The Legacy of Legacy of the Sith's Story

What made me happiest about the release of Legacy Reborn, beyond the fact that I thought it was a very good story update on its own merits, was that it finally brought the era of Legacy of the Sith to a conclusion, something that has been a looong time coming.

Two years ago, I wrote a post about my favourite patch/expansion storylines in SWTOR, and even at the time, unsure of where it was ultimately going to go, I ranked Legacy of the Sith in sixth place. Now that I've played through it in its entirety multiple times, I'd definitely move it higher up, probably in third or fourth place.

However, even though I've always thought that LotS' writing was good overall, the speed at which the story progressed in-game was always a problem. In the devs' defense, the 2024-25 voice actors' strike threw a spanner in the works that they couldn't have foreseen, but even if we assumed a normal six-month gap between Desperate Defiance and Galactic Threads instead of the eighteen months it actually ended up being, the storyline still would've taken almost three and a half years to conclude. And I'm sorry, but that's just too long, especially considering the amount of stuff that actually happens in that time frame (which is not that much, compared to other eras of SWTOR).

I've been wondering why the devs could've possibly thought that this wouldn't bother people - after all, most of them have been around long enough to know about KotFE's reception, which was Bioware's original attempt to convert SWTOR into a game that would sell story in installments. Yet even when that was at its best pace, releasing a new chapter once a month, people thought that was way too slow and got bored. How could anyone possibly have thought that doing the same thing again, but this time with six months between "chapters", would be popular with players?

As I thought about this, I came to a surprising realisation, and it startled me that I'd gone so long without noticing it at all: that Legacy of the Sith has been the first expansion storyline/era that attempted to be as ambitious as the original class stories in the sense of having both a smaller, self-contained story for each update and an overarching meta plot.

What I mean by that is that if you look at any of the original class stories, they always have a larger plot in each chapter that is advanced only a little bit with each planetary mission as you work your way through it, but said planetary missions have (minor, but coherent) stories of their own.

For example, the Jedi consular's chapter one is all about the question of who is causing the mysterious plague that is afflicting various Jedi Masters, but each planet has its own story and "villain" to overcome. On Taris you need to track down master Cin Tykan while trying to deal with the various types of destruction he's left in his wake, all while different characters are chewing your ear off about how you should deal with him once you find him. On Nar Shaddaa you befriend Theran Cedrax, who helps you infiltrate a gang to get to Duras Fain, who has pretty relatable beef with the Hutts even if the plague is affecting his judgement. On Tatooine you learn more about the native people of the planet while following the steps of Master Eriz. On Alderaan you get entangled with the political machinations of House Teral in order to gain access to Master Sedonie. Each of these is a satisfying little story on its own that also slowly reveals more about the mysterious plague master with each step along the way.

I'd never really thought about this before, but none of the expansion stories ever tried to do that again; they are pretty much always just a sequence of major events that are tied together by "and then". I suppose you could argue that KotFE's larger plot was about building an Alliance to defeat Arcann for a while, with smaller stories about how you end up recruiting new allies, but I'd say that only applies to maybe four chapters. Otherwise it's still mostly a matter of one main event simply leading directly to another.

I'm wondering whether the writers thought that they'd be able to pull off Legacy of the Sith by having each update be a story that's engaging enough on its own, with the meta plot basically being a bonus.

Let's have a look at how that worked out with each installment in terms of how strong its "standalone" story was vs. what it contributed to the larger plot. The larger plot being the question of what's up with Darth Nul and her inventions, as well as what Darth Malgus and Heta Hol want with them (plus our attempts to foil them).

7.0 - Legacy of the Sith

Standalone story: The fight over Manaan was a solid piece of story, even if I thought the narrative on Republic side was a bit less interesting than that on Imp side.

Larger plot: In the Elom flashpoint, you investigate a mystery, run into Darth Malgus and capture him.

Overall vibe: Both aspects of the story were served in this update, but in a super weird way, as the Manaan plot had basically zero connection to anything else, unless you want to count the introduction of Admiral Rava on Republic side, who would later return as an extremely minor character. The events on Elom seem like a decent enough starting point for a larger plot when looked at in isolation, but as I noted in my review at the time, we'd already spent time wondering about Malgus' plans for over three years of real time by that point, so to once again be back at the point of "huh, I'm wondering what Malgus was up to" was extremely unsatisfying.

7.1 - Digging Deeper

Standalone story: You meet people and look at some rocks.

Larger plot: You get an exposition dump about Darth Nul, plus some cut scenes about what Sa'har has been up to.

Overall vibe: The standalone story was basically non-existent here; it was just a giant plot exposition dump.

7.2 - Showdown on Ruhnuk

Standalone story: Shae hunts down Heta Kol on Ruhnuk and they duel, plus you manage to hurt the Hidden Chain quite a bit. It's an interesting enough series of events, though the fact that Heta gets away again at the end is a bit unsatisfying.

Larger plot: Our character actually meets Sa'har for the first time, learns that she's with the Hidden Chain and that she has a brother there.

Overall vibe: ??? At the time, it wasn't at all clear that the Mandalorian plot thread would eventually tie into the main storyline, so it felt more like a detour from the Malgus/Nul plot than anything else.

7.3 - Old Wounds

Standalone story: We assist the Voss and Gormak in their restoration and unification efforts at the Interpreter's Retreat and put an end to some Czerka shenanigans.

Larger plot: We find out that Darth Nul was once a Jedi and that the Voss had a vision about Malgus doing something dramatic. Shae gets very angry.

Overall vibe: I'd argue that this was the first update where we got both a standalone story and a larger plot advancement, and they had a clear connection, which was a positive development. The problem was that the standalone story was the first time they inserted KOTOR style cut scenes into the main story, which immediately made some people hate it, and the storyline itself also wasn't the most exciting (floor sweeping). Combine that with the fact that the main plot advancement - while present - was still slow and vague, and story progression still felt lacking overall.

7.4 - Chains in the Dark

Standalone story: The Hidden Chain is abducting people for mysterious reasons. You go to Ord Mantell to stop that.

Larger plot: Sa'har comes out as wanting to defect and Shae Vizla goes missing.

Overall vibe: This was the first update where I thought things finally started to come together a bit. The story of helping the people of Ord Mantell was satisfying enough for me as a trooper main, but I understand that for someone who primarily plays Imperial, there might have been a sense of "why does my character care about this". Beating Tyrus Brokenblade is a pretty satisfying conclusion to the standalone part of the story though, because while our character doesn't know him, we as the player know that he's one of Heta's most important lieutenants. Sa'har taking a stand feels like it's finally moving things along a bit. It's just bad that it took us until the fifth LotS update to finally get a sense of where we're going.

7.5 - Desperate Defiance

Standalone story: As part of striking at the Hidden Chain, you help out a slave rebellion on Hutta and take out Yusinduu the Hutt.

Larger plot: Sa'har defects openly, and after stealing a Hidden Chain shuttle, you infiltrate one of Heta's ships and destroy the machine there. You finally get to understand what she wanted with it and why she was kidnapping people. Your faction expresses displeasure about the Mandalorian situation. At the end, Shae breaks Malgus out of his prison.

Overall vibe: This was another step up from Chains in the Dark. The slave rebellion on Hutta alone is a bit weak as the minor plot, but we do end up invading Heta's space and blowing up her machine at the end, which is a satisfying advancement of the meta plot. 

7.8 - Galactic Threads

Standalone story: You hunt down a Hidden Chain defector on Tatooine and end up helping her. You chase Greb Besrik through the snows of Hoth and deal with Rass' anger issues. We explore Darth Nul's secret lab on Elom. On Ilum with an i, we discover the remains of the Emperor's crashed space station.

Larger plot: From the above, you learn that Heta Kol is travelling through Sith space and that Shae and Malgus are working together towards different objectives. The section on Elom fleshes out Darth Nul's lore some more while also giving us a hint that someone is spying on us. Ilum answers the question of what actually happened to Nul. Darth Jadus reveals himself.

Overall vibe: I actually struggled a bit to split out the minor and major story beats for this one, but I think that was kind of the point of this update, to finally pull a number of different threads together. I think Galactic Threads really succeeded at telling stories that were both interesting in isolation and also advanced the greater plot in several repects. 

7.8.1 - Master's Engima

Standalone story: You meet with Darth Jadus, explore Darth Nul's old spaceship and get betrayed.

Larger plot: Your faction is really unhappy with you by this point, and you learn where you have to go to confront Heta, Malgus and Shae one last time.

Overall vibe: This was probably the strongest standalone story since 7.2, while still advancing the plot in a meaningful way, which made it feel like a great update.

7.9 - Legacy Reborn

This is where it finally all comes together and the meta plot effectively became the main plot.

In summary, Legacy of the Sith officially consisted of nine story updates (I mentioned previously that you could argue that its plot effectively already started earlier, but for simplicity's sake let's stick with the official labelling), and looking back at them, it took about five updates and more than two years of real time for the story to really find its feet, which is wild to me. The sheer length of the plot was always going to be a problem in an MMO format with six months between story updates, but I do think people probably would have been a little less negative about it if we hadn't spent so much time at the beginning seemingly meandering between story beats that felt completely disconnected and lore dumps that didn't really make it clear where any of this was meant to be going.

When I first started writing this, I thought that my conclusion at the end would be something along the lines of "please devs, never do anything like this again; future updates should all be mostly self-contained or at least resolved within two or three updates max" but now that I've looked at it in detail... I guess I wouldn't be completely opposed to having another longer story arc in the future (though nine parts is definitely too much, never mind that it could be considered even longer if you count all the Malgus stuff that came before). However, it would then be vital for each patch to always deliver both an interesting standalone story that has our characters going on a noteworthy adventure with meaningful results and some clear advancement of the overarching plot that isn't just a bit of lore or a vague prophecy. It's clear that the team has the ability to do that (as evidenced by the second half of LotS) but whether they can always apply that in practice remains to be seen.

How do you feel about Legacy of the Sith's story now that it's finally wrapped up? How has your perception of its narrative changed over time?

Ranking Legacy of the Sith's Major NPCs

I said that I'd have more to say about Legacy of the Sith now that its story has finally wrapped up. One of the things I wanted to go into in more detail were the characters, because without a doubt, LotS has been the most character-driven storyline SWTOR has ever had.

I decided I'd like to rank the story's major characters from best to worse in terms of how much character development they got and how much I personally enjoyed both watching and interacting with them. Note that this will contain spoilers for various events that occurred throughout Legacy of the Sith.

1. Rass Ordo

The top spot on my list goes to young Mandalorian Rass Ordo without a doubt. I liked him when he was first introduced in Spirit of Vengeance, and he's only continued to develop from there. I may be biased here because he's the only one of the characters on this list with whom I've pursued a romance so far, but I do think his character development has been apparent even in the non-romantic scenes. He was pretty carefree and cheerful when he was introduced to us, and over time we got to witness him first becoming annoyed with the shenanigans of the Hidden Chain and then seriously disenchanted after Shae Vizla's betrayal. At the same time this only strengthened his bond to our character as someone standing for loyalty and stability, and I can't wait to see him again in 8.0.

2. Darth Nul

She may be dead and/or insane, but Darth Nul has in some ways been the unexpected star of this expansion. It's called "Legacy of the Sith" after all and nobody else seems to have left a bigger legacy for us to deal with than her. Obviously she doesn't actually do (much of) anything herself, but the arc of our characters first learning of her existence and then slowly finding out more and more about her until finally confronting her crazed spirit in the mind trap is very satisfying. It looks like we're not done discovering more of her strange projects and inventions either.

3. Shae Vizla

If we look at the Mandalorian side of this expansion's storytelling, it's largely been driven by Shae Vizla's slow descent into... not insanity, but obsession with beating Heta Kol and doing so personally (which, to be fair, is a very Mandalorian thing to do). It's very well written, from her at first very understandable desire to sort out this beef one-on-one on Ruhnuk, to her increased annoyance with the matter of Heta after the latter gets away yet again, to Shae going off like a lone wolf to confront Heta for a third time, eventually dropping out of contact and making everyone's lives worse in the process. It's a classic tragedy as we watch her make several bad (but understandable) decisions after another, which eventually cumulate in her death - even if she does manage to take Heta with her.

4. Darth Malgus 

For being this expansion's original poster boy, Darth Malgus kind of had surprisingly little to do. He gets captured right at the start, then spends several patches brooding in prison not saying much. After he's broken out by Shae, we get a few cool cut scenes of him smashing Hidden Chain soldiers during the hunt for Heta and her machine, but he doesn't really get to shine until the Legacy Reborn update. Honestly, purely based on how much he actually does in Legacy of the Sith, I probably would have to rank him lower if I'm being honest, he just manages to be so cool in everything he does that he still manages to be pretty fun to watch even when it's not that impactful.

5. Darth Jadus 

How long have people been asking for this guy to return in some fashion? And we finally got it! He's still as cunning and infuriatingly smooth-talking as ever and the interactions we've had with him so far have been great. The reason I can't rank him any higher is that he doesn't show up until pretty late in the game and is obviously being set up to clash with us again at a later point, presumably in 8.0 or after.

6. Jekiah Ordo

I never thought that this character, originally introduced to us as basically Shae's P.A., would grow on me as much as he has, but his decision to stand by the Alliance Commander after Shae goes rogue really endeared him to me (which was not a given). He always exudes a calm air of authority but doesn't hesitate to get sharp when he thinks people are stepping out of line (mostly his little brother, hah) while also displaying a softer side with those he cares about. I'm very curious to see where his journey will take him in 8.0 and after.

7. Arn Peralun

Arn already underwent quite a journey in Onslaught, from becoming Tau's new Padawan to slowly coming into his own. In Legacy of the Sith we meet him after he's officially become a knight, and throughout most of the expansion he remains a Republic player's recurring buddy, helping you out on the occasional adventure and always having your back in negotiations with Republic leadership. He remains a solid character that is only "held back" by the fact that he never really has the spotlight, even if he saves your life at the end of Master's Engima. I'd like to romance him on a character one of these days as I suspect that might reveal some more interesting details about him.

8. Major Anri

Originally introduced in Jedi Under Siege, Major Anri is another character that has already undergone a bit of a journey. She's largely the Imperial equivalent to Arn in her role in the story, but at least my impression is that she hasn't had as much of a chance to grow throughout LotS, possibly because as a soldier she's more directly limited by the chain of command, though she does still speak up for you quite boldly at times. There are also hints towards the end of Legacy of the Sith that she's growing somewhat disenchanted with Sith leadership, but it's not yet clear to me whether that's going to go anywhere. Like with Arn, I expect that romancing her might reveal some more.

9. Sa'har Kateen

Sa'har is in some ways Legacy of the Sith's biggest disappointment to me. She was in the expansion's cinematic trailer, and from the get-go we kept getting little cut scenes in game showing what she was up to even when our characters had no involvement with that at the time. I kept thinking that surely this was building up to something big, but in the end it never really did. The biggest interactions we have with her are at the end of Chains in the Dark when she turns against Tyrus, and all throughout Desperate Defiance, but then she seemingly dies, just to immediately get "revived" again one patch later, and in the end nothing much even comes of that in relation to our character as she and Ri'kan just run away on Khar Shian. She does have some character development throughout, but she never stops focusing on Ri'kan, no matter how badly he treats her, and it just gets a bit tiresome to be honest. Mostly I just don't get why she got so much focus throughout the whole expansion when her role in the major events was ultimately relatively small. I expect we'll see her again in 8.0 - maybe something more interesting will happen then.

10. Heta Kol

Heta started as an intriguing new villain in Spirit of Vengeance, but I feel like ultimately that intrigue never really paid off. She's initially shown to be forceful and charismatic, which perhaps goes some way towards explaining how she's managed to rally several otherwise very different clans to her cause. But then... it just never really goes anywhere. In Galactic Threads, Jekiah comments that Heta has morale problems, but we never see her dealing with that. The way we saw her acting towards her underlings, I honestly thought that maybe at some point, internal conflict or betrayal would become a problem for the Hidden Chain, but it never really did (not counting Sa'har, who always remained a bit of an outsider). We never really get any more detail on why Heta does anything she does, other than that she hates what Shae has done with the Mandalorians - yet at the same time, she never seems as obsessed with Shae as Shae is with her. I just feel like her portrayal never entirely came together, meaning I was always chasing after her somewhat half-heartedly myself. She was just someone who was causing trouble for me for reasons that were not personal (to my character) but also not fully known, which just wasn't very satisfying.

 

11. Ri'kan Kateen

All I'll say is, I really hope they have something planned for Ri'kan in the next expansion still, because otherwise - what a waste of time this guy was. He's even more one-note than Sa'har, but unlike Sa'har, we barely even interact with him other than the one confrontation at the end of Ruhnuk and the big fight at the end of Desperate Defiance. Why have we spent as much time as we have on watching cut scenes with him? I thought maybe something would come from the Ordo brothers having personal beef with him over the death of their sister as explained at the end of Ruhnuk, but that never came up again.

Do you agree with my ranking? Are there any characters you feel should have been on the list that I left out? I went back and forth about including Darths Krovos and Rivix for example but ultimately decided that we didn't quite see enough of them throughout the expansion as a whole for me to include them here.

Legacy Reborn's Potential Gameplay Implications

I'm really keen to do a full review of Legacy Reborn's story, but I think I'll need a few more playthroughs for that, so in the meantime I'd like to talk about another topic related to 7.9's story update. I originally meant to post this after the review, but it's much easier to write so I'll do it first.

Note that this will still contain spoilers for Legacy Reborn's ending, so don't read on if that's something you want to avoid!

So the story ends with Malgus activating Heta Kol's machine to call out to the galaxy's Force users whether we like it or not, which will surely have a major impact on 8.0's primary narrative. However, as someone with a trooper main there was a detail in the final cut scene that I found very interesting: our previously purely tech using classes are affected by the machine's call as well and suddenly feel the Force, which is reflected in our character reflexively holding back a rock that's about to fall down on our heads.

I didn't manage to take a screenshot on my main, but here's the equivalent moment on my agent alt. 

Now, I didn't think that was too big a deal initially - while I've always been adamant that I don't want my main to be a Force user and disliked the way KotFE treated all player characters largely as if they were, that storyline did also leave us with every character displaying at least a bit of Force sensitivity in the story, as evidenced by things like the extra action button in KotFE chapter 12 that lets you tame an animal companion for part of your journey, or the way you reflexively shield yourself against Arcann's attacks in the final confrontation with him at the end of chapter 16.

I don't think it's ever been made explicitly clear whether that was just Valkorion using his powers while he was possessing us or whether he left us with a degree of "residual" Force sensitivity anyway even after being expelled. Either way, our character holding back a rock was definitely a step up in power levels (lifting rocks isn't easy, just ask Flingeld) but still, it's not like we're suddenly all Jedi or Sith now. I do trust the devs enough that I'm pretty sure we won't suddenly be shoehorned into that in 8.0, though I can imagine our sudden enhanced abilities coming up in conversation.

I did find myself wondering how having a stronger sense of the Force would affect my character's combat abilities, concluding that she'd still be using her weapon primarily but could maybe learn a few Force tricks to help her out along the way. And she would just be one of many in the same predicament.

Which then got me thinking about combat styles! We know that we're never going to get a new origin story, but since 7.0 split classes into origin stories and combat styles, a new combat style seemed a lot more doable. Most of the time I've seen people talk about how they'd like to have a tech class with a blade, similar to how some companions already work (e.g. Tanno Vik or Broonmark), but I realised that Legacy Reborn instead feels like the perfect setup for a tech combat style with some Force abilities.

The great thing about that would be that unlike giving tech users a blade, it would still be fully compatible with the existing story cut scenes since you'd still have the same weapon, the Force abilities would just be an extra thing to use outside cut scenes.

There would be some kinks to work out - they'd have to make it possible to change combat styles for one thing, as currently you can only add a second one but then you're stuck, and many players probably already have two. Plus from a story point of view it would be weird for a new character to be a Force-using smuggler on Ord Mantell I guess, so maybe there'd need to be some kind of restriction on when you can start using this new combat style? Then again, it's probably no weirder than Jedi shooting lightning on Tython, which is also allowed now, so...

I don't know whether I'm just building castles in the sky thinking about this, but it just seems like such an obvious idea once you think about it, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else bring it up yet. I'm very curious to hear what else the devs officially announce for 8.0 now that 7.9's cat is out of the bag so to speak. 

Three Things I Miss About Knights of the Fallen Empire

Back in October, Knights of the Fallen Empire turned ten years old - which is wild to me, when I still tend to think of it as a sort of dividing line between old SWTOR and new SWTOR. New stuff isn't supposed to be a decade old! There was an interesting reddit thread on the subject at the time, with many people reminiscing about what they liked and disliked about the expansion.

I briefly considered writing a post on the subject as well, but ultimately decided against it because I was worried that it would just devolve into me rehashing all my gripes about KotFE for the umpteenth time, and god knows I've done enough of that on this blog.

However, I recently started another alt on KotFE for the first time in a couple of years, and it actually made me realise that there are at least a few things that I really liked about that expansion and that I kind of miss now. This doesn't affect me still not being too hot on KotFE and KotET as a whole, but I thought it might make for a fun post to give some credit where credit is due.

1. Our characters getting to look cool, often

What really got me thinking about this one actually wasn't just my newest KotFE playthrough, but also the release of Galactic Threads. One of my immediate reactions to my first playthrough of the latter was that I was pleasantly surprised by how many opportunities the story presented to take screenshots of my character looking cool.

One of the best things about KotFE, if not the best thing, was how dramatically it improved the in-game cut scenes, and it made use of these new tools by giving us a lot of shots of our characters looking badass, whether they were involved in action scenes, looking determined or just brandishing their weapons. If you're someone who takes screenshots at all, you must have at least one of your character pulling out their weapon in chapter five of KotFE while Lana and Senya raise their own lightsabers next to you. Or how about your various confrontations with Arcann? Lots of cool moments there.

Now, that technology never went away, but after thinking about it, it does feel to me like we've gotten fewer cool shots of our characters in the last couple of years, with much of the cut scene energy getting channeled into NPCs like Sa'har or Malgus instead (at least until Galactic Threads). So that's something I didn't even really realise I was missing, until I was delighted to get more of it again.

2. Frequent story updates

Look, I'm not even going to go into the chapter format, its mechanics and the story quality - but it's undeniable that for a while at least, we got a story update close to every month. I don't think it was worth the trade-off of ignoring everything else, but it was something. In hindsight, it seems deeply ironic that this was also a time when the community complained incessantly that there was "no content" and "nothing to do". And yes, I know that a lot of those complaints were about endgame activities in specific, but still. Pure story players at least were eating well for a while.

It's also funny to remember that the whole "one chapter a month" thing was dropped again pretty quickly with the justification that people didn't want to wait a whole month between story updates, because that was too long. *looks at Legacy of the Sith and gesticulates helplessly*

3. The world and community felt alive

Maybe re-reading some of FibroJedi's old posts gave me rose-tinted glasses, or maybe it was simply because there wasn't anything other than story going on at the time, but I seem to remember the community being very engaged with Knights of the Fallen Empire's story, with many people blogging about their thoughts, speculating what might happen next, and so on and so forth.

While I do recall some complaints that chapters ten to fourteen in particular weren't really moving the story forward enough, in general it felt like there was always something happening in the galaxy from a story perspective. Ultimately we ended up speed-running both the rise and fall of the Eternal Empire within less than two years. This is a stark contrast to the current (Legacy of the Sith) era, where it feels like nothing much has happened, narrative-wise, for the last four years. Or as Ted put it the other week: "I feel like time stands still in SWTOR, or at the very least, it moves slowly."

I think that as a side effect of this, the community has become less and less engaged with the current storyline over time. At least in my circle of friends, I don't know many who rush to play the newest story update the moment it comes out anymore. There seems to be a bit of a sense of "nothing's going to happen that's so important that I feel like I need to see it for myself as soon as possible". I also don't see many other fans producing story reviews like I do, though I feel like Galactic Threads has got people at least a bit more curious again after the long enforced break due to the voice actors' strike.

I'm hoping that as we're starting to wrap up Legacy of the Sith and get a new "era" to look forward to, these developments will add a breath of fresh air both to our characters' in-game day-to-day lives and to the community's engagement with what's new in a galaxy far, far away. 

When Will We Get 8.0? Will We Ever?

This was a topic that I discussed with Ivano on the podcast, but I still wanted to write a blog post about it as well, since it's something that's been on my mind for a while. With it having been more than two and a half years since the launch of Legacy of the Sith, it's also a question I'm seeing people ask more and more.

The short answer is: We don't really know. If it's happening, it's unlikely to be soon. As of me writing this in September 2024, we have no official information on the subject. No, that post on Today in TOR was an April Fools joke.

Now for the long answer.

The problem with talking about future expansions for SWTOR is that it has never had what I would call a regular expansion cycle akin to other long-running MMOs, where you can count on a new expansion pack being announced once a year or every other year.

If we look back at the game's early years, we did get expansions at something close to a yearly pace for a while: Rise of the Hutt Cartel came out in early 2013, Shadow of Revan at the end of 2014, Knights of the Fallen Empire in late 2015, and Knights of the Eternal Throne at the end of 2016. That may actually seem kind of regular at a glance, but it wasn't really. RotHC was originally meant to be free content for subscribers but was later repackaged as an expansion. Then we got Galactic Starfighter towards the end of 2013 and Galactic Strongholds in mid-2014, and while people tend to not think of those additions as expansions nowadays, they were marketed as such at the time, meaning that for a while we were getting a major content drop almost every six months. Shadow of Revan actually felt kind of cut short, seeing how it was only current content for less than a year.

Then Knights of the Fallen Empire came around, promising to completely change the game from the ground up, and it did indeed introduce many changes that impact our gameplay to this day, such as level scaling and companions being way more powerful than they were in the game's first three years. The flow from Fallen Empire chapters into Eternal Throne on the other hand was so gradual it made the two feel almost like a single expansion... and then it just stopped.

I think it was around this time that I remember a dev saying that they weren't even sure they were going to do expansions anymore because they might just keep adding regular content patches without all that hullabaloo instead. They did eventually change their minds about that, but Onslaught didn't come out until the end of 2019 almost three years later.

When Legacy of the Sith was announced for late 2021, it felt like the team was really getting back into the groove, but then 7.0 turned into a big flop. (To be clear, I think they've released a lot of good content since then, but 7.0 at launch was just underwhelming in a lot of ways.)

And that's really the crux of the matter as I see it. People (both players and developers) like MMO expansions because they generate hype, promise exciting new things and give lapsed players a reason to check back in. From a developer's point of view, they can also be used to charge extra for a big bundle of content all at once.

However, SWTOR hasn't benefitted from that last one since 2014, seeing how they've never wavered from their "all content unlocks with the subscription" model that was introduced with KotFE in 2015. And well... Legacy of the Sith was great for hype before it launched, but then not so much. Those Twitch numbers I looked at the other day showed engagement with the game dropping to a two-year-low shortly after the expansion's launch, kind of the opposite of what you want out of a big release like that!

A really terrible expansion can harm your game just as much as a good one can lift it up; it's not an automatic win. I never played Rift myself for example, but from everything I've heard, interest in that game absolutely tanked with the first expansion because the new content went into completely the wrong direction for the player base it had built. And of course there's always Star Wars Galaxies' infamous New Game Experience. Legacy of the Sith was fortunately not on that level and interest in SWTOR seemingly recovered around the time 7.1 came out, but I still think it was a close call and reminded everyone that a bad expansion can actually be worse than no expansion at all.

The point of all this waffling is that SWTOR has never had a regular expansion cycle due to the many changes in direction it's had over time, and with the current business model it doesn't actually benefit from an expansion nearly as much as many other MMOs. While the team at Broadsword seems happy with their new home and has been doing a solid job continuing to pump out content, they are still small and I'm honestly not sure whether it would be the best use of their resources to reduce work on the regular patches in favour of building up to a bigger release again.

It's not that I wouldn't love to see another good expansion, but after the dud that was LotS' launch, I really don't want to see them mess up like that again either. I had a decent enough time in 7.0, but seeing how unhappy it made many players and listening to the game get panned left and right was no fun at all. If they are going to give us another expansion, I feel it needs to at least match Onslaught in terms of scope, which launched with a new playable species, two planets, distinct storylines for Republic and Empire, a new flashpoint and a new operation. If they can't honestly commit to that, I'd rather they stuck to focusing on giving us the best possible new content from one patch to the next, even if that doesn't get them as much press as an expansion launch would. Just raising the level cap by five again and revamping the way gearing works for the umpteenth time in order to call it an expansion would do the game more harm than good in my eyes.

My 7 Favourite Post-Launch Story Updates

Over the years, a lot has been said and written about the merits of each of the different class stories, but there's been comparatively little discourse about the expansion stories from what I've seen - which I think is a shame, because in my opinion there's some pretty good stuff in there. Obviously, no single storyline can live up to the eight original class stories in terms of sheer breadth of unique content, but that aside, I disagree with the general sentiment I often see expressed that those stories were the peak of the game's storytelling and that it's all just been downhill from there. The more cinematic cut scenes post Knights of the Fallen Empire have been so much more exciting to watch than anything in the original class stories, and many of the non-player characters that were introduced in later years are much more interesting than the vast majority of NPCs we interacted with in the base game.

With all that said, I wanted to write a bit of a love letter to some of my favourite expansion stories. Back in 2019 I wrote a post called "Good Quest, Bad Quest" in which I laid out what I think makes an MMO quest good or bad, and those are the main items that influenced my ranking of these stories as well: presentation, writing, plot, characters, gameplay and world building.

Honestly, the most difficult thing was to decide what actually counts as a separate story. In the past it was pretty clear-cut for the most part, but ever since Ossus the game's ongoing storyline has been a bit of a never-ending soap opera in which different plot beats get picked up and dropped again without necessarily coming to a proper conclusion. You could argue that it's basically all been "the Malgus saga" since then, but I don't entirely agree with that as everything around Onslaught (and somewhat randomly, the Manaan part of Legacy of the Sith) has felt more like a classic and mostly self-contained Republic vs. Empire story to me, while I tend to think of Echoes of Oblivion as a stand-alone adventure that referenced a lot of older content. Spirit of Vengeance involved the Mandalorians for the first time, but then the focus kept ping-ponging between them and Malgus again.

Anyway, I obviously decided to make some choices in regards to the above; this is just to add some context.

1. Jedi Under Siege (2018)

Also known as Ossus or the prelude to Onslaught, released with patch 5.10. There was never going to be any doubt in my mind that this was going to take the top spot on my list, because I loved this update so frikkin' much. Seriously, if you go back to the blog archives from December 2018, every other post is just me gushing about some aspect of this update or another that I loved.

I'd yearned for a return to Republic vs. Empire after Knights of the Eternal Throne, and while Iokath had paid lip-service to this, it had also been done in an extremely lacklustre way, just to then immediately steer away from the subject again to pivot into what would later become known as "the traitor arc". Comparatively, Jedi Under Siege felt like a return to form, the likes of which we hadn't seen since the base game. Ossus was a beautiful planet that made it a joy to explore again, something that hadn't really been the case with the very limited environments of the "Knights of" expansions and Iokath's confusing architecture.

We were introduced to several new and interesting characters in the form of Tau Idair, General Daeruun and Major Anri, and several companion returns that people had been anticipating for many years were skilfully worked into the story in an organic way (Doc, Nadia, Khem Val). On top of that other minor characters made surprise re-appearances, such as Jonas Balkar from the trooper story, NR-02 from the Black Talon, or Darth Malora from Korriban.

Not to mention that Malgus came back! You may be tired of him now after watching him sit around and mope for the last two years, but back then I thought this was a genius move and a fun surprise. And of course, the storylines for Republic and Empire side were different and well-written. I just had a blast all around with this content and am always happy to revisit it on alts. The fact that it takes place on an open world planet instead of constantly shunting you through instanced corridors feels very liberating, and I enjoy seeing the little variations in dialogue depending on what class you play and whether you had any pre-existing relationship with any of the returning NPCs.

2. Onslaught (2019)

In this context I'm talking about the story content that came with the immediate 6.0 expansion launch, meaning the story on Onderon and Mek-Sha plus the finale in the Objective Meridian flashpoint.

Onslaught honestly repeated a lot of what Jedi Under Siege did, only with some minor flaws. We quested our way through two new planets again, met some interesting new and returning characters (Arn, Darth Savik, Jakarro and D4, to name but a few) and once again saw things from different perspectives depending on our faction and to some degree our class (getting the option to reclaim your Dark Council seat as a Sith inquisitor was fire). It just wasn't... quite as good. For example the Republic story on Onderon suffers a bit from your senator liaison being a bit boring, and on Mek-Sha too much of the content for both factions overlaps, but it's still a storyline that I love to replay.

3. Makeb (2013)

This the storyline from which the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion got its name, except the Hutts don't really get to rise very much at all before you slap them down again. They came in 2.0 and went within the same patch. This is a piece of content on which my opinion has changed a lot over time. Initially I liked it well enough, but the mobs on Makeb were quite numerous and tough at launch, and replays quickly started to feel like a slog. Not to mention that it was being sold to us as chapter four of our class stories for a while when it very obviously wasn't that.

However, considering how much smaller expansions got in the years afterwards, I've really grown fond of our adventures on Makeb in retrospect. We get to explore a large, picturesque planet over the course of a pretty meaty storyline, and it's totally different for Republic and Empire side as well. The Imperial storyline is admittedly a lot stronger, since the Republic one feels a bit odd with the whole "the planet is about to blow up" threat never seeming entirely convincing, but it's not terrible either. It's where we first meet Doctor Oggurobb after all.

4. Shadow of Revan (2014)

I'm mainly thinking of the actual 3.0 expansion launch story here, though I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to include the Forged Alliances story arc that formed the prelude to the expansion; I'd just personally treat that as its own thing. I'm also not really including the Rise of the Emperor patch here, since that had nothing to do with Revan anymore really. 

Many people cite this as their favourite expansion, but as I've stated many times before, I think it's somewhat overrated. That doesn't mean that I think it's bad however, not at all! Again, we got to quest our way through two beautiful new planets, Rishi and Yavin IV, and the tale of battling the Revanites and their new-old leader was compelling enough. There were some bits that fell a little flat for me, but I did enjoy the story overall.

It's also the expansion that had us start our adventures with Theron and Lana in earnest (including the option for some romance), which I guess is a big plus for some, though it's been more of a mixed blessing to me personally. I know many people love Lana, but if you think Malgus is worn out as a character, imagine how those of us feel who aren't crazy about Lana and yet have had to listen to her tell us what to do for over a decade now...

5. Echoes of Oblivion (2020)

I hesitated a bit to put this one here because I actually don't necessarily think that this is a great piece of content to replay on multiple characters, which is something that is quite important to me. The final boss fight is (in my opinion) one of the worst in the game and the whole thing is pretty linear without any meaningful variations based on your faction or class. However! In terms of world building, this storyline did so much to tie up several years worth of annoying loose ends that I can't not list it here as a piece of content that was very meaningful to me when it came out. It just felt like a love letter to the game's lore in a big way, trying hard to improve on all kinds of tidbits that had felt a bit unsatisfying in the past. Plus hanging out with Kira and Scourge was fun. I wrote a longer review about it back then, which you can find here.

6. Legacy of the Sith or Whatever It Is We're Doing Right Now (2020-?)

As mentioned in the intro, it's very hard to pin down a clear start and end point for this one, but personally I see what I'm talking about here as starting with the introduction of the Mando plot in Spirit of Vengeance in patch 6.2 and then pretty much everything that comes afterwards, except maybe the storyline on Manaan since that doesn't really tie into anything to do with the Mandalorians or Malgus. I'm also treating this placement as tentative since I'm not sure whether 7.5 will turn out to be a real cut-off - I suspect not, so future updates might change my opinion on this storyline. It's honestly been a bit of a ride, and I know many players have understandably been put off by the sheer amount of real time that has passed while all of this has been going on. But I still like the storyline because it has given us both new flashpoints and multiple new planetary areas in terms of gameplay, plus it's had a lot of what I think is great character writing. I'm really interested in seeing where things go with 7.6!

7. Oricon (2013)

Technically part of the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion and only a short side story, I liked patch 2.4's "The Dread War" for giving us a cool daily area and bringing the story of the Dread Masters to a satisfying conclusion. The plot and writing are pretty basic - here are some really scary bad guys, we need to beat them - but it showed us how something that isn't technically part of the main storyline about our character could still result in a really interesting and enjoyable story update.

I'm going to stop here because after this point, I think I'd start to be a bit more grouchy about the storylines that remain, and this is meant to be a positive post! You might be surprised by some of the things I haven't listed - I know the "Knights of" expansions have their fans for example, but I'm not one of them to be honest. You can read more about why here if you want.

If you've played through all the expansion content to date, how much do you agree/disagree with my rankings? Is there a post-launch storyline that I didn't mention here and that you feel is really underrated perhaps? Feel free to chime in in the comments.

Bring Back Kuat Drive Yards!

The other week I stayed up late to join some of my guildies on the APAC server for a little activity called "doing flashpoints that aren't in the group finder". This meant running Colicoid War Game and Kuat Drive Yards.

I hadn't done Colicoid War Game in literal years, and I'd forgotten how quick and fun it was. I kind of found myself longing for reasons to visit it more often, but it's been out of the group finder for so long now (it was removed with the launch of Fallen Empire) that I don't expect it to ever make a return to the mainstream at this point. And for as much as I do love it, I also can't deny that it is indeed very different from pretty much every other flashpoint, which doesn't make it very accessible to the average pug. At least it gives normal veteran flashpoint loot now if you do decide to run it manually - I recall at least one occasion in the past when I completed it with some guildies and we discovered that it gave no loot at the time, which was shortly after it had been taken out of the group finder.

Thinking about Kuat's removal from the queue was a bit strange though. It was, after all, designed with the group finder in mind - in fact, the story mission still tells you to queue for the flashpoint via the group finder, even though that's no longer possible. (Fortunately it also progresses when you enter normally.) In fact, there was a period between its introduction and the release of Shadow of Revan when running KDY was all the rage for fast levelling. I had guildies who would do nothing else during double XP and I honestly found it kind of obnoxious at the time. I was glad when this behaviour fell out of favour after the levelling changes that came with Fallen Empire. However, Kuat stayed in the veteran queue for years to come... until it was taken out with 7.0, that is.

I've tried to find out what could've been the reason for this but haven't been able to find a conclusive and satisfying answer. One poster suggested that people would drop from it because it was too long, which instantly struck me as absurd, considering that we also have flashpoints like the Esseles, the Foundry and Directive 7 in the queue.

Another suggestion I saw was that it was too difficult, something that at least seemed to be corroborated by the fact that our little guild group had to discover that you need to be level 55 nowadays to be allowed to enter. (This sucked because one member of the group was 53 - which should have been more than good enough to do the flashpoint - and was forcefully excluded.) The minimum level used to be 15! Remembering that also seemed to make the idea of KDY ever having been too difficult kind of ridiculous, but then I recalled the time I made this video... the last boss in KDY (any of them) could definitely be a bit challenging depending on your group setup if everyone was low level. Still, even if it was maybe too hard for a group of level 15s, if they already raised the minimum level required to enter, I don't get why the devs couldn't have left it in the group finder in that form.

The only other idea I had was that it might be related to the fact that only the last boss in Kuat drops any gear, which definitely makes it kind of unrewarding compared to any other flashpoint. Surely that's not something that's impossible to overcome though? There's a bonus boss in every wing; if they added gear drops to those, you could get three per run in total, which is closer to other instances. Or maybe they could add some of those loot boxes that drop from the sky in other flashpoints after the completion of each wing? Heck, even if all of that is too complicated to implement, I still don't feel like "it gives less loot" is a reason to completely remove an instance from the group finder. I'd still rather have it there, with the risk of some people dropping group if they get it, than just being unable to easily find a group for it entirely. People already avoid certain other flashpoints for other reasons too.

Unlike Colicoid War Game, Kuat is not a stand-alone story that doesn't really tie into anything else. Aside from its lore connection to Galactic Starfighter, it introduces several characters that become more important later: Admiral Aygo for the Republic and Zasha Ranken and Lord Krovos for the Empire. Seeing the cut scenes with them should be accessible! And that's without even getting into the fact that it has a reputation track with rewards tied to it that can't be advanced anywhere else. I guess I'd even take a dedicated solo mode at this point (even though I'm not a fan of them in general). As it stands right now, it's technically possible to solo veteran mode at max level, but the last boss can be a major PITA and is likely beyond soloing for a lot of players that could otherwise clear the rest of the instance by themselves with ease.

It feels funny for me to be campaigning for the return of KDY to the group finder when there was a time when I rather disliked it, but that was so long ago now... as the saying goes, distance makes the heart grow fonder - and I've definitely not seen enough of Kuat Drive Yards in a while now. Bring it back!

Will We Return to Hutta in 7.5?

I'm not usually one for doing much speculating about what the future will bring, as I'm quite happy to just let things come at me as they are, but today I'd like to discuss something that I (surprisingly) haven't seen brought up anywhere else at least - that we might end up going back to Hutta in 7.5, and that the devs have actually been hinting at it too, just without saying it outright.

At the end of my review of Chains in the Dark, I asked whether anyone knew who the Rodian on the loading screen was, since I hadn't encountered a character like him anywhere in the story. At the time I just wondered whether there was some story variation or side mission that I'd missed, but the subject ended up sparking some interesting conversations on Discord, during which Jawaface and Kal pointed out that there were actually other things on the splash art that hadn't featured in the story, such as the Hutt Palace on the right side of the screen, and the ring structure that surrounds the logo in front of Heta.

Now, my first thought was that maybe there had once been a plan to have 7.4's story take place on Hutta for Imperial characters, but on second pass that didn't really make sense as - even if that had ever been the plan - it would have had to be scrapped long ago, leaving them with plenty of time to come up with an updated image.

But what if Hutta wasn't something that was scrapped, but rather something that's still to come? When 7.4 was first announced, I noted that revisiting Ord Mantell matched something Keith had said for the tenth anniversary, that we'd get to "return to where your character’s journey first began so long ago". This has now come true for Republic (tech-using) characters - going to Hutta next would make for a nice mirror experience for Imperials.

Using the key art to hint at something that hasn't been revealed yet also isn't something that's entirely unheard of for SWTOR. When the Legacy of the Sith loading screen was first revealed for example, we got a lot of information about the different NPCs we'd be interacting with... with the notable exception of a certain green twi'lek in the middle who would later turn out to be Sa'har.

In the recent past, they've also given us these new loading screens every other patch - not just for expansion releases - meaning that we got one for 7.0 (which continued to be used throughout 7.1) and then we got a new one for 7.2 (which didn't change for 7.3). Based on that, it's not unreasonable to assume that the 7.4 loading screen might stay with us throughout 7.5 - and maybe the artist(s) at Broadsword decided to reflect that in the art this time, while also gently teasing about future content to come.

Oh, and that ring structure under Heta? Intisar commented in the same Discord conversation that it could be seen in the Darth Nul flashbacks, but I couldn't verify that when taking an alt through that content again the other day. It does however occur to me that it looks kind of like the machine that Master Orr destroys in the Disorder trailer (god, I love that cinematic so much). Based on what Malgus said, that machine was meant to find Force sensitives and not a weapon, but you know... he could've been lying, or there simply could've been more to it. It would be interesting if Heta's efforts resulted in a similar device.

(As a side note, there's also something in data mining that supports the idea of Hutta coming in 7.5, but I only mention this to say that I'm aware of it. I don't seek out data-mined information since I'm not actively trying to spoil myself, not to mention that it can also lead to disappointment when it makes people expect content that then never actually comes out, which I've seen happen more than once. I think the hints in the art are on a whole other level though.)

A Livestream About 7.4 and Beyond

Yesterday was livestream day for SWTOR, a day that's quickly becoming a major event to look forward to for me, as we finally find out what's to come in the next big patch while getting to connect with the devs and deriving some entertainment from the process at the same time.

The stream lasted for more than an hour and yet time seemed to be flying by! A lot was said and done, and as usual you can watch a recording on Twitch or find a full written summary of absolutely everything that was revealed on the sites of the usual suspects:

• Swtorista
• Today in TOR
• Vulkk

I have no desire to go into that much detail myself, but will instead comment on the main things that excited me, of which there were still a lot! So let's get into it.

First off, it was interesting that they started the stream with Papa Keith saying hi and showing new studio pride by wearing a branded Broadsword jumper. (By contrast, I noticed that Musco was still wearing a SWTOR shirt with the Bioware logo on it; naughty!) What was really interesting about Keith's intro though was that he immediately started things off by telling us that beyond 7.4, they just reviewed their road map up to 7.6 with Broadsword, content that is meant to come out over the next year.

This was reassuring in the sense that it showed that there are no signs of things slowing down after the studio transition, and it was interesting to note that this planned patch cadence basically confirmed that there isn't another expansion coming soon. I personally didn't think there was, but I'd certainly seen some people speculate that the next patch after 7.4 would be 8.0, so I'm kind of glad to have that misconception dispelled. Obviously I'm not saying I never want another expansion again, but Legacy of the Sith definitely feels like it needs more time to cook at this point so I'm okay with adding more patches to its runtime.

The main announcement was the reveal about 7.4's story content, which will take us to... a new town on Ord Mantell? Can't say I expected us to return to another existing planet immediately after the return to Voss in 7.3, and Ord Mantell wasn't on my personal list favoured destinations, but I can't say I'm unhappy with it either. Actually, it's an interesting callback to the ten-year-anniversary news post from two years ago, when it was teased that as part of this expansion, we might "gain an opportunity to return to where your character’s journey first began so long ago…" My only disappointment was that when there was some talk about how it can be safe for Imperial characters to go to Ord Mantell, nobody thought to mention Lost Island. Come on!

I won't go into any detail about what they said about the story there to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, but unlike the Interpreter's Retreat, the new town Kessan's Landing is going to be a proper daily area and yes, we'll chase after Heta Kol and the Hidden Chain again. No, I don't know whether we'll actually achieve anything this time around. But! We'll interact with both new and returning characters, and I was particularly pleased to hear of the return of Sergeant Captain Blyes and Gizmel Gam. If those names don't mean anything to you, Sergeant Blyes is literally the first NPC troopers and smugglers talk to outside their class story phase, the guy who gives you your very first side mission to blow shit up in the village. And Gizmel Gam is the shady heroic quest giver who wants you to fetch his illegal drugs from Savrip Island (without telling you that it's illegal drugs). I love it when minor characters like that get to reprise their roles.

A story-related announcement that surprised me was the continuation of the Lane Vizla story from Ruhnuk. Now, again, trying to keep it as spoiler-free as possible... the way that story ends on Ruhnuk does sort of imply that there'll be a follow-up, but I honestly figured it would just be a mail or maybe a short conversation. But no, it looks like it's actually turning into a proper side storyline that has you seeking out new characters and places, and I'm here for it.

Next they announced a technical update that probably had me way more excited than it should have: "cinematic lighting". What does that mean? It means older in-game cut scenes will have better lighting, making better use of "natural" light sources and shadows instead of artificial spotlights. They showed a few clips from starter quests for different origins and I just kept thinking how gorgeous the new versions looked.

What can I say: this is a game with a heavy focus on watching your character look cool in cut scenes and it heavily encourages you to play alts. I'm not sure there's any other game where an announcement about improved lighting would make me feel like it's one more reason to make a new alt, but it really does in this instance.

Also, my favourite side story related to this was that when I checked the forums afterwards, I found this thread by someone going by the forum name Jazulfi, posted about a month ago and complaining about how bad the lighting in some of the old story cut scenes was. Needless to say, they were over the moon about this announcement. Just imagine being in that position, making an incredibly niche complaint about something and a few weeks later the devs announce that they are about to release a major technical upgrade addressing your specific issue. The timing just cracked me up. Good for you, Jazulfi!

Also interesting was the demo of the GTN update that had been teased before. At a glance I thought it looked kind of similar to the way things are set up in the modern World of Warcraft auction house - which is not a bad thing, as it's mostly quite convenient. Even better, the new GTN will have a "claim" button so you can grab your stuff directly from the GTN terminal instead of going to your mailbox, which I really appreciate because in WoW I always buy stuff from the auction house and then run off without remembering to actually take it out of my mailbox, so this is a very real problem for me. The only slight concern I have was that there was a brief mention of the deposit now being classified as a fee, which makes me worried that it might no longer be refunded if your item doesn't sell. That would be a shame as this particular bit of generosity of SWTOR's GTN was a really nice feature and meant that I was never shy about re-listing stuff as I didn't have to worry about actively losing money if nobody purchased right away. We'll see I guess. (Edit: This has now been confirmed in a forum post.)

In terms of gear, we were told that 7.4 will bring another gear rating increase. Implants and mods will become upgradeable to 340, and Rakata gear's max rating will increase to 344. There was also a cryptic mention of Rakata gear for everyone, not just ops players. The main takeaway I got from this is that after about a year of R-4 Anomaly on veteran mode being the only source of max-item-rating gear, they're basically dumping that entire idea and nobody will ever go there again. Can't say I'm sad, though the thought of updating gear across my entire stable of alts again is a little tedious, even if it won't be hard to do.

Now, the Cartel Market section of these streams never really interests me that much, but this time they had something that caught my attention... because it was SHINY! Basically, they're adding a new type of dye that doesn't just colour your gear but also gives it a shiny or matte effect, and the example they showed looked amazing.

To be fair, this is a brand-new gear set that has likely been optimised to work well with this new effect, and it might not look as great on older armours, but still... I could definitely see myself picking a couple of these up to see if I can give an old outfit a new shine. This gets a thumbs-up from me.

Finally, they finished the stream with an interesting twist on the Best View in SWTOR contest - they haven't chosen the winners yet, but Jackie wanted to share the five finalists for each planet... and I can see why, as they were all gorgeous. I kept an eye out for any of my own submissions, but while one of the Nar Shaddaa finalists looked kind of like one of mine, it had someone else's name on it so was presumably submitted earlier. However, apparently no fewer than three people I know found themselves featured among the finalists. Yay them! Either way, I loved seeing all those screenshots and they looked like worthy winners regardless of which ones actually end up being the final choices.

Oh, and if you read this before November 1st - they gave out a free deco code again, so you can redeem "LotsVizla" until then for another in-game poster of your (perhaps not) favourite Mandalorian(s).

Either way, the stream clearly did its job for me as it got me properly excited for 7.4. We don't have a release date yet, but based on how they've been handling these recently, it's probably going to be late November or early December.