The Force made it pretty again though. I swear most of my time during my first playthrough of the flashpoint was taken up by just looking around and taking screenshots. Here are a few of them:
I remember recently in my comment section Soots commented about how none of the new flashpoints are as fun and attractive as the classic ones, and another commenter replied - quite rightly so - that in a comparison of the visuals between False Emperor and Traitor Among The Chiss, the latter would come out as a clear winner. As much as it's fun to reminisce about the good old days sometimes, in terms of looks SWTOR's environments have only become prettier.
I think this will only add to people's already existing longing for another "proper" open-world planet to be added to the game again soon. The fleet is fine as a hub but sometimes you just want to treat your eyes to something nicer. And Iokath didn't really fit the bill for this due to its mechanical design.
Speaking of appearances, the patch also brought with it a new hairstyle. Please tell me I wasn't the only one who paused after seeing it for the first time and went to the Cartel Market to check if a new hair bundle had been released?! Bioware surprised everyone in a positive way however by simply adding the new hairstyle to the existing selection for free. It's a pretty good one as well, a nice variant of the classic short ponytail. I just fear that I might get sick of seeing it pretty quickly, what with seemingly everyone on my Twitter timeline rolling up new alts with the exact same hairstyle now!
I'm actually resisting the very strong urge to put Vinn's hairstyle on a few more characters myself. It's practical yet maintains some style and elegance without going 'too far'. :P
ReplyDeleteWith regards to Iokath, I'm still incredibly disappointed we never got to see more of the overrun city aspect of the Planet glimpsed all-too-briefly in Chapter IV. Sure, the mechanical side of things makes sense to focus on in-story, but that shouldn't be all that we remember about a planet.
That's one thing I definitely miss about the open-world planets from prior to 4.0. While the majority of the newer ones (CZ-198, Oricon, Yavin IV, and - to a possible lesser extent - Ziost) were created more with Daily Zones in mind, you could still explore the various different areas in your own time and form your own perspective, even if it contrasted with what the story was trying to tell you was important.
That's not to say that you can't still form a different perspective; it is a fair bit harder now that the story is more intricately tied to the specific area in that with the exceptions of the majority of areas of Zakuul, Odessen, Darvannis and the Daily zone of Iokath you can't return to the planet/are without starting or repeating a Chapter of KotFE/KotET.
We shall see what we shall see.
I think the Nathema FP is absolutely gorgeous to look at. On my 1st run it took me well over 90 minutes because I was spending lots of time simply looking around. The detail and the far off background I found stunning. Great to play also. It gives me lots of hope for the future.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'll have to play through it again! I was having serious graphic issues when I first did it (indeed, I gave up the 1st time because it wouldn't stop crashing at the gate cutscene), 2nd time around I was worried baby would wake up and ruin my fun...
ReplyDeleteI was positively impressed at some of the tiny variations on story, though, even if I didn't remember the people being recruited all that well... It made me miss Gaden-ko, he was a good kid to my main; even Iresso's return was good fun (I never liked him much and was glad to break things off again -I had already refused to marry him back in vanilla and I've been very serious about Theron since the game made me stop flirting with both and chosing between him or Lana on Fish I), made me miss my original companions so much more, the sense of identity that came with them...
And Theron. Oh, well, story is a whole other post but I'll say it was written in such a way that I can see how each alt would deal with it - and it'll be fun to (eventually) see them try!
Yep, story will probably be my next post!
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