Category Archives: SWTOR

HK-51 Droid companion preview video

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in companions, video

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HK-51, I am coming for you, you sexy droid beast!

I have a certain lying jerkface companion I’ve been itching to airlock. I am certain you will do *quite nicely* as his replacement.

Ahem.

The video gives us an inside view of the droid factory wherein we will claim our prize. Now, as to how we will finally obtain access to it, that remains a mystery. Hopefully we will find out…soon. Real soon.

I’m guessing he will be tied in with our next big content patch, and hopefully a world event of some kind…All we know so far is what was released pre-Patch 1.3 by Daniel Erickson:

“We wanted to make the rollout huge, so it is a galaxy-spanning quest. You’re going to need characters on both sides, on the Republic and the Empire, in order to get him. It is the biggest single quest in the game by leaps and bounds.”

What do you think it’s going to take to unlock this smooth-talking assassin droid?

Doling Out the Legacy Character Perks

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in alts, legacy system

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I have been a little reluctant about splashing out on legacy character perks for several reasons. Firstly, the server I am spending all my post Patch 1.3 time on is the server upon which I have the least amount of credits (due to it being my newest/least amount of time spent upon it server.) And secondly, I’m just not sure which of my characters I will be leveling next. But it would seem foolish to take even 1 more step towards an alt level without thinking about purchasing at least a couple of the experience related character perks.

Because of my legacy unlocks on 3 servers, I am also pretty far behind on building a legacy, so I am not able to maximize any of the perks. But every little bit helps, yes? If you’d like to see the full tables for the perks, check out Dulfy’s excellent Legacy Character Perks guide.

    • Improved Warzone Experience
Rank Credits Legacy level Required to Purchase Cumulative
XP Boost
1 20k 5 2
2 30k 10 4
Total 50 k 6%
  • Improved Class Mission  Experience
Rank Credits Legacy level Required to Purchase Cumulative
XP Boost
1 20k 5 2
2 30k 10 4
Total 50 k 6%
  • Improved Exploration Experience
Rank Credits Legacy level Required to Purchase Cumulative
XP Boost
1 10k 5 2
2 20k 10 4
Total 30k 6%

So, that would mean spending 130k credits to gain 6% extra XP from three of my regular activities. That seems totally worth it for my next alt or two, since it would mean not feeling obligated to do every bonus quest in an area. Or to stay on certain planets until my eyes bleed. You know what I’m talking about.

Also of interest, given that on my Smuggler I am leveling Armormech from scratch, is thinking about upping my ability to quickly improve her companion affection levels, to hopefully result in better crafting results.

  • Legacy of Altruism
    Increases amount of affection earned from companion gifts.
Rank Credits Legacy level Required to Purchase Cumulative Affection Gain
1 10k 5 10%
2 20k 15 10%
Total 30k 20%
  • Legacy of Persuasion
    Increases amount of affection earned from conversations with your companions.
Rank Credits Legacy level Required to Purchase Cumulative Affection Gain
1 10k 5 10%
2 20k 10 10%
Total 30k 20%

Despite my love for crafting, and knowing I will definitely be taking my Armormech to 400, it’s a little harder to justify spending 60k credits to improve my companion affection gains. It’s definitely not something worth purchasing for my Jedi Knight, who already has her Biochem at 400. But it is still a solid consideration for my smuggler. I may wait until she’s made enough cash herself from selling Armormech items to purchase it for her.

What about you? Which character perks have you splashed out on, and how did you decide which character got which perks?

Leveling My Republic Toons and Feeding My SWTOR Crew Skills/GTN Addiction

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in crew skills

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I’ve been keeping Ashara busy, slaving away at the Synthweaving tables. I’ve been finding a good market for the many shiny new custom armor accessories I’ve obtained since Patch 1.3 hit.

I haven’t contained my crafting obsession to my Imperial server either. My Republicans…er, Republic citizens on Canderous Ordo have been getting in on the crafting action as well. I’ve powered up my Biochem to 400 on the level 24 Knight. This was primarily due to having hopes and reams of getting in some raiding time after I hit 50 on my Sage and thus needing a supplier for raid consumables. Of course now that my Sage is 44 and the end game is in sight, it’s not looking like raiding is going to happen with our weeknight raiding team hitting a rough patch, and our weekend Ops team being far too progressed to support a newbie 50. Arrrrgh!

Thus, I have been flirting with warzones on the Sage, and slowly but surely plugging along on her class quests. I’m finally off Belsavis, but taking my own sweet time crafting (she’s a 400 synthweaver) and farting around. It’s hard to make the push to 50 if you’re not sure what you’ll actually end up doing there. I’ve noticed her Underworld Trading missions seem to keep resulting in Armormech schematics, and only rarely a synthweaving schematic. And thus I did what any smart cookie would do: I trained up armormech on my wee baby smuggler and have gone to town with it.

I still have on my post-patch to do list to try out the Group Finder, as I keep seeing my significant other using it with much success (he got himself raid ready in a couple of days between careful GTN’ing, Flashpoints, and dailies.)

What’s keeping you busy now that you’ve settled in to Patch 1.3?

New Synthweaving Schematics to Accessorize Your Look

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in crew skills, synthweaving

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I have to admit that hands-down my favorite synthweaving change with Patch 1.3 was the addition of a ton of new patterns for boots, bracers, gloves and belts. And these aren’t just any new patterns– they round out our existing custom gear craftable sets. Although the match to chest takes care of some of the color matching difficulties that come up when trying to tie together your other pieces with it, there were a few sets that simply did not have a good match, especially in the belt and glove options. It’s been interesting to see what they’ve come up with.

The patterns are obtainable through Under World Trading missions that crit. Note that some people had surmised they could hedge their bets and guarantee a schematic by running discovered missions, but I have run a number of such missions that did not yield any schematics. The primary place I’ve obtained the schematics is, as expected, the GTN. My servers have some plucky individuals who have placed patterns up for as much as 300,000 credits. I hate those people. Just kidding. But seriously — given that the prices for the crafted items has already crashed down into the same territory as most other crafted items, why on Earth would I or anyone else pay such a crazy price? Not happening.

Here’s a rundown of the new patterns you can now learn:

Light Armor

Medium Armor

Heavy Armor

So how’s your hunt for the new patterns going so far?

What’s Keeping me Busy in SWTOR…or Why This Blog Doesn’t Get Updated as Much as I’d Like

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in administrivia, commentary, community

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My buddy Steve brought it to my attention that I just haven’t been updating the blog as frequently as I used to. And lest that perception be expressing itself to folks as a lack of interest in the game, I thought it would be a good time to catch folks up on what’s been keeping me busy SWTOR-wise, both in and out of game.

Many Alts, Handle it!

First and foremost, getting all of my alts transferred to their new servers then stalking tracking down their guilds and getting into the groove of the new server (including looking around for some new guilds for some of my alts) has taken more time than I would have expected. For those of you keeping track at home, here’s what my alt life looks like, in terms of guilds:

  • Canderous Ordo (PVE)
    • No Sleep Till Kessel a.k.a. #NSTK (Republic)
    • Nonstop Disco Jetpack (Imperial NSTK guild)
    • Ewok Dance Studio (alt guild for wee baby Republic toons w/@psynister, @fynralyl, and @the_wrenz)
  • Ebon Hawk (RP)
    • Republic Mercy Corps (Republic)
    • unguilded Imperial side and level 47 marauder needs a new home, PST!
  • The Bastion (PVP)

If you are in need of a guild on any of the above servers, follow the links and check ’em out. You’ll see that I haven’t dealt with my fourth and final server yet. Not sure if my level 17 sorcerer is going to be moved along or not at this point. It’s a little overwhelming already dealing with the above three active servers to be frank.

Same Story, Different Station

You are hopefully aware by now that this is not the only place to hear me ramble on about Star Wars: the Old Republic, yes? In addition to this blog, I also share through a number of other social channels:

But Wait, There’s More!

Then there’s a fun little SWTOR podcast you may have heard about — TOR Reporter. We record every Thursday night at 7:30 Pacific, with a live audience in our chat room. Prepping for the podcast is probably a prime contributor to my not blogging as often. Plus, I don’t want to steal the thunder from the podcast by preemptively publishing thoughts I’m planning to share there.

I hope to get the balance right on this in the future, and do a little more cross-pollination of topics from the podcast fleshed out in a little more detail here as well so that those of you who prefer your SWTOR news in text don’t miss out. I have to admit that recording the podcast is one of the highlights in my week each week– getting to chat about a game I love with other folks who feel the same way. It gives me a warm happy feeling, much like this blog…

So what’s been keeping you busy in and out of game as of late?

Server Transfers One Week In…

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in opinion

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It’s been a week since I started my server transfer journeys. All four of my servers have gotten the nod, with the last server becoming eligible early this week. The screenshot above captures one of the nicest small touches that came about as a result of the server hopping: all my made by Anexxia gear, including pieces I’ve made for myself to wear, now bear the legend “The maker’s name has been worn completely off.” where my name used to be.

Guild Status

On my PvP server, The Bastion, I easily reconnected with my guild upon first post-transfer login. I am noticing, however, that it has been slow going for folks to transfer over. I think many folks are waiting for Patch 1.3 to hit before returning to the game and to the guild. The open question remains: will they stay put or continue to ebb and flow as each new MMO shiny object loses its lustre? And Republic side, we need to find a date and time for four officers to click the guild recharter. Oopsie!

My RP server, The Ebon Hawk, is already working on integrating all of us new transferees into the server community. In addition to having some server-wide events scheduled, which were mentioned in the most recent community wrap-up, they’ve started a server forum. I’m happy to see all this activity as it gives me hope I may yet find an active home for my level 47 Marauder and wee little Sorcerer alt. My teeny Sage is reguilded with the RMC, who is busy with many 16-man operations and seems to have picked right up from where they left off.

Last and not least, my PvE server, Candorous Ordo, is booming. I’ve been questing there Republic side and am cheered on by the sight of so many other players out in the worlds. My Sage has been making serious progress in her story, and is now 39 and midway through Hoth.

What’s Next?

I’m hoping that my PvE server ends up having a solid solution for my Empire characters. Specifically, to give me a place to server transfer my other Imperials to when we eventually, hopefully, can do paid server transfers from one server type to another. *crosses her fingers* I am also hopeful I will get in the occasional raid once my Sage hits 50. Trying to have some small, manageable and attainable goals!

What about you? How are you feeling about your servers now that the dust is settling?

I’ve taken the SWTOR Server Transfer Plunge– Have You?

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in opinion

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Yesterday, like many other Star Wars: the Old Republic players, I packed up my pixels and moved to new servers for my PvP and RP server characters.

Miraculously, my server transfers took only a few minutes total. And I was able to keep most — but not all– of the names of the six characters I transferred over. Not too shabby. If you’ve yet to move, I have a few tips:

  1. Make sure you’ve let all your GTN auctions expire, and have picked them up from the mailbox.
  2. Make sure you’ve pulled out everything you want to keep that’s currently in your mailbox.
  3. If you are a guild leader, you will have to disband the guild before you can transfer — and will need to have cleaned out your guild bank beforehand as well.
  4. Hit transfer!

For more tips and answers to any questions you may have, check out the Server Transfers FAQs. I also have some resources for folks who need inspirations for picking new names for themselves (scroll down midway), or for thinking up a clever new name for their reformed guild.

Personally, I’m pretty happy overall with how the transfers have gone. I am happy there weren’t minimum levels for transferring characters, or caps to how much of the stuff you’ve collected that you were allowed to bring with you. I was impressed that all my items and my credits were right where I left them when I logged in to the new servers. And most of all, it was great to be standing around on fleet with 250+ people across factions on each of my two new servers. Not too shabby!

I am still waiting to hear the fate of my final server, which I am still holding out hope for being a destination server given how overstuffed the other two East Coast PvE servers were last night. We shall see…

How about you? Have you done your server transfer yet?

On Being a SWTOR Crafting Enthusiast in an Environment Where Everyone Wants Everything to be Free

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in crew skills, PTR, synthweaving

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I’ve been checking out Patch 1.3 on the public test server (PTS), focusing my time on the crew skills changes to synthweaving. And I will get to a post on that topic later in the week. But first, I wanted to share some of my recent experiences regarding interacting with PTS folks around crafting.

My Time is Worthless, Your Money is Precious

So far, I think I’ve crafted about 30 augmentation kits on the PTS for folks to try out. To do so, I’ve stood around on the fleet, chatting with players about the patch, for several hours as I’ve made crafted pieces to reverse engineer, then made augmentation kits. I am keeping 4 of my companions busy on making the crafted items, and sending the 5th out on Underworld Trading missions in the hopes of scoring some of the new synthweaving patterns added to the game.

I logged in to the PTS this time around to find that I had 20k in credits and not very many crafting materials, due to the huge number of custom pieces I made and sold on the cheap during the last patch’s testing phase. Thus, to have enough cash to list anything of value in the GTN, I had to make and sell some custom gear. I was nearing the end of my possible Kit creation when I got a tell from a reader of this blog who gallantly gifted me with 5 stacks each of the crystals and the artifact fragments. And thus, I was able to crank out a ton more augments which I put up on the GTN for 250k a pop, selling them as fast as I could list them.

And at some point, the grumbling started in General chat, along the lines of “You’re a jerk for selling those kits for 250k. You should be selling them for 100k max. You are greedy.” One of my fellow crafters jumped in and noted that we have to spend 4+ minutes crafting each of our 10 items that we have to RE in order to make each kit. And that further, the materials for making those crafted items sell for 1-3k a piece on live servers, making your base cost for materials anywhere from 40-120k depending upon your server economy. To which our heckler replied “Go farm the mats.”

Uh, excuse me? I need to go and farm materials to make items so they can be cheaper for you mister general chat big mouth? Because my play time is worth less than your precious bank balance? Are you serious? You might think that I was being trolled. But I wasn’t. Because this isn’t the only time that I have had folks consider my time, which I’ve spent crafting or improving patterns or spending tons of credits on missions to obtain schematics to be worthless. (NOTE: see also this same issue, years ago, in WoW.)

Why did I “need to make that much cash anyway”, as one person asked with a side of snark? Because almost nothing on the PTS is free in case you hadn’t noticed. In my case specifically, I want to try out the new custom patterns. Which has meant spending over 50k on executing missions so far (plus another 250k on buying mission discoveries). And buying a schematic on the PTS for 50k. And buying a ton of companion gifts to improve my affection to increase the chance of crits. (The copy of me from pre 1.2 didn’t have her toons very far along in that area, unlike current me.) And so on. And so far? I have exactly two of the new crafted schematics to show for all my efforts. T-W-O.

The great thing about MMOs is they provide a variety of things for each player to do that meets their individual definitions of fun. I love to discover and collect new patterns, and feel a sense of accomplishment when a ton of peeps are running around my servers wearing gear with the made by Anexxia label. And I like that I can support my characters through crafting instead of doing dailies because repeating quests for multiple days is not my preferred way to make cash. Not even if a vanity pet is on offer.

Now, I can understand it is annoying to see people buying my augment kits and reselling them for 750k or even 1.25 mil credits on the GTN. But if you make it a practice to harass players such as myself, who are there making items for you to try out and who genuinely love seeing all the new crafting changes on offer on the PTS so we can plan accordingly, then don’t come crying to me when crafters stop selling the items they make– or worse yet– stop even putting in the time on the PTS crafting items for you to try out. You’re welcome.

/end rant.

More Details on the SWTOR Server Transfers…Which Are Starting Next Week!

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in official announcements

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SWTOR players have been rattling the sabers in the pursuit of more details about the upcoming character transfers to address the server population issues, and today, they got a screenful of information via a community blog post on the topic. All of the details have not yet been disclosed, which is making some folks a little nervous about what will be happening with their guild once the transfers hit. The post opens by noting that this will not be a free-for-all server transfer, rather, it will be a targeted and phased approach:

…we made the decision to strictly limit the initial phase of the Character Transfer Service to only allow transfers from selected groups of origin servers (where you’re moving a character from) to selected individual destination servers (where you choose to move a character to) based on the player populations of the origin and destination servers. In some cases, a large number of origin servers will be eligible to move to a single destination server. In others, very few origin servers will be transferring to existing high population destination servers. Remember, the goal here is to push almost every destination server to an active population that’s higher.

This should help assuage some of the fears that had been raised about the LFG tool being launched to barren servers. A few more facts we now have about the process:

  • Server transfers start on June 12, 2012
  • Not everyone will be eligible to transfer on day 1; the transfers will be staggered to reflect reasonable workload on the part of the dev team
  • Once your transfer starts it’s estimated to complete in a few hours
  • You won’t be transferring your characters off a PvP server to a PvE server
  •  Your Legacy and associated unlocks will be transferred to your new server
  • If you have already unlocked your Legacy on your destination server, the higher level Legacy will take precedence.
  • Guilds will not be able to transfer to a new server; instead, guildmasters will need to transfer and reform it. And guld members will have to individually transfer over.
  • If you have a guild bank, it will be re-granted to your new guild on your destination server by Customer Service
  •  If your transferred character’s name conflicts with an existing name on a destination server, you will be asked to rename your character.
  • Unless you have unlocked your Legacy on your destination server, you will need to rename your Legacy upon transfer (which conversely says that if you have unlocked a Legacy name on a server you are transferring to, that name stays put)

…because the process will be gradual, we cannot provide that information in advance. Depending on the number of characters transferred, the destination and origin servers eligible for transfer may be altered during the process. We don’t want to promise a destination in case it may change. Listings will become available as servers become eligible for transfer.

What We Don’t Know

  •  Is there a minimum level of character eligible for transfer?
  •  Is there a cap to how many bank slots / how many credits you can move on a particular character? And if so, does the character’s level impact those maximums?
  •  If I move my highest level character off a server, do the remaining characters on that server retain the legacy levels and perks they had as part of that server’s legacy?
  • If I don’t move immediately, will I have an opportunity to do so later? Or is it a limited time offer?
We’ll have to wait for the forthcoming FAQs to get to the bottom of these details. What are some of the questions you have? Leave them in the comments and I’ll add to the above list.

Where My head’s At

Well, at first blush, I’m bummed. You see, my original character is marooned on a PvP server with all my credits. And I’ve determined that I don’t actually really dig PvP servers though I am glad I tried one out. So I am crossing my fingers that she will, in the future, have the opportunity to move elsewhere to join the rest of my characters on a PvE or RP server.

Sigh. So basically, the initial wave of character transfers will not affect my playtime for the better. For now, I’ll have to keep aligned with my other servers to make sure I am in the loop on where folks are moving to. It will be nice to move with them to a server that has more opportunities for end game content completion, but I am bummed I will not be able to reclaim Anexxia at this point. And I have to again say publicly that I am more than happy to pay to move her in the future!

What about you? How are you feeling about the server transfers thus far from what we know now?

Inquisitor’s Roadhouse Mid-Year SWTOR Assessment

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in commentary

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I meant to do a 6-month check-in on what I’m doing in game, but the time got away from me. But since we’re all friends here. we’ll just pretend this is the 6 months since launch mark, ok?

Since the game’s pre-launch, I have:

  • Gotten my inquisitor to 50
  • Gotten my Marauder to 47
  • Attended one Eternity Vault raid
  • Done a small handful of leveling Flashpoints and no hardmode Flashpoints
  • Unlocked Legacies on 3 separate servers
  • Joined 4 guilds
  • Made my own alt guild
  • Crafted so many cute outfits that I have over 10 million credits on my original server

If you’d asked me 6 months ago what I expected my mid-year check-in accomplishments list to look like, I can assure you that the above list is nowhere close. Which just goes to show you how unpredictable gaming life can be.

Why I Have Such a Lack of End Game Activity

Given that I got to 50 within 3 weeks or so, and got into my first raid a week or so after hitting 50, I certainly expected to be regaling you with tales of my raiding successes, theorycrafting away at the best in slot inquisitor gear and tactics. But unfortunately for me, my launch guild did not end up being a good fit for me, in large part due to a bully with a bad attitude who ended up promoted to raid leader. Unlike some people who seem to play MMOs only with the end goal of getting the best gear and talking down to others, I like to raid in order to be part of a collaborative achievement. I enjoy the teamwork aspect of it. And I feel strongly life is too short to play w/people who are the reason the DBAD rule exists.

I should note here that in keeping with the similar experiences of this kind in WoW, after driving off many of the people I loved playing with, mister bad attitude stopped playing. But it was too late for me at that point.

So, with my primary guild not providing the collegial environment I was looking for, I started trying out a number of other servers. Unfortunately, starting over as a reroll on 3 servers puts you significantly behind the leveling pack. I was lucky enough to get a few lowbie Flashpoints in as part of my reroll experiences so that was nice as I am a firm believer that you don’t really get to know your guildies until you are grouped with them.

After lurking about, I set my sights on an active Imperial guild that also had a sister Republic guild on the same RP server. I got to watch my SO who is a much faster leveler than I am, tear through content, including a first time hard mode clear of EV by the guild, which was a 1-shot up to SOA. Unfortunately, as I rounded the mid-40’s bend there, the guild decided to refocus its efforts on the Republic side, and is now hosting 16-man raids there versus the weekly 8-mans and HM Flashpoint nights both sides. And thus my Marauder has languished at 47. It didn’t help that the story line had a sudden but inevitable betrayal right around this same time.

And this is why I am now focusing in on my level 36 Sage (not to be confused with my two other sages), in the guild No Sleep ’til Kessel on Juyo. I’ve wanted to see the Republic storyline through to the end, and think this is the character that will finally make that happen. And once I hit max level, I’ll see if I am able to get squeezed in to one of the raid groups. Even if I don’t, the guild feels like it is active enough I should be able to find HM partners. I truly want to get some time playing at max level and enjoying the fruits of my leveling, versus just always being on the alt leveling circuit. I love my alts mind you, but I also truly miss playing with other people. And I have to note here: this is not a flaw in the game. This is an artifact of the guild and server choices I’ve made. I’ve had the same issues crop up in WoW as well, but they were less painful only because on more than 1 occasion I poneyed up the cash for a server transfer.

I am looking forward to the prospect of moving my Inquisitor off my dead server as soon as she is eligible to transfer and I find a fun, mature, active Imperial guild for her to play in.

So, how about you? Six months in, what does your bucket list look like?