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2013-07-24, 10:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
So, I'm about halfway through Makeb so far... and I have really, really mixed feelings about it.
Potential spoilers below:
SpoilerAlright so... On the one hand, I'm liking the overall story itself - it's generally well written, makes sense, and I don't mind fighting the Hutts half as much as I thought I would. Part of my initial trepidation with going to Makeb was "Wait... I'm a Jedi who killed the Emperor, why am I worried about some lousy Hutts?*" - And they answer that question without any real copouts by making it more about the planet and it's people than about me vs the Hutt Cartel.
So that I can dig.
Storytelling wise, the only problem I have is that I feel that they're too... generic at times. Sometimes the game is nice and mentions I'm a Jedi or will even bring up things I did in the past (I got a nice callback to the Planet Prison at one point, that was cool) - but other times they just call me "Republic Forces" - which is generic to the point of painful. It barely refers to me as a person at all... and it's not like I have the Republic Army traipsing around behind me like I did on Corellia.
I also feel like a lot of the time I have no response that really fits my character; this... wasn't an issue leveling up; and the character herself hasn't really changed - but a lot of the time it feels like my options are: Threaten, Ask for a Bribe, or Something Else Often Questionable - Maybe that's just me; but it's slightly annoying.
Also, the same gender flirt option for a Republic Female? I like the character, but every time I flirt with her I sound almost as sleazy as Doc; and she just sounds irritated at my attention other than the very first flirt. I mean don't get me wrong, relationships are complex and this is a difficult situation; but trying to flirt with her makes me feel like a bad person because she's sending some pretty loud "NOT INTERESTED" signals. I dunno, maybe that's just me but it's really annoying that after not getting same gender romance for companions in the first place, our one option on the front so far is at least as far as I can tell not responding very well at all.
Still, storytelling isn't generally the problem. The problems I'm running into are much more crunch based.
1) Who in their right mind included civilians in enemy groups in some of the earlier sections of Makeb? Worse, who's dumb idea was it to make them hostile? It means that not only do I accidentally murder a lot of people just attacking enemy soldiers; but that I *have* to murder them because otherwise combat doesn't end and I can't heal up.
For a suitably ruthless character maybe that makes sense, but I'm a full lightside Jedi, it's... weird.
2) Some of the Elites on patrol don't patrol in the typical fashion (Ie: walking around). No, they SPRINT - everywhere; like they're running laps and just happen to come across you in the process. Those obnoxious sprinty elites have killed me several times now because they'll be nowhere near you (or even at all visible) when you start a fight, but then suddenly they're on top of you kicking your tail left and right...
I have to imagine this is a bug, because nowhere else in the game does this happen, and it looks absolutely ridiculous.
3) The Headless bug - this is affecting more than Makeb of course, but it's doing a wonderful job of making me laugh at moments that should be at least somewhat serious...
4) The terrain... I don't hate it, because it is interesting looking, but it's a lot harder to navigate than the vast majority of the rest of the game because it's so vertical. You really pretty much have to follow the roads to get anywhere half the time, and those roads are almost universally clogged with mobs, so you end up hacking your way through everything to get anywhere, which gets exhausting.
5) Not enough choices to be made - at least as far as I am there's usually one choice per area, and some of hte things that ARE tagged as choices make no sense as being choices. (Not that that's new to SWTOR, but still...)
Example: Early on you get a Light Side/Dark Side choice involving strategy after hurting the Regulator army - you can A) Dig in and hold ground (This is a lightside choice), or B) Pursue and attack the fleeing Regulators (This is a darkside choice).
Now maybe it's just because I've spent entirely too much of my life immersed in military history; but why on earth are these Lightside/Darkside choices to begin with? Unless there's information they just aren't telling us (but expecting us to know somehow), the smart strategy in this situation is to pursue the enemy, try to cut off as many retreating Regulators as possible and make them surrender. I chose the Lightside option as I don't want many DS points on my Jedi, but... nearly as weird as the Medicine quest at Fort Garnik (which to this day I do not like.)
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Anyway, ultimately I'm glad Makeb exists - I am enjoying it; but there are lots of things about it that are bugging me and making me want to play a different character instead... really hoping future content will be a a little more carefully done. (Really really hoping they'll add more class quests, but I don't see that as remotely likely.)
*I mean yes as a Jedi I would definitely care - but why would I in any way feel personally threatened by their army after basically doing something so incredible as killing the Emperor?Computer is back! Yay!
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2013-07-25, 09:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
Huh, must vary by class. When I played through on my Inquisitor, pretty much the first thing out of every remotely important character's mouth was "Holy crap, a Dark Council member!"
Also, the same gender flirt option for a Republic Female? I like the character, but every time I flirt with her I sound almost as sleazy as Doc; and she just sounds irritated at my attention other than the very first flirt. I mean don't get me wrong, relationships are complex and this is a difficult situation; but trying to flirt with her makes me feel like a bad person because she's sending some pretty loud "NOT INTERESTED" signals. I dunno, maybe that's just me but it's really annoying that after not getting same gender romance for companions in the first place, our one option on the front so far is at least as far as I can tell not responding very well at all.
1) Who in their right mind included civilians in enemy groups in some of the earlier sections of Makeb? Worse, who's dumb idea was it to make them hostile? It means that not only do I accidentally murder a lot of people just attacking enemy soldiers; but that I *have* to murder them because otherwise combat doesn't end and I can't heal up.
For a suitably ruthless character maybe that makes sense, but I'm a full lightside Jedi, it's... weird.
5) Not enough choices to be made - at least as far as I am there's usually one choice per area, and some of hte things that ARE tagged as choices make no sense as being choices. (Not that that's new to SWTOR, but still...)
SpoilerExample: Early on you get a Light Side/Dark Side choice involving strategy after hurting the Regulator army - you can A) Dig in and hold ground (This is a lightside choice), or B) Pursue and attack the fleeing Regulators (This is a darkside choice).
Now maybe it's just because I've spent entirely too much of my life immersed in military history; but why on earth are these Lightside/Darkside choices to begin with? Unless there's information they just aren't telling us (but expecting us to know somehow), the smart strategy in this situation is to pursue the enemy, try to cut off as many retreating Regulators as possible and make them surrender. I chose the Lightside option as I don't want many DS points on my Jedi, but... nearly as weird as the Medicine quest at Fort Garnik (which to this day I do not like.)SpoilerMy guess is that the "pursue them" option wasn't being couched in terms of "...and make them surrender." Shooting fleeing enemies in the back is generally considered a Dark Side thing to do.
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2013-07-26, 12:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
On LS/DS Makeb(Pubside):
SpoilerI think the issue is that you're talking to a bunch of raggedy, half-trained militia who are already barely holding it together, so ordering them to pursue the mercs is going to get a bunch of them killed (probably for little or no gain, but I don't think that's why it gets DS points). Also - and it's been a while, so this may not be correct - wasn't it less "pursue/don't pursue" and more "I'll follow up/You guys follow up"?
I completely agree on the Fort Garnik Medicine Quest, though. It's clear enough what they were trying to do there, but the execution was so bad that - when you think about it for just a minute - they actually managed to say the opposite of what they meant. (Based on the information provided, returning the drugs to the doctor is effectively the same as handing them right back to the Separatists. Because she might not actually be a Separatist agent... but she probably is.)_______________________________________________
"When Boba Fett told Darth Vader, "As you wish," what he meant was, "I love you.""
Phil the Piratical Platypus avatar by Serpentine
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2013-07-26, 03:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2008
Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
@Sith Happens -
Sadly yes, for the Republic at least, they sometimes mention "A jedi!" or call me "Master Jedi" - but other times it's just "The Republic!" or "Republic Forces!"
Which leaves me and Kira looking around going "Who are these 'forces' they keep talking about?!"
Sadly that patch note is wrong as well - as of yesterday, getting into a fight with a group that had hostile civilians in it would cause those civilians to cower in terror... and if you moved away? They'd FOLLOW you to cower in terror. On the upside, they don't go hostile to you on their own, only if you attack the group they're a part of. Unfortunately they're part of groups with armed mercenaries trying to shoot you most of the time, so it doesn't help.
As for the Flirt option -Spoileras a female character, the majority of flirt options I've pursued have been well received by their targets. Really it bothers me less that she doesn't seem interested than that it's the ONLY female-female option available at present, so if you were hoping for a female-female romance on Makeb... yeah it isn't even close, unless something radically changes between now and when I finish.
>.> They really should just make Kira bi though. I likes Kira entirely too much. (Though knowing my luck since I've finished all her conversations even if they did that they wouldn't let me romance her <x,x> le sigh.)
As for theSpoilerDig In/Retreat option - the text is really unclear since all it says is seriously just "Dig in/Pursue" and that's it. Now maybe if I click on Pursue it says something really darkside like "Kill them all!" - it wouldn't be the first time that a seemingly innocuous word or phrase hid the crazy aggro option... but from a simple military strategy POV it's poorly written.
Generally when you turn the tables on an enemy and gain the momentum, you want to KEEP that momentum rather than let the enemy rearm and recover.
@Philistine -
That's not really how it's laid out at all I'm afraidSpoilerIt really is an option specifically between digging in and pursuing - there's no "me" involved as I'm assumed to be going to take care of other problems either way.
Ultimately I don't hate Makeb or anything, it just has a lot of little irritations.
One thing I do like though: Unlike every other planet I've been on, I actually feel like I make good money on Makeb. It's the only thing that's kept me in the black while building purple level 66 mods and armorings for myself.Computer is back! Yay!
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2013-07-26, 05:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
I'm afraid my memory matches Philistine's. The unstated-but-the-game-expects-you-to-realize-it problem with "pursue them" is that the Regulators outnumber and outgun your militia; it's Dark Side because you're saying, "Go and get killed for whatever damage you might do to my enemies first," whereas the other option is Light Side because you're saying, "Stay here and let me handle the Regulators."
Not by class, just by side. In other words, on the Imperial side, the way you're treated makes sense if you're a Sith. If you're a bounty hunter, on the other hand, the way people treat you starts out really weird and only gets weirder, and I can't imagine it's much better if you're an Agent. On the Republic side, the default expectation appears to be that you're a trooper, with a few lines that specifically mention your class or personal story changed...but it still largely treats you like the leader of Havoc Squad no matter who you are.
There are [Flirt] options that aren't like that?Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2013-07-26, 10:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
That would be the two of you. In case you haven't noticed, at this point "send in the PCs" is more or less the strategic equivalent of "send the entire rest of our military."
You should feel proud.
as a female character, the majority of flirt options I've pursued have been well received by their targets.
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2013-07-28, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
Lol "Apprentice Zoning" amuses me greatly.
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I finally finished Makeb - well the Republic version at least. A few more thoughts on it (warning,. more complaining):
Spoiler
So first of all - the last boss fight is... crap, imo. The idea behind it is nice, but it's not "hard" it's just mean. The boss has a nasty instakill attack that's very difficult to avoid - but very easy to deal with if you have a companion tank him because the instakill doesn't affect companions at all.
I should add that said instakill cannot be interrupted. Someone who hasn't read spoilers about this fight is just about guaranteed to die at least once on this fight because of that instakill stupidity - I mean who expects A) A mob to have an instant kill ability, B) that ability to be uninterruptable, C) that ability NOT to affect companions? I'm sorry but that's not a satisfying or difficult boss fight, that's just bad design.
Story related complaints:
I'm starting to genuinely hate Supreme Chancellor Saresh. I realize the Republic isn't the "good" faction; and that's fine, but when you get to the last conversation of the Makeb arc, she's being terrible to a guy who's planet just exploded* because the Republic needed Makeb's resources.
Now I can understand being disappointed with the outcome of the situation - go in expecting new allies and resources, come out with millions of refugees. That's not optimal no... but you'd think a head of state would be a little more diplomatic or at least wait until the dust cleared before being an ass about it.
Strangely, immediately AFTER I suggest doing the right thing and finding them a new planet, suddenly Surresh is talking about Makeb as some great victory. What? You just got done being very cross with me for bringing back a bunch of refugees rather than bringing a new planet into the Republic. Make up your mind dammit!
Oh yeah, and in said last conversation she just refers to me generically as "her operative". <x.x> I mean come on, you couldn't spare a few extra lines of dialogue for the final conversation?!
Finally - Maybe it's just me but the whole set up for the weekly series on Makeb irritates me. We have an entire storyline building tension telling us "MAKEB WILL EXPLODE" - and then we SEE it start to go up, and everyone acts like "Holy crap, Makeb exploded!"
... And then I got a holo from some guy saying "Oh wait, no it didn't, cause we needed an area to give you dailies/weeklies".
Look, I get the game-logic behind doing that, I really do - they wanted a new repeatable area, and I totally understand that - but if you're going to do that then don't tell a story about a planet being destroyed. Tell a different story. I mean crap it's not like the whole "Plant being destroyed" thing hasn't been done to death in SWTOR.**
I mean look - I actually really enjoyed the story of Makeb, I would have preferred more class story, but still, this was (for all my complaints) pretty darn good. But then that last "Oh and we needed a new daily area so no it's not going to asplode after all" thing just kinda negated everything.
I mean the last conversation I had with the Chancellor is basically "Okay, what do we do with this ark full of millions of refugees?!" - and then literally minutes after I finish that conversation I find out "Well we could wait a bit and see if it's safe, then send them back to their own planet, cause it's still there."
Instead of "the planet will explode" they could have just gone with "the planet will be effectively uninhabitable" that would explain why it still exists, why people are still down there*** instead of this "Suddenly it stabilized for no apparent reason whatsoever!" crap.
So in summary:
I liked the storyline, I liked the characters (mostly), despite the flaws in some of the level design I actually enjoyed the combat as well, and some of the new creatures and landscapes were great...
I did not like that last holo though, that was almost as annoying as the whole "It was only a dream!" kinda thing.
*Only it didn't... more on that in a sec.
**I mean crap, as a Jedi Knight I've stopped like, a dozen planet destroying catastrophes (I think three of those were on Corellia alone...), and stopped three potential GALAXY WIDE apocalypses. I'm a Jedi, not Superman folks, not every crisis has to be Death Star scale or larger. And in fact the writing actually shows that pretty darn well in other places - there's lots of great smaller scale crises you deal with; it's clear they CAN write more reasonable stuff.
***There are degrees of uninhabitable after all. It could well be for instance that Makeb is no longer suitable for large scale population because of drastic weather changes or other interference with food growth or water distribution; but that wouldn't be as much of a crisis for a much smaller population of leftover mercenaries and their slaves.
Ah well. At least now I can focus on a different character and enjoy the 1-50 experience again <. .> I'm not sure I'm going to bother doing Makeb again on a Republic character though, not until there's an expansion beyond it that requires having done it to play through anyway.Last edited by mistformsquirrl; 2013-07-28 at 12:23 PM.
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2013-07-28, 12:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
I'm normally very sympathetic to complaints about SWTOR. Unfortunately, these specific ones...not so much.
Spoiler
I should add that said instakill cannot be interrupted. Someone who hasn't read spoilers about this fight is just about guaranteed to die at least once on this fight because of that instakill stupidity - I mean who expects A) A mob to have an instant kill ability, B) that ability to be uninterruptable, C) that ability NOT to affect companions? I'm sorry but that's not a satisfying or difficult boss fight, that's just bad design.
Spoiler
You're not supposed to have your companion tank the boss.
You're supposed to move out of the way of the ability.
If you found doing so hard, much less impossible, I...uh. I don't know what to say.
Finally - Maybe it's just me but the whole set up for the weekly series on Makeb irritates me. We have an entire storyline building tension telling us "MAKEB WILL EXPLODE" - and then we SEE it start to go up, and everyone acts like "Holy crap, Makeb exploded!"
... And then I got a holo from some guy saying "Oh wait, no it didn't, cause we needed an area to give you dailies/weeklies".
I mean the last conversation I had with the Chancellor is basically "Okay, what do we do with this ark full of millions of refugees?!" - and then literally minutes after I finish that conversation I find out "Well we could wait a bit and see if it's safe, then send them back to their own planet, cause it's still there."
Not that there aren't problems with that, notably the way any players who land on Makeb are effectively going to still be "in" the first week after Makeb was evacuated years from now, the same way every player who goes to Corellia always arrives during the height of the war. But not the problem you're complaining about.
Last edited by Kish; 2013-07-28 at 12:37 PM.
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2013-07-28, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
I think you're maybe misinterpreting me a little bit here.
Spoiler1) I never said Bioware doesn't care about immersion - I said they botched it on this one. Or more specifically, two different teams working toward opposite ends combined to botch it more or less. The content team wanted a new repeatable area - the story team wanted a planet exploding; rather than one team or the other altering their plans, they combined both and left me with what feels like a big ball of meh.
I'll add that yes I figured out the Empire probably had something to do with it - figuring that out and actually understanding what happened precisely are two very different things however.
2) I admit I haven't tried playing the weekly mission yet - I didn't expect it to be anything beyond "Go beat up 20 of this guy and grab 12 of this thing, get rewards, do it again later" like most repeatable content tends to be.*
I've been playing MMOs for ages, and SWTOR since launch, I kind of expect that if it's repeatable it's going to be a "Ten bear hides" kind of quest.
Not saying that's a right assumption necessarily, apparently in this case it is not; but generally speaking very few games do repeatable content that has more than a token story to it and I didn't really have any reason to believe it'd be otherwise.
3) As far as the boss fight goes - yeah, I couldn't get out of the way. I realize that's probably how it's supposed to be done, but I absolutely could not manage that at all. The biggest thing really was I couldn't even see the ability charging until right before it fired. I'm not sure if that's a bug, something to do with my graphic settings or camera distance or what.
Regardless though, I still think instakill attacks are just poor design in the first place. There are a lot of other boss mechanics that could have been utilized that would have been more interesting; instead it just spams AOE slow missiles and instadeath beams. *shrug* I didn't like that at all.Last edited by mistformsquirrl; 2013-07-28 at 12:59 PM.
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2013-07-28, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
Spoiler
A difference that makes no difference...
To be plain, you're supposed to be--as someone who has only played through the Republic side--uncomprehending of why Makeb wasn't destroyed. That is very much baked into the story; if you had played both halves of the story instead of just one, that would be clear. As it is, you've made an (incorrect) assumption about why Makeb wasn't destroyed (that there is no in-story reason). The problem is that instead of seeing a mystery and going, "That's a mystery," you're seeing a mystery and immediately screaming, "That's bad writing!" Like if you watched the first ten minutes of a Columbo episode, and spent the rest of the episode speculating unkindly about the writers' obviously-laughably-invalid reasons why the person who you had seen commit a murder hadn't been carted off to prison right after the introduction.Last edited by Kish; 2013-07-28 at 01:28 PM.
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2013-07-28, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
SpoilerMaybe it's just me, but it didn't feel like a mystery being set up to be solved at all - it felt like a handwave to justify a daily area.
A further refinement of my thought on the matter is basically this: It's not so much what they said; it's how they said it. The holo doesn't set up a mystery to be solved. In fact it rather implies the mystery isn't important - the entire focus is on getting the survivors off the surface - people they thought were already dead to begin with.
There's no sense of "Let's get to the bottom of this" - not even implied; just a flat "We have work to do" kind of thing. Morally that's the correct response, but in terms of storytelling it's not really that great a way to do it.
I mean let me put it from this angle: When you set up a mystery, it's the start of a story, not the end. That doesn't mean a mystery can't exist at the end of one story - but a mystery must necessarily lead to a story (either this or a subsequent one) if it's to be answered.*
Basically, this felt like an instant retcon of the impetus of the previous story, not the setting up of a follow on story.
Keep in mind, this isn't the first ten minutes of an hour long episode - this is the final 20 seconds of the story (or at least, at that point appears to be) - this is kind of like watching a film and seeing the survivors finish off the monster... only to be ambushed or menaced by it in some footage after the credits.
Finally - and I admit it was a bad assumption on my part, but again I really did figure "repeatable content = no story" - because that's how it works in the vast majority of MMOs. I'm not saying it's bad the subvert that - actually that's wonderful; but I don't think it's hard to understand why I'd feel that way.
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At any rate, this isn't an argument we need to be having, I said my piece and that's all I wanted to do. I did overall like the story quite a bit - I don't think Makeb was bad or anything; I just had some issues with it that I didn't have with my class story from 1-50.
*Now it's true in some stories, mysteries are presented and left unanswered; and that can be just fine - but these are often moral questions or questions of motivation or other things where one can reasonably ponder and argue "Why this?" - not inexplicably undoing the entire focus of the previous story.Last edited by mistformsquirrl; 2013-07-28 at 01:55 PM.
Computer is back! Yay!
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2013-07-28, 05:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
Spoiler
...Or, you know, a parallel one?
But I already told you that the reason for Makeb's lack of destruction is the Imperial-side story. And you're going right on telling me that, no, it really is a handwave to justify a daily area. So...we can, I think, agree on one thing: this "debate" is pointless.
(Setting aside the fact that you're flatly asserting that part of what you're sent back to Makeb to do as a Republic-side character isn't there, "not even implied." Yes, I get it, you feel justified in tuning out all story when you smell daily quests, because of previous experience with "MMOs." That doesn't make your assertions right.)Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2013-07-29, 05:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic II: Hutts don't have feet!
Makeb weekly:
SpoilerThe funny part is, the story behind the Empire Makeb weekly is basically, "Make sure the Republic doesn't put two and two together while doing their weekly."