Star Wars Celebration - Back in canon

Among the Pokemon Go craze, new Sun and Moon reveals (Mimikkyu for president), and the english launch of Brave Exvius we mustn't forget that the Star Wars Celebration is currently underway. Why? Because ideally everything star wars related will be there with juicy announcements.

This year we got more details on the Ahsoka novel, the reveal of a Rogue One novel written by James Luceano who is notorious for his loregasm filled novels, a very convincing sizzle reel for Rogue One, our first look at Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso, a new Battlefront DLC focusing on Rogue One and discovered that the much hyped swtor reveal was an artwork and an expansion title: Knights of the Eternal Throne. Really Bioware?

But don't worry, I was saving the best for last. And that was the Rebels panel. You might be wondering how can a show with graffity artist kids moving down stormtroopers and beams of light used as helicopters can be the best of star wars. If not, you should. Or maybe shouldn't, cause the answer is pretty simple.

The Season 3 trailer showed us a character Dave Filoni wanted to include in Rebels since the show was created. This guy:

Grand Admiral Mith'raw'nuruodo AKA: Thrawn. Yes, ladies, gentlemen, and those in between. One of the first and most beloved Legends characters is officially as canon as Luke and Leia. And he is still the same blue skinned art fetishist we all know and love.

For those who were living under a rock since 1991, Thrawn is the Empire's greatest military commander who can figure out the exact military tactic to utterly decimate the enemy based on what art the enemy commander likes. Sort of like an evil Sherlock Holmes. Of course Timothy Zahn (the author who created him) is not a military genius so said tactic rarely ends up being more complex than zerg rush or flanking, but that's beside the point. He is a very cultured, pragmatic individual, who rose the top position in a xenophobic establishment, despite being clearly an alien.

How faithful will this new version be to the Zahn original? Well since Filoni consulted with Timothy Zahn himself (who will also release a new canon Thrawn novel in 2017) I'd say very. Add to that the voice of Lars Mikkelsen and we have instant success.

More importantly, this might very well be the beginning of a trend of bringing the best of the old EU into the new canon. With Rakata Prime, Moraband and Malachor already in, we can maybe hope that Revan will soon follow the iconic Chiss military genius.
But I am getting ahead of myself. We just got Thrawn. Let's celebrate that for now.

Welcome back Admiral.

The Force Awakens - Spoiler Review

EDIT: It turns out I am stupid and the whole post is visible all the time. So just make sure you scroll down very quickly to the next post.

Sooo here is everything that I didn't include in the No Spoiler Review, for obvious reasons.
Only read this if you have seen the movie or really don't care about spoilers.
Honestly

I will be discussing my fealings regarding all the important plot points, so stay away if you have yet to see The Force Awakens.

I will try to make my introduction as long as possible to make sure no spoiler will is visible on the front page, but no promises.

Of course this is a good time to talk about spoilers in general.
I think this whole spoiler hysteria went out of hand. I mean look at Final Fantasy VII. The original that came out in 1997. That was 18 years ago. It can now buy alcohol, drive a car and have sex.
It's plot is generally common knowledge. We all know that Aerith dies, Cloud has fake memories, or that Sephiroth was dead all along. I knew all of these and more when I had my first playthrough. And guess what. I loved every minute of it. Well written moments work just as well if you know they are comming. *cough* I am your father *cough*. Plus it is not the same to read: Snape kills Dumbledore in an internet forum as reading or watching that scene in the context of the whole story. If a huge blockbuster in 2015 can't affect its audience as well as a nearly two decades old console game it has failed miserably.

With that out of the way let's look at the movie!













You ready?






Your sure?









Okay. So TFA was awesome. There is no point denying that unless you are obejctively wrong.
Sure there are a few details we can nitpick about - and I totally will - but none these minor things are worse than the plotholes of the Original Trilogy, or Back to the Future II or The Matrix. Or Terminator 2 for that matter. And Jurassic Park.
So yeah, you get the idea. Yet we ignored all of those cause everything else worked. So we shall give The Force Awakens a free pass as well.

Most of the legitimate complaints against TFA can be traced back to two issues.

1. It was predictable. Very predictable. The guy who looks a lot like a young Harrison Ford, plays Han Solo's son. The tech savvy orphan living on a desert planet turns out to be Force sensitive. She's also a very good pilot.
Oh, quick question: If a good guy wants to redeem the villain while standing on a long bridge above a bottomless pit, what will happen?
If you answered: The good guy dies, you win.
And come on. Everyone figured out R2 has the missing map piece as soon as 3PO mentioned that it is impossible.

2. Very little new stuff was in it. Of course when I say new stuff I mean stuff that didn't pay homage to the OT. Granted I loved all those moments, but appart from the Knights of Ren and their 2-3 seconds of screen time, everything had at least a little bit of: "I have seen this before" flavor.
Of course it is understandable why the movie was playing it safe.
If we don't count the special editions, we have gone for 30 years without a star wars movie that wasn't utter garbage. We have also gone for 10 years without any kind of star wars movie. The last time Lucasfilm revived an old IP, it turned out to be a disaster. The last time JJ revived a sci fi frachise, he didn't quite grasp the essence of it, And quite a few people doubted that Disney is the right company to produce new star wars movies.
Considering all this it was probably a smart move by the people involved to create a movie that is essentially a soft reboot that mixes Episode IV and V and leave the experimentation to Episode VIII and IX. Now that the new team has our trust they can steer the story in all sorts of interesting directions.


Han's death and the Luke reveal also passed the FFVII test. It wasn't as shocking the first time because of its predictability, but at least the second viewing didn't take away the effect.

Another thing worth mentioning is the ammount of world building the movie and the visual dictionary does. We got a nice glimpse at what people eat on Jakku and at the entertainment in Maz's bar. We also got several new organizations, planets and events. Rakata Prime is back in canon and the VD also mentions the Scourge of Malachor. I have a feeling SWTOR will soon be completely decanonized by a Kotor remake. Whatever happens, the Lore Vampire is happy with the new details it can chew on.

The Force Awakens - No Spoiler Review

Hello everyone! Sorry for not posting for so long, but I have been preoccupied with lots of stuff, including my thesis, a wierd illness I can't seem to shake off and of course Christmas.

That reminds me: Merry Christmas to you all! Yeah I know that technically Christmas is over, but we still have tonns of leftover food from the hollidays, so it isn't really over yet.

Speaking of food, I had my second serving of The Force Awakens today.

While all the spoilers are pretty much common knowledge now I'm still going to write a spoiler free review on the off chance that some of you dear readers still haven't seen the movie. Like my oldest cousin.

Short answer: I really enjoyed it. Most importantly: I enjoyed it the second time as well. More than a full week of hindsight didn't bring to light horrible plot holes and contradictions. At least not ones I noticed.

John Williams' score was a bit subdued this time, with no score piece standing out. However JW is a few decades older than even Nobuo Uematsu, so he kinda earned the right to not top himself every time. Plus, if the John Williams score is the least spectacular part of the movie, you know you are doing something right.

When discussing TFA we can't look over the acting. The movie has a huuge cast with returning classic actors, promising newcommers and illustrious cameos. And they all do their jobs really well. After the wax museum of the prequels were everyone beside Ian McDiarmid and the late Sir Christopher Lee acted like a tranquilized Pierce Brosnan it was really great to see genuine emotions on every face. Even Chewbacca was more expressive than usual. John Boyega, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver in particular stood out.

TL;DR: For the second time JJ Abrams managed to revitalize a sci-fi franchise that has seen better days. Can we please give him the Mass Effect movie? Pretty please?

Geek day

Hey folks. Remember what I said about not posting till Blizzcon?

I lied.

Well Blizzcon is a little over two hours away, but still. This day is going to be legendary in geek circles. All the stuff to talk about.

Yesterday it was announced that a Witcher movie is set for 2017. Wohooooo. Who can I play?

We also got the official synopsis for Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. It will indeed be set excluisively in new york. Mehhh

Today we are of course waiting for BlizzCon. The Warcraft movie trailer will debut and we will also get lots of new info on World of Warcraft: Legion.
But I feal I must stress that the juicy stuff will come from the deceptively short Diablo panel. There is no BlizzCon without a big reveal. Overwatch beta is underway, the movie is common knowledge, Star Craft II is near its end, Hearthstone got a new expansion recently, there is nothing major to do with Heroes of the Storm, and the next wow expansion was revealed at gamescom. Diablo is the only answer.

But before that we can still read the preliminary patch notes for As Goes Light so goes Darkness, the 3.1 patch of Final Fantasy XIV, and watch and rewatch the new japanese trailer for The Force Awakens.

The former reveals all the miriads of stuff we will get to play next tuesday. While we get fewer main scenario quests and trials compared to what has been the norm 3.1 still has more playable content than what other MMOs offer, and a generous ammount of quality of life changes are also included in the package. Once the final patch notes are here and I have put some playtime in it I will provide a more detailed description.

The latter gives us several never before seen scenes and lines of dialogue. Daisy Ridley shows us that John Boyega is not the only one who can do a superb 'oh crap' face. We also hear the latest version of BB-8's voice, along with the ever popular wilhelm scream when chewie blows some bad guys up.

Every fandom gets something
This is a good day to be a geek.

Alien is the new black

Hello everyone!
This is going to be my last blog before BlizzCon. It is not exactly related, but it might tie in to it somewhat, as the topic is a trend that can be observed

I don't think I will get a nobel prize for pointing out that pop culture always had a favorite creature that gets most of the attention. This is pretty much common knowledge. This became apparent when vampires began monopolizing books, movies and video games. Inevitably the ammount of vampires, especially the sparkly ones, got too much and people began to get bored of them. Nowadays I am in the minority for still being interested in vampires.
When the general consensus became: bloodsuckers suck, the public turned towards another icon. Zombies. We had White Walkers and Walking Dead. Zombie's got their own land and even their own World War. They also found their own arch nemesises in the forms of plants. Unfortunately being an uninteligent slow moving corpse limits your possibilities, so zombies soon became old news. Of course they still get their regular game mode in call of duty releases, but call of duty is a swear word in civilized company.

So who next? For a time it looked like ghosts would take the stage. A new ghost busters movie is in development, Pirates of the Caribbean 5 will feature an evil ghost as a main antagonist, the latest Lego Ninjago season was against a ghost and Kung Fu Panda 3 was intended to have a ghost bad guy back when Mads Mikkelsen was still attached to the project.

But their place was taken by aliens. Our little green (and sometimes grey) friends began their gradual crawl towards the top with the release of Grand Theft Auto V and the beginning of the still unsolved Chiliad Mistery.

Well that's not much......

And next week we will see the release of Final Fantasy XIV patch 3.1 with a very UFO looking location: The Void Ark. Hey, does FFVII have aliens? Yep. For starters, Jenova is one. And technically so is Shinra.
And of course Fallout 4 which might have aliens in it (the last two games had). Team Fortress 2 also received some alien stuff with its latest update. Overwatch also has hints of beings that "came from beyond the moon". Speaking of Blizzard, the final installment of the StarCraft 2 trilogy will come on November 10. Also Blizzcon will give details about the warcraft movie (aliens use a dimensional portal to invade humans) and of course the latest WoW expansion, Legion which is about how orcs, draenei (both aliens) use artifacts left behind by the Titans (also aliens) to defeat the invading forces of the Burning Legion (all of them aliens). Makes you wonder wether we will get to explore a crashed alien ship in Diablo 3. Would be a nice adventure mode dungeon if we dont get an expansion after all.

But that's just vid....

Oh and there is a movie comming out called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Might have heared of it. After that disney will make another five star wars movies. Totally unrelated to the recent SWTOR expansion though. Well maybe. Star Trek also gets another movie next year.

Yeah but...

Along with a new TV series. Oh and X-files also returns to TV as a mini series. Next year we will also get our hands on Deus Ex Mankind Divided, which might have grey aliens, and Mass Effect Andromeda, which definitely will. Don't know if it counts, but Dragon Ball  Super, one of the surprise anime releases of 2015, will end its run on November 8. And next year will also give us the long awaited movie about Bruce Wayne fighting a destructive alien messiah wannabe.

I'd call this more than enough. All we need now is NASA giving us a news and we can accept our new alien overlords. After that? Well let's ask Kanye West:
Tell me what's next? Alien sex.

hmmmmmmm

KotFE Day 2 - For the first time in forever

Hello and welcome back everyone. So what did I do yesterday?
Well, chapter 4-9 of Knights of the Fallen Empire. It was over surprisingly quickly. Frankly I would have liked to play a bit more. Okay, a  lot more. Maybe I'm just very good at this, but hardly anyone died. Appart from the already known Darth Marr, I only lost one follower. He was my favorite. :( He will be missed.
Okay, I'm gonna say it: Bioware is back. The old Bioware, before the EA purchase. I loved the story. I was genuinely sad when my companion died and I can actually honestly say that I was surprised by some of the twists. I also liked how we sometimes cut to the villains and looked at what they are doing. I also laughed my ass off quite a lot of times. It gave me a very wide range of emotions that lately only Final Fantasy games gave me. Good job, Bioware. Really.

Of course I wasn't satisfied with everything. Too many central NPC's survived, it was too short, the fights were pitifully easy and I still mostly used the gear I got from shadow of revan. And I didn't change the look of any of the pieces. And it was too short. Also there is one villain (not gonna say names) that I battled twice already and he is still supposed to be a majore threat. You can only battle a bad guy a limited time before he looses his scariness and you start looking like a wuss for not killing him already. He also lacks any real motivation. I like his sister more.

But all of this criticism ammounts for nothing as KotFE gave us something that I am sure many of us have been waiting for since SWTOR launched. True end game.
This is something every MMO needs, but SWTOR didn't have much to offer in this regard. We have eleven operations in the game. Wrath of the Lich King alone gave WoW nine raids.

Untill now there wasn't much to do and even less incentive to do it. Now we have the Alliance system. People from former earlier flashpoints, storylines or short stories (Rise of the Hutt Cartel was relevant after all. Wohooo) return to give you quests. These quests give you new companions. Some are old ones you lost and others are from different classes (it is implied that all other class heroes are dead). But that's not all. The quests also gives you credits, companion gifts, influence with the quest giver and suppplies caches. These supply caches contain even more gear for you and adds to your "war assets' against Arcann. Since the story is pretty much done you cannot fight him with these assets yet, but handing in enough caches still rewards you with buffs for the new flashpoints also comming. Of course if I know correctly (didn't try yet) caches can also come from all the repeatable heroic missions you skipped while leveling 1-65 and said no flashpoints. There is a lot of stuff to do and you have reasons to do it. What more do you need?

Well a roll of duct tape is very nice cause the new mechanic girl can be really rude sometimes.
And Dathomir. Wookieepedia claims that D is in the game now, but I sure didn't see it. Since Nar Shaddaa is a moon I can honestly say that Dathomir is my favorite planet.

If it's not in the game after all I would be happy to write a storyline for it.

KotFE Day 1 - It is calling to you. Just log it in.

Hello readers.

So, yeah. Day one of early access was yesterday. I still don't get why I am here writing my experiences instead of playing, but I really love you all so I'm going to be nice.

When I logged in I was at first overwhelmed. That's generally a pretty good sign for an expansion. I spent on hour reworking my action bars and another mixing and matching weapon upgrades for my two favorite weapon skins. It was like Tuco Ramirez buying his new gun. Only, my smuggler had two.

After about two and a half hours of preparation I was ready to jump into the story and see if my suspicions were correct. Well I think they are. I won't spoil it but I honestly didn't see some of the twists comming. I'm at the very beginning of Chapter IV so most of what I played was already revealed in official streams. Still, I am itching for more. Thankfully HK knows where to start.

Knights of the First Expansion

Yesterday the trailer was not the only star wars news. Early access finall began for Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire. When I call it the first proper expansion, I mean it is the first one sufficiently packed. Galactic Starfighter and Galactic Strongholds were each just one gimmick. Apparently when Bioware thinks of a new gameplay idea they name it an expansion and give it out. What I still don't understand is why we still can't play pazaak, sabacc and dejarik? Nar Shaddaa is playable, damit.
Not that I am complaining, at least we have housing, with neat added teleport features. Taking notes, Blizzard?
Rise of the Hutt Cartel on the other hand had no gimmicks. Instead it increased the level cap by five and continued the story with the magestic rise of the Hutt Cartel that ended before you even realised the Cartel is supposed to be rising. Finally someone on the dev team figured out it is time to give the game some actual plot again and gave us Shadow of Revan. SoR gave us the longest story arc since the class storylines and even revamped the progression system. It was the perfect warm up for KotFE.
Remember how I said sufficiently packed? Well Knights of the Fallen Empire is as packed as expansions can be. The catch is? Most of those are gameplay tweeks and not playable content. Nevertheless it is pretty impressive how every aspect of the game got changed.

• Polished character selection screen? Yep
• Added visuals to character creation? Yep
• New graphic options? Yep
• Several interface changes? Mhmmmm
• New GUI editing functions? You better believe it
• Revamped crafting? Also yes
• Revamped companion system? Yes again
• Revamped leveling experience? Sure thing
• Class skill tweeks? Why not
• Stat changes? Of course

And the story didn't even begin.

Wether the game is as good as it was intended to be will be revealed in a new series of articles about my early access experiences.

Star Wars - Just let it in

And it is finally here. The actual trailer for Star Wars The Force Awakens. And it is freakin awesome.

I will eat crow and my hat and a crow wearing my hat if it is not true, but I'm going to say it. This will be awesome.

The action looks great, the acting looks great (hey look, emotions. Haven't seen that in a star wars movie in 30 years) and I'm getting strong star wars vibes from it.

The only thing I can nitpick is that very little seems new. Most of the stuff so far seems to be lifted from the OT and polished. Of course after a whole trilogy of disappointments this might be a sensible approach, but I would prefer some innovation.

There are few bits here and there. Finn seems to have taken ideas from Kyle Katarn (big bonus point) Maz Kanata is apparently a female yoda (different species, but still a small grinning gremlin, strong in the Force) and a pirate queen at the same time aaand there are the Knights of Ren.

The Knights of Ren are a weird bunch. We don't even know if they are all Force sensitive or not, but Kylo seems to be the only one with a lightsaber. While Kylo is working for the First Order, there is no indiacation that the Knights as a whole are affiliated with them, Or any order of Force users like the Sith or the Witches of Dathomir. Not inquisitors either as all of those had lightsabers.

So in other words, they are all new.

Star Wars The Poster Awakens

Hellllo people.
Sorry for not posting anything lately, but I have been busy. But now I return just a day before early access for Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire begins and the first actual trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Speaking of which, the official poster for TFA finall hit today. It is a good time to be a star wars fan.

It's so dense. Every single image has so many things going on.

A few random thoughts:

• Wohoooo Leia is here. Havent seen much of her beside her hand.
• Finn AKA Black Kyle Katarn looks badass with that saber.
• 3PO! Mr Plinkett called. He wants to not what is wrong with your faaaaaaace? Seriously his face looks freakish from this distance.
• Maz Kanata (if that is her) looks a lot like an Asura from Guild Wars 2. It's already exciting that a woman became a pirate leader (a very manly job) but if she's this small, imagine how badass she has to be to ear her respect. It's really hard to pick a favorite character for this movie.
• Rey looks super cool with that staff. We don't have enough melee weapons that aren't lightsabers.
• Starkiller base is very weird. On the poster it looks like another death star with a bigger gun (go figure) but we saw it in a trailer and it was an ice planet with an atmosphere and everything.
• The Joker is conspicuosly absent. Err I mean Darth Bane.

Star Wars Battlefront - Do not waaaaaant

Good evening everyone.
The Battlefront Beta generated a lot of buzz since it began. It seems that is all everyone wants to talk about. So naturally I will join in and give you my two cents regarding the matter.
As an added bonus, I will be negative about it. Not many negative reviews at this point.
First, let us talk about what was good. It will be very brief unfortunately.
The game is beautiful. No denying that. The visuals are stunning and most of the lag is reserved for the game menu.
It also feals very star wars like. You have X-wing and TIE fighter wreckages on the ground, capital ships in the air and squads of rebels and imperials on the ground.
The first few hours are pure bliss. Problems begin when you get bored, and that comes pretty fast.
Out of the seven game modes we could try out two, both with one map each. All decent weapons are behind a rank lock and a money lock so new players will struggle for long before they can meraningfully contribute to the battles. And its not like there is a lot to unlock. You have maybe five different weapons. Also, alll forms of visual customization are absent from the beta.
Now for the really bad part: Hoth is very poorly balanced, if it can be called balance at all. The entire internet can only give one example of the rebels winning. Otherwise the empire wins all the time.
AT-AT walkers are, well walking, towards the shield generator. The objective is to kill them both before they reach the end of the invisible rail.
No problem. We just need a few snowspeeders and....hold on. Not yet. Okay, how about air support. Well about that. The Y-Wings can only lock onto two huge walkers if the rebels can keep two uplink stations under their control. Of course the snow troopers, the walkers and Darth Vader try to stop them. If the Y-Wings attack, all they do is make the walkers targetable with conventional weapons. You can only do the cable trick when this occurs.
So if you are playing as a rebel, you are pretty much dead. Well I guess it's authentic. After all the rebels lost the Battle of Hoth. Of course it was likely only fun for the Empire.

Knights of the Fallen Empire - The Outsmuggler

Good evening people. Assuming it is evening when you read it.
Last time I promised that I would explain why I think the Smuggler is the best choice for the Outlander in SWTOR: KotFE and because I always try to be a nice guy I'm going to do just that.
Now obviously everyone will have at least four Outlanders, if not eight, but let's be honest. Nobody puts the same ammount of effort into all his characters. Everybody has a 'main'.

So why smuggler? There are several reasons. Number one is simple. Because it is a smuggler. Here is your chance to be Han Solo. If that doesn't excite you I don't know what will. Especially since almost all star wars games let you play as a jedi or a sith. Smugglers on the other hand weren't playable untill SWTOR came along. Of course I ditched the Han Solo image in favor of a twi'lek chick. Call me crazy, but for me the smuggler is a very manly job so it was a lot of fun to defy all the expectations and be a badass girl. For added giggles I selected the chubbiest body type.

Also there is the ship. Granted all classes are given a ship, but that's just the thing. They are given a ship. The smuggler does not. It already has a ship because, well smugglers need one. Also it makes more sense for smugglers to pilot their own ships and to be good at it. Why would the inquisitor know how to pilot anything for example? Most slaves aren't ace pilots (yeah yeah, Anakin, I know).
Speaking of our ship. What I especially love about the smuggler is how the story is structured. Classes like the jedi knight, the consular or the agent just do mostly unrelated stuff in sequence. Here is a very simple and slightly biased version of the knight storyline: The jedi sense a darkness, It is totally Bengel More. Whoops, no it isn't, The Darkness is on Coruscant. Tarnis is evil. Killing Tarnis pissed off Angral. Killing Angral pissed off the Emperor.
Technically there is a connection. Well at least after Coruscant.  Tython is completely irrelevant for the story. Now as a smuggler the first character you see is Skavak, who will be the main bad guy till the end of chapter one. The second one you see is Corso, your fist companion. Skavak betrays you after the first quest is done and getting your ship is the story of Ord Mantell AND Coruscant. After the betrayal you go to Fort Garnick and learn about Rogun the Butcher, who will be a thorn in your side untill the end of chapter 3. You will deal with him before settling your score with the first person you see on Coruscant and kill the final boss whom was first mentioned at the beginning of chapter 2. What chapter 1 is about after you get back your ship? Well doing the stuff Skavak stole your ship for.
You do feal that a big part of your journey has ended with chapter 1 but it still feals a lot more like one whole story.

And since we are on the subject of stories, now would be a good time to mention that the smuggler's story is the funniest. Go on, luck up any list on youtube about the funniest moments in Swtor. At least a good two third of it will be about the smuggler story. And the giggles begin as  early as Ord Mantell.

But there is one area where the smuggler story really beats all others. And that is lore. It has small callbacks sprinkled all over the storyline. The first thing you need to get Nok Drayen's treasure is a star map belonging to one Davik Kang. You know, you stole the Ebon Hawk from him in Kotor. You also deliver the head of Darth Bandon to House Ulgo. Ahh typical no love for the second o....wait a minute. In Tatooine you have a Sith and a Jedi fighting over the Holocron of Darth Nihilus. At the end of chapter 2 you also find G0-T0 himself. Deactivated of course. But they surely left out the comicb.........and right next of it is the utility belt of Marn Hierogryph, everyone's favorite Snivvian. So yes, nobody got ignored.

This is a bit more subjective than the rest of the points, but I also think that smugglers have the best companions. We get a wookiee, a mando, and a mon calamari ex-jedi. Languss Tuno is the best NPC in the whole game. Period.

So yeah, go smuggler. It's fine if you don't agree with me. But I think bioware is also hinting something with all the subscription bonuses. A smuggler companion, a pair of blasters, a smuggler coat. Coincidence? I think not. Time to bring down the empire that curb stomped both playable factions as a mear muggle with two blasters. What could go wrong?

Knights of the Fallen Empire and why we are being had

Hello everyone. Terribly long title I know. Still I will try to make it up to you somehow.
Soo, Knights of the Fallen Empire. Next in the line of Star Wars: The Old Republic expansions. It will come with lots of gameplay tweaks, a new storyline and absolutely no new neat little feature.
I mean seriously. Why can't we have a working casino on Nar Shaddaa where we can play Sabbacc?
But enough of that. Let us focus on the story. You see, something isn't right. Or well lots of things aren't. Let's review what we know officially without data mining. Oh, SPOILER ALERT
Bioware hates spoiling the story. The Sith Emperor can't be in two places at the same time. Valkorion is a human with three children. Knights of the Fallen Empire will have its first 9 chapters released initially followed by an additional 17 chapters in an episodic format. You will be frozen in carbonite at the beginning of the story.
Nothing too crazy so far. However we saw and heared some stuff on official streams that hint that something is amiss. For example.
Valkorion is actually the Sith Emperor. He kills Darth Marr in the very first chapter. You only get frozen in carbonite at the end of chapter 2. In chapter 3 Valkorion is already dead.
Yeah, so what the hell is going on? Apparently Marr dying, the identity of Valkorion and him dying is not a spoiler. So what IS a spoiler? Short of the Knights of Ren appearing in Chapter 9, nothing should reasonably top this.
Speaking of the Knights of Ren. What knights is the title referring to? The Republic has knights but is not an empire. The Sith Empire is an empire but has no knights. The Eternal Empire is an empire and has the Zakuul knights, but they are the main antagonists of the expansion so they won't be fallen for a very long time.
And this whole Vitiate is Valkorion business makes absolutely zero sense. Assuming what we know of Vitiate is true. He is supposed to be a Sith Pureblood and not a human in white robes.
Oh wait. Oour first look at the emperor was exactly like that. He even had a similar haircut to Valkorion's sons. Look up the scene in Blood of the Empire where he gives Teneb Kel his mission. Looks a bit like Arcann without the face mask. Were the clues always there? Maybe.
But with all this self contradictory info comming our way I have a fealing that the first title we will unlock in Knights of the Fallen Empire will be 'Chump'.
Thanks for listening to my thinking out loud. Next time I will explain why I think the Smuggler is the best character to use as the Outlander.