Category Archives: Legacy of the Sith

March 31, 2023 · 6:05 pm

Bits and Bobs

This week,Star Wars: The Old Republic released Game Update 7.2.1 which included SWTOR’s update to a 64 bit client and the debut of both the fourth Galactic Season and the second PVP season.

Updating a game well over a decade old to 64 bit was most certainly a herculean task that, if done properly, should be mostly invisible to players, and from what I’ve experienced so far Bioware has pulled it off. The fact of the matter is that there are so many versions of Windows, graphics cards and hardware set ups that accounting for every possible permutation of computers running the game is all but impossible, but so far I think it’s safe to say the upgrade has been a success. There have been some glitches here and there; it seems like Soa is so deeply woven into the primal fabric of the Matrix that any tug on any of the threads holding SWTOR together causes his encounter to once again bug out, but overall the game as I’ve played it feels a bit zippier. The PVP matches I’ve played this week have been less janky, and the large group content I’ve done has felt smoother over all. Thursday morning, we stuffed so many people into a single area of Voss to fight the Nightmare Pilgrim that the game had to close the instance, but the fight itself ran remarkably well.

SWTOR’s modernization effort over the last year or so has resulted in updates that aren’t necessarily sexy, but they do bode well for the long-term health of the game. Just yesterday, Bioware announced that next week players will be able to test a new cloud based server in the Asia-Pacific region. This is a temporary server, but it does mean that players on the other side of the world from the US may sooner rather than later have a more reliable server to call home. Without the move to AWS, the ability to even test a new APAC server would simply have been impossible.

Season After Season

This update also saw the debut of not one, but two seasonal tracks for the fourth Galactic Season and the second PVP season. For players who like to fill bars, it’s a bonanza of fresh activities, but I’m among those who feel like the last seasons have just barely ended.

It is a very, very rare feeling indeed that SWTOR gives players too much to do, so I don’t want to look this gift horse in the mouth, because I’m certain the summer doldrums will set in before I know it. That said, now that I’m used to the cadence and demands of both seasons, I’m going to take it easy this time around rather than risk burnout, especially when it comes to the PVP season. Two or three levels a week will allow me to complete the season with plenty of time to spare without feeling like I’m queuing beyond the point that it feels fun. As for the Galactic Season, goofing around with friends is the best part of the MMO experience, so I am always glad to team up to take on world bosses and flashpoints and other objectives.

Bioware has indicated that going forward, both seasons will be released at a less frenetic pace, and it does indicate to me that after Legacy of the Sith’s launch delay, the folks at Bioware are working hard to have SWTOR move towards a regular release schedule for its seasonal content.

The new companion at the center of this Galactic Season has an interesting twist and I’m curious to see where his story goes. Likewise, I have not looked too closely at the season’s rewards. Summoning the mount awarded from the first rank of the season track was a moment of genuine surprise that made me laugh, and I’m looking forward to charging around the galaxy like an Odux in a china shop.

Finally, I thought it would be fun to take a close look at a pair of the icons that have appeared on the Galactic Season rewards tracks. These icons have been in the game since launch, but most often seen by players in our inventory as tiny mission items. In the Galactic Season interface they appear much larger and are legible at this scale, so quick translation is definitely in order.

Since I don’t think Star Wars and SWTOR exist in the Star Wars universe, I feel confident in stating that the translations should not be taken as diegetic. That said, the idea that my characters might be playing an MMO and watching and debating the movies when I’m not looking is quite amusing! I’m pretty sure my Smuggler would main a Mara.

 

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Filed under Aurebesh to English, Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

February 13, 2023 · 9:01 am

One for You, Nineteen for Me

This week Bioware delivered news of what to expect in the next game update as 64-bit testing continues on the PTS. It looks like the next Galactic and PVP Seasons will launch hot on the heels of the update. The controversy roiling the community seems to be the news of changes to SWTOR’s hyper-inflated economy. Among others, the SWTOR Escape Pod Cast and Shintar have chimed in, and I thought I’d add my two credits as well.

Bioware has been slowly making adjustments over the last couple of years, but the next update includes adding a credit cost to Quick Travel and other travel conveniences. I’ve discussed the economy in SWTOR before, and I support any steps to cool off the game’s white-hot inflation.

First and foremost, let me say this: credits are pretend money. They are meant to be spent. We should want to spend our credits!

For much of SWTOR‘s history, players have been easily able to accumulate far, far more credits than they’ll ever need to spend. The root cause of SWTOR’s inflation is that over the years Bioware has added more and more ways for players to generate credits while reducing the need to actually spend them. For example, training costs, which frequently left my first characters nearly broke as they leveled, have been removed altogether.

While purchasing gear upgrades from this expansion’s various vendors has some associated costs, they stop being a concern once we reach the gear ceiling. Repair costs are considerable if you participate in progression raiding, but for the majority of players who do not, repairs are a minor expense.

In my previous post I speculated that day-to-day expenses would increase in Legacy of the Sith, but I think they’ve actually gone down. Attaching a modest credit cost to Quick Travel is a start. Everyone who goes out into the game world to quest, explore or run dailies will have to pay a little more now. That’s okay.

In his post discussing the changes, Eric Musco wrote that Bioware wants to take it slow and adjust the levers of the economy as gently as they can.

Pricy and lavish credit sinks are great, and it’s fun to speculate about what people would spend a billion credits on. I would gladly purchase fun Legacy unlocks and new cosmetics, but optional, one time purchases won’t fix the economy if the root cause of the inflation is ignored. The place to start is to balance how much we earn with how much we spend.

Of course long time players won’t notice paying a few thousand credits to criss-cross the galaxy via Quick Travel, but I also don’t think it will adversely affect new players as much as people claim.

I created a new character on the PTS last weekend. I ran through the Sith Warrior Origin Story on Korriban doing only the class story, the two heroics, and Quick Travelling back to the academy after completing each quest; this earned me around 5500 credits, enough to pick up mods for my main hand weapon and a newly purchased modable off-hand on Fleet. By the time I’d finished Dromund Kaas (Quick Travelling back to the city after each story quest), I’d completed Conquest and arrived on my ship with more than 35,000 credits. This is by no means extravagant wealth, but it is enough to play as I would on a character with access to my main Legacy. Further I suspect new players would be doing side quests that would net them more credits and vendor trash. And that’s not even considering Log In rewards, which we can often sell for hundreds or thousands of credits, or Galactic Season rewards, which we can post on the GTN for a few million.

That said, I do think the travel costs on the starter planets should be cheaper; my very first Quick Travel nearly wiped me out completely! I think it’s reasonable that new players should arrive on Fleet with enough credits to spend on a mount, adaptive gear, mods for that gear, crew skill missions, and the freedom to fully deck out their first slot in the Outfit Designer.

There is no magic bullet to fix MMO inflation where credits are generated out of thin air and, to be sure, there is much more to be done. There are trillions upon trillions of credits floating around SWTOR. I don’t imagine they’re going away soon if at all, but I think it’s in the player’s interests if the nozzle of the hose that is blasting endless credits into the game got turned down a notch or two.

Another point I want to reiterate from my previous post is that I would be very reluctant to see any kind of way to directly turn credits into Cartel Coins. Yes, we can turn Cartel purchases into credits via trade or the GTN, but I don’t want to see the process reversed. Credits are Monopoly money and I don’t think Bioware should support a means to attach a real world cash value to them.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Finally, although it does look like both the fourth Galactic Season and second PVP season will be launching with the next game update, I again want to say I wish there were separation between seasons of all kinds. We don’t have a time frame for when the next update will launch, and my general impression from the PTS is that it is still a ways out, but I would prefer a break to do other things for a bit and not have to think about filling bars every time I play. It’s hard to know how long Bioware would like to go between seasons. Season two was pushed back by Legacy of the Sith‘s delayed launch, and it feels to me like Season three would’ve paired well with last summer’s Nightlife event, but instead was moved to fall to not overlap with the previous season.

The gap between the start of Season two and three was roughly 8 months, but it seems likely that there will be less time between the current season and the next, perhaps 6 months. To me, participating in the concurrent PVP season has meant I don’t feel like I got much of a break. Perhaps Bioware’s intent is that there should always be some kind of seasonal event going, whether it’s a Galactic or PVP season.Ideally I’d like to start a new season ready to get back at it rather than feeling like “Here we go again…” I know Battle passes are the new hotness in online games, but nothing turns optional content into a grind faster than constantly hitting players with the Fear of Missing Out when there are other things they might want to do sometimes both inside and outside the game.

 

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Filed under Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

January 13, 2023 · 9:01 am

Tomorrow Never Knows: Five Predictions for 2023

Before we get too far into 2023, I decided I should bite the bullet and put out my annual list of five predictions for SWTOR in this brand new year.

The results from last year’s list were poor even by my standards, so I’m going to strive a little bit harder this year to predict things that might actually come to be.

Darth Nul is the Big Baddie

Darth Malgus is on ice on Fleet right now, but I don’t think anyone believes that the events he set in motion after breaking free of the Emperor’s control are close to completion, regardless of whether he will see his plans come to fruition in person or not. My suspicion that Malgus won’t survive this expansion has waxed and waned, but I’m starting to feel again that his time may soon be up.

So far Darth Nul, who we first heard about in connection to the events on Elom has remained a remote figure who may not actually even be alive anymore. Nevertheless the spirits of malevolent, powerful Sith have a nasty habit of lingering long past their time, and I think we might soon be in her presence. As the “mother” to the Children of the Emperor, there is no telling how much influence she has over them after Valkorion’s ultimate defeat.

With the Showdown on Ruhnuc story, SWTOR’s plot threads are being woven together, and it seems the next step is to fully reveal Nul’s role in all of this. Whether it’s as a spirit controlling her children, or as a fully corporeal Sith Lady, or a ghost scheming to transfer her essence into Sa’har, I don’t dare guess.

Down for Dathomir

But where will it all happen? Elssha recently posted a poll on twitter asking which planet from live action and animated Star Wars lore folks would like to visit. I voted for Kashyyyk (because Wookiees), but it got me thinking.

Towards the end of Onslaught, Sana Rae, the leader of the Force Enclave of our Alliance sensed a disturbance in the Force, and we had the option to send Arcann to investigate it. Whether or not Arcann was around in your version of the story, the specific source of the disturbance has curiously not been revealed.

This suggests two possibilities. First, the folks at Bioware didn’t know when they started the story, or they chose not to tell the players. I favor the latter theory, but it begs the question: why didn’t they tell us? An answer that makes sense to me is that it is a world that is filled with possibilities and history that the players might very well know of even if our characters would not. Dathomir, a planet steeped in the Dark Side of the Force, with a history in lore filled with defiant female witches seems like just the vacation spot Darth Nul might want to visit or set up shop.

While the infamous Nightsisters are likely not around during this era, the planet itself could still be home to all manner of threats to our characters from Rancors, Dark Side Zombies and Force wielding shaman which the Cartel Market suggest do exist at this time.

A trip to Dathomir certainly would put the Sith in Legacy of the Sith!

Arts and Crafts

This expansion’s launch spread out updates to several systems associated with an increase in the level cap, but crafting has thus far been untouched. It is starting to stand out as something in need of an update, and I hope this is the year crafting gets some attention.

MMO Crafting is tough to get just right. When it comes to allowing players to make endgame gear, the gear is either too poor to bother using or so powerful that it obviates other progression paths, It’s rarely anywhere in between. At this point, I don’t think it really makes sense to add yet another gearing path, but I think there might be other ways to make crafting interesting.

SWTOR crafting, however, has never really been a major part of the game for most players. The ability to craft reusable stims, medpacks and adrenals has made Biochem the stand out crafting skill for endgame players, and the utility brought by other skills has lagged behind. I remain fond of Artifice as a source of cheap dyes and color crystals for my stable of alts, but my other characters’ skills see little use beyond crafting augments and kits.

At the very least, Bioware should revamp the crafting UI which has been hardly touched since launch. Trying to find specific a item amidst the long lists of items in the numerous categories is more difficult than it should be.

In addition, the changes that came with the Onslaught expansion made crafting a slog. To make an item, you need to make components to make more components which are needed for yet another level of components, and then you repeat the process for another type of component. It’s tedious and requires a vast supply of crafting materials and baby-sitting of companions on crew skill missions. It’s not engaging, and it certainly isn’t fun.

But how to fix it? You got me. Should it be possible to craft Best-in-Slot gear? I don’t see why not. Back when 50 was the level cap, Artifice, Synthweaving and Armormech each allowed players to make non-tradable, Bind-on-Equip, best-in-slot gear in a pair of slots. Maybe that’s something that could return to boost the other crafting skills. Should it be easy or hard to gather the necessary materials? Or something in between?

Personally, I love adding recipes for color crystals and dyes to my repertoire, and I feel like there are lots of retired cosmetic weapon and armor appearances that could be given to Armstech, Armormech and Synthweaving. Likewise, it’s been a while since Cybertechs got a new mount or grenades to craft. Are more craftable cosmetics the key? I would dig them, but I don’t know if that would be enough for other folks.

Regardless, I do think it’s time Bioware gave crafting a good look.

Hats and Hoods and Hair, Oh My!

Throughout the game’s history, there have been countless cool outfits that are marred by hoods that make players look bald or hats that come with odd skull caps. It’s time we finally had hats and hoods that show our hair. This wish was actually on my very first Dumb Top Five list, and I would not revisit it if not for one recent addition to the game: Ri’kan’s armor set.

As far as I’m concerned adding headgear that includes Twi’lik head-tails for everyone who wears it is letting the camel’s nose in the tent. If I can wear a helmet that gives Lekku to a Cathar, then we can have a hat the puts hair on Rattataki.

Are there technical limitations to what I’m asking? Can headgear that includes hair even match the color we selected at character creation? I feel like it should, or at least it shouldn’t be an insurmountable problem to solve.

Nico’s wide-brimmed hat looks great on him. A stray lock of hair spills out of Vaylin’s hood. I very much would love to see options like this finally be made available for our characters.

For Every Season There is a Porg

The theme uniting the next Galactic Season will, of course, be Porgs. It all makes sense. Bioware wouldn’t simply throw an adorable, much requested, lore appropriate pet on the Cartel Market; they would have to be introduced with all the pomp and circumstance you’d expect of a Galactic Season.

Long time readers will, of course, not be surprised by this prediction. In fact, it’s been locked into this spot on this list for months (if not years). But here’s the thing, I think a Galactic Season based around a creature companion is actually a good idea. First off, it obviates any need to worry about voice acting since it’s expected that a creature would only need to growl, chirp or purr. Furthermore, all sorts of extra rewards suggest themselves: customizations with different fur or feather colors, mount versions of the creature we could ride, cute baby versions to hatch as pets, and so on.

Conversation interactions could involve training the creature to be either as friendly and huggable as a Charhound or as vicious as an attack Porg. Would you teach your animal companion to bring you your slippers or go for the throat?

As much as it breaks my heart, a Porg might not actually be a good choice for this idea, but there are plenty of neat creatures all over our SWTOR stories that would work. How about a lion-maned, dinosaur-horned Ranphyx like the ones we encountered on Elom? I think that would be pretty darn cool, especially if we could work towards a customization that gives it the glowing eyes and electrified hide of the boss we fight in the Ruins of Nul flashpoint.

I still want a lil’ Porg buddy though.

So here’s to 2023! I hope it’s a fun and rewarding year for all of my readers, and that all of our Star Wars dreams come true, even if most of these predictions probably won’t! Let me know in the comments your predictions for this year.

 

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Filed under Dumb Top Five, Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

November 19, 2022 · 9:01 am

Dominique and Lumiya

As the end of the year looms ever larger, I’m still playing catch up with everything I’ve been wanting to discuss here. For now, I’d like to share my first impressions of SWTOR’s newest operation, but do it from a perspective a little different than normal. But let’s start with the basics!

The R-4 Anomaly

This past summer saw the release of a brand new, somewhat delayed new operation: The R-4 Anomaly.

As with all my operations experience in recent years, my progress through R-4 through has been very casual and my focus has been getting to experience it with friends and guildmates. This means I haven’t set foot in Veteran Mode, but that’s fine me. Storymode is still plenty challenging; it feels in many way like the Hard Modes of old. The dps and healing checks are there, but not wholly beyond reach. The mechanics are the real challenge, and do require a coordinated group and communication in voice chat.

In other words, Story Mode R-4 is unlike every other Storymode in the game. Personally, I’m having a great time learning the fights and teaching them to others. However, this does mean that the majority of actual Story Mode players are left out in the cold. A Story Mode nerf seems inevitable, but I wonder where it will leave my more casual “beer league” operations team. From what I’ve seen, Veteran Mode R-4 seems more akin to the “Hard Mares” of Shadow of Revan, something of which I am on the record being no fan.

With the legacy Story Modes now tuned to be the easiest they’ve ever been, R4’s introductory difficulty stands out as an “anomaly” that is harder than most Veteran Mode operations. Personally, I would’ve notched up the labels of each version of the raid from Story Mode to Veteran and Veteran Mode to Master, and released a universal Storymode for folks without gear or experience to freely explore. As someone without any actual MMO design knowledge, I’m certain this would’ve been fine for Story Mode players and casual raiders like myself, but I’m not sure how the Nightmare community would feel about it. I don’t envy Bioware’s job trying to strike a balance in group content for all the varied levels of players in the game, but the inconsistency in difficulty renders the labels they put on the modes confusing at best.

As for the operation’s setting, R-4 is the spookiest and most atmospheric one we’ve had since the Dread Fortress and Dread Palace. The hallways between bosses are dark, dangerous and cramped, and it’s not until the operation’s climatic encounter that the space opens up at all. The boss fights are distinct and unique. So far I like Watchdog best of all: each player has their own responsibilities and each group can deal with the mechanics in different ways, making it a little different to play every time. When my team executes the strategy perfectly, it is incredibly satisfying and has a real effect on the entire flow of the fight.

ARIA’s story from the Dxun operation continues into R4. Despite her narration throughout, I’m not completely clear how she became involved in some rogue Sith’s plan to rebuild the Mass Shadow Generator. I suppose the move from Czerka to the cult of the Unmasked isn’t that big of a leap. The operation’s overall story is not terribly complex. Basically a Sith cult started playing with powers they didn’t fully understand and things went sideways. For an operation that is essentially a haunted house in space, I’m not sure we need much more than that.

I do want to compliment the voice acting included in the op. ARIA continues to be amusing, and Helen Sadler’s performance as the operation’s climatic foe, Lady Dominque is strong as well. And all due credit should go to SWTOR stalwart, Darin De Paul, who definitely gave his all to Lord Kanoth, quite possibly SWTOR’s most unsettling and creepy operations foe.

The rewards from our Story Mode runs have been a bit of a mixed bag. My team had already collected at least a few pieces of 330 gear from Nefra before R4 even launched, and we very quickly unlocked the 330 modifications from Hyde and Zeek, so the actual token drops haven’t been useful for gearing. I’ve completed two cosmetic armor sets and still have dozens of tokens with nothing to spend them on. However, random mobs do drop some neat decorations, but given that the operation is relatively light on trash, I do wish the drop rate were a bit more generous. I should also say that the Wings of Nihrot that can be looted in Veteran Mode are wicked cool, and I definitely have at least one unhinged Sith who’d look good wearing them.

The only glaring oversight I can see from the operations rewards are the lack of a Watchpuppy mini-pet or even a Watchdoggo companion.

Dark Ladies of the Sith

The encounter with Lady Dominique is a fitting capstone to the raid. She’s a unique foe in an epic setting, both with deep ties to Star Wars lore. There is a lot going on, a lot for each player to figure out and get used to, and I’m enjoying the journey of learning this fight. At least when it has been working anyway.

The Mass Shadow Generator is likely familiar to fans of Knights of the Old Republic, but I want to spend some time exploring Lady Dominique’s design instead. The thing that struck me when I first saw her, was her similarity to the character who is actually the second dark sider in Star Wars lore to be identified as a Lord of the Sith: the Dark Lady Lumiya.

Lumiya has a long history, which extends even into the late Expanded Universe and I won’t go into too much detail except to say that she began as a supporting character and antagonist in Marvel Comic’s original Star Wars comics during the 1980’s. She was an agent of the Empire sent to infiltrate the Rebel Alliance following the events of The Empire Strikes Back. She befriended and possibly seduced Luke Skywalker until he thought he’d accidentally killed her in battle. But she survived and was rebuilt thanks to Darth Vader’s intervention, and reemerged after Return of the Jedi as Vader’s heir intent on defeating Luke and the Rebel Alliance. The aspect of Lumiya’s story that always resonated with me is that if Luke is Anakin Skywalker’s son, then Lumiya is in many ways, Darth Vader’s daughter, making their conflict more personal and tragic.

Lumiya shares with Lady Dominique some design elements including most notably a distinctive V-shaped helmet. While I can’t say for certain if Domininque was meant to be an echo of Lumiya, I do believe both character share inspiration in a style of women’s medieval headdress called the “Escoffion.” The inverted triangular shape of the escoffion evokes horns coming from the wearer’s head and certainly makes for an imposing appearance.

It is an established part of the Star Wars design philosophy to take archaic designs and give them a futuristic spin, from Darth Vader’s Samurai inspired helmet to Din Djarin’s knight in shining armor/Mandalorian regalia. In the case of Dominique and Lumiya, this odd design syncs perfectly with the cybernetics and circuitry inspired patterns that define the rest of their costumes.

But there may be more going on with Lady Dominque than just a similarity to an old comic book character. The design of her helmet suggests other comparisons. Clearly, her helmet is a technified iteration on Darth Nihulus’ split skull mask, but there seems to me more going on here. I can’t help but think that the slits in her helmet’s faceplate are not just random. The design evokes symbols from our world, and I wonder if it is just coincidence. One symbol is the Cross of Lorraine, which was used to inspire French patriotism and reunification during World World II. The other comes from electrical engineering and is the symbol for a common fixed capacitor.

In both cases, however, Lady Dominique’s version of the symbol is broken, suggesting dis-unification in once case or a broken connection in another. I fully admit that I may be looking for connections that aren’t there, but it does strike me as interesting that either interpretation can relate to Dominique’s disastrous attempt to merge her body and consciousness with the Mass Shadow Generator.

Regardless, she’s a really bad-ass looking Sith Lord, and whether I’m seeing things that aren’t there, nothing can change that!

UPDATE! The Vampire In the Room

I do want to mention an additional Lady D that I suspect also had some influence on Lady Dominique, that is, of course, Lady Dimitrescu, the mutant-vampire antagonistic of Capcom’s 2021 survival horror game, Resident Evil Village. Lady Dimitrescu achieved near instant meme status with her debut, and I think it’s fair to say that elements of Dominique echo Dimitrescu’s infamously tall statue and ridiculously wide brimmed hat.

I did not mention this at first because I think maybe it went without saying, but upon reflection, it might’ve been a touch of academic snobbery that led me to overlook a recent pop cultural influence in favor of ones with ties to Star Wars lore and real world symbology. Having had an extra day to rethink my position, I hope this small addendum corrects the record.

 

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Filed under General Star Wars, Legacy of the Sith, My Artwork

November 15, 2022 · 12:01 pm

Ruhnuc and Roll

Last week, the SWTOR team announced their plans for the next big game update 7.2: Showdown on Ruhnuc. The livestream was packed with news. I can’t possibly breakdown it all, but I do want to touch on a few of the major points while the takes are still somewhat hot.

Showdown on Ruhnuc

First and foremost, I’m very happy to have some new story content to play. SWTOR’s storylines of late seem to have flown off in several different directions with characters and arcs seemingly unconnected to the others, but it looks like things are coming together and hopefully coming to a head.

At first glance, the new planet Ruhnuc looks to be an impressive and stark wasteland, inspired by the American west. One of Star Wars’ foundational genres is the Western, so I’m always glad to explore some wide-open spaces, wade behind waterfalls and maybe find a datacron or other fun secrets along the way.

The update of SWTOR’s UI continues with a revised map that is more user friendly and less intrusive than the current one. As some one who frequently gets turned around on Fleet and lost on Corellia, this is a welcome improvement. Messing around on the PTS, I found I was able to leave the map on all the time without it interfering with my exploration and view. The UI changes also have at last allowed for the addition of colorblind mode to the game. I’ve known many colorblind players over the years, and it is long overdue for this accessibility option to be a part of SWTOR, and these UI updates finally make it possible.

For many players, the big news comes with the PVP changes. To summarize, the queues are being pared down into one for 8v8 warzones and one for 4v4 arenas, with rewards coming from a Galactic Season-style objective track.

This means that SWTOR will no longer support Ranked PVP. I am not the best person to comment in depth on this. I made Bronze one season and have dabbled here and there since, so my experience is limited. My first reaction is that I feel bad for the people whose favorite game mode is ranked PVP, and I know how much it sucks when a game stops supporting the play style you like best.

But I think Ranked was doomed. For the last few years, ranked has enticed players with the best cosmetic rewards the game has ever offered, but it hasn’t helped grow the PVP population. We all know the reason. The barrier between unranked and ranked isn’t so much a learning curve, as a buzz saw. It should not come as a shock that most players simply aren’t interested in investing the effort in getting skilled enough to compete while also dealing with the “personalities” of some players they encounter in the queue. I’m not blaming the ranked community, not most them anyway. The fact of the matter is that SWTOR is the theme-parkiest of theme parks MMOs, and Bioware simply has been unable to fully support and effectively police a competitive PVP scene.

If a casual-friendly PVP season attracts more people with the promise of rewards, allows inexperienced players to get their feet wet, and dilute the toxicity that festered in ranked, then I think the changes will be a good thing.

So I am indeed looking forward to 7.2. Bioware says that Life Day will be timed with its release, and since it doesn’t quite make sense to celebrate Life Day after our holiday season, I’m hopeful that we’ll be heading to Ruhnuc sometime next month! Keep your fingers, toes and lekku crossed!

Raffles Winners!

I also want to thank everyone who entered my latest raffle. There were more than enough entries to unlock three Opal Vulptilla Mounts for the lucky winners. While not everyone could win, I was able to sweeten the pot with some extra Cartel Coins and 30 Day Subscription codes to help bring an early Life Day to a few extra folks. If you entered, check the character in your entry!

I’m hoping to do my best for the rest of the year to catch up with everything I’ve missed lately so come on back soon!

 

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Filed under Ancient Jedi Runes, Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

July 23, 2022 · 9:01 am

Farewell Charles Boyd

This past week, Keith Kanneg shared news of SWTOR’s next game update. Let’s get the easy part out of the way first: update 7.1 is scheduled for release August 2nd. This is most welcome news. The end of the second galactic season aligned with me more or less completing any gear upgrades I wanted before the new operation’s release, so I definitely feel like the summer doldrums have set in.

I haven’t spent much time on the test server this time around, since I very much want my first experience of R4: The Anomaly to be with my guildmates. I have, however, peeked into a few PTS streams now and then, and what I’ve seen suggests that this will be an exciting operation to learn. I am very much looking forward to it! Furthermore, I hope the new Manaan daily area will be a fun place to visit as well. At the very least, there seem to be enough reputation rewards including many, many decorations, to make visits there worth my while.

However, the most notable part of Keith’s post is the news that Charles Boyd is stepping down from his position as SWTOR’s creative director. Boyd has played a significant role both behind the scenes and as the public face of the game’s development team across’ almost all of SWTOR’s history and certainly since he took over as Creative Director during Fallen Empire.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most expansive Star Wars projects ever created, and that it successfully puts each player at the center of a story that feels like their own meant it had to overcome challenges that tales told in other media never even came close to facing. It’s easy for me to say that some of my favorite Star Wars adventures have taken place in SWTOR, but I can also see the influence of SWTOR in other Star Wars media from movies and TV to comics and books. I think it’s fair to say that Charles Boyd played a significant role in making that happen.

Personally speaking, it was a pleasure to meet and chat with Charles in person a few years ago and I remain grateful that he took time to answer some of my questions about Aurebesh for this blog. I wish him the best in whatever endeavors await him!

All that said, he didn’t do it all alone, and the announcement also includes an introduction to SWTOR’s Design Leadership Team. Everyone on the team has experience with the game and has at least played an active role in SWTOR’s course correction since Knights of the Eternal Throne. We have already seen their work in action, and I am certain we are in good hands.

What Does it Mean?

What does it mean? I don’t know. Why would I? I’m not looped into the office gossip, and, for some reason, no one at Bioware consults me before making major life decisions. It’s fun to speculate about fictional characters, but making hay of real people’s lives is at best rude and at worst irresponsible. People change jobs all the time, and turnover at game studios seems common after big releases. I am reluctant to look for any meaning beyond that.

I am among many long time players who aren’t happy with the support EA seems to be giving SWTOR, but SWTOR will go on. New faces can bring in fresh perspectives on familiar settings and characters, and the one thing I know for certain is that the team at Bioware are good people doing their best to make this a game worth caring about, and I am looking forward to the adventures they take us on next.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

April 27, 2022 · 10:01 am

Outfits, Guns and Money

This week’s game update 7.0.2 to SWTOR has delivered a long requested feature to the outfit designer: the ability to add weapons to outfit slots. The Outfit Designer has been one of the best, if not the very best, features for player customization for its ease of use and versatility, but expanding it to include weapons was a notion that seemed like it would never come down from Bioware’s infamous “Wall of Crazy.”

I know that adding weapons to outfit designer was far more complex a task than it might seem since weapons come with a host of unique characteristics: color crystals, tunings, sound effects, visual effects on individual weapons and more, things that the outfit designer wasn’t originally built to track. I imagine it took a lot of rejiggering to make weapons to work, but I’m glad it’s finally made it into the game. For me the most frustrating part of Legacy of Sith‘s launch was having to retire weapons I’ve been using for years in favor of the non-moldable gear we’re earning now. To be completely honest, I did not care for some of the weapon models I’d been sporting the last couple of months.

But now that it is here, I gotta say this upgrade to the outfit designer is darn good. Obviously its nice to be able to draw my first choice of blasters and sabers again, but it’s even neater to dust off some old favorites from the bottom of my cargo hold to use with different outfits. Since the stats on the weapon being plugged into the outfit slot don’t matter, it’s also been fun to have an excuse to craft some low level, non-moddable weapons with designs I’ve always liked.

The system does have limitations mostly related to what your active Combat Style is and the weapon skills that come with it. If you have two styles that use the same main hand weapons, say Power Tech and Mercenary, you’ll be able to share the same outfits with both styles. Off-hand weapons won’t apply to your PT style, but main hands will work for both Loadouts. However, if your Combat Style uses different weapons and you want to apply the same armor set to both, you will have to set up a second outfit with that second weapon type. This is an inconvenience and a bit of a credit sink, but spending credits is what they’re for. There is an exception is for Snipers who can apply Rifles to their main-hand slot and still access all their sniper abilities. This little loophole dramatically expands the number of options for Snipers, and at last allows rifles to be used by a ranged DPS class! I suspect this exception is because Snipers are the only class that can use two different weapon types that share the same animations.

Should the Outfit Designer allow this exception for other classes? I can see an argument for Vanguards and Operatives to use Sniper Rifles, since it wouldn’t affect their combat animations. But for the other classes the weapon types they use are so strongly tied to their “class identity” that even if there weren’t conflicts between the weapon abilities and animations, it would still seem weird to me to see a Shadow using single bladed lightsabers. Likewise a Gunslinger crouching down with a massive auto-cannon doesn’t quite makes sense to me either. In that last case, however, I would gladly make an exception for Vette so she could use her beloved Spewie again.

Finally it should be noted that color crystals and tunings cannot be stamped into weapon slots in the outfit designer in the same way dye modules can. So if you want to change your lightsaber color or blaster tuning, you’ll need to plug them onto the original weapon and re-stamp them on your outfit.

I make no apologies for caring about how my characters look. Whether it’s with the Kell Dragon lightsaber I fondly recall earning with my operations team, the blaster I got after kicking Skavak in the nuts, or a swanky rifle inspired by The Mandalorian that I just bought from the Cartel Market, I’m glad my characters will be charging into battle with their preferred ray guns and laser swords again, and I complement the designers at Bioware who have made it easier than ever to take advantage of every iron in my golf bag of destruction.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

March 31, 2022 · 5:50 pm

First Impressions: Legacy of the Sith, Part Two

Before I begin, let me apologize for the unexpected absence. I’ve always found writing difficult, and one of the reasons I started this project was to keep that particular creative muscle limber, but it can be hard to break through the block when the real world keeps intruding. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things now that Spring has sprung!

Without further ado, I’d like to continue my first impressions of Legacy of the Sith with a focus on the story. With the benefit of the extra time between posts, I’ll also touch on my gameplay experiences over the last few weeks as well.

Manaan, Manaan, Do Doo Be-Do-Do

Legacy of the Sith kicks off with a return visit to the Manaan system. If you thought things were a mess the last time you visited, wait until you see it now.

However, before we land, there is a pleasant surprise for players: the return of our class ships which play a prominent roll in the opening sequence. Whether it’s the Millennium Falcon, the Moldy Crow or the Gravestone, a cool space ship is as an important character in a Star Wars story as a trusty droid or adorable Muppet, and I was very happy to see my characters at the controls of their beloved hunks of junks once again. I trust we’ll be taking them out for a spin more often going forward.

Upon landing, we discover that events are already in motion, and whether you are playing a Republic or Sith character, you’ll be catching up with the situation and resolving things as only you can. Both Republic and Sith players will team up with a welcome familiar face, but there are some new characters to meet along the way. Colonel Gallo is very much a soldier’s soldier, someone with whom Republic players will interact, not unlike Major Anri on the Imperial side. She gives a tired, suspicious voice to the people of Manann who yet again are caught in the crosshairs of the galactic war.

Imperial characters will meet Darth Norok, whose initial introduction is a clever fake out. When we’re finally in the same room with him, we discover he is, as Shintar pointed out, every Dark Side Sith player character’s cliché made manifest. Despite being someone who has taken the Sith code to its logical, nihilistic extreme, Norok is a totally entertaining antagonist for reasonable and unreasonable characters alike.

As we saw on Ossus and throughout Onslaught, both the Republic and Sith stories take place in the same setting, but this time around the two narratives feel more distinct. Previously it could seem like the differences between the Republic and Sith play throughs were that you were experiencing roughly the same story, just in different directions. On Manaan there is more separation in time and less overlapping events between both stories. Ever since Shadow of Revan, each of our character’s SWTOR stories has taken place on separate narrative timelines, but once again, the two factions’ stories expands on the events and backstory of the other and once again I think its rewarding to experience both versions.

Regardless, there are definitely themes shared between the tales on Manaan and Elom. The seemingly endless war between the Jedi and Sith, have left the worlds caught in the middle stuck in a hopeless situation. Is the Republic really there to help or just exploit the Selkath with a smile instead of at the tip of a lightsaber? What is victory to a Sith? Is it enough to achieve an objective or must all their enemies be driven before them, regardless of the cost?

It’s into the midst of this morass that our players arrive, and, sadly as current events show, the answers to these sort of questions are not easy to find, and while our characters may triumph, neither story seems to feel like victory for Manaan. And the war goes on.

The renewed conflict between the Republic and the Empire flared up during Onslaught, but was more or less kept in the background with the focus on Darth Malgus’ ambitions and Heta Kol’s rebellion against Mandalore. I think taking a beat to touch base with what’s going on with the war is important to establishing the setting of all the narratives strings tugging at our characters, even if we may have less personal stakes in the larger conflict.

Not for Nothing: Disorder and The Ruins of Nul

Because those stakes matter to Malgus. He’s been in this fight for decades and at the center of every up and down along the way. At this point, it’s fair to say, he’s feeling pretty down about it.

I’ve always found Darth Malgus to be an interesting villain because he’s almost sympathetic, y’know, except for all the murder and the betrayal. Certainly, several of my characters would’ve joined his New Empire on Ilum given the chance. The thought of a united Sith Empire that has its act together is a truly terrifying notion, but his coup accomplished nothing more than to cement the status quo and leave him bound in more chains than the lowest acolyte on Korriban.

At the point, we catch up with him on Elom, he’s done with it all. Free of the shackles placed on him by the Dark Council, he no longer wants to restore or remake the Empire. His goal is to burn it all down, Sith and Jedi alike.

But is he wrong? The war between the Sith and the Jedi has ravaged the galaxy for centuries with no end in sight. Of course the Sith Empire should be resisted; their every policy and petty infighting mark them as the enemy of freedom. But the story of the Jedi in Star Wars is more often than not about their inability to live up to their own standards and their failure to protect those who need it the most.

These issues are reflected in the wonderful “Disorder” cinematic. There are clear allusions to the story of Arcann, Thexan and Vaylin in this interlude, but instead of watching children struggle under Valkorion’s corrupting influence, we are confronted with the sight of a Jedi breaking up a family and forcing another child into a life they haven’t chosen. There is more going on here than we know, of course. Perhaps the machine, or Malgus, or even Darth Nul are manipulating the memories of the young Twi’lek Jedi, Sa’har Kateen. Nevertheless, as a child, how could she have possibly understood the path before her to become a Jedi? She is right to ask her master Denolm Orr whose decision it really was. I think his failure to answer in that moment speaks volumes.

I’ve often joked that if Anakin Skywalker had been able to date girls in high school and call his mom every once in a while, there never would’ve been a Darth Vader. Sure, the Jedi can teach you to move rocks with your mind and do a bunch of cool flips and splits, but they don’t seem to be the best parents. Certainly Theron Shan would agree. Valkorion’s treatment of his family is monstrous, but the Jedi tradition of separating children from their families hardly reflects well on them.

I’m glad to see SWTOR address these issues, because these kind of questions have always been at the center of the game’s stories and every choice our characters have made over the years. What kind of Jedi or Sith do we want to be? What kind of Republic or Empire do we want to represent?

I get it. It’s called Star Wars. “War” is right there in the name. If the Sith defeat the Jedi or the Republic topples the Empire once and for all, there is no game left. But that doesn’t mean the questions shouldn’t be asked. It doesn’t matter if its a Padawan hopping their first shuttle to fleet, a Trooper fighting their way across Corellia, a Dark Lord of the Sith descending upon Oricon, or a Bounty Hunter caught in a shoot out with a Smuggler in a back alley on Mek Sha. The trials never end. And the choices are only meaningful if we keep making them.

As for the flashpoint where all this takes place, the Ruins of Nul is breathtaking in its sublime beauty. I reckon its SWTOR’s most picturesque flashpoint. I took great pleasure in stopping to admire the world’s misty valleys, the snowy peaks, and the cold, grey sky. I’ve thought for a while that players could use a Sith-themed stronghold to call home, and while I had imagined that Oricon or perhaps Nathema would be the ideal place for one, I feel now that I’d love to decorate a mountainside lodge or temple on Elom.

But the thing the flashpoint is most infamous for is the Darth Malgus fight and the bugs that have vexed players and developers alike. Personally, I haven’t encountered significant issues completing that encounter, but a guildmate of mine hasn’t been able to beat it at all, and I watched another get punched through the floor seconds into our first Veteran mode pass. It’s a drag that what should be the dramatic climax to the flashpoint is instead the source of frustration for players. I hope this is a bug that gets squashed very soon indeed.

You Should’ve Killed Me When You Had the Chance

I do want to speculate a bit about what I think might be coming next in the story, but that seems like a topic for another time. Instead, I’ll quickly touch on some of the system changes introduced with 7.0 now that I’ve had some time to play with them.

I continue to love the addition of Combat Styles and Loadouts. It’s allowed me to focus on the characters I most want to play and makes swapping between roles and gear easy.

The focus of a lot, but not all, of my playtime since 7.0’s debut has been gearing. I hit the 326 item rating for my main spec recently and I don’t think it was bad process at all. I took it pretty casually, mainly along the flashpoint path, supplemented with some PVP and Operations gear. I didn’t grind world bosses or pug Nefra, I just did things with friends and guildmates and let the heroics and dailies I do for Conquest take care of the rest.

Gearing in Legacy of the Sith is an engine, and everything you do is fuel for that engine. Once it starts humming, the upgrades come at a steady pace. The problem, I think, is that it can take a bit to get that engine up to speed. It took me longer to get from 320 to 322 than it did to get from 324 to 326. I’d like to see it get a little easier for fresh level 80 players to jump-start the process. Maybe reduce the cost of 322 gear or make it a bit more likely to get those first upgrades from some of the daily sources or easier group content.

I know there have been complaints about the various currencies, but the only ones that I think serve little to no purpose are Medals of Commendation. Once you collect your first Conquest reward, you won’t ever worry about them again. I don’t know any active player who is not capped out in Medals. The cap is low compared to other currencies, but given that I have more than I need and there is nothing to burn the excess on, I just kind of think of them as pennies. The only time I notice them now is when I have to clear out a few to collect even more from the Galactic Seasons reward track.

I vacillate between thinking Bioware should get rid them altogether and wishing there were something else to spend them on. Tech Fragments are still useful to most players, but maybe Kai Zykken could start accepting Medals for his random loot. Or maybe we could purchase crafting materials like Iokath Recombinators or the OEMs and RPMs needed for gold augments. For now I keep the Medals in a jug on a shelf that I only empty when I have to.

The other thing I’ve been doing with my time is fully engaging with the new Galactic Season. The updates to the second season have given me much more flexibility and freedom in how and when I score points along the track every week. It’s so nice to be able to team up with friends and bang out objectives together. I’ve also enjoyed the change of pace from some of the more usual objectives as well, and I hope to see more of that in the future.

I also think the rewards are pretty rad. Fen Zeil may be a hatless Cad Bane, but, he still looks cool in action alongside my characters. The Thurbb mounts are a hoot, and the weapons are all very slick. I’m eagerly awaiting the addition of weapons to the outfit designer so that I can actually start using them!

So, yeah, I’m having fun in Legacy of the Sith so far. Absolutely, I am jonesing to check out the new R4 Anomaly operation, and, yes, indeed, there are many storylines flying around right now that I’m hoping to see resolved before long. Are the bugs annoying and frustrating? Absolutely.

But I’m still having a good time when I play. Since we’re at the start of the gearing cycle, the old flashpoints and operations feel a lot like they did when I first ran them back in the day, and that’s kind of refreshing. It’s satisfying to get upgrades from more difficult content, and it’s been neat playing with different combinations of skills and loadouts.

If your experience is different, I get it. Maybe you’re tired of the same operations and flashpoints you’ve run for years. Maybe the visual changes aren’t to your tastes. Maybe you’re just here for the story. Maybe you’re just not having fun. I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone they are wrong about any of that.

SWTOR has always been the theme parkiest of theme park MMO’s, and they made it easy to come and go as you please. Heck, if all you care about is the story, you likely won’t even need to re-subscribe to play the remainder of Legacy of the Sith’s story updates over the next couple of years.

But SWTOR’s not going anywhere for a while yet. There are good people working very hard to put our characters at the center of an epic story and to make it the best game they can. I’m here for that, and I hope they succeed. Because more often than not, over the last decade, I think they have.

As for me, I can’t promise my writer’s block has been crushed to powder just yet. Sadly, my plans for April Fools will have to wait until next year, but I promise, at least, to dust off the Aurebesh and get back to the translation business very soon.

 

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Filed under Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

February 17, 2022 · 10:33 am

First Impressions: Legacy of the Sith, Part One

Legacy of the Sith launched this week and there is a lot to discuss, but I’ll try to break it down, but I am going to chop this overview into two posts. So let’s get the spicy parts out of the way first.

The big question at the heart of discussions I’ve had this week is this: Does Legacy of the Sith feel like a proper expansion? For a lot of people the answer is no. The story content, by far the game’s central feature, is the shortest of all of SWTOR‘s expansions. Both Fallen Empire expansions launched with six chapters each, Onslaught debuted with stories on Onderon, Mek Sha and a concluding flashpoint on Corellia. Legacy of the Sith comes with a single planetary arc on Manaan and a flashpoint on Elom to continue the Darth Malgus story. Compounding the issue is that some of Legacy’s launch content has been pushed to the next update even after 7.0 itself was delayed.

SWTOR does not charge extra for expansions, so to some extent the question of whether Legacy of the Sith feels like a true “expansion” is a semantic one. For bettor or worse, calling Legacy an expansion and not “Game Update 6.4” definitely attracts additional attention and anticipation that can be tricky to live up to. When push comes to shove, the scope of Legacy’s story content simply does not compare to previous expansions. And for players who care about story, and I include myself in that group, it’s fair to wish that there were more to play. But I can’t ignore the other features that have come with 7.0, even if the aren’t as literally dramatic.

Combat Styles and Loadouts

Legacy’s most significant new feature outside the story is, of course, Combat Styles. Combat Styles allow players to adopt the play styles of other classes and specializations even across the faction divide. To me, this is a very fun feature indeed. For a long time, the character I play for story has been different from the character I play in group content. Combat Styles allow me to focus on my favorite main character, regardless of whether I’m checking out the story or running an operation with friends.

But if you’re happy with your character and play style, this may be a feature you never interact with, regardless of how complex it was to implement in the game.

Combat Styles also come with the most significant class updates in SWTOR’s history. Class changes are always fraught for players. Logging on a not recognizing your character after an expansion is one of the worst feelings in MMOs, and certainly one I recognize from my time in the World of Warcraft. But as far as I can tell, my characters still play mostly like they did last week.

After 10 years, I think it’s fair to say that SWTOR’s classes got a little complicated. I used to be able to keep everything I needed on a pair of action bars with room left over for a medpack or a on-use relic. During Onslaught, I was lucky if I could fit everything into three. I’m honestly glad to see things get pared down. I’m not quite back to needing just two action bars, but I am close.

I don’t think more buttons makes the experience of playing the game more fun. Many of the abilities added over the years felt redundant or were simply extra things to keep track of during a fight without making combat more visually or rotationally interesting. Now, players willing to interact with the updated skill trees will find they can enhance their abilities in new ways. There are some new buttons, but many of the most interesting choices in the skill trees cause old abilities to function a little differently, often enhancing our ability to heal or attack a single target or groups of enemies.

Many of the abilities added in previous expansions are still options in the skill trees, but players might not be able to add everything to their repertoire that they want. The focus of this cull has been on defensive abilities, which even the most jaded player must admit have gotten out of hand over the last couple of expansions. We all love to cheese mechanics, but all that cheddar was starting to trivialize some encounters and cause significant class imbalances.

In my opinion, for most classes, the paring down of skills hasn’t been a big deal since the available options make it clear which are useful in one type of encounter, and which are a better choice for another. This isn’t quite true for all classes, however. Juggernaut and Guardians and Commandos and Mercenaries have to make a tough choice between abilities that had become popular parts of both classes’ tool kits. I feel for those players, and I agree with the notion that being forced to opt out of at least one skill that had come to be integral to their play doesn’t feel great.

LotS or Less?

I don’t think SWTOR’s user interface has aged well, and is rooted in a style well over a decade old, so I fully understand the desire to spruce it up. Over the past couple of years Bioware has updated parts of the UI, and the 7.0 changes are meant to make it more responsive with a cleaner, modern aesthetic. I am mostly fine with the new look, but it does clash with the older UI elements that are still in play, suggesting that this upgrade project is ongoing. And that’s basically the rub. Legacy of the Sith can come across less like a finished product than a work in progress.

The unfinished aspect of Legacy that stings me the most is the lack of weapons in the Outfit Designer. Right now, the gear we are collecting does not have removable mods. Since we’re at the start of the fresh gearing cycle, this doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to mod gear I’m just going to replace anyway, and thanks to the Outfit Designer its appearance doesn’t matter either. However, the weapons are we earn at level 80 also do not have removable mods, so to remain current we must use those weapons.

Jokes about Space Barbie aside, I’ve rarely if ever met anyone who doesn’t care how their characters look. We all want our avatars to look cool or ridiculous or bad-ass or sexy or funny. A big part of that are the weapons we choose to wield, whether they’re beloved quest rewards, hard won trophies from operations or PVP or even just a swanky prize bought from the GTN.

I understand that integrating weapons into the Outfit Designer comes with extra layers of complications that armor sets lack, but it truly sucks that for the first time since launch, we will have no say in what lightsabers and blasters we use. I also know it is expected that weapons will be included in the designer in the next major update, but I cannot defend the decision to force non-modable weapons on us until then.

Now What?

So where do I land on all this? To be honest, I had a feeling that 7.0’s story content would be about the scope that we got, so I am not disappointed. I truly enjoyed Manaan and thought the events on Elom were thrilling. Do I want more? I always want more! I hope Legacy of the Sith kicks into high gear in the coming months. There are epic narratives circling around the galaxy, and I want to see where they go in as full and exciting ways as possible.

I am also very happy that I get to play my favorite character in a new role. I’m looking forward to seeing how the new skill tree choices work, and that Loadouts let me quickly swap skills and roles at the click of a button is pretty darn cool.

The good folks at Bioware have said that they want SWTOR’s tenth year to be an anniversary to remember. So I intend to hold them to that, and I hope they succeed!

Next week, come back for part two of my first impressions of Legacy of the Sith, in which I discuss the fantastically impressive cinematic Disorder, the events in the flashpoint The Ruins of Nul, and what it might mean for the past and future of SWTOR. There will be significantly less hand-wringing, I promise. I can’t say the same about potential flights of fanciful speculation.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

January 5, 2022 · 5:01 pm

Whatever Happens, Happens: Five Predictions for 2022

This week, let’s continue this blog’s annual tradition of embarrassment with my top five predictions for SWTOR in 2022!

Before we begin, I should take stock of last year’s list. Even though my predictive track record is traditionally not good, last year was a total miss. Looking over the post, I did briefly consider that the year might end with an expansion announcement rather than an actual expansion, but discarded that notion as unlikely. Ah, youth!

So this year, there is nowhere to go but up! However, it’s been tough to come up with predictions this time around. I’ve already engaged in plenty of wild speculation about Legacy of the Sith, and it’s hard to predict too much beyond what little we know already. Nevertheless, I’ll try to focus my speculation to what happens after 7.0 and what we know of its content.

Ready for Launch

I feel certain that Legacy of the Sith will indeed debut on February 15, its second announced launch date. I’ll give them a day or two wiggle room, but I don’t imagine it is a stretch to say that folks at Bioware really, really don’t want another delay. Will there be bugs and glitches? Of course there will. This isn’t my first MMO, and I’m sure we’ll have to endure some growing pains as we gear up, wait for things to get fixed and see how players are actually interacting with 7.0’s new systems.

Hopefully most bugs won’t affect the average player, but veterans know to strap themselves in and get ready for a bumpy ride for the first part of the expansion. The early weeks of Legacy of the Sith should be an interesting time in SWTOR, but hopefully not too interesting!

That Eriadu That You Do

While much of what we know about Legacy of the Sith focuses on Darth Malgus and the conflict between the Republic and the Empire, I don’t think the burgeoning Mandalorian civil war will be ignored. I have a feeling the next phase of that story will take us to the planet Eriadu. Heta Kol’s interest in Clan Cadera may be leading her to Eriadu where Clan Ordo fought alongside Torian Cadera prior to his introduction to SWTOR’s main story. That Eriadu appears on the starmap of Heta Kol’s path through the Outer Rim is probably not a coincidence. Is it a hint or red herring? I’m sure we’ll find out this year.

Beyond that, I have no idea what might be coming next. I still think Darth Malgus might meet his end on Elom, but I’m no longer feeling quite as sure as I did at this time last year. Will Darth Nul be the next big threat to the galaxy? It seems like a safe bet, but it remains too early to tell.

Origin Stories

Combat Styles and Load Outs are SWTOR’s big system changes coming with the expansion, but I fear an unintended consequence of characters having two Combat Styles is that the difference in gameplay between our characters might flatten out the uniqueness of our alts. I have many characters that I play to fill certain rolls in group content: a Shadow I made just to tank, a Sorcerer who only heals, etc. Come Legacy of the Sith when my group needs a tank while I’m playing my healer, I’ll just click a couple buttons to go from Sage to Shadow and Bob’s your uncle. While one character won’t be able to cover every single style, we’ll have more versatility in swapping roles. That’s pretty neat, especially since it will allow me to spent more time playing the characters I like the most, but I hope that doesn’t reduce out the importance of our Origin Stories especially when it comes to SWTOR’s ongoing narrative.

An Agent playing as an Operative and a Bounty Hunter playing as an Operative, should still have different story experiences. The difference can be subtle, but still feel big. For example: let’s see the return of our class ships as not only means of transport to new worlds, but also as settings for conversations. It’s become a running joke in the game itself how many of those Zakuul shuttles we’ve crashed, and I think it’s high time we take flight in our classic, iconic ships again.

I also think they can personalize the story with companion interactions. Instead of having Lana delivering the same exposition to each character, how about Troopers get their briefing from Jorgan, Consulars from Iresso, Sith Warriors from Pierce and Agents from Temple? Everyone would be getting the same information, but it would go a long way to make each play through feel different.

SWTOR has a huge cast, and wrangling them all into recording booths, especially in this day and age, must be a logistical nightmare, so I know what I’m suggesting is highly improbable, but I always like it when the game remembers that my Consular isn’t the same character as my Jedi Knight.

More Customizations

I was very happy indeed to see on the PTS several new hairstyles and complexion options in the character creator. More diverse and inclusive customizations are always welcome, and I hope what we’ve seen on the PTS is only the beginning. Obviously, I’d love to see more hairstyles, beards and make-up options for everyone! More skin colors and tattoos (including full body ink) for Mirialan, Rattataki, Togruta, Twi’leks and Zabraks! More elaborate horns for Zabraks and piercings for Rattataki! I’d love to see Cyborgs have access to weird and distinctive enhancements: glowing robotic eyes, segmented faces and mechanical jaws. How cool would it be if Valance’s half-metallic skull became an option for Cyborgs?

I could suggest new additions for days, but I do hope for more appearance options for our characters inspired by the evolving interpretations of the peoples of the Star Wars universe that we have seen since SWTOR‘s launch. I honestly don’t know how much bang for the buck new haircuts or tattoos get versus a cool armor set or weapon, but I definitely feel like the options from SWTOR’s character creator are starting to pale in comparison to the competition and the more of those we can get the better.

Once Porg Unto the Breach, Dear Friends

Look, you knew this one was coming. I seriously considered giving up on Porgs this year, and instead would’ve devoted this last prediction to a desperate hope and plea that SWTOR not embrace NFTs this year. But I want to keep the tone of this list light, and any such prediction would’ve ended with me curled up on the floor, sobbing “Please, God, no.” Beside SWTOR already has a cash shop, and while you may not like the Cartel Market, at least it isn’t preventing anyone from getting a PS5.

Moreover while watching Aviriia’s interview with Charles Boyd last fall, I couldn’t help but notice that, SWTOR’s Creative Director had a Porg perched on the bookshelf behind him. To that all I can ask is this: WHERE IS MY PORG, CHARLES? WHERE IS MY PORG?!

So this is it. I’m calling it now. 2022 will be not only the year of the Porg, but also the Loth Kitty, the Flesh Raider Baby, the Force Owl and the Rancor Toddler. I predict our characters’ menageries will overflow every wide-eyed, adorable critter the galaxy has to offer. But no Grogu, That’s just crazy talk.

So here’s to 2022! Last year was pretty quiet, and I hope SWTOR makes up for it with a tenth anniversary filled to the brim with new characters, breathtaking locations, exciting action and unexpected plot twists that we can all enjoy together. I realize this year’s predictions have ventured a bit farther into what I hope for Legacy of the Sith rather than what I actually foresee, but it seems to me that the days before an expansion are a great time to dream big. What are your hopes and predictions for this year of SWTOR? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

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Filed under Dumb Top Five, Legacy of the Sith