Star Wars: The Old Republic, or, How I Learned to Love the Player AND the Game

My favorite presents from this Christmas past were a Mason jar full of candy and Star Wars The Old Republic.  This is not to say that I didn't enjoy and appreciate all the other stuff I got for Christmas, I am incredibly spoiled and everything I got was lovely, but in this instance I'm using the word favorite to define things that I use almost every day, and with a fiery, religious-like passion.

 

I should think the Mason jar present would be obvious. Come on, it's a Mason jar. It's perfect for drinking, holding buttons, arranging flowers, stocking pens--how could you not unabashedly love something that has so many uses? Plus it was filled with candy when I got it.

 

The Star Wars game might need a little bit more elaboration. A while back, I made a post about The Sims Medieval and how awesome it was and how much I liked it, even though I would by no means consider myself a gamer-type. Please. I read books. But as the months passed and the whispers about the new Star Wars MMO started building up, I started getting interested. There was a demo of it at Dragon*Con, and while I didn't play it then or even, really see it, some of my pals got a peek at it and were definitely impressed. Even after that, I was still pretty willing to overlook it. It was probably cool, but definitely not for me. I'd been burned by the earlier Star Wars MMO when the husband started replaying it and took to reminding me while we were out having fun date times that he had to get home soon to 'check on his harvesters'. Yeah, I wasn't really feeling it.

 

It was a definite gradual build, my interest in the game, but the more I read about it and listened to my friends get excited, the more stoked I got. 'This could be fun,' I thought. 'I've not really played anything like it before but I'm sure I could get into it.' It was all very cool, very casual. I added it to my Amazon Wish List and decided to wait for Christmas. Then my stupid friends opened their stupid  mouths. I offhandedly remarked one day that I was interested in playing Star Wars and that I was expecting to get the game and was met by a tsunami wave of hatin'.'Please,' they snarked. 'You'll play it for like a day. There's no way you'll really get into it. If you get it, it'll be more for Justin than you.' 'You read, remember?'

 

That was it, then. Challenge Accepted, Assholes.

 

From then on I was All Fired Up about playing. Because seriously? Eff those guys. They don't know me, they don't know my gaming capabilities. I started playing with the impurest of intentions, basically to show all of my friends up, but then, like a Christmas miracle, something marvelous happened. I  fell madly  in love with the game, so much so that I had the husband build us a computer so I could play with better graphics. I started out on my craptacular laptop and the lag was killing me, figuratively and literally. It's hard to do Sith Stealth when your character is moving like a crazy robot. Ostensibly we decided to build a computer for all those normal, responsible reasons people want computers in their house--none of which I can think of right now because, come on. We know why we have that computer and it's not for anything responsible. Justin may hang around it every once in awhile, maybe install a few drivers and check his email, but we both know that it primarily functions as my base of operations for the destruction of the Rebellion and all colluding Jedi losers. 

 

 

That's totally me! Well, not me,but it's a Sith Sorceror, Like ME!

 

 

I'm still nowhere near the level of my best friend, who beta tested the damn game and had a running start, but I'm also not worried. I know my level of commitment, I'm in this for the long haul. Who has two thumbs and spent all of MLK weekend scrunched in front of a computer screen in a rank hoodie with Mason jar full of cranberry juice and a fistful of White Cheddar Cheez-its? This girl. I see things in real life differently now, though I suppose that's normal. I walk into buildings and immediately check out the exits and consider all the possible routes to get to my intended destination. Recently I've taken to seeing the green Mission triangles above things in my dreams. It's disconcerting and awesome.

 

I've taken to playing with friends a little--not as much as I should, but I'm a stubborn jerk who likes to figure things out by myself and then sheepishly ask for help when I realize that I can't accomplish something alone, but that works for me. I thought I'd be intimidated by, well, everything in the game, but I'm not, and that's saying something since I have no real prior experience playing anything like this. I die a lot, I kick a lot of ass, I dance a little, I blew myself up trying to dismantle a bomb,  I have a ship (!!), I have a sneaking suspicion the Sith Lord I'm apprenticing under is going to betray me, and it's all amazing and fun. I can't say for sure whether this game is going to lead me down a road to becoming more of a serious Gamer, but it's a really great start.