Saturday, January 7, 2012

You Just Can't Bear to Let a Gorgeous Guy Like Me Out of Your Sight


To which Phyona, my significant other, would likely respond, "I don't know where you get your delusions laser brain."

I suppose there's a Leia (or a Chewie) for every Han and she's mine.

Without getting all mushy on you, Phy is a huge part of my life and concurrently my gaming. It took 10 levels for my Scoundrel to meet Phyona the Jedi Guardian, but they've been inseparable ever since. Well, almost...

Anybody with a gaming buddy knows about the struggles involved in playing an MMO together. Such a large percentage of content is based on level that it can be difficult to find content to do together while leveling. Inevitably, somebody has a day off or doesn't feel like playing or has to give their wookiee a bath or whatever, and vroom, one player is off like a ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. The gulf that can result from just one or two sessions of solo adventuring can tear two toons apart!

With respect to SWTOR in particular, one of the adverse side-effects of having such excellent story content and dialogue is that going back to repeat content isn't fun for either party. One person gets stuck waiting, waiting, waiting. The other can't enjoy the content to the fullest knowing their partner is itching to slice through some rakghouls. Not that I miss WoW's lack of compelling quests, but at least it made adventuring together a bit more accessible. You were in for the miserable, boring grind together, I guess.

Perhaps the easiest way to combat this is by creating alts, i.e. you have one character that you only play with your partner. But without fail, you get attached to that character, right? That's the one you have to play.

I find it curious that a game that is at its most fun a multiplayer endeavor often separates you from your friends, at least until level cap. And this isn't like WoW where the whole point was to play with your friends at cap. I absolutely love running missions with Phy and watching the dynamic between our characters unfold.

Then again, Phyona says that my unenlightened Smuggler only slows her galaxy-saving Jedi down, so what do I know?

What do you guys think? Do you have a leveling partner or are you in this for just one person? Prefer grouping with strangers? Or does a guild fill this void as it often does?

3 comments:

  1. I level with 2 friends of mine, we only play when everyone is online. Though right now we are missing one because he is always with his gf xP We first made empire (made a IA, sniper :D), then we made alts on the republic but ended up with only playing on them xP My friend is a sentinel while I am a scoundrel, what we've been doing right now is we do the class quests with eachother, been working out pretty well so far xp

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  2. Sounds like a pretty good system. Nice that you manage to stick together!

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  3. The other can't enjoy the content to the fullest knowing their partner is itching to slice through some rakghouls. swtor credits

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