So no secret I’ve been playing swtor again since they I learned they made medical probes baseline back in the summer. I think I also mentioned at some point…? I had a ton of cartel coins stocked up as I’ve been playing on/off again since launch so I got a couple of the boost to 70 (which was max level until last weeks Onslaught) because not having to worry about being the right level means I can just focus on what I wanted – the story.

As I think I said at the time I was 7/8 on class stories so I boosted a scoundrel smuggler (my missing one) and a mercenary bounty hunter as bounty hunter (powertech though) had been my first character and so it had been years since I had experienced the story and my memory is faded. My intent was to get 8/8 and then see what characters I enjoyed playing the most to then go forward and do the expansion stories as even though it’s been 8 years I’ve never progressed further than the base game. Not because I don’t like the game (I do!) but there’s been a perfect storm of reasons really.

I have now done that! So what was the result?

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I have thoughts about the impermanency of the world and how hard it is to let go. For instance I googled about the future of Swtor as I’m getting back into the game. I like to avoid the doom and gloom brigade but someone stating simply about the licence being up in 2023 and how Disney was unlikely to renew it – that gave me pause. It wasn’t some frothing rant about the state of the game, just a fact and given that Disney did that to Marvel Heroes and now that game is gone… well lets just say I have already experienced the bitterness that brings.

So with this in mind I had a leaden feeling in my gut because the games days might well be numbered and then I thought “2023 is four years from now” and then I thought about technology. Without emulators games days are always numbered even if you buy them and have them on disk because technology evolves. The Lego games I am liking so much through Steam might not work in ten years or so (which is the timeframe for upgrading my PC) because the games of my childhood no longer work on the machine I have now.

I have issues letting things go because if I like something then I want to keep it forever and I do find it an unsettling prospect that something which I like, and work on, can disappear. But it happened with Marvel Heroes, I had invested a good amount of time (and admittedly money) into that game and there is nothing but memories left. I still miss it and I’m looking for something to fill the same itch. The Lego games are good (I just got to the point in Superheroes when I’m at the X-Mansion) but the Lego games are designed by nature to be comedy so it’s not quite the same. I’m hoping the Ultimate Alliance will help should I ever manage to get my hands on a Switch.

But anyway nothing in life is permanent, not online games or offline games because technology evolves – that’s the takeaway. It’s sad but at the same time due to that evolution there is new stuff to play. Games improve over time as well and with nostalgia culture, emulators and then graphical improvements sometimes old games can get a new lease of life.

So I think I have to be ok with the fact that there is a clock on Swtor. There might not be if the rumours of a Knights of the Old Republic movie is true because the game might get a resurgence. I mean there’s a reason why they bring out video games with new movies. I certainly get that itch after seeing it on the big screen to dive inside the world and play with it myself. Anyway that brings me to my point about the future being uncertain. Swtor might be doomed or might have another fourteen years – nobody knows.

I guess we just make the most of what we have when we have it. There is nothing more we can do because like so much of life we individually have no control over the outcome. EA/Disney will only keep the game running if it makes enough money and that requires hundreds of thousands of players – one voice is nothing. I try not to think about that powerlessness as it applies to far more serious things than just a game and it’s not a nice feeling.

Live in the moment. Good advice and not just when it comes to Swtor.

I’ve played Swtor on and off since it launched, a month here and a month there, I said this when I posted last week about medical probes becoming standard for all levels of players (not just for subs).

Back in the day I made a post at the height of my Swtor enthusiasm saying why it was worth subbing to both Swtor and Warcraft. A few months later I made a post explaining why I was unsubbing from Swtor, the primary reason being I was burning out of Warcraft and the mechanics of Swtor were too similar to be a change. That is true enough as they are both MMORPG’s but there was also another truth and I can’t remember if I acknowledged it or not – familiarity.

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I finished up Ilum on my Imperial Agent the other day and I dinged level 56. Now, when Ilum was released the level cap was 50, it was raised to 55 for Rise of the Hutt Cartel. I’d accidentally leveled past a whole expansion worth of content.

This really made me think. Sure I watch the XP bar sometimes because I like the whoosh of the ding, I also like to make sure I’ve not screwed up somewhere and I am the right level for the planet. However, aside from that I quest for the story and the levelling is very much a byproduct. That explains how I managed to accidentally level a lot higher than intended.

Now I am a subscriber. I know that the xp is throttled somehow for preferred/f2p and so their experience would be different. However, from my perspective since the launch of Fallen Empire I get experience from everything and it’s awesome. The bar just jumps and it’s effortless, I’m just playing the game and the level is secondary, it’s unimportant, it really ceases to matter.

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I haven’t blogged about swtor since April, when I said that the 12x boost was coming into effect for subscribers. I thought that I would be playing a lot of swtor this past summer. I only wish that could have been true. Instead I was rather ill and not in a good way, the sort of illness where you feel too bad to even play games.

In my post about the 12x boost I said I was “wary but excited” as I worried what the boost would mean for the games longevity. I thought that if I played through all the class storylines, then I would be ‘done’ with what I loved most about the game.

I need not have worried. I only took one class through their storyline – Imperial Agent. I started another – Jedi Consular – but I’m only level 21. That is all I managed. I have yet to touch the classes of Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler or Trooper and my Sith Warrior is still on level 17 and due for a restart as it’s been so long. I didn’t even max my Jedi Knight, which is now on level 47 so very close to the end.

The release of the next expansion reminded me it’s been a while since I played. I actually forgot to cancel my sub so I have another six months as it renewed by accident. So what are my current thoughts on the game?

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In my last post on Swtor, where I talked about why I resubbed and what I liked about the game, I mentioned the 12x experience boost that had been available for a limited time to purchasers of Shadow of Revan. I said part of me was sorry that I had missed it, as the class quests were the best part of the game. The other part of me was fine with it as the planetary quests were good too.

Well, on May 4th aka Star Wars Day, the 12x boost is back for subscribers. No definitive word on when it’ll be over but the date given is ‘in the fall’ so it’s going to be around for a couple of months.

When I read that announcement my immediate thought was “I’m going to be playing a lot of swtor this summer” and that’s likely still true. However, thinking about it beyond the initial excitement I’m wary for what it means for the longevity of the game.

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My history with Swtor has been very up and down. I started this blog not long after I started playing the game, so the whole process has been chronicled.

I played for a while at launch, unsubbed after six months as I’d stopped playing, always choosing to play Warcraft when I had time to play games. A year later I tried to play some more but the f2p model annoyed me, and my computer was having issues. Six months later I tried playing f2p again, got annoyed and this time resubbed for a couple of months. Again I wasn’t playing enough to continue the sub. Just over a year later, and we’re back in present day, and I’ve resubbed once more.

The f2p model for Swtor is in some respects generous, as it does allow you to play most of the game for free, but in other respects it’s extremely annoying. I always resub if I’m going to be playing a fair bit as it’s worth it for the medical probes alone. They allow revival where you die, rather than having to revive at the nearest med center and then re-fight everything to get back to where you were when you died.

Everytime I play Swtor I enjoy it, so why my interest wanes and I stop playing is something of a mystery. I think it’s because of the way I play, purely questing for the class storylines. I don’t miss out on anything if I take a day, a week or months away. I’m not behind, I’ve just stayed standing still.

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