each other. The second pull consisted of one strong droid and a couple more mobs. I pointed Qyzen toward the strong droid and prepared to hit one of the other mobs. To my surprise, he walked completely past the row before attacking something which seemed to be in the far distance. It was the droid. Although it had been displayed in the second row, it was in reality a couple rows beyond that. This meant we ended up with three rows' worth of mobs beating the two of us up, which, of course, resulted in another death.
I sighed and made some sort of comment about bugs, then rezzed again. This time, the droid was showing up in its proper spot, and the rest of the pulls went without a hitch.
Qyzen and I continued our slow progress until the next time a large group of mobs appeared and lined themselves up for neat pulls. As we rushed out of the room to face them, I found to my horror that Qyzen ran down the hall and around the corner. "Qyzen! What are you doing?!" Sure enough, he ended up pulling everything in the entire zone . . . . which ended up being Death #3. (I had never been so happy for a preponderance of medical droids.)
I was about to beat my head against my keyboard. With this many deaths, I would have considered myself something of a failed Sage, except for the fact I recognized much of my trouble was due to bugs of one sort or another, about which I could do little or nothing. My husband had abandoned me, deciding to go start clearing his own trash, commenting as he went that he'd most likely take much less time than I was on my quest. (Thanks, Hon . . .)
Qyzen and I rezzed, cleared the remaining trash, and managed to make it to Lord Vivicar's presence without further trouble. And after the opening conversation with said Lord, we were one-shotted in very short order.
Great. After all the wiping due to bugs, I was wiping to my main challenge, which as far as I could tell, was working as intended. I was tired and annoyed, and I wondered if I should just walk away and come back later. How could I hope to fight something which could one-shot me with an ability about which I knew nothing?
By this point, my husband was watching again, and we realized Vivicar's success had been due entirely to a single attack which had a cast time. Even if it was an attack which could be dodged, there was no way I could get Qyzen to dodge anything. Perhaps it could be interrupted.
Yet again, Qyzen and I rezzed and stared at Lord Vivicar. (Thank goodness my stim was one which lasted two hours and persisted through death . . .) With a sigh, I sent Qyzen in to start tanking and my husband kept an eye on Lord Vivicar's casting bar.
Yes!! It was called Force Crush, and it could be interrupted. At last, there was hope!
Eventually, there came a moment when I lost Qyzen. Desperately, I kept myself alive while keeping DoTs and some other damage on Vivicar. It was a very slow process, but if I could keep it up, never missing an interrupt, I knew I would succeed. The question, as I stared at my Force bar with some concern, was whether or not I could keep it up . . .
As I watched the relative lengths of my and Vivicar's health bars, while also watching out for that Force Crush with the power to one-shot me, it became more iffy. Finally, my husband pointed to a med pack on my right bar and said, "Hit this." I did.
To our great amazement, out of nowhere Qyzen showed up with a small amount of health, ready to tank. I stared at him, wondering what on earth happened, as I let him take the aggro and worked to keep him alive. Together we defeated Lord Vivicar and proceeded on the course of redemption for Parkanas Tark.
In the calm after the battle, I took a look again at that med pack. It was not an ordinary med pack; it was a med unit, which would restore health to both the player and the companion. Somehow, although Qyzen had been defeated, using this med unit had brought him back to life. (I'm not sure it was supposed to do that, but you know what they say about gift horses.)
All in all, this questing adventure was definitely a memorable experience, made even more so by the bugs encountered along the way. While I wholeheartedly support tests of skill, especially at pivotal moments along the class story chain, and while I enjoyed the actual encounter with Lord Vivicar, I hope the developers take a minute or three to correct a few of the unintended challenges of this quest.
(Oh, and by the way, my husband's Trooper ran his class story quest with nary a problem. Made me want to scowl in his general direction . . .)
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