The long hiatus and the return of the Data Pad

   I know a lot of you know about my personal situation and what affect it had on my game playing and thus writing about the Knights of the Old Republic. As I now approach the 5 month point upon which I was not able to play and write about my thoughts and feelings about the game, I have put myself into a position to resume playing of Knights of the Old Republic and catch up on the chapters that I have missed and my feelings towards the end of the expansion over the course of the next several days I am going to re hash each chapter and put out a blog on said chapter as I complete them. Needless to say that with the help of some of my friends I was able to get back into the swing of things with my Main Character the Jedi Knight and play through Chapter 13 through the end of the Expansion and even to the Interlude Chapter with HK-55.

   In this entry of the blog I am going to go through some general thoughts over the last 4 chapters and some of the end thoughts I have with the overall feeling of the expansion. First of all while the storytelling in these chapters are really good, the tag line your choices matter once again falls flat as a pancake as it really does not matter which choices that you make within these last chapters the results are somewhat the same. The ending especially none of the choices matter. The end of the expansion is the same. That really bothers me. With that last choice there really should have been a consequence with that decision and not a matter whether or not the escaping shuttle is damaged or not. I had much higher hopes of the ending of the expansion, and the subsequent announcement of Knights of the Eternal Throne coming up should have been an epic choice that dictated the direction the new expansion should have went. 

   The only time where your choices really do matter in the heat of the moment is during the Alliance Alerts in the Chapter 16 and in the Interlude. Chapter 16 had Broonmark which is the Talz companion from the Sith Warrior which if you are a true light side character you are forced to kill him as he will not listen to reason. I am really curious as to see his reaction to the Sith Warrior when I get that far with him. The second choice is during the Interlude when you are dealing with SGT. Rusk and Skadge. Since Skadge is one of the original companions that a lot of players around the community wanted to place in an airlock and open the door, the ability to choose between the two is rather refreshing. I of course chose to go with Rusk as the Knight and Rusk are old friends and Skadge is a waste of space.... However I did not kill him I just him to prison so I expect some sort of letter or story arc that talks about him a little later on.... Making that choice matter even more. 

   The Interlude chapter where you play as HK-55 and get the companion Z0-0M is one of the funniest and most fun episodes of SWTOR that I have ever experienced. Z0-0M is by far the most entertaining part of the mission until you save the Exarch..... I will leave that to your own experiences. The scripting with HK-55 was a little off as I was expecting more of what makes the HK's the HK's but overall it was a very pleasing chapter which I will get into more detail later.

  Now as we approach the end of the expansion and the Fall of discontent until the Enteral Throne is released, what are the overall thoughts of the expansion? It was a solid expansion with some notable flaws. Mainly a lack of group content in one way or the other. In the end the community got 4 flash points (The Star Fortresses), One PVP arena (Rishi?) and something of a placation with the Enteral Championship. To me this is not a complete expansion to keep the fan base happy regardless of how many companion alerts you throw at us. In my opinion each expansion should have the following formula. 2 Operations, 2 PVP areas and 8 flash points. In Knights of the Fallen Empire there should have been an Operation at the end of the Star Fortresses arc where there was some sort of super fortress that needed to be taken down. There was natural progression towards it, this was by far the most obvious thing that the Developers should have been looking at. The second Operation should have just dropped with the last chapter being Arcann's flagship. Yes I know we go through that in story but we did the same thing with Shadow of Revan where one was story that could be soloed or an operation. That should have been an option as well. The remaining flashpoint should have been planets under attack from Arcann after the events of chapter 14-15. Pick 4 planets, in this case I would say Balmorra, Courscant, Coreilla, and Drommand Kass, these planets would be under assault from the  Eternal Empire and you had to rescue a place, something similar to the Assault on Tython and Korriban. This I feel would have made the player base feel better about the content they were getting. What we were given was lackluster at best. 

   For those that have been following my blog here know what my major issue with the entire expansion has been and that is the companions that we care about. I was starting to praise the team on tricking in the right companions getting some of the love interests but the last 3 chapters of the expansion does barely do anything about the momentum. Sure the Sith Warrior gets Vette back if they did not decide to romance Jasea. Otherwise it was mostly non consequential companions given back to the populace. There are key companions from each class that needed to comeback at the end of the expansion. or at least given some sort of reason why they are still missing. I once felt sorry for the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunters as the beginning of the expansion they were given the shaft on which companions came back as it was not until Chapter 12 I think that someone from those classes were coming back. Now I feel sorry for both the Consular and the Inquisitor as they have the least number of core companions back. Pardon me as I list out who is missing from each class just so I remember.

Jedi Knight: Kira, Doc, Lord Scourge

Jedi Consular:  Tharan, Zenith, Lt. Iresso, Nadia

Smuggler: Corso, Risha, Akaavi

Trooper: Elana, Tanno (This is a technicality)

Sith Warrior: Jaesa, Quinn

Sith Inquisitor: Khem Val, Adronikes, Ashara

Imperial Agent: Vector, Ens. Temple, SCORPIO (Also a technicality as the end of the expansion will tell you)

Bounty Hunter: Mako

   As you can see from the above list the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter are on easy street when it comes to the companions that they started with. The issue comes from the fact that the female love interest there is still out of the picture. I only got a slight hint of Elana's whereabouts when I did the chapter with Aric as the main focus. I am not sure if Torian gives a hint towards Mako to the Bounty Hunter in his chapter but I can do some additional research on that later. This list should be balanced and it is not. I feel that at the end of the expansion each character should have had 2 missing people, instead of this mess. 

  Now we get to the grind factor of the expansion, No real end game content just an event that really is for new players rather than the hardcore players who have been loyal to the game for years. The Dark versus Light event. This is to encourage the new players to get characters up to the end game section. However the rewards that are given are only given to characters that were created during this event rather than giving credit for the players that have already achieved this feats through the five years that the game has been out. Which means that if the hard core players want the spiffy rewards they have to at least make 2 new characters if not a new full suite of characters and get them through the game all over again. Those players that have already done the grind of each story line and done all of the things that are required in the event are getting shafted. The long time players that have reached Legendary Rank already should really only have to get one character get to the first level of rewards before the rest of the rewards be unlocked because of the time we have already put into the game. I have done the first two levels of the event and already I am kind of tired of working a new character through the classic story line. I am wanting to get to the new companion level, which it looks like I might be able to do without doing at least one of the previous tiers of the event. But still to do a massive grind like that is still a pain since I have done all of this for at least 1 if not 2 characters. Does not move me the way it should.

  Well that is it for the return of the Data Pad. I hope you enjoy this writing again as I am trying to get back up to speed and make sure I have everything covered. Thanks again for reading. 

Chapter 12 Vision in the Dark Review and Developer Stream thoughts.

     So yesterday Chapter 12: Visions in the Dark for Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion was released. At this time I have only finished the story line for this chapter with my Jedi Knight and suffice to say that this particular chapter really focuses on the Force and what the evolution of the not only the Jedi Order but the Sith Order as well would have to do in order to take on the Eternal Empire. As much as the previous chapter had a lot of meat on the bones for Trooper characters to get into, this chapter has a lot of meat on the bones as far as the story is concerned for the Force users in the game. As bare bones on setting up the story was from about chapter 6 to chapter 10, the last couple of chapters have actually have some serious meat on them. The support characters in this chapter are interesting and make the chapter have the gravity that it needs for a turning point in the story. A minor gripe I have is the new weapon at the end of the chapter, I really wish that it was a component that could be transferred from weapon to weapon because I have the thin bladed lightsabers and the new weapon uses the normal blades. Which is a minor gripe. I hope the weapon for the Trooper is not god awful ugly....

     However the major issue that I have with the chapter is not the chapter itself but the add-on of the new companion. The new companion is a member of the same species as Khem Val the Deshade from the Sith Inquisitor companion line. Part of the problem is that the quest line and dealing with the puzzles are not intuitive enough for you to get it by yourself. Since I was working on the new content shortly after the patch there was 30-40 players all trying to figure out the puzzles all at the same time. That was fun to see so many of us players trying to figure things out, but there was not enough information to clue people in on what is going on. Hopefully they will patch something in and see what clues they could give players in the future.

     Overall the new chapter feels like what the chapter should feel like. I am not sure how the non-Force users story is going to progress, I may work on that at some point. Right now with how school and home life is going I think I am going just work on the Jedi Knight for a while and then work on the rest of the classes at a later date.


     So at the same time of the release of the newest chapter the monthly developer stream was broadcast. Once again the team starts off with the subscriber rewards for the expansion which is getting less and less exciting with each incarnation. This time it is customization for the ship droids that make them colored like HK-55 which I think is stupid. They started to talk about the new Eternal Championship which is finally on the PTS and being released in Chapter 13, about 3 months late. Better late than never. Finally the Smuggler has a reason to play into Knights of the Fallen Empire with the first classic companion returning for them. Chapter 13 is going to make a lot of players happy with the return of Vette and Gault. Bounty Hunter players are getting their second companion and someone who could shed some light on some other people that the Hunter is more concerned about. Now we are starting to trickle in the lovers from certain classes and that is encouraging.  They did say that Khem Val is not being replaced in the stream so that means that he is still alive out there somewhere looking for his master.

    I am waiting to see how the end game of these last 4 chapters are going to play out with the original companions. How many more companions are we going to get in lieu of our favorite companions. Things are looking up story wise but the subscriber rewards are lacking. Think about what you are wanting to give out for rewards.... I would like to see Black/Yellow-ish color crystals but that is just me.

    Thanks for reading folks see you all in May for the May the Fourth Day.

Chapter 11 Disavowed Review.

    So this month is the release of the next chapter in the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion. In this chapter we are now reunited with Aric Jorgan and the new members of Havoc Squad. This is a Trooper companion from the original 5. With the companions that have been seen and or acquired since the beginning of the expansion, the Trooper now has seen the story for 4 out of the 5 original companions which is pretty amazing as there are still some classes that have not seen even the first of their companions in story. This is something that the writers should have been looking at since the beginning of the outline phase of the new content. Planning for even cameos much like that they did for Tanno Vik in the early part of the story should have been considered. There are a number of companions in the Old Republic universe that the treatment that Tanno Vik received could have been implemented. Skadge, Gault, even Guss Tano all could have been given cameos in the new expansion even if they did not become companions in the game until much later in the story. However this is a horse I have already beaten to death.

    So the actual story of Chapter 11 Disavowed is actually one of the more meaty chapters in the expansion so far. The interactions of the Light Side Jedi is interesting. However much like the previous chapter where the Imperial Agent is really the star of the chapter, The Trooper is the real star of this particular chapter. There are extra sets of dialogue that only available to the Trooper and really gives out a good deal of information for the rest of the old Havoc Squad. This is very encouraging for the Trooper to finally to see what has happened to the important members of Havoc Squad. I quite like how the story progressed and how accomplished I felt after going through the 90 minutes of story time. I am hoping that the rest of the chapters are going to start to feel about the rest of this season.

    Speaking of seasons, I was recently made aware of the fact there was going to be a second season of the expansion. This is something I was not expecting and the fact it seems that all of the major female love interests are going to be in the second season based on logical deductions kind of makes me irked about the fact that it is going to be nearly a full year before some of the most important people players care about are going to be returning. I am not sure this is a good move on the part of the developers. The female players who did get attached to the male love interests are starting to get their favorite people back and that is a good thing. I have stated before the one thing I would love to have at least the companions that are dealt with in the upcoming chapters displayed a few months before hand. The community at large would not mind terribly to know when their favorite companions are going to return and gives the development and public relations teams more points to hype over the course of the time rather than telling us about a month in advance.

   Okay that will do it for this entry. One thing since I am back in school full time and doing a lot more writing. I am probably going to start limiting this to the week of the developers stream and the week after the next chapter drops so I can give you all fresh takes on all of the happenings that normal people see from the game.

Leveling for the First Time and Celebrity Guilds

     So with the new school schedule and trying to balance two new tabletop games for the weekend there was not a lot of things that were new experiences or anything earth shattering that drew my ire over the last couple of weeks so with that in mind here are somethings that I did figure out over that time.

   For the first time since the new expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire had been released I decided to attempt to level a new character from scratch just to see what the new experience is like. Everyone on the planets I have been to while doing the heroic grind for cash and prizes, have all said how the new leveling system is easier and more streamlined. I will have to say that it is indeed much easier to leveling in the previous incarnations, I am however tainted and spoiled by the pre-expansion event of the 12 times expansion. Doing some of the mental math, I have determined that the new leveling system is the same thing as the old 12 times experience for the main class story and the story arc for each planet. Following this formula will make sure that you are on the same level of the planet as you move from planet to planet. The only time that this really changes is up front as you level very quickly to the first 10 levels. At this time I have probably put in about 15 to 20 hours and I have been able to run through the first four planets. For me working on a Sith Warrior that would be Korriban, Dromund Kaas, Nar Shadda, and Tattoonie. Now I am starting on Alderaan and it feels like it is where it should be. Although I am of a school of using the custom armor and the Data Crystals equipment approach if you are not so inclined there is enough gear given out to keep up with the enemies on the planets. I will talk more about this as we get to the second set of chapters and feel how that set of leveling goes.


      If you have any kind of knowledge of the things that I like to gush about. Then one of the things I gush about most is the voice actors of anime and video games. One of the actors that I am a fan of happens to play Star Wars: The Old Republic as well. I will not get into the who to protect the identity of the person involved. However he does have a guild on the Imperial side of the Server that I regularly work on. This is the main reason why I have started working on the new Sith Warrior as well. The Actor has created a guild that he allows followers of his from his Twitch Stream. I was able to join up with the guild, and trying to see how the guild is to be ran. Well since we are dealing with a very busy person it is safe to say that the amount of guild work is very minimal. One of the things that I have noticed in my time with this guild is the fact that it seems that those that are in the guild are only on when the Actor is online and streaming his play.... otherwise it is like most other guilds that I have been in...being the only one online. That is what I really notice about guilds on SWTOR is that unless your guild is bigger than say 100 people then you are usually the only person in your guild at any one time. While the game is strong, the social aspect of the game in SWTOR is lacking to say the least.

    Sorry for the short update, again school and doing a little cutting back on the game is giving me less to write about for the time being.

Anarchy in Paradise and Disavowed thoughts and feelings.

     Sorry about the lateness of this blog, getting back in the swing of school and other personal situations delayed this post for a couple of days. However during this time frame the update that I have been waiting for since the beginning of Knights of the Fallen Empire finally was released. Also during this time away from the blog the developer blog for February was broadcast and some of the feelings that I have had previously still linger around.


    Anarchy in Paradise is the latest chapter in the Knights of the Fallen Empire and much like the rest of the chapters in the expansion the amount of time in game dealing with this chapter is relativity short, something in the range of about 90 minutes total game play and that is really stretching it out to listen to all of the dialogue that is being  delivered. Once again the hyped up moment of saying choices matter does not really deliver anything more than the mentions of decisions that were made in the previous chapters. Sure to have your choices mentioned in the previous chapters is kind of cool however still nothing what I would consider a choice that matters situation. What I am looking for in choices that matter is something that will affect either a potential companion or an non-player character that either is important to the resistance. Not just a mention and a possible influence gain on a character based on the previous performance.  The interaction with Firebrand at least with a full light side Jedi Knight is interesting and semi-entertaining considering the alignment of the characters. I am still waiting on using the Imperial Agent to see how the interaction between these characters is explored. Now since that the expansions are now moving from the long and infuriating pause the amount of story time and the impact of the story should show themselves and make this an expansion that we can be proud of.

      Along with the recruitment of Firebrand, Anarchy in Paradise allows players to go back to Hoth and get the first classic companion from the Bounty Hunter class in Blizz the Jawa. This is a simple find stuff, bring it back to Blizz, then take the stuff to members of Blizz's Crew and poof you have Blizz as a new companion. Nothing to special here but some of the comedy that the Jawas put themselves in is really funny. I really wish there is more meat to the companion quests but it is a nice side distraction. After you deal with these two phases of Anarchy in Paradise it is back to the grind phase that players have been dealing with since October.


     During the February Developer Stream, discussion was about the incoming chapter being called Disavowed. This chapter is going to focus on the Trooper story line by dealing with Havoc Squad. The companion they are showing is Aric Jorgan. In the description for the chapter while you are in game it talks about dealing with the whole of Havoc Squad. Once again there is a certain amount of tone deafness in the stream process when the developers were asked about the female love interest of Elena Dorne being in the chapter. It was not even hinted at, it more like it was completely ignored by the Development team. That is the worst thing that you can do is to ignore the deluge of questions about the female love interest. At the least tease them with the occasional maybe. This is how you hype up the upcoming chapter better. However flat out ignoring the questions just makes the player base hate these streams even more. There is 6 chapters left to bring back all of the companions that the player base is wanting. Now is the time to start talking about groups of companions that can be recruited at the same time. I feel that starting with this upcoming chapter that, Jorgan, and Dorne, should fill out the story of what happened to the Trooper's basic companions. We have seen Tanno Vik in Chapter 6 and if you have spared him he could be a potential surprise partner at the end of this chapter. We shall see.

    All and all the future is bright for the rest of this expansion. I remain hopeful that the Dev team is just messing with us. We will know more in a few weeks.

   Looking for more general gaming blogging content? check out my friend David who is over at an8bitmind.com. He talks about all of the current gaming content that is out there and occasionally does some streaming on Twitch as well. You all should check him out.

Livestreams, Misinformation and Tone Deafness.

     Keeping the community healthy and happy, while trying to maintain the surprise and sense of wonder with each new addition to their game is one of the major balancing acts that EA Bioware tries to do when dealing with overall fan base of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Sometimes they succeed, most of the time it seems that what they measure what success is and what is truly considered to be a success are on opposite sides of the galaxy. The fan base deserves more and better than what they are being given which are uninformative live streams, misinformation and apparent tone deafness when it comes to the major questions that players have about their beloved video game.


     For a while now since Twitch.tv has really become a major platform to get information out, the developers and the community leader at Bioware have used Twitch as way to fire off tidbits of information on the upcoming changes to the game. The issue of this situation is that the information given to the public to consume and therefore analyse is painted with the biggest, most broadest brush they can come up with. I am not sure who is responsible for allowing how much time each of these broadcasts should be, but they need to go back to the drawing board and understand that 30 minutes is not enough time to deal with all of the tomfoolery while dealing with the chat function of Twitch and get out the information that is required for people to be satisfied. Twitch is a streaming platform the average person watching shows on Twitch pay more attention than the average Television viewer. The developers have a platform where they can go on for 60 to 90 minutes and there will be thousands of viewers glued to which ever device they are watching on waiting for the precious information that they tuned in to get in the first place. Limiting the stream to 30 minutes plus a few more for overflow is just not cutting it. More time needs to be dedicated to this format if the company is serious about trying to connect and listen to its players.


     Speaking of the information that is provided in the broadcasts.....well let us just say that if it was not for the internet the amount of information that would be passed by the developers would be next to nil. The Old Republic streams just have not enough substance that players want. Trying not to beat the dead horse in the room but if Bioware is more like Blizzard in dealing with the player base and more open to the changes that are coming in the game, more and more players would give Bioware some slack. It is understandable with the developer streams, that they paint the broad strokes of what is coming to allow the player to discover what has been done in the new update. However with all of the information that is disseminated by again Blizzard who is the gold standard when it comes to dealing with their player base. Is Blizzard perfect? No. However in comparison to what Bioware has done thus far they are light years ahead of the competition. What Bioware needs to do is give concreate details about what is coming on the live stream maybe not the minute details but enough information to have people excited for the upcoming changes. Rather than having the fan base go what the hell was that.... I got NO information from that stream what so ever. This is especially bad when this past week Bioware decided to start a stream with the story team and spent pretty much the entire time talking about already known subjects rather than giving a glimpse of what is to come in the upcoming chapters to the Knights of the Fallen Empire (KotFE).

     What really needs to happen on these streams is information that the player base that can come away with feeling like they got something out of the broadcast. As it was stated it does not need to be a minute detailing of all of the changes that are happening, that is what patch notes are for. However more details than the broad strokes that are being given at the current time need to be given. One of the major issues that has been coming up that players have been very vocal about is the lack of high end operations for players that have already gone through all of the content that was presented in the first 9 chapters of KotFE. Personally the scenario was already in play after this stopping point and that was the Star Fortresses. Bioware had already developed the solo and heroic versions of the Star Fortresses, all they needed to do is to develop an operation level Star Fortress which would have been easy to work with and story wise could have been the overseer of the previous 6 Star Fortresses. They could have even invented a couple of new companions to put behind the wall of the Operations that they could acquire through the grind of the operations. This would have given the higher end players something to shoot for. This also could have given incentive those who may not have done operations in the past to attempt them for the first time and move from the single player aspect to the more traditional role of the MMO. For the story stream they need to highlight story information aspects of the upcoming chapters give a more focused idea of what is going on, rather than waxing lyrically about their favorite characters and waste the time they are allotted. The business they are in is about gaining more subscribers and bringing in more money. In order to do this they have to appeal to the customer base. This base is a well informed internet generation of content watchers. They do not have the patience or the time to deal with situations that provide no semblance of information when the stream's intent is to provide information.

     The lack of information that is being presented and the seemingly lack of concern for the questions that the player base is asking for is a cause for concern in the confidence of the player base in the developers to actually listen to what is being shouted into the void. The old standby of we cannot tell you about it yet on almost every issue or the long winded stories about something that has happened in the past and not focused on what is being asked is quickly losing their charm. It is time for the developers at Bioware to start saying something like "The first operation for KotFE is in an early alpha stage and we expect the operation to go to test servers by such and such date" This is real information that players can use. This is information that if they are going to blow by the such and such date, the developers can go "While in Alpha testing we discovered a few bugs in the system or the fight has not quite fit up to our standards so we are pushing the beta test back a couple of weeks. We will give you more information on this new date." For the longest time developers have acted like politicians and not really answer the questions they have been asked. Under the non-disclosure agreements that companies put people under it makes it hard for developers to give out real good information. However when put in front of a medium that is supposed to have feedback and access to parts of information. Information needs to be provided, otherwise there is no point in having these kind of forums especially online. These sessions where information is supposed to be given needs to have more preparation involved and have contingency plans for when the really good questions that will open the well spring of information in order to have the balance that they want. Right now Bioware is acting tone deaf and trying to drown out the high end operation players by giving gifts and and hyping things that are not even in play yet. Players are feeling like the developers do not care. They really want an update to the high end content. Not something that has already been discussed several times a couple of months back.

     Real Information... that is what the players want. Quit giving the players the run around.

Here is a companion, and you get a companion and YOU get a COMPANION!!!.

       When you talk to the normal person about a companion one of two things usually comes to mind. The first being the lovely sidekick of the Doctor in the BBC Series Doctor Who, or your mind goes out to Morena Baccarin and her portrayal of a companion in the series Firefly. Unless you talk to a gamer who has played Knights of the Old Republic or Star Wars: The Old Republic video games. There a companion takes on a whole new meaning. Non-player characters that are helpful in your quest to finish the story and have certain story situations on their own. Some of the most beloved characters in the Legends Universe for Star Wars comes from these categories. It was one of the major reasons why I really left World of Warcraft. But there comes a point where you go what are you thinking.

       Companions in SW:TOR are a very important feature within the game. They are your backup either by being the one who takes on the enemy in the role we call "Tank" keeping them at bay while your character continues to do damage or healing them so they can kill the enemies. They can be a secondary damage dealer called "DPS or Deeps" or they can be the Healer for  you while you take on the enemies head on and keep your hit points from dropping too low. In the game you can have multiple companions to run around with for the story aspect of the game but you can only have one out with you at a time. The role that you wanted to take with you depended on which companion you had at the time. In the early life of the game this was hard to work with because for those players that liked to do the game solo meant that they had to find the companion that was the healer and get him or her recruited in to your group. Some classes  did not get their healer until near the end of the main story. This can be frustrating as there were players out there who were spending a lot of credits on med-packs and other instant heal situations while others who got their healer early in the game could just roll through and make additional credits because they did not have to buy instant healing packs and spend more money on repairs because they kept dying over and over. Well with the recent expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire, SW:TOR fixed that scenario with the fact that you can choose what role (Tank, DPS, or Healer) any of your companions can be and tailor the game to what you want it to be. Which is a really great thing for new players who get attached to certain companions depending on their choices and how the story plays out for them in the game.

       It is the new expansion that I am going to focus the rest of this post on. The way that the game has treated companions and some of the issues that I have with the companions. Without spoiling too much of the story of the new expansion it is safe to say that events within the expansion lock players out of the original five major companions that are collected in the original story line. The steward droid for the ship does not count as a major companion as he does not have a real deep story line to explore. By the time you finish the current endgame story line you are introduced to two new characters that are unique to the new expansion. In the same process two characters that you have met in the previous expansion Shadows of Revan finally join up with you and become part of your crew. Depending on your class there are two new companions that are important to the main story line. If you were the Jedi Knight or the Imperial Agent these are companions that were from the original story line that have returned to help the main character regardless of class.

       It is the stopping point which is Chapter 9 of the expansion story line that gives me issues. The issues seem to play out into some sort of massive situation that I am hoping will right itself by the end of the expansion. During the grind session between the end of chapter 9 and what is coming with end of the hiatus for the holidays starting with chapter 10 there is a plethora of companions to recruit and acquire. During this time there are 6 new flashpoints which need to be attuned in certain ways in order for the companion to be added to your crew. These are all brand new companions to the game with some story aspects but nothing at this point where you feel attached to them. Also during the grind time you have the capability to start gaining companions from other classes... That is right folks you are going to be able to gather companions from other classes and other factions. Heck in the main story if you are a Republic Player you get one of the Imperial Agent's Companions and vice versa with one of the Jedi Knight's companions. This is where the crux of the issue starts to gets going. In the vein of just doing a quest and getting a companion there are three companions in which if you do a simple quest you get the companion end of story. There is one companion tied behind of the special events for the game which for the companion involved makes sense again not trying to spoil it too much but veterans of the game know what I am talking about. Then there is a companion that requires either World Boss hunting or just hunting certain things in general in order to recruit that companion. Now the last of the classic companions is tied behind a section of Player versus Player or PVP, here depending on which side you are playing on you can get one of the two companions available. You are not able to get the other one as they are loyal to the faction that the main character is from and not willing to deal with the other faction. Now if you happen to be part of the qualified subscribers or just got things done in the story you were able to recruit a person from the first cut scene when the game released. Plus you are gifted not only your factions steward droid but the opposite factions droid as well.

       At this point we are looking at twenty-one companions (6 from the main quest, 6 from the flashpoints, 3 quests, 2 steward droids, 1 World Boss Hunting, 1 PVP, 1 Event. 1 Subscriber Reward,) If you have the Cartel Companions HK-51 and Treek the Ewok that takes the amount of people to twenty-three. From what I have been able to see from this point on it seems that the players are going be able to recruit the rest of the companions from the classic group of companions. If this is the case this is going to be an insane amount of companions. Doing the math real quick you have 39 of the 40 companions because of the PVP aspect of the two companions talked about earlier. The 4 new companions from the main quest, the 6 from the flashpoints, The Subscriber rewards starting next month will go from one companion to two companions plus cartel market companions which went from 2 to 5 (the three new ones are more pets than companions I think Hunter Pets from World of Warcraft). We are talking about 54 different companions available to the player. I really hope that this does not become the case because there is a lot of waste going on with the grind of the player. At this point the player at the endgame level can send out 6 companions to do crew skill work which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or so, and they can have one companion out with them while they are actively killing things for the purpose of the grind. Leaving 47 or so companions out there sitting on their arse not doing a damn thing. Choices need to matter more in the game. I do believe that there is one choice already out there but in the first nine chapters that was the only choice to be made that dealt with one of the classic companions. I hope that from Chapter 10 on that the choices we make with the characters will have more of an impact on how to get or how not to get the rest of the companions in the game.

       What should SW:TOR do with all of these companions? I do not know how much of the stuff that is out in the MMO world is proprietary information but let us say that the world of MMO's are open game and I can take what I want from anywhere and place it into SW:TOR the first thing I would grab would be the garrison quests from World of Warcraft. In their latest expansion WoW players have a garrison where they recruit heroes and have them do missions either solo or in a group in order to get supplies for the garrison to help it grow and prosper to complete the story side of the game for WoW. I would love to see something like this implemented in SW:TOR for the reason to give the rest of the companions something to do that is not crew skills or hanging out with the main character. This would give the player a reason to go through the grind with each character and gain the benefits of the garrison and the companions therein. To me this solves the main crux of the problem. The best thing they could do is not allow players to have 50+ companions at their disposal. There needs to be some companions that just do not come back because something got them killed or a decision that was made had long term effects that were not seen until later. The developers keep teasing that but that is a post for later on. If the developers were able to separate the PVP companions from being allowed to work for the opposite faction then a lot of the other companions given at this point should have been given the same courtesy.  This also reflects my feelings on the Alliance Commanders. Since the Alliance base is zoned off for each individual player the make up of the Alliance Commanders should have been unique for each faction as well. I can understand two of the Commanders being there but the other two should have had opposite faction counterparts for the other faction.

       The last thing for this post since it is becoming very long winded, is the quality of the companions that were given to us. This deals with the new companions that come from Knights of the Fallen Empire. The main story companions I can understand, two of them are former non-player characters from the previous expansion Shadow of Revan who finally became companions after a long and anticipated wait as to when they would become companions. The two absolutely new companions are very well constructed and do very well as new players on the scene. My issue is the flashpoint companions. All of these companions are brand new and have no real backbone to a story to make me want to tote them around for a spell except for just getting a kill count achievement. In my opinion they should have been non player characters that you had previous dealings with. Either on the planet in question or some other important character that may have escaped the events of the beginning of the expansion. I have no connection to any of these other companions and the lack of a story line other than background information does not help matters. I have said it is not the quantity of  companions new to the game. Yes I still have issues with everyone getting everybody and I hope that does not become the case, but the quality of the new companions that are being presented. There are characters from as recent as the Shadow of Revan expansion that I would like to know where in the hell they are at and the people who knew them best can't and won't say anything about them. I feel the SW:TOR player base would have appreciated well known non player characters join their crew rather than some no-name from god knows where that we are supposed to care somewhat about. The developers are going on about getting back to Knights of the Old Republic style story telling, Well tell me the story give me characters that I am going to care about.  Where is Jakkaro,Torch, General Garza, General Var Suthra, One of the Organas someone....Someone we as the player base had some time working with. No names just make us feel like you did not care.

       Okay Okay I have rambled on enough.... I can make a book about how I feel about the companions and how they are being treated. So I might pick this back up next time but we shall see.