Hustlin through the Old Republic - Ten years of Lightsabers, Blasters, Starships and mildly entertaining Dialogue

Ohh boy I don't even want to remind myself how long it's been since I did a SWTOR update, 4 years! four damn years of course If I had have been blogging regularly like I used to this wouldn't be the case but at least back then I was still doing annual updates. Well I can proudly state after all these years I have finally finished all of the class stories, not to mention pretty much all of the content updates right up until the latest one: Legacy of the Sith. Yes I've done them all from my original Jedi Guardian to Sith Assassin, Trooper Vanguard, Jedi Sage, Bounty Hunter Mercenary, Imperial Agent Sniper, Smuggler Scoundrel and finally Sith Marauder. Of course there are some advanced classes that I have not experienced, this has been made a bit easier in this latest patch allowing you to change your combat style. I played through the Legacy of the Sith story on my Guardian, it was quite short, the part on Manaan was ok and the new flashpoint was good apart from me not being able to finish it cause the damn Darth Malgus fight was bugged causing you to glitch out while fighting which you'll see in the video. I started it with my Sith Assassin but only got a bit of the way through before my subscription ran out. I thought about doing it just with preferred status but I really couldn't be bothered, I don't know I just wasn't into it anymore, I have been playing Ghost Recon Breakpoint and The Crew 2 with a friend and have been much more into those lately. I've also started Bully which is fun though it's not really making me want to come back to it though it is one of the more classic games by Rockstar. 

The first screenshot of SWTOR I ever took, the interior of the Senate Building on Coruscant, looks grand, walking through the Senate Plaza was amazing too.

I suppose I should talk about my history with SWTOR, it's been literally 10 years now, 10 years of blasting and slashing and electrifying and crushing countless poor NPC's in the name of the Republic or Empire. My initial post was in 2011 when the game was announced and boy was I excited, A Star Wars MMO? that hadn't been seen since the likes of Star Wars Galaxies. At this point in time I was heavily into Minecraft though I was actually still playing World of Warcraft but only sporadically, Wrath of the Lich King was the highpoint of WoW for me (I reckon it was a for a lot of people) and then Minecraft came. And after I'd had my fill of that WoW had come out with Cataclysm which was a very game-shaking update and a lot of fun, but by then my interest was waning.

One of the first SWTOR videos I ever posted, back in 2012, ahh the game has changed so much since then.

The main thing that made SWTOR different from WoW was the Class Storylines this was a story specifically for your chosen class which of course was my main focus for each character, there were planetary storylines (same as zones in WoW) but these were optional though when I first started the game I would always complete these also. In ever-updated multiplayer games my usual goal is to complete the content in the order it came out, which is what I am doing now for Ghost Recon Breakpoint. This is often difficult as you often have to look up what came first but as SWTOR had only recently come out this wasn't really a problem. So I played on and completed everything I could as the patches came out. Sometimes playing the game felt a bit lonely as the landscapes were vast as time went on other players became fewer and fewer. Indeed there was the outside of game problem of the oceanic server shutdown saga which is summed up on reddit here. Ultimately though I was never really alone playing SWTOR as were always at least some other players and guilds around.

The way leveling worked was that you basically focused on your main story and the planetary storylines and other missions were separate. Having a main story for your class was a huge benefit for leveling in SWTOR compared to other games.

Yes indeed it does seem my real-life friends aren't much for MMORPG games as in both SWTOR and WoW I didn't play with much at all, with the exception of my current partner and my brother most were just online friends but of course these were just as good as anyone else. SWTOR had guilds of course and while I went through a few guilds not many had as much rapport and activity with them as I did with WoW as pretty much all of them were US-based Guilds. One I can remember early on was 'Academy Exemplar' but there was one I joined rather late in the game and have stuck with for years and that is Guardians and Knights a Republic based guild with an Imperial Sister Guild 'Forgotten Knights'. This guild were my greatest friends through the rest of my SWTOR career they were always friendly, helpful and accomodating no matter how often you played, how good you were, and which country you came from. While I wasn't the most active with MMORPG's anymore (mostly due to GTA Online) I still tried my best to join in on Flashpoints, Operations (Raids) and other guild events and I ended up getting more thingsa completed in that guild then ever before. I was glad I had found somewhere to belong on the US servers and I will be sad to not be coming back much or maybe not at all anymore.

I finally complete the Dread Palace with my Guardians and Knights guidmates

Throughout the years of playing I mostly stuck to my usual MMORPG things like leveling, doing flashpoints (dungeons) and operations (raids) when I could. I was never that much interested in other modes such as the on-rails Space Combat levels although it was kind of cool and I did try the Galactic Star Fighter too when it came out though with only two maps available it got boring pretty quickly. I tried out Strongholds but never really got into that either, I did get the Coruscant and Dromund Kaas apartments for free but I never expanded the rooms due to the cost of both opening the rooms and purchasing stuff to put them in. All of the strongholds were pretty damn big, there was a great feature where you could view others strongholds, and after looking at a few no matter how well they decorated it, the whole thing just looked like a bunch of stuff just placed awkwardly in a room, it's hard to explain but unlike say buildings homes in the sims or prebuilt apartments like in GTA online it just didn't look right, probably to do with the Star Wars aesthetic and visual style. Also there was also almost no interaction with anything, you couldn't sleep on the beds, you couldn't use a lot of the chairs and you couldn't interact with things like gambling tables etc so what was the point?

Galactic Star Fighter, was kinda fun

In any case I would much rather spend my credits and cartel on awesome weapons and gear for me and my companions which is what I did and boy was that fun, that was one of the best things about the game, building awesome sets of gear and showing them off and also being able to dress up your companions too was great.The ability to change stats on any type of gear made this so much easier and a later patch made your companions level up with you making gear only cosmetic made this even better. I also enjoyed constantly having a companion with me compared to WoW where unless you were a certain class you were mostly alone. The game truly had some spectacular outfits and no wonder there were sites like TORfashion which focuses on the SWTOR fashion world, it's also no wonder these sites are still up and running even though most of the other fan-made websites having been shut down or left unattended due to the decline of the game. More honorable mentions would be Dulfy, Vulkk and Swtorista whom I have got a lot of information from.

One of my favourite shots of my Sith Inquisitor Assassin lookin' cool as

Another thing that made SWTOR great was the conversation and choices you could make al la Mass Effect and other Bioware games, the voice acting was that StarWars level of appropriate but corny at the same time, I think the best parts of SWTOR was where the game was being unintentionally funny and if you have watched any of Zanny's video series you would agree. I enjoyed all of the 'romancing' options of course and interacting with your companions was very enjoyable, they even had that Bioware style of suggesting a sexual encounter by "walking off screen and fade out then come back and stand there awkwardly again" because this is Starwars so there's no nudey-nudey of course this didn't stop them from putting in revealing outfits because you know Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. Of course there was also the Dark and Light Side choices which led to the option for you to do some really messed up things like killing someone's family after you swore you wouldn't or propositioning a girl for sex after her house had been blown up.

One of my favorite answers from the conversation wheel.

I'm not sure when it became my goal to finish all the class stories in WoW but it did and now I've finished and completed pretty much all of the content I could and when I finished that final class mission for my Sith Warrior I felt like I had completed something. My plan was to do all of the class stories and use my main Republic and Empire Classes my Jedi Knight and Sith Inquisitor to do the new content and expansions and that's done now so I think I'll take a break a well-deserved break really after 10 years of playing. I have been thinking of going into Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) as I miss the medieval side of things and have a close friend who actually plays.

My motley crew from the end of the Smuggler class story, the only time I ever went a female character.

Looking back on my tenure with SWTOR it has been great, I love the Star Wars universe and the game did certain things differently in the MMO world. I really am glad I tried it out, though now I guess it's just on to the next MMO though I may be back.

JD

My Imperial Agent Sniper in the droid outfit I made for roleplaying, this was a lot of fun to do. Aso it was refreshing to play a non-force using character one in a while.

I only romance when there is a button for it.