Ardrossan
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Posts posted by Ardrossan
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I'm in one of the biggest guilds in SS [not SC]. We routinely have 20-30 people on at night, perhaps half that during weekdays. We mostly raid or do FPs, but also some pvp. As far as the 5.10 gearing goes, there have been a few convos about it in discord, and annoyance about our evasive community manager, but in general they do the Ossus WBs and grind for the weekly masterwork crystals without fuss. They rarely go to the forum, and when they do, it is only to read the gold posts for updates.
Now, is this typical of players? Maybe. I want to say 'probably'. They may be somewhat annoyed about the state of the game, but they still go out and grind for gear, and enjoy playing, and they don't make a big production about it on the forum. They wouldn't agree with Oleg, but they also wouldn't argue with him either, because at the end of the day, it's not the last straw.
For me personally, I've barely done Ossus with one character [i stayed for the reveal, then got bored and played a different game]. I've made no move to collect masterwork crystals, or to get my characters through ossus to grind rep. Just as UC and GCXP was originally broken when it was first released, this will probably get fixed too. Soon? Probably not. I also don't care enough to complain, because lots of other people are willing to either complain or play it through so I don't have to. By the time I get around to actually grinding Ossus, it'll be fixed so it won't be as much of a pain as it is for you. So, I guess I should say thank you. Thank you for beta-testing this, and sacrificing your time and emotional stamina, to make it easier on the casuals who will come later.
Does that put your melodrama in perspective?
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So my bet would be some vague shadowy figure you will never meet and is as much of a mystery to the writers as they are to us.
The most cynical guess is probably the correct one.
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The JK for both genders can sound pretty blah at times too. 'It's my duty to help'. But those are generally the canned lines that sound blase for everyone.
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I think everyone can understand why they wouldn't respond to blackmail.
That's not blackmail. Blackmail is 'I have information on you, so do what I say or else.' Whereas this is just an unsubtle threat to leave if his slap in the face isn't compensated. You could perhaps call it extortion [albeit legal], but not blackmail.
Unless that's actually an inside joke since characters routinely make that mistake umpteen times throughout this game. In which case, well done.
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I think we're just having fun with an awesome community.
With a what now?
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For a problem that's been ongoing for 2 hours, people are being surprisingly polite about all this.
Now I jinxed it.
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I have always been fascinated that the Sith Empire, Galactic Republic (before and during the clone wars), and the Galactic Empire all use a very similar symbol w/ different number of spokes. this leads me to believe that there is some type of unification that occurs and that the Imperial symbol dominates. Perhaps the Military arm of the Empire decides to join the republic after the Sith are destroyed. someone more lore knowledgeable could probably elaborate more on that.
There is no real answer. It's one of this game's mysteries. The Sith during the Golden Age had a symbol that looked like a sun with four fiery spokes. When Vitiate reformed the empire, he might have purposefully changed the symbol to show his Empire as different than the one that preceded it. Palpatine used the Bendu symbol later on, even though that was the Old Republic symbol, to indicate that his Empire was its legitimate successor. The alliance used a completely different symbol specifically because they didn't want it confused with the Empire's. Also as you mentioned, sometimes the bendu symbol has eight spokes and sometimes it has six, and it's not really clear what the difference is. The spokes I think refer to specific principles in Bendu [pre-Jedi] philosophy, but I don't know why the number of spokes go up or down.
The out-of-universe answer is that, just like the ships and a lot of the early, pre-shoulder pads armor in this game, it was designed to look like stuff from the movies so fans would be more receptive to it. Thus the Sith Empire's symbol looks pretty similar to the one Palpatine's Empire uses, and the Old Republic symbol looks similar to the Alliance Starbird. The number of spokes changing on the Bendu is probably originally a graphical error by whatever artist made them, and then wookieepedia had to account for it somehow.
I like your theory though. They've already managed to remove the Emperor from the Empire [excepting Acina/Vowrawn], now they just need to remove the Sith altogether from the Empire. The problem is how to do it without alienating a quarter~ of the playerbase that main Sith [not actually a problem for BW]
Edit: I was looking around at these crests online while writing this post and noticed that the symbol from Black Sun looks a lot like the old Sith Empire symbol, and hey the black sun were started in this period. You think there's a connection? Well, probably not. They brought Black Sun into this game because it's yet another thing that existed during the Rebel/Empire era as Coruscant's main gang, and they wanted fans to connect with the setting. Also the reason they called it Black Sun in the first place was because one of their hack EU writers used it in another [non-Star Wars] book and thought the name was cool. But it would have been smart thinking if BW had claimed Black Sun was originally a Sith cult or fifth column or something. Probably too late now.
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Ugh, please no. The Mandalorians can be fun in small doses but making that work in an entire expansion would be really hard and having to put up with their nonsense bravado for that long would be... trying...
This sums it up for me. Though I would be interested in a revival of Clan Cadera's movement to join the Republic, fracturing Shae Vizlae's army. It'd make Torian something more than a lackey, especially if the impetus came from someone other than him, and he had to choose [with the PC's advice] whether or not to join it. However, I wouldn't want this to be expansion-sized, just Ossus-sized. A chapter, basically.
I hate all that Darksaber stuff in TCW/Rebels. The mando return was good, but the gimmick weapon was terrible.
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It's the rare occasion where I've started hating someone simply because of the gender I was in the playthrough. I had no real problems with him as a male, I still found the whole Holiday thing off putting but not to the same levels.
What bugs me even more is my game forced me into a romance with him! I avoided his flirt options like the black death yet he still talked about ending our affair when we never friggin had one! And I had no option to say "screw you we were never anything"
I feel like I might have the same problem when I run a female Smuggler with Corso, as I have heard he is quite persistent too, but that isn't always as off putting as it is with Tharan.
What's useful about Theran, as a character, for a female LS JC, is that he helps take her out of that 'serene, contemplative' voice that the VA uses through most of the game. Her responses to Theran help develop her own character, or at least the player's sense of their character. I think a big reason people dislike the JC on first run is that both VAs sound so distant and aloof. When Theran obnoxiously flirts with her, the way she reacts humanizes her [even if she's an alien].
I still don't like Theran. But I can see what the devs were thinking when they designed him [and Holiday].
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Jumping into this whole Arcann companion discussion...
I kill him on all my DS toons, no question. On my LS JC 'Emperor' storyline, I keep him alive to bear witness to taking the throne away from his family 'for the greater good'. On my LS Male SW 'Peacekeeper' storyline, I romanced him, on the basis that they're pretty similar:
They're both strong men, powerful force-users, who served father-figure masters who later betrayed them, and in fact the SW ends up serving Arcann's dad immediately after, and having to put up with him in his head through two expansions. So they have a lot to relate to. The only real difference is that the Wrath was never put in a [class story] position to murder entire planets, despite being the Wrath. Arcann did do that, but he took too much power, too quickly [much like the SI] and it corrupted him.
In that sense, I think the romance, and Arcann's character value, works. I don't know how well it works without that. I think, implicit to the narrative, is there's a power dynamic difference with the whole carbonite thing, that creates a Vette/DS SW stockholm syndrome, where you come to love the guy who enslaved you and screwed up your life.
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Honestly I would love for an apocalyptic setting in Star Wars to explore, but I really think that something along those lines would be better off as its own stand-alone game ya know?
That was the basis behind Taris in this game. Player reception seemed rather negative [though that might also have been due to the lack of speeders].
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The trouble is that it is either RotHC redux [yet another Hutt war against both factions] or, it seems to suggest a secret war with the Hutts manipulating the conflict between the two factions. How many secret factions vying for control of the galaxy are we up to now? The Star Cabal, the Genoharadan, Order of Zildrog...
If it's Hutt themed, what I'd like is a return of Pius Dea [not really a return since they were only ever mentioned in this game's codex]. That is, I'd like to see a guy or an organization that runs afoul of the Hutts in some minor way, and is predictably screwed over by them, and who then launches a crusade to exterminate the Hutts altogether. The republic - or at least, the Jedi - are nominally concerned about preventing loss of life, everyone else is resource-starved and thinks this would be a good opportunity to loot the Cartel before it disintegrates. Oh, and certain republic-aligned worlds are probably concerned that these Pius Dea lunatics are back and want to clamp down on them quick.
Ideally, the person or an organization that launches this comes from Wild Space, to tie it back to the expansions. Not Zakuul or Odessen, but one of the other planets that used to be in the eternal empire that we never hear anything about. That would justify why they're so unaware of Hutt nature, and why they react so badly. Alternatively, outer rim bumpkins from Agamar would work fine too.
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After Nathema, there were suggestions along this line, and I was definitely in favor. After Ossus, eh.
I still think it's a good idea, I just think it's a standalone game.
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It is a pity there aren't three options there:
* Fist of steel, gauntlet of cortosis (effectively the current Emperor choice)
* Fist of steel, glove of velvet (missing option)
* Outstretched hand of peace (current peacemaker option
The second is missing: a way to use the Eternal Fleet and other Alliance strength to beat the galaxy into peace. "You will make peace or I will send the Fleet to beat on you until you do."
That would have been a good neutral choice. I've gone empress on my DS Agent [it suits her] and Peacekeeper on my LS SW [it suits him], and I'm considering doing Emperor on my LS JC, on the basis of this second option, but it sounds like a lot of headcanoning.
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Bug fixes
A Belsavis SH [use the temple from EV]
Some sort of in-game reason why we have one [or multiple] SHs would be nice. At the end of IA Act 1 Jadus planned to destroy the strongholds of his enemies. I'd like to see this happen as an in-game thing, either as a story chapter or event. Make it a credit sink where you have to defend your stronghold against enemies and pay extra for decorations that do something just for the event [ie. mines]. This could be tied into the Saboteur/loyalist subplot very easily.
Don't give us a new planet, or if you do, make it an Odessen-sized planet. Instead, pick a planet [not starter or capital] that we used in vanilla, and add end-game content to it, as was done with DK for kotet.
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Me: Hi There! I'm the Alliance Commander. I defeated Arcann, his sister, his dad, what was left of a psychopathic droid on Iokath....I have saved the galaxy!
Some random gardener on Ossus: Um, yeah. Can you watch this droid for me and make sure nothing happens to it? I'm heading out. Appreciate it.
To be fair, it's depressingly common. Even in vanilla, after the class stories, you're still treated as a minion. The SI at least gets some chances to pretend that he's equal to Marr, or doesn't have to do what he says, but he still goes out and follows orders anyway. It's just framed slightly differently. And I think people would have been more okay with Ossus if it had been framed differently, but this downgrading is typical of BW.
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Note: I don't really like any of the companions from the expansions. The only reason they were invented in the first place was because BW couldn't afford to continue class stories. Lana and Theron are interchangeable to me. Senya was probably the most interesting.
SW
Favorite character: Vette. Not for the romance, which can be all kinds of creepy, but because she has the most story and interesting quips. I quite like her line on leaving DK spaceport 'where legends are forced on the galaxy'.
Honorable mention: Quinn. He grows on you, but admittedly a lot of it comes from his romance, which helps alleviate...other issues.
Least favorite: Broonmark. Someone described him as a D&D premade for the barbarian class, which I think is the most accurate description I've seen.
SI
Favorite character: Adronikos. Again, not for the romance, though I give it credit for being understated and subtle. I quite liked it during the class story on Tatooine when he actually throws sith cruelty back in your face if you shock him. Not many comps directly criticize your character like that.
Least favorite: Xalek. After all the buildup to get a new, proper sith apprentice, this is what we're stuck with? I'd rather have gotten the Gran.
IA
Favorite character: Doctor Lokin. Unlike most comps, I get the impression that whoever wrote Lokin also wrote another fifty pages of backstory that never got added in. He feels like he has depth, like an actual person. He's also one of the few comps who actively talks to other members of the crew. And he can turn into a rakghoul.
Honorable mention: Kaliyo. Her romance does a lot to redeem the character.
Least favorite: Temple. I hate her VA and I also hate the way she's characterized. How could the Chiss have tolerated her that long? Her story, and how PCs react to her story, also need work
BH
Favorite character: Gault. He's funny, like Vette he has a lot of good quips [i can see why they put them together in kotfe], and while not overtly DS, he's the most DS character you get until Skadge, something that doesn't become clear until you take him on through all the class missions.
Honorable mention: Blizz. Aside from his gimmick character, I like that he's the baby of the crew, and even hatchet-faced PCs will find themselves overcome with cuteness fever. He's a good foil.
Least favorite: Torian. Missed opportunities, that's all. His comp stories are completely bland if you aren't romancing him, or if you aren't a mandalorian. It makes him stuck-up, and not in a good way, because nothing you do will change the fact that you said 'No' to Mandalore. I also wish there'd been some more backstory on what his dad did, and what effect that had on him. At the very least, Mandalorian PCs should have been able to ask the Question.
JK
Favorite character: Scourge. He's not here to be your friend, and he's not here because he has nothing better to do. Most of the plot-focused characters are rather dull imo [ie. Jaesa], but he makes up for it by showing you a path to the Sith that is a lot more tempting than the way Sith tend to get portrayed in the game.
Honorable mention: Doc. I like him, he's funny and has good lines. I didn't initially like him on my male JK, but even if your PC is stiff-necked LS 5, he can be entertaining.
Least favorite: Rusk. I was initially going to say T3-M4, who is bland and has a bland comp story, but I knew there was one other character I was missing, but couldn't remember. That would be Rusk. I do like the line where he says he hasn't had much time to think lately, and PCs can ask him to clarify if he forgot what downtime was like or forgot what THINKING was like. JKs can actually snipe him quite a lot, even if it's a bit out of character.
JC
Favorite character: Qyzen. He's a loyal friend and protector who generally likes helping others, unless helping them makes them dependent on you, in which case they should solve their own problems [shades of Kreia]. He also approves every time you get a kill option. And he hunts wookiees. I think it's the first time a Trandoshan has been written well in the Star Wars EU. I also like his comp story, he does a surprising amount of philosophizing.
Least favorite: Tharan: I'd have preferred just Holiday, tbh. He has some very irritating quirks, and I don't really want to do his comp story ever again. Just hearing 'lumenatus club' makes me shudder. One part of my problem isn't related to the character at all, but rather the BW bug that for a time ensured that he would say 'Have I mentioned that I'm a pacifist?' after every fight.
SMUG
Favorite character: Risha. I compare her to Doc. People seem to hate Doc because he continuously flirts with female JKs. They also hate Corso for the same over-persistence. Male Smugglers can flirt with Risha for the entire class story, even during Act 1 when she isn't really a companion yet. But does she get mad and try to slap the PC down? No, she rolls with it, and does an exceptional job imo. She also fits very well with a DS gangster empire-builder PC. The only thing I don't like about her is that there should have been a secondary, secret affection bar for her in Act 1, which would be used to help her make a proper decision when her dad asks her to backstab the smuggler.
Honorable mention: Akaavi: Her romance is one of the best in the game, imo. That aside, I like the way you can slowly win her over. She's one of the only comps in the game that openly states she would rather be anywhere else, but doesn't have anywhere to go. Her VA reminds me of Sigourney Weaver.
Least Favorite: Bowdaar. I like his quips, especially when the smuggler is about to do a blackout moment. His comp story is pretty much a wash though. It seems every Chewbacca clone Star Wars has come up with has been entirely lacking in characterization, and this one is no exception.
RT
Favorite character: M1-4X. Great VA, great comp story [i did HK long after I did 4X, and the entire time I was thinking 'why did they just cut and paste 4X's comp story onto HK?'], and he's a must for DS troopers.
Honorable mention: Jorgan. His romance does a lot to redeem the character. Alternatively, if you're sufficiently evil-minded, you can snipe Jorgan pretty regularly throughout both the class story and the comp convos. By the end, I was glad comps weren't allowed to shoot PCs in the back.
Least favorite: Yuun. Despite being mandatory to open up the rest of the Alliance alerts [a mission that requires you to sift through literal Zakuulan garbage, well done BW], I still had to google his name. Look, people might hate Vik, and they might have good reasons for it, but they don't forget he exists. I really wish they'd used more of the Gand starfighter pilot from the X-Wing books when they made this character, and less of the mystic empath who feels danger D&D stereotype.
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I feel like Broonmark really offered nothing at all to the SW story, nor did his companion conversations really held anything new and interesting or even lore-expanding for the player to consume. Broonmark had the generic-tribal-barbarian premade d&d character written all over him. He really offered nothing to the consumer. Not even hate, that's how bland he was.
Agreed.
I also disliked Rusk, Temple and Xalek. For the first and last [and Broonmark], their stories were very lean. Rusk's story and character has already been exhaustively critiqued in this thread, and I have nothing to add.
All these four were obviously added in because every class needed five companions, but they weren't necessary to the story. The Inquisitor did need another apprentice, and they were working up to that, but it should have been someone who served as a mini-inquisitor, the way Shandra Jerro was a mini-version of the PC from NWN2. Someone to teach and relate to, not a stiff cardboard figure, like Xalek, or a character who spent the whole time thinking she was LS Jaesa Wilsaam, without any reason to think so [ie. a gifted jedi working to reform the Sith from within].
Temple is a character who suffers because she might have been interesting if there'd been a bit more story, and if there'd been a bit more player agency around her comp story. Much of the player outrage from her story is that, like Ashara, nothing you say to her impacts her choices. She kills her father no matter what you say. Compare to say, Nadia, who will not kill Stark if you take the LS route and tell her not to. Now, arguably, killing Stark was important for her character development, but Imagine how people would have reacted to Nadia if she killed him regardless of what you said. Why bother having three different choices? I also found Temple's VA exceptionally irritating.
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Oldest Character [or oldest to survive the merger purge]: Fickle
Favorite Character [at least for endgame content]: Ricky Fishing
Best Dressed [bit of a toss-up tbh]: Beseech
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I have no problem to do kotfe chapters 1-9, but chapters after those...they are insufferable torture. Especially the one where you meet Satele and Marr. I hate it so much I literally have to force myself through it and I curse and complain out loud when I do it, the whole chapter feels like living through a nightmare, a very boring nightmare.
I headcanon that this chapter in question is actually Valkorion messing with your mind, and both Satele and Marr are phantom puppets telling you the same thing he wants you to do, but put in the mouths of the two people you're most likely to believe. That's why he leaves in that chapter, because he doesn't actually leave, he just puts on two sockpuppets.
It's been pointed out that there are inconsistencies with this theory [Marr and Satele having conversations before and after you are with them] but...there are inconsistencies with the whole damn story. This just happens to be an inconsistency which makes the story MORE believable instead of less. That's why it's headcanon. imo it makes it a lot easier to go through that chapter, and once it's over you'll never have to go back to it, and there are very few references to it.
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And I suggest you stop posting in my thread if you're going to be condescending as well and have nothing constructive to add.
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This thread, both the OP and the responses, is an excellent example of why people avoid the forums. Not the complaining, or the negativity, but the silly drama and 'trolling' over non-issues.
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BW has turned Revan into a villain that was beaten by combined efforts of [Horde and Alliance] Empire and Republic. Revan was literally butchered for the sake of 15-y.o. kids that knew him from Wiki articles and a couple of mentions in comics.
I really don't see any a single way how KotOR III may fix the damage done by SW:ToR. Don't get me wrong, I liked SW:ToR's story, but it feels so separate, even distant from original KotOR. Anyway the next KotOR game will have to be either a prequel to KotOr I, or a sequel (at least 300+ years) to SW:ToR.
Agreed, for the reasons you mention, Kotor3 is never going to happen. With Aperieon dead in the water, this is most likely the last old republic game for a long long time. I'm okay with that.
Mind you, what they might do in a few years, depending on audience interest, when EA's contract to the IP is lapsed, is pick one studio [not BW] to reboot the entire franchise, changing the story as it suits them. That might be a good thing, because it would allow one studio to shape the story, unlike what we got, which was basically Simple-Happy-Mindless ANH [Kotor1]. Dark-Brooding-Unfinished ESB [KOTOR2] and Double-down-Derivative ROTJ [sWTOR]. It's very uneven storytelling.
I'll tell you one thing though, whatever comes next down the pipeline won't be in the form of an MMO, themepark or otherwise.
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Warzone Rally
in PvP
The majority of pvp guilds who would have used this system have since left the game or are now so small that this feature will never be used.As usual from Bioware, too little too late for it to have the positive impact it would have 3-4 years ago.
This is why I assume no one knows anything about this 'feature', because no one's using it.
And yes, it's probably a bug. I just wanted to be sure that no one else had done it and we were just missing something obvious. Now I see that the obvious thing we were missing is that BW is going to be on vacation for another couple weeks and this is just one of several buggy messes they left behind for players to beta-test during the holidays.
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Stay strong and good luck.
I read that the vaping is extremely addictive too, something about the amount of nicotine they pack into the little packs or whatever it is you are vaping up. So you may not smoke in as many chemicals and other "bad" things, but you end up smoking in tons more nicotine.
Is this wrong information I read, or true, lol I am wondering. I never vaped or smoked cigs, hated cigs since forever.
Not really. Uh...in brief: the average cigarette contains about 7 mg of nicotine. The bottles of e-juice they sell contain a range from 0-21 mg. So on the high end you'd be vaping three times the regular dose of nicotine, but you'd be doing it in very small amounts...a 30 ml bottle at 21 mg would take a little over a week to vape. The cost doesn't change with the nicotine, but as you go lower in nicotine levels you tend to vape more, and at higher wattage.
The problem isn't how much nicotine they pack in, it's the way the habits change. Smokers generally smoke at specific periods of the day: mornings after waking up, breaks at work, after meals, and at bedtime. Once they do, they're good for about an hour. Vapers are more like a cross between chainsmokers and shisha smokers. You're 'smoking' continuously throughout the day. You don't need much compared to smokers [the equivalent of a puff or two], but you're doing it all the time. That's what makes it a hard habit to kick.
Favorite and Least Favorite Companions
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by Ardrossan
I loved Rogue One. Outside the OT, it's my favorite of the Star Wars movies, and parts of it are better than parts of the OT.
I didn't mind Solo. I'd put it a bit below RotS, but well above the other two prequels. The maul cameo was nice. I think the major problem is that the Daley Han Solo books were significantly better in charting out Solo's life then the movie was, from meeting Lando and Chewie to getting entangled with the Rebels.
As far as an obi-wan movie...did anyone read Kenobi? They were evidently going for a western movie feel to that book. It sucked. However, I think it would suck regardless. Can we just say Obi-wan was hiding in a cave getting taught by his dead masters [though obviously not practicing with a lightsaber], while he waited for Luke to grow up? According to Rebels he did spend at least part of his time chasing away crazy sith and half-trained Jedi, but the question of a Kenobi movie is a lot like asking if there should be a movie about what Luke was up to on the fish monk planet during his exile - he was sitting on a rock on an outer rim nothing contemplating his failures, that's what he was doing. Let's not make a movie about it.