What Kind of Legacy Is This?

I feel cheated.

The SWTOR Legacy system is completely oriented around convincing an otherwise bored—and rich—level-50 player to role an alt. It does little or nothing to encourage an altoholic with an already full stable of alts to continue playing. Even the "family tree" feature is overly limited, orienting around children and maybe grandchildren of your max-level character (which I suppose fits the Anakin Skywalker-centered idea behind the legacy system). My tree is completely flat.

The other items in SWTOR v1.2 are basic quality of life features meant to bring the game up to speed with the rest of the MMO genre (e.g., guild banks, customizable interface, color-matched outfits). There is some additional content in the form of a instance or something, but that's all above the level of any of my characters anyway, so doesn't affect me right now.

Unlike STO's character interface, there is no space for a backstory in-game. Hell, I can't even officially name my ships. Your character simply shows up, ready to take on the galaxy. Oh yeah, they may or may not have siblings, rivals, spouses, allies, children and adopted children. What, no Apprentices? Mentors? Parents? I was hoping for a little more flexibility in defining the relationships between my characters. Not to mention the layout of the "family tree" itself. My Sith Warrior, as a "sibling" (distant cousin really) of my Trooper, can only have one other ally or rival then only children or adopted children. Heck, because I ended up putting my Trooper at the middle, she can only have two siblings and then posterity. Unlike the triad of Luke, Leia, and Han, I cannot show that all my Imperials even know each other—or any of the Reps, for that matter—much less are allied to subvert the Empire, as part of the Imperial Mercenary Corps. That's still stuck in my imagination and here on the blog. Maybe because I work with relational organization software on a regular basis, I am sensitized to what the diagram could look like with only a little more flexibility programmed in.

I haven't even started on the very expensive "perquisites" of the legacy system. Like Syp, I am surprised that there is apparently so much credit overflowing the coffers of maxed-out characters that they need huge money sinks like the ones found in the Legacy unlocks. If, as they say, time is money, then the converse is also true: money is time. I planned on finishing out out all the stories of my characters and maybe then they'd have more story content either through patches or expansions. Most of these Legacy Rewards will be forever beyond my in-game budget, simply because I am unwilling to spend the TIME to accumulate that money. But you know what? Guild Wars 2 will be out soon, and The Secret World . . .