I just recently had a chance to start playing the game again after my 'vacation' from it (I had problems patching for about three weeks) and in that time I decided to write up a summary of my time playing the game. Initially I wasn't going to share, I'm afraid I'm generally the quiet guy, but I figured I might as well share before I logged in and started queing up for war zones.
(X) Warning, the following is very long, and if you do read it I hope you had half as much fun reading as I did writing it (X)
I guess it started about three weeks or so before the game launched. I was heading up a guild in LOTRO. We
were actually a really small guild there; having right at eight members, family and friends I'd met elsewhere. I had
been playing LOTRO for about six or so months at that time, and my interest in the game was starting to wane as
people I played with left.
It was time to move on. And, in guild chat one day, a guildee was talking about Star Wars: Galaxy’s being shut
down when Star Wars: the old republic came online. I'll admit, I'm fairly new to mmo's, been playing since late
2010, when a girl i know asked me to play DDO with her (I know, there are no girls on the internet, so it's a good
thing she asked me irl ) so this was the first time I heard about either of those games.
A quick Google search later I found swtor.com, and I was almost instantly obsessed. I grew up with star wars, my
dad used to watch it all the time when I was little and I've been playing every star wars game I could get my hands
on ever since.
And then to have star wars coupled with an MMO, my newest infatuation, made me quite annoying to the people
that had to deal with me talking about it, constantly for the subsequent weeks.
I really must have been annoying, because a couple of my 'mates agreed to play it to. So the day the game
launched we started on the same server, which is a ghost town now. (Last time I logged into it there were maybe
a couple people on fleet) We formed a guild and quickly went about the business of recruiting.
I've been a guild leader off and on almost since I started MMO's in DDO. I know I'm young, but I can't help but look
back at those first few experiences like the golden days I played the cleric, had a wizard pale master, a duel
wielding ranger two monks and a paladin were the people I played with the most, we were by no means the best, but we had a blast playing together
But I'm getting off track.
Our recruitment was handled by playing the game with possible recruits and events. We had events, like speeder races and bounty hunting, to attract new members and keep our people engaged.
The guild grew very big, very quickly. As we experienced growing pains our leadership at the time took a vote, and
we decided to promote some officers very quickly to help maintain and manage the guild. Personally it wasn't my
style, but it was the popular idea amongst my officers, so with the vote I talked to about a dozen people over a
couple days and promoted almost that many.
Now while the guild was growing, we were leveling and enjoying the game at the same time. I remember fondly
exploring coruscant the first time, finally getting my ship and Tatoonie, while i was leveling, we organized a part of
level 25-27's and fought the empire, hard, in their territory.
I never did do a lot of the heroics, I generally out leveled them, but the heroics were fun, and questing with the
guild was rather enjoyable. When we got bored of something, we made something to do. Had an event, looked for
people to fight, warzones.
I played a full on balance sage, even though at the time the hybrid spec was so much better balance just felt right,
and I played healer when we would group together.
Honestly the first guild had a great feeling; it was an amazing ride to level fifty. But fifty is where we had some
problems. There were a lot of members, and about twenty or so leaders (I can't remember the exact number, but
twenty is about right)
One of my officers was a very charismatic person, he was one of the people who I promoted early on and I
remember him as being very ambitious. I'll spare everyone the boring details of guild drama/politics; he basically
defaced my name by telling people things about me which were not true.
In the end the guild split, bad. Most of the members either went with him or quit the guild altogether.
I stayed with the remaining members for a while, but I left in the end myself. My name, in the eyes of my guild
mates at least, was tarnished. At the time there wasn't anything other than my word to refute my former officer, so I
quietly left the guild.
Back then Ilum was a contender. Laggy? yes. Zergy? yes. Fun when everything worked right? yes. It's where i
spent a lot of time, playing a healing specced sage.
I became a half way decent hunter there, picking up people who were separated from a group or that weren't
paying attention. I'd get my kill, and then run away before reinforcements arrived. Of course sometimes people
managed to catch up to me, or track me down, but most of the time I did alright.
One day I was taking on a sorc there, I wore his bubble down dotted him up and healed through his damage as I
los'ed him. It would have been an easy fight, I'm an average pvp player but this guy was worse than I was at the
time, but his backup came faster than I could kill him. A pair of marauders came charging to help their friend (or
maybe to gank my sorry behind, I've never quite been sure which)
I did what I do best, I ran away, very quickly. And they did what their good at, leaped what felt like half a mile
through the air and stun my sorry behind. I bubble up and drop my aoe heal, calculating how long i can last before
they either kill me or i run oom, and then die.
At this time I heard a sound I can scarcely forget, a smugglers charged burst fired from long range. A smuggler
had rolled into cover nearby and was waylaying into the marauders. I don't think they realized it until the first one
fell. The other disengaged me and tried to run, when i took the chance to stun and dot him. Between me, throwing
rocks and pebbles, and the smuggler, who was honestly the one doing what felt like any real damage, the guy
dropped and the sorc got away.
The smugglers name was Oliver, and after getting jovially jibed about being ganged up on he became someone I
hung out with in game. After a while, i suppose you could say I considered him a friend, a partner in crime so to
say. He hunted with me, and we worked pretty well together.
From there things slowly got better; I'd like to think better for everyone who got involved.
We were pugging a warzone, hutball, and it was a hard game. We were down 3-0 with the game half over, a
couple people left leaving us shorthanded against a premade. This Jedi Shadow drops in, Sylvia is what her
name was if memory serves, and immediately asks who the healer is. I respond, and she guards me through the
match.
We didn't win, but I’ll be a dog if it wasn't close, 4-5. I saw Sylvia in a several warzones after that, and eventually
invited her to group with me and Oliver.
Things worked really well for a while after that. pvp was very enjoyable, both illum and warzones. We were by no
means the best, but we decided to strive to get better and to help make our server (which was down to standard) the best place we could.
Which was how we met tommis. Some empire fifties were harassing people out in tatoonie, shutting down the
med station and the outpost there. Me, Oliver, Sylvia and Tommis were the only level fifty's to respond.
It was a long fight; these guys not only outnumbered us but knew how to play. In the end I think they became more
bored fighting us then driven off by us. But it was fun, we fought hard and even managed to distract the imp's long
enough for some lowbies to get through.
Tommis ran with our group off and on for a while after that, eventually joining us outright. The question was
formed one day when we were doing daily's, should we form a guild or not?
In the end, we made a guild. And what a guild at our largest we were about two dozen members, which was a
comfy number to lead. It was one of my first experiences being part of a real rp guild (i was the second in
command under Sylvia, in charge of pvp strategy)
I have to admit when we started rping I was horrible at it. But I got alright at it, I played an average Jedi.
It was good for a long time, the server dwindled from standard, eventually to light, and the guild went from a
couple dozen to eight or ten. But that was fine; our group kept rolling on, the four members that founded it stayed,
right up until the guild finally disbanded.
Some things happened, I guess you could say some drama going on in our individual personal lives, and Sylvia
was gone, Oliver left after that. The guild dwindled down even further, as people quit or rerolled to higher pop
servers, Tommis was the last to go, and it was just me, the last man in the guild.
I took a break from the game after that, started playing Dagorhir, writing a novel, and of course I was almost 2/3rds
of my way through my first semester at college. I came back to the game a couple weeks before 1.2 went live. I
rolled a trooper commando and a trooper vanguard, on the server Jung Ma.
I had a blast, leveling up through warzones. I got my commando to twenty, my vanguard to eleven, when 1.2 hit. I
had a chance to get used to the new changes, and the next patch didn't install right.
It took me just at three weeks to get the game back to working, so I took the chance to write up some of the things
I did with my guild, to share with a couple of friends who are curious about my time in the game. And now I'm
posting it here before I get in game and start on my wz daily.
The games not perfect, I still remember playing those first few weeks, praying the ability would fire on time. But
I've had a good time. I met some people that I'll remember for a long time, I've gotten some valuable experience in
leadership and I have to say I enjoy the gameplay very much.
Now I've landed on Jung Ma, I can't say where the next chapter of my swtor journey will take me. But I'm eager to
find out.
TL;DR
I've had a lot of fun playing the game. Thing's haven't been easy, and things haven't been perfect, but I accomplished what I set out to do, have fun and meet some interesting people. To do that I lead a guild, was a founding officer in another and wound up playing with a group of people I've grown to be proud of.
/sign: I plan on being here for a very long time OP ^^