SWTOR Update, Plus a Bit of This and That

Still playing on the Juyo server. . . would say “with friends” but it’s mostly solo.  My friends aren’t on as much as I am and tend to be on earlier than I am too, so there’s not all that much crossover.  I’m half tempted to head back to Sanctum of the Exalted and the RMC/IMC guilds there.

Even so, my Vanguard’s level 48 now and working through Voss.  At the rate I’m going, I think I may just make level 50 before leaving Voss.  Considering I’ve done no flashpoints, no warzones, only a couple of space missions right after I got my ship, and have skipped 2 full planets, half of another, 3 bonus series, and was actually “at level” when I got to Hoth at 38, the fact that I’m now 2-3 levels “high” and might hit 50 before even getting to the last world should tell you that there’s a metric ton of XP out there in this game (as evidenced also by other characters who I haven’t skipped anything with being 4-5 levels “high” while in their 20’s and 30’s), and yet one of the more common threads in the New Player Help section goes like this:  “I’m too low for this planet I’m on, but I’ve done every side quest on every planet.  how can I get more XP?”  When I bother to respond to threads like that I tell them to actually go back and do every side quest, since they’ve obviously missed quite a few. . . . .

I decided to work a bit more on my “Tankassin.”  Sent her some cash from my vanguard to afford the obscenely priced Imperial Trooper armor off the CE vendor.  You can see the results above.  I am using a mod-able level 19 player-crafted helm, though, since I like being able to see the toons’ face during the cutscenes.

Still enjoying the game, though I’m a tad burnt out too, which is why I didn’t do the push to 50 on the Vanguard yet and went for the different playstyle and story of the Assassin for now.

My only comment about the 1.2 patch is:  I like that I can send mail between all my alts regardless of faction now.  Other than that, I’ve not noticed much difference in the toons I play.

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I’ve re-subbed to Vanguard for a bit for a change of pace also.  I’m only really playing it on Saturday mornings for a couple of hours, so don’t have much to report other than it’s kinda nice to have the slower leveling pace of that game to relax with.  I’m trying out several classes I never did before — blood mage, necromancer, shaman, dread knight — to see if something appeals to me more than I thought it sounded like it might.  I love my disciple and paladin, the druid’s interesting, but hasn’t truly grabbed me, etc.  Overall it’s fun to try the new things out and see how they work together.  After SWTOR it does feel a little odd not to have a companion.  Kinda weird how expectations need to change from game to game, no?

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I did the Tera Online beta this past weekend in place of my normal Vanguard play session.  I made a sorcerer for my 1st character to figure out the controls and such.  For all that it says “you gotta always move” any time you cast anything, even your instant-cast spells you still stop cold, yet the sorcerer is listed as tied with the Archer class for “easiest to play.”  Go figure.  I made that character a high elf female, and while I thought the breasts on it were grotesquely over-sized and the standing pose of the character was quite overdone, the sexuality of that race didn’t bug me.  The world chat was full of people saying that the Elin race was for pedophiles only and that the Castanic races was actually “the best one” looks-wise, though.

In the afternoon, I decided to try out the Mystic class, as that sounded like it had a bit in common with the EQ2 coercer, which I love to death.  I made this one a Castanic female, and on the character creation page it looked nice and the breasts were probably “only” a D-cup, which is actually fairly small in the MMO world.  Then I got into the world and the way it ran. . . .geez, it was horrid.  Bent double, flashing its ass in the air while flailing its arms in a caricature of the “runs like a girl” stereotype.  And tbh, I actually didn’t much like the Mystic gameplay after all.  Ah well.

At that point, I kinda wanted to check out some of the warrior-type classes, but I felt like I was “done.”  Other than the movement style forced on you by the controls it was a very standard MMO, so it didn’t have anything to draw me away from any other game I’m already playing and enjoy.  For all that it calls itself an “action game” the only thing that made it such was that I couldn’t lock a target and had to aim my reticle at it in mouselook mode.  Other than that. . . been there and done that.  I’ve uninstalled that game client from my pc and won’t be looking back.

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On the other hand, while I know I don’t particularly care for the horror/goth genre of anything, I’ve pre-ordered The Secret World.  It sounds like it’s got just enough elements of similarity to Shadowrun, which game world I love, that I think I’d still enjoy it, and the skill-point-based advancement with synergies between trees sounds enough like SWG (which I loved pre-CU and pre-NGE) that I’m willing to plunk down in advance for it. I’m not sure what direction I’d like to take the character in the beginning, but that sounds like the beauty of the skill wheel is that you can dabble easily and find out what you like, then specialize from there, and then over time add more and more specializations.  Concepts sound cool to me, anyway.  I hope they’re implemented well.  Beta weekends start on May 11th, so I’ll know more after that, I suppose.

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Speaking of Shadowrun, there’s a Kickstarter project out there for a  small-time 2D turn-based Shadowrun game out there.  I’ve kicked in a bit and hope it won’t turn out to be vaporware.