Star Wars: The Old Republic Archives - Page 3 of 16

Empires Fall

May 10, 2017 by Belghast

This is going to be one of those “Bel is very late to the party” sort of posts but bear with me. Additional upfront warnings… I am entering a territory with this post that might have some minor spoilers. For a long while I have avoided Knights of the Fallen Empire because I knew it made some significant changes that you simply could not step back. As a result in my best Mass Effect fashion… I attempted to wring as much joy from the “old world” as I could and made sure that I saw all of the story content before moving forward. Last night however I finally reached that point where I was at least reasonably comfortable taking the plunge and moving forward into the modern era of SWTOR. Having said that… there are a bunch of things I am extremely glad that I completed before doing so. Firstly I am happy that I managed to see the main story arc for each of the classes. Secondly I am happy that I took the time to progress every single companion and see all of their personal story before moving forward. Additionally as far as I am concerned it is extremely important to do both Shadows of Revan and Rise of the Emperor (Ziost) before starting the Fallen Empire content. I mean in theory you can just jump ahead to the modern era at any point you like, but if you want to have completed all of your story elements… you need to do class story to completion, Revan and Ziost.

Functionally Shadows of Revan and Rise of the Emperor are the unlabeled opening acts of the Fallen Empire campaign, and as a result I am extremely glad that I completed both of them. Now the other big piece of warning that I had been given was that anything you want to do with your companions… you need to do before entering “chapters” mode. This is because in truth you may or may not ever see them again. I personally don’t have a list of which companions are findable in the game, and which are just gone indefinitely… but I have heard that some fan favorites are absolutely missing in action. Once you enter Chapters the game is functionally changed, and you are sort of along for the ride. It was that point that really concerned me and kept me from taking the leap for a very long time. I had built up this comfortable stable of characters that I liked using, and enjoyed my jetting around the galaxy life style. Once I started Chapter 1… literally all of that changed and I began playing a very different game. That said… I think it might be a better game.

If Star Wars the Old Republic was functionally World of Warcraft in space… then Fallen Empire is Knights of the Old Republic 3. The game feels like it shifts from being a traditional check all of the boxes MMORPG… to being a much more story focused RPG that just happens to have other people playing it at the same time. At this point I am still wrapping things up in Chapter VI and hope to keep moving forward tonight, but I’ve found myself in a situation that feels very familiar to anyone who has played KOTOR 1 or 2. In that fashion I think its best to think of Fallen Empire and I assumed Eternal Throne as a sequel to Star Wars the Old Republic. You are playing the same character, and you have all of the items you have built up along your first journey, but you are functionally playing a completely different game. Maybe it is more of a new game plus mode than anything, as you shift your focus from the traditional tropes of an MMO, to starting over again. It feels much the same as Mass Effect 2 did after the original, where you are set down in a world that is familiar, but the cast of characters has changed slightly… and you have to rebuild your legacy.

I will likely continue to report in as I travel through the new content, but so far I have to say I am hooked. There are a lot of events that happen in rapid succession, but functionally when you regain full control of your character five years have passed and the future is uncertain. You are presented with a new cast of characters… some of which are familiar and others brand new. That said the cast of characters are interesting and I immediately felt right at home… in spite of no longer having my original team of companions. I can see the potential for setting forth in a matter that cuts across the various class stories and potentially introduces me to characters from them all. The other weird thing about this setting is that I am finding myself turning from pure Jedi… to more of a balanced user. I am giving myself permission to take more dark side choices when I feel like it suits my purpose better. I am going to save the people that need saving… and I am absolutely going to take a lightsaber to the folks who deserve killing. I am no longer the Jedi Battlemaster and am now instead known as the Outlander, and with that comes a change in focus. Belghast is going to be a lot darker than before… and that is going to be okay. I feel like this character is the vanguard of all of the characters I have played, and as a result sort of adopting my favorite traits from each of the class storylines. In wild space, Sith and Jedi don’t matter anymore… but instead what matters is freeing the galaxy of this new threat.

Legacy Complete

May 8, 2017 by Belghast

This weekend was yet another almost entirely devoted to playing Star Wars the Old Republic. I tend to exist in one of two modes, either I am playing a bunch of different games casually or in “maintenance mode” or I imprint super hard on a single game and I clamp down on it until I run out of stuff that I want to be doing. SWTOR seems to be in one of those clamp down modes, because I am playing it with an almost single minded focus. I set out with a goal of finishing off the eight original storylines, and this weekend I managed to push the agent across the finish line. As you can see I now have all eight icons lit up on the left side of the character select screen. What is interesting is just how much overlap there are between the different classes. You might hear a name mentioned in one class briefly that ends up being a central focus character in another. With the Agent especially it felt like we were getting the secret story of the world being played out through our actions, and it was all the more real when I slid from that story into Shadows of Revan. This is a minor spoiler but functionally the events foretold in the Agent sequence are coming to fruition by the Revanites… which makes me feel like the Star Cabal was just one of so many other puppets in the setting.

Makeb was largely interesting content, but it also felt like content added in a minor story patch in other games. It was this side mission that didn’t really move the overall story forward by much. Sure it was another chance to dust off your team mates and go on one more adventure… but it largely felt like one completely disconnected to everything else in the game. While enjoyable I stalled out in part because I had the other goal to worry about and lots of class storylines to play before that twelve times bonus went away. I wish however two years ago I had stuck around long enough to play through the Shadow of Revan campaign because I think the game as a whole would have had a good deal more traction for me. Shadow of Revan and now Ziost feels more like what I had been wanting. While it is taking part in a corner of the Galaxy and involves a brand new cast of characters… there is continuity happening and all of my actions seem to actually matter once again. Again you can absolutely see that it was design in a way so that it is stand alone DLC, but it feels like it integrates into the theme considerably better.

I am wondering if I might be attached to Star Wars the Old Republic until the release of Stormblood at this point. I have all of Ziost, which I am assuming is a fairly small addendum to the Revanite story. Then I have the entire Fallen Empire campaign and finally the Eternal Throne campaign to keep me tied up for awhile. I am figuring one of two things is going to happen when I start Fallen Empire, and in part that is why I have been avoiding actually starting it. Either I am going to love it and tear through it hungrily until I catch up completely. The other option is that I am going to bounce hard in Galaxy 2.0. Either case I can only delay the inevitably so long, but I will be doing like I did in Mass Effect Andromeda… and trying to finish everything up completely before flipping the switch. Side note… while staring at the above image I never noticed that my starship looks like it has a bubble level on the front. Mostly I want to experience the world as it exists… before changing it completely.

Some other side notes from the weekend. The experience boost is absolutely insane because I was roughly 1/3rd of the way through Shadows of Revan when I hit the modern level cap of 70. That means I have been getting functionally end game gear as I level through the content. With Knights of the Eternal Throne they added in a new Galactic Command system… that in truth I don’t fully understand. However it appears to be an alternate leveling system, and each time you kill something or complete a quest… you earn command points. Every so often you go up a level, and this process includes earning a command chest. These so far have been an excellent source of orange mod gear, and also occasionally a blue or purple item that blows away anything I have been capable of getting thusfar. Another thing that I am digging heavily is that it seems like I can enter every flashpoint in “story mode” which allows me to complete the flashpoint solo with the help of an extremely overpowered robot buddy. These flashpoints however also seem to drop current gear instead of the level of the encounter which surprised me just a little bit. Whatever the case it feels like I am getting to chase down all these story bits, and at the same time be rewarded with lots and lots of gear. Thusfar I am pretty happy with the way the systems all seem to be working.

Secret Story of the Galaxy

May 4, 2017 by Belghast

This morning is one of those days. I just literally got out of the bathroom where I held my hands under the tap to wash them… and then could not figure out why the tap was not turning on automatically. Moments later I realized I was in fact at home… and that we don’t have the same sort of magical faucets that the rest of the world does. This week has been a bit of a challenge because I am just straight up exhausted all of the time. No amount of caffeine seems to be able to break me out of whatever haze I seem to be in. It does not help that it has been cold and rainy… in May. By this time last year we already had the pool open and I had a yard full of flowers. This year however it just hasn’t been warm enough for either, and the yard is so water logged that before long I will have a grand primal swamp. My evenings have been spent watching various things on Netflix and working my way through the Agent storyline in Star Wars the Old Republic.

In a way I am glad that I left this storyline for the last, because it seems to be making a bunch of callbacks to the other stories that I never would have gotten had I not already played the other seven classes. There are constantly folks being mentioned…. and I am like “I know that person” or in some cases “I killed that person in another life”. For years I have thought that the Jedi Knight main story arc ultimately was the most “canon” of them all… but in truth I feel like maybe Imperial Agent is also deeply canon because it shows the underside of the world and all of the pieces shifting slowly into place. While Jedi Knight is the “big damned hero” tale, Agent seems to be the “truth” that happened while the hero tale was playing out. The story behind the story is always interesting, and I continue to be intrigued at just how much I am getting into this. I think it is a testament to just how good the game really is that it can plop me down in a role I would never actually play…. and make me love it. I also deeply dig Kaliyo and my dark side murdery nature seems to play well to her brand of violent sarcasm.

However after all of this skulking about and subterfuge… I am really looking forward to switching back to my Jedi Knight main and continuing through the rest of the story that I never got around to playing the last time. When we played December 2015, I got caught up in the 12 times story bonus that allowed me to play through all of the classic stories without having to worry about any additional questing. Once I finish the Agent that particular mission is complete, and it will allow me to pick back up where I left off… which is the beginning of the Shadow of Revan content. I really want to see how that storyline goes, and I also want to see how exactly the transition to being “The Outlander” happens as well. I love the original game, and in part I am wanting to see just how the game changes once it shifts to the Fallen Empire model. I mean I realize I have plenty of boosts available and could just catapult a character to near maximum level. However most of my enjoyment in SWTOR comes from actually playing through the content, much like the same is true with Elder Scrolls Online. So while it feels like both games are taking forever… I don’t really want to rob myself of the experience.

Regularly Playing: May Edition

May 1, 2017 by Belghast

I had a realization over the weekend as I stared at my sidebar… that it has been a significant amount of time since I last did the regularly playing thing. The last one I was able to find was on October 3rd of 2016… some 210 days ago. I may or may not have completely fallen off the wagon on this concept. The original intent was to take a moment once a month to “true up” the side bar and shift out what I was no longer playing for what I was currently playing. As a result we are going to see some significant moving and shaking in the list as a result.

To Those Remaining

Final Fantasy XIV

I am still going fairly strongly in Final Fantasy XIV, and while I might not log in every night I am logging in multiple times a week. I am definitely still making the Tuesday night raid thing, and while we don’t always make progress each week we get together to do something. Thanks to the wonder of cross server grouping we have been able to pull in our friend Kelesti into some stuff as well. Largely we are all in a big holding pattern until the release of Stormblood which comes in July, and as a result I am still in the middle of my “level everything” binge. Right now my Machinist is just shy of 40, and that leaves Astrologian the only thing that has yet to be touched. The whole purpose behind all of this madness is so that I can purge my vault of anything at minimum sub 30… and the grand hope is to sort through anything sub 50 and be extremely judicious in what I choose to keep. Still having a lot of fun in Palace of the Dead, just have had other distractions of late.

To the Returning and New

Skyforge

This is one of those games that has not graced my sidebar in a very very long time. In July of 2015 I played quite a bit of the game around the time that it launched, and while I enjoyed it… it always felt like it was missing something. Apparently October of last year an expansion released that added in pretty much all of the features that I am finding myself enjoying now. Additionally the game just works better with a controller than it ever did with a keyboard and mouse and while I returned primarily on the PS4… I am also dipping my toes back into the PC experience as well. Both are extremely fun and I am not entirely sure how long I will be splitting time before I officially pick one platform. Whatever the case if you have ever played this game I highly suggest checking it out. It has some issues… namely you are limited to three classes at the start with no clear path to add new ones. However each of the classes is doing something somewhat unique which makes them more enjoyable than the standard Tank, Mage and Healer that they represent.

Star Wars the Old Republic

There are two things that are shocking about this game gracing my list. Firstly that apparently I never actually made a “now playing” widget for it, and secondly… that I am back playing it again. I blame a sequence of nostalgic events happening at exactly the same time… all of the hype about the next Star Wars movie, the love of Rogue One, and my deep enjoyment of Mass Effect Andromeda has lead to an upwelling of love for both Bioware and Star Wars. As a result I have returned to an old mission, which is trying to level through all of the class stories. I managed to finish off the Sith Sorcerer and am now through Hoth so far in the Imperial Agent. It seems as though I picked one of the best storylines for last, and even though I am not traditionally a stealthy/shooty type class… there is something extremely awesome about this one. I largely went Sniper because my Smuggler on the other side of the fence is Sawbones/Healer. I am having a blast right now, so I am going to ride the enjoyment until it lasts. The goal is to push forward into the story I have not touched on my Jedi Knight main after finishing the Agent story… which involves Shadow of Revan, Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne.

Horizon Zero Dawn

I do not normally put many single player games on the regularly playing list, but we have this sequence of amazing ones being released in short order. One of those is Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a game that I hit hard at launch… and then for whatever release lost momentum to Mass Effect Andromeda. As a result I have been slowly playing it here and there as time and desire allows. I could force myself through the story, but I want to play it when I want to play it… and that is right now involving the occasional hour long session of hunting giant robot dinosaurs rather than pushing forward the main story. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I need to find some catalyst that really gets me back into it and dying to play the next chapter. In the mean time however I am still enjoying the “bowplay” if I can coin that term.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This is very much another “as desire hits me” sort of experience. When the game came out I picked it up on the Wii U and in the time between then and now I have managed to pick up a switch effecting starting back at square one. This stalled my progress a little bit but for the most part I have returned to where I left in the Wii U and am once again moving forward. I have designs on starting to take this to work and playing a little over lunch and on break times. While I have the switch I really have not done a lot of handheld play with it remaining largely docked upstairs so I can play it with the pro controller. It is a great game and in spite of having a lot of things that frustrate me about the game… is yet another in a long list of titles contending for my game of the year bid.

To Those Departing

World of Warcraft

While I still have an active account, I am just not really playing at all. I logged in shortly after the last patch and got bored and logged out again. I fell off the raiding bandwagon about halfway through Nighthold, and honestly just sort of reached the point I have in so many other expansions. I think in theory I could come back and play casually and enjoy the experience but there are just simply too many other things I would rather be playing right now. So as a result this is going to find its way off my side bar, but I did have the forethought to simply comment it out rather than remove it because I am sure at some point around Blizzcon time I will get hit by the bug once more.

Rift

Much like with Nightmare Tide… I just failed to gain traction with the latest expansion the Starfall Prophecy. A large part of my struggle with Rift is that I can never seem to find a warrior spec that I really like anymore. What I ultimately want is a juggernaut for doing PVE/Leveling content that can burn through the mobs with nonexistent downtime. If I ever find that spec again I will return to the game and happily finish up leveling. The other huge struggle is that the game lacks a reliable current font of knowledge. The forums in theory have a lot of the information but it is this blend of current information and ancient and no longer reliable, and I just lack the mental fortitude to sift through it. I am hoping that after writing this… Muspel or PK will come to the rescue once again with a viable Warrior build like they have in the past. The other huge challenge with Rift is the fact that none of my gaming infrastructure is playing the game, nor do any of my regular suspects have any interest in the game at this point.

Destiny

It hurts more than a little bit to be adding this game to this space on my list. The truth is I am just not playing it right now and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future. I have too many other games fighting for my attention, and while I absolutely know I will be returning with Destiny 2… the amount of stuff that I can do solo or want to so solo is pretty limited. At this point it feels like I would be working towards something that is ultimately going to disappear. I also have a lot of questions because as it is right now… I am looking at making the leap to PC from PS4 for the second game… and I am not sure what if anything might transfer.

Guild Wars 2

Adding this one to the list really doesn’t take a lot of effort. I was only into this game so long as some of my friends were actively playing it. Once Tam and Ash and Kodra faded away… so did I. It is still not my favorite game but I have developed a certain appreciation for it. Most of what it is doing however isn’t really all that interesting to me. I largely got to play along with my friends only because I had maxed out my Warrior soloing for ages without them. He was geared and ready to go… and will still be there if it ever has a resurgence. Much like Warframe this is a game that was not ultimately for me… but somewhat enjoyable so long as I was playing with friends.