Changing galaxies

Transferring to the Red Eclipse

Yesterday i decided to move Soofoo over to The red eclipse from the Progenitor. It wasn’t an easy decision since i always have roleplaying or at least participating in community events in the back of my mind, but i feel in SWTOR, roleplaying is an activity mostly confined to internal guild events and community events aren’t actually large-scale. I’m also unsure anymore that the community is much better, since my first flashpoint experience wasn’t very good. The Red Eclipse is also a much more active server, the fleet was full of people/characters.

The transfer didn’t happen, unfortunately. I’m not sure if it is processed by now, but it wasn’t until midnight despite the fact that it should take only 1 hour and me queueing the transfer at 2 p.m. I opened a ticket at 9 p.m. yesterday; we’ll see how far i’ll come today. One of the main reasons i want her over there is the fact that she’s the furthest along in terms of progression and also because i want the legacy on the new server. It’s still not level 2, but i don’t want to lose even this progress.

The Sage

So yesterday i dabbled a bit in playing Samdhara, the Jedi Sage i started on The Red Eclipse.

I have to say, this might be the class- mechanically- i’m looking for in SWTOR. I chose the “Balance” specialization and it seems that i not only have healing spells available, but also “leeching skills” that provide selfhealing in relation to damage done. While this still won’t be what i’d call a “true hybrid class”, it’s close enough, at least from what i saw.

I’ve progressed her through Tython making use of the 12XP buff- so i only did the class quests. Doing this left me basically without credits and somewhat underequipped. And unsatisfied, but that’s a topic for another post.

12XP

I’ll make this short remark, though: i feel 12XP is a thing most useful to players who already did the planetary questlines on other characters and who are to supplement their 12XP characters with credits and equipment. For me, the pace felt wrong; it was too quick to experience what SWTOR has to offer. In this regard, i prefer the 2XP- it is quicker in progression while still allowing the newbie player to experience the planetary questlines, flashpoints and group quests without feeling like they could do “better” if they’d only follow the class quests.

I might have to re-think my approach on that buff. There are workarounds, like maybe first get into the planetary storylines before doing the class quests on the respective planet. On the other hand, the release of The Secret World’s update 11 showed me once again how much i’d like to have a character at the pulse of the games i’m playing. I’m reluctant to deactivate 12XP for me until i have a max-level character, though, because i fear on missing out on the buff entirely because of my slow levelling.

As for the item to remove the 12XP; i tested it yesterday: it’s an item in your inventory granting an 8-hour-buff you can deactivate and that has no cooldown.

Something’s wrong here

Final Fantasy XIV should be my main MMO now; and i enjoyed my return there immensely. This week, though, saw me being able to play quite late in the evenings- mostly 10 p.m., and that’s a time of day when i feel more comfortable launching SWTOR instead. Last week saw 5 hours of SWTOR and 3 hours of Final Fantasy XIV- i think i’ll make the 10 hours complete tonight, because the general direction still stands: i feel more invested in playing only two MMOs and play more- it’s just that i didn’t have much opportunity to do so this week.

The downside is i don’t have much to tell you. I still need to enter Tarvus’ ship with Soofoo and Samdhara is on her way to Coruscant. In FF14, the next step is gathering and bring the Botanist up to level 13 or maybe even higher.

When Soofoo arrives on the Red Eclipse, i also want to explore the group content of SWTOR further- after all, there are quests for groups of two or four characters on the planets, and groups are often built using the general chat. Furthermore it’s time for a second go at a flashpoint.

I’d also like to get into the lore more, though i’m still unsure whether the better approach is to make use of ingame-tellings (the codex, datachrons) or simply reading something on the internet. I feel like games should provide their lore in-game in a somewhat convenient way.

Taris almost done

Commander Soofoo progresses through SWTOR in a slow but steady pace. I’ve made it to level 23 by now and am finding SWTOR to be an experience similar to Lotro in some ways, but without Moria. Alas, it’s also lacking the Shire so far- i’m not impressed with the planet design. Coruscant i found to be a mess and while Taris is slightly better it still isn’t all that good. What strikes me most is the hub-to-hub quest design and the missing day/night cycle.

But there are upsides, as well. I like the pace of the game, and i like the on-rail-spaceship missions. I can relax playing SWTOR and the spaceship missions provide an activity when i can or want to only play for half an hour or something.

Taris is nice to look at

What did i do?

Whenever i had time for strolling through Taris, i did some quests- after a while i concentrated on the class storyline which was….ok, i guess. I don’t know, is it a spoiler if i talk briefly about it? I don’t think so, because, well, the game’s 3 years old by now and my guess is that many players have already experienced this part of the game.

So the Commando’s looking for former members of Havoc squad and finds traces of “Needles” on Taris. Soofoo went out to find him and in the end, she did. She also executed him. Needles wanted to develop a weapon out of something that could turn people into Rakghouls. Luckily, Soofoo was able to stop him…and take some probes to the general of the republic, earning her some Dark Side points. I don’t really “roleplay” her in the sense of giving her certain motivations for her actions – i always found “military roleplay” quite boring- i might do something with my Consular when her time comes, but Soofoo basically makes the choices i’d make if i were in her place.

Earning 350 Dark Side points wasn’t part of the plan, but killing a war criminal and securing a possible weapon of mass destruction at least for research seemed to be worth it.

Soofoo looking for Needles

In shorter sessions i just went about the starship missions. I know they’ve been criticized a lot for being an on-rails minigame, but in my opinion, they work just fine as a distraction and something to do when there’s less available time. I became used to logging out in Soofoo’s stronghold, since that is a resting place and provides multiple options to travel either to the fleet, the last planet we were on, the starship or the planet of the stronghold. So when i don’t have much time, starting up a space mission is a quick affair and with 2XP active, it gives quite a good amount of XP.

One night i also went ahead and queued up for a dungeon. I was surprise that it takes so long to get in, but even more surprised when i got a group for Athiss and found them to be at some other place on a map i didn’t know. I hurried to follow them, couldn’t find them, asked for help (without an answer), found a hole in the ground, jumped down in a hurry, died, tried again and when the first member of the group came into view, they vote-kicked me. For what, i don’t know. Maybe they thought i was just hanging around somewhere for the XP, maybe it was because i told them i was new. Anyway, i found that without so much as a whisper, it was an unfriendly thing to do. Once again i found myself thinking about FF14’s community (in general very nice) and how that game provides simple solutions to problems like this one: everyone stands in a circle until every player has arrived.

Outlook

Right now is a good time to be in SWTOR. Granted, the 2XP event will be ending some time today, but the 12XP buff for subscribers will be activated on may 4th. I might make use of that primarily to get the Consular past Coruscant and maybe take a deeper look at the Imperial Agent’s story and others, but we’ll see about that. 12 XP is a great thing for those that have already seen all- or as much as they want- of the planets’ stories. I worry about it being too quick a progression for someone like me who wants to see the planets as well as the class stories. On the other hand it’s nice for me, as well, because it is quick progression, after all.

I’ll find you, Needles!

I like my experience in the game so far, although i’m a bit worried about the variety of gameplay as well as planet design. For instance, i don’t know if crafting is a thing to follow through on, but i try and gather materials on my way from quest to quest and plan on crafting a bit to see if it’s “worth it”. The strongholds are nice, as are the space missions. If the zones would be more open and a bit better designed (have you seen WoW’s zone design? That alone is a reason to play World of Warcraft), i’d be very positive right now.

I’ll have to look for a guild, though. So far it seems as if the Progenitor’s more social guilds tend to be on the imperial side and i can’t see myself as a disciple of the empire. The most interesting classes to me are the Commando and the Jedi Consular. There are other options, of course. I could look for a german guild on one of the german servers (the german PvE server seems to be the most active server in europe) or even migrate over to NA; i don’t think the latency would be much of an issue. Timezones might.

Anyway, my experience in the game is good enough to put SWTOR on my personal “main MMO” spot for the rest of the month, at least. In may, i plan a return to FF 14 and make a push for Heavensward, but since i’ll still have subscription time left in SWTOR and the 12XP will come, SWTOR will be in my rotation at least until the end of may.