Star Wars update

First off, I'm mostly enjoying the second Mandalorian season. It's better than the first season. It's still not as good as I'd wish it to be, and feels like a safe and politically correct and small-scope outgrowth of the Original Trilogy, even moreso than the Clone Wars did to the Prequel Trilogy. Where the Clone Wars expanded the setting and the mythos and told bold stories—sometimes—the Mandalorian doesn't, really. It just treads water in a quiet little corner of the pool where it can't make big waves or get too noticed.

While of course there's nothing wrong with that per se, that's not really what I think most Star Wars fans want from Star Wars content. Or, at least I think so. Star Wars fans like the Mandalorian, but few of them love it, really. Now... I could be wrong. The nebbish EU nerd probably gobbles this show up for the same reason he gobbled up some bizarre novel about Porkins' adventures in an x-wing, or whatever. But I do get a sense from most of the people I talk to and the YouTube videos that I watch that fans like the Mandalorian, but hope for it to grow into something a bit bigger than what it is right now. Some of the latest episodes are getting them excited because it seems like that's what it's doing, but is it really? Callbacks and fan service and cameos (even extended "guest star" appearances) don't really expand anything; in fact, they have a tendency to almost shrink it sometimes. That's similar to how in almost every movie we end up back at Tatooine; even in the sequel trilogy, when we aren't on Tatooine, we're on separate planets that are completely indistinguishable from it—Jakku, Jedha, Pasaana; many of them literally filmed in the same place in Jordan. Now, granted, I like the concept of an arid planet, and I actually think it likely that there would be many desert planets across the galaxy if there were really inhabitable planets, but they really make no effort to make them feel different to each other, and you get no sense of place for any of the places that they go in the sequel trilogy. They're merely somebody's attempt to take a cool visual cue and implement it, but there's no connection to anything other than a visual that flashes in front of you briefly and then is gone as they rush off to the next superficial and shallow visual cue. It's kind of a shame; there are some really cool looking places in the sequel trilogy, and even a few good ideas here and there, but lack of development of any of them make them—ultimately—nothing more than something that's vaguely pretty but boring. Of course, they were saddled into horribly stupid plots with unlikable characters, and the fact that they flash so quickly before our eyes, and are often lookalikes of planets we already know without anything unique to make them more interesting, makes the whole seem smaller even as it tries to be bigger than ever.

That actually, now that I think about it, is a good reason for me to love my Traveller-inspired method of travel. It forces the characters to spend a bit more time in the systems that they visit. They can't be just flashes that go before your eyes with no impact; they have to actually have some substance. But it doesn't have to be that way to get that benefit, it just requires better writing. The Clone Wars introduces all kinds of planets, and most of them actually have some character, because they actually do something there where the environent actually plays some kind of role in most of them. Look at the exploration that we get of Mandalore, or Rodia, or Dathomir, etc. Even the expansions of planets we already knew like... yes, even Tatooine... expand the setting and make it feel bigger and better. The stuff that we've seen since then doesn't really seem to do that, and the places that they go all feel interchangeable and lacking in any character. Even when they may or may not have a cool visual cue, which admittedly some of them do.

Anyway, more to the point, I've been playing loads of Old Republic. I've got my Jedi Knight where he's ready to start the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, although I think I'm going to keep doing Ziost dailies for a while first to get the greenish space armor set which you can buy with your Ziost currency. My Sith Warrior still needs to do the Black Hole, but then he's ready to start Makeb and the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion. (He has done Section X already.) I also finished Chapter 1 with my Smuggler; I kind of rushed through the story missions to get Risha unlocked as a companion, and now I'm going back to finish some of the world stories, exploration missions and bonus series on Chapter 1 planets before I dive into Chapter 2. It's a little sad that I had to put up with so much story material with Risha before being able to change her appearance with the customization option that I bought for her (what can I say? I really like the platinum blonde version #9, and I had it unlocked before I even started the smuggler). I've spent a lot of time this last week doing the Dantooine pirate event too, although the Heroics aren't really solo-able, so it sucks and my progress has been slower and more grindy than I'd have liked. Only to find that, honestly, I don't know how much I really want any of those rewards anyway, other than the prohibitively expensive kath hound mount. (I'll pick up some pieces of the pirate armor/clothing set too. I really like that jacket combo, although it drops in various colors throughout the game, and my Jedi wears a reddish brown one, my smuggler wears a khaki colored one, and I'm sure that there are other color options out there too. If there aren't, though, I've previewed some dye modules, and it dyes quite well.

I'm finding that I'm getting a little too caught up in the grinding and collecting. The same thing happened to me in Red Dead Online, and while I enjoyed it for quite some time, it was also the last hurrah before my interest waned, no doubt. I feel a kind of need to do it so I can have the cool cosmetics that I want, and to grind for credits and XP even, for that matter, and I've even gotten pretty caught up in the crafting of a lot of stuff. But it's really the stories that I enjoy the most. Ideally for me, there wouldn't be any need to do anything non-solo; all of the flashpoints, heroics, and even operations would have to be done so they could be soloable. Granted, most of the Heroics and at least half of the flashpoints have been modified so that they can be played this way, but uprisings, operations, a handful of Heroic 4s, and half of the flashpoints are not. As a big fan of the older Knights of the Old Republic game, I simply don't find the MMO side of the shop compelling at all, and I admit that there's a little bit of resentment that I can't participate in that content solo. I also don't like the microtransaction aspect of the cartel market. While yeah, I've spent some real money on some stuff here and there, I prefer to use the GTN and credits wherever possible. Of course, the most desireable things to have are somewhat rare, and therefore extremely expensive when subjected to the forces of supply and demand. No doubt this was on purpose to encourage microtransactions. Keep in mind that BioWare is owned by EA. Not shocking, but certainly disappointing and frustrating. I like being able to find everything in game the way Knights of the Old Republic did.

Luckily for me, I've got lots of story content to turn to when I start to get frustrated with the grind. I have four character classes that I haven't even started, two that I'm still kind of in the very early stages of, and even for the two classes that I've finished, I've got plenty of expansion content to go through. I've reupped my subscription (I bought the 2-month one that doesn't auto-renew) a month or so ago, and I'll probably do it at least one more time before I'm done; a full six months in total of subscription is what it'll end up having been. Will I really play all my my alien girl versions of the characters after I'm done with my white guy versions of all of the characters? Maybe, although I doubt I'll feel the same sense of urgency. I do want to both unlock the alien races across the spectrum, and I also want to see the female voice actor performances of the dialogue. Plus, it gives me a different romance option suite, obviously, to be a woman rather than a man.