SWTOR: Ilum event fails: players don't hate enough

Just like everyone else, I went to Ilum to check out the new event. As everyone knows, PvP on Ilum is dead. Just read Shintar's The strangeness of Ilum one year later. Patch 1.7 was going to bring some life into open world PvP on Ilum, though, or so the rumours told us. So how did it turn out?

Ilum PvP

My adventure started with the obligatory polite protocol droid, this time sending me off to Ilum to investigate a strange Gree landing. The Gree are a somewhat mysterious but generally friendly race, or so I thought, but okay, off we go.

On Ilum, I soon found that there were two different areas: a large area to the north where dailies could be completed, and a small circular area in the south where PvP-related quests took place. Off to the PvP-area then, to see what it had to offer. I went with some guild mates in a party. Forming a raid wasn't possible: probably an attempt of Bioware to prevent huge gank fests.

The PvP-quests seemed to revolve around bringing glowy thingies to a pylon, much like in the warzone Ancient Hypergate. Only this time, both Republic and Imperial forces had to bring them to the same pylon, over which, I assume, we were supposed to fight.

The only problem: the numbers of both teams were that large, that a fight would end up being a massive slaughter, and nobody would be able to use the pylon at all. So when I arrived, people were actually peacefully lining up in order to use the pylon. Sure, there was some nagging with stealthers interrupting people interacting with the pylon now and then, but people generally didn't seem to want to fight. Ignoring each other was the fastest way to proceed the quest.

Don't be shy Tiger - crawl into the tauntaun to warm yourself, like a true Star Wars enthusiast!

The closest thing to PvP we encountered, was an oddball that was stealthed next to a quest crystal and attacked us... only to find out that we were with four and he alone.

In short, there wasn't much actual PvP going on on Ilum, although it was nice to get some 'free' warzone commendations for handing in the quests (100 commendations per quest).

Quests and rewards

Apart from the PvP quests, Tiger and I also checked out some in the non-PvP area. They were nothing than your regular dailies - gathering some here, killing some there. Not much interesting apart from the dead tauntaun above (awwws...). There was much competition for quest items and mobs because there were so many people around. Hopping to another layer wasn't really an option - even instance number 13 (!) was full at that moment.

So why do we need to do another set of dailies? What's in it, for me?

These tentacle guys will make your wet Mass Effect RP dreams come true

As far as I've seen, the rewards are mostly cosmetic. There are some cool weapons, among which lightsabers with a special Gree-tech appearance. Most importantly, the weapons are bound to legacy, meaning you can use it to transfer certain items from Imperial to Republic characters and vise versa. I will want this to eventually get myself a purple crystal for Delanee. There are also new outfits that look like they come right from Mass Effect:

From left to right, from top to bottom: Blue Scalene Set, Red Scalene Set, White Scalene Set, Gray Helix Saberstaff and Gray Helix Autocannon. I didn't put on the silly head pieces to prevent making it all look even more ridiculous.

I really like the look of these armour sets, especially the white one, but it looks out of place on a jedi sage. I prefer the dresses myself. The looks are so good that I'd almost consider rolling a trooper for the set only, but I don't know if I can bear the daily grind. I really don't feel that enthusiastic about grinding dailies, and I have little time to play alltogether.

The White Scalene Set and Gray Helix Autocannon on an NPC model, including the 'interesting' head piece. 

Summary

I was perhaps a bit too enthusiastic in my post title, but so far I haven't seen much real open world PvP on Ilum, which is a shame. Perhaps this will change during the coming days, when (if) the areas get a bit less crowded; perhaps it will continue like this for the rest of the event. If the developers would really have wanted open PvP, they should have included a daily quest like "kill 5 Imperial players" - but that might've caused a lot of outcries and drama.

For me, I'll just do a bit of dailies here and there - it probably won't be enough to get me a legacy saber, but whatever. I will try the dailies on other planets as well as the world bosses the coming few days.