KotFE Day 2 - For the first time in forever

Hello and welcome back everyone. So what did I do yesterday?
Well, chapter 4-9 of Knights of the Fallen Empire. It was over surprisingly quickly. Frankly I would have liked to play a bit more. Okay, a  lot more. Maybe I'm just very good at this, but hardly anyone died. Appart from the already known Darth Marr, I only lost one follower. He was my favorite. :( He will be missed.
Okay, I'm gonna say it: Bioware is back. The old Bioware, before the EA purchase. I loved the story. I was genuinely sad when my companion died and I can actually honestly say that I was surprised by some of the twists. I also liked how we sometimes cut to the villains and looked at what they are doing. I also laughed my ass off quite a lot of times. It gave me a very wide range of emotions that lately only Final Fantasy games gave me. Good job, Bioware. Really.

Of course I wasn't satisfied with everything. Too many central NPC's survived, it was too short, the fights were pitifully easy and I still mostly used the gear I got from shadow of revan. And I didn't change the look of any of the pieces. And it was too short. Also there is one villain (not gonna say names) that I battled twice already and he is still supposed to be a majore threat. You can only battle a bad guy a limited time before he looses his scariness and you start looking like a wuss for not killing him already. He also lacks any real motivation. I like his sister more.

But all of this criticism ammounts for nothing as KotFE gave us something that I am sure many of us have been waiting for since SWTOR launched. True end game.
This is something every MMO needs, but SWTOR didn't have much to offer in this regard. We have eleven operations in the game. Wrath of the Lich King alone gave WoW nine raids.

Untill now there wasn't much to do and even less incentive to do it. Now we have the Alliance system. People from former earlier flashpoints, storylines or short stories (Rise of the Hutt Cartel was relevant after all. Wohooo) return to give you quests. These quests give you new companions. Some are old ones you lost and others are from different classes (it is implied that all other class heroes are dead). But that's not all. The quests also gives you credits, companion gifts, influence with the quest giver and suppplies caches. These supply caches contain even more gear for you and adds to your "war assets' against Arcann. Since the story is pretty much done you cannot fight him with these assets yet, but handing in enough caches still rewards you with buffs for the new flashpoints also comming. Of course if I know correctly (didn't try yet) caches can also come from all the repeatable heroic missions you skipped while leveling 1-65 and said no flashpoints. There is a lot of stuff to do and you have reasons to do it. What more do you need?

Well a roll of duct tape is very nice cause the new mechanic girl can be really rude sometimes.
And Dathomir. Wookieepedia claims that D is in the game now, but I sure didn't see it. Since Nar Shaddaa is a moon I can honestly say that Dathomir is my favorite planet.

If it's not in the game after all I would be happy to write a storyline for it.

KotFE Day 1 - It is calling to you. Just log it in.

Hello readers.

So, yeah. Day one of early access was yesterday. I still don't get why I am here writing my experiences instead of playing, but I really love you all so I'm going to be nice.

When I logged in I was at first overwhelmed. That's generally a pretty good sign for an expansion. I spent on hour reworking my action bars and another mixing and matching weapon upgrades for my two favorite weapon skins. It was like Tuco Ramirez buying his new gun. Only, my smuggler had two.

After about two and a half hours of preparation I was ready to jump into the story and see if my suspicions were correct. Well I think they are. I won't spoil it but I honestly didn't see some of the twists comming. I'm at the very beginning of Chapter IV so most of what I played was already revealed in official streams. Still, I am itching for more. Thankfully HK knows where to start.

Knights of the First Expansion

Yesterday the trailer was not the only star wars news. Early access finall began for Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire. When I call it the first proper expansion, I mean it is the first one sufficiently packed. Galactic Starfighter and Galactic Strongholds were each just one gimmick. Apparently when Bioware thinks of a new gameplay idea they name it an expansion and give it out. What I still don't understand is why we still can't play pazaak, sabacc and dejarik? Nar Shaddaa is playable, damit.
Not that I am complaining, at least we have housing, with neat added teleport features. Taking notes, Blizzard?
Rise of the Hutt Cartel on the other hand had no gimmicks. Instead it increased the level cap by five and continued the story with the magestic rise of the Hutt Cartel that ended before you even realised the Cartel is supposed to be rising. Finally someone on the dev team figured out it is time to give the game some actual plot again and gave us Shadow of Revan. SoR gave us the longest story arc since the class storylines and even revamped the progression system. It was the perfect warm up for KotFE.
Remember how I said sufficiently packed? Well Knights of the Fallen Empire is as packed as expansions can be. The catch is? Most of those are gameplay tweeks and not playable content. Nevertheless it is pretty impressive how every aspect of the game got changed.

• Polished character selection screen? Yep
• Added visuals to character creation? Yep
• New graphic options? Yep
• Several interface changes? Mhmmmm
• New GUI editing functions? You better believe it
• Revamped crafting? Also yes
• Revamped companion system? Yes again
• Revamped leveling experience? Sure thing
• Class skill tweeks? Why not
• Stat changes? Of course

And the story didn't even begin.

Wether the game is as good as it was intended to be will be revealed in a new series of articles about my early access experiences.

Knights of the Fallen Empire - The Outsmuggler

Good evening people. Assuming it is evening when you read it.
Last time I promised that I would explain why I think the Smuggler is the best choice for the Outlander in SWTOR: KotFE and because I always try to be a nice guy I'm going to do just that.
Now obviously everyone will have at least four Outlanders, if not eight, but let's be honest. Nobody puts the same ammount of effort into all his characters. Everybody has a 'main'.

So why smuggler? There are several reasons. Number one is simple. Because it is a smuggler. Here is your chance to be Han Solo. If that doesn't excite you I don't know what will. Especially since almost all star wars games let you play as a jedi or a sith. Smugglers on the other hand weren't playable untill SWTOR came along. Of course I ditched the Han Solo image in favor of a twi'lek chick. Call me crazy, but for me the smuggler is a very manly job so it was a lot of fun to defy all the expectations and be a badass girl. For added giggles I selected the chubbiest body type.

Also there is the ship. Granted all classes are given a ship, but that's just the thing. They are given a ship. The smuggler does not. It already has a ship because, well smugglers need one. Also it makes more sense for smugglers to pilot their own ships and to be good at it. Why would the inquisitor know how to pilot anything for example? Most slaves aren't ace pilots (yeah yeah, Anakin, I know).
Speaking of our ship. What I especially love about the smuggler is how the story is structured. Classes like the jedi knight, the consular or the agent just do mostly unrelated stuff in sequence. Here is a very simple and slightly biased version of the knight storyline: The jedi sense a darkness, It is totally Bengel More. Whoops, no it isn't, The Darkness is on Coruscant. Tarnis is evil. Killing Tarnis pissed off Angral. Killing Angral pissed off the Emperor.
Technically there is a connection. Well at least after Coruscant.  Tython is completely irrelevant for the story. Now as a smuggler the first character you see is Skavak, who will be the main bad guy till the end of chapter one. The second one you see is Corso, your fist companion. Skavak betrays you after the first quest is done and getting your ship is the story of Ord Mantell AND Coruscant. After the betrayal you go to Fort Garnick and learn about Rogun the Butcher, who will be a thorn in your side untill the end of chapter 3. You will deal with him before settling your score with the first person you see on Coruscant and kill the final boss whom was first mentioned at the beginning of chapter 2. What chapter 1 is about after you get back your ship? Well doing the stuff Skavak stole your ship for.
You do feal that a big part of your journey has ended with chapter 1 but it still feals a lot more like one whole story.

And since we are on the subject of stories, now would be a good time to mention that the smuggler's story is the funniest. Go on, luck up any list on youtube about the funniest moments in Swtor. At least a good two third of it will be about the smuggler story. And the giggles begin as  early as Ord Mantell.

But there is one area where the smuggler story really beats all others. And that is lore. It has small callbacks sprinkled all over the storyline. The first thing you need to get Nok Drayen's treasure is a star map belonging to one Davik Kang. You know, you stole the Ebon Hawk from him in Kotor. You also deliver the head of Darth Bandon to House Ulgo. Ahh typical no love for the second o....wait a minute. In Tatooine you have a Sith and a Jedi fighting over the Holocron of Darth Nihilus. At the end of chapter 2 you also find G0-T0 himself. Deactivated of course. But they surely left out the comicb.........and right next of it is the utility belt of Marn Hierogryph, everyone's favorite Snivvian. So yes, nobody got ignored.

This is a bit more subjective than the rest of the points, but I also think that smugglers have the best companions. We get a wookiee, a mando, and a mon calamari ex-jedi. Languss Tuno is the best NPC in the whole game. Period.

So yeah, go smuggler. It's fine if you don't agree with me. But I think bioware is also hinting something with all the subscription bonuses. A smuggler companion, a pair of blasters, a smuggler coat. Coincidence? I think not. Time to bring down the empire that curb stomped both playable factions as a mear muggle with two blasters. What could go wrong?

Knights of the Fallen Empire and why we are being had

Hello everyone. Terribly long title I know. Still I will try to make it up to you somehow.
Soo, Knights of the Fallen Empire. Next in the line of Star Wars: The Old Republic expansions. It will come with lots of gameplay tweaks, a new storyline and absolutely no new neat little feature.
I mean seriously. Why can't we have a working casino on Nar Shaddaa where we can play Sabbacc?
But enough of that. Let us focus on the story. You see, something isn't right. Or well lots of things aren't. Let's review what we know officially without data mining. Oh, SPOILER ALERT
Bioware hates spoiling the story. The Sith Emperor can't be in two places at the same time. Valkorion is a human with three children. Knights of the Fallen Empire will have its first 9 chapters released initially followed by an additional 17 chapters in an episodic format. You will be frozen in carbonite at the beginning of the story.
Nothing too crazy so far. However we saw and heared some stuff on official streams that hint that something is amiss. For example.
Valkorion is actually the Sith Emperor. He kills Darth Marr in the very first chapter. You only get frozen in carbonite at the end of chapter 2. In chapter 3 Valkorion is already dead.
Yeah, so what the hell is going on? Apparently Marr dying, the identity of Valkorion and him dying is not a spoiler. So what IS a spoiler? Short of the Knights of Ren appearing in Chapter 9, nothing should reasonably top this.
Speaking of the Knights of Ren. What knights is the title referring to? The Republic has knights but is not an empire. The Sith Empire is an empire but has no knights. The Eternal Empire is an empire and has the Zakuul knights, but they are the main antagonists of the expansion so they won't be fallen for a very long time.
And this whole Vitiate is Valkorion business makes absolutely zero sense. Assuming what we know of Vitiate is true. He is supposed to be a Sith Pureblood and not a human in white robes.
Oh wait. Oour first look at the emperor was exactly like that. He even had a similar haircut to Valkorion's sons. Look up the scene in Blood of the Empire where he gives Teneb Kel his mission. Looks a bit like Arcann without the face mask. Were the clues always there? Maybe.
But with all this self contradictory info comming our way I have a fealing that the first title we will unlock in Knights of the Fallen Empire will be 'Chump'.
Thanks for listening to my thinking out loud. Next time I will explain why I think the Smuggler is the best character to use as the Outlander.