Star Wars: The Old Republic – Page 4

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.

Unlikely Agent

April 25, 2017 by Belghast

This is absolutely one of those mornings where I am staring blankly at WordPress sort of hoping that a blog post materializes in front of my eyes. I have this fitful relationship with sleep. It is something I crave but something I can never quite get at normal levels. I mean I have my own normal, which is four to six hours of sleep a night. If I get over that I tend to get groggy… which is what happens to be going on this morning. Sunday night I had a horrid bout of insomnia, which when combined with the fact that our middle cat was being insane… meant I probably got two hours of real sleep. So by the time I hit 9 pm last night I was conking out at the keyboard, and decided to put the house to bed and crash. That means I managed to get roughly eight hours of sleep… and my body is confused as hell. Its like… what was this thing, I think I like it… lets do nothing but that from now on! Hence the sitting in my office chair in a dark room, with a cat laying on the desk beside me… staring blankly into oblivion.

Before the impending crash however I spent a good deal more time with Star Wars the Old Republic working through the Imperial Agent story. I mean there is a good reason why I saved this one for last… because in truth this has always been the class that I had zero interest in. I am not a stealthy person… nor am I necessarily a normally deceitful person. So the idea of flying around the galaxy and crushing rebellions through unsavory means did not exactly sound that fun to me. In true Bioware style however… it is allowing me to play a fairly atypical Agent that regularly talks back to his handlers. In truth I am trying to play it much like a smuggler that somehow got drafted into imperial service, and and for this reason I am not using any of the traditional imperial garb, but instead decided it was a great time to break out the Nico Okarr duster.

I am occasionally breaking out the HK-55 helm when I want to feel more bounty hunter than smuggler. I did most of Hutta in this fashion because I felt like anyone called the “Red Blade” simply would not do to be wearing Imperial Garb. All of these mental adjustments are helping me to enjoy the story as I am sort of re-purposing what is happening into the narrative that I would rather be playing. The positive is that apparently Kaliyo is eating it all up, given that she apparently likes violence against those who deserve it… and general smartassery the rest of the time. Because of my general stance of only harming the wicked… I am playing a fairly “grey” character, sitting on straight up neutral currently. This is an interesting departure from the “did you say force lightning” options of the Sith Inquisitor. At the point I crashed for the night I had just started Imperial Balmorra, which is probably my least favorite planet. However just focusing on the class and planetary stories means I tend to get off the various planets pretty quickly, but at the same time feel like I see the entire place through the new classes eyes.

Touch of Darkness

April 24, 2017 by Belghast

I am deeply susceptible to fits of nostalgia, this is a known quantity if you have spent any time at all reading my blog. One of the ways this regularly manifests itself is with a constant sequence of abrupt returns to games that I thought I had packed neatly away. Without fail it seems like the moment I finally get around to uninstalling a given game… that is ultimately the one I am going to be poking my head in next. There are a few times of the year when I feel excessive “Star Wars Patriotism” for lack of a better term. Obviously whenever a new movie releases that is an extreme time of loving all things Star Wars. Similarly the made up internet holiday of “May the Forth” and “Revenge of the Fifth” have some effect but they are largely just contact highs brought on by the extreme amount of tweets I am going to read with pictures from the universe. The one that apparently worked this time however was the Celebration Weekend, which I have several folks in my social feeds that attend. However the absolute tipping point for me was setting a tiny adorable Jyn Erso delivering Deathstar Plans to every Leia cosplayer she came across. When you combine this with the fact that I am kinda in a high point with Bioware right now after wrapping up Andromeda… the two combined turned into me reinstalling SWTOR and picking up where I left off. Ironically I had literally just uninstalled the SWTOR client from my laptop a few weeks back to free up some space.

Around the launch of Force Awakens, myself and a few others of our crew had a short renaissance with Star Wars the Old Republic. At that point I went on a bit of a bender trying to see all of the class story lines, and when eventually faded away from the game I was pretty near the end of the Sith Inquisitor content. So instead of going out and experiencing the new content on my Jedi Knight main… I wound up settling right back into the comfortable groove of running around and being a largely dark side Sith Sorcerer. Its funny how each class really seems to dictate if I can go full Dark Side or not. With the Jedi Knight, if you go Dark Side you just end up being the biggest asshole on the planet. With the Inquisitor however, choosing those Dark Side options just feels right most of the time, especially when it allows me to use force lightning as the answer to any question. One of my favorite sequences involved needed to smuggle someone off of a planet… and using Force Persuade to get past some guards… and then Force Persuading my Ally when he asked how I did that. However as I got later in the content, there were several moments where I just could not be cruel to those who didn’t deserve it. Functionally if someone was loyal to me… I would even go so far as to take a light side option to save them.

When we last played the game it was during the twelve times story mission multiplier, meaning you could get through the game just by focusing on nothing but the main story. Now instead the game highlights anything that is part of the main planetary story arc, and all of your class quests in purple… and in theory it seems like just by focusing on those you can accomplish much of the same thing. However it also seems like every last drop of experience has been increased, because when I hopped back in the game all I was missing was Corellia and the final show down between Republic and the Sith. During the course of wrapping up the tiny bit I had remaining on Voss… and doing all of Corellia… I wound up almost 56 before finally finishing the story. So while the game is no longer quite the elevator to the top that it once was… it still seems to go insanely fast. I started an Imperial Agent last night after wrapping up the Inquisitor… and made it to 12 before leaving Hutta, doing nothing but focus firing the purple quest elements. Functionally it is the Agent that is the last bit needed before having completed all 8 class stories, and it is also the least “Belghast” of all possible class stories. So far it is interesting, and I opted to go Sniper instead of going healer once again on another smuggler type class. I am not entirely certain if I will regret this or not, but I was somehow shocked to see that apparently at some point they did away with commendations, and all of the mod components are purchasable with credits.

I am not entirely certain how long this whim is going to last, but for the time being… I am enjoying myself and I guess that is all that really matters. In the short term I will be playing a lot more Belgeist to see if I can actually manage to finish out the Agent story this time and get the achievement for having finished all eight classes. I am not sure why this matters to me so much, but it is really similar to Elder Scrolls Online, and not wanting to do any of the “expansion” content without having finished all three realms of the original content. I am in a similar holding pattern with not wanting to start any of the Fallen Empire content without having done all eight of the original story lines. Fortunately it feels like the SWTOR goal is a hell of a lot closer than the Elder Scrolls Online goal given that I have yet to wrap the second realm there and have an entire third realm to go. One of the awesome things about being woefully behind in several of these games… is the fact that I can always return whenever I feel like it…. and it seems like I have mountains of content waiting on me to sift through at my pace. This is also why I tend to bounce pretty hard off of the games that have limited time content that functionally means if I am not playing it as my primary game… I will never get to experience it. Whatever the case I enjoyed my weekend of comfort gaming, and time will tell how long it lasts.