11/03/2012

Enjoying Endgame

One thing that has taken me somewhat by surprise is just how much I'm enjoying the endgame in The Old Republic. I mean, I was really looking forward to the game, but even so I thought that I would spend most of my time levelling alts in order to enjoy the different class stories, the roleplaying and the voice acting. However, as it stands, my alts' progress keeps stalling because I'm having too much fun on my main, which is certainly not the worst problem in the world to have, but still... surprising.

Operations are ridiculously fun. And to think that I believed that I was burnt out on raiding for good... This week my guild managed to clear both raids on normal mode for the first time and it was simply a blast for everyone involved.

Getting Soa down felt like a true achievement and a great team effort all around, not to mention that there was something quite amusing about people shouting directions left and right in order to convey where to move the boss in the final phase. My favourite was probably: "No, it's coming down over there where Shintar's standing. In fact, Shintar, move!"

In Karagga's Palace my boyfriend and I were working like a well-oiled machine as our group's dedicated console operating team on the puzzle boss, and when Karagga himself died, he sent our smuggler into a bit of a frenzy by dropping his hat on him. Indeed, no raid group should be without one of these.

I liked this post by Calli on Dude, Where's My Bantha? on the subject of SWTOR operations. Even though he plays in a much more hardcore guild, I can't help but echo his feelings when he says: "About halfway through I felt something I’d not felt raiding since Karazhan and Ulduar in World of Warcraft. Is that… am I… yes I do believe that’s fun."

However, even on nights when we don't have any operations scheduled, I just keep getting sucked into things. It starts innocently enough as I just log onto my main to check my mail, send companions on missions and so on, and then I think: Hm, I could run a few warzones to try and get the PvP daily done - it's not that much effort, is it? This line of thinking rarely works out because I seem to end up losing a lot more games than I'm winning, but I'm still enjoying it because the gameplay is fun and people are generally in good spirits even when things aren't going in the Republic's favour.

Next thing I know a guildie is asking whether anyone wants to join for dailies. I rarely bother on my own because it tends to be a bit tedious, but in a group they are good fun. Pretty much as soon as we have four people online, someone will then ask whether anyone wants to do a hardmode flashpoint and off we go. There goes the rest of my evening and my alts remain unplayed once again.

I never quite understood Syl's frequently expressed dislike for alts, and I'm still convinced that I will get around to levelling more of them eventually, but I do have to admit that there's something very enjoyable about simply wanting to play your main all the time because there's so much to do and it's a lot of fun. For a game that's so heavily focused on offering replay value on different characters, SWTOR is certainly doing a good job at keeping me occupied with other things.

7 comments :

  1. Wow shin you go completely against the common grain here from what I have seen on the forums for example but I agree with it all. I am diss appointed to keep missing the raids and hm Fp but I still enjoy running dailies as I see the effect of each upgrade I get and keeP setting myself a new challenge like taking on two groups instead of one etc

    Carb

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    1. I know, right? I will get around to those alts eventually...

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  2. It was a complete blast, and yes I still have not started a proper alt yet, as I am always busy.

    Great Blog keep writing I look forward to reading.

    Mars

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    1. Thanks, Mars. :) And "The Purple Sabre"? Can we soon look forward to writings from you as well? ;)

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    2. Trying to pluck up the courage. Not sure I will be anywhere near you league in terms of how interesting your reads are!

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  3. I know exactly how you feel. I have been having a blast in Operations, despite the many bugs my guild has experienced in some of the fights. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's enjoying the end-game.

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  4. http://gamingsf.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/ohlen-interview-on-swtor/

    "The number of level 50s is a lot higher than we thought it was going to be. Therefore, our group finder has become a much higher priority. It's essentially our highest-priority feature that is not going in 1.2. If there is one feature that 1.3 will have, it will be the group finder.

    "A lot of our feedback from the level 50s revolves around the dungeon finder. We have two operations, four level 50 flashpoints, and the hardmodes for all of them. We have a ton of PvE high-level content, but our metrics show that a lot of it hasn't been consumed by level 50s. Dungeon finder is the key there. That's one of the reasons that PvP is so popular because PvP is so much easier to get into than PvE. Once I started getting that data I was like, 'Oh, OK.' I knew that group finder was important. When leveling up, like we found during beta, you don't really need the group finder, but when you reach the max level, it becomes very important."

    Mixed feelings about this. Good to get more people to see the endgame content. Bad to see Bioware selling out and bringing combat log (DPS meters), now Dungeon Finder, I guess EA calls the shots now.

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