It would be perfectly natural for regular readers to assume that I hate

Ewoks. They're cute and cuddly and were clearly designed to appeal to

children, and their contributions to the Battle of Endor make very little

sense. If stormtrooper helmets can't protect against fist-sized rocks

dropped (not hurled - dropped) by child-sized primitives, and

super-hi-tech AT-ST walkers can be tripped and crushed by logs and crude

vines, how does the Galactic Empire manage to subjugate entire planetary

systems?

But, at the risk of losing my "grumpy" cred, I don't hate Ewoks. I

actually kinda like the little buggers. Sure they are "cutesy" but they

symbolize the pluck and temerity of the Rebel Alliance, fighting against a

tyrannical super-power with whatever crude tools are at hand. They

overcome terrifying obstacles despite glaring disadvantages. They are

anarchic and stubborn and fearless, and they wear leather hoods instead of

pants. And they decorate their stuff with skulls and vertebrae, like

proper primitive badasses.





When it was first announced that Star

Wars: The Old Republic was adding an Ewok companion to the

game with Patch 2.3: Titans of Industry,

again it would make sense for regular readers to assume that I would find

something objectionable about it. Ewoks have almost no presence in the

galaxy at large until they are encountered during the Battle of Endor, let

alone 4,000 years before that era. They got retconned into the rest of the

Expanded Universe galaxy only through ham-fisted shoehorning - for

example, the phrase "a Rodian in Ewok's clothing" being a metaphor for a

person with sinister ulterior motives. The two made-for-TV Ewok movies

were less than stellar, and the Ewoks cartoon series, while slightly more

watchable than the Droids cartoon series, somehow managed to make the

species even more of a kids-only property. Basically, pretty much all

Ewoks outside of Return of the Jedi are a sad joke.

But I was totally looking forward to having an Ewok companion for my Sith

Juggernaut, Ogregunk. I didn't even care what type of companion Treek was,

I wanted an Ewok on the Fury. And the more I read about Treek, the more I

was looking forward to adding her to my crew. I saved up my credits for a

few weeks and made sure my legacy level was up to snuff. And, shocking as

it may seem, I'm glad I did.

Treek is awesome, easily the most adaptable companion in the game to

date. Treek has a healing and a tanking stance, and delivers decent DPS in

either. She can heal a bit even while in her tank stance. Tiny tanks are

hilarious - I pull out Blizz on my Powertech from time to time despite

being tank-spec and geared, just because he's awesome. Tiny tanks who huck

beehives and use a bolo to heal their pals are 100% pure win in my book.

Not only is she freakin' adorable and way handy in combat, but she comes

with an awesome backstory. She is a thuggish mercenary contractor with a

bloodlust for the opposite faction. The droid NPC on fleet tells you of

her great victories on Balmorra, Taris and Corellia, among other places,

and plays her up as a supreme badass. The Imperial version achieves a

perfect score on the "Mekhis Aggression Index," which apparently indicates

that she is quite... aggressive. When she makes her entrance, she barges

her way through the crowd, punching one guy square in the nuts (regardless

of whether you are playing Republic or Imperial) and makes her

introduction. She tells you she can't wait to start killing the enemies

and looting their corpses, and she swears you in as her new Chief.

Treek is very expensive to add to your team. If you buy her contract with

credits, it's 1 million upfront. If you buy her from the Cartel Market,

it's 2100 Cartel Coins, which ain't chump change. And that's for just one

character. If you want her for your alts as well, that's a separate cost

of 700 Cartel Coins to add her to your Collections (but then all your alts

on that legacy get her on their crew for free). And when you get her, you

need to gear her up - the custom gear she comes with has all level 10

mods, so if you get her as a level 55 character, that's gonna be costly.

But she's totally worth it. She's adorable and kicks ass, nearly

everything one might want in a companion. If you pick her up early on in

your career, you may never need another one of your companions for

anything else.

The other awesome thing about the Titans of Industry patch is the new

Tauntaun mounts. By that I mean the mounts themselves - the methods of

acquiring one, not so much. Rolling across Hoth on the back of a Tauntaun

is a quintessential Star Wars experience that every player should have,

but if you want to have that experience, be prepared to pay through the

nose for it. You will be investing either millions of credits to buy one

outright, or a significant chunk of time farming the nests and relying on

the charity of a heartless RNG. You will also be subjecting yourself to

the abuse of a number of frustrated players who are looking for the same

thing, and who entertain themselves between nest respawns by trolling one

another relentlessly. Some of them will boast about finding three

Domesticated Tauntaun Data modules in one nest, others will complain that

they have dropped 20 lures in a row and gotten nothing.

And if you want to truly experience frustration, try doing the new Czerka

dailies on the new moon, CZ-198, in the Unknown Regions, during peak

hours. The new facility suffers from the exact same lack of foresight that

caused some of the Black Hole or Section X dailies to be an exercise in

patience: too few quest resources shared by too many players. Some players

have no problem sidling up and taking the kolto tanks or weapons crates or

other quest item you are fighting next to, or even jetting ahead with a

timely rocket boost to get to one before you do. You can't really blame

the players for behaving like selfish, over-competitive meat-heads - we

just want to get the colorless quests done quickly. The fault lies with

designers who fail to predict that competition for sparse quest resources

results in shabby player behavior, even after seeing how players handled

the Black Hole weapons crates and Section X prisoners. That sort of thing

should be instanced.

All in all, launch day of Patch 2.3 was bloody expensive. I had saved up

over 3 million credits, and ended up spending nearly all of them. I don't

care much about the Czerka stuff, which apparently is the main focus of

the update, but with my new Tauntaun and Ewok buddies, the game feels a

whole lot more like Star Wars. Cynicism shall resume next week at its

normally scheduled time.