5.0: And So, We Say Farewell

At long last, after almost a whopping 35 months, 5.0's time in the spotlight is coming to a close. I don't think anyone quite suspected what we'd be in for when Knights of the Eternal Throne launched way back on November 29th 2016; it's been an incredibly convoluted ride with its fair share of ups-and-downs and several substantial new features, retreads, and updates.

For the past two years, I've been creating posts looking back at how 5.0 had changed over the course of a year. The first time I did this it was because Eternal Throne had managed to provide a little bit of almost everything within its first year, being the first expansion since 2.0 to do so while simultaneously reaching the 365-day mark. It then just became inevitable that when it became clear that 5.0 would reach the 730-day mark that I would create another post doing the same and comparing how both years had been.

This may be considered as the third post in that particular sequence, but in looking over 5.0 I'm not going to list each and every aspect and analyse what changed. Not only would it result in an absolute shedload of retread - the only 'new' things since the last post were Ossus, Guild Heraldry, Dantooine, some brief missions for the Alliance, and new rewards for Nightlife - but it would also result in just far too much text for anyone to deal with. Both of the previous posts in the sequence were two of the longest posts I'd ever written, yet both were surpassed by my analysis of Ossus back in January!

Text overload.

Instead, I'm going to take this opportunity to look back at 5.0 and list my favourite and least favourite things to have come from it. So, with the servers currently offline for maintenance and Onslaught launching in just a few hours, permit me to indulge myself once again.

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Favourite Eternal Throne chapter

Originally my favourite chapter was chapter IX: The Eternal Throne, but my opinions have changed somewhat over the past two-and-a-bit years. Thus, my favourite chapter nowadays is chapter VI: The Dragon's Maw.

Of all the story chapters released throughout both Knights expansions, Dragon's Maw is entirely unique. It requires you to infiltrate one of Vaylin's strongholds - a palace where she is celebrating recent victories - in disguise at the behest of a surprisingly devious new character, Indo Zal, to have a shot at taking her out in front of her own subjects. Along the way you prepare to free resistance fighters-turned-slaves, hack server data, and find a way to cure a sick exoboar.

Obviously, things do end up going wrong. Arcann joins the fray shortly after you reveal yourself, a whole slew of beasties are unleashed on the unsuspecting guests (some of whom end up loving it anyway), and Vaylin escapes to fight another day.

This chapter also acts as some form of closure to a decision made in an earlier chapter of Eternal Throne - the decision regarding helping or attacking Senya Tirall on Voss. The repercussions are reflected in this chapter through Arcann, who is either redeemed or just as villainous as before. If redeemed, Arcann will join the Alliance while a villainous Arcann meets his demise no matter what. This is, surprisingly, only the second instance of an alternate-alignment character SWtOR has ever given us and it's wonderful to see.

There's not much else to say about it, really. It's just a fascinating chapter to behold and I'm really pleased it is as unique in the grand scheme of things as it is.

~~~

Least favourite Eternal Throne chapter

Unlike my favourite chapter, my least favourite chapter has not changed. It's still chapter IV: Where Dreams Die.

As I already expressed way back when, this chapter just feels so very empty. While we have since learned somewhat more about Iokath than we could through both of the chapters which were set on this blasted world, it still feels as if something is missing somewhere.

I'm well aware that my issues with this chapter stem entirely from my own intense dislike of Iokath (this will become ever more apparent throughout this post), but if I cannot find a planet in any way interesting besides a couple of eerily-overgrown areas then that makes it very difficult for me to connect with any story set there.

Incidentally, I'm still annoyed we never got more of those overgrown sections...

~~~

Favourite story update

For this one I have to choose 5.10's Jedi Under Siege. Not only did we get a fairly substantial story update, we also got a great planet with vanilla-style inclusions such as Datacrons and World Bosses, some excellent new characters, some great returning characters, and one of my own biggest wishes from all of SWtOR's lifespan was finally fulfilled.

Anything with Master Gnost-Dural in it is automatically good in my eyes.

This update also saw the first time since Raina Temple in Traitor Among the Chiss that returning companions were a part of the main story. These updates were just over a year apart, so it may not seem all that impressive, but during that time no fewer than eight companions had returned via class-specific Alliance Alerts. 5.10 reintroduced Nadia and Doc via the story for Republic classes whilst Warriors and Inquisitors would meet with Khem Val and Light Jaesa in special cutscenes during their own runs on Ossus.

Dark Jaesa also got a look-in but only as an Alliance Alert. I for one am very happy to see the Light Jaesa receiving the superior treatment in this particular regard.

More than anything, though, this update served as the first 'big' moment to set up the upcoming war. So much so, in fact, that the updated Instant-70 token will start your character off just prior to the Jedi Under Siege storyline. This is very similar to the Forged Alliances storyline being re-branded as Shadow of Revan: Prologue when 3.0 launched, necessitating its completion before the expansion's story could be started proper.

I could go on, but I think I already said enough about Ossus when it first came out. Moving on!

~~~

Least favourite story update

A few choices here, but I think for this one I probably have to choose 5.4's Crisis on Umbara. This update primarily saw the inclusion of the first of three brand-new Flashpoints which would emerge throughout 5.0's lifespan. It also expanded on a plot-thread which had been teased throughout numerous Uprisings before receiving direct exposure in the Iokath story; that there was somebody within the Alliance helping antagonistic forces for some reason or other.

To start with, the associated Flashpoint is probably my least favourite of the three. Traitor Among the Chiss comes close, but at least with that one once you've got past the second boss you know you stand a good chance at clearing the whole thing. Umbara's bosses are all a fiasco and are extremely painful, with the first also suffering from the extremely lag-susceptible train.

However, the thing that really makes this leave a sour taste in the mouth is the revelation of the Alliance traitor's identity. In some regards, I'm actually quite grateful for this since it means I eventually got to kick out one of my least favourite characters from the Alliance, but even I can't deny that this revelation was incredibly painful to sit through at the time. And of course we had to wait for almost an entire year before the conclusion to this story emerged.

This is one of those instances where I have to wonder if they came up with this arc just as a way to hurriedly include Iokath, the machine gods, and ZILDROG which all could have emerged slowly but surely throughout the original incarnation of the post-Fallen Empire storylines. This would explain a lot about how out-of-nowhere this story-thread feels, particularly in comparison to later storylines (even within the traitor arc itself). I really want to know what exactly those two planned chapter-arcs would have entailed!

Even if the traitor-arc was always supposed to have happened, at least it being done through chapters could have helped flesh it out a bit more rather than it happening within two story updates of Eternal Throne's conclusion. Then we could have visited more worlds than just Umbara, Copero, and Nathema, involved certain characters like Satele a bit more directly...

We'll never know exactly what this storyline replaced, but it's good to see that subsequent story updates felt like they had genuinely more love poured into them than the one that kicked off with this particular update.

~~~

Favourite story moment

I would love to say "the end of Zakuul's legacy" here with the end of the Eternal Fleet and the Eternal Throne no longer being a literal seat of power. Ultimately, I feel I can't because the Republic and Empire are still suffering the repercussions of Zakuul's reign of terror and the Alliance's existence keeps alive some aspect of Zakuul's spirit - the Alliance does owe its very existence to Zakuul, after all.

Instead, I have to choose the highlight of Chapter IX: The Eternal Throne: the final end of Vitiate.

Vitiate has been the ultimate "big bad" of SWtOR since its inception. While each class story has had its own villains, of course, the Emperor's plan would ostensibly have killed every single individual regardless of whether or not they had any contact with him. There's just no comparing any other villain to this guy on the grand scale. Shadow of Revan escalated things further by making his return the ultimate moment of the expansion, thus setting up the conflict on Ziost and the eventual revelation that Vitiate had become Valkorion, the Immortal Emperor of Zakuul.

Valkorion and Vitiate are two difficult interpretations of the same character to align. Gone is the Emperor who wanted to consume the galaxy, now we have a figure who wants his "ideal" empire, Zakuul, to flourish and succeed in the stead of both Galactic Republic and Sith Empire. It's hard to say to what extent exactly his change in personality and motives is due to his attempts to manipulate the player character into being another of his puppets, but that's largely because we ultimately don't know what he had planned beyond taking control of the Commander during Chapter IX. It's possible that he genuinely wanted Zakuul to flourish, but it's also possible that he was saying that just to get us 'on his side' before continuing on with his original plan once he had retaken the Throne.

The point is, it's very difficult to work out exactly what was going on with the former-Sith Emperor beyond his resurrection. The only real definitive positive to the shift to Valkorion was the change in voice-actor: while Doug Bradley's Vitiate is phenomenal, Darin DePaul brought much more personality to the character. Regardless of whether or not the emotion behind his lines was genuine in-universe, Valkorion could at times be interpreted as something of a sympathetic character. That's one hell of a step up from Vitiate who was mostly condescending and arrogant.

The decision to kill him off once and for all in Chapter IX ultimately felt to me like being relieved of an incredibly annoying headache. At long last, this character could be put to rest and we'd no longer have to contend with his machinations pushing us to a "destiny" that suited him far more than it ever could us.

While I'm pleased that he is gone for good, that's not to say that I wouldn't ever be opposed to learning more about him retroactively. For example, I'm now very curious as to how he stripped Ziost of life following certain revelations that Nathema's ritual was not entirely as it was first made out to be...

~~~

Least favourite story moment

As the intro-blurb for "least favourite story update" indicated, I have quite a few moments to choose from, but I'm picking one which has shaken up the in-game galaxy far more than I personally like. The death of either leader on Iokath.

For those who haven't played through Iokath, the story there ends with either Jace Malcom, supreme commander of the Republic, or Darth Acina, Empress of the Sith Empire, giving their lives in an attempt to usurp control of a superweapon that the Alliance, Empire, and Republic are all trying to seize.

I immensely dislike this for numerous reasons.

Firstly, Acina's actions in the Iokath chapter are completely contrary to her stated beliefs in her Eternal Throne chapter. There, she states that the Sith's habits of "being on the front lines" often results in betrayal and, implicitly, a weaker Empire. In spite of this she promptly sets herself up on the front lines and can then perish as a result, obviously making the Empire weaker. While the argument can be made that "a Sith will always be a Sith", I feel Acina's character had moved beyond that similarly to Lana Beniko. While still very opportunistic, she was also rather pragmatic and not noticeably impulsive or rash.

However, I suppose it's not as if there were any other confirmed-surviving former-members of the Dark Council who were shown to be far more "Sith-like" than Acina who would have made for more satisfactory kills...

Cough Ravage cough.

Secondly, there's a massive difference in the results of either death. Malcom's affects very little that we're currently aware of and Acina's means that the entire Sith Empire is a completely different entity. Not only is the Empire under a new ruler, but it's under a ruler who holds a completely different view of "proper" Sith ways. Notably, the Dark Council is reported to be relatively safe and secure under Acina while under Vowrawn they're still wary of betrayal by other members.

In fact, Malcom's death has since become even less of a game-changer as 5.0 has progressed. Not only do we have a new general come-what-may who could succeed Malcom in either outcome, but the only actual consequence of Malcom's death now happens even if he survives. Chancellor Jebevel Madon is heard to be forced out of office following Malcom's death via a PA in Traitor Among the Chiss. The State of the Galaxy report states quite clearly that Galena Rans has succeeded him even if Malcom survives.

Granted, Onslaught's story might expand further on the consequences of Malcom's death. I really hope it does, because right now there is just no comparing the two factions for how they differ following Iokath.

I'm also interested to know whether anyone responds to a Republic Alliance Commander killing Malcom when they start the Ossus story. I know from Reddit that Major Anri chews out an Imperial Commander for stabbing Acina in the back, so logic would dictate that somebody on the Republic side should... maybe not anyone on Ossus itself, given that the colony is kept off the communications grid, but Jonas and Daeruun at least should say something, right?

Thirdly, this makes it practically impossible to align multiple characters with each other. One character might have seen the Republic version of the story, thus killing Acina, while others could still have Acina as the Empress. This is an issue which won't apply to most, but I'm someone who deeply cares about where each of their own characters can fit into the game's story as a whole, and this is presently a very big sore thumb preventing that.

Finally, I feel that the choice comes really far too soon after Eternal Throne's conclusion. It's literally the next step in the story following the Alliance Commander taking the throne. That's a) too quick for new players to familiarise themselves with Jace Malcom, whose only other Eternal Throne appearance is as a silent cameo in one cutscene, and b) far too quick for Acina's new outlook for the Sith Empire to have really sunk in for anyone.

That said, I can't deny that there really would have been no great place to have a substantial change in leadership if it absolutely had to occur the way it did with no acceptable alternatives. Jedi Under Siege had so much stuff going on already and all of the focus on the arc immediately following Iokath was so specific that there would have been no time to include it either story thread.

Ultimately, Jedi Under Siege has set up even more differences for the galaxy based on character allegiance alone, but these are far more minor and any afflicted characters would no longer be important on the galactic stage even if they survived. It is thus apparent that we're going to be seeing more options for deviation in future story content. It's just a shame that the first 'true' instance of it was also the one which I find the most disagreeable.

We'll just have to wait and see how Onslaught attempts to address this.

~~~

Favourite planet(s)

I'm going to break the planet aspects of this into two answers because we've had planets delivered to us in different ways. There have been three planets given to us purely through Flashpoint / Stronghold instances alone and three planets which are (or eventually became) traditionally open-world.

My favourite instanced planet is the reborn Nathema, as seen in the Flashpoint The Nathema Conspiracy. BioWare's environmental team took Nathema, a planet previously seen to be barren, desolate, and just incredibly unpleasant to be in, and made it aesthetically beautiful. I appreciate that immensely.

My favourite open-world planet has got to be Dantooine. Not only is it fantastic to see an updated version of a planet visited in KotOR and KotOR II in SWtOR but Dantooine itself just has a very pleasing aesthetic. It's also the only one of the three daily planets to have a set structure to its dailies; as much as I appreciate Ossus for having a bunch to pick-and-choose the best from, I have to admit I loved returning to a more traditional style of daily planet.

It's just a shame that these missions aren't around on a permanent basis.

Just in general I have very few bad things to say about several of the planets introduced to us throughout 5.0. The majority have had several things which I've absolutely loved about them - Ossus's architecture, Copero's clean aesthetic, Umbara's foliage, etc. - and it's been great seeing BioWare's environment teams demonstrate their talent multiple times over.

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Least favourite planet(s)

It would be so very easy to turn around and say "Iokath!" as my least-favourite for both categories, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, since I'm categorising Iokath as an open-world planet thanks to it becoming a daily zone, I have to say that my least favourite instanced planet is Umbara.

Is this cheating? Probably, since during the train ride there's very little BioWare could have done for the surface of Umbara without making the train ride incredibly laggy. However, since the train ride is often laggy anyway this sacrifice ultimately ends up feeling somewhat in vain. Thankfully, Umbara is so much more than just that train, but even the second 'main' area is not enough to bring it above Copero in the rankings.

Does it even need to be said what my least-favourite open-world planet is after the opening?

Iokath is a veritable labyrinth of a planet. It's very easy to get lost, something which is not helped in the slightest by the constantly-changing dailies making it impossible to formulate a consistent pattern in which to do missions. It also didn't help that when they first launched several dailies were missing, others had incredibly high cost requirements for those Iokath crystals, and the mission The Meek and the Mighty was very difficult - but not impossible - to solo. Things have mellowed a bit, and that's the only positive thing I have to say about the entire planet - it used to be worse!

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Favourite piece of group content

I'm lumping all Uprisings, Flashpoints, and Operations bosses into one category here because my views for what makes an enjoyable piece of group content is pretty much identical across the board. For example, if a fight more-or-less relies on add waves to make the fight difficult I'm going to view it far less favourably than one that doesn't.

With all this in mind, my favourite group content from 5.0 is The Nathema Conspiracy. Not only is it set in a beautiful location as mentioned before but in Master mode the fights feel much more "traditional-level difficulty" than several fights in either of its two predecessors to me. There are very few big one-shot mechanics or abilities which hit like trucks, and when adds are summoned they only come in small numbers and there are no seemingly never-ending waves.

I also feel I should give a shout-out to my favourite Operations fight here. I really like the IZAX fight in particular, since it's fairly cinematic and has decent mechanics.

Yeah, that's all I have to say on this. Next!

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Least favourite piece of group content

There's one particular piece of 5.0's group content that neither I nor any groups within my guild have never cleared in its entirety despite multiple attempts at it: Master mode Trial and Error.

Trial and Error itself is my least favourite Uprising in general since it deals with Rakghouls, the concept of which I really do find a little bit unsettling. The Master mode version of this Uprising takes pretty much everything which I think makes for "bad" challenges in group content and lathers all fights with it all. Add-waves, abilities which hit like trucks, you name it, it's got it.

Particularly of note is the second boss-fight which features two enemies who constantly move around, summon adds, and eventually place incredibly painful DoTs on players while forcing them to kite them around to avoid similarly painful melee attacks. It has two separate phases with some downtime in-between, but even if you progress up to the second phase the fight will reset to the first once you die.

I haven't even seen the final fight in this Uprising myself yet, but even without seeing it the fact that the second fight is such a killer, even with an Operations-hardened group, is what makes me easily list it as my least-favourite piece of group content from this expansion.

~~~

Favourite Alliance Alert

Alliance Alerts largely took on a new form of life compared to 4.0, which were nearly all generic and afforded to every class or, at the very least, to the entirety of one faction. 5.0 gave us a grand total of five Alliance Alerts that followed this structure: Master Ranos, Shae Vizla, Darth Hexid, Arcann, and Paxton Rall. Even then, the Arcann one only appears if he is redeemed, Ranos was an exclusive reward for the Dark vs. Light event, Paxton Rall has only been a one-time subscriber reward, and Shae Vizla has had two opportunities to get her - both tied to subscriptions.

Hexid is thus the only 'generic' Alliance Alert that can be earned nowadays without any "ifs" or "buts". You only need to complete 40 Activity Finder... activities... across your server's legacy and you can unlock her for your characters.

Beyond these, every other Alert was tied to specific classes. Besides a couple who I'll be covering in a little bit, companions who returned during an Alert were given to only their original class, often resulting in a cutscene where the companion explains where they were for the past six years and with some attempt at resolving their companion-story arc from the base-game.

I've covered each and every single returning companion Alert, as well as the Arcann one, in numerous posts throughout the year, but since a couple of them are spoilerific I won't link them again here.

My favourite Alert remains to this day Unmasked Regret, the Alert afforded to a redeemed Arcann. Much like The Dragon's Maw, this mission is unlike anything else BioWare has given us since 4.0's restructuring of story-content, at least in terms of Alliance Alert. Until the mission Hearts and Minds, this was the only time where a companion within the Alliance just has a conversation with the player character away without any other significant events getting in the way or immediately preceding or succeeding it. Even the very first 'significant' conversations with Koth, Lana, or Theron on Odessen promptly gave way to the finalising of the Alliance and the "doom" statement from Darth Marr.

Even if the Arcann romance isn't started you get a lot of insight into his character in this mission. You get something of a glimpse into his childhood and he gets the chance to talk about his feelings; things you wouldn't have expected upon first seeing him in action in Sacrifice!

While we would eventually get something similar through the Hearts and Minds mission, I would love to get something like this again but on a one-to-one basis, just to get more of an opportunity to learn about some members of the Alliance as actual people. There are some very key members who I feel could really benefit from some gentle stress-free conversation to allow for more of their 'true' self to be expressed. It's not all about action, stopping Zakuul, siding with a faction; there needs to be some down-time for all involved but the story just hasn't really created much opportunity for it to occur and that's a real shame in my opinion.

Still, we have now had a couple of missions to this effect and I look forward to eventually getting even more.

~~~

Least favourite Alliance Alert

I mentioned earlier that all returning companions returned full-time to only their original class, right? There's one Alert which bends the rules slightly.

The Tatooine Shakedown sees the player meet with Akaavi Spar and Mako during a bounty hunt. Both companions found each other in the midst of getting on with life after their respective partner disappeared and have been watching each others' backs ever since. As such, both Hunters and Smugglers get to claim not just their original companion but their new ally as well.

The reason why I dislike this particular Alert the most is because it follows an identical route as the return afforded to Elara Dorne and Malavai Quinn during the Iokath storyline. Unless your character already knew one of these characters beforehand, the most details a brand-new player to the game would get about either of them would be from the brief snippets where they appeared in group conversations. At absolutely no point do they confer with the player on a strictly one-to-one basis unless they just so happen to be a part of their former companion roster.

The exact same thing happens in this Alert. While at least this time the player is guaranteed to have a one-on-one conversation with one of the companions, this still results in a situation where the other companion just exits halfway through and waits outside. This is especially jarring since in both cases the stranger companion points a gun in the player's face - even with all the endorsement in the galaxy that's not exactly an endearing introduction!

Stuff like this is why I feel we desperately need more opportunities to converse with members of our Alliance in their own unique Alerts like Arcann's. Not only would it help newer players understand a character better but it could also allow for veterans to explore how the dynamics have changed since their pre-Alliance days roaming the galaxy.

Oh well.

~~~

Favourite new character

Surprise! It's not Jedi Master Gnost-Dural!

While I am, of course, elated to have finally seen one of my biggest wishes fulfilled when this particular Kel Dor Jedi finally became realised during Jedi Under Siege, I can in no way classify him as a "new" character. Not only had he been featured in several audio-recordings that preceded the game as well as a couple of books, but his name had been brought up a couple of times beforehand within the game itself.

Plus, he's a Kel Dor. Until BioWare decide that the time is ripe to create a special Kel Dor character creator (I can dream, okay?) every single member of this species is going to be identical; they don't even have differing skin tones unlike several other base-game 'clone' species! Gnost-Dural is thus just yet another Plo Koon clone, and as much as he is still one of my favourite characters from the Prequel era it is a bit ridiculous to still keep seeing the same Antiox breath mask every time a 'new' Kel Dor crops up.

They also changed his lightsaber from green to blue.

Unforgivable.

Since I've ruled out Gnost-Dural, who have I selected as my favourite new character? There are a couple in particular to choose from as far as I'm concerned. Ultimately, one shines above all.

General Ardinondu Dipolus Daeruun graced us with his presence in Jedi Under Siege, becoming the first and so far only member of the Krex species to become a fully-fledged character. He made himself a firm favourite of mine immediately for several reasons.

Firstly, he's voiced by Darin DePaul, the voice behind both Valkorion and TYTH, making him the first genuinely-endearing character DePaul has voiced in SWtOR. Secondly, he has many hobbies and interests that help flesh him out as a character: he paints, he has a collection of musical instruments, and he has a fondness for different types of tea, particularly Gatalentan. Finally, as alluded to just now, he's just a truly charming character. I honestly can't recall the last time I encountered a new Republic character who just immediately resonated with me as much as Daeruun has.

While he is initially very much a departure from the gruff Jace Malcom we have no idea how he'll be if the Alliance Commander decides to undermine and later betray the Republic. He may be more jovial than bitter now, but this may very well change for several people later on.

Ultimately, what really swung the balance away from his fellow newcomer, Major Anri, was the fact that we got to interact with him again in the story-precursor to Dantooine, indicating how much presence he has within the Republic. Had all we'd seen of him throughout 5.0 just been the Ossus story, it would have been much harder to choose between the two since Anri also feels particularly fleshed-out as a character.

~~~

Least favourite new character

Due to its very long lifespan, 5.0 has given us proportionately more "throwaway" characters than any other expansion. Notably, The Nathema Conspiracy invented about six individuals, all with some close connection to characters a few classes can kill, purely to make up the missing numbers in the ritual. As such, I have to implement a rule saying that if a character is only voiced in one cutscene or only appears as a boss in a Flashpoint or an Operation then I do not count them as a 'character'.

With this in mind, I'm going to seemingly bend the rules and say that my least favourite new character is everyone's favourite god of rage, TYTH.

I have some logic to this choice, don't worry!

Despite his 'true' purpose as an Operations boss, TYTH features quite a bit in story content. Not only does he have a voiced appearance outside of any Operations missions or associated cutscenes - something which only five of the Dread Masters and Revan can also boast - but he pretty much has an entire update surrounding his very existence and as such he also has a fair amount of build-up. Thus, he qualifies in my mind for being an actual character to discuss.

In-game, TYTH is presented as being the superweapon I alluded to elsewhere in this post. However, when he actually appears, he's basically used to tell the player "hey, there's a traitor in your midst!" before he promptly gets blasted and retreats to set up the subsequent Operation. As the "god of rage", TYTH is very loud, angry, and incredibly self-righteous. He makes very unpleasant listening to both in the story and in his own Ops fight.

Not that the remaining machine gods aren't similarly unbearable throughout the Operation. Indeed, the only one who gets away relatively lightly is IZAX and that's only because he's inexplicably rendered mute throughout his entire fight.

Much like the Dread Operations from 2014, I'm also approaching TYTH's appearance as if I was a very casual player. No interest in group content or anything of that sort, just playing the game by myself for the story. TYTH, as the story gradually reveals, is not 'the' superweapon as he is presented to be initially - he's just one of six. The only way for these six weapons to be stopped is to go into Gods From the Machine, with no way of bringing closure to this aspect of the storyline by oneself. Yes, TYTH goes down easily in the story but it's made abundantly clear that he's only damaged, not destroyed.

This situation is then made all the stranger since at no other point does anyone bring up the machine gods again until ZILDROG is located - even then, the response is just a generic "there's another machine god!" and no indication is ever given that the others were destroyed, even if the character in question has cleared the Operation. Even the batch of Scions who you meet just have you go in and kill TYTH and they never rear their heads again afterwards, even when IZAX is destroyed.

Maybe back when they were planning on following their original schedule they would have included a cutscene at the end and it just got lost in development as time went on. Who knows? 

So, to summarise: despite the focus TYTH and the machine gods receive in the story there's very little closure, even for people who do go in and clear the Operation. Given how much focus there was on the factions even so much as finding TYTH, you'd have thought that more people would actually give something of a damn about there being five other, far more dangerous, weapons!

It's a shame, really. I initially quite liked the concept of Zakuul's pantheon being named after entities which dealt serious damage to their world. Has something of a classical-mythology feel about it.

I swear, this is going to be the last time anything Iokath-related is going to be brought up in this post!

~~~

Favourite new Companion

For these two categories, I'm only counting 'full' Companions. That is to say that following their initial joining the Companion roster they can be freely summoned and without using any 'cheats' such as leaving a Chapter or story area early. Thus, I am not including Empress Acina, Darkann, Darth Malgus, Lord Dramath, Major Anri, or Tau Idair in either of these categories.

Of all the brand-new full Companions who could have joined our roster throughout 5.0's lifespan, my favourite is still the only one to have joined us in an actual story mission. Arcann's character has seen a turbulent journey since his reveal during the Sacrifice trailer. Despite the initial implication that his attempted murder of his father was due to years of constant neglect by him, the in-game story promptly brushed all of this under the carpet and made it seem like it was purely due to ambition. This is a real shame, as the trailer had a very tragic feel because of the former implication and it said a lot about Arcann without him speaking a single word.

Indeed, even our 'suggested' treatment towards Arcann hasn't been consistent. We're supposed to hate him, mock him, pity him, and occasionally fear him all throughout Fallen Empire. Saving him does not align with all of these perspectives, and there are plenty of people who have justified their decisions to kill him on the majority, if not all, of their characters. Apparently there was some statistic somewhere which showed that more people chose to redeem him than kill him, but I don't know whether that can still be found nowadays. 

I like Arcann being a Companion for several reasons. First of all, turning a dark warrior back to the light is very much a core concept of this fairy tale which is Star Wars and it's great to see it in SWtOR. Secondly, as touched on above, Arcann is surprisngly only the second character whose alignment changes depending on the player, resulting in two very different versions of the same character (although only one Arcann can be a full Companion). Thirdly, redeeming him also means keeping Senya alive (yay!). Finally, it means that we can eventually have that Unmasked Regret alert I mentioned earlier.

Sure, a large part of why I consider Arcann to be my favourite new Companion is because he's the only brand-new Companion from this expansion whom absolutely anyone has a chance to collect just by doing story content alone (the other story ones being purely returning characters). However, I do feel that even without that, he has a lot going for him as a character and I look forward to seeing what more BioWare can do with him.

Plus, more Erik Dellums is always a good thing.

~~~

Least favourite new Companion

There are quite a few characters who could easily fit into this category.

5.0 continued on with 4.0's scheme of putting a new Companion in a Cartel Pack while those were still being sold. This practice has since been discontinued and these Companions have been put up for direct sale, but they still require either purchase with actual money or the right amount of Credits to get them from the GTN. They aren't purely luck-based anymore, and they can't be used for Crafting so are purely for cosmetic reasons only, so I feel that I can't really include them on the list 'properly'.

The Flashpoint The Nathema Conspiracy and the Mutated Geonosian Queen on Veteran Mode both have a chance to yield Companions as part of their loot drops. Nathema drops the Hunter Seeker NH-WF droid and the Queen drops a named mutated Geonosian by the name of Lysslo. As much as these are luck-based, I can't fault the game for actually including these as possible rewards for doing proper content as this is something I'd been wanting to see for some time.

The Nar Shaddaa Nightlife event returned in 5.3, bringing with it two new Jackpot rewards. A new mount and a contract for the Gamorrean Bodyguard Companion. In 5.10.3 earlier this year, the event brought yet another Companion to the rewards table: a Rodian mercenary by the name of Phrojo Nuray.

Okay, now I've reached the Companions who I feel fit in this category properly.

In a world where gambling in games is being discussed more and more, having an actual event themed around casinos seems very... off. Granted, they only appear once a year rather than being open all year around and at least players can't purchase chips with real money, but gambling is gambling no matter how it's accomplished. I get that they have to keep creating new stuff to keep people coming back, but also think about this; with the exception of the anniversary and life day events no other event has ever had its rewards updated in-between phases since the various Decorations were introduced.

They don't just get newer players who can potentially get addicted, they get veteran players who likely already do have some form of addiction having reason to try their hand again and again. That's really not right, or at least it doesn't seem so to me.

The only real positive to come from this is that with each new Jackpot reward, previous options have appeared on a vendor for direct purchase with 30 Golden Certificates. While you do still have to gamble a fair amount to get those, it's not as if these rewards will be purely reliant on the very small percentage chance to get the Jackpot forever.

Ultimately, there is every chance that this is a practice which BioWare will keep on doing, and this is why I feel justified in putting the Nightlife Companions as my least favourite to have come from this expansion. 

We'll probably see another one in 2021.

I'll probably still get it.

~~~

Miscellaneous

This is just a generic category of stuff that doesn't fit into a "most vs. least favourite" comparison.

Things I will miss

The relative simplicity of gearing

Galactic Command turned gearing into a bit of a fiasco. It wasn't complicated by any means, it just relied extremely heavily on RNG until the Operations loot was sorted out and gear-vendors were introduced. It was just an extra rung on the ladder of gear-acquisition.

6.0 is going to be expanding on this by adding complications on top of that RNG. Our characters will see a lot of extra gear dropping, including sets we may not wish to get, modifications with different stat weightings compared to others which are the exact same level and variant (I wish I was joking; there were about 20 variants of a single mod-type on the PTS), and Amplifiers are something I wish BioWare had never considered. In all, the nitty-gritty details of gear-acquisition in 6.0 aren't things I'm looking forward to contending with.

As such, this isn't just really a "things I will miss from 5.0", but a "things I will miss in general". While I don't doubt that in a couple of months time I'll have most of if not all of the things figured out and probably be starting work on another character, the gearing options in 6.0 are easily the most expansive we've ever seen in SWtOR's long history.

We'll get through it, of course we will. But it's certainly going to be a lot to get used to.

~

The menu music

Again, another "in general" point.

Clash of Destiny has been presiding over the main log-in menu for almost eight years, not including any time for when it was in-place during the various Alpha or Beta test phases. By this point most MMORPGS would have changed their menu music - and possibly their log-in character backgrounds - several times over, but SWtOR has remained largely immune to this trend.

Until now.

It's a shame to have to say farewell to Clash after so long, but I do have to say that, from what I've heard of the new menu music from the PTS, we have a worthy successor following on in its footsteps.

Thank you for your service, Clash of Destiny. It's been a good almost-eight years.

~

Personally-tailored equipment

A large part of this is entirely negated by the popularity of Outfit Designer - which I myself unashamedly use - but I feel I need to say something about it anyway.

This is the first expansion that will necessitate replacing any and every bit of equipment which players have had equipped on their character. That Legacy set you've been carefully maintaining across the years? The characters you like to keep wearing a class-specific set of equipment if you don't care for Legacy gear or the Outfit Designer? Any hint of faction-specific looks in either instance?

All a thing of the past. Gear-sets in Onslaught are all bind-on-Legacy and every set bonus is tied to the shells and not to the armourings. Faction-specific looks are not included in this, so both Imperial and Republic players alike would get access to all the same looks without any change when gear is sent over.

Happily, the wide range of sets does mean that a lot of retired and even previously-inaccessible sets will now be available.

Notably, this includes the red-and-black armour set worn by the Sith Juggernaut in the above image, a set that was teased all the way back for 2.0 yet only saw its first notable appearances with Eternal Throne. It's the armour set worn by Lords Zanisk and Anril in their respective Uprisings. A vendor on Ossus, whose name I can't recall, also wears this set.

So finally we as players will be able to get our hands on this set, realised in a uniform slate-grey, a whopping six-and-a-half years after it was first shown off on the SWtOR website.

Additionally, Marauders and Sentinels will get a variant of Orgus Din's outfit - an outfit we only got with 5.0 and only for newly-created Level 1 Knights - as one of their own set-bonus sets. BioWare, a person can use Tech Fragments for only so much, y'know?

But yeah, that small bit of "oh, yay" aside, it will be something of a shame to have to cast aside the various bits of equipment I'd been using for upwards of five years. Ultimately, it's not as if a lot of that equipment was actually functionally visible as far as I'm concerned - a lot of my characters use the Outfit Designer far more than their equipment, but there were still a couple of occasions were that equipment itself became visible.

Still, that equipment had a good run at least.

~~~

Things I will not miss

The abundance of currencies

One of BioWare's intentions with early-5.0 was the complete and utter removal of as many currencies as they could do away with. The aim was to make life less confusing and the currency tab less cluttered. 

Unfortunately for them, things started to go wrong very quickly.

Firstly, they removed both the PvE and PvP currencies since Galactic Command was meant to be the replacement for every means of acquiring gear. When they then reintroduced gear-vendors they than had to reintroduce a currency that would be used to acquire gear. Enter the new PvP-currency, Unassembled Components, which eventually also made their way into certain types of PvE content. Of all the aspects of Command, this is one of the changes that most screamed "if something isn't broken, don't fix it".

Secondly, with the introduction of newer PvE content they began introducing several new currencies to go with them. Iokath? New currency. Umbara? New currency. Ossus? New currency. Dantooine? New currency. We will be seeing a few of these staying in 6.0, namely the green Iokath, Ossus, and Dantooine currencies, but the others - thankfully including the Masterwork and Monumental Data Crystals - are being removed.

Thirdly, even stuff that didn't use to be 'currency' eventually found its way into the currency panel. Both variants of Nightlife token found their way into this panel when it returned on its second of three recurrences throughout 5.0's lifespan.

Altogether, 5.0 removed about six currencies on day one. Throughout its lifespan, we would see a total of nine brand-new currencies be introduced. They certainly had good intentions at the start.

~

Chapters

I won't try and focus too much on the various story details provided by the chapters since this was mainly 4.0's legacy. Since 5.0 continued and ended the chapter-delivery method I feel I do need to touch on them somehow.

In general, the chapters were an interesting method of story-delivery and I do still find the odd few quite enjoyable, but there's one really quite adverse side-effect to chapters in general which leaves quite a sour aftertaste.

Namely, you can count on one hand the amount of planets and locations which were openly-accessible outside of the chapters. Darvannis, Odessen, and Zakuul. Even then, there are substantial areas of Zakuul and even Odessen which are locked behind chapters, not just behind phasegates, which could have made for interesting exploration after the fact. Whilst we would later see Iokath and, technically, Vandin escape from their own chapters their more open locations are very different from what we first saw. Heck, Vandin now being its own Huttball map, one could argue that Iokath is the only instanced planet from the chapters to have become open in its own right.

Ultimately, compared to other expansion planets like Makeb, Rishi, and Yavin IV, there are very few planets seen in the chapters which are really allowed time to 'be themselves', if that makes sense. Sure, Zakuul had a few Alliance Alerts thrown in as well as the Eternal Championship, but there was no incentive to revisit the planets beyond repeating the chapter on alts or on higher difficulties when they came around.

Darvannis is a particular wasted opportunity, since it is a location otherwise seen only in Scum and Villainy. While I'm grateful that it's not restricted only to Chapter XIV of Fallen Empire, there is a lot of wasted potential in finally making an Operations planet more accessible and then not really doing anything with it.

5.0's chapters were all entirely instance-bound. At no point can you revisit a single location that isn't within the Alliance HQ without replaying a chapter. Chapter IX of Eternal Throne pulls a particularly annoying variant of this in the chamber of the throne itself; despite it being the big thing the expansion was named after, the only time it appeared was in cutscenes. We could see nothing more of that chamber by ourselves.

Granted, I can see some higher-ups in the BioWare story team looking at the horribly impractical design of the chamber and thinking that they didn't want the gravitas of that throne reduced by players being irresistibly drawn to the safety-rail-less edges and plummeting to their deaths for a laugh. Nor perhaps would they have wanted someone dragging some friends along, asking them to sit in the chair, and creating a bunch of silly screenies.

But damnit that's the sort of stuff that can make an open map even more fun than the stuff that's designed to be there.

~

Zakuul

Having a mysterious third faction interpose themselves between the Empire and the Republic has been a rather common theme throughout SWtOR's history. The Agent's storyline did it, the Knight's storyline paved the way for it, Shadow of Revan did it, and eventually Fallen Empire did it. Heck, we ourselves became a part of such a faction with the Alliance.

Thus, throughout Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne there were times when about four factions were all in-play at any one time (Empire, Republic, Alliance, Zakuul / Order of Zildrog). Needless to say, I for one am pretty sick of all this "mysterious additional faction" nonsense so I hope we won't see another one as the main villain again for some time.

I get that some people somehow find the whole "Empire vs. Republic" story boring and tedious, but at the same time I genuinely can't understand how people found Zakuul of all things in any way investing. It just comes out of nowhere yet does so many things within a relatively short space of time. I'm not just talking about the stuff that happens "five years later", I'm talking about the stuff that goes on shortly before and after the capture of the Outlander.

We know from the original Blur trailer, eventually supported by a line of in-game dialogue, that the brothers Arcann and Thexan had been waging conquest across various worlds including Korriban before the story starts proper. We don't know how many worlds had fallen, but it was enough to get both the Empire and the Republic worried to the point where they agreed to a coalition force led by the de facto leader of the Dark Council (and, curiously, nobody important from the Republic unless the Outlander is themselves a Republic player).

It then promptly goes on to declare war on the rest of the galaxy to avenge the 'death' of Valkorion and it just flat-out wins. We don't know how it wins exactly other than by probable sheer force, but both factions end up paying reparations and tributes on a massive scale, the Dark and Jedi Councils are both fragmented with Satele Shan in hiding, and the Star Fortresses just show up across an untold number of worlds.

To top it all off, as a result of Zakuul being Zakuul, the civil wars on Alderaan and Voss - both crucial plot-points on both planets - are just brought to a screeching halt. I'm sorry, but what? These are both storylines that could have been really interesting to see play out in a more detailed and lengthy storyline, but due to the time-skip it's just pretty much an "oh, and this happened" moment. That's just, and I really hate to say this phrase over and over again, a good amount of wasted potential right there. Damnit, Zakuul!

That's not to say that there isn't some good that can potentially still come of this. While I'm sure the houses of Alderaan will now be back at each-others' throats again (huzzah!), I'm interested to know whether or not there are now people within those houses who are more amenable to a lasting peace treaty than they ever really were before. They've had to work with their former rivals for nearly a decade at this point, surely something must have made people think about how the houses' relationships aren't nearly as black-and-white as they were first educated to believe.

That could be an interesting story to pursue further down the line with how BioWare are seemingly doing their stories now, as it could allow for good saboteur / loyalist story branches. Imperial loyalists must disrupt negotiations while saboteurs help the process, while Republic loyalists and saboteurs do the opposite. Ooh, yes, that sounds lovely.

Plus, the resource crisis which has emerged as a result of the war and reparations is what's likely leading to the fuel-station Mek-Sha being a major point of contention in the next storyline. Fuel being almost as scarce as shreds of honour within Skadge's soul, we're not exactly going to be seeing our factions at full strength again for some time. This should be an interesting dynamic that I'm interested to see evolving as the expansion's story goes on.

This also reminds me a bit of 2.0's storyline, at least the Imperial perspective thereof. The Empire played the long game throughout the Makeb storyline, saving Makeb only so that it could exploit the Isotope-5 to save itself. It seems that we'll be seeing aspects of another long-game, just with the results probably depending on whichever faction you're seeing the story of as that seems to be something BioWare are really keen on doing right now.

Or at least that's just what I see being a likely outcome based on what we know about Mek-Sha as a location. It would also tie in well with the recent announcements on fleet announcing the recent fuel-reserves crisis.

Point is, I'm absolutely thrilled to see Zakuul and any real existence of a different faction fade away into the background. Let the wars begin!

~~~

There's no denying that 5.0 gave us a fair amount of stuff over its almost three-year-long lifespan. It brought us nine chapters' worth of story content, ten Uprisings, three Flashpoints, six Operation fights, three Daily zones each with their own stories of varying lengths, two new Strongholds, two new Warzones and a new Arena, too many new and returning characters to name, and thirteen returning companions.

It's far too obvious that 5.0 has been suffering a lot from needing to play catch-up with itself due to the condensing of BioWare's planned story content post-Fallen Empire. Arguably the first time it really came into its own story-wise was with 5.10 and Jedi Under Siege since by this point anything directly related to Zakuul and Vitiate was a thing of the past and even the Alliance had begun to fragment.

For what it's managed to accomplish even with that handicap, I think 5.0 ended up being a decent patch-cycle. It wasn't the best of the patch-cycles by any means, but it also was far from being the worst - at least, in my opinion. It gave it a go, put on a heck of a show, and it was certainly an interesting ride from start to finish.

Here's to Onslaught doing the same.