Creature Handler Archive

After getting over the shock of CH being cut from the NGE... and that since my account doesn't run out until December, I decided to log in my CH toon to do one last photo shoot with the pets.

After getting a handful of screenshots, I took my pets out hunting and I was hooked again playing much longer than I intended to! So going against what I thought would be a useless gesture, I picked up a couple lvl.10s from my favorite BE and went out hunting with them. I'm not a MCH yet (3 more boxes :smileysad but don't have the time to grind to MCH in the time left. So I am taking them out hunting everyday until the end... doing what I keptme playing SWG.

There's no pressure to make it to MCH,no oneto impress by spending hours looking for rares (right now EVERYTHING seems rare!) but just enjoying my remaining time with my pets. There may never be another game like the old SWG again and I may not renew after December 5th, so I am making the best of it for now.

Creature handling IS an intregal part of Star Wars and CH is the most unique pet system I've seen in any video game. It's a shame that SOE is letting it go. Maybe if we're lucky somone will one day make a dedicated CH game akin to SWG for all pet loving/video game enthusiasts!

I went through my datapad and showed off all my pets and their tricks to my mom, who doesn't know a thing about SWG and she was entranced. It was fun to tell her all about how I got each one and decided on names and some of the stuff we have been through. My Graul Mauler Chong, my Rancors Pride and Jawbreaker, and my Narglatch Cornelius especially. My only regret was that I couldn't show off my BE'd Durni who got transformed into a 200+ level creature when I pushed the wrong button post-CU. That Durni was sick.

I will make some hard choices about which pets to delete and which to keep. Chong, Pride and Cornelius will probably stay for nostalgia. Everyone else will be replaced with level 10s, if I can find them in time. Though saying goodbye to some of the others... my rares especially... will be very hard.

My greatest respect to all you Creature Handlers out there. It has been a wild two years. /salute

I just released all but one of my non-reward-type pets, in a very unique fashion:

Since I'm no longer a Creature Handler (having given it up last spring in deferenceto both my nascent Jedi career and my frustrations with the Great CU Disaster), I had to team up with a Master Creature Handler to help me access my companions one last time. Fittingly, the CH who helped me was Slitherin, from BEAST/Bria.

The scene was a rolling, wildflower-dappled section of open space on the plains of Dantooine, with a random-spawn NPC camp just beyond the brow of a nearby knoll. One by one, I traded them to Slitherin, and had her summon them from her own datapad and ordered them to 'befriend' me. I was then able to command them once again. I asked the pets to follow me, and they came obediently, and seemed to nuzzle my hand one last time. I then ordered each of them to do their tricks one last time -- especially my cats, alternately rearing on their forepaws and hind legs as they'd done countless times. My reptilian flyer landed and did his little jig, and I did the peek-a-boo trick with both my rancor Nobs and my graul mauler, Povarotti.

And then, I targeted one of the NPCs inside the walled enclosure beyond the knoll, and ordered my pets to attack. As the pets disappeared over the hill, Slytherin destroyed their control devices in her datapad. At that point, the pets, having run joyously over the hill, would disappear from the game.

As Slitherin remarked, it was like taking your favorite hourse out behind the barn and mercifully putting it down.

The final act in this requiem was to receive my kaadu back in trade from her, after she'd given her a combat workout. I also asked her to rename my faithful mount -- the first pet I kept in this game.

The name I chose was "Hope."