Bounty Hunter Archive

Taking into consideration the fact that {most} jedi missions will take from 30 mins to as long as 3 days to complete, in which time I may have accomplished anywhere from 2-60 NPC missions, I'm not going to lie and say that I kill jedi for the money. Even if my mark is a full template with a 226k payout, in the time it takes to bring him down, I can make about 1.8 million (30k per mission x 60 missions) PLUS the resale value of whatever I may loot during that same three days. Even before publish 22 and the nifty new loot, this formula held true--even when my other option was just running faction missions for 10k each. Actually, if you really want to rake in some nice cash, head up to Deep Space with plenty of room for loot. At the very least, you can sell the loot to the chassis dealer in your favorite starport for 1k per level. At best, you may find a shipwright who is willing to pay up to 3k per level for every un-RE'd piece of space junk you bring in! Plus, of course, you loot credit chips as well. Also, you could even go overt, rake up the FP and sell that for 100 creds a point!

So, now that I've completely nullified any chance of my being able to talk myself out of a situation where a ticked-off jedi is sending hate tells and taking it personally by telling him "It's only business", let me tell you why I do hunt Jedi:

1. It's FUN! Nothing like a rousing game of "cat-and-mouse" to get the mind's juices flowin'! I love trying to figure out what my mark is doing or what his/her next move is going to be simply by watching how much they're moving, how quickly, and in which directions. I love trying to guess where he/she is going to be within the next few minutes so I can try to head them off there and be waiting with my bomb droid out, and boy, is it GREAT when a plan comes together! For that matter, it's tons of fun even if the plan doesn't come together, too! If I misstep or my mark's friends tip him off while he's on his way to "x" starport and they start running the other way, I need to think quickly to try to adjust for the new circumstances, and I love that!

2. As someone mentioned above: One-on-one PVP. I love PVP. That's the reason I play this game and not the "ROTS" game for PS2. But PVP has become pretty much "30 jedi and that one noob with a gun" When I take a Jedi's mission and track him down and catch up to him, I know that even though he may have some dirty trick up his sleeve, It's going to be a one-on-one fight. Skill against skill alone. Lots of jedi feel that "skill" has nothing to do with it. They feel that our "first-strike" ability is unfair and often criticize us for making the best use of it. Riddle me this, Batman: Just how easy do you think it is to sneak up on someone who has a radar with a 1km radius on which a bluedot zooming towards them stands out like asore thumb? To me, it's very similar to chess. Me=black pieces, Jedi= white pieces. The jedi knows I'm there and that I have certain moves and techniques in my arsenal. As far as I'm concerened, becomming a jedi is his/her first move; the next move is mine.

3. Now, I'm going to say this, and any jedi troll who reads this is going to drop their jaw and say "I KNEW IT! THAT NO-GOOD, STINKIN' SONUVA...!" But read the rest of this paragraph first, OK? My third reason is xp loss. NOT because I'm a vicious person. I was never the kid who pulled the wings off of flies and then burned 'em with a magnifying glass, so get that image out of your head. It's not out of jealousy. I've been "glowy" for about a year, now. If I'd wanted to be a jedi, I'd be one already.

A quick look back at what's happened with this game so far, to help you understand: Way back when the game was launched, people cried "I want to be a jedi!" The devs said "You can't be jedi. This is an MMORPG. "Jedi", as you and I think of it, would be an alpha class, and alpha classes are terrible for games like this. After all, youwouldn't want everyone to wind up being jedi, would you?" And each person that responded basically said, "No, I don't want everyone to be a jedi. Jedi should be rare. But I want to be a jedi." The devs said, "But... doesn't that seem a little hypocritical of you?" And the players said "Ummm... who's paying your salary, anyway? I want to be a jedi, so make it happen." SOE had two ways to go, here; Keep it so that no one can be a jedi, or make "jedi" an option for everyone. After some thought, they found door #3: Make "jedi" an option for everyone, BUT place responsibility for the "rarity" of jedi squarely on the backs of the player base! After all, bounty hunters wanted to be able to hunt other people, and this wasn't really something that sounded like a really great idea to the devs.Sometimes I think thatholding hands and tripping happily through the poppies on the way to the Emerald City is what the devs had in mind when they were talking about "player interaction". IF you wanted to kill each other, you could do that, too--but it would be in the spirit of the GCW. And now, here are two groups of people that kind of found their way into the game before SOE could do much: One group wanted to be an Alpha Class, and the other group wanted to get paid for hunting people. Solution? Pit these two groups against each other! Now bounty hunters have someone to hunt and the jedi profession has an "organic population control mechanism" to help to keep them "rare". Best of all, the devs can let both of these players have what they want and absolve themselves of any responsibility for the events that followed while still collecting all of their money!

I love this game. I love Star Wars, I love interracting with people, I love video games, so this game is about as close to the perfect pastime I can imagine as any game can get. BUT I love what it could be even more. It could be a lot more like what's described on the back of the box; The Star Wars Universe, set in the timeframe of just after the Battle of Yavin, where the GCW is at it's peak. The Rebels are struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy and the Imperials are trying to maintain peace in the New Order, while countless little criminal factions battle among themselves for supremecy in their own right. So many books have been written in the Extended Universe and have done well at bookstores because there are so many people who want to know silly things like Kabe and Muftak's names, and what species Bossk was, etc. This game is our chance to expand upon that "Extended Universe" by helping to make it up ourselves! By playing our characters and embarking on their adventures, WE get to BE the Extended Universe! But no. Now it's become "Grind your butt off to get your saber, grind more to complete your template, then "Pwn" everyone, pound your chest and turn the computer off. Every single experience point I take makes that B.S. a little less "worthwhile". If enough points are taken, who knows? maybe that particular padawan will give up and go play WoW or he may even stay in the game and try something else. My efforts were in vain, obviously. The servers are still crawling with jedi powergamers, and PVP has been completely taken over by them, to my dismay. But I tried. And I keep trying.

My fifth reason, and probably the one that really keeps me coming back day after day, even when I really just want to play a stormtrooper but know I can't, is my stupid little ego. I admit it; I have one. I've been working at bounty hunting for basically the same reason as Boba Fett--not for creds, not for glory, but for my reputation. For those that don't know--go read "Bounty Hunter Wars". In it, Boba's personality is explored pretty deeply and it's pointed out that that is his prime motivation too--to be known as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. As leader of BHA for the past eight months, I guess you could say that I've built up a little bit of a reputation, and to know that is really nice. It is kind of a double-edged sword, however; I've been banned from an awful lot of player cities, and it seems can't get to within two kilometers of my mark before he knows I'm around. Yet, it's still very nice when I send a tell to a jedi just to ask a question, they don't answer for 10 minutes, and then apologize for the delay, explaining that they've spent that 10 minutes running to a safe house because I sent them a tell