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Tuesday 27 March 2012

Level 50 Now What?


I dinged level 50 on Eveaider, Sith Warrior, handing in the final quest of the Belsavis bonus quest series. When I hit level 49 I skipped over to Belsavis and, in the orbital space station, accepted the start of the bonus series.

Why? Because the quests on Belsavis turn into dailies which give daily commendations and mods. Plus doing 1 set of the quests got me to level 50!

So what now? Now to finish the class quest back on Corellia, plus do some side quests for commendations to get my gear upgraded. Then off to Belsavis to do those dailies for mods and commendations.

Once I complete my class quest, dailies open up on Illum, so I'll be able to do those for commendations too. Eventually I can buy some nice gear with these commendations which will see me ready for heroic flashpoints and raids.

However there is a wrinkle, and that is the lack of group finding and dungeon finding features. The daily quests which give mods and armour for gear all require a group of various sizes. This means lurking around waiting for people to answer a LFM message, or put out such a message themselves. Now thus waiting can be done while doing the other soloable dailies, but for those without a large play time, not finding groups can become annoying.

The lack of a dungeon finder is why I've run so few flash points. When the choice is hanging around the space fleet for an hour, or going to quest some more, I always choose questing. Now at level 50 the class quest is gone, I am left with dailies or hanging around the fleet looking for a group.

Roll on 1.3 and it's promised Flash point finder!

Thursday 8 March 2012

New In 1.2

A shiny video for new things in patch 1.2. The new Legacy system stuff looks interesting, as does the new Operation. However, does this mean they are bumping the gear tier already, despite me not setting foot into an Operation or being level 50 yet!?

Wednesday 7 March 2012

[Spoilers] Sith Warrior Chapter 3 and a half

Spoilers for the Sith Warrior story line ahead.

So, after the events on Quesh I headed off to Belsavis to hunt down and stop Darth Ekkage from being released from prison. She is a major assassin, and the sister of Darth Baras, so she cannot escape otherwise Baras' enemies will be in trouble. 


After trogging around on Belsavis I finally find her group of elite assassins and... persuade them to join with the Emperor. See, being the Wrath has it's advantages, I didn't even need to fight them. With them out of the way, I found Ekkage and of course killed the hell out of her. The planet was fairly fun, although mostly killing named characters from the story line.


With Belsavis finished, I headed back to my ship. Alas, I was ambushed at the space port by Lord Draagh, who informed me that Baras knew I was still alive (although not for much longer). Oddly he claimed to not be able to die, and indeed when he was almost dead he somehow regenerated to full, and so I had to defeat Draagh three times. The fight ended with him being tossed over the side into some flames, which should definitely kill him. This was pretty cool, and ups the ante quite a lot.


Next I was told by The Hand that I was needed on the planet of Voss. It was on Voss that the actual Voice of The Emperor was trapped, so I was to go and rescue the Voice. Recall Baras is pretending to be the Voice, and thus saying the Emperor's will, so everyone will do as he says.

After a lot of quests on Voss, I finally found the Voice in some Voss tomb. The Emperor was tricked by Baras into taking the body of a Voss native as his Voice, but then tricked into taking the Voice into this tomb, and because it was a Voss he was trapped. The only solution was to kill the body of the Voice so the Emperor's essence could be freed. This shows the scheming of Baras, that he has planned this entrapment for years. 

Alas, the big bad of Voss from the Dark Heart took possession of the Voice and so I had to defeat this evil first, before freeing the Emperor's essence. Talking to the Emperor was pretty cool, even if it was through the body of a Voss native.

My next mission was on Corellia, to help protect Darth Vowrawn, the only opposition to Darth Baras left on the Dark Council. Baras is trying to kill Vowrawn, and if he succeeds, Baras would make the Council accept him as the Voice of the Emperor and take control of the entire Empire!


However just after the conversation with The Hand, I was told by Quinn (my healer companion) that access to Corellia was blocked. I couldn't fly in, I needed a transponder which would make my ship look friendly. Happily he knew of a ship which I could go to and steal the transponder off. 


So some Voss bonus quests later, I am marching through this ship and discover no opposition at all. How odd. Quinn and I get to the room which is meant to contain the transponder, to discover no transponder. Then a cut scene starts, and it transpires that Quinn is still working for Darth Baras! He has been studying my every move and has programmed two killer droids to use all my weaknesses to kill me. Weaknesses like I have no healer now :) The entire ship mission was a trap to lure me to my death.


I get to fight Quinn and his two droids, sans healer. Alas I defeat them with utter ease... but I am not given the option to kill Quinn, even though all who betray me must die. Sadly I am forced to merely seriously injure him, then it's back to the ship. 

Still, this betrayal is pretty neat. The ending is sadly a little unconvincing, I allow Quinn to serve because he fails to kill me and pledges his allegiance to me again. What, like he did the first time he joined my crew? Better kill him off and go without a healing companion, I say. This episode exposes a serious weakness in SWTOR story telling - there is no way I can kill my companions, so I know full well Quinn will be back out on missions with me. What would have been far cooler is that I could kill him, then get someone else to be my healer. I'd have done it too!


On the ship Darth Baras calls, and tries to persuade me that the group I am working for does not represent the Emperor, but are in fact a rogue organization within the Empire. Not going to work, although the idea is intriguing. 

I am now off to Corellia to rescue Darth Vowrawn and kill the various assassins sent to kill him. With merely 2 levels to go until the cap, some serious speed will be needed if I am to resolve my class story lines before level 50.


I still really want to kill Quinn, though.