Nine: And so, the time has come...

...to say goodbye.

When I created this blog nine years ago today, I had no idea how long it was destined to last. I had previously tried creating a blog a year prior, although it had very little longevity and I lost interest after writing three posts. I remember thinking it would be quite fun to focus a portion of that blog's energy around specific characters and their activities, like gushing over an Inquisitor's new ship, and so on, although that didn't come to pass ultimately. I even tried creating my own version of the character portrait frames as part of the aesthetic, something I'm very glad didn't survive beyond the conceptual phase!

Still, I hadn't quite abandoned the idea of blog-writing entirely, and a few months later Spawn of the Dread Master popped into existence. Through it, I got to interact with several members of the blogging community while getting my thoughts about the game out and about. It was really quite good fun, and I have some excellent memories from this blog's tenure.

Still, there comes a point when everything reaches its end. It's nice to think that something has the potential to go on forever and ever, but in practice it often can't or shouldn't work out that way. In some regards, I feel very fortunate; considering my track record for various projects, that what is now Galactic Antics even managed to reach its first anniversary without collapsing is incredible.

To reach nine? Wow. 

I'm choosing to pull the plug on this blog now rather than try and help it through another year or more simply because I've always believed in ending things on your own terms. I'd rather give this blog a proper ending rather than let it just die, and I'm genuinely concerned that when it comes to finding things to write about and subsequently getting my thoughts on paper, my current success rate with fleshing out a post concept will result in the blog just dying on its own with no send-off.

Plus, it feels right that it should be put to rest on the same day and even the exact same time my first post was published. Oh, yeah, pulling out all the poetic stops with this one!

Since I had been intending to end the blog today, for the past few weeks I had been trying to hash out some posts that I either always wanted to write or those which were relevant to my current interests. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful, but I will provide a short summary of what I would have liked to write about with each below!

~~~

Favourite Music in SWTOR

This one has been in my "I must write about this some day!" list for years. As someone who is big into soundtracks such as SWTOR's, it seemed logical that a post about this would be right up my alley.

Yet it never got written, because I felt absolutely terrified about inadvertently getting out of my depth. I enjoy music, but I could never dive into the themes, the melodies, or provide any substantial thoughts or feelings about a given piece of music other than saying "it's cool, I like it" and variations thereof. It's disappointing to almost be paralysed in such a manner regarding something that I love, but it is what it is.

In terms of pieces of music I would identify in such a post, the list would include the following:

A War of Heirs

Alderaan, the Throne

Balmorra, the Forge

Clash of Destiny

Coruscant, the Capital

Hope, the Republic Trooper

Peace, the Jedi Consular

The Clairvoyance of Aryn Leneer

I think some of these largely became my favourites courtesy of repetition, allowing the tune to get stuck in my head. Notably, part of Hope, the Republic Trooper would play on loop during the end to Act I aboard the Justice, and since that was the very first Act I conclusion I saw and it happened to be really quite long back in the day, it ended up sticking. That's also not the mention the music that plays when the trooper leaves a space station or planet with their ship, which is second only to the consular's in my view.

The consular definitely cheats, however, by making liberal use of the frustratingly-unreleased music that accompanies Obi-Wan's arrival to Utapau in Revenge of the Sith. That's a beautiful piece of music and I am sorry that we have no official avenue to accessing it.

Others, such as Balmorra, the Forge and The Clairvoyance of Aryn Leneer, I fell in love with the first time hearing them, especially as the opening 50 seconds of the former accompanied Imperial characters' visits to Balmorra from day one. In general, Balmorra, the Forge is a brilliant piece to represent the theme of Balmorra as this war-torn planet, where it is your job to help tear things down further before eventually building it back up again. That last minute and 12 seconds is absolutely glorious, and is well used in the Knights of the Fallen Empire launch trailer. 

I have a particular soft spot for Alderaan, the Throne, courtesy of its almost medieval-evoking harpsichord. It creates a very strong mental image of civility and elegance, and honestly would probably fit a generic fantasy game very well outside of the Star Wars brand. It's just such a lovely piece to accompany the peaceful landscapes of Alderaan.

There are some pieces of music that I really like that were never officially released, either on SWTOR's youtube channel or via the Collector's Edition CD, like the rendition of the KotOR theme that plays during Revan's grand entrance at the end of Legacy of the Rakata. While some videos do exist of the ripped music files, I cannot in good faith include them officially on this list.

I have absolutely loved listening to the music of SWTOR, and I look forward to hearing what new pieces they have in the pipeline for future content.

~

A Gut-Feeling Comparison between SWTOR and WOW

This one has tried to take several different forms over the past couple of months. Obviously, my take on the latter game is going to be heavily biased; I'm new to it, I've been used to what SWTOR has done for almost twelve years, and my idea of what makes a game fun and compelling will be very different to a lot of the typical WoW playerbase.

With that in mind, the latest iteration of this post would have looked at things I ultimately loved about how SWTOR handles things compared to WoW. This would touch on the incredible alt-friendliness, something which SWTOR feels increasingly like it was ahead of its time with, lack of emphasis on "short-term" current content, and viability of so much of the game courtesy of level-scaling compared to what WoW does.

For example, the middle category of those three would touch on how WoW loves to have cycles of new activities or various 'seasonal' dungeons for its playerbase that may or may not include gear upgrades, then introduce something new a short while later that may give better gear, causing some of this earlier  'new' content to just become abandoned even if only two months old.

It's just so baffling to me that this is just how things are. I mean, I know things also become fairly quiet in SWTOR once people get all they want from it, but the game does at least try to encourage you to go back to older daily zones, and at least because their rewards are mostly timeless (i.e., mainly cosmetic) that doesn't render them redundant if starting them afresh with newer characters or as a new player!

Additionally, I tend to find that in the case of the Mythic+ dungeons, where eight dungeons at a time are made available in difficulty-scaling mode that can increase up into the +20s, having such a concentrated focus actually makes it harder to memorise stuff. Within SWTOR, I know I don't need to fret about working on memorising stuff, as I've been doing flashpoints and operations for years, and because they're all scaled up to our level it is quite easy to just go and do them. In WoW, because you have to memorise so much in such a short space of time, that paradoxically makes it easier to forget about things if you have to take a break of even a week or two.

It doesn't help that there's so much more going on courtesy of the "affixes", which give different challenges each week, so there may be some weeks where you don't need to worry about 'extra' stuff and can just focus on the proper dungeon mechanics themselves, and other weeks where the affixes present a significant difficulty upgrade for whatever reason. I get the feeling that I'll finally have cracked which dungeon does what, where, and when by the time the season ends and another eight get set up. Not fun.

Yeah, that's right, I'm finding reason to complain about an MMO churning out multiple significant updates in a short period of time. MMO players, always finding something negative about the grass which we don't realise is greener, huh?

There's also much less onus on just keeping up-to-date with a character in SWTOR, because you can just get gear and level up regardless of where your character is in the story. Sure, someone like me who has all their characters caught up to the most recent story is in the unlucky position of always having to repeat the same stuff in short order, but someone who has ten, twenty characters, all of whom are spread out story-wise? There's a lot of variety there for what you can do and how slowly or quickly you want to progress any given character through stuff.

Heck, there's a guildie of mine in SWTOR who hasn't even started Knights of the Fallen Empire on the vast majority of his characters, and has never seen beyond the earlier parts of 4.0's storyline despite being max-level with several characters and a frequent contributor to endgame progression and fun casual content. I can't say I blame him, given the quality of a good portion of the content that succeeded Rise of the Hutt Cartel's various storylines, but it's a stark contrast compared to WoW, where if you want to get a character to max-level and geared up, you need to have access to the new expansion's area or group content and will be steered towards doing the new stuff even if you're halfway through the previous expansion's content. 

Essentially, I think what I'm getting at is that I'm not a huge fan of how WoW focuses so much on making each of its newest expansions, events, or areas relevant until a new one comes out and they essentially abandon what came before compared to SWTOR trying its best to keep the entire game relevant somehow. WoW is massive, but it feels tiny at the same time due to just how much stuff is just... irrelevant beyond a certain point. Even trying to level through an old expansion kicks you back to doing the 'actual' story the moment you hit a certain level (which, as of the latest patch, is now level 61, and before that 60 and 50). That's not a good look in my book.

Ultimately, this comparison is really what's hurting my long-term potential for WoW, and why I do not believe I will be investing in any future expansions unless things change drastically. I love having the option to flit between multiple characters in SWTOR and use them for whatever I want to, as they all have the same rating gear and I know how to use them to a good standard. There is much less effort involved in focusing on a given character, and it subsequently doesn't feel as much of a waste to focus intermittently on different characters if you're having trouble deciding which one you enjoy most.

It's certainly a risk in WoW that you can feel like you've made a 'mistake' in switching mains and losing needed time and opportunity to gear up another character. This is also not helped if this realisation coincides with a once-thriving zone now being abandoned, depriving you of decent and casual access to upgrade materials and the like. That isn't a fun feeling at all.

I may have a fair number of issues with SWTOR and what it's doing, but I will always define it as "my" MMO simply because I have far fewer long-term issues with its core gameplay and values. Sure, BioWare kept us in the dark a lot of the time, and chances are that will continue under Broadsword, but at the same time I'd rather not be faced with the knowledge that this or that piece of content will only be relevant for a couple of months, if that, before something new comes in before it even gets released. 

I'll take 'timeless' content, where in theory you can come along to it any time you like and still get the exact same experience as you would have done on day one, over stuff like that any day.

~

What my "Ideal" MMO would be

Having played five MMOs, I've seen a fair number of features across them that I really like when compared to similar features in other games. Thus, it seemed like an idea to try and highlight what these features would be and combine them into one big ideal MMO.

Of course, this is a massive concept, and it can't be denied that a number of the things I like would be impractical except if money were no object. I mean, SWTOR's story delivery in terms of origin stories, and fully-voice-acted cutscenes, and treating classes as characters rather than vice-versa is probably going to be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. It's absolutely fantastic, but we know from experience that it quickly became something that not even SWTOR could keep going to a great extent for very long.

Other features I would have identified beyond quest and story delivery would be the customisation features seen in Neverwinter Online and The Elder Scrolls Online, where the outfit and dyeing systems blow SWTOR's out the water with things like dyes that can be applied in any order to an outfit and even weapon's available colour slots (a maximum of three) rather than being a pre-packaged deal of two dyes that are occasionally released alongside a reversed variant. It seems like such a small thing to call out of all the features possible, but designing a character and their looks is incredibly important to me, so of course I have to prioritise it.

Definitely would pick the alt-friendliness of ESO and SWTOR in terms of gearing characters. ESO needs to learn more about alt-friendliness with things like mount training, but then I guess they wouldn't profit from riding lessons sold on the Crown Store as much... 

World-design would be ESO, hands-down. ESO is by far the prettiest MMO I have ever played, and courtesy of many town NPCs having unique looks and even names their towns also feel the most alive of any MMO I have ever played, with WoW following behind. Heck, the NPCs even have different voiced dialogue, both with other NPCs and directed at the player, depending on your quest progress. That's pretty swish, even though some lines do get tiresome. 

Dragons, in your own homeland! Praise Vivec! THE GUILD HAS NEED OF YOU, COMRADE! Oh, just shush, you lot.

Otherwise, in terms of core gameplay it would have to be more akin to SWTOR and WoW's style than the actiony style of ESO and Neverwinter. I found myself absolutely loathing the action gameplay when I tried raiding and harder difficulty dungeons in ESO, and when it came to SWTOR in some form with R-4 Anomaly I just noped out of there very quickly. I'm sorry, I play these games for fun, and having to be aware of when to move, where to move, constantly doing stuff on the move, etc. etc. just isn't fun to me. I may have a ton of respect for players who can play these games well, but I have no interest in imitating them even by choice.

When I tried Jedi Survivor I promptly pegged it down to the lowest difficulty, as the parry-dodge-block style of combat just isn't what I live for. I'm happy I didn't pay for that game (courtesy of EA Play Pro, I didn't steal the thing; it's not even worth that!) given that I stopped after about six or so hours, and no, "it gets good after x hours" is not an excuse for forgiving dire gameplay in the first few hours, especially when it's not good enough to make up for a dragging storyline.

Getting sidetracked. Point is, I'd pick anything but actiony quick-reflex gameplay.

Funnily enough, aside from combat and content structure (raids, dungeons, etc.), the latter of which is shared to the letter by almost all of these games, I actually don't know if there's anything I would actually pick from WoW that no other game does...

~~~

Conclusion and Farewell

Well, here we are. The end.

These past nine years have been good fun. I have enjoyed nursing this blog through the years, and I'm grateful to have given myself the opportunity to start anew after my prior attempt.

Would I want to pick blogging up again? I can't say I would at the moment, at least not until I get over my current struggles with actually writing things to a satisfactory standard. Indeed, to prove that point, this is actually the second time I have written this post out in-full due to my not liking the original "final" draft.

If I were to create another blog at any point in the future, it would be more general and just be used as an outlet for anything that comes to me on any subject. I firmly believe that the days of maintaining a specialist blog, even one with a theoretically wider scope, are behind me.

Regardless of how rough things have been over the past couple of years in particular, I have very much loved being a part of the wider SWTOR and blogging community. I hope people have enjoyed reading my various thoughts on what's been going on in SWTOR, and even though I may no longer be jotting them down I will still be paying close attention to what does go on in the future. Those of you reading other SWTOR blogs will likely see me cropping up in their comments sections from time to time, so I'm not going to fade entirely into obscurity.

It's been fun. Thank you all for sticking with this blog for as long as you have, and for now: 

Farewell, and may the Force be with you.

Ranking SWTOR's Expansion Patches

In my last post, I talked at length about my favourite individual story update from each expansion. While I discussed certain patches which launched an expansion, none featured in the list itself, with each expansion instead being represented by an update that came out during their lifespans.

For the most part, this is because I tend to find a lot of expansion patches themselves relatively lacklustre, at least in terms of story content. A few of them have brought in changes to game systems that I really like,  and some I do enjoy the story of, but thus far no single expansion has provided both a story I really enjoyed and really great new or updated features and the like in one package.

Once again, this post will be completely ignoring the version of the game that launched with 1.0. The sheer breadth of content that came with the released game, while lacking in endgame, is quite simply unparalleled when it comes to the rest of SWTOR's story content. It's thus unfair to really include it in the same category, as that launch content still holds up really well; far better, in fact, than several storylines that we've seen come out throughout the years.

On with the show!

My Favourite Story Updates From Each Expansion (So Far)

When it comes to expansions in an online game, SWTOR has had a fair amount of variance with the content it would offer in its own expansion patch-cycles. Some, like 2.0 and 5.0, would deliver the expansion's  entire themed story in the very first update and then immediately (or at least quickly) segue into something new, and others, like 4.0 and 7.0, stick with the intended theme all the way through.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods.

For updates like 2.0 and 5.0, you run into a situation where you're logging in with the game's splash-art proudly telling you that you're off to put the Hutt Cartel down or wrestle with Vaylin for the Eternal Throne, when actually you're past all that and are now dealing with Czerka and whatever it is that's going down on Copero. However, especially as far as 2.0 is concerned, this breadth of content also helps the galaxy feel far bigger, as there's much more going on than just chasing down one man's plans or seeing how separate stories become entwined.

For updates like 4.0 and 7.0, the story should feel more streamlined as it's all part of one big story, but that presents another problem entirely; if the story doesn't work, and that's all you've got, it's going to leave one heck of a sour taste. 7.0's glacial story content release presents a further problem with this, that being that stringing people along for months if not years before things come to light can go wrong very, very easily if the payoff isn't deemed satisfactory.

I do prefer having more variety of stuff to do, but there's no denying that the 2.0 model in particular wouldn't work as well nowadays. Back then, we were just another player in the galaxy, with no power-base to speak of, and it was easier to slot us into some inconsequential stuff as a main story update. That's not to say that inconsequential stuff can't still happen now that we're the Commander of the Alliance and powerful higher-up within Task Force Nova and the Hand of the Empire, like with the Feast of Prosperity, but it's much more of a side thing than an actual story update.

It's funny in that regard to compare SWTOR to the occasional stuff that World of Warcraft does. WoW likes to do a lot of "cutesy" stuff, which can often be fun, but I really don't think that would translate across well to SWTOR.

"What do you mean the next story update involves helping a clutch of turtles survive on Rishi? I'm the Alliance Commander, slayer of Valkorion, ally of Mandalore herself, and the one who's going to kick Malgus's butt! I can't do something as meaningless as this!"

I mean, I'd definitely be up for helping turtles survive on Rishi if ever that does become a thing. I may never be able to make up for unintentionally killing Speedy, but if I can help some survive in their honour, I'll feel a little bit happier.

Anyway, the point of today's post is that I intend to look back over the various expansions - including the base-game - and talk about my favourite story updates that came with each one. This will not just involve my talking about the story content each patch delivers, but any extra things they added if I deem them important enough.

I am including 7.0 in this despite the fact that we're still partway through it, because I'm still intending to bring this blog to a close next month, so I'm not going to be able to comment on 7.0's grand finale. I might as well address my current favourite update in this expansion while I'm giving myself the opportunity!

On with the show!

Passage of Peace, Past

Galactic Season 4 is finally in my rear-view mirror at last. Despite my growing reservations about Galactic Seasons as a concept, I have ended up dutifully doing my part each time, although by now the process feels incredibly formulaic and in dire need of another rework.

The trouble is, it doesn't feel like there isn't a lot they can change to me. The objective system works well enough, and it's always nice when something that in recent years has been kind of neglected like a comparatively obscure world boss gets featured. Much like the introduction of level-scaling, I like how that particular aspect of the whole thing makes older content both relevant and actually involving. 

My appreciation for what SWTOR has done over the years has grown exponentially since getting involved in World of Warcraft. That game honestly feels horrifically dated compared to what SWTOR has going for it at times.

That said, I am definitely looking forward to seeing what Galactic Season 5 has up its sleeve to try and make things different. Honestly, the thing I would like to see be looked at or removed entirely, even if just for this upcoming season, is the seasonal reputation track.

A new reputation track is a pretty safe option to add as a new grind. It keeps people tied to specific content or areas for a while if they want shiny rewards from a reputation vendor, and with seasons it's just another thing to add to the checklists for specific weekly objectives and achievements. However, since the seasonal reputation is entirely tied to a currency you receive for completing seasonal objectives or killing foes, that can result in quite a big grind depending on what you do if you wish to stay afloat.

Sometimes, that's easy. If you're the sort of person who happily pugs flashpoints and story mode operations like no tomorrow, you'll likely end up swimming in the stuff. If you are a progression raider who spends half their week working up to a final boss and not necessarily killing it, and that's the only group content you do, that's an entire sector of content where you're effectively locked out of gaining currency for.

Not even the Jawa Intel feels like it helps a great deal while out killing foes on daily runs if that ends up being your main source of income outside of objectives. Sure, it does help, but the drop rate on the things is still really quite woeful. 

PvPers, meanwhile... okay, so it's been a while since I've done a PvP match and associated weekly, so maybe they've changed this, but I don't believe there's any way for them to earn currency just from doing PvP.

Oh, and even if you do get an absolute shedton, you're still limited to a 5,000-per-week reputation cap. Again, I get it, they have to stretch it out somehow as completing 100 weekly objectives for the achievement will take fifteen weeks minimum, so completing the reputation track six weeks before that isn't something I feel the developers are happy to let people do. Unfortunately, this does mean that if you start working on the reputation "too late", even by just a week, you're completely screwed and have no chance to complete the track in time to complete the relevant achievements.

The thing is, I can get why they've done it this way. It's clearly a hangover from the original design of 7.0's content: encourage players to do as much of everything as possible in order to maximise their gain of relevant stuff. However, there is a very fine line between people feeling "encouraged" and people feeling "forced", and in this regard I can definitely sympathise with PvPers in particular who care enough about seasons to complete everything, as their favourite activity may well yield nothing.

All of this is why I feel the seasonal reputation tracks require a rework. Just a slight one, it doesn't need to be massive, but I would like to see things change.

The most immediate thing I can think of would be to increase the source of currencies. Adding them to the PvP daily / weekly boxes if they aren't already there would allow those who only do PvP to maintain a steady income without needing to go elsewhere. Operations are trickier, in that while I would perhaps like to see them spread the currency tokens across bosses much like tech fragments are, that may lead to certain operations (looking at you, Scum & Villainy) being a better source if only by a couple, up to a few, tokens. 

At least all operations of a certain type and difficulty giving the same amount from the last boss is fair, even if it means those who just do progression raids without killing the final boss miss out on currency.

Secondly, I would like to see an option added for players starting later than others to "catch up" with the reputation if they would wish. I don't really know how feasible this option is, as there has been no indication that the developers can even allow the weekly cap to be adjusted on a personal basis. Added to which, there would also need to be a system in place to detect which players would be relevant for a catch-up mechanic.

If it is possible, I would like to see a multiplier-system be introduced. Let's say a player who is still at the lowest tier in week five is allowed access to a token which temporarily increases the weekly cap by a factor of 1.75, in other words up to 8,750, increasing to a factor of 2 in week 6, and so on. Any tokens that player activates during this time are also multiplied by that same factor. This would, in theory, allow them to use the same number of tokens to reach the original weekly cap as before, but still at potentially a fast enough rate to complete the track in time.

It might not even be possible to begin with, in which case pipe dream, but I'm just trying to think of ways that the developers can make this particular grind feel less annoying the later you come to it. I mean, sure, at the end of the day you're not going to get everyone through, but I do feel sorry for everyone who does come to it late, or believes they're fine until they get a rude awakening that oh no you're not, and by then there's nothing they can do.

Thirdly, there is also the option to have the objectives themselves drop reputation tokens rather than just currency. Make it so that the 8-pointers drop a large blue, and the 12-pointers drop a purple, and you're away. By all means, continue to have the currency as a backup option, as it would still be required to allow players to keep earning the reputation, but then maybe that itself needs a rework. Rework the jawa, make it so that he'll sell a reputation trophy of your choice from any inactive season to you for various jawa scraps, and you needn't continue adding seasonal currency after seasonal currency.

It would be nice to cut down on that. Remember when their goal was to reduce the number of currencies we had to minimise confusion? 7.0 says "hi!".

Fourthly, and easiest of all, make the dang things cheaper!

~

In all seriousness, I really wouldn't mind it if with GS5 we saw the removal of the reputation track, even if just for one season. I don't really know what its replacement could be in terms of achievements, although since each companion has a specific activity associated with them as a weekly objective, maybe they could make it so that you had to complete that activity a certain number of times during the season.

Or maybe just... don't add a new achievement for the sake of it if there is no reputation track to do. Just leave off with earning level 100, the 100 weeklies, and the umbrella achievement for both. 

If they do end up adding seasonal reputation tracks with each successive season and we don't end up with a break somewhere along the line, I really hope we get a change in the current status quo. It's been fine enough for the time being, but there have been some serious flaws exposed throughout the last three seasons that could really do with being addressed.

Trouble is, I don't really think there's a lot they're ultimately going to be able to do. I'd love to be surprised, though.

~~~

To bring this back on-topic for my finishing GS4, it was... alright. I still feel that Amity hasn't done quite enough to beat PH4-LNX as my favourite of the companion, despite my own disappointments about how Fay was handled, but he was decent enough. I do miss being able to dress up the seasonal companion like you could Altuur, but I get why they've shifted to full-body-and-outfit customisations, and at least with Amity they actually did a full unique costume rather than just the gloves as they did with Fen.

Well, I say "gloves", but really they were just his hands with a glove texture appended on. That's SWTOR's aliens like duros for you. 

I don't really know what, or who, I'd like to see next. Amity fulfilled my previously-expressed wishes for a faction-specific soldier and a Force-user in one go, but I'd still like to see something that feels like it's quite special at some point. Fen, Altuur, Fay, they're all in some regards representing the neutral underworld, when there is so much potential for more.

I'd still love to see us get someone whose role in the galaxy actively clashes with at least one of the factions, rather than someone who fits in no-matter-what. Give us a disgruntled Imperial soldier, a Sith, a Jedi, someone who doesn't necessarily plug-and-play. It could be really interesting to see how a character of a specific faction responds to their situation, whether it involves us helping them feel better about continuing their role now that warfare has broken out if you're of the same faction and loyalty as they are, or maybe even convince them that there is more to life than just being the same-old-same-old and to break away from their former ties if you're of the opposite faction or are a saboteur.

Heck, some of the best stuff in SWTOR comes when characters with specific dichotomies enter into dialogue with one another. Lana and Gnost-Dural's conversation prior to Objective Meridian still stands out in my mind as a really good interaction between two people of different origin and alignment, and even though the Alliance can be allied with either the Republic or the Empire as well as its own thing, it is still presented as maintaining some of its prior neutral elements.

But what is the point of that if the writers aren't actively trying to find opportunities to explore those elements? In general, it would be really interesting to get some feeling about how your personnel are feeling, like maybe some updated ambient conversations like the ones you hear as your alliance specialist influence grows, just so we know how our current personnel are feeling about potentially fighting their loved ones.

It's certainly still quite fertile ground. I hope to someday see it explored, and I feel a seasonal companion would be a decent way of going about things. We shall see what we shall see.

Broadsword, Part 2

I haven't really posted about my thoughts on SWTOR's rumoured move to Broadsword since my last post on the matter, and that's mainly because... well... what was there to say? It's all so unknown, whether it actually would move at all, whether it would go to somebody else, and what sort of impacts that will have. I will happily theorise about in-universe stuff until kingdom come, but something like this, which is actually meaningful?

No, there's just no point getting caught up in "what this will really mean!!!" for the game and the community. What will happen will happen.

However, earlier today after a couple of posts by Keith Kanneg acknowledging the rumour and answering some general questions about it as best he could - I mean, he's never going to convince those who've already decided this is the game's final death knell, is he? - we finally have official confirmation that Broadsword is indeed taking over the reins of SWTOR.

These posts echo a general feeling I have seen from ex-SWTOR developers and those more in the know about BioWare and such things; that Broadsword is better-handled to carry an MMO forward than BioWare is. I mean, BioWare are not a bad game studio, nor are they a bad studio when it comes to crafting stories, but an MMO is not a game that BioWare is traditionally best at running. 

With a game series like Mass Effect, mechanics and gameplay are on the whole secondary to the story. That's not to say that they aren't important, but you tend to remember characters and dynamic moments in the storyline more than you do how a particular class plays. Doubly so for Knights of the Old Republic, the gameplay of which has aged horrifically while the story still holds up well. An MMO, on the other hand, often ends up being far more about the gameplay than the story, as people spend so much more time just doing stuff once they've done all the story, whether that be daily zones, PvP, raiding, etc., etc. 

The point is, unlike a traditional single-player game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age which is one-and-done, with DLC as an additional extra thing to invest in if they're asked to or want to, with an MMO you've got to do a lot more stuff on a regular basis. Sure, BioWare have proved capable of doing this; the 2.0 patch-cycle stands out as a prominent example of what the company could do for the game at its strongest, and since then no expansion or patch-cycle has ever really come close to repeating its sheer volume of content in a similar length of time.

I'm not envisaging for a second that Broadsword will be able to instantly turn things around and make every subsequent expansion like 2.0. However, if certain rumours are correct and BioWare were using the income from SWTOR to bump up other projects more than they were to improve SWTOR itself, then not having this drain will be immensely beneficial somewhere along the line. After all, everything costs money, and if BioWare weren't investing nearly as much money into SWTOR as it needed... honestly, I don't see how things can't improve.

Truth be told, I'm honestly more scared for BioWare's future than I am SWTOR's. They haven't had a lot of big successes recently, with Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda both being disappointments financially. Sure, they had Mass Effect Legendary Edition, but that was just a remaster; impressive, yes, but if you've already played the full trilogy several times over there's nothing really new there that you couldn't experience second-hand.

Point is, with the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect games still being worked on and nowhere near release, that suddenly puts a shedton of pressure on BioWare to get them right. After all, they won't have SWTOR to keep them afloat anymore, so if either of these games fails in EA's eyes... I honestly don't see BioWare surviving.

I really hope it does continue to persist, however. It's had some wonderful games throughout its time, and it would be sorely missed.

For SWTOR, however, I am very much looking forward to seeing what this move will result in. Even if it takes a while for things to manifest, it's nice to think that things are looking relatively positive now it can actually flourish without anything holding its investment opportunities back. I wish everyone with the current team well, both those moving to Broadsword and those who are sadly being left behind and needing to find their way. I'm really hoping those folks can find new work in good time.

Until the future, then. Let's see what it holds.

Oh, and we also have news that the next Galactic Season is coming with the next patch, which was previously stated as being towards the end of Summer. Another instance of a Galactic Season starting roughly a month after the previous one ends. Joy.

Thoughts on 7.3: The Good, the Bad, and the Eeehhhhhs

A new story patch is out, and of course I have to offer my thoughts on it.

7.3: Old Wounds follows immediately on from Ruhnuk, and both us and Shae Vizla are seeking answers about Nul and her datacron from Darth Malgus before it potentially gets too late. We're also invited to Voss, as Sana-Rae and Arcann finally have answers from the expedition we sent them on towards the end of 6.0.

There's a fair bit to cover, so let's get started!

Contemplating 7.3, Galactic Season 4, and Gaming Apathy

After all the recent hubbub about SWTOR's future, the news that Old Wounds would be launching on the 13th of June is very welcome. It's roughly when I expected it to be, as when the PTS went down towards the end of May I stated that I could maybe see it due a fortnight later (in other words, the 6th), so a week later is still pretty close to my original estimations.

In the meanwhile, I'm just chugging along with the latest Galactic Season, and am almost at the end point now. Certainly, I no longer need to worry about maintaining a consistent income of Notes of Reflection each week, as once I hand in those which I accrued this past week I'll only need a couple of hundred more reputation to hit the cap. Yes, I could always pop the reputation boost tokens and get it done on Tuesday, but I know from experience that the persistent nature of the 24-hour long buff (i.e., it cannot be clicked off, and it doesn't tick down when logged out) bugged me the last time I tried it so am not keen to repeat that again.

Besides, I'd only use it to boost one token. All that, when just waiting seven days would do just fine?

Regardless, once that's done it's just focusing on the last 23 objectives then that's this season done and dusted at last.

At that point, I don't really know what my plan is. I have noticed a growing sense of apathy towards not just MMOs but video games in general these past couple of months. Notably, when Jedi: Survivor was on the horizon, I just felt... nothing. Sure, I watched a few of the gameplay fluff videos explaining what was what, but I honestly felt no real pull. As a subscriber to EA Play Pro, it is a game I would get access to through that, so I acknowledged I would at least give it a go, but I had no real desire to actually buy the thing.

And indeed, it didn't stick the landing as far as I'm concerned. The original game, Fallen Order, was okay, but as the sequel got nearer and nearer I honestly just felt I didn't need to see the crew in action again. I was quite happy with the open ending of the original, and I have to say I just didn't feel much excitement for a sequel even back then.

I'm finding the same sort of thing about the new game that's just been announced, Outlaws. I mean, it looks pretty, don't get me wrong, but I'm just not feeling much excitement about it. It doesn't help either that it's an open-world game, and those are extremely personal taste. I have to say that my experiences with the tedious design of Mass Effect: Andromeda's open world environments really haven't endeared me to the concept, although to be fair MEA has a fair number of annoying RNG quests where you have to hunt certain items in enemy camps, and there is every chance that you can scour the entire map and come back to the camp you cleared first and find the item has spawned there again.

So... I don't know about anything game-related at the moment. I'm still keeping going with SWTOR and WoW, because I have some very good friends who I'm enjoying playing that content with, but beyond that... I'm just not feeling very much excitement about games. I don't know quite what's responsible for this, but something in my brain this year has flipped. Maybe it'll be temporary, maybe it's the start of a more long-term thing, I don't know.

What I think I'm trying to say about all this with relation to SWTOR is that I'm glad that 7.3 is coming next week, because it falls in the window where I'm still actively wanting to engage with it. I'm sure I would have come back to it were it to launch after I'd finished seasons, or at least prolong my probable post-seasons game break until after I'd seen all I wanted to see with the newer update, but it being imminent works very well indeed as far as I'm concerned.

Ultimately, I still have three-and-a-bit weeks to go until I reach the end of Galactic Season 4. Anything can happen during that time, so I'm not committing to anything until that point. In the meanwhile, my plan is to take things as they come and go from there. What will happen will happen.

Broadsword

7.3 is being launched in "the next couple weeks", but in the meanwhile IGN has completely upstaged the announcement by prematurely revealing that SWTOR may soon be moving to a new developer: Broadsword Online Games.

I must admit, I had never even heard of this company before this news broke. I believe I had heard of Ultima Online, but I certainly couldn't have told anyone whether it was an MMO or an online fighting game like Mortal Kombat. Regardless, neither this nor its fellow Broadsword game, Dark Age of Camelot, seem to match SWTOR in terms of philosophy. Notably, both games have more emphasis on PvP.

As for what this means for SWTOR, it's far too early to say for sure. Needless to say, the news was met with doomsaying on the subreddit (but what else is new there?), and the IGN article was quick to say that the move would include more than half of the team currently working on SWTOR.

It's the nitty-gritty details which are the unknown quantity. Things like voice-acting deals, exactly where the story team are in developing the rest of 7.0, philosophy regarding difficulty and types of group-content, and how future crafting updates may be handled; all of that is quite unknown how a new studio will manage things compared to BioWare, and as a result it's also unknown how much that could potentially change. Granted, with half the current team and a former BW employee who worked on SWTOR as the head of Broadsword if it moves there, there is always the likelihood that several changes will not be any more significant than they would usually be.

I mean, how many times has BW itself shaken up the formulae for gearing, content difficulty, and all that? They seem to have shaken things up to a drastic degree for the past four expansions, and it is quite possible that whatever the BW team might potentially have been planning already for the inevitable 8.0 will still come to pass under new ownership. One thing you can guarantee is that even if what a new developer produces is actually something that BW came up with before the move that the former will get the blame if it goes wrong.

It's an interesting piece of news nonetheless. If a move does go ahead, I'm curious to see exactly what comes of it later down the line, especially the closer we get to a new expansion. I for one find it rather a strange concept to move a game to a different studio when the team is possibly only halfway through a current expansion, so I wonder now more than ever just when 7.0 is meant to be drawing to a close (we do at least know that 7.4 is still planned to go ahead, however!).

BioWare's Revised Flashpoint Philosophy

Shrine of Silence, coming with 7.3, brings with it a shift in how BW have been delivering flashpoint content in recent years. Ever since the Shadow of Revan prelude, Forged Alliances, every flashpoint released has been a part of the "critical path" of the story. That means that in order to continue or outright conclude a given story, a flashpoint must be done to advance it.

This in turn resulted in flashpoints having much more of a scripted element than they did before. Sure, there was the odd cutscene here and there in the original bunch, and a few thereafter, but the bigger cutscenes were almost always at the end. Starting with 5.0's Crisis on Umbara, solo-story flashpoints had various decent-length cutscenes present at various points throughout the entire thing to convey plot updates.

Well, with 7.3's newest flashpoint, that philosophy is reverting back to how a lot of flashpoints used to be; Shrine of Silence has its own story, completely independent of anything else going on in the Interpreter's Retreat, and it does not need to be completed in order to conclude the rest of the story which is coming with the patch. This seems to be BW's goal going forward for the immediate future, and I am curious to see where it leads.

The biggest question I have to ask is; is this going to be their new philosophy for all flashpoints going forward, or just a select few? 

I certainly wouldn't mind more flashpoints dealing with 'extra' threats, as it makes the story on whichever planet we're visiting larger than just what we're asked to deal with in the moment. A flashpoint being more of an "oh, by the way, while you're here..." thing also feels much more 'old-school' than the more recent method of using them as a story vessel, which in my view is welcome.

But at the same time, I also wouldn't like to see flashpoints be removed from the crit-path entirely. Much in the same way as they can expand a story with 'extra' stuff, they can also be used quite effectively to show off the power of a story-critical character in a way that can be seen again after the solo-experience in an expanded and more dangerous format. The alternative, of course, is the development of more chapter-like environments as seen in 6.2's Echoes of Oblivion, and... yeah, I'll take more flashpoints over those!

That said, with certain characters already being recurring antagonists and some being set up as new recurring antagonists, continuing to add flashpoints as a crucial part of a given storyline will inevitably lead to certain bosses being defeated in group content time and time again. I mean, Republic characters already face a certain Sith Lord as the final boss of three flashpoints!

I guess ultimately my main curiosity about what this means for the immediate future of SWTOR's story is what format Malgus's inevitable break-out will be delivered in. I have always been hopeful that we would see that in flashpoint form (just... maybe with one of the rescuer's inner circle as a boss rather than Malgus again...), and this news doesn't entirely derail my hopes that we will see it as such. I still feel that a flashpoint set on either fleet would be really interesting and fun after almost twelve years of just knowing them as passive hubs, and I really wouldn't like this potential to be squandered by them instead resorting to a solo-only phase.

Unless that was always to be the plan, of course, but then that's a wasted opportunity if ever there was one!

Moving away from a solo-story instance of course brings in extra problems; for players who aren't interested in group content and have neither the skill nor the gear to complete a 'proper' story-mode instance, this will most definitely not be an ideal move even with healing pods and the return of the Jesus Droid in Shrine. It's of course not my place to comment on whether I believe Shrine is particularly complicated, given my exposure to harder content, so I'll say nothing more and move on.

I have to say that all this reminds me of what they've recently been doing for the operations. Issues with flashpoints being a part of the critical story were eventually addressed by the introduction of solo-mode flashpoints, but other than the Temple of Sacrifice instance there is no such workaround available for operations. This was particularly problematic for Dread Fortress and Dread Palace, which were needed to complete the Oricon story in-full.

So, arguably starting with Ravagers and coming back in force with Nature of Progress and R-4 Anomaly, BW just decided to make the operations an 'extra' thing to do on their planets as well rather than an actual conclusion for their storylines. Gods from the Machine kinda went backwards a bit on this point; while it is not required to go in and kill the six gods to conclude the Iokath storyline, completing the operation is the only way to gain full closure for what happens, especially given that just finding TYTH alone was a big deal for all three factions in play.

So we're now potentially entering a time when BW are treating both of their main PvE group-content instances as somewhat separate entities from the ongoing storyline. It's going to be rather difficult to adjust to if it does become a major thing rather than every once in a while, but I can't deny that I am curious to see the results!

~~~

My major concern with their new philosophy, regardless of how many flashpoints it is due to apply to, is that they don't end up making these 'extra' flashpoints like the uprisings in terms of how really forgettable they were. Granted, the uprisings themselves don't really make an awful lot of sense, as they were just a bunch of instances created for the sake of giving players some group content in the vein of star fortresses before they got back to focusing on flashpoints with 5.4, so their stories weren't that well-established on the whole.

I suppose that is one major advantage of appending them to something already going on and just expanding it slightly. It doesn't need to make sense in the grand scheme of things; it just has to make sense within the instance itself, and that arguably is why the uprisings feel like they failed. They tried to make sense in the wider picture, but in so doing didn't make an awful lot of sense within the instances themselves, and we also don't really know if they were meant to tie into the Order of Zildrog or not!

I am definitely curious to see what BW does for its future flashpoints. I hope that we will continue to see them be a part of the crit-path, but I can also appreciate that this will be something of a breath of fresh air.

The planets I would love most to be updated with new areas

With the news that 7.3 would be taking us to a brand-new area on Voss, the fourth planet after Corellia, Belsavis, and most recently Manaan to receive an extra landing zone, one has to wonder what other planets would make for good secondary areas if BW were to add them. 

There are a handful of benefits to returning to a planet rather than always being shunted off to new ones. Primarily, you can have a new story that continues or perhaps even concludes elements of stories from the base-game, allowing players to see how that planet has moved on in the years since we left it behind without needing to change things on the original planet instance itself.

I still remember a lot of the changes made to the game to improve its flow in 4.0. Imperial Alderaan got chopped and changed quite a bit!

A new area also opens itself up to more exciting opportunities that would be very difficult to fit into an existing area, especially for universal faction-neutral entrances. A flashpoint or perhaps even a raid instance springs to mind; something that a single player or a group can pop along to that's tailor-made for that area. Then you have the bog-standard of weekly missions and potentially a reputation track, just to give people some reason to keep coming back to explore.

So, with this in mind, here are my picks for planets I'd like to have the opportunity to revisit at some point in the future:

Leaving an MMO Behind: Putting Personal Issues with Galactic Seasons into context with leaving 'The Elder Scrolls Online'

A few weeks ago, I made the point that I still wasn't entirely happy with SWTOR in terms of its continuing to find ways to introduce grinds, and that I was worried about how that would impact my love for it. I know for a fact that I am a long way away from saying "no, I'm done" with the game, but it is still really interesting to put my issues into context with another MMO I've been playing.

For the past five-and-a-bit years, I have been involved with The Elder Scrolls Online. It's been a fun experience, and the game is hands-down one of the most gorgeous games I have ever played. Yet it's also proving to be more and more difficult to really say I "enjoy" it.

I've always found its combat clunky, which is a fairly damning thing to say about any game, but I keep on being drawn back to it by its aesthetics and just how 'alive' the in-game world feels. However, the past couple of years within ESO have highlighted to me that, while I am okay with some changes that will happen, I'm only okay with them up to a certain point. Case in point, abilities.

Abilities in ESO tend to adhere to one of two resources; stamina and magicka. It used to be that an ability that cost magicka would deal more damage and / or healing based on not only your maximum magicka but your spell damage as well, and vice versa for stamina abilities with stamina and weapon damage. All abilities require XP to be pumped into them, and can be 'morphed' into one of two different forms at a certain point.

At which point, more XP is required until the new version of that ability reaches its maximum level.

A little over a year ago, ESO introduced hybridisation. This made it so that your abilities' damage or healing scaled from your highest resources and damage values, not just the one which adhered to their cost. Suddenly, any character could use any ability and weapon type effectively, and the meta shifted to a very restrictive set of recommended builds.

So, if your magicka-based ability was now dealing less damage than its stamina cousin, you would have reason to completely respec and thus need to grind out more XP to level your new ability. Multiply that by as many abilities as were affected by this, including entire skill trees like weapons you may not have had reason to use before!

I'm really glad that I never really got into raiding properly in ESO. I remember trying it last year, and I really disliked how the options I 'had' to spec my character with clashed with how I had characterised her, and that goes a long way in terms of turning me off from this sort of thing. That's also not mentioning the impact different set bonuses have on things, and the efforts and grinds required to acquire those...

Ultimately, these changes have really tarnished my former love of the game. Sure, you can still play your way, but if you want to actively get involved with raiding or endgame dungeons, that environment is now much less forgiving for non-hybrid builds, and you'll always get the sense that you could be doing this little bit more to help your group clear this difficult fight if you'd spec a certain way. While that feeling may have been prevalent before, it certainly feels much more invasive from a casual perspective than it did, and is one reason why I've long abandoned any interest in doing group content.

Due to its comparative simplicity, it doesn't take nearly as much time to readjust to changes in SWTOR. At least in this game, an ability doesn't need to have its own XP pumped into it to raise its damage or healing, thus necessitating extra work if that ability suddenly becomes 'obsolete' for whatever reason. That's not to say that it doesn't take time to readjust; it just isn't nearly as much.

It also helps my case that I genuinely do feel a love for the combat and general gameplay of SWTOR. You know what you're getting with your class in this game, and while there is some variance within a given spec, you're not going to lose any sense of combat style identity. The general gameplay is just much more my thing, and something I don't think I'll ever really lose appreciation of.

The end-result is... I've felt like I've been done with ESO for quite a few months. I still do log in nowadays, just for doing the daily for the new card game, but I really don't see myself continuing to have it installed for much longer. It's a shame to walk away from it, but... I don't see there being any real point to keeping playing. It's been a fun ride, but it's time to go.

~~~

I don't know what sort of changes would have to happen in SWTOR for that same feeling to really apply in the same way as it has in ESO. I may dislike seasonal systems and the intensive work that is all but required if wanting to complete everything, but it's not like that is how the game itself is. You can pace yourself with everything else, and I believe the ability to do so more with seasons would solve a fair amount of my ill-feelings. As things are right now, I don't feel comfortable even taking a week off from engaging in seasons until I've done all I can.

Of course, in SWTOR, things do tend to come and go, so it's entirely possible that this time next year I will have zero misgivings about things. ESO tends to be much more static in terms of how things 'are' with its systems, so it's more difficult to see something changing drastically for the better if they're not in a fantastic state. 

That's not to say that things don't improve, but the differences are nowhere near as drastic as they tend to be in SWTOR.

While I feel my time with ESO is coming to a close at last, its decline has really made me realise that the issues I have with SWTOR are, on the whole, minor. Sure, they feel big to me, but putting galactic seasons into context... it's just a side thing. It's frustrating how much "fear of missing out" applies for the extras like reputation and the other meta achievements, and it also doesn't help that GS4 has come so soon after GS3 which no doubt is inflating the issues.

However, it's not like GS4 is the game. It's just something else to do, with just some very frustrating elements. Hopefully, they get toned down eventually, but for now... I just have to grin and bear it. 

Queue Wars Celebration: Redux!

Star Wars Celebration returned to the UK last week for the third time, last being here in 2016 (and before that, 2007). I attended the 2016 convention, and came away with a not-too-positive impression.

This was due to numerous factors, all of which were due to bizarre flaws in the management of the thing.

Firstly, if you wanted to attend a panel and weren't guaranteed a spot unless you had a VIP pass (if that's even how that worked back then), you had to queue up each morning for wristbands. Trouble is, because people literally brought sleeping bags with them to queue overnight, those wristbands were snapped up very quickly. The only thing I was able to attend by way of panels in 2016 was the cosplay competition, as all the "big" things had of course gone already.

Secondly, when it came to photo opportunities, they only had one photo booth and its queue was in between the autograph sections and the special celebration store. This meant one of two things. Firstly, if a celebrity was delayed for whatever reason, even if just getting through "just a few more!", that slowed everything else down. Secondly, the poor staff had to cope with tonnes of ambient noise, and they had no technology like megaphones or "you are x minutes away" boards to help.

Ironically, the celebration store queue did have those boards. Priorities?

Thirdly, and let's be honest here, there really wasn't a lot going on for Star Wars at the time. Yes, The Force Awakens had been released a few months prior, Rogue One was due to come out later that year, and Rebels series 3 was also on the cards. That was pretty much it.

Compare that to 2023. We've had four further films throughout those years, Mandalorian's in full swing, Clone Wars and Rebels have both ended officially, Andor's first series aired to an incredible response with its second series much looked-forward-to, Ahsoka has her own series upcoming, Bad Batch is doing very well, we've had Hayden and Ewan back as Anakin and Obi-Wan in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that's not even mentioning the numerous other projects coming in 2024 and beyond!

Point is, as far as exciting new or recent stuff is confirmed, 2023 had a lot more going for it than 2016 in terms of activity potentials.

Indeed, back in 2016 I actually ended up calling the whole thing quits after the second day despite being eligible to attend through all three. Granted, I had some extra incentive as I had an invitation to attend a friend's birthday meal, but even without that I think I still would have said enough was enough. With limited opportunities to even glimpse a 'big' panel wristband unless it was already attached to someone's wrist, there just was not enough there to justify staying.

Roll on 2023. What's different, and what's stayed the same?

Galactic Season 4 - Further Thoughts

In my last post, I made it clear that I wasn’t factoring in my feelings of burnout in my assessment of the fourth Galactic Season. Instead, I was trying to look at it from as unbiased a perspective as possible, since it cannot be denied that burnout has a very noticeable impact on one’s willingness to engage with certain systems.

Having had a few days to think about things since that post, I wanted to jot down my unfiltered feelings on the season as things stand right now.

~~~

While I finished GS3 in early February, a full month before the actual season itself ended, GS4 has come far too soon for my liking. Even with a gap seven weeks between my finishing the previous season and this current one starting, the break was nowhere near long enough to be properly enjoyable. Granted, some part of that is because even when ‘done’ with seasons you’re still seeing its UI pop up all over the place, so you always get some sense that it’s very much active until the end.

While I do not participate in anything like progression raiding or PvP – truthfully, I entirely avoided making any progress whatsoever on the first PvP season! – which helps eat into the time I have available in a given week, engaging with seasons for 14-and-a-half weeks still takes the wind out of my sails for a bit. Some cooldown time is incredibly important following that time, and whether the downtime was seven weeks or three weeks, the downtime between GS3 and GS4 has just been far too short.

Indeed, largely courtesy of GS3, I was leaning towards taking another extended break from the game. I have quite happily settled into a regime of not playing too much, following on from the numerous posts I made on that subject last year, which I am very happy with, but even with that focusing on just doing a collection of bits and bobs for a good three months is quite some task.

Alas, courtesy of the seasons’ current fondness of introducing some measures of FOMO with its exclusive “do everything!” achievement rewards, taking any form of break is a risky endeavour. Sure, at this point it’s probably fine, it’s still early days after all, but since this season seems to last a good week or two less than prior seasons (most are 150+ - this one started with 139 days to go!), one cannot really enjoy a ‘true’ break for very long.

And, sure, nobody “forces” any of us to complete everything, it’s all optional. It’s still a far more pleasing result doing everything prior to a season’s end than missing out on, say, a reputation faction which is incredibly painful to grind for when relying on mob drops alone. As I’ve got at before, woe betide anyone who comes to any of these seasons “too late” to actually make meaningful progress on a reputation track before the season ends.

Plus, until we know for sure whether or not BioWare actually intend to re-run any seasons, even if just as an add-on of sorts to a future season, we have absolutely no idea whether or not everything that gets missed out on will become available again in future.

So, yes, all this is optional… but it’s a right bloody nuisance if it’s not able to be completed for whatever reason.

I guess that ultimately, my concern is just what all of this seasonal nonsense means for my love of this game. I get that grinding is part of an MMO, of course it is, but there’s a massive difference between running the same daily zone or flashpoint for the hundredth time because it’s a personal favourite and having to run them because it’s one of the things to be ticked off on certain weeks.

Honestly, that was one of the things I really disliked about the early 7.0 days with flashpoints and weekly zone missions all being restricted to a select few. Fortunately, those have been undone – even if the result is admittedly more painful for Galactic Seasons when queuing randomly for flashpoints. Sure, the others were still accessible somehow, but the game was still telling us “no, no – you don’t do what’s fun for you, you do only what we’ve selected for you!”.

I still eagerly await the day when operation missions return to the way they used to be. I get that they’re the way they are now because of how important they were for gearing and BW didn’t want everyone to do the last boss of EV every single week for a crate, so I’m not envisaging a return to the old system while the current gearing systems exist. It would just be nice to have all weeklies accessible again regardless of week.

At the same time, I do acknowledge that certain world bosses being part of the seasonal rota means that they actually get some love, whereas previously they had been completely and utterly ignored outside of the occasional guild event and the Feast of Prosperity.

As you can probably tell, I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I really like seasons for reintroducing some stuff to the playerbase, but on the other I really don’t like having several options for what I would choose to do for fun basically ruled out as meaningful activities other than potentially for getting kills with the season companion whenever that objective pops up or for grinding any required Conquest points.

Plus, sometimes you just want to have a quiet week for whatever reason, and having little choice but to fit in with a crowd doing the same activities as you can be very much counter to that mindset.

I’m just glad that GSF isn’t part of the PvP seasonal system, to be honest. I only tend to hop into it whenever I really feel like it, itself something of a rare occurrence, and I think I would stop doing GSF during those twelve weeks altogether if it was.

~~~

As I say, all this is just unfiltered. It’s a confused, jumbled mess, because honestly that just sums up my feelings of seasonal systems at the moment.

I am dubious of BW having much capability of drastically shaking up the core system again, much like how they did with GS2 after GS1 as, disillusionment and the like aside, I feel that the current system is pretty much as good as they can make it. The extra stuff like the reputation tracks etc., those definitely need some reworking now.

Sure, they can reduce the number of available weeklies, but that would only worsen the feelings of restrictiveness that occasionally arise. Sure, they can put more weighting behind the points offered by each weekly, thus being able to both reduce the number required each week and still keep ten open, but that would make it worse for the odd few weeks where there aren’t any “bad” objectives, and it wouldn’t be a good look only having 50% of the available objectives be completable.

So… apart from maybe spicing up some of the available objectives like having a 5 / 5 split between completing both warzones and arenas or introducing more generic objectives like “complete any flashpoints in activity finder”, I don’t really see there being much they can realistically do to shake things up going forward. The system works – it’s just easy to become disillusioned with something the more times one repeats it.

Fortunately, things aren’t as bad as the Knights of the Fallen Empire / Eternal Throne days yet. It would take something truly special to return to how tedious those expansions were in retrospect...

Still, I’m finding myself questioning more and more how much these rather intensive periods are impacting my love of SWTOR. I don’t see Galactic Seasons being a catalyst for quitting altogether anytime soon, but it certainly isn’t great that my first thought upon finishing a season is “great, I can take a much-needed break now…”.

Oh well.

Galactic Season 4 - Early Thoughts

Galactic Season 4: A Passage of Peace is upon us, less than a month after the previous season ended. We do at least now understand BioWare's intentions for any given season's release cadence - each aimed for an X.Y.1 patch - and it is just unfortunate that 7.2.1 has come so soon to GS3's end. During Total Galactic War just under a fortnight ago, it was very noticeable on Darth Malgus that numerous guilds were flagging, and it is quite possible that burnout from the end of both GS3 and PvP season 1 were responsible.

There may be other factors behind it, of course, but I am curious to know exactly what impact both seasons really had on the playerbase. While I myself finished GS3 back in early February, I was glad to have an excuse to stop doing stuff. Funny to think that one can just mindlessly do stuff for weeks or months without much question, but with Galactic Seasons 14 weeks can pass really slowly. I guess it's just the extra layers of having to do specific things rather than settling into a more unfocused regime?

Regardless, in my assessment of GS4 as it is at the moment, I shall be putting aside all thoughts of burnout and just trying to be as fair as possible in my assessment of things.

~~~

The Companion

Amity is our newest seasonal companion, and honestly I really don't know how to feel about him. I mean, sure, we finally get another human male Force-user companion to keep Arcann and, technically, Arn company, but the design choices made with him are... very weird. Okay, sure, cost-cutting measures mean that the chances of a fully-voice-acted companion happening anytime soon are slim, but I do find Amity speaking selonian to be... I dunno. It feels weird that he should be able to speak it exactly as they do (courtesy of reusing pre-recorded stuff), complete with accent and hissing sounds, but maybe it could work? 

The next thing is his look. Okay, so I wasn't anticipating a lilac or green-haired sorcerer from a bizarre other-worldly realm, but Amity's aesthetics are really quite weird nonetheless. Granted, they do come up with some reason in his story for him to be clad in full armour without the option to even hide his helmet, but I really do question why he decides to stick glaring lights on his robes in his later customisations. The extra spine, fine, I can get why that would perhaps be necessary given his history, but for someone who encourages meditating, the lights seem counter-productive if ever he decided to encourage meditating in a darkened room.

"Feel the darkness pressing in on you. Feel its calming aura..."

"Amity, I can see your robe's lights through my closed eyelids!"

"..."

Finally, on the list of things I'm not so sure about, his pacifist nature makes pretty much anything involving combat with him seem very bizarre (not as much as his "kill 2,500 enemies achievement", as a guildie of mine pointed out, which is the highest number required for such an achievement in the game!). He does at least say that he's willing to fight if he must and doesn't want to instigate fights, but it still feels quite wrong to have him out-and-about and happily killing things. At least he doesn't say "did I mention I'm a pacifist?" all the time.

On the flipside, I do very much like the concept of the Messengers of the Cold Moon, the faction that Amity essentially represents and who are responsible for sending him on his pilgrimage. A neutral organisation dedicated to helping the galaxy's "ordinary" Force-sensitives without forcing them to commit to the ways of the Jedi or Sith? That sounds very interesting, and honestly I wouldn't mind meeting more members of this organisation in the future. 

I also really like how, in ambient conversations aboard your ship, a Jedi or Sith character can have unique lines about how their views on the Jedi / Sith way of life contrast with Amity's own very strong views when he brings them up. Really nice touch, that, and it brings some additional value to having him across both factions.

So... yeah. Not really sure what to make of Amity quite yet. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see how my opinion on him evolves, but at the moment I would place him roughly between PH4-LNX and Fen in terms of my favourites of the four. Altuur's staying right at the bottom of the list.

~

The Rewards

Galactic Season 4 introduces the usual range of cosmetic items we've seen since season 2. 

The unique creature mounts, the Odux, are quite frankly hideous in my opinion. I really don't like their giant noses, and it is quite bizarre seeing the bantha animations without a lot of shaggy fur hiding its limbs when it walks. The new korreali are... okay. They're about as fine as I would expect a single-seat korrealis to be, and I probably would cite them as my favourites of the tech-based seasonal mounts we've seen thus far.

The Aratech Advanced weapons are, so far, my favourites from across all four seasons, just beating out those from GS2. While I don't much like the colour of the special named ones, I am pleased to see them cutting back a bit on the laser-sights which have become awfully prominent, even if there are still  an awful lot of glowy lights. I'm not a fan of things like that, I must admit.

The armour sets both look pretty swish, although sadly their chestpieces don't look entirely versatile. I've done some playing around in the preview windows to see if I can find any better belts than the included ones, and very few options - if indeed any - seem to fit exactly the same way. That's an issue I've begun developing with some big-ticket cartel market items over the past couple of releases - the more specialist something is, the harder it is to use in a wider context. Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased that we are getting some more detailed stuff, but I also think there's a lot to be said for keeping to a generic structure as far as possible.

As themselves, these armour sets are probably my favourite from all four seasons. From a purely versatile perspective, I still feel that the GS3 armour sets win out. 

The final reward to touch on is the Mek-Sha stronghold. I... I can't really say I like it. I mean, sure, it's sold as a warehouse, and it is indeed a warehouse, but I also don't like how it doesn't have much that could resemble an office as pretty much all of it is open-plan. I was intrigued to see what it would be like, potentially as a place for my hunter to set up shop in terms of negotiating contracts (since otherwise she'd be inviting people into her Nar Shaddaa home... yeah, I don't think so!), but sadly it doesn't look like it's fit for even that purpose. 

Oh well.

~

Miscellaneous

Following the PvP seasons, which added the objectives panel to the seasonal panel itself, the Galactic Seasons objective panel has also been moved to the seasonal panel.

From a pure, unbiased, perspective this change does make a lot of sense. After all, it frees up the Conquest pane entirely now, and it keeps things entirely in one place irrespective of which season type is active. However, it's also currently quite annoying from a muscle-memory perspective, as I still flit to the Conquest pane to see what's what.

I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually!

Unlike the previous two seasons, I've noticed that the Notes of Reflection - the special currency required to gain reputation with the Messengers of the Cold Moon - do not have a weekly cap. I mean, I don't see a lot of people consistently getting to 200 / 200 being an issue, especially given how tight-fisted mobs are in handing them over in regular content. That said, I do think this is a decent move for those who are prolific in completing group content and are more likely to hit the weekly cap on a reasonably consistent basis. 

I'm not entirely sure what sort of meditations Amity puts us through whenever we visit any of the planets which have a shrine, but my goodness are our characters pathetic when it comes to meditating. Two minutes, oof, better have a ten-minute break before I continue! Arbitrary wait-timers are always going to be a thing in an MMO, I get it, but this does feel gratuitous to the extreme.

~~~

Conclusion

I mean... this is just another Galactic Season, at the end of the day. We've seen four of them now, the past two and this one all sharing the same structure and mostly-similar objectives, and it's just... here we go again. 

Sure, they have improved on the actual characters of the companions, and it is nice to not have the stories of PH4-LNX and Amity connected, either with each other or with Fen or Altuur, for some reason or other. Honestly, I really don't get the desire in general to connect as many things as possible into one big complicated or silly story. Standalone stuff works fine, it really does!

I'm very curious to see how GS5 differs. GS4 might have had some changes introduced based on the feedback (most likely the removal of the weekly cap is one such change), but it was also probably too far in development for it to have any real meaningful impact. Regardless, I think things have definitely improved in small places over the past couple of seasons, and I am interested to see how things develop from here on out.

Musings on Personal Goals

It has been some time since I last provided a general update about my feelings regarding SWTOR. As the number of posts since December will doubtless indicate, I am feeling significantly better about things than I was for most of last year, and I am also happy to say that I have settled into a decent balance between time spent in-game and outside of it.

I have had two main goals on my mind throughout the past couple of months:

Firstly, Luck of the Draw. When Galactic Season 3 was on the horizon, I was initially deeply sceptical about my chances of completing the season in-full, that is to say all 100 levels plus all meta achievements. Still, I reasoned that it was at least worth giving it a go and see how I felt about it, since as I have expressed before it is rather easy to start these things "too late" and subsequently miss out on all rewards, etc.

Despite my initial reservations I am happy to say that I ultimately stuck with it, although I am still thinking that the current setup requires a bit of a shake-up going forward. I suspect that the novelty of farming reputation tracks for 12 - 14 weeks every time a season crops up will have worn off in quite a big way if they repeat it ad nauseam.

Still, it is done, and now we wait to see what sort of things GS4 entails. 

Secondly, character-gearing. When 7.2 launched, I unlocked the ability to buy 332 mods using gear from a couple of Columi and Thyrsian crates I'd saved up prior to the patch, and subsequently went on to upgrade all my characters' earpieces, legendaries, and relics up to 332 as well. I told myself, and voiced this plan to others, that I wouldn't get the 336 gear; no longer being involved in progression ops, I don't really need gear of higher rating than 326, although higher gear is still almost always useful.

However, a few weeks later it settled in that the longer I put off upgrading gear to its highest potential outside of R-4, the more painful it would be to upgrade it beyond 332 when the time came. It was already going to cost me 360 OP-1 catalysts per character to upgrade earpieces and relics to 336 from 332, and if we eventually get the option to upgrade Rakata to 340 that's a further 120 catalysts per gear piece on top of that.

So my current goal is to get all characters up to 336 rating, although of course for the time being the highest legendaries can get to is 334. I only have one more character-pairing to go, that being my hunter-smuggler duo, and I'm hoping that I can get at least one of their three required pieces as loot from a veteran mode op. Every piece is, after all, 120 catalysts saved, but if needed I will of course splash out if I get back up to 360 catalysts before that point.

Alongside this, I've also been getting each character their own separate set of tacticals. Each character already had their own main and off-hand weapons, so I've further reduced the number of items they need to send across to their partnered-character by at least one, but I imagine this is where things will stop. It's far too costly to source legendaries for all characters, at least while I still need them for upgrading the few 332 legendaries I have left, and crafting augments is too much of a palaver at the moment to get full secondary armour sets for them.

Still, only a few more pieces to get then I'm done with this goal as well. After that, who knows? Maybe I will decide to start splashing out on alternate legendaries. 

I'm not too sure that's a serious concept, though.

Perpendiculars of Grey

The Gree event is probably my favourite of the original SWTOR events that are still in circulation today. I don't really feel that the BBA week suits anyone other than my hunter - hopefully for obvious reasons - and I've never really gotten over my distaste for rakghouls as a concept.

I do still kinda regret missing out on the first rakghoul event, though, but since exams took priority ultimately it was a necessary loss.

The Gree event, meanwhile, is just... serene. You aren't dealing with horrific creatures or scumbags across the galaxy, but instead just seeing a bizarre research project in progress. Even the instanced boss, Xenoanalyst II, is hands-down the most pleasant raid boss in the entire game - it acts more like a laboratory professor dealing with its latest batch of test subjects and wanting to see how they react to certain stimuli than it does a 'traditional' boss, even celebrating its defeat as it still meant it gets decent research.

However, while it has been out for almost ten years now there have been a couple of things I haven't been all that invested in. Firstly, the PvP aspect. Sure, the original purpose for Ilum was this big open-world PvP planet and this is BW's attempt to pay homage to that, but I've never really been one to seek or incite fights. 

Secondly, the additional world bosses, Gravak'k and Surgok'k. Sure, I'd killed them a handful of times on Harbinger, but the times when organised groups for the two bosses coincided with my being available were very far and few between, even within my own guilds. The ability to transfer to The Red Eclipse at least meant that I was in guilds that were active and more likely to kill these bosses, but again it just seemed very rare when something actually could and would happen. 

Still, I managed to acquire ten kills of Gravak'k and nine for Surgok'k. It would have been ten for both, were it not for my abstaining in protest at my guild's actions on one such evening in 5.0. We'd killed Gravak'k and headed over to Surgok'k's cave to find an Imperial team gathering to kill it. Our tank for the evening charged in, followed by the rest of our group, effectively stealing the boss from under them. I stayed back by the entrance of the tunnel, still mounted, doing nothing but watching the Imps run past me. 

I'm sorry, but I tend to take a very negative view on actions like that.

The end-result of not focusing a lot on these aspects of the event is that I still lacked the Gray Perpendicular and Blue / Red Octagon legacy titles by the start of 2023 while many of my peers had had them for years. 

Well, finally, I have acquired Gray Perpendicular at last.

It was a bit of a weird thirty minutes, to be honest. On the Tuesday (24th), someone put in Imperial Ilum chat that they were seeking group members for a Xeno kill, and I promptly signed up. They pulled together a group of 13  including themselves in the end, and then it became very clear that the group leader unfortunately didn't quite understand what they were trying to do.

Unable to get any more than 13, they announced boldly ten minutes after the group had started that the plan was to do 16-man veteran mode for a chance at the Red Sphere. Now, veteran mode Xeno has historically been one of the hardest bosses to pug due to its DPS checks, and 7.0 ramped it up a fair notch even with higher gear now being accessible. A group of 13 stood no chance, especially as the group only had one healer and one tank.

A good number of people traipsed into the instance, assuming it to be set for 16VM, when it wasn't. They were asked to leave when a couple of the others tried and failed to enter, but the group leader still didn't set the phase even when asked. However, the ops leader never set the phase properly at all. Best guess is that they'd never learnt how to, which is fair enough I think. SWTOR doesn't actively teach you how to do such things outside of the read-only tutorials which most seem to just gloss over or forget about, so if you've never had to actively do it and only see others do it, I can understand not knowing what to do about it.

To top it all off, whether it was because the group was proving more trouble than it was worth or they just fancied doing the daily while it was there, they kept the group waiting and went off to the the Gray Secant daily. This understandably ticked off a good number of people, with at least one threatening to quit. They passed leadership over to the solitary healer (who, incidentally, didn't realise they were the only healer), and left.

So after about twenty minutes' general confusion, we remaining 12 headed into Xeno SM at last. It went well enough, although a couple of people needed to be taught about the consoles while the fight was active, and afterwards someone asked if we could go and do the other bosses. Fortunately, nobody left so we had enough to make it a feasible venture, although we acquired a thirteenth member anyway.

Gravak'k was messy, but we got it down without wiping. We did lose most of the group, though. Surgok'k was straightforward, with no deaths whatsoever, and finally... it was done. Gray Perpendicular unlocked. I'm not intending to actually use the legacy title but it's still nice to just own it, y'know. I wouldn't have made a post about it except for just the rather unusual circumstances behind my tenth Surgok'k kill. 

I do hope that ops leader managed to get into a Xeno VM group after all that without much hassle.