Hello All,
I have not played this game since 2012. I decided to subscribe for a month to see what content had been released. Honestly, I caught the trailer of KoTFE somewhere and thats what made me want to check it out. I had lamented Biowares decision to move away from Class stories as I thought they held some of the best storytelling in an MMO. SO I was disappointed to see that KoTFE continued this trend, disappointed but not surprised.
Right off the bat, I have to say, this expansion was awesome to play through! I have been reading these forums from time to time and I know that a lot of people disliked the move away from Empire vs Republic but I wasnt one of them.
I thought this was a great story filled with great characters. I went from hating Arcann to rooting for him, man what a great character! I went from liking Valkorian' mystique to enjoying his defeat. Both of these voice actors were top notch and they were just written really well. Senya was nuanced and well voice acted. Koth was a bit of a mary sue but he had his place. Vaylin annoyed me. She was really the only character that I thought was 2 dimensional. Evil for evil's sake.
Overall, the story was really good. I felt like it was a homage to the old Star Wars stories that Disney scrapped where a third faction shows up and is stronger than the Empire and Republic combined. it took me at least 24 hours of gaming to finish it and I consider it time well spent. I'm a little sad that the story has now gone back to generic Empire vs. Republic and Zakuul and the alliance are pretty much swept under the rug.
The "boss fights" were a welcome change to SoR where you had to do a flashpoint for the story. Even if you could solo them, they took a long time and that annoyed me. In KoTFE, they have "mechanics" and I even died a couple of times.
If there was one thing that I thought was "wrong" it would have to be that the expansion must make zero sense as a non force user. The whole story leaned heavy on the force and force users, which to me, I didnt mind cause I think the force is whats interesting about star wars. I cant imagine taking an Imperial Agent or a republic trooper through that story... : / ... Like shooting Arcann with a las pistol? Thats not gonna do much. This is where Class stories come back into play. Class stories made all the classes seem interesting because they were doing their own part of the story. I'm rambling now, but yes, I think this expansion was great from a story aspect and if it had just stood alone as its own game like KoTR xxx then I believe it would be one of the best games I'd ever played.