I’m suffering from a wealth of riches where my online gaming experiences are concerned, but the choices are too rich for me to handle. I really want to spend more time playing Defiance, especially to see how the game and the T.V. series come together with its premier. I have got to make some time for it this weekend, but I have this wonderfully new and shiny content of SWTOR’s planet Makeb pulling me away from any other leisure time activities. Sadly, my poor Rift character languishes and my dimension building is on hold for now.

Oooh Ha! Ha Haaaa! Envy my portable Hutt teacher

Makeb is really well done, well worth the cost of my pre-order, especially with the early access time and my lovely Hutt holo-trainer. My main complaint is that it will be over with far too soon. The flow of the quests and the experience of gaining these new five levels is so smooth. For those who gobble up content too quickly, it is almost too smooth, but it is clear that the game has taken game design improvements to heart. I feel that sense of excitement and wonder that I had when I first started playing Old Republic. I’m trying to pace myself, I’ve only touched the initial quests Empire side and I’m only half-way through Republic side, but it is hard not to keep playing and staying up late. I have yet to even try out the new mini-games they’ve added with the seeker droids and Shroud content, but I will try it out once I get to 55 on my Consular.

Happily, we have two very different story experiences we can have on the planet. I won’t spoil it, but you really need to play both a Republic and an Empire character through the planet to see how different your entry to the world and the story arc is between the two sides of the war.

Can you say Ubiquitous vendor trash…

I would say my only dissatisfaction is with the crafting side of the expansion. Maybe it is worthwhile to people who really love building different looking mod-able gear, but I’m much more practical in my crafting needs. I want gear I can build to help me with entry into Operations, not cosmetic gear that does nothing but look pretty. With the cartel market, even augmented gear and some of the cool looking cosmetic gear just doesn’t earn back my credit investments. So far I’m very disappointed with how much time and credits I’ve invested in my crafting and the lack of tangible benefit to having invested them.

I suppose that is my feeling about crafting in general though, not just in the expansion. My advice to you, sell your 450 crew skill missions for any of the gathering skills on the GTN. The credit cost and time your companion is away on the mission is not worth the materials returned by those. You can gather the same number of materials in a fraction of the time just wandering around the initial zones.

Kudos to the writing and design team at Bioware on this one. They’ve done a fantastic job with the visuals and the ambiance. Companions have new dialogue and HK is much more interactive now. I feel sad for the people who didn’t pre-order soon enough or at all. Many in our guild want to run the old content but have no takers, as those of us seeing the new world are far too engrossed.