Having recently celebrated Star Wars Day, and getting caught up in the recent barrage of updates and rumors on Star Wars Episode 7, we’re bringing you a new column focused on one of the biggest sci-fi franchise. We all had to start somewhere, and our resident Star Wars fan-boy Wedgeantilles began his MMOG experience with Star Wars: The Old Republic. He’ll be giving an outsider’s look on what it’s like to play your first MMOG, along with providing game play insight and helping those of you not as familiar with the platform to not feel so intimidated or alone in vastness of the galaxy that makes up SWTOR. Enjoy.
To be honest with you, I haven’t logged much time in TOR recently. You see, I’m a casual gamer with two jobs. This makes being an intergalactic smuggler, however appealing, not always feasible when there are bills to pay. The struggle is real my friends. Yet despite not being online 12 hours a day, I have made some advances. I’m now a level 17 gunslinger, I got my ship back, and I’ve been cruising around the galaxy in my battle-ready Corellian freighter. The missions are, of course, getting increasingly difficult and involved. Due to this, I have found myself going back to the lower level worlds to gain XP and level up.
The release of Galactic Starfighter, a PVP dogfighting minigame, managed to sidetrack my general progress. I spent hours attempting to blow other TOR players to smithereens. That old console PvP mentality kicking in something fierce. The queue for Galactic Starfighter is brilliant, just click the icon next to the map and you’re queued up. You’re even able to go about your business until enough players are ready, at which point you can continue on to the battle in space, or choose to stay ground side if you’ve lost interest in this PvP combat. This is ideal if you get caught up in the mission at hand while the server looks for others in GSF.
Author’s note: I’m a spoiled console gamer. This means that I’m addicted to checkpoints during a mission, and those don’t exist in deep space. I’ve found that while killing space pirates for a Rhakgoul vaccine on Taris, or slugging it out with gangsters on Coruscant, once you get ganked, you’re off to the closest med center, which can be quite far away. That said, I have a tendency to rage quit after being cut down 15 times in a row when I’m 10 feet from my objective. I know I’m a crybaby noob. I want to respawn where I got slaughtered, not next to some 2-1B surgical droid 500 meters away.
All the same, I’ve muscled through. Occasionally I have been assisted by nameless good samaritans with much higher stats than myself to murder a Hutt, find a vaccine for a lethal virus, or just deliver goods to some locals who need a helping hand. It is clear to me that there is much more to experience in this game. A simple way of guaranteeing that that I’ll continue playing, and continue filling you all in on info, discoveries and tropes you’re already aware of. Until next time.
Stay tuned for the next installment in the on-going column from Wedgeantilles.