With a release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic announced at long last (the 20th of December, 2011; just in time for the holiday season), I’ve found myself once again contemplating the question I’ve been asking myself since we first heard this game was going to be a reality: what was I going to play? This is the opportunity many of us have been waiting for. We can be pretty much anything: a soldier for either the Republic or the Empire, or someone who uses the Force. Needless to say, we have quite a few options. Each of the classic icons from the Star Wars universe (such as Han Solo, Boba Fett, even various Jedi) are represented somehow in our class options, and, from there, it’s mostly up to us. From the people I’ve talked to, everyone seems to have some idea of what they want to be. I have friends who will be Jedi and Sith, smugglers, troopers… the whole lot. In fact, it seems like everybody knew what they wanted to play when I asked them. Everyone, that is, except for me at the time.

Now, before we had a full list of race and class combinations at our disposal, I thought I knew. From the get-go, I knew I wanted to play a Twi’lek. There was really no way around it for me. I was going to play one and no power in known universe was going to stop me from doing it. I’ve found them fascinating ever since we first saw one in Jabba’s palace back in Return of the Jedi. I blame the lekku, not so much the skimpy dancer outfits he had them shoved into. I knew they would probably be like the blood elves in WoW, but I didn’t care. It was what I wanted to play, and that was going to be it.

With my race definitely solidified, I immediately went out on the internet to see what classes they could actually be. In every MMO, there tend to be racial restrictions. Certain races cannot be certain classes for one reason or the other, whether because of game mechanics or otherwise. However, for some reason, this never occurred to me at the time when the only information available to me told me that Twi’leks could only be Jedi Consulars and Smugglers. I didn’t exactly know what I had been hoping for, but that was certainly not it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like these options; I thought they’d be quite awesome, actually. The problem was that neither of them really appealed to me. I was hoping, at the time, for at least one Sith option, but, at the time, I had nothing.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the Republic. After all, the majority of my internet friends seem to be going Republic, and I knew that if I did, as well, it would give me the opportunity to actually play with them for once. While that was a strong selling point for the Republic, I wasn’t completely happy with it. Don’t get me wrong. I would love to play with people I know for once, but it didn’t feel right. I’ve spent a bit over two years in World of Warcraft playing an undead shadow priestess who’s almost fanatically loyal to her people. After that, the Republic seemed far too good for my taste.

Admittedly, a smuggler would be my Republic fantasy. (Specifically, I’d probably be a gunslinger; they look badass.) Other girls my age wanted to be Princess Leia or Queen Amidala after watching the films. I wanted to be Han Solo. Not only did Han have Chewie (possibly the best companion out there), but he got the princess in the end. Not to mention the smugness and the blasters and so many other things that I can’t even list or else this post would get far too long. I will probably be playing one as an alt; my altoholic tendencies can never be ignored. However, that didn’t help me when trying to figure out my Twi’lek. I had a story for her in my head, and I soon discovered that I couldn’t think of a way to make the story I was working on work for a smuggler. It did take me awhile before I realized that I shouldn’t compromise my girl’s story just to make a class work for her. After all, it would be my money I’d be spending to play. Shouldn’t I play what I want?

Then, like a sign from the Force itself, I discovered something wonderful: Twi’leks could be Sith Inquisitors. For that matter, the class story seemed to match everything I had been working on for her. There was confetti, there were explosions, there was a mental celebration of epic proportions! I thought I was set!

Then, just to spite me, Bioware put out the Jedi Consular trailer. It just made the class seem so awesome that I almost reconsidered. Almost. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was doing it again. I was trying to sacrifice something I had worked fairly hard on for a class that just looked awesome. So I stopped, took a step back, and watched the Sith Inquisitor trailer once again. It took watching that video along with a few other snippets of Inquisitor gameplay before I realized I knew what my time as a shadow priest in WoW had been preparing me for: being a Sith, specifically an Inquisitor. So, I’m sorry, members of the Republic, but the Empire is where I belong. Prepare yourselves. We’re coming for you.

Now if I could only figure out my Inquisitor’s name…