Subscriber For a While

I really do have the sweetest husband . . .

When he saw me glaring at my action bars, he sighed, sat down at the computer, and subscribed me for 60 days.

"See?" he said.  "It doesn't auto-renew, so you can feel better about it."  (I knew there was no use protesting the action after my first attempt; twenty years of marriage lets you know when it just isn't worth the argument.)

How refreshing it was to have my skills all properly placed on bars and to be able to keybind frequently used abilities!

I've managed to remember Hikarninoko's abilities well enough to continue her adventures on Voss, even remembering some of the "tricks" I used to have to do to help her be able to solo most things with Vector.

It's good to be back on board, if only for a little while.

Took Another Peek

This time, I made it all the way to Belsavis on my agent before becoming annoyed and logging off.

It took me a while to figure out what all my abilities meant again, slowed down by the sluggish mental state of illness, which is why I decided to head to Belsavis, a bit lower than where I would have headed if I was in top form.

I discovered exactly what I had on that right side bar which I was now missing . . . things like Recuperate, Heroic Moment (most of my other "oh bleep" abilities, as well), or my speeder.  I managed to juggle some things around (who really needs medpacs on their action bar, anyway, right, when they're a healer?) but soon enough, I realized if I juggled enough to get all three of these included in my two bars, I'd end up bumping off something else I really do need . . . like stuns or heals or damage dealing or energy recuperation.

Luckily enough, I already had "Take Cover" hotkeyed, so that didn't need to be on any bar . . . I searched for ways to hotkey some of these other things, but as far as I could tell, it couldn't happen unless they were on an action bar already.

What's the point of gaining level and gaining abilities if you can't access most of them?

I have heard other bloggers say they think it is unreasonable to require those who originally purchased the game and return under the umbrella of Preferred to lose some of their UI, and I have to say I agree.  I can live with the fact that I neglected to purchase the next level of speeder training at level 40 and now will have to do without it.  (I figured it wasn't worth purchasing until level 50.  Oh, well.  My bad.)  I can live with restrictions on warzones and such, but I don't think I can even enjoy the warzones I am able to play if I cannot access my abilities.

When my husband gets his computer back and we can log on together to play our lowbie characters, maybe I'll be able to settle back in and have fun.  (Of course, as an altoholic, he's going to have a much more difficult time than me figuring out which two characters to play . . .)  Or maybe getting over this crazy illness will help change my state of mind; perhaps I'll figure out which abilities I can manage and which I can throw away.

Part of me figures I have no right to complain.  After all, I'm not paying for the privilege of playing right now.

Took a Peek

Before heading to work, I kicked off the patch for SWTOR, hoping that, in spite of my slow download speed, it would manage to succeed without mishap.

When I got home from everything I had to be at Thursday night, I checked to be sure it had succeeded.  Hopefully, I told myself, SWTOR will be all updated, and I will be able to take a peek at what is waiting . . .

I made it as far as the character screen.

It wasn't because of any game malfunction, in point of fact.  It was because, as I logged on, I encountered a scary message about the difference between Preferred status and Subscriber status, and I found myself unable to force myself to proceed without doing some research.

Would I have to select my characters on the first login?  Would I be limited to two characters total, or two characters per server?  What other things would I have to decide right this minute?

After some serious digging, I finally found that I would be able to access all my characters for now, but would have to select two later on.  With that, I felt comfortable enough to click past the scary message.

And, after some more looking, it seems it will actually be two characters per server.  (At least, on my screen, it gives the numbers of my characters as X/2 for each server, so this seems to be the case.)  As one of my servers has had 15 characters crammed onto it and the other has 9, this could be interesting . . . (Remember, most of those are my daughters' . . .)

(I'm going to have some very unhappy daughters . . . unless we can make them their own F2P accounts . . .)

By the time I'd searched out some answers to my questions (what? no side bars??) and taken a glance at the character screen, it was bedtime.

I'll deal with the more difficult decisions tomorrow.

. . . I wonder if I'll have a Legacy on the server where my daughter and I never could agree on a Legacy name and so put off the decision . . . No biggie.

FTP Coming Soon?

It seems SWTOR is going free to play (ftp) on November 15th.

I realize for some people, it may seem the final nail in the coffin for the game . . . and perhaps, in their more enlightened evaluations, it is.  But for me, it's an opportunity.

Face it, between the time demands of my current job and the monetary demands of the current economy, I have had neither the time nor the money to subscribe to any game.  (Ok, ok, given that we are subscribed to Netflix and Audible, I'm sure we could have found the money.  But these two subscriptions provide entertainment to the entire family, while a SWTOR subscription for me would have provided entertainment for . . . well, mostly me.)  I confess there was a time and there is still a temptation to reopen my WoW account, just to talk with my old friends, even though there is no way I could raid and would probably end up spending all my time fishing or farming stuff to help out the guild, because mindless repetition does not annoy me as much as some other people, but I simply cannot justify the cost, given the small amount of time which would be available to me for play.

Most evenings, I stare through my computer screen at a formerly inviting virtual world which now seems rather blank and empty and go to bed early out of sheer boredom.

But come Saturday, two of the three teaching endorsement examinations I am taking will be finished (now you know what I'm doing the other evenings), so having the free to play model of SWTOR come out on the 15th is perfect timing for me.

Some evening when I have an hour or two, I'll be able to wave hello again to my agent, relearn what all her abilities are, and continue the adventure at least until her story line is complete.  My husband and I will be able to play together during the upcoming long weeks when he will be traveling and I will still be at home.

They tell me that warzone access will be limited, which is kind of disappointing, as I'd probably like to spend quite a bit of time in warzones.  However, given that I am unlikely to have nearly as much time as I'd like, perhaps the default access will prove sufficient.

They tell me that as a former subscriber, I will have certain  privileges unavailable to new free to play customers--more action bars or something.  While I'm glad of that, I have to wonder if what they are taking away will end up reducing my enjoyment to the point where I simply stop playing, because at this point, subscribing is not an option.

It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.  Will the satisfaction be sufficient to fulfill my hopes, or will I be forced to conclude that in ftp SWTOR, as in so many other aspects of life, you "get what you pay for"?

Or not . . .

Well, Hikarinoko made it to Voss before my subscription ran out.  I had hoped to have her finish the Agent storyline before this happened.

Unfortunately, I've got so much going on at work, I can hardly play at all . . . so I guess it's not worth paying the money for the subscription right now.  I had hoped I would have more free time, which might have made paying the subscription worthwhile.

But at this point in time, Real Life is rearing its ugly head, and one of the things he (it?) is saying is, "You've got to watch your pennies right now."

When free to play comes out, I expect I'll be able to reacquaint myself with my agent.  Until then . . .

More Adventures?

The other day, I expressed the concern that once Hikarinoko (now 45) hit level 50 and finished her class quest chain, I might find myself in a dilemma similar to that which surprised me as Anachan reached max level:  boredom.

"I'm worried that once I reach level 50, I won't have any reason to play anymore," I told my husband.

"Why don't you make another character?" he responded.

I rolled my eyes.  "Which one?  I didn't enjoy the Smuggler story . . . 'Hey, let's all go treasure-hunting' . . . I saw the Trooper story when I played with your Trooper, and I have no interest at all in playing Jedi Knight (not a healer).  And I've already discovered I can't stomach playing a Sith.  Should I just make another Agent?"  (After all, the story's good enough.)

"Well," he said, "why don't you try a Bounty Hunter?"

I was skeptical.  But I remembered hearing from other bloggers that the Bounty Hunter playstyle could be very customizable, from a Light/Dark perspective, as well as the choices in general, even if the general idea of "The Great Hunt" hadn't yet caught my imagination.

Just in case I ended up concluding it was a good idea, I decided to go create a Bounty Hunter and think about it.  She's a Chiss, skinny--as I like to make most of my characters and wish I looked like, myself--with mid-length hair loose around her face.  Following my more recent trend of character naming, I pulled out my Japanese dictionary . . .

A couple of page flips later, she had her name:  Karinoko.  Yes, it's a lot like Hikarinoko, but the meaning is different.  While Hikarinoko is "Child of Light", Karinoko is "Child of the Hunt".  I figured it was appropriate.

So now I have a level 3 Bounty Hunter to stare at on my character screen.

Poor girl . . . she probably won't get much attention until Hikarinoko is level 50 . . .

Update:  Incidentally, I did make another Agent, because my husband decided he wanted me to make a new character for him to run around occasionally with his baby Bounty Hunter.  He's still amazed I want to make this one an Operative, too, but then, I'm the kind of person who reads books over and over 20 times, too . . . while he's a serious altoholic . . .

Her name is Kaminoko, "Child of God."  (One letter is all it takes to change it from "hunt" to "God".)

Yep, I like a certain look, don't I?

Interestingly enough, although I know the story already, I still don't want to skip the voiceovers in the class quests . . . They're still that good . . . (And I'm occasionally making slightly different choices than I did with Hikarinoko . . . Darth Jadus didn't kill me this time.)

The one complication with this arrangement is . . . will I still decide to play Karinoko when Hikarinoko hits 50?  After all, I'm now seeing the BH story, too . . .

We'll see if I have any time at all by then, with all the preparations needed for my new job.  (If you've never done student teaching, you have no idea how much time outside of school teachers actually work . . . We've just started school, so I don't have my pace set yet, but right now, I leave at 6:00 am, return at 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening--remember I have an hour commute--and work until 9:00 or so, planning lessons and stuff.  Oy vey.)

How Does Free Work?

/trumpet fanfare . . . Hikarinoko, Imperial Agent, is now Light Rank V!

The other day, my husband pointed out to me the announcement that SWTOR would be transitioning to a Free-to-Play (F2P) option sometime in the future.

(This is not something we have told our eldest daughter . . . You see, she'll be heading to college in a couple of weeks, and she's got a shiny new laptop . . . The last thing we need her to do her freshman year is jump into SWTOR F2P when it comes out . . . This means, of course, I will not be asking her to read this through before I publish it and tell me if it makes sense.)

Right now, when my daughters play, they use either my or my husband's accounts.  There's no way we can afford accounts for all five of them, especially when we only have two desktops in the family which can run the game, so some of those accounts would be used very little, indeed.  This means, of course, that some of my daughters can't play with me, some can't play with my husband, and some can't play with each other.

But with the proposed F2P format as currently listed, each of the girls could have her own account.  None of them play enough to reach any restriction caps on warzones or flashpoints, and this way, they could play with either parent (or any other sister), without worrying about which accounts they are using at that moment.

As a completely casual player, not running Operations, not running m(any) flashpoints, not on the cutting edge of content, and only running a couple of warzones a day, the F2P option would even work for me.  I'm not so hung up on vanity items that I have to plunk down a bunch of money for points to go get them.  I also don't use the auction house terribly much.  The only really annoying things would be the limited travel capabilities and the constant advertisements, if it is anything like the LoTRO I tried out and which quickly bored me.

(A side note about the auction house restrictions . . . In a way, wouldn't this penalize the subscription players, who are trying to make a few credits, by limiting their potential purchasers?  Just a thought.)

I'll be honest:  I'm not sure what I will do when the game goes F2P.  I figure if I am playing a game often, it is worth supporting, and therefore maintaining my subscription would be the better way to go.  But another part of me recognizes that unless something captures my imagination sufficiently between now and that time, I may not be playing enough to justify the subscription, and perhaps, from Bioware's point of view, having someone play infrequently on a F2P account is better than having them completely quit playing.  (Because, after all, as long as they are in contact with the game, the chance is still there they may pay money for points or resubscribe.)

There is still so little specific information out about it, there is no way to make a decision now.  Time will tell . . .

(Postscript:  I've never mentioned in a blog before now about my minors sharing my account, because I used to worry that game companies would end up banning my account if I did . . . not like any of them ever read my blogs.  But if Bioware is making SWTOR F2P, they have no reason to ban me, at this point.  It wouldn't be a good idea to alienate a wavering subscriber--one who, if it happened, would simply walk away, taking her husband with her--over something so trivial as this, when their subscription numbers are already so low.  It might be the one thing which would make me tolerate WoW pandas . . . /pained expression . . .)