SWTOR F2P

I’ve written several partial posts but haven’t actually posted anything in a bit so I thought I’d address this new thing.

At first blush, I’m actually in favor of this.  Our subscriptions to SWTOR run out mid month this month and we were [and still are] planning to let them lapse.  I’ve played more than hubby and we both have max level toons but we don’t seem to play all that much.  With MoP incoming in two months we need that money we’d spend to purchase the new WoW expansion, money is tighter than it used to be and frankly, it’s not worth paying 15 bucks to quest twice a month, especially when our focus right now is going to be WoW and prepping for the expansion.

We HAVE done space battles but neither of us has done either Pick up group instances or used the group finder so it seems the f2p option would suit me decently [thus far].  Depending on a variety of things, I could see myself picking up the sub for a month or two here and there, but not permanently.  The questing is my focus – not the raiding [ops] or the space battles or the pvp.

In summation, this change might keep me playing off and on probably about like LotRO… mostly when WoW and Diablo are down.

Random SWTOR Screenshots

The Rakghoul plague ended a few days ago.  I managed to get hubby and I the title the very last day on a server where the alliance are outnumbered 3:1 on my count [there are 50 on the republic station when there are 150 on the empire one].  The key was hitting the bosses in the morning.  The empire is too well organized to hope to get much done in the evening if PVP is involved.  I won an epic shield for my tank off one of them and got hubby a lightsaber and 2 mods off the three bosses.  It was tricky as I had my three year old son running Venoym’s toon [A Jedi Shadow]… which produced some very interesting results.

Anyway, here’s an updated screenshot of Askevar.  She honestly hasn’t changed much in looks.  I’ve done no heroics, or raids beyond that world boss event.  We’re paid through July, including the free loyalty month, so nearer to then we’ll have to decide whether to renew or not.  I play a few times a week [usually a couple hours Tuesday morning and a couple hours on the weekend but it varies wildly] so not sure it’s worth continuing to subscribe after that… but we’ll see.

Goals Before MoP

I know, I know…  Yeah…  3 posts so far in two days and a couple of weeks before that without one… but eh, I have stuff to talk about NOW.

Anyway, I wanted to go ahead and start making that list of ‘things I want done before the next expansion’.  Mainly so I could start working on it 😛

World of Warcraft
*Ogril’a Exalted,
*Frenzyheart Exalted
*Mercenary of Sholazar
*Ratchet Exalted,
*Everlook Exalted,
*Stormpike Exalted
*Avengers of Hyjal exalted
*Get into PVP a little bit and earn at least a few of those achievements.
*Try to get the Tol’vir pet and mount.
*Get the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth
*Get a Vial of the Sands
*Grind the pattern on my druid
*Try to finish out Shadowmourne…  22/50
*Hit 12k achievement points
*Grind a Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade for Askevar
*Finish Well Read on my primary alts
*Max out professions on alts on AZM [Leatherworking and Engineering]
*Salty on Askevar [just need the rare fish]
*Turtle mount on Askevar
*Cenarion Molten Core set for Aricaa [have 7 of the 8 pieces]
*Level one of each class on the main account to 85: just need mage – have one at level 79 at the moment
*Clear out my toons banks and guild banks…  make use of void storage for the things I want to keep

If I get really bored, run the rest of my AZM toons through the Cataclysm zones they didn’t finish in while in the leveling process.

Looking at that list and thinking… honestly the only things I expect to get done are the rep grinds and some PVP… not sure I have the fortitude to grind out the archaeology stuff and the fishing achievements.  I probably will make some progress on Shadowmourne but we’ll see.

SWTOR:
*Hit 50 on Askevar, my Jedi Guardian [she’s 49 now]
*Level my Bounty Hunter [Level 30]
*Level some alts, especially after 1.2 hits

Other Games:
Finish Diablo 3 on the Barbarian.  Play other classes
Try out Star Trek Online as it’s free 2 play
Play LotRO with Endyme some.

I honestly am not sure I’ll do much with the MoP beta…  The Cataclysm beta left a really bad taste in my mouth because of the poor quality of it… and the fact that every bug I reported was in the release… and the fact that the feedback function was broken for months…  Yeah, was severely not impressed there and it’s kinda to the point of  ‘what is the point?’ if Blizz isn’t going to listen anyway.  I probably will spend a little time in it… but yeah, not too much.

Diablo 3 – if it’s ever released, is something hubby and I will check out.  I seriously doubt we’ll play it long term but as we’re receiving a copy from the annual pass, it’d be a little silly not to check it out.

We’ll see how it goes… for now I’m playing what I feel like as I can and have time :), with WoW being my priority as I’m raiding and raid leading and really enjoying that!

SWTOR: Why I’m Not 50 Yet…

As anyone who reads the blog knows, I’ve been playing SW:TOR on the side.  And I’ve quite enjoyed it… especially the low level questing.  The story lines are engaging and game play is fun.

My main, a jedi knight guardian is sitting at 47 [49] right now and well… that’s going to be changing very slowly.  The reality is questing now has become: 1. Accept a bunch of quests  2. Kill four to ten times the mobs required in quests just to complete the basic objectives.  Completing the bonus quests is simplistic now.  When I need to kill 30 bad guys as a bonus and end up killing 200… yeah no brainer.  But that slow trek through questing gets old quite fast.  Thirty minutes toward quest objectives and I’m exhausted and/or agitated.  Not to mention if I happen to die or I get sent back to the very area I just went through.  Respawn rates are annoyingly random.  Most mobs respawn behind me three packs back.  But quest objectives that must be shared in the world?  Well you can sit around quite a bit waiting on those [or they can be near instant].  I could play a lowbie alt I suppose… but I really want to get one toon to max before I start doing that.  Part of it is also likely my own fault… I’m leveling a tank as a tank.

2. All alone.  Our guild kinda died…  Some people have real life interfering and some quit the game and others like the hubby and myself are also playing WoW and often have evening commitments when others might actually be online.   It also doesn’t help that we’ve gotten more involved in our WoW guild of late as well as the fact that several WoW holidays have taken place recently… and we always get sucked into stuff there.  It’s fine and I understand completely, but I can’t deny it’s played a part.  I play SWTOR most often in the mornings and have since it came out…  when no one is on, I log in less… therefore people are on less.  So yeah, also partly my own fault.  It doesn’t help that hubby is much less interested in it than I am, and even I am being distracted by other things.

ETA: I will note that changing planets has helped with the questing.  Corellia is much more straightforward and I’m finding the questlines engaging again.  However, that said, I only play once or twice a week nowadays.  That may become more often when 1.2 hits but for now, it’s an interesting side game 🙂  And I hope to hit 50 within the next week or so.

World of Warcraft is something I find infinitely more engaging at the moment, even given the issues I have with the game.

 

I’m also going to note this entry was written a few weeks ago but I wanted to go ahead and post it anyway as it expressed my thoughts at the time.

SWTOR Wish List

These are some things I wish for in SWTOR.  Most are minor things of convenience.  This isn’t a post complaining about the game, mind you.  I really enjoy the game.  I seem to be more in a WoW mode the last week, but that was mainly an issue of hitting a planet that I had issues getting around on, which I finally finished [and now know] :P.  And frankly, a lot of these things will probably be in the game eventually.  SWTOR is in fantastic shape for a game that’s merely a month old.

1. Ability to retrieve mail on my ship.  Heck, I have a comm system for incoming daily spacebattles for a reason!  😛  It would seem to be logical that I could retrieve my mail from there!

2. Ship Hearth.  Even if it’s a one day CD like the Fleet Hearth is…  It seems logical that I’d have a way to get back to my ship fast in an emergency!

3. The ability to designate other items as vendor fodder when I send my companion out to sell the grays.

4. A Guild Log!  I’d like to know who invited that new random person and whether to leave them at recruit rank or promote them to full member [as we do with those we know].  Course, I’d still have to ask them about it to know… but at least I’d know WHO to ask :P.

5. A guild bank of some fashion.  Several guildies are particularly lucky with snagging blue and purple boe pieces they can’t use.  A place to store those for others use would be nice!

6.  Dual spec.  I understand and accept we must choose one Advanced Class, but the ability to spec for both roles would be handy.

7. Same realm LFD of some sort – which is supposedly in the works.  I honestly would rather see how the same server LFD works.  You would still be held accountable for your actions because you ARE likely to run into the people again, which I would hope would control the a-hole factor some.

8. Holiday events!  Yeah, I know… I’m a sucker.  But I love that stuff in WoW and I think SWTOR has the great potential to make some really cute and unique things happen with it.

I’m quite sure there are other things I’d like to see 🙂  But these are a few off the top of my head.

From Death Knight to Jedi Knight

Well… we’ve been in a few days now 🙂  We got in the second day of early access, in fact [yeah we pre-ordered pretty early on].  It’s intense, but it’s been fabulous!

A bunch of old faces are around – Inq, Kanrad, Mikhaill and Khaella – all of whom follow this blog and most have commented before.  Of course, hubby and I are playing.  We’ve also picked up some of Kanrad’s real life co-workers.  We’re in a guild called “The Nerf Herders”.  I know, it’s probably one of the more overused guild names… we’ve seen at least 2 other variations on our server already.  But we settled on it and we like it 🙂  We’re on Shadow Hand – one of the more popular PVE servers, apparently.  For the last couple of nights we’ve had to wait in 30 minute queue times to get in.  So we start up the game early and either play WoW, or do something else while it sits in queue.

We hit level 10 that first night, got to 12 the second evening and have been steadily working and we’re now sitting at level 18, with our own starships already 🙂  I’ve got a couple of alts in the level 10-11ish range [getting to level 10 is easy once you know the basics… past that is more time consuming.  The altoholic I am, I already have one of each class rolled on our server, though most are still in the level 1-3 range.

But here is my main on SWTOR – Askevar, the Jedi Knight.  She did take the guardian tree [the one capable of tanking].  The most frustrating part at the moment is learning to keep threat…  it’s like starting all over again.  The main problem is that at low levels you have very little in the way of a method of keeping threat.  I did finally get a “presence” and a taunt… so it’s getting better.  We’ve done a couple flashpoints with guildies and some heroic 2s and 4s… so it’s just going to take time there.

On a further note, we are still not planning to quit WoW.  We did buy the access pass and such and are still raiding on our mains.  We’ll just have to see how multi-gaming works for us.

SW:TOR and WoW

Just a point of note, for that that read the blog [I know, a meta post for once!].  Venoym and I have already preordered Star Wars: The Old Republic.  It’s our Christmas present to each other in fact.

We also did the Access Pass for WoW a couple weeks ago – so we do intend to continue playing WoW for the moment as well.  We have a raid team depending on us and we’re enjoying raiding again – likely because we aren’t leading.  We still want to finish that last 38% on Rag and we want to kill Deathwing.

I honestly can’t make guarantees about the content of the blog.  I suspect it’ll more likely be slanted to WoW… but then again I haven’t seen the Star Wars game either.  In likelihood, it’ll end up a blended version… or if I have a lot of Star Wars things to talk about I may create another blog, much like I did whilst testing the Cataclysm Beta.  Then again, I don’t know what’s going to happen or how time will end up split.  Basically, you’ll know when I know 😀

Call me a geek, but I can’t wait to see Askevar the Jedi Knight 😛  Maybe she’ll even make dark side choices… who knows?

ETA: After some discussion with Venoym, I’m likely just going to allow this blog to expand.  I haven’t kept strictly to 100% WoW topics anyway