3.0 brought in something which a lot of people have been clamouring for ever since before 2.0: actual unique missions for each individual class. For 2.0, the only time we got to see our classes engaging in wholly unique scenarios was aboard their spaceships when flying to Makeb, so these are the first wholly "new" missions pertaining to our classes since the game came out.
Admittedly, these missions are annoyingly limited - the larger story was still the exact same, barring the snippets in conversation where your character's title was read out - in that each mission was placed in the exact same time window and was only seemingly a means to re-accessing the Old Town area of Rishi to turn in the Dailies which you still had remaining before heading to Blood Hunt.
That said, they all had several factors which were interesting. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers here, but I will briefly touch on each and every single mission.
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Every single story tied back to the game's original class stories in some manner. Whether it was as simple as referring to "NPC x" or "MacGuffin y", it was still very nice to not only get a reminder about these characters and scenarios which haven't been developed for over four years now, including the beta-testing periods, but to get an update on them and their place in the Galaxy. Some were far less seamless than others - the Inquisitor sadly falls most into the category of "character from the past appearing to simply give exposition as to what's actually happening when you go talk to this other guy" - but for the most part, they all held up pretty damn well.
A good number of the class stories also had an emotional aspect. Of course you were happy to hear from so-and-so and to get the chance to see them face-to-face again, but others went beyond that. Indeed, four of them are, to sum-up in one word, bleak. You get both the feeling of happiness at seeing faces from your characters' pasts yet the situations in which they find themselves are such that you feel almost helpless, just forced to watch from the sidelines. In this regard, I am impressed that the writers can still, after all this time, make you care a great deal even if you are involved for a mere five minutes in a much larger storyline.
I must admit, for a couple of them I just feel that their purpose was simply to "be there". The only thing that really happens is exposition on exploits which "NPC x" has gotten up to since you saw them last, you go do a thing, and it only affects yourself on a physical level. You don't really learn much from the experience and the galaxy isn't better off as a definitive result, but it just happens and you have to run with it. In one case, the story starts out very promising, even seeming to provide something to mull over before you realise that any such indications are just left as very slight variations of the same thing every time, accompanied by exactly the same animations and overall results. Indeed, even your dialogue wheel can change the whole course of the apparently intended outcome, which feels strange considering the significance of what happens in quite a few of these stories, notably the Warrior and Inquisitor.
That said, two of the stories are very thought-provoking. The Jedi Knight and Consular have, in my opinion, easily the best of these individual scenarios, both on a thematic level. The Knight has your character - and thus you yourself as the player - verbally and physically reminded of what it is to be a Jedi, something which I cannot recall happening in the game up until this point. Sure, we had the Jedi Code preached to us a couple of times, but this is the first notable time that this is translated into a more simple definition; perhaps the only other time this is briefly done is following the Republic Bonus Series on Tatooine, and even then that's a potential option on the dialogue wheel and is not a compulsory discovery. This is wholly compulsory and the entire quest revolves around this ideal. It's succinct, and it makes a point that every Star Wars fan should be able to understand at its heart.
It is very refreshing to claim that the Consular actually gets a truly interesting story, the larger story as a whole being among the weakest, although that in itself is largely in part due to its almost toning-down compared to some of the other, far more outreaching, stories. The Consular here gets a "MacGuffin y" which has not only been touched on in some form in the original story, but something that could potentially lead to other, newer, things, essentially setting your place in the galaxy. In just a brief span of time, the Consular becomes probably the most important playable character in the entire game: you represent an almost living Legacy of the Galaxy. That is also not to mention everything which I have skipped between its beginnings and its conclusion, as there is just so much which is implied, not through actions, but through lines of disconnected and apparently non-synonymous lines of speech. If simplicity was the theme of the Knight, I'd say that destiny was the theme of the Consular. Again, a point is made which every Star Wars fan should be very much aware of, courtesy of Yoda's teachings on Dagobah.
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Should these things happen more often? Yes, I honestly believe that they should. Should they happen with every new planet/expansion? No. The developments of Rishi were fantastic, but I do feel that, with the larger story as it is now, it would be better to lay off from new class stories for a bit. It felt very strange and a bit annoying on Rishi when you realised that each class mission was afforded the same window - in two cases, even afforded the same venue! - in which to occur. If this sort of thing were to occur again, I would absolutely love it if the missions happened at various and different points in your characters' campaigns. Rishi, the class quests, and Yavin 4 were all fine and dandy... but it was more cut/paste than even Makeb, and that's saying something. Introducing the class quests at different points would help break up the story of the planet and actually feel fresh each time you did it new.
I am very pleased that they did introduce more class stories, which is something that many people have been wanting to see for a very long time. Could they have managed certain classes better? Yes, as always, but there were those whose individual quests were just perfect, and I am honestly looking forward to what happens in future with these. Whilst I doubt that we'll see more developments beyond just one mission, it would certainly give whatever story they have in mind the personal aspect which Makeb and 2.0 had lacked.
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