Dantooine, my opinion.

[LordAppius]

Highly doubt a dev will read this, but here it goes nothing

 

Having played the pts version i will try to give some input about Dantooine. This si all subjective and it isn't a final product that will go live, the reason i say this is we can only perform a total fo 6 mission out of a total of 12, and from those 6 2 are heroics 4 and 2 are heroics 2. Lets begin with the bases.

 

Having started with my imperial character i was quite pleased to see that the base is different from what we are used to, it isn't a copy paste from a rep or imp abse found in another section of the map. It resides in a small cave where you can pick up the missions, get some decorations (which consists in walls and fauna, for those who want to give tatoine some crops here is your chance, i know i will take it since the decos actually look really cool) . You exit the imperial base by a small tunel the forces most liekly carved and you see some farms and buildings. There are denova pirates fighting both rep and imps. The landscape will awaken fond memories of you runing around in kotor 2, but this time we don't have mercenaries everywhere, just pirates.

 

The missions are a little bit of what we are used by now. Blow up something, kill X pirates or reps, control a mouse droid to blow up some stuff.

 

Apart from the missions that are given to you, and i must say i enjoy the fact that heroics 2 aqnd 4 aren't a steam roll as they used to be, since i liked when the game was a little bit harder, you will face a huge dog, known as Hugo, basically Sparky from Ravagers (this is one of the heroic 4), the other heroic 4 you can pay 15 million to complete it or just kill everything. There are achievements to do it both ways, so if you are a perfectionist you will waste 150 million credits to get those achievements. they don't give you anything special. both heroics 2 are tank and spank one of them being a bit longer since it requires a certain mechanic. Apart from these missions there are 2 hidden achievements, one that you have to jump inside a well which will grant you a decoration and the other you have to go near poly ( a bird) and see what happens, it is funny tbh. There is also another mission that consists in getting 5 items that leads the player to a treasure, after doing it i discovered the treasure is bugged and it doesn't offer you nothing yet. The last mission i think is interesting will take the player back to Rishi and Ossus. You have to find 5 tomes in Dantooine, Rishi and Ossus, this is probably related to a future story content that will be released. The name of these achievements are Cypher of Dantooine, Rishi and Ossus.

 

regarding the map. Well the map is small, i don't think it is finished. Musco also said they will make the temple explorable, currently you "can't access to it" and even if you do there is no entry, it is basically the rakata temple from the Rakata Prime flashpoint, but you can use the microbinoculars to get a lore piece. There are other lore pieces spread out, one near a big tree and some fruits and vegetables you have to find in the map, this is a trickly one cause so far i haven't discovered all.

 

The rep base, if you play as a rep character, is a small area with a building that contaisn some npcs that don't give you missions, but are most likely related to the story, since you can click ont hem and they will talk back. The missiosn are the same as the imperial counterpart, with the exception of one, where you don't control a mouse droid and instead control a turret and kill nova pirates, much like the Iokath turret.

 

So far i hope they make the planet a little more interesting cause you have little room to explore, the buildings are as they have always been, huge and with nothing to explore or not accessible to the player which is a shame and i hope that bioware, one day works on this 0'cause swtor exploratiosn has been horrible from day one, pretty linear and there is only one way to do stuff, this has been a shame and it was aggravated with ossus library having nothing to explore, apart from the datacron.

 

Thankfully there s no new gear and so far there are no vendors selling outfits or weapons, just decorations. which is a shame since for a logn period we have not seen any nice lgacy weapons, apart from the ones who get when you finish chapter 9 on kotfe, which are horrible anyway...

 

There are no returning companions, as far as i know, but any story content is locked and there is no way, that i'm aware off to start it and i've explored Odessen, the fleet and our personal ship.

 

If a dev or anyone from bioware reads this i would like to say that you should work a little more on the environment, not only on this planet but everwhere. I understand that Ossus was devastated, but apart from the mutated chickens there is nothing new to see there and with Dantooine there is no new enemies or animals to kill or see. This is a good example of how badly you treat and introduce new stuff to the game. Not just the lack of exploration, but also the lack of new stuff.

 

I hope the event is just half way done, because there is no point to have an event that consists on hours of grinding for a total of 14 decorations, one of them is to complete 60 heroics, much like Ossus, which is a horrible way to do something.

 

Also, and as I said before, planets should be entertaining or at least interesting and as i've mentioned countless times Bioware has a track history of being really bad at giving the players a good time explorating, this is an opinion that other players and friends have shared with me. If you have big buildings make them explorable, just add rooms with materials to farm and enemies to kill. It is far better than having a big building that you can't even enter....

[Agenteaglestrike]

My own thoughts on Dantooine is as follows (Albeit brief.) ;

 

The main emotional connection to Dantooine (From playing KOTOR) is 2 fold, 1 being the Jedi Enclave / Temple that you explored, found your first safe location/home and explored what it was to be a Jedi in training. 2 - The ruins in which the Rakata starmap / starforge map was located. The Catalyst to the main story, the platform for the hunt and the main plot point that would unfold throughout each Starmap location.

 

It's with great disappointment that both of these locations are not ones we can visit, interact with or bask in some nostalgia over them. Sure we can see a ruined Enclave in the background (Skybox?) but much more was called for to make it a truly great experience. IMO the Empire could have started at the Ruins (A representation of when Revan first plotted down the side of Anger, the Mandalore Wars and what lead to the Dark Side of the Force.) and the Enclave, even in ruins, acting as a staging ground for the Republic. (With some small explorable areas that could be some storytelling in the form of scenery and quests.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Agenteaglestrike