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.

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.