Chapter X
Bioware released the latest chapter for The Old Republic last week. I did the content of Chapter X this weekend. This is the first chapter in the one-chapter-per-month cadence that Bioware is planning for this year.
Overall, the story was pretty decent. However, it really felt like a part of the Agent story line. Which was great for me since my main is an Agent. But I really wonder how a non-Agent character would find this story? Would it work for them, or would it fall flat? Normally, you'd think that the story would be roughly the same for all the classes, but maybe they just took extra care to personalize extensively for the Agent.
The biggest reservation is that the chapter took about an hour to play through. Is that enough content to keep people subscribed? I have no idea, and it will be interesting to find out if it is or is not.
HK-55
The other piece of "content" was giving a HK-55 companion to everyone who had been subscribed on January 10th.
I really don't understand these rewards. Making them a one-time reward for subscribing on a specific date seems excessively restricting. I thought they would simply give you the companion, and that would be that.
But Bioware actually added a little quest/scenario around recruiting HK-55 that was quite fun. You had to calibrate HK's targeting parameters for the times he was on his own (thus side-stepping the issue when you're actually using him as a companion). This was done by going through several scenarios. Things like a hostage crisis, escort missions, wildlife attacks, etc. You'd then go through the potential targets, and mark them as kill or avoid.
It was an interesting exercise, and a novel way of tapping into the morality aspect of TOR (without actually invoking Light/Dark choices). For example, my LS Agent side marked unknown civilians as avoid, but unknown droids as kill.
Which makes it all the more odd that future players won't be able to see this piece of content, even if they subscribe.
Sometimes Bioware's plans for this game are very opaque.
Blizzard is planning
ReplyDeleteBlizzard! Heh.
I really need to get my agent into KotFE so I can see what it's like to meet her old companions. As a trooper I mainly found it bothersome that you don't get a choice whether to take Kaliyo on or not. Considering the trooper's first thirty levels or so are about fighting terrorists (in a straightforward way, not like the agent), it just felt wrong to be forced to act so trusting towards her. Getting to say "I don't really trust her" doesn't count. If I'd had a choice I wouldn't even have taken her to Odessen.
Whoops, fixed. I managed to get it right everywhere else in the post, oddly enough.
DeleteHeh, it didn't even occur to me to reject Kaliyo. But yeah, I can see a lot of other characters not wanting to take her on board. Especially the Jedi. She is a bit polarizing.
But if you had a choice to reject or recruit her, it would mean that she would never appear in the story again. Just like most of the people you can choose to kill or spare never appear again. So I've kind of made my peace with not having those choices.
But if you had a choice to reject or recruit her, it would mean that she would never appear in the story again.
DeleteI don't think that's necessarily true, though I'll concede that it'd probably make things more complicated. I'll never forget how surprised I was when Morrigan showed up again at the end of the original Dragon Age, after she had skulked off angrily earlier in the game because I refused to help her kill her mother. As long as they're not dead, there's always the option of a comeback.
Though I guess in the case of Kaliyo, I wouldn't have minded not seeing her again. I guess we'll have to wait and see what they have planned for her.