Beta, day one

The new combat upgrade system (officially "beta", which is surprising considering that Alpha never actually started - and it has to launch by May 5th!) downloaded smoothly, albeit a huge patch. Logging in was a challenge, it took around 10 attempts before I was able to create Elizabeth, my psychotic weapons testing chick on the new, shiny TC5.

I started out by getting my keymap back, and a quick look around. All the skills had nice, full-colour icons - mostly very slick in design (a few people complain about "cartoony" icons; given that we have speech bubbles over our heads when we talk, this doesn't strike me as valid! It's like being in a Dark Horse SW comic, and I like those!). For some reason, even though I select Marksman as my profession, I had all of the novice professions - which is fine, it saved me from picking up the ones I wanted. I also had 75k cash, a flash speeder, CDEF rifle, carbine and pistol, a knife, a melon (that I couldn't eat! Eating is bugged!), and some Artisan stuff. Examining items showed a nice touch: all weapons now include an approximate damage-per-second stat. My stats were all 1,000 - the new starting default. An icon indicated that I was level 1. SWG has always had levels, it has just never told you what level you are before.

I take the plunge, and fly to Mos Eisley. There were HUNDREDS of people there! I've never seen anything like it, and amazingly enough I was getting 10fps with a few hundred people onscreen at once. Quite a feat. Also, VERY little lag. So far, so good. I equip my CDEF pistol, and set out to gain Pistols 1 on the Marksman tree. Its been ages since I did that! I immediately noticed an icon under my name, the tooltip explained that my movement speed was reduced because I had a ranged weapon in my hand. Interesting - melee types will be hard to kite now! I rush out, start targeting critters, and notice that there is a new Con (/consider) colour: purple. Purple means "you will die before you finish selecting your attack", as far as I can tell. It was wierd, Nunas, Worrts, and Gorg were all purple to me. They all showed their level, too - they were level 4+. I found a Kreetle (level 1, white con) and attacked. Once. Oops, no auto attack! So I spammed the attack key, and it died. I gained 40xp. Hmm, 224 more Kreetles to Pistols 1! That seemed like a lot, so I target a yellow-con rockmite. Blat, blat - it's health went down a bit. Crunch, it hit me for 500. Crunch, I was incapacitated. Owie. 4 seconds later, I'm back on my feet, and discover that novice medics can heal damage without stimpacks now. Handy, but could hurt the economy. The horde is now surging out of Mos Eisley, attacking everything that moves - so I mount my flash speeder and drive to Anchorhead, where I'm almost alone with the monsters. Lots of zapping later, and I discover that I can take any white con with ease, a yellow con with caution, and a dark orange con if I use tactics. Line-of-sight works now, so you can creep up on melee types, stand on a hill (which will take them ages to climb), and snipe at them. 1 hour later, I gain Pistols 1. I switch to my trusty CDEF Carbine, and start murdering Bothan Rebels and Mynocks. A little under an hour later, I've mastered Carbines 1. This is going well; the line-of-sight system makes combat very tactical (although it's kinda hard to gauge LOS perfectly in 3rd person view). I return to Mos Eisley, train, and come back out - determined to hit Pistols 2, Ranged Support 1 and Exploration 1 (starting on my Bounty Hunter prerequesites) before bed.

One really nice thing struck me. I was now level 2, I had 50 more hitpoints, and 50 more pool-points for specials. I had pistol-whip, and could knock-down/stun/dizzy anything foolish enough to try and come at me in melee. It was nice that there was an immediate feeling of improvement from gaining one box. SWG always lacked that, and if they can keep it a smooth advancement up the trees, I'm all in favour of it. It took between 2 and 3 hours of shooting things to gain Pistols 2. The game was smooth for a beta, and I really enjoyed myself. I trained Pistols 2, and was now 3rd level. 25 more hitpoints, and a D-18 Pistol certification. I picked up a D-18, and went to try it out. Aha! This rockmite looks like the one who ate me earlier, and he's only orange now. Blat, blat blat - he's dead! Woot. Another jump in effectiveness.

Overall

I really think the Combat Upgrade has potential. There are a lot of people whining, and I do think that they should ban leet doods from betas; they bitch, whine, and make the public chat channel painful.
Mood: accomplished
Music: None