Another Post About SWTOR??

Why yes. Yes it is.

Well, it's officially launched. Whoo! I've been having fun exploring and leveling up and questing and such. Now I am about to be without access to the game until next week while I am out of town for the holiday. Should give all those latecomers a chance to catch up to (and probably surpass) me by the time I get back. Sigh.

Oh well. It's not like I am actually playing this as a competition anyway. I really really am digging the story and I want to play through and see how it pans out.

The social aspect is starting to grow on me. A little. I have already gotten in the habit of keeping my eye on the chat window while I play. I have learned how to sort out the general discussion from private chats with my friend or with my group. I actually have been seeking out groups, too. I am kind of proud of myself for that. When I did the first Heroic Area on my class homeworld (these are short quests where you are encouraged not to go alone--basically you have to fight your way through a slew of baddies to get to your objective), I actually hopped onto the general chat to see if anyone was interested in joining me. Ended up with two buddies and we sliced through it pretty quickly. It was surprisingly fun.

I really like how the loot and conversation options work with a group, too. With loot, if a fallen foe just has credits, then it's first come first serve, or sometimes the loot signal will only come up if you personally killed the guy. But if there's an item, everyone in the group gets a choice between "need" or "greed," and the game rolls for it for you, with the highest group member winning the item. If you select "need" then it is more likely to go to you (I guess it weights the "dice" or something), but if everyone chooses "greed" then it's a fair roll and everyone's got an equal chance. I was a little confused by this at first. I thought maybe those two would have been reversed (with "greed" meaning "I want it now" and "need" meaning "Give it to whichever member needs it more"). With conversations, when you get to a dialogue option, every group member makes a choice and again the game rolls for it, with the highest roll's choice getting played out. That means that in a conversation, usually each group member's avatar gets a chance to speak up, which is nice. If you want to make sure that there are no unpleasant surprises in how the conversation turns out, you can just hop on the group chat and make sure everyone is on the same page with which dialogue options to choose.

There are still a few drawbacks, of course. When I did my first attempt at the game's first Flashpoint, I found a pretty decent group fairly quickly. We got about two-thirds of the way through, however, and I managed to run my avatar off the edge of a random bottomless pit (in the middle of a spaceship! the Star Wars universe is randomly fond of bottomless shafts and pits in spaceships and stations). After a loading screen, I was at the start of the area again, but it took me a few minutes to figure that out. Then, my computer when kind of nuts and I couldn't get my character to move or get my chat to work. By the time I did, and was moving toward my group again and able to message them, they had already been waiting and the group leader had booted me from the group, thinking I had buggered off. I mean, I don't really blame them, but it was incredibly frustrating and annoying. I felt kind of like a loser. When next I logged in to try that Flashpoint again, there wasn't anyone around who was up for trying that particular mission. Which didn't help with the feeling like a loser bit. Still, the third time was the charm, and I was able to find another group the next day and get through it all. I have also now learned how dying works in Flashpoints, as well as what to do when my avatar freezes up like that. So, learning experience.

I actually ended up joining a guild that is focusing on leveling and Flashpoints. They are friendly to noobs, and hopefully that will make it easier to find buddies when I need help with a mission. Also, will hopefully give me less of a chance to make an utter fool of myself, because I can just ask. I was kind of amused when the guy who recruited me sent a welcome comment and then added to just let him or a few of the other guild leaders know if anyone in the game is bothering or bullying me. I mean, grown woman, mother and all over here. Still, it's nice to know someone has my back.

So, yeah, I am having a ton of fun so far, more than I was hoping for, I'll be honest. I am really looking forward to continuing the journey.

Now, just because, have a whole bunch of screen shots!

Is it just me or do the Flesh Raider Boneguards look a wee bit familiar?

Crafting my lightsaber!

Heck yes!

I have the power! Wait...wrong franchise.

Group combat.

Two lightsabers, baby, heck yes!

Tearing it up...

Meeting up with a real-world friend in-game, yay! Aw, T-7 party!

Just chillin' in my speeder.

Even though the game didn't officially launch until Tuesday, Amazon went above and beyond making sure that everyone got their physical copies in time for the launch. Mine came last Friday, and it is pretty spectacular.

Next to Baby Girl so you get an idea of scale.

The loot: A cool book, security key, the soundtrack, a map of the galaxy,
and of course, the game itself.

Also included a pretty awesome Darth Malgus statue. 

So yeah, that's what's been going on over here. Expect to hear more for a while folks. Anyone else out there playing? Or hoping Santa brings them a copy?