So you're at a cantina, perhaps under the influence of a few too many shots because you've lost quite a few rounds of pazaak or whatever your game of choice may be at this point, when suddenly you receive a proposition of sorts from someone that certainly falls under the reach of the adjective 'attractive.' However, one thing stands out; he or she is a different species than your character. Perhaps she's a Twi'lek and you're a Miraluka, or you're a Chiss and he's a cyborg. Does that factor into your decision of whether to say yes or no?

Thus, the subject for today's Force Reflection is: does species really matter to your character when it comes to romance?

Now, this is the sort of question that can probably be answered differently by different species, considering Sith Purebloods do not always hold the same opinions as humans, but then, each character is unpredictable. When it comes to Holland, he is less than picky; a proposition for a bit of fun could come from just about anyone in the universe and he would say yes without much hesitation, more interested in the pleasure than the details, let alone the consequences. But there are a lot of beings out there in the universe that don't feel quite the same way. 

Game Update 1.2 keeps getting closer, and with it, the introduction of The Old Republic's Legacy System. While other MMOs have global chat systems and names, no other major online game has gone as far as TOR in connecting our characters. The idea was one BioWare has had since the game's inception, since many of the great Star Wars characters are linked by blood. Darth Vader revealing himself to be Luke's father remains one of the best twists in movie history, but how does that work for roleplay in TOR? It's a little hard to wrap your head around at first. Despite the available races being near-human or humanoid, there's still a lot of variation between a Twi'lek and a Chiss. How exactly would they breed, if it's even possible? The good news is the developers thought of that too, and you can add your characters instead as allies or adversaries to the central family tree. 

With Game Update 1.2 coming out, many of us have had our curiosity satiated. We have learned about the legacy system and the tweaks to game play. Many changes will benefit the role-playing community, giving us more creative license. The ability to play races in different classes across different factions, and the new emotes that will be given to us, there is much to look forward too.

Chiss Jedi, Miraluka Sith, the possibilities are huge for the player to create unique and interesting stories. But on lower level, there are new emotes such as that much desired 'meditate', and others that will set you and your characters apart from the pack. But roleplay isn't the only thing that will change; it will be faster and easier to traverse to and around planets. The ability to use speeders in Orbital Space Stations and Space Ports will help you move more quickly to your destination. Anti-aliasing, customizable UI, bug fixes, and much more—read up on the patch notes and get excited!

As always, the community still has questions on the future, what to look forward to and what to despair about. Not much on the RP spectrum was asked this week; the one of note (and sadness) is that the idea of a barber shop, Damion Schubert: "Are there plans?" - the answer is yes. "Anytime soon" -- the answer is no. It's not that we don't want to do it, it's just a little further down in the priority queue, and so I don't want everyone to have any expectations that are unrealistic in terms of when it will get into your hands."

Bummer. But at least other questions have been answered, clearing up some confusing areas about the legacy system. Notably, the question of unlocking races was answered. If you unlock the Chiss species at level 50 and delete that character, you are still able to create Chiss on either side now that it has been unlocked on that server for your account.

Breaking News: Still no chat bubbles.

Read the Patch notes here, and the community Q&A for march 16th here!

Star Trek and Star Wars have more in common than just sweaty nerds in costumes. They have sweaty nerds in costumes arguing over tiny nuances in their series' details. The term canon comes to us from religion, and like religion, it causes people to go to war over seemingly tiny details in their faith. Canon originally referred to the scriptures that were included in the various religious texts. Much like Star Wars, the core writings were handed down from an all knowing, infallable creator, but people kept adding to them. Canon is created by the church, or in this case LucasArts, to define which of these stories are in line with the faith and should be included. George Lucas does not regularly intervene in the lives of us mortals anymore, and therefore we must use the rules set up to determine what is canon and what is not. 

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of The Darker Side of Life; the SWTOR-RP weekly column where we discuss the prevailing RP issues of the day and take your opinions on them. For the past several months, I've taken your suggestions on topics from a wide variety of categories. Some of them are fairly static, others like our discussion on companions in roleplay were predictions, done before the launch of The Old Republic, based on what we knew about the game at that time. In this week's article, we're going to revisit several old topics with fresh opinions, both from old members who may have read the originals when they were first published, and fresh faces who have joined us recently, all to answer one question: how has the launch of The Old Republic changed your opinion on roleplay? 

Racism is an ugly part of the real world, but in creating a virtual world, is it necessary to create a realistic environment? Star Wars lore has shown us over the years that characters can be extremely racist, just like real people. The Galactic Empire in the original trilogy was portrayed as being extremely humanocentric, and often discriminating or outright enslaving other species across the galaxy. Likewise, the Sith Empire of The Old Republic seems to use aliens as slaves as well. Pureblood Sith on the other hand are looked up to and revered. The Republic, being the good guys, is much more cosmopolitan but no doubt non-humans also face harsher lives in the poorer areas such as the Coruscant undercity.