Challenge #18--Favorite In-game Outfit

I've already mentioned how glad I am that the outfits all tend to coordinate for each class.  (Except the trooper.  Every so often, there are some absolutely horrible combinations which show up.  But, as I'd guess they're looking for functionality more than fashion, they may not care as much.)

It always seems to be that my Consular grows to love whatever outfit she is wearing.  And then, when it becomes imperatively obvious she needs to upgrade, she hates her new outfit until it sort of grows on her . . .  So I can't complain much about her current outfit, or even the outfit before that one . . .

I do remember, however, the first time I really, really liked one of her outfits.  It was the Stalker Robe she got on Tatooine.  It was striped, with really cool detailing on the bodice!

 
And while it looked rather funny on some of the male Consulars, it looked really good on her.  I used to look smugly at the screen and tell whichever daughter was watching at the time, "I make this outfit look good!"

She managed to pick up a lucky purple random drop--Anointed Drammasian Silk Lower Robe--which perfectly matched the style of the Stalker Robe.

Unfortunately, at about level 40, she had enough PVP points to pick up a set of PVP gear with a collective increase so high it didn't make any sense to continue wearing the robe for strictly sentimental value.  I didn't like the new outfit . . . for a few levels, anyway . . . so I put the Tatooine robe in her cargo hold to wait for the day, one day, when she could mod it up to the point where it made sense to wear it again.

And that day could be today!!  If, of course, she chooses to do so.  Right now, she's kind of enjoying looking like Nadia's sister, but that Stalker Robe outfit is calling her from her cargo hold . . .

Challenge #17--Favorite Place

What is my favorite place in-game?  That's a hard one.

I live in a desert and have to deal with sand blowing in my teeth, so all my favorite places in-game are NOT deserts.  I have enough desert in real life to want to spend my fantasy existance in other locations.

On the flip side, we very rarely get snow, which delights me to no end, so my favorite places are NOT snowy.

And although I live in a rural area, my favorite places in-game are NOT cities.  Coruscant drives me about as crazy as it does Qyzen.  (Not that I'm looking for things to hunt, but you get the idea.)

Actually, my favorite planets are Tython and Alderaan.  The mountains on Alderaan are spectacular to the point where I took a few screenshots, thinking I might use one as my blog background.  And I greatly enjoyed my time questing in that zone.

But Tython, of course, as the seat of the Jedi, ends up feeling like home.  It seems to be a place where my Consular can go and know she is among like-minded people, in a beautiful, peaceful environment.  And as the place where it all started, it remains in a special corner in her heart.

Highly Decorated

The other night, queueing for warzones on my Consular with a raging headache, I managed to end up in the Alderaan Civil War.  This one has usually been hit or miss for me when it comes to wins.

But this time, the team seemed to have the right idea.  We captured the middle and the left, then settled down to defend them.  I have usually been a defending type, so I stayed in the middle with a Jedi Shadow, and together we took down the silly single players who thought they could run up with impunity and get past the two of us.

The group in general responded well to calls for help from either node, and by the time the Empire had captured the left node, they were so far behind they could only win if they captured all three.

In a lull in the fighting at the middle node, I wondered with curiosity how many medals I had collected, as it seemed to be a lot.  I looked up and I saw this:

See that Rakata stim?  Gotta love it!

Not having any idea what that pink/red thing was next to the medal count (10, wow!), I moused over it and read the tooltip.

I was kind of surprised.  I don't think I'd ever reached the point where I had reached maximum medals for awards, so I had no idea this feature was in there.

Now I was really curious.  How could I get all these medals if I hadn't been doing anything outside my normal habits?

When we were finally victorious, I took a look.

Fully six of the ten medals were because I parked my Consular by a node and stayed around to defend it!

After a little poking around in the patch notes, I discovered I wasn't going crazy and I hadn't been completely clueless prior to 1.2.  Some of these medals are new to this patch, and the "Highly Decorated" designation as it stands now, which stops handing out rewards at 8 medals, is apparently raised from whatever number it was beforehand.  (Just tells you how few medals I habitually got.  If I had 5, I was doing really well.)

I guess this means it should be fairly simple for me to max out my effective medals on a regular basis now.  I can routinely get three non-defender-type medals, and with the new medals for attacker or defender, there is really no excuse.  Simply do something which will actually help the cause, and everything should work out.

Challenge #16--What I Miss

When I started this, I knew this particular WoW challenge was the only one which could not be translated easily into SWTOR language . . . or so I thought.

The challenge was to describe what the blogger misses most post-Cataclysm.  Well, SWTOR doesn't have anything like that, but what we do have is . . . . <trumpet fanfare> . . .  1.2.

What do I miss post-1.2?  I miss easily manageable Force on my Jedi Consular.  Hands down, that's what it is.  Resplendence was my best friend.  Once I got the habit down of hitting Noble Sacrifice every time it popped, I found I could juggle my heals well enough to not worry about running out of Force.

Could I run out of Force?  Absolutely, if I became tunnel-visioned and forgot to pop Healing Trance every so often to greatly increase the chances of getting Resplendence.  (Been there, done that.)  But as long as I paid attention, I could handle just about anything . . .

I remember one time when my husband and I ran an Heroic 4 with our companions and managed to hit a boss which never seemed to die.  His life was being whittled away, but it was taking much longer than expected.  In the mean time, he kept tossing random damage out to everyone in the group.  My husband was a little concerned.

"This is going to take a while," he told me.

"Don't worry," I responded, not breaking rhythm.  "I can keep this up all day."  With the heal priority system I had established, I could.  Although not everyone could be topped off all the time, I could keep the four of us alive well enough to complete the encounter.

It's frustrating now to hit Noble Sacrifice upon the Respendence proc and realize I now have to heal myself.  Although the NS doesn't cost any Force, I find myself with much less benefit by the entire exercise because of the extra healing which must now come my way.  I have to wonder if it's even worth it to hit NS upon the proc anymore.  And I know I'm going to have to rearrange some of my secondary stats to be optimal, as the emphasis on Crit before this was a direct result of the desirable effects of Respendence.

But, that said, I understand that MMOs are always being tweaked, usually to appease PVP players.  It is what it is, and I can't change the universe that much.

Challenge #15--My Desktop Background

I wish I could say I had a magnificent picture of a Jedi Consular meditating or throwing rocks or something on my desktop background, but I don't.

When I played WoW, I had a black background, with the Night Elf crest centered on it.  When I quit, I decided I needed something non-WoW-related.

But I still felt some kind of connection to trees, having spent so much time with an avatar looking like one in WoW raids over 3.5 years.  So I decided, instead, to find a nice picture of trees.

I found this picture on the Internet and picked it because the autumn trees, with their golden glow, just seem really cheerful, and because I can almost hear the stream splashing over the rocks.  It makes me feel peaceful.  (This is a good thing, because the icons on my desktop are so plentiful and so disorganized that the chaos of it all could overwhelm me without it.  I'm afraid that in sizing it down, it lost some of its realism, but it really is a photograph.)

It's the kind of place at which I would love to sit and just feel what it feels like to be alive.

Peer Pressure

When my husband told my daughter I had made an Inquisitor (and she squealed and hugged me), he also made a side comment.

"Well, girls, now we know what it takes to make Mom go to the dark side."

I looked at him and laughed.  "Peer pressure, right?"

I might like to chat with a friend every so often, but I can't be accused of allowing social pressure to dictate my every move.  For example, social pressure from my first Inquisitor companion, Khem Val, is not going to hold me back from being nice, despite his expectations.

The other day, I ran a quest in which I not only helped free a captive, while being nice to him even though he was a royal jerk who did his best to insult me, but also allowed a man who wanted to defect to the Republic safe passage to his chosen destination.

Holy moly, Khem Val did not like either of those!  By the time I was finished, I had lost a full 191 affection points from Khem Val.

When I first saw the large amounts of affection being removed, I wondered if I should continue with my chosen course, but the next instant, I decided Khem Val could just go jump in a pit or something.  Just because this monster doesn't like my choices doesn't mean I'm going to be the rude and arrogant Sith he thinks I should be.

I am a little curious, however . . .

What happens if my affection level reaches zero?  Will he finally decide to eat me, as he threatened when he first came into my service?

This is the difference, I guess, between having Qyzen, who follows my Consular around because he respects her, and having a monster who is only staying with me because he feels bound to do so against his will by his defeat at my hands.  (He attacked me first, by the way.)  It's freedom of choice versus the perception of captivity.

I think that could make a big difference in a companion's viewpoint.

I have no idea who or what the Inquisitor's second companion is, but I sincerely hope it is someone I can afford to bring with me, instead of Khem Val.  The presence of my arms and legs may depend upon it.

Challenge #14--Things which upset me.

Children who do not get up in the morning when I call.

Seriously, not a whole lot really upsets me in game.  Obviously, like most people, there are personality traits which annoy me, such as condescension, disloyalty, etc., but it's reasonably simple, when your primary communication is a chat window, to keep such things to oneself or at least keep them in controlled quarters.  Just don't type.

Now, in real life, I can't say I'm terribly angelic about this, as it is more difficult to not become upset when face to face . . . The thing is that I know nothing can upset me if I do not choose to let it do so.  Therefore, when I become upset, it is because I have allowed myself to become upset.  When I remember that, it empowers me to choose not to become upset or at least not to act upset, which is very liberating.  (I'm a reasonably decent actress . . . remember that role-playing job I once had . . .)

In game, I think what annoys me (rather than upsets me) the most is if I have been fighting critters around a gathering node, specifically for the purpose of gathering it, only to see some other player come swooping in while I'm busy and snatch the node out from under me.  That's kind of rude.  Because I know how much it does annoy me, I make it a point, if someone is fighting near a node, to wait until they are finished and have moved on before approaching any such node.  After all, that's how I would want to be treated.

I still permit myself sometimes to become upset when children are disobedient, but I'm working on getting better at that.