Requests Temporarily Re-opened...

[jstrahan]

In general what other Anime can I expect? That's slowly becoming all I care about.

I do know that Full Metal Panic! and Inuyasha are in the queue, along with season 2 of Mahoromatic. As to other anime, I'm not sure.

[CareerKnight]

I'll throw in 100$ for four episodes. The Agenda 1-3, and Optimal Situation... the end of season 2 and the premiere of season 3 respectively, and those'll help flesh out BA's narrative arc and get within spitting distance of covering all the important episodes.

Maybe I'll jump in on a couple others to fill the series out if I have the budget later depending on what others go for. (I'd like to do Possession, but have no idea what to do for a sixth or what would best build on what other people are getting.) ?

There are some good one offs in the first season if you don't want another s3 episode. I would be tempted to do Power Surge just due to Chuck's reactions to Tarantulas cause if you can watch him fall off the floating mountain and not laugh your ass off at the sounds Alec Willows makes as he bounces off the rocks on the way down...

Indeed, the full Imperial strike force. Then following up with Rex Dart's ongoing adventures.

I'd still like to know Chuck's opinions on the Republic class stories even if it is a brief aside.

IMO the Imperial Storylines are better overall because player choice has more of an impact and they offer more story flexibility between light, dark and grey playstyles. Pub side gave you an option of Good hero, or asshole hero. Jedi Knight is the only story that explains what the hell is going on with the Emperor though.

One of the things I found strange in TOR was the most of the lightside/darkside choices I had problems with were on the Republic side and a lot of them were from the Trooper (though my biggest was from his starting planet as oppose to one of his story missions). One of the ones that just felt a bit lazy was on Taris I think. An Imperial officer helps you with your mission but the guy has done some pretty bad stuff in the past so you can either just let him go (ls) or shoot him in the back (ds) and my immediate response was "Can't I just knock him out or tie him up and call for a team to come get him? I know I'm too busy to take him into custody and then back to base but is every republic solider on this planet that busy?"

[SabreMau]

In general what other Anime can I expect? That's slowly becoming all I care about.

I do know that Full Metal Panic! and Inuyasha are in the queue, along with season 2 of Mahoromatic. As to other anime, I'm not sure.

Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki should be in there too.

[Fixer]

One of the things I found strange in TOR was the most of the lightside/darkside choices I had problems with were on the Republic side and a lot of them were from the Trooper (though my biggest was from his starting planet as oppose to one of his story missions). One of the ones that just felt a bit lazy was on Taris I think. An Imperial officer helps you with your mission but the guy has done some pretty bad stuff in the past so you can either just let him go (ls) or shoot him in the back (ds) and my immediate response was "Can't I just knock him out or tie him up and call for a team to come get him? I know I'm too busy to take him into custody and then back to base but is every republic solider on this planet that busy?"

There's similar one on the Trooper side on Coruscant. There's a bunch of kidnapped civilians which a mad doctor claims to have modified into undetectable killer cyborgs. For some reason your two options as ordered by General Garza are: Kill all the civilians, or let them go.

For some reason on the Republic capital, options such as "escort to nearest base" "let another squad pick them up" "aren't there. We skip right to the Republic military demanding you murder the people you protect on the presumption of guilt or potentially let dangerous killers loose into the population.

Overall though the Republic dark side feels like you're playing a game where the DM is trying to convince himself that the D&D party are heroes, despite the orphanage they burned down and the argument they had with the king that returning the princess as an animated corpse technically counted as a rescue. Sometimes you'll commit a seriously crazy evil act and everyone else carries on regardless.

There's this constant presumption that you're a Jedi or Trooper there to selflessly help everyone you see even if you're a smuggler with a reputation for senseless murder, and the dark side option is "give me money" or "okay, I'll do the job but I'll be an ass about it." While the Imperial side you're treated as having authority over most of the people you deal with, or you're expected to be rewarded for your assistance. In many cases you're just there to do a job and the light/dark option choices are more open to be considered which is most pragmatic or characterful.

[Archanubis]

One of the things I found strange in TOR was the most of the lightside/darkside choices I had problems with were on the Republic side and a lot of them were from the Trooper (though my biggest was from his starting planet as oppose to one of his story missions). One of the ones that just felt a bit lazy was on Taris I think. An Imperial officer helps you with your mission but the guy has done some pretty bad stuff in the past so you can either just let him go (ls) or shoot him in the back (ds) and my immediate response was "Can't I just knock him out or tie him up and call for a team to come get him? I know I'm too busy to take him into custody and then back to base but is every republic solider on this planet that busy?"

There's similar one on the Trooper side on Coruscant. There's a bunch of kidnapped civilians which a mad doctor claims to have modified into undetectable killer cyborgs. For some reason your two options as ordered by General Garza are: Kill all the civilians, or let them go.

For some reason on the Republic capital, options such as "escort to nearest base" "let another squad pick them up" "aren't there. We skip right to the Republic military demanding you murder the people you protect on the presumption of guilt or potentially let dangerous killers loose into the population.

Overall though the Republic dark side feels like you're playing a game where the DM is trying to convince himself that the D&D party are heroes, despite the orphanage they burned down and the argument they had with the king that returning the princess as an animated corpse technically counted as a rescue. Sometimes you'll commit a seriously crazy evil act and everyone else carries on regardless.

There's this constant presumption that you're a Jedi or Trooper there to selflessly help everyone you see even if you're a smuggler with a reputation for senseless murder, and the dark side option is "give me money" or "okay, I'll do the job but I'll be an ass about it." While the Imperial side you're treated as having authority over most of the people you deal with, or you're expected to be rewarded for your assistance. In many cases you're just there to do a job and the light/dark option choices are more open to be considered which is most pragmatic or characterful.

Some of the side missions, especially on the Republic side, aren't much better. As an example, there's one on Ord Mantell where medical supplies have been stolen from a military hospital. When you track down the thief, you find out she stole them to treat refugees, and that insurgents stole those same supplies from her. Once you've tracked down the supplies, killing a few insurgents in the process, you have two choices: 1) the light side choice, which is returning the stolen supplies to the original thief and 2) the dark side choice, which is to return the supplies to where they were stolen from. The only reasons I can think why #2 is a dark side choice is because you either had the threaten a child to get information from the thief - which is a rather dick move, admittedly - or lied about bringing it back to her when you report to the mission NPC. What makes the dark side particularly galling and perplexing, IMHO, is that when you stop by the NPC you originally picked the mission up from, he straight out tells you that one of the patients has gone into shock and is likely going to die without treatment. So in other words, while the original thief had good intentions, she essentially stole from soldiers who were critically injured trying to protect her and other refugees - and you can't tell her off for it. To make matters especially frustrating, you can't ask the mission NPC if they have enough supplies to help out the refugees, which would fit a light-side option perfectly.

Its missions like these that sometimes make me wonder what the BioWare writers were thinking.

[Fixer]

Its missions like these that sometimes make me wonder what the BioWare writers were thinking.

As a matter of contrast, there's a really well written sidequest on Imperial Balmorra I ran with my agent.

You speak to an Intelligence officer who shows to you some boobytrapped communicators. He explains a mission to plant these on the bodies of fallen enemy troops so that when they're picked up by resistance fighters scavenging for useful items they'll make their way back into strongholds and explode.

After accepting the mission he points you to a man nicknamed Toybox, a Balmorra native hinted to be a toymaker before the occupation, who you can tell has been press-ganged into using his technical skills to supply munitions to the Empire. He voices his concerns that the holocomms would get into the hands of civilians and children and may kill or maim them.

He comes up with a new plan, use grenades as the trojan horse instead, that way only resistance fighters will be harmed. Now you can choose to go with the original plan (dark side) or change to his idea (light side).

If you go dark side, everything goes as planned. The Intelligence officer is happy and you leave. If you pick lightside like my agent did, the intelligence officer asks why there are reports in resistance radio chatter of grenades exploding. You can tell him of the new plan, and take ownership of it or give Toybox the credit.

You then get called an idiot, because the troops have been informed they had to avoid salvaging comms from enemy units, now they have to throw out every salvaged grenade in their arsenal. What's more, terror deaths in the civilian population were the actual plan because this was a terror/psy-ops mission.

You have just screwed up a complex mission by changing the plan on your own initiative without thought. If you give Toybox credit as, there's a suggestion he is going to be severely punished for it as well.

At which I managed to argue the Empire still came out ahead. However the intelligence officer said, with no restraint of his obvious anger and contempt in his tone, we'd never work together again.

In character for my Agent it was a really defining moment. It said so many things about the cruelty of the Imperial occupation, while showing that being a "good guy" within the Empire without being smart and thinking through was going cause you trouble. I had made mistakes, but learned something important and still considered orphans not being blown up a win. Got me totally immersed in the story.

Feels like the writers really brought their A game for the Imperial stories.

[CareerKnight]

Some of the side missions, especially on the Republic side, aren't much better. As an example, there's one on Ord Mantell where medical supplies have been stolen from a military hospital. When you track down the thief, you find out she stole them to treat refugees, and that insurgents stole those same supplies from her. Once you've tracked down the supplies, killing a few insurgents in the process, you have two choices: 1) the light side choice, which is returning the stolen supplies to the original thief and 2) the dark side choice, which is to return the supplies to where they were stolen from. The only reasons I can think why #2 is a dark side choice is because you either had the threaten a child to get information from the thief - which is a rather dick move, admittedly - or lied about bringing it back to her when you report to the mission NPC. What makes the dark side particularly galling and perplexing, IMHO, is that when you stop by the NPC you originally picked the mission up from, he straight out tells you that one of the patients has gone into shock and is likely going to die without treatment. So in other words, while the original thief had good intentions, she essentially stole from soldiers who were critically injured trying to protect her and other refugees - and you can't tell her off for it. To make matters especially frustrating, you can't ask the mission NPC if they have enough supplies to help out the refugees, which would fit a light-side option perfectly.

Its missions like these that sometimes make me wonder what the BioWare writers were thinking.

That was in fact the exact mission I was referring to (and hated the hamfisted and dumb moral choices in it for the exact same reasons you outlined). Adding to the stupidity of taking medication away from soldiers defending the base and the refugees is a mission you do on the way to the base for the first time where you take out insurgent snipers who are killing ANYONE who tries to enter the base. Yea the soldier don't need medical aid to keep this place safe cause if they can't the refugees will be just fine... One of the worst things about it is that its a mission that really should have been just left up to the player to decide what was right or wrong in the end esp since the planet itself is there to grey up the Republic because the reason its in turmoil is because of how corrupt and badly managed it has been for decades and the Republic at large wasn't willing to help until the shooting started.

[Archanubis]

Some of the side missions, especially on the Republic side, aren't much better. As an example, there's one on Ord Mantell where medical supplies have been stolen from a military hospital. When you track down the thief, you find out she stole them to treat refugees, and that insurgents stole those same supplies from her. Once you've tracked down the supplies, killing a few insurgents in the process, you have two choices: 1) the light side choice, which is returning the stolen supplies to the original thief and 2) the dark side choice, which is to return the supplies to where they were stolen from. The only reasons I can think why #2 is a dark side choice is because you either had the threaten a child to get information from the thief - which is a rather dick move, admittedly - or lied about bringing it back to her when you report to the mission NPC. What makes the dark side particularly galling and perplexing, IMHO, is that when you stop by the NPC you originally picked the mission up from, he straight out tells you that one of the patients has gone into shock and is likely going to die without treatment. So in other words, while the original thief had good intentions, she essentially stole from soldiers who were critically injured trying to protect her and other refugees - and you can't tell her off for it. To make matters especially frustrating, you can't ask the mission NPC if they have enough supplies to help out the refugees, which would fit a light-side option perfectly.

Its missions like these that sometimes make me wonder what the BioWare writers were thinking.

That was in fact the exact mission I was referring to (and hated the hamfisted and dumb moral choices in it for the exact same reasons you outlined). Adding to the stupidity of taking medication away from soldiers defending the base and the refugees is a mission you do on the way to the base for the first time where you take out insurgent snipers who are killing ANYONE who tries to enter the base. Yea the soldier don't need medical aid to keep this place safe cause if they can't the refugees will be just fine... One of the worst things about it is that its a mission that really should have been just left up to the player to decide what was right or wrong in the end esp since the planet itself is there to grey up the Republic because the reason its in turmoil is because of how corrupt and badly managed it has been for decades and the Republic at large wasn't willing to help until the shooting started.

Not that the insurgents are any better. There's a reason the Smuggler's first companion, Corso Riggs, hates them as much as he does.

[STNeish]

Less a request than a suggestion, I think it might be fun to see you review the old 70s series "Space:1999" with Martin Landau.

It was always one of my favourite shows growing up, and while its flaws are more evident to me now, I still enjoy it. I'd love to see what your thoughts about the show are, and it was only 2 seasons, so it shouldn't be daunting. You might really enjoy tearing into it (especially season 2).

[CareerKnight]

Not that the insurgents are any better. There's a reason the Smuggler's first companion, Corso Riggs, hates them as much as he does.

Didn't claim they were as the mention of the snipers prove, the point was while the insurgents are scum who have crossed too many lines the Republic isn't faultless in the conflict.