Welcome back to The Blog Unleashed. Sorry for the long break between columns, but like many of you out there I've been pretty busy with the holiday season. 

Anyway, this time around I want to talk about a little conclusion I've come to in regards to SW:TOR. That being that I think we might all be stuck playing as humans. Yes, I'll be rather let down if this proves to be true. But I think I understand why BioWare might go down this path. So let's talk about that.

My main reason for thinking about this is that in all the footage from the game we've the PCs have always been humans. Sure, BioWare might be keeping non-humans as an option as a surprise for a later date. But that seems an odd choice to make to me. Star Trek: Online had their species list front and center when promoting the game. That's a pretty logical (joke intended) thing to do as fans would certainly want to know if they'll be able to play as their favorite species.

SW fans are the same in that regard. I know I'd love to be able to have a character in SW:TOR who was from some of my favorite species such as the Zeltrons, the Nagai, the Offshoots or the Jawas. But I can't really see a Jawa in trooper armor going all Rambo on his foes. Though that would be pretty cool. Not as cool as the Wookiee with the jet pack from several columns back but still pretty cool.

Okay, rambling aside another reason I'm thinking that we'll only be able play as humans is romance. We know that interspecies romance is fairly common in SW (in some very odd combinations in several cases). But somehow I can't see BioWare trying to sell us something like a human/Rodian romance. While it's only logical that members of the same species might be attracted to each other when you step outside of that...well, your mileage may vary.

Also, we know that each class in game has a story to go with it. Since different species view things differently its only reasonable to think that what a human might do in a given situation a Mon Calamari might never even consider.

Finally, there's the simple fact that all the people playing SW: TOR will be human. As such, we don't need human emotions or needs explained to us. They're needs we all share. That makes things much easier for us to relate to a human protagonist.

Of course, I could be wrong about this. But I think that seeing the SW galaxy and the world of SW: TOR makes storytelling sense in many ways. In the end what we get of the game's story will really be decided by each of as individuals. Just like pretty much everything else in life.

After all, we're all only human.