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Hyperspace Beacon: Human High Culture part 2
Human High Culture is the Imperial idea that humans are the most important species in the galaxy -- the master species, if you will. Some people who like to study Star Wars canon say that the reason you see only humans on board the first Death Star in A New Hope is that this Human High Culture. In fact, according to Star Wars lore, the political party Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR) feeds off the belief that humans are superior. However, Star Wars: The Old Republic lore suggests that Human High Culture existed long before Emperor Palpatine's reign. The roots could date all the way back to the first Jedi exiles who landed on Korriban after the First Great Schism. Whatever the case may be, it leads to interesting dynamics in possible species you will be able to play on your Imperial characters. As I mentioned last week, it does not make a lot of sense for Rattataki to be Imperial Agents because of the sigma of alien species being high-ranking Imperial citizens, but it is more than appropriate for Rattataki to be slaves. Since the Sith Inquisitor story starts a player out as a slave, the Rattataki are a likely choice for that class. After the break, I cover three more species and the Imperial classes I feel they are most suited for in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Hyperspace Beacon: Human High Culture
BioWare games are notorious for interweaving allegories on racism in their plotlines. If you take Mass Effect, for example, Navigator Pressly was a human who had major issues with aliens -- especially Turians. Inversely, the Citadel Council was definitely prejudiced against humans because the human species was rather new to Citadel space and rising to power too quickly by the Council's standards. These undertones help give the Mass Effect story depth and real-world relevance. Although it's not an overt plot point in the Star Wars series of movies, speciesism does sometimes play a heavy hand in the Expanded Universe. In the Galactic Empire, this is known as Human High Culture. In the high political offices of the Galactic Empire under Emperor Palpatine, humans were regarded as superior to other species of the galaxy. Humans were, after all, most numerous, and they also did not originate from a single planet like most species. But the roots of the Human High Culture date back further than the events in Star Wars: The Old Republic. They may date all the way back to the first Dark Jedi to rule over the Sith people on Korriban. With this idea of Human High Culture in mind, I would like to talk about the species available to the SWTOR Imperial classes. In the May edition of PC Gamer UK, an over-ambitious reporter incorrectly announced a list of species and class combinations. What I would like to do today is make my own list based on what I know of Star Wars lore and announced species in the game. Continue after the break as I compile the list.
UK's PC Zone magazine shutting down after 17 years
The UK's first PC gaming magazine, PC Zone, will end its 17-year, 225-issue run in September. Future Publishing is closing the magazine following a "strategic review," which probably had something to do with the magazine's sales of 11,000 copies a month. Both the BBC and Guardian have full articles on the magazine's demise and legacy. In a statement, Future Publishing stated it will focus its efforts on "market leader" PC Gamer going forward, which has twice the circulation of PC Zone.
PC Gamer UK gives you 50 reasons to play Cataclysm
WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Cataclysm, the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft. If you'd like to keep everything a surprise, don't read any further. If you'd like to know more about the upcoming content, read away! Issue 212 of PC Gamer UK has hit the stands, and includes a fascinating six-page article with fifty reasons why lapsed subscribers should probably return to Azeroth. Forget the lapsed subscribers, there's enough information in here for current subscribers to drool over with unbridled glee. For those of you on this side of the pond, some highlights from the article. We requested comment from PC Gamer as to whether this information came directly from Blizzard, but we haven't yet received a response, so keep that in mind as we cover the highlights: Reason number twelve: Cataclysm chooses fun over efficiency. The talent trees will be completely redone, something we've covered a little with previous posts on the new mastery system that will be made available. A quote from Tom Chilton states "I'd expect to see a further pruning of critical class buffs and debuffs, because it's still a little more restrictive than what we'd like to see. A lot of what Mastery and the talent changes are about is making sure that the choices players make about their character are interesting. Hopefully that will add character depth without making the game more complex."
Azeroth comes through on the love hunt
This is one of the sillier articles that PC Gamer UK has probably ever written about massively multiplayer online games, but still, I enjoyed it. One of their writers went (only half seriously) looking for love in a few popular virtual worlds, and he found it, surprisingly enough, in Azeroth.Neither EvE Online or City of Heroes were very helpful in the love-finding department -- despite finding a fetching young lady superheroine in CoH, the writer was a little disappointed to find out she was a he behind the keyboard. But WoW, as usual, provides the best of MMO experiences -- the writer finds some cute love in the Night Elf starting area.Sure, it's silly (and probably not true -- just because someone says they're a Finnish college student means nothing at all online). But I found it strangely touching, the thought that a real human connection could be made in an online game. And isn't that why we play these in the first place?[via WorldofWar.net]
EA does give a sh-t about System Shock 3, says PC Gamer UK
On one shore, PC Gamer magazine interviewed Irrational Games' Ken Levine who said, "One of the reasons I wasn't interested [in System Shock 3] is EA just didn't give a sh-t about that game." O RLY? Well, as part of their newfound desire to not make us hate them so much, Electronic Arts is returning to the critically (if not financially) successful franchise without Irrational (who're busy working on System Shock's spiritual successor Bioshock for their new corporate overlords at Take 2).At least that is according to PC Gamer's UK variant, who suggest in their September issue that the title will be developed by the team responsible for The Godfather. It's not a really bold guess (EA renewed their trademark earlier this year), but the addition of a developer lends some credence to the claim. Our thoughts: Uh, YAY! System Shock is a classic series that never got the attention it deserves. Let's hope The Godfather team can manage to get this one completed before the next console generation. We're going to get TWO new additions (as it were) to System Shock 2? Very yes. [Thanks for the image, Jakkar]
