Bounty hunting

If it seems like my blog has become little more than a daily Old Republic journal... well, it has. But that won't last forever. In any case, here's my daily update/rambling discussion.

I finished Chapter 1 with the Trooper. When I was done, I was level... 65, I think? It's clearly going much slower now that the double XP event is over (not surprising) but I should still be in good shape to play most of the next two chapters at max level, unless the expansion drops sooner than I think and the max level increases to 80 while I'm still going on with this. In fact, that's a good point; two of my classes that I've either finished the main story with, or at least aren't playing any more, aren't max level today; they're at level ~60. None of my characters are higher than 75, obviously, because that's the max right now. Do I have any interest in grinding the last few levels on those two characters that don't have it yet, and do I have any interest in grinding up to 80 with everyone once the expansion drops? Or will I just let them naturally and slowly level up doing events and Heroics and whatever else I do with them? It seems heroics will yield less credits, so I'll probably do them less often than I'm doing them now, where that's my main credit and XP grind, it's likely that I'll be migrating that grind to conquests and recurring events, even before the update. Except for the swoop bikes event; I have little interest in that one. The other four recurring events are all cool, though. Plus, I still want to finish leveling up my reputation for all of those. 

Anyway, chapter 1 always finishes with a coda after Alderaan. For some reason, I don't really like Alderaan. It's a big planet, and exploring new regions only seems to uncover a handful of hexes on the map. The mountain ridges gate it into smaller regions; it's not all that wide open. And honestly, I don't think the grassy meadow graphics look all that good. While it should be a planet that (graphically, at least) is right up my alley, I somehow don't really like it as much as I think that I should. Part of it may be that while it has a kind of space opera translation of typical Northern European fantasy feel, everyone looks really brown; either southern European or even Hispanic among most of the nobility and African among many others. This isn't really shocking given that they cast Jimmy Smits as the most iconic actual ethnic Alderaanian in the movies, but I find that I don't really relate as much as I'd like. Then they make most of them terribly unlikable in a cartoonish caricature of nobility and feudal systems. And finally, I think the killiks make the planet unlikable too. I don't like the collicoids either. I'm just not a fan of bug tunnels in general, and here they're spread all over the place. While the collicoids are more straightforward as hungry monster types, the killiks with their Joiner issue are actually much more monstrous, and the game often tries to paint them as somehow sympathetic, and gives you light side points all too often for being sympathetic to their cause.

Of course, I'm already "on record" plenty about the stupid, beta loser options being "light side" because being strong and decisive makes r-selected rabbits feel bad, or something. But it's a recurring issue that pops up here and there all through the game without ruining it exactly... just making it lesser than it could be if it had a more macho heroism vibe like the space opera on which George Lucas claims to have been originally inspired. It's occasionally irritating, but it's not a deal-breaker for the game.

In any case, I'm not particularly excited about going back to Alderaan after just finishing both the class story, the world story, and exploring the entire map with my Trooper, so I may fart around with my Powertech for a while before doing it. I've gone back to the Black Talon solo flashpoint twice, and although it drops me a gun that's better in stats than my current weapon, it looks like trash, and my normal gun will get upgraded as soon as I level up enough to install the next wave of mods, so I'll probably just hold off. I've also done the very first cut scene for the Nar Shadaa bonus story, and maybe I'll do Tatooine too before going to Alderaan. I've also got stuff to do with my OG Jedi Guardian; the Nathema conspiracy which wraps up the whole Theron Shan betrayal storyline, and paves the way for Ossus and more dailies. After that, there's all of the Onslaught expansion stuff to do; Onderon, Mek-Sha and a fairly big batch of story flashpoints. And after that...  on to the new Legacy of the Sith expansion. And it'd be nice to get my Sith Warrior up there too. My original intention was to do both of those two characters all the way to the top (for one thing, I didn't romance Vette, so I want my long-term Jaesa romance to pay off). But he's been stuck on Yavin 4 for months, without any progress other than using him for events and grinding here and there. And he's my lightsaber and dye module crafter too, I suppose. Anyway, after doing the bonus stories for Nar Shadaa and Tatooine, and going back to my Guardian and getting to (and doing) Ossus, I'll be ready to dive back into Alderaan with my bounty hunter.

Anyway, why don't I like Alderaan? I think I already discussed that, but let's assume for the sake of argument that you're chances of running into dangerous wildlife or violent bad guys wasn't standard for the Old Republic, but rather standard for our world, i.e., the vast majority of people go their whole lives without ever doing either, then which planet would I actually want to live on in the Old Republic? Which environment seems to be the most pleasant in terms of scenery as well as living accommodations?

Keeping in mind that there are planets utilized in many flashpoints, expansion chapters, and other settings other than simply open world planets on the galaxy map, I think that a contender has to be Copero, the chiss planet in the A Traitor Among the Chiss flashpoint. It's probably not terribly exotic as far as planets to, having a kind of Amalfi Coast and Lake Como, but slightly more tropical at the shore, given that there's palm trees. Rakata Prime and Rishi seem like pleasant planets to be on, although the lack of any kind of development might be a turn-off. Where are you supposed to live, in a ruined hut? Athiss is supposed to be a Sith world, so it's probably all dark, and melancholy and sinister, but the scenery is actually really pretty. Tython is supposed to be a Jedi world, but it was from a time where the Jedi hadn't yet crystalized as the "light side of the Force" faction, so it's got its dark spots too. I'm going to assume that these aren't really issues, however, and consider them as liveable places. Tython has a nice, fancy little "city" in the form of the Jedi enclave that you can live at too. Odessen is nice in a kind of "it's the PNW planet" kind of way, so not terribly exotic, but certainly nice, and as I said yesterday, I think Ossus is prettier than people give it credit for; the kind of black rocks, red sand and stunning waterfalls that overlook the ruined enclave are beautiful. I'm not really a fan of living in ruins, however. 

Finally, Voss is gorgeous. I haven't decided if the golden-amber light is because of the time of day, or because of the gigantic yellow gas giant in the sky, or something else, and I also haven't decided if it's supposed to be fall with fall colors, or if that's just the color of some trees on Voss. Either way, I absolutely love the look of it. And, other than weird, bald, colorful aliens with honeycomb eyes, which kind of freak me out, it seems like a reasonably nice place to live too.