Rakghoul Resurgence on Tatooine

It was only a week ago - after having been somewhat unenthused about the latest iteration of the Gree event - that I mentioned that I was hoping for a swift return of the rakghoul event instead. Well, yesterday I came home from work... and there they were! That was faster than expected, however I guess it only makes sense. Galactic Strongholds is almost upon us, and it wouldn't make much sense to hold an event like this during a time when everyone's busy digging their teeth into new content and features. I suppose there wasn't much time left to get the rakghouls "in there".

I can already tell that I'm more excited about this than I was about the Gree, as - even with my limited playtime - I managed to run the dailies on three characters yesterday and already killed the Eyeless twice.

The major factor that intrigued me about this event was the question of how much of a difference it would actually make to have it take place on different planets. Sadly but also unsurprisingly, the answer is: not much. The Spike has simply moved to Tatooine, and the Rakghoul Tunnels are exactly the same as they were on Alderaan, which is honestly a bit weird. As my pet tank put it so succinctly, if there is such a lush underground cave system on Tatooine, why do people bother with the desert on the surface? I understand why Bioware decided to reuse the art assets for the event (and they are pretty tunnels), but it does feel a little off.

What disappointed me more was that the NPC conversations you have during the introductory quests are exactly the same as they were on Alderaan. Considering that these chats aren't very interactive, I would have thought that this would be a golden opportunity to make the different planets actually feel a little different too. Guess not. I'm not sure why the exact same people who needed help in House Organa and Thul are now hanging out in Anchorhead and Mos Ila.

That said, I've heard that there is a new world boss (though I haven't seen it yet) and at least the underground tunnels have been adjusted a little. So the groups of infected you fight in the first cave are made up of mobs like sand people and Mandalorians instead of Killiks and joiners. I also noticed while scanning the little piles of skulls for one of the dailies, that they are now piled into baskets like the sand people would have them. I'm pretty sure that underneath Alderaan they sat on top of some gooey Killik things.

Either way this event still feels sufficiently new and exciting to me that I want to get in on the fun. I also cracked up when one of the first things I spotted in the tunnels was this guy who appeared to be pretty much naked... but when I inspected him it turned out that he was actually wearing a full Covert Energy armour set, plus whatever those pants are called. You kind of have to give kudos for the effort.