23/06/2019

Peace and Pacifism on Dantooine

Since the double dose of the Pirate Incursion event came to an end on Tuesday, Dantooine has been in its dedicated peaceful state. And I've got to say: Dantooine during peace time is both unique and adorable.

There is no other planet like it: Except for some Imperial spies hiding in corners and the occasional angry Kath Hound, it's devoid of hostile mobs. You can easily ride across the rolling meadows from one end of the accessible area to the other with nothing ever attacking you .

There are a bunch of achievements to chase that require you to find some small clickies that have a medium to long respawn timer, which is not something that's particularly up my alley, but there are two regular daily quests too: to inject Kath Hounds with a serum and to dig up some relics. They don't reward reputation or the special event currency, just a bit of XP and credits - they are just a cute little thing to do for fun.

I particularly like the one with the Kath Hounds, considering that I've previously professed my love for them. On Republic side, it has a bonus to pet friendly Kath Hounds, which again, is just adorable.


It got me thinking though: Does the inclusion of these quests mean that we've now officially got a way to play a pacifist character from level 1? If this sounds like an odd idea to you, you've got to know that I've always loved stories about people levelling up in unusual ways: whether it's considering any death a permanent failure, running around naked, refusing to use a companion or going from 1 to 70 exclusively via GSF.

In World of Warcraft, a player also made headlines by refusing to join a faction and levelling his character without engaging in any combat, purely by picking flowers and mining ore (both of which grant experience points in WoW). I always figured that this wasn't possible in SWTOR because while there are non-combat activities that grant XP, such as many GSI dailies, they generally don't unlock until the higher levels and you don't gain character XP from gathering or crew skills.

As I noted previously though, the Pirate Incursion event is accessible from level one, and you don't even need a ship to travel there via the activities window. So you could use this method of travel to get to Dantooine when the event is on, and then log back in once it's over and start levelling purely via petting Kath Hounds and digging for relics once a day. (If anything attacked you, you would have to run away of course, if you genuinely wanted to stay true to your pacifist creed.)

Madness? For sure, but also a really intriguing idea to me.

1 comment :

  1. Curious that Dantooine of all places is this peaceful in SWTOR. I remember very well that the planet's SWG version was anything but.

    It was the first non-starter planet my guildies and I visited, and the mobs there kicked our butts hard if we weren't careful.
    I always had to take point whenever we had to cover some ground across the planet (this was before mounts and gliders were released) because I was the one who had the best feel for the mob's aggro ranges.

    Must have looked quite hilarious, a ragtag group of humans and aliens zigzagging in single file across an endless field of (flat) flowers...

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