Double XP

As our double XP event comes to an end (tomorrow) I have to marvel at what it means for my characters. I finished two characters and started two characters on it. The ones that I finished were pretty far along, so it was just a case of blasting through a couple of planets of story missions. For the two that I've started, I've done the two planets of the introduction and two planets of the first chapter respectively, i.e., I've just finished Nar Shadaa and the brief follow-up interlude for both of them, and I'm ready to go to Tatooine. I deliberately didn't do much (if any) of the Heroic missions for either character, but I did do a fair number of of the regular exploration and daily non-heroic repeatables. I also didn't do the world story, but for the Imperial side, Nar Shadaa's world story comes in chunks that are not unlike exploration missions, in many ways, so I ended up doing a couple of them. In any case, I'm about to start Tatooine, I'm still in the first chapter—only half way through it, even—and my trooper is level 49 and my bounty hunter is level 50. Which, I'll remind you, is the original level cap and, in theory, where you are when you are wrapping up the missions on Corellia in the end game. Even when double XP goes away tomorrow and my leveling slows down, I shouldn't have any trouble reaching level 75 with both of these characters before finishing the story, unless I completely and totally forego exploration missions. Which, honestly, was my original intention. But it's been long enough ago since I played them that they're feeling (mostly) kind of fresh. And I may want to go back and do some daily heroics on the lower level planets for the money. It'll end up being both a credit and XP (and gear) grind at my level, just because that's how that works. The "big" savings that I had had when I restarted have been significantly depleted both in outfitting and perking out these new characters and also in buying the few things that are affordable on the GTN that I wanted to archive for future use, like the black crystals in all normal colors, etc. I've now got two of the black core reds, purples, blues and oranges. The "charred" orange I have in my collections, and the black core green can be bought at the rakghoul Jawa. I've got two of those archived for use when I play a Jedi Sentinel, in fact.

Anyway, I've been a bit more relaxed rather than focused with both of these characters in terms of doing exploration and some other stuff that my original plan was to skip altogether. I've always liked the bounty hunter, even though I screwed up my last one and locked out chapters two and three before playing them last time. This is actually my third time going through that character. I've also liked the trooper much more than I thought I would, although if it sticks true to the pattern, we'll completely switch to a different focus in chapter two with a different antagonist/villain/rival. I think even the people who like the trooper story say that it starts stronger than it maintains. 

When I played the Jedi Knight, I was a guardian, and I was alternating with a Sith Warrior who was a Marauder. That was the last time that I went back and forth between the two unmirrored versions; I did the Gunfighter/Sniper, which are mirrored, and I did Shadow/Assassin which are also mirrored. Playing the unmirrored Commando vs Powertech I believe gives me an interesting view on the alternate that I haven't yet played. Sure, sure... the animations will be a bit different. I didn't really feel exactly the same playing the Gunslinger vs the Sniper, or the Shadow vs the Assassin. But the mechanics were obviously the same once you paid attention.

To be honest with you, it's nice that you don't have to pay too close attention. I like that Old Republic is a fairly casual, relaxed game.