Leveling and Legacies

I used to think that the only people who powered through content in MMOs were the truly obsessed, the addicted, or only existed on sitcoms where geek culture takes some sort of prominence. I’m definitely not one of those people. I am, however, the kind of person who typically likes to savor their content. I’d rather take my time and see what there is to see. As a roleplayer who doesn’t normally raid, there really isn’t much for me to do in terms of “endgame content”, anyhow. What’s the point in rushing, anyway? The majority of the people who do rush to level cap often tend to sit in general chat wherever they are and complain about the lack of endgame content. I certainly never wanted to be one of those people, and I was perfectly happy taking my time killing things and slowly progressing through the content.

Then Bioware had to go and screw all that up by unleashing patch 1.2 in Star Wars: The Old Republic last Thursday.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for the patch. I was. What was there to hate about racial unlocks, family trees, and a whole slew of other new things that came along with it? (Not to mention the stealth inclusion of the rakghoul plague spreading to Tatooine, but I digress.) The new patch meant that something I’ve wanted since the game began was almost within my reach: a twi’lek bounty hunter. I really don’t know what it is about the race that I love, but I love everything about them, and when the game had first begun and we had limited information as to what twi’leks could be, I was a little disappointed that they couldn’t be bounty hunters. This disappointment grew exponentially upon game launch when it turned out there were twi’lek bounty hunter trainers. I was very sad. With the new patch, however, as soon as I got a twi’lek to level 50, I could finally have my wish. It really didn’t take long for this to set in for me.

Out of the two twi’lek characters I had, the closest to level cap by the time the patch rolled around was Bel’neven, my Sith Sorcerer, who was level 40 at the time. Keeping this in mind, there was really only one thing to do: go on a leveling binge. I had the day off, after all! So, after going out to stock up a bit on necessary supplies, I went a little crazy. That first day, I was fortunate enough to get Bel’neven to level 45 and get her off of Belsavis. I’ve been working on her ever since, and then, late last night, I finally achieved the dream:

After a brief conversation with Khem Val, Bel'neven finally hits level 50.

Needless to say, I was excited and had to flail about it over twitter. (I even got an early congratulations from the official SWTOR twitter account! I’m still floored about that.) Was it worth it? I can honestly say that, yes, I feel like it was. By the time I hit Corellia, the Sith Inquisitor storyline was really picking up, and I was excited to see where it would go. I won’t go into the specifics here, if only because that’s another post unto itself. I will say, though, that if there’s one thing Bioware really knows how to do, it’s create a good story and keep you invested in it. You may switch to other alts, but you still remember most of what’s going on. You’re still invested in the arc, your character, and your character’s companions. So, yeah, definitely worth it. Now I can finally explore the bits of the galaxy that were previously unknown to me, and PvP my little heart out with other people at my level.

Plus, you know, there’s that wonderful added bonus of finally being able to start my twi’lek alt army, starting with the twi’lek bounty hunter I’ve yearned for. Be afraid, citizens of Lord Adraas. Be very afraid. ;)

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