favoritism
I’ve played both a Sith Assassin and a Republic Gunslinger up to roughly level 20. Both of them followed a fairly similar path… Levels 1-10 on their starter world, then off to the faction’s capitol for 10-15, pick up your ship at roughly level 15 and then off to a new planet rated for levels 15-20 with a mission tickler pointing you eventually towards Nar Shadaa.
Along the way, I ran a good number of flashpoints. These are basically small, instanced raids. Not the same as a normal group instance in WoW – there are plenty of group instances in TOR, and missions that point you at them. Flashpoints are a little different though. There’s a storyline woven through it, with dialogue to break up the fighting, and opportunities to earn light or dark side points and social points. They’re generally more interesting and involved than a simple group mission. They generally take about an hour to finish.
Anyway… Unsurprisingly, I discovered that there’s a glut of people playing DPS in TOR, and relatively few people playing tanks or healers. Which makes getting a group for a flashpoint somewhat difficult when you’re playing a DPS class yourself. And the primitive looking-for-group system in TOR made the whole process even more painful. Lots of time spent sitting around a major social hub, repeatedly announcing that you were looking for a group. Reminded me of the good ol’ days in DAoC.
So I decided to roll up a tank of my own…
Healers are, technically, more scarce than tanks. And I’ll probably get around to playing one eventually. But, honestly, they just aren’t my favorite. I’ve played and enjoyed tanks before… Used to have a little dwarven tank in DAoC that was loads of fun to play. But I’ve never been a huge fan of healing.
So I rolled up a Jedi Knight. Spent my first 10 levels running around the Jedi starter planet Tython. Specialized into a Jedi Guardian, which is the tanky version of a Jedi Knight, at level 10. Then I was sent to Coruscant. And this is where things started to get more interesting…
My experience on Coruscant was significantly different from when I was there with my Gunslinger. Obviously, I had different class-specific storyline missions… But there were also a few other missions that I never saw on my Gunslinger; and some missions I did on my Gunslinger that never showed up for my Guardian. And then I was sent to a new zone – the ruins of the Jedi Temple – that I didn’t even see when I was on my Gunslinger.
Not exactly favoritism at this point… Just different experiences for different classes, which certainly makes sense…
But then I was handed my ship at roughly level 17… And I also picked up my second companion. Not the droid that always comes with your ship, but a second real companion. So I’ve got my T7 droid, my C2 ship droid, and Kira – a Jedi Consular.
And then I was directed towards Ord Mantell, the Smuggler/Trooper starter planet, rather than Taris – which, being rated from levels 15 to 20, is the next logical destination.
So, at this point, it seems to me that some extra attention was paid to the Jedi Knight storyline. Which I can understand… I mean, it is a Star Wars game. The Jedi have always been a favorite. It’s probably safe to assume that an awful lot of people are going to wind up playing Jedi of some sort… So you’d probably want to put your best efforts into that most-popular class.
And, of course, I’m playing a Jedi Knight now – so I don’t really mind if extra effort was put into the class I’m playing.
But I can’t help wondering if any of the other classes have suffered any for the sake of improving the Jedi Knight. Or if they’ll prove to be just as different and interesting as time passes.