One month later, still have my sub to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Still working on leveling to 50. Still having a ball.
I’ve been meaning to save some of the specific content for levelcap. Mostly stuff not related to leveling like crafting, companion-management, and of course, the big one — datacron hunting. That and filling out my codex was something I’d anticipated doing at level 50, as it seems like it’ll be the most time-consuming goal on my SWTOR to-do list.
Of course, it didn’t work out that way. For the last two weekends, Republic Mercy Corps has been organizing datacron hunting tours. Curse my guild for being so fun and social. My fellow guildies can be so inconsiderate sometimes with their involvement and helpfulness.
The exercise is definitely an opportunity to foster communication and cooperation for any guild. It’s just like a corporate workplace team-building outing, except it’s fun and you don’t get the urge to kill yourself during and afterward. Admittedly, hunting for datacrons with close to twenty other people is infinitely more enjoyable than doing it by yourself (especially when clumsy-footed old me is always requiring rescue from Jedi Sages whenever I fail a jump or fall off some ledge).
The addition of datacrons is probably one of the better decisions BioWare has made in this regard. Whether you choose to hunt for the elusive shiny little cubes alone or with a group, it’s something I applaud because it’s an activity you can do anytime, even at endgame, that doesn’t involve grinding instances and repeating dailies to a disgusting and ridiculous degree.
The reason leveling has always been my favorite part of playing any MMO is simply because in most themepark-type games the first time through from 1 to levelcap is a process you can experience only once (for the sake of the argument, I’m ignoring my time beta). For example, I always remember the awe and wonder of stepping into a new zone for the first time, as subsequent visits will never be the same again. The other reason I like to take it nice and slow is because I never expect a new game’s endgame to be robust and I don’t usually see a pressing reason to get there until at least after the first big update. And speaking of updates, as much as I like doing flashpoints and am looking forward to doing ops, I wouldn’t mind if the future encompasses more than just instances and raids — say, stuff like datacrons and more content of that nature. With a good mix, I think I could be very happy.