Choose My Adventure: No soup for you!

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of posts and galleries here on the site. Then, as our two months are up, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Welcome to yet another week in Star Wars Galaxies -- an MMO that is very rapidly teaching me that there's a lot more going on below the surface than I'd ever really considered. Sure, there's combat, and all the great creatures, locations, and stories one would expect from a game set in Star Wars' storyline. But as I'm learning the more I play, there are some interesting systems that offer more than one might expect at first glimpse.

Curious as to what this week was like, and what new things I learned? Join me behind the break as I tell you all about my most recent adventures. Be ready vets for this week's request, wherein I solicit some unique homework from you! Also, as before, I've gathered up some screenshots from this week's adventure and tucked them into the gallery below for your enjoyment.
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You know, one of the things that struck me when I started this adventure was how many people said that the legacy quest line was boring. Now, if you've done it about 30 bazillion times, I can see where it would get that way -- almost anything is when you do it that much and that often. However, in the last few weeks, I've really come to appreciate that quest arc for sheer enjoyment.

I'm not saying that every quest is a miniature nugget of Dickensian joy. After all, it's obvious that whoever designed them erred towards the 'shorter is sweeter' rule of thumb -- honestly, a wise thing to do in an MMO. Nonetheless, the missions have done a great job of not only keeping me interested in the world, but keeping me interested enough to keep moving forward -- to see what's next. The quests also haven't dropped me coldly out of the immersion, nor been so repetitive that I've stopped to think, "Wow, this is boring and grindy." Mind you, I'm still killing things, delivering things, and the like. The regular methodologies are all intact. However, the story in Star Wars Galaxies moves along smoothly and offers enough variance that -- at least in my current playthrough -- I haven't hit any major patches of skull-numbing boredom.

This is a "Good Thing."™ About the only "complaint" I have (note the deliberate use of air-quotes) is that the world is frelling large. With that said, expecting it to be small would probably break the immersion too, so I don't see that as much of a negative. I just wish I could get better radio stations in my landspeeder, is all.

I wish I could say that the terminal missions were equally engaging. These are optional side missions that players can pick up for extra experience and a bit of cash. The main problem I've had with them -- aside from initially picking up missions from the explorer's terminal and having no idea where to go -- is the fact that they are relatively samey. On the generic terminal, you have the option of "destroy" (kill quests) or "deliver" (fed-ex) missions to do, but compared to the legacy storyline, it seems anemic at best. Still, extra experience doesn't hurt, but I do find myself looking for ones compatible with my legacy objectives rather than just scooping a couple of them up as they come to me and zooming out to achieve them.

I'd also be remiss if I were to skip mentioning the third option, which I've only started scratching the surface of this week: Chronicles! For those who aren't familiar, each mob has a chance to drop either a chronicle relic, or a certain number of relic fragments, which pile up in your inventory. (I admit, originally I had zero idea what they were, expecting the items themselves to give me quests as other MMOs do.) After a bit of curious clicking around, Mo'ag and I found ourselves knee-deep in the Chronicle creation system. About an hour later, I had my very first player-created quest, named for a quest Mo'ag and I had thought was funny in the tutorial:

Sadly, what neither of us realized at the time is that along with the freedom to create all manner of quests and write stories for them, you also have the ability to create quests that are well above the level of the person you'd planned to give them to. As such, my lovingly crafted mission "I love delicious noodle soup!" must wait in my safety deposit box until I hit level 30, I'm afraid. Someday, Mo'ag, I shall indeed fetch your soup, made with the arms of many Tuskens.

Still, learning curve and lack of immediately obvious early tutorial aside, there's a lot to be said for offering a system that gives players the ability to use fragments they find to build quests as a method of creating even more immersion via storytelling. It's fun to tell your stories to other gamers you know, but I personally think that the idea of writing your character into story missions for others to read, follow, and enjoy is pretty cool. Ultimately, there's a lot more to learn on this system, so I've no doubt I'll continue noodling around with it.

Beyond that, this week involved stumbling into rows upon rows of player housing. I saw everything from basic mud huts on up to dark, monolithic houses that were well protected.

While out sightseeing, I even popped by a homestead that you may recognize if you're at all acquainted with Star Wars.

For all the variety I saw while out poking around in the handful of homes that didn't automatically teleport me outside, or attempt to charge me a great deal of money to get in, I know -- much like the Chronicles setup -- that I've only scratched the barest surface. As such, since there's very little to direct in terms of questing, this week's request for Choose my Adventure is for those who have played Star Wars Galaxies to show off their skills! How? Well, ideally, I'd love to see some people's in-game houses. If you'd like to participate, you can leave a comment here with a link to a gallery of images or email screenshots and info to me directly at krystalle@massively.com. I will compile them into a gallery to share with our readers here on Massively next week, as a way of highlighting some of the really cool things people can do with houses since I know it can take years to gather up items and get your house set up just right.

Also, if anyone has some great resources, tips, or tricks for someone just beginning to get started on housing, that would be appreciated too! As I said at the beginning, the more I look deeper into Star Wars Galaxies, the more I'm finding to do -- which is a great thing in my book.