Too Late to Come Back as a Completionist?

[Anilon]

Hey all -

 

I have this recurring problem - where I jump on a new MMO bandwagon, abandon an older one, and then wish I had stuck with the older one. Most recently, this problem has come with SWTOR.

 

I leveled a gunslinger to 50 at launch, did operations with a solid group - completed most hard modes, had half rakata/half of [whatever is under rakata, can't remember] - and then left the game, for 5 or 6 months now.

 

I am really interested in coming back, but I am a nervous for two things:

 

1) I am a completionist - is the game in a state where I can max out one characters achievments, gear, etc or am I just too far behind?

2) I don't want to join and have servers go offline in a year or something

[Andryah]

1) I am a completionist - is the game in a state where I can max out one characters achievments, gear, etc or am I just too far behind?

 

Behind what or who? The completionist approach to MMOs is more of a solitary play style in many ways (not that you would not do some of it in group, but in terms of your goal). So I really don't understand the question. Now if it is important for you to be first on the server, then yeah, you are hosed.

 

2) I don't want to join and have servers go offline in a year or something

 

Then never ever sign up for an MMO, because you never know what they will be like in a year. Even if they go off line in 10 years, you do know that nothing you do in the game is owned by you, right? ie: at some point, all your effort will be flushed down the drain. Play for fun, not for keeps.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Andryah

[Anilon]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Andryah - I really appreciate it.

 

Behind what or who? The completionist approach to MMOs is more of a solitary play style in many ways (not that you would not do some of it in group, but in terms of your goal). So I really don't understand the question. Now if it is important for you to be first on the server, then yeah, you are hosed.

 

You are correct that it is more a solitary style of play. I am not after server firsts. To elaborate - I am asking more, will I be able to knock out the solo-able completionists parts in say, 300 hours of game-time? Or is it 500,600,700 + etc at this point in time?

 

Then never ever sign up for an MMO, because you never know what they will be like in a year. Even if they go off line in 10 years, you do know that nothing you do in the game is owned by you, right? ie: at some point, all your effort will be flushed down the drain. Play for fun, not for keeps.

 

I fully understand what you are getting at here - and its a valid point. But I think knowing a game like WoW (sorry to use it, but its a great example) will *most likely* be online for many,many years to come is different than worrying a company might drop a mediocre success game rather quickly. Does that make more sense?

[Pcolapat]

You have a lot to keep you busy advancing your chatracter that you can do solo while you look for a good raiding guild. Work on your dalies so you can get your campaign relics and make money to buy augments and augment kits for your gear. You want to try and get as many blackhole comms as you can each week, so pug a few story mode ECs and Nightmare KPs. You are not going to catch up by the time the next tier comes out, but that is okay. Once you get into a raiding guild you want to be augmented with some black hole mods and enhancments in your gear. This way you will be viable in HM EC so you can start getting your campaign gear. At this point in the game you should get that campaign gear pretty fast if you get into a guild that clears HM EC everyweek. Most of their vets will already have everyhting off at least the first two bosses, so you will be able to clean up.

 

So no your not so far behind that you cant catch up, but you do have some work to do. I understand where your coming from though having left MMOs and not being able to go back because it sucks not having the gear to do the progression content. Your not as far behind as you think. The new operation that is coming out soon still drops rakata in story mode. Everyone is wanting to do that content, so you will get all of the rest of your rakata if you need any more, plus you will get black hole comms. So come on back and play, and stop hopping around from game to game. stick with it.

[Andryah]

You are correct that it is more a solitary style of play. I am not after server firsts. To elaborate - I am asking more, will I be able to knock out the solo-able completionists parts in say, 300 hours of game-time? Or is it 500,600,700 + etc at this point in time?

 

Well, the total time to complete everything really has not changed much. A lot of the content adds since release are more rinse and repeat content for the end game crowd. So no big surge in things to achieve IMO other then group content.

 

Any big boost in things to complete will be via an expansion (either free or paid), which has not happened yet.

 

I fully understand what you are getting at here - and its a valid point. But I think knowing a game like WoW (sorry to use it, but its a great example) will *most likely* be online for many,many years to come is different than worrying a company might drop a mediocre success game rather quickly. Does that make more sense?

 

Well, keep in mind this game is still one of the three largest populated MMOs in the western market, and 2nd largest subscription MMO. It's not going anywhere anytime soon, no matter what the hyperbolists may claim. If you look at the attrition curve for Rift for example and compare it with SWTOR, they are almost identical, just Rift is smaller overall population numbers, and Rift is still doing fine at it's size and scale.

 

And the active account base for SWTOR will jump later in the fall when Freemium goes live. They have been augmenting the existing non-locked servers in preparation for this, so while it won't be a subscription only game after that, it will very much be a Freemium game consisting of notable populations of subscribers and free players.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Andryah

[Anilon]

You have a lot to keep you busy advancing your chatracter that you can do solo while you look for a good raiding guild. Work on your dalies so you can get your campaign relics and make money to buy augments and augment kits for your gear. You want to try and get as many blackhole comms as you can each week, so pug a few story mode ECs and Nightmare KPs. You are not going to catch up by the time the next tier comes out, but that is okay. Once you get into a raiding guild you want to be augmented with some black hole mods and enhancments in your gear. This way you will be viable in HM EC so you can start getting your campaign gear. At this point in the game you should get that campaign gear pretty fast if you get into a guild that clears HM EC everyweek. Most of their vets will already have everyhting off at least the first two bosses, so you will be able to clean up.

 

So no your not so far behind that you cant catch up, but you do have some work to do. I understand where your coming from though having left MMOs and not being able to go back because it sucks not having the gear to do the progression content. Your not as far behind as you think. The new operation that is coming out soon still drops rakata in story mode. Everyone is wanting to do that content, so you will get all of the rest of your rakata if you need any more, plus you will get black hole comms. So come on back and play, and stop hopping around from game to game. stick with it.

 

Thanks for the advice! Have they released info on when the level cap might be raised? How much time do I have before that goes in?

[CosmicKat]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Andryah - I really appreciate it.

 

 

 

You are correct that it is more a solitary style of play. I am not after server firsts. To elaborate - I am asking more, will I be able to knock out the solo-able completionists parts in say, 300 hours of game-time? Or is it 500,600,700 + etc at this point in time?

 

 

 

 

If you are talking about pre-endgame, I don't think there is anywhere close to that amount of gameplay. My guesstimate would be 100 hrs at most, if you were in a rush. As far as I'm aware, there is nothing new in any of the 1-50 PvE content, minus the "event" stuff that you would only be able to do when the events are actually running.

[Pcolapat]

it isn't in the next patch so at least six weeks.

[Anilon]

Well great - now you have both convinced me to get back in the game and here it is only 10 AM and I am stuck at work.

 

/tear

 

I do appreciate the response though, thank you. It sounds like I should be able to hop in and catch up.

[Andryah]

If you are talking about pre-endgame, I don't think there is anywhere close to that amount of gameplay. My guesstimate would be 100 hrs at most, if you were in a rush. As far as I'm aware, there is nothing new in any of the 1-50 PvE content, minus the "event" stuff that you would only be able to do when the events are actually running.

 

He is a self-described completionist. Meaning he wants to nab every ounce of achievement content, etc. That is way more then 100 hours of spacebaring to 50.

[Anilon]

He is a self-described completionist. Meaning he wants to nab every ounce of achievement content, etc. That is way more then 100 hours of spacebaring to 50.

 

Correct. Andryah - i'd be interested if you had a guess at the hours? I know its asking a lot, but even just a guestimate would be nice.

[LordArtemis]

To answer your questions I talked to a few of my long playing friends. This is the rundown.

 

First, you won't be too far behind. Not much has been added in the last 5 months, so you can probably be back up to date from a few weeks to a month...it varied in the opinions, but that was the gist. Right now something called Black Hole gear is what people go for, but it seems my friends are mostly farming the mods out of the armor sets since they feel they are very ugly. It's really subjective so you decide.

 

The transfers have made it much easier to pick up the game and group up, since the servers are much more active. If your on an original launch server I would consider transferring to one of the destination servers as soon as possible.

 

Second, it's likely the game will be around for quite a long time. It's going F2P soon, and the core of the game should be strong enough to keep it healthy for a while. Though no real idea can be formed as to how long, the opinions seem to be that recent changes, especially the server merges, will help the game normalize it's population. There are quite a few games on the market that have been operating with meager populations for years, and the one thing common in all of them is busy servers. So this bodes well for the title.

 

I hope that helps.

Edited September 14, 2012 by LordArtemis

[Ken-Shi]

I'm a completionist myself. The only thing's you're going to miss out on if you come back is the two recent live events Raghoul Plague and Chevan thingy. You earn titles, two pets per event and some cosmetic adaptive gear which looks dumb. Not really missing out on much, and there has been a little talk of some of these live events recurring in the future possibly, so maybe you'll have a chance to get the pets, etc. after all.

 

Other than that though you have plenty of time to catch up! This MMO will be around for at least another 5 years as well, if not longer. No worries on that end.

[DarthBuckets]

There are very few things in the game that are unavailable to you (world event items, PvP rating mount if you don't have a sufficient skill/team, etc).

[Kissakias]

 

1) I am a completionist - is the game in a state where I can max out one characters achievments, gear, etc or am I just too far behind?

 

after 1.2 Three speeders removed, it seems forever

and u lost the last event (August) with 1 title and 1 speeder, 1 tusken legacy armor, 2 pets

Edited September 14, 2012 by Kissakias