Let's be honest: there's not a huge amount of aesthetic variety to the armor models available in SWTOR. The artists seem to have been shooting to create unique looks for each base class so that they could be differentiated at a glance, but the result is an unfortunate degree of homogeneity to character appearance. Unless one dresses in social gear, one Smuggler's outfit, for example, looks like pretty much every other Smuggler's outfit. There's a little variation in the colors, the tailoring, and the placement of decorations, but that's pretty much it.

Welcome back to another issue of The Darker Side of Life, the roleplay column for The Old Republic where we take a look at the issues concerning roleplayers, and try to find solutions for them. In this week's issue, we're tackling stealth and how it affects roleplay, specifically spying and information gathering. Spying can be a core part of an RP community, with different groups trying to figure out what each other is doing. There are all sorts of ways to gather information, from bribery, to torture, even just being a fly on the wall and listening in. The real question is, what happens if that fly on the wall has stealth abilities and can't be seen by the other players, is it still legitimate?

Welcome back to another installment of A Long Time Ago, the column dedicated to providing you with Star Wars: The Old Republic roleplaying insights and inspirations from the vast heritage of world mythology. For the past three weeks, we've been following two sample SWTOR protagonists, Heran Sol and Torr Kleshic, through the first part of the epic and archetypal narrative form that Joseph Campbell called the Hero's Journey. These two characters' RP adventures thus far have been dramatic, to say the least: Heran has fallen to the Dark Side, and Torr has murdered a fellow Sith and pinned the killing on his best friend. Frankly, I think they—and we—could use a bit of a break.

So, as we transition from stage one of the Hero's Journey, appropriately known as Departure, to stage two, which Campbell intriguingly calls Initiation, let's pause and actually consider the man (or woman, or parthenogenetic alien organism) who's actually on said Journey. In other words, let's talk about heroes. From time to time we'll dip into the deep ocean of world myth and folklore to profile a particular type of hero in order to see how that archetype might inspire your own original characters. This week, we'll be taking a look at one of the coolest, slyest, and most appealing hero archetypes there is: the Trickster. Smugglers, Imperial Agents, Shadows, and Assassins, this one is for you!

One of the best parts of the Guild Summit, and the part I'm going to start with is the newly expanded Legacy System in The Old Republic. First off, we've all seen and heard over the past month or so about the new race/class combos, but now we finally have details about how they are obtained. To unlock a race for all classes you must level a character of that race to 50 in any of its native classes. So for instance, to get that Pureblood Jedi, you're going to have to level a Pureblood Warrior or Inquisitor first. Since Cyborgs are already shared by many classes, you'll simply unlock all the class specific implants for everyone. Humans will not unlock anything including the red skins useful for RPing Zeltrons, but instead at 50 give a global stat boost to Presence. Additionally, Twi'leks and Zabraks will unlock the colors and cosmetics available to both factions.