Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away.. There was a world, a virtual sandbox, where everything was created by players for other players, where players worked together to slay mighty beasts and fight off the opressive empire. After a while, tho, people discovered the power of Doc Buffs and Krayt Tissues, and nobody needed any new equipment.. and nobody needed help to slay the mighty beasts.. So the dark empire rose up to issue forth the “CURB”, which restored balance to the land. The players (mostly) were happy, and order started to return to the land. Then the dark empire thought they could improve on a good thing, and released the NGE.

Well, it hit live Tuesday and i’ve played it a few hours with my main Date Sunrunner, a lvl80 Master Squad Leader/Master Carbineer/Jedi Padawan. I respec’ed him as a lvl80 Officer, and I have to admit it’s impressive. It seems every profession only really has 7 specials, so it’s alot simpler to keep track of it all. Since combat is all “point and click” now, moving is a viable strategy at last! The faster you move, the harder it is for someone to click on you to attack you. This also makes snares finally useful, as a method of slowing people down to make them easier to attack. Line of sight works now, kinda, so that you can use buildings for cover.

Unfortunately all that only really applies to PvP combat. In PvE or leveling, it seems to be all about “click and hold until he’s dead”, and if you die just clone and come back, because they removed all the death penalties (wounds, decay, insurance). Also, in typical SOE style, the entire publish was pushed out prematurely. Half of the profession-specific quests don’t work, or are simply missing. The 3rd officer quest is named “:[]“, under the category “:[]“. How that one got through QA I have no idea. As for quests for higher-level quests, they just don’t really exist. The only ones known of so far are on Mustafar, meaning you have to buy the Trials of Obi-Wan to level reasonably (50k XPfor every 15 lava fleas), or go kill pikets for 200XP a pop, for 500,000 XP.

So, I’m a little undecided right now. PVP is fun again, but it seems the rest of the game is pretty dull. I never did PVP much before, and frankly still don’t enjoy it. Given that SOE is offering a refund on the Trials of ObiWan up until the 1st of December, I might just cash in & get my money back. Don’t know yet….

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