Personal or Vague? The Single Player MMO Experience

It's almost an oxymoron: MMORPG.  A genre defined by the social aspect of Massively Multiplayer, but also the personal aspect of Role-Playing. You want to be your own, make your own story, feel like you own something. But you also want to play with a bunch of people. And while, yes, interactions with others will further this experience, you have to remember that by accepting to play with others you are sharing you story with them.
Then we have SWTOR.
We enjoy a personal story, develop our own decisions and defend our own choices. Or we just hit the space bar and press random numbers unless they have Light/Dark side choices. Then we may or may not make calculated decisions. Or flip a coin, like my boyfriend sometimes does. This is the SWTOR MMORPG experience.
I find it really difficult to know I am sharing this experience with everyone out there. How do you create a personal one when everyone is doing the same thing. Everyone is the leader of the most prestigious trooper group, Havoc Squad, or the Barens'thor (apologies for the butchery of that spelling) of the Jedi, a position not given out for years. We are all the Emperor's Wrath or Cipher Nine. We are all special.
We all create (albeit pre-plotted) relationships with certain NPCs, and some of these we romance and even marry. Yet the reality is, that we share these with everyone else. Not only am I married to Kira Corsen, but so is my guildie, that person over there I ran by, and my brother.
Perhaps I'm being a tad possessive. But hey, this is "my" story after all. Shouldn't I be. Like my druid. I am extremely possessive of MY druid. I would never give away my account, even if you paid me a bajillion dollars, because it is MY druid (...if it was a bajillion dollars I might cave though). My boyfriend doesn't even play MY druid. He runs stuff on my Sage plenty of times, but MY druid is MY druid. MINE! (mine! mine! mine!)
But that's the difference between SWTOR/Bioware storytelling and other MMO's I've played.
In WoW, we are all the "adventurers," who rise above the oh so powerful NPCs and slay internet dragons. Sure we're all "Destroyer's End" or "Bane of the Fallen King," but we aren't really given ownership of those stories. In canon, a "group of adventurers" take them out. Vague, slightly anonymous.
In SWTOR, it's a different story. A single person is singled out and does a single feat. They are given a singular title, given singular praise, and the illusion that they are in fact, a singular hero. But the reality is, that everyone around you is also enjoying this singular story. And while that is the magic of Bioware and their storytelling, I can't help but wonder if this reason explains my inability to become attached to my characters.
Don't get me wrong. The storylines in SWTOR are awesome. It's probably the reason I'm still playing. At this moment, I am completely engulfed in the Sith Warrior storyline and it's NPCs, Vette and Malavai Quinn (how do I love thee? let me count the ways). And I hope to eventually try out the Imperial Agent and maybe finish the Sith Inquisitor storyline. But the reality is that all these enjoyments are far from the MMO enjoyments I usually experience. Dungeons, raiding, group play. PvP even. I don't do these things and I usually don't want to. I've started to look at SWTOR as a single player RPG more so than an MMO. And while, in the short end, that is a good thing, in the long run, it's a bad thing. After I finish the storylines, I'll probably quit until new content rears its head. Then I'll take a month or so to try it out before I leave again. Such a strange relationship this will be.  
A singular experience is important in many cases for any MMO. It's what keeps us coming back for more. We become attached to our characters, create ownership and possession of them, and want to continue our stories as them. Whether we fulfill this through gearing, gaining achievements, completing quests or raids is entirely up to us. But that personal experience is eclipsed by the pre-plotted out storyline that we all partake in. In its attempts to make it as personal as possible, SWTOR has at the same time, created a small box that I wish to live in as my own, without the outside interferences of knowing that I am, after all, not that special. 

Of Druids and Heals and LFR

On the WoW front.
I finally transferred my druid from the PvP server, Deathwing, to a PvE server, Icecrown. I'm pretty happy with the change. There's something comforting about not being flagged every single moment I'm not in an Alliance only territory. And if I was flagged, and came upon someone of the other faction, there's a higher probability they won't attack me.
LFR

SWTOR: a new adventure

I've always been a notorious altoholic. Partially from some form of ADD I'm sure. I usually will still always have a main, but I do have "flavor of the week" syndrome as well. Not surprisingly, it takes me a while to find a class I like, but once I find one, I'm hooked. Took me a year to finally hit my stride as a druid (my first toon was a paladin) in WoW; I started as a Cleric but ended up a Mage in Rift. And now, in Swtor, I went from Sage to Commando, back to Sage. I never really know what I'll like, but there are some criteria that I usually consider part of my checklist.

-Hybrid: can they dps and do some form of healing. Usually, I go for a hybrid healing class, a criteria I picked up after falling in love with healing on my druid and subsequent alts in WoW. In an interesting deviation, I picked up Mage in Rift, mainly because I loved Chloromancer, the only healing tree the mage has. I did start a Cleric shortly after but left Rift before I got very far. Hybrid was what I was looking to be when I started Swtor, and because healing was always my first choice, Sage/Sorcerer seemed like the way to go. I wasn't too happy with the healing, which felt like a hybrid disc priest/shaman (I say shaman because one of the mechanics reminds me of Tidal Waves). I was also bored stiff with the story and characters. That's one of a few reasons I switched to Commando, but I disliked the healing on them even more and missed my lightsaber, so I went back Sage. I sucked it up, found that the story picked up after chapter 1 and enjoyed throwing rocks at people. I currently dps on my Sage, even though I really don't play her too often, Balance is a fun spec though.

-Range Dps: I do not melee. For a number of reasons, some decent, some silly. But in general, I prefer to stay out of the middle fray. Especially in Swtor, where my fps and lag is already struggling, I just can't be so close to all the action. It's ironic because my favorite and preferred method to so dailies and quests is in feral on my druid, but part of it might be my bear survivability, and fire kitty staff.

-Power Source: I'm not one to struggle with power sources. I easily understood ammo as a trooper and enjoyed having near infinite capabilities to heal. But power sources like energy, for a rogue or feral druid, and those that need to be built up, similar to a warriors, tend to annoy me. As time progresses, and you reach higher levels, these issues tend to go away, but I never really make it that far.

So how did I, with all of these ideas in mind, fall in love with a Sith Marauder?

I'm playing a melee, dps only class with Rage as a power source. Something's not right here.

Maybe it's the storyline, which has so far been absolutely interesting. And not because it actually is. Being a tool for someone isn't so fun. For some reason though, being the apprentice of a Sith Lord with a huge spy network is pretty intense. And he's such a jerk but it only nurses my hatred for him, which will ultimately lead to his downfall... which let's face it, is pretty much the storyline for any Sith Lord and his apprentice.

Also, for the first time, I am absolutely in love with my romance interest, Malavai Quinn. It's probably his rugged good looks, most definitely his accent, and I love how he calls me "my lord." He's so passionate about the Empire, that it does worry me, but I hope as things progress, there are some interesting twists in store. LOVE ME! lol.

It's nice to be excited about something again. While WoW is fun and all, it's in that weird slump between expansions where things have died down. I'm still being dragged through lfr and have the second half to go. But more on that later.

When I hit 50, my lord is getting two purple lightsabers. Hell yah!

Of Rakghouls and Lightsabers and 1.2

SWTOR

So 1.2 has been out for a bit. I played a bit more right before it came out so I could obtain a few items they were taking out. Stuff is pretty expensive if you don't constantly run boring dailies everyday so I barely made the amount I needed. I bought a white lightsaber crystal just to have, since I love the purple color more. I bought a couple of those beauties, one for my sage and one for a future jedi. Finally I splurged on a 2 million credit mount and bought those giant speeders that look like mini Asteroid ships. I bought the most expensive one because I loved the yellow/gold and blue colors on it-they look pretty vivid in game.

I literally barely pulled this off 15 minutes before servers shut down, and I had the loving help of my boyfriend.

Post 1.2

Patch 1.2 is apparently one of the biggest patch contents released in a MMO. It should bring SWTOR to how it was supposed to be at launch if EA hadn't pushed the game out early. While it promised to have a huge amount of content and bring the game to its full potential, I have to wonder if it was, atleast for me, a little too late. While I have been logging on a decent amount, which is more than my previous... never, the lasting potential is questionable. In fact, as I sit here now, it's been a good two days since I logged on. And that's including the incentive of the world event, the Rakghoul Plague going on. I was not impressed with the legacy system. I don't understand why I have to pay credits to unlock things. The legacy equipment is confusing and ineffective. The Corellia dailies are just that... dailies. The new pvp warzone is nice, but still doesn't fix the problems with balance and class. I did the new flashpoint, Lost Island, and while it was fun, I don't really care to do it again. I don't raid so I can't add commentary to that. Maybe I'm being to hard on Bioware, comparing it to the behemoth that is WoW. But that's all I have to compare it to, and that's the only other game vying for my attention.

Scourge Plague

On the heels of 1.2, Bioware released its first world event, the Rakghoul Plague. Think all that scourge nonsense before WotLK, add Rakghouls and lightsabers, and you have the world event. You can even get infected, infect others, and blow up just like in WoW.

While I felt like the lore behind it was well placed and the build up well executed, after a few days of playing around in the sands of Tatoinne and standing in the fleet trying to infect people, I tired of it quickly. While I liked the addition of different dailies each day, and the prizes that could be won (vanity pets and green/black lightsabers), I lost incentive to do dailies after I got enough currency to buy the pet. Lightsaber crystals are a confusing commodity to me. While yes, customization is great, and most crystals are boe, so you can sell them, the reality is that I only have one lightsaber so what's the point in getting so many different colors. I'm not General Grievous here, although that would be really cool. And my Sentinel isn't high enough to use any of the crystals (and at this point, I don't think she ever will be).

On the brink

So here I stand, contemplating my subscription. While I liked having the subscription available, and I'm getting a free month as a reward from Bioware, I don't see much potential for a long term relationship. Maybe I'll come back to check out new content, but leveling is old and although I'd love to experience some of the class storylines, I never seem to get very far.

MoP Beta: Screenshot Edition

So I finally got my MoP Beta invite, since I'm an annual pass holder. To be honest, I wasn't really planning to play too much, simply because after SWTOR beta, I found some of the magic of the new content wore off during beta play. Still, I decided I was curious enough to go check out few of the new things.
Creation and Pandas
First, I decided I wanted to try the Pandaren monk starting zone and see how I felt about the female Panda models. I'm not too impressed by them. They're curvacious and fluffy and the hairstyles scream Anime to me. I do like the new creation menu, and find it easier to go back to a style I liked instead of having to re-click through everything. I like that when you choose a class, all the classes wear different armor sets instead of just beginning robes, so you can kind of get a sense of the character's gear looks. After I finished creating and brought to the start screen, I was immediately turned off by the female panda's idle animation. She does this weird annoyed huff/slouch thing, that is fluid and well detailed (thus once again showing how much better the graphics are getting), but I didn't really like it as a whole. Makes her seem kinda uptight.
Anyways, I entered and was greeted to this.

 As you can see, after struggling just to click the stupid quest giver, I decided this wasn't going to work and logged off immediately.
Druid Dappling
I decided instead to go find the glyphs on my druid and maybe explore the first area. I took my dear Aenerys and we ran around Jade Forest and went to the first dungeon there to get the glyphs. I also tried out the talent tree, which, upon trying out for the first time (I haven't really been following MoP stuff online), decided I could eventually work with this. My first spec was fresh so I picked Restoration and had fun picking talents. I like the movement first tier and while I didn't really do anything with those talents, I think I'll try them out later. Teleportation Tree! Yes please! After spec'ing I thought maybe I would want to try out leveling in Jade Forest, so switched to my second spec. For some reason I am completely locked into Guardian spec (bear) and no matter how many times I pay for a respec cannot get out of Guardian spec. So that ended my leveling idea. Instead I loaded up some glyphs, including Tree Form !!!! :DDDDD and Orca. I then decided I had to see the Stag and started running to the first dungeon (Jade Serpent Temple?) where the glyph vendor is.
I have to admit, this place is beautiful. I love the scenery and really enjoyed just the trip to the places I went. I saw this strange looking creature.

What a weird creature right! He deserved a screenie I thought.
Moonglade has always been my favorite area, but this next place I ran to will probably replace it. I love the deep shades of blue and grey. Gorgeous. 

  I finally made it to Jade Serpent Temple (?) which was also gorgeous. I literally ran around in Tree form exploring the area. I felt so awesome! Tree FORM!

You can't really see it, but there was a single pink lily in the water (right hand bottem corner). I love the detailing of the red blossom trees with the low hanging branches of the willow like trees. So beautiful. (AND LOOK! I'm a TREE :D)

Druid Glyphs and Abilities

So I did eventually try out the new glyphs. 

This is Ursol's Vortex, a talent ability that slows mobs inside the vortex. I decided to go into the middle because it looks like I'm a tornado treeeee!

And here's Glyph of the Orca. While I probably won't use this in the long run, I thought it was fun to try. The Orca is much more nicer looking and smoother then the stupid seal form. I'm quite pleased with it.

I guess I didn't take any pictures of the glyph of the Stag, but it's basically a white stag, kinda like Marlone. I can't try the Glyph of Stars (caster boomkin form) because I can't get a Boomkin spec. The Glyph of the Chameleon isn't anything too special. I just change colors each time I go into cat or bear form. Might be cooler on a troll druid, because their colors are more eclectic.

Priest Leveling

I'm currently leveling a Night Elf priest on the new server we picked out. I've been dappling between all three specs at some point, and find that I enjoy aspects of each, but don't specifically lean towards one. I started with Discipline until level 32 simply because Shadow was not an efficient leveling build until I received Shadow Word: Death and the Glyph of Spirit Tap. Since then, I've been enjoying Shadow, and think I might stick with Shadow once I hit 85. I've always struggled with priest heals, sometimes because I feel overwhelmed by the toolbox. One of the problems might be that I haven't really leveled from start to finish, and since the LFD tool is now here as well, I can sufficiently grow with the talent specs.
I struggled a bit healing in the early levels, specifically while doing SFK. After a few teeth to nail fights, I respec'd Shadow and went DPS through SFK. I found I wasn't the problem while I watched another healer, in heirlooms, struggle. I also discovered the strangely inefficient leveling spec that is Shadow at lower levels. It doesn't make sense to me, but alas, once you hit 32, it's all in the past.
For healing, after the horrific experience that was SFK, I ended up switching to Holy when I hit 30 and got my dual-spec. Holy is a different story. While it doesn't have the DPS value that comes with an Evangelism/Atonement Disc build, I never ran out of mana and had the capacity to heal large amounts of damage when faced with it. I did not find this when I did Disc.
I do find Holy kind of boring.  Of course, it's cuz I'm  at lower levels. But it helps that I can queue as both DPS and Heals and I tend to get DPS most.  While tanks are still hot commodities, I guess most people think that being a healer will get them faster queues at lower levels.
The other problem I find is that I can never get the gear I want/need. Not only am I competing with a huge amount of Ele shamans and Balance druids, but since everyone can Need, I've lost robes to hunters and wands to paladins.While I understand the need for such a looting system at lower levels, sometimes it annoys the hell out of me. Speaking of which...
A while ago, when I was leveling a mage through LFD, I encountered a Shadow priest who flipped out on a healing Shaman for rolling and winning a cloth robe. I stood up for the Shaman, saying that caster leather is a bit rare to find at these levels, since most is designed for the more "efficient" leveling build, ie. Agility leather. The priest of course, started telling me I was dumb and that boohoo it's not fair that I can only wear cloth. Then we had someone else jump in and end all our discussions by reminding us that this is just a game. (btw. I hate these people. These people act high and mighty by saying oh noesss it's just a game. Yes it is just a game, but don't demean the way people spend their time.)

Anyways, aside from that...a side...
I've hit about 54, and respec'd Holy back to Discipline. I'm going to see if having Divine Aegis will help me out, but I have yet to try it out. I still enjoy Shadow, even though I have no AoE abilities, which my Paladin partner finds kinda frustrating (TOO BAD ANTHONY). 

Transmog Post: Fire Druid

Been a while since I showed off some transmog outfits. I was messing around with a few pieces. My first thought was creating a "fire druid" outfit to go along with my Fandral's Flamescythe (ie. Fire kitteh staff), although I also really like my Funeral Pyre staff.  I particularly stuck with the colors of red, yellow and brown, simply because those remind me of fire. Because of the limits of the gear available, my toon looks more like someone whose dappled within fire, then actually being on fire themselves.

Helm: Gladiator's Kodohide Helm-1000 Honor ; Vendor in Netherstorm
Shoulders:  Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph: Wintergrasp Vendor
Chest: Thunderheart Tunic: T6 token from Illidian in Black Temple
Belt: Thunderheart Belt : T6 token from assorted bosses in Sunwell Plateau
Hands: Loramus' Gloves: The Altar of the Storms quest in Blasted Lands 
Feet: Boots of the Frozen Seed: Crafted 264 boots from ICC. 
Staff: Funeral Pyre: Shared loot from bosses in Firelands.

Maybe I'm a secret slut, but I prefer gear for night elves that show a little skin. That's why I like the Thunderheart Tunic/Chestguard so much. The Gladiator's Kodohide Helm, a red version of the T5 helm, is a perfect look of charred antlers and red.  I also prefer the Titan-Forge Spaulders, which have insets that have flames, better than the Obsidian set (t12), which, while charred and fire looking, reminds me of a strange looking bug.

This set swaps Thunderheart Tunic for Robes of the Summer Flames, which I think is far more obvious in terms of fire, then the previous chest. I do hesitate whether I like it or not simply because it's a bit loud in terms of detailing, but then again, when has fire ever been silent?

Chest: Robes of the Summer Flame: Drops from Magister's Terrace, Kael'thas Sunstider, Normal Mode.

100 Mounts? :D

Today! I got 100 mounts. Scratch that. 101 mounts! :D So what were the 2 last mounts?
First off, it's the Darkmoon Faire. I missed a day and a few quest item turn ins, so I had to wait an extra month to get the last mount. I was pleasantly surprised by the Darkmoon Dancing Bear, which I put off getting since I already had a bear and wanted my first tailstrider mount. Instead of roaring when you stationary spacebar him, he dances! I love it!

I'm hanging on!

Then, I got my Spectral Gryphon for forcing him with a gun inviting my friend, Anthony, back to WoW with a scroll. I thought the little mail was cute from "my favorite Spirit Healer." (is there even such thing?)

After learning it, I got my achievement and a beautiful blue dragonhawk to ride around. :D Cheers!