Old Republic new again

Six or seven months or so ago, I was blogging quite a bit about the Old Republic, which I was actively playing at the time. (Curiously, I never made a tag specifically for it. I just made one now for this post.) Then I stopped, because I stopped actively playing and let my subscription lapse. I've recently re-upped my subscription for another two months (which will conveniently end when I'm away and unable to play for the holidays) and then will probably re-up again early next year when I'm back from Christmas and New Years out of state. I've started playing again, blasted through Voss and Corellia (thus finishing his class story) with my Jedi Shadow and went back to my Sith Assassin, where I've recently landed on Belsavis. Five of eight class stories done, and a sixth within easy striking distance, almost certainly this week. 

I had earlier played a Bounty Hunter, but I screwed it up by not knowing how the expansions worked, and locked myself out of two thirds of my class story. Because he was a maxed out level character with Armormech crew skills also at a high level, I didn't want to delete him, but I need to do a whole new bounty hunter, and I've still never done the trooper either. If I finish the Inquisitor this week, then I should be good to go to blast through the class stories, ignoring most of the world story stuff, heroics, and other optionals without too much problem. Especially if I can get the first couple of planets done while the double XP event is still going on. Which may be a bit tight, but we'll see. In any case, by the time Christmas rolls around and my subscription lapses again, I should have finished all eight class stories. Coincidentally, Old Republic will be celebrating its 10th anniversary at about that same time, and will be rolling out a significant upgrade. From a systems perspective and how the game actually plays, it's probably among the most significant upgrades that they've done, on par with launching free-to-play and launching the single-player friendly modes with 4.0. Seems like a good time for a retrospective and brief discussion of my personal experience and future with The Old Republic.

First off, I started playing right away the demo, even though I didn't subscribe until... I dunno, less than a year ago. At the time, you couldn't play more than the first two planets and about twenty levels without a subscription; it really was just a demo, so I didn't play it a lot. I was frustrated, quite honestly, with the fact that it was trying to be an MMO because of management directives when what I wanted as a Knights of the Old Republic customer was an RPG (which I also think is what the developers wanted it to be; the MMO features felt very grafted on.) Whether this was a universal desire among the customers is debatable, but clearly the developers have come out and said that an overwhelming majority of all players play the game as a single player RPG with only occasional MMO-like features being used by them. The percentage that is hardcore into the MMO stuff is relatively tiny; less than 20%, certainly, and maybe closer to 10%.

When free to play launched, I played a bit more, but I had a technical issue where one update no longer worked on my older computer that I had at the time, so I wasn't able to finish. I finally started playing "for real" after getting a new computer early this year and reinstalling. I found that a number of other things had changed with the game too. I was enjoying it enough after a little while that I bought the time-bound (rather than open-ended) subscription, and re-upped it a couple of times. I think I probably had about a six month subscription starting very early in the year (or maybe late last year) and then I've let it sit for about five months since too. I'm back again now. I'll finish all of my class stories, finish my expansion stuff that I still haven't done with my Jedi Guardian (and maybe my Sith Marauder) and then... I'd like to still do my recordings of all of the class and expansion stories, to archive them for the inevitable day when the servers go down and you can't play anymore. Sure, sure... I don't think that that's imminent or anything. The release of a major expansion at the end of the year is certainly the sign of a healthy game, or at least one that plans on being around for a while. But by its nature, it simply can't be forever. Someday the servers will turn off the lights and that'll be that. I'd love to think that they'd make a few changes (really just continuations of what they've already done) to make it capable of being a non-server, closed game that you could just play offline by yourself and continue to sell even after the servers are gone on Steam or GOG or something, but they probably won't. At some point, the game will be gone for good, and when it is, it's gone. So I want to have my archived playthroughs available for me to watch when I'm old(er) and gray(er) and feel like reliving the Old Republic stories again.

A few other things have changed. When I started playing, there were eight classes. Each class had it's own story. Each class also had two advanced classes; alternative ways of building the character. This didn't impact the story at all, but it did impact class abilities, combat, and what weapons (and possibly armor) your character would wear. Cosmetic changes that included buying modifications for your weapons and gear rather than constantly actually buying new level-appropriate weapons and gear did away with a little bit of that. They also changed the game so that you pick your advanced class right away. While there are still eight stories, each story has effectively two classes that, while similar, also offer marked differences in playstyle. However, there are not sixteen classes, in a manner of speaking. Each class has a mirror on the other faction. Some of the ability names and animations will be different, but effectively, each "advanced" class for each faction has a mirror on the other faction that plays mechanically exactly the same. So there are eight class stories and eight mechanical classes, but they don't line up. The gunfighter and the sniper, for instance, have the same mechanical class (albeit cosmetically different, and with different weapons) but one has the smuggler class story and the other has the agent class story. The scoundrel and the gunfighter are two mechanically different classes, but both have the same class story, on the other hand, the smuggler class story. 

So, I've played (or will have played) one of each class story when I'm done. My initial thought was that I'd play the other mechanical variation on each class story. That way, I'd have played all variations available, at least in terms of story and mechanics (although I've only done male characters, so I've never heard the female voice actor performances for any class.) However, I wasn't completely sure of this. Some classes, I feel, have a more iconic option than the other. Plus, just the way I did it, I may have left off some diversity of cosmetics because of the mechanical choices I made. If I played (and I did) a Jedi Shadow and a Sith Assassin, then I already played all of the characters that have double-bladed Darth Maul style lightsabers, and none of my recorded versions would have that. I also think that the weapons that only one variant ever can use, like the sniper rifle on the sniper and the assault cannon on the commando, are more iconic and unique than using the variables that only use a blaster rifle for both. Yet, I've already played a sniper and will have already played a commando. Should I do those again for my recordings just so I can have the other weapon choices that I otherwise wouldn't have, though? I'll make the characters look really unique to have the sniper and assault cannon respectively rather than just blaster rifles for both, which—less face it—is relatively generic in comparison.

My thoughts about how best to serve those interests have been thrown for an even farther loop by the announcement that the 10th anniversary upgrade, called Legacy of the Sith, will feature an even more significant shake-up to the class structure than making advanced classes something you start at character creation. Now, the class story and class mechanics are going to be somewhat decoupled in a significant way. Advanced classes are now going to be called combat styles, and can be used—with the caveat and force-users and non force-users are still completely split from each other—regardless of which class story you're playing. So I could, for instance, play the Imperial agent storyline, but use the Republic commando mechanics, including the autocannon weapon and all other commando class abilities. This creates a wide diversity of how things can be done. I could decide that if I loved the sniper class, I could play the smuggler, trooper, bounty hunter and agent class all with the sniper class, using the sniper rifle and sniper abilities. Given that this will be launching right about the time I'm finishing up my initial playthrough with every class and will be talking about getting my recordings going, does that impact how I will want to select characters for my recordings? Probably. 

I also, as I said, have no female character. I think the male characters—as human—is the most iconic way to play. So, I played all of my classes as white, human males. And, I'll almost certainly do so again for my recordings, because I would want those recordings to look iconic, I think. Maybe I could introduce a few aliens in there; the agent as a chiss, or the Sith warrior as an ethnic sith, or something (and maybe one or two on the Republic side as well—mirialin or zabrak. And I consider cyborgs to jus be variations on humans too.) I might well do this when the romanceable partner is an alien; I prefer alien to alien match-ups rather than human to alien ones.

Maybe what I'm saying is that I'd almost like more than one recording. But do I really think I'm going to record more than one playthrough with each class? It might well be dubious to think that I'll actually conclude all of this with even the more modest plans that I already have. 

Anyway, lots of thoughts. Not a lot of answers yet, except that in the short term, I'll finish my Sith Inquisitor and then play my trooper and bounty hunter after that. I might start them both at more or less the same time and leapfrog, like I was originally doing, or I might just play one and then the other sequentially. Haven't decided yet.

Anyway, here's the loading screen for the current update, which is new since I played it six months or so ago. Sadly, the big ugly sheboon is still one of the iconic NPCs that they're trying to push on us and they feature her prominently again... in the loading screen. On the other hand, that redesign for Darth Malgus is pretty sweet, and that's now a cartel market purchasable outfit.