Wednesday, December 09, 2020

Old Republic update

Update 6.2 is installing right now as we speak in the background while I'm working on another computer. I don't know really what it's going to be, although I'm sure everyone is expecting new story content of some kind; looks like a new Mandalorian themed flashpoint and some kind of new story mission or two. This led me to think about what planets I'd like to see added to the game and be able to explore a bit, which led me towards listing all of the planets that have appeared in a Disney Star Wars movie. I probably need to go do an even bigger project where I do all of the planets that have appeared in The Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian. Maybe the Resistance too? I dunno. I still haven't watched the Season 7 stuff, because I want to get to it by finishing my rewatch of the entire series, and because I was playing a lot of RDO and then SWTOR, I haven't been doing that very fast at all; I'm still in season 3, I think. It wouldn't be difficult to just finish though. I never finished the last season or two of Rebels either, and I never watched The Resistance at all, but one of these days I should, because hey, Star Wars visual content. 

Anyway, I'm on record as suggesting that the locations (and visual design of such) is one of the few areas where the Disney Star Wars movies did a relatively good job. (Although I'm also on record as suggesting that while the sequel trilogy was pretty terrible, the two spinoff movies were better, bordering, on occasion, on being actually good. Rogue One was better than Solo in most respects, but Solo isn't that bad either.) And curiously, there's been a fair bit of overlap already between Disney Star Wars planets and Old Republic planets, what with Corellia making its first movie appearance in Solo, Tython now showing up in the Mandalorian. So, going through the planets from the Disney movies, let's have a look at what I think make good candidates to being added in Old Republic?

Exegol. As much as the return of the Emperor was kind of a stupid idea, the planet of Exegol and the Sith Cult were sadly underdeveloped and underutilized cool ideas. Given that the Empire is half of Old Republic, and we do explore other Sith planets like Korriban, Ziost, Oricon, and a few others, adding Exegol and maybe having it be a stronghold of Vitiate would work quite well, because after all, Vitiate and Palpatine seemed to have similar conceits in terms of trying to constantly trying to seek immortality. It makes perfect sense that Palpatine would hang out in Vitiate's old stomping grounds, in my opinion. Plus, it's just a cool environment, and some fun stuff could be done there.

Crait. While I don't know of any particular reason to make Crait be a place that gets attention other than the cool visual design, it does have really cool visual design, and a very unique look. Because of that, it actually rises up as a good candidate, although there's no story reason to make it important, so that would have to be invented from scratch.

Mustafar. While Mustafar isn't new to the sequel trilogy and other Disney movies, two new environments on the planet are added in these movies, including Darth Vader's castle in Rogue One and the strange ironwood smoky forest that we see briefly when Kylo Ren is chopping up some weird Darth Vader cultists. It's also a relatively unique environment, and while there's some lava in some planets in Old Republic already, Mustafar really is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Kessel. This is another one that I like, because it has ties all the way back to the first Star Wars movie, when C-3PO laments that he suspects being sent to the spice mines of Kessel and Han Solo references the Kessel Run. We actually see them in Solo when Han and Lando and Co. go on a heist of the Pyke's slave mines and steal a big batch of coaxium. It's ties to all kinds of lore in Star Wars makes it a great candidate.

Sinta Glacier Colony. Kind of like Mek-Sha; an asteroid station, except in this case it's an icy rather than rocky asteroid. It's actually kind of a cool idea, albeit one that's not unique. Asteroid versions of this are common, but an icy asteroid? Again, it gives a really interesting visual distinction. Maybe a little less so in this case, given that we already have two icy worlds in Old Republic, but I like it.

Anyway, as I said, I really should make a list of the other movies and the TV shows too, because it gives me all kinds of new options. Granted, some planets are just "cameos" like where we see Jedi getting gunned down at the end of Revenge of the Sith, for instance, but many of them have bigger appearances in Clone Wars or Rebels.

And adding this detail: without going through the list of planets in Clone Wars or Rebels or whatever, I do think I'd love to see Dathomir and and old-timey Old Republic era spin on the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers. Maybe with darksabers too, although the connection between Darth Maul and the darksaber, I realize, doesn't really have anything to do with the Dathomir culture.


 

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