Ravalation

Disappointment on Umbara. A SWTOR review

2017-11-29T23:28:00.000+01:00

It's no secret that I've been enjoying drawing more than gaming lately. And when I did play the past weeks, it was mostly Lord of the Rings Online's Mordor expansion. Nevertheless, I did fire up Star Wars: the Old Republic eventually, and decided it was about time to take on the Crisis on Umbara storyline on my main character. Which brought me straight to the Umbara flashpoint.

Some warnings are in order. This (overdue) review contains huge spoilers about the storyline, and also some crazy theories (that I, of course, believe are completely plausible). I recommend saving it for later if you're yet to play through the Umbara story.

Right from the very first moment, things seemed a bit off; it was all too rushed. Theron comes to you with a report, saying something along the lines of "we have a lead on the traitor, we have to go to Umbara, NOW!" - and that raised some questions. As a commander, I wouldn't just jump into a spaceship without a clue what's going on. But somehow, my character was satisfied with the promise that things would be explained underway. There was no conversation option to protest.

Sure, walking on the roof of a train is much more efficient than having to squeeze yourself in between the passengers down below.

Next thing I know, we jump out of a shuttle craft, on top of a moving train. Wtf? There is no convincing explanation as to why this is a good idea, but my character acts as if it's business as usual. I mean, I get that it looks cool and stuff, but wouldn't it be a lot less dangerous to arrest the traitor when the train makes a stop? I've seen this happen several times myself when a drunkard or aggressive person was harassing people. It's clean and efficient, and when it's handled professionally, most people don't even notice anything is going on. But apparently boarding the train the regular way is a no go since people on Umbara for some reason hate the Alliance.

So with the thought "this is all a bit random and unbelievable" in the back of my mind, I proceeded to explore the train, which apparently had to happen via the roof.

I enjoyed the puzzle elements of trying to find my way around, jumping over things, evading illuminated floor panels (of course, every train is booby trapped...). Unfortunately, the ride was heavily guarded and I was forced to take out many random people that I had no quarrel with; I had no idea who they were and who they're allied with. Theron wasn't very helpful in this regard.

Theron looks guilty as he makes his contribution to this chapter's cliche lines

When we got to the front of the train, Theron locks my character and Lana up and makes the train crash, sodding off while making up some lame excuse, "the Alliance doesn't do enough for peace". Lana and I manage to escape the train alive and look at each other. So Theron is the traitor. Rather than the "OOooooooomg, mindfuck!!" effect that's undoubtedly sought after by the writers, I sigh to myself while I'm fighting through the Umbara jungle. It feels like a cheap writing trick to go with the least likely character as the traitor.

On another note, the Umbara landscape is fairly pretty, though a bit odd

After battling through a lot of aggressive natives, we finally make it off Umbara. My character offers Theron a chance to talk - extremely reasonable seeing the circumstances - but he refuses, repeating his lame excuse. It's just so out of character that it's unbelievable. Perhaps if you're the dictator like leader type that rules the Alliance with an iron fist it might be believable, but for my peace driven jedi it is not.

Me being my extremely reasonable self

At the end of the chapter, in a sort of epilogue, a scene appears that I had been half expecting: a teaser that might explain Theron's extreme out-of-character behaviour. Theron speaks to a cloaked figure. The theatrical way to 'dump the commander' was apparently a test to see if Theron would be fit to join his mysterious order (or whatever "we" stands for). I guess we're supposed to wonder who this hooded figure is next. Instead I wonder if it's all just a ruse and Theron will come back later to say "sorry, but this was the only way I could get into this super secret order and I needed to find out what they were up to because they are influential behind the scenes". It would be the only way I can think of that makes sense of it all - especially since the train crash is a bit of a half assed attempt on the commander's life. From up close (as Theron was), he could have chosen a much more effective, immediate method. The whole Umbara thing seemed mostly theatrical - which would make sense if you'd want to impress your secret figure without actually harming the commander.

Theron wants to be recruited by this weirdo

Or it turns out he just actually betrayed you, and that doesn't make any sense at all if you're a peaceful commander. Unless you're a dick commander, of course, then he should betray you, or choices don't matter at all.

Overall, I must say I am a bit disappointed by this chapter, and it's all because of the writing. The Umbara events are simply not believable. I feel detached as I watch the major characters speak their cliche lines. This will only make sense if all gets resolved more or less as described above, but then it's too predictable. More than excitement, the chapter makes me experience boredom and annoyance, and that's disappointing indeed.

Manaan stronghold review

2017-07-21T19:22:00.002+02:00

Last week, a lot of my gaming time was spent in LOTRO, trying to finish the Scavenger hunt and the Summer festival in time. But when SWTOR's update 5.3 went live Tuesday last week, I just had to login to check out the Manaan stronghold. As I had been rooting for a Rishi stronghold instead and was occupied in LOTRO, I had totally forgotten how online decorating excites me. Apparently my guildies know me better, though, because two of them were already there, waiting for me to purchase the stronghold so they could look around. Their reactions were mixed, just like those of my fellow bloggers and people on Twitter.

Things I love

Let's talk about the good stuff first: it's Manaan. Although I'm more of a Rishi kinda gal myself, Manaan has been requested (and predicted) as a stronghold location ever since strongholds were introduced. Similarly to Tatooine, there's a nice intro video when you travel to the stronghold - although, frankly, I wish there was an option to turn it off, since it comes up every time and most people just spacebar through it by now.

The characteristic Manaan music from KOTOR is present, setting the correct tranquil atmosphere. From outside, it looks exactly as you would expect from Manaan in KOTOR (see above).

The Makeb gazebo looks like the remains of an ancient civilization in underwater Manaan

You can place things under water in the under water part of the stronghold, which is a nice touch. I'm happy that the underwater outdoor hooks hold centrepieces, because most strongholds don't have that many centrepiece hooks. Through the years, I've ended up with more cool centrepiece decorations than I have space to put down. The hook typing also makes sense stylistically, since if you'd place anything that's not a centrepiece, it would look quite small from that distance.

Inside, a glass plate on the floor allows you to see the coral and fish underneath, while a huge Firaxen shark can be seen in the distance, circling around the stronghold.

Fun fact: the Manaan stronghold doors remind me of HK! Now I've seen it, I can't 'un-think' it anymore and I greet them with "Good morning, meatbags" every time I pass.

Despite these cool things, many disappointed voices can be heard in the community. This sentiment stems from two concerns: the hook system and missed opportunities. In the rest of this post, I will look into more detail into this criticism. I will also review the Deepwater Essentials decorations that were released with the Manaan stronghold in mind.

Hook system

Out of all available strongholds, the hook placement of the Manaan stronghold is by far the worst. Like many MMOs, SWTOR has a pre-set hook system with decorations and hooks being tied to certain sizes (small, medium, large, centrepiece and starship etc). There are some options to change hooks to smaller hook combinations, but you cannot set them to larger types than preset. Floor decorations can be moved horizontally (usually not by very much), but not vertically.

In the outdoor part of the stronghold, the hooks are spread out and few, so the place will look empty, no matter how much stuff you place there.

Welcome to Manaan! -xxx- Your neighbour's army of naked companions (bug)

The two long rows of small hooks along the route to the stronghold interior are a strange choice: you can only put small decorations, like NPCs or small plants there (see above). Other logical decorations to place there, like benches that one can sit on and enjoy the fountains, cannot be placed because they require at least a medium narrow hook. A row of medium or medium narrow hooks would've been much more useful, because they can always be changed into two small hooks when needed (while pre-set small hooks cannot be changed into larger hooks).

Another minor annoyance is that the rug hooks are so far apart that you can never connect the rugs to each other.

The observatory completely lacks large hooks, ruining my plans for a cantina

Many places in the Manaan stronghold suffer from the same mistake: pre-determined small & medium hooks at spots where large(r) hooks would've been appropriate severely limit the possibilities of decorators. It looks like they were designed with specific decorations in mind, which leaves little room for creativity.

Another example of this is the interior part of the Rooftop Garden level. Only allowing for medium hooks and smaller on the sides, many cool decorations are barred from being used.

The opposite is the case for the siderooms of the underwater interior: here a centrepiece hook is placed. It's a strange place for a hook of that type, because most decorations that require a centrepiece hook are quite tall and clip through the ceiling. This specific hook seems to be intended for the new Manaan: Lounge Set decoration that requires a centrepiece hook.

It's a bit silly that this decoration needs a centrepiece hook, though, because it's quite small. As you can see, placing the Manaan Lounge Set leaves a huge space undecorated in this room. You can't even put a rug in front of it to cheer up the place, because there is no hook for it at that spot.

For decorating purposes, four or more large hook tiles (each with 9 small ones attached) would've been a lot more useful.

Generator Ceiling Lights

There are more oddities. For instance, it bugs me that the middle ceiling lamp in the central underwater room cannot be changed; it comes with the stronghold. I guess it has something to do with the optimal lighting for the glass floor below. Speaking of which, it actually does a poor job of lighting the surface floor. I wish the reflection of the glass was a bit less so you could see better what's swimming down below.

It's downright weird that the underwater siderooms have small hooks for the ceiling lights. The Huttese Wall Sconces are the best looking on this spot, but if you don't want your room to be green or orange, you're out of luck. There's basically just the Basic Junker's Light to go with, and that barely emits any light at all. Regardless of what small light you put up there, the rooms will stay badly lit.

Perhaps the developers really like the thought of the rooms being very dark for some reason, but I would have preferred to have a choice in this. As is, I went with luminescent decorations so you can at least see something.

The hook system in SWTOR is always a challenge when you're trying to realize decorating plans, but it seems particularly bad on Manaan. Overall, I get the impression not much testing was done before assigning the hooks of this stronghold.

The Fountain of Tranquility

Deepwater Essentials bundle

Okay, so there are a couple of wonky things about this stronghold and you're allergic to the word "hook" by now. Let's have an intermezzo and look at the things that came with the Deepwater Essentials Bundle before we go straight on to Missed opportunities. (As a stronghold addict, I couldn't stop myself from buying one to see what's inside.)

First off, there's the Fountain of Tranquility, a pretty gold statue that requires a centrepiece hook (see above). The spot above is the only place that makes sense and I must admit that it does look magnificent.

Another item from the bundle that I adore is the Manaan Floorlamp. Sadly, you only get one per bundle, so these inevitably end up being rare and sought after on the GTN. The developers seem clueless when it comes to what types of decorations are needed in which quantities. It's telling when lamps and trash cans are among the most expensive items on the in-game market.

Manaan Lounge Set

The aforementioned Manaan Lounge Set looks best outside, where the enormous space in front of it looks more intentional, pretty much like a square. The lights don't make a lot of sense that way, but, ah well. It would be a shame to let the decoration go to waste since I've already consumed it.

The Manaan Office Set is another decoration with strange hook assignment. It needs a large hook, whereas the old CZ-198 Arrangement: Executive's Desk is an almost exact copy that can go on a medium tile (see the right picture below). With the Manaan Office Set, my underwater rooms looked empty (the conversion from centrepiece hook had me pick between either 4 large hooks or 1 large hook and 8 medium hooks). So I ended up selling mine on the GTN to fill it with several Executive's Desks instead.

Aquarium: Laa/Faa Scalefish (left) and Large Aquarium (right)

I was pretty excited about the aquarium decorations. Unfortunately, the lighting in the fish tanks is done poorly: you barely see that there are any fish in there at all. The small ones look a bit better on the picture above, but that's just because I put them in front of a (built in) wall light.

I do enjoy the Manaan Patio Set (below) and the fact that they fit on a medium narrow hook. I wish they came with more than one per bundle.

The Firaxen Shark (left) and the Manaan Patio Set (right)

Missed opportunities

Although I generally like what I see, my friends and I concluded that there are many missed opportunities, most of them in the underwater area. As mentioned earlier, the ocean below the glass floor in the Underwater Observatory is dark, so you can't see what's below very well. It's nice that there's that little extra realism with the reflection of the glass, but in my opinion it's a bit much: you can barely look outside now, even if the bottom of the ocean would be well lit. Surely that isn't the intention!

I must admit that I had hoped the ocean floor to look a bit more impressive, with cool fish and plants. It's a bit bland as is. That said, perhaps it's more realistic like this.

However, what's a real shame is that the windows to look outside aren't that big. I'd have loved to have a real underwater observatory, with rooms of which the walls and ceiling are completely made of glass. Think of something along the lines of the Odessen Command Centre decoration. I also wouldn't mind the pretty water reflection that can be seen at the edges of the underwater rooms (see above) cover the entire side rooms. Now that would be something!

While we're at it, why not allow us to go outside in one of those funny underwater spacesuits from KOTOR to inspect those decorations we've put down? #Pipedreams

Aerial view of the Manaan stronghold (check here how to make these)

Other complaints involve people saying that the stronghold isn't big enough for its price. A Manaan stronghold costs 2,5 million credits, whereas the much larger Tatooine stronghold (I jokingly call it my Tatooine village) costs 2,8 million credits: not all that much more for a much larger amount of space.

There's something to say for that, although I don't mind the price that much (I realise I fit in the category "stronghold addict: will pay anything for SWTOR housing", though). There is a lot of space in the outside area, although it's not all that exciting to decorate. Mox, on the latest CRR show, theorized that the luxurious Manaan being more expensive per square metre makes sense, because everybody would want to live there; naturally, nobody wants to live on a backwater planet like Tatooine! That gave me a good chuckle.

It's also a bit of a shame that you cannot get to your ship - in fact, it took me a while to find the starship hook, as it's not on a very obvious spot (if you are with your back to the statue, facing towards the stronghold, it's to your right on top of a building). It's just a minor detail, but if I'd roleplay I would be sad.

To end on a positive note: the outdoors part of the Rooftop Garden is done exactly right. I finally found the perfect spot for my spa decoration. As you can see above, Ravanel approves (+10 influence).

Conclusion

Manaan is a cool planet, and I'm happy to have a new project that allows me to obsess over decorating. However, it's clear that there is some missed potential: the hook system could be implemented in a less obnoxious way, and the stronghold overall - the underwater area in particular - could have looked a lot cooler. For SWTOR housing addicts, this stronghold is a must have, but others might be content visiting their friend's place instead.

SWTOR roadmap highlights (summer 2017)

2017-06-28T23:31:00.000+02:00

When I returned from holiday in Sweden a few weeks ago, Mox and Jason of Corellian Run Radio gave me homework. "Let us know what you think of the roadmap", they said - and so I read through the document and created a page full of notes like a good girl. I figured that, since I'd already written it out, I might as well put together a blogpost. Of course this was two weeks ago and now the roadmap is already old news. But you're going to read this post anyway. *Waves hand*

Keith and the road map

There's a lot of fangirling and -boying going on around SWTOR's new game director, Keith. Xam Xam has a whole "Keith Watch" blog series dedicated to him, in which she monitors and evaluates his forum posts. And when I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed, motivational pictures featuring Keith catch my eye.

One such motivational picture, posted by @BrianInHawaii on June 23rd, 2017

Before Ben Irving's departure, Keith's presence in this universe was unknown to us. But then the whole "grind your life away for CXP" mentality got thrown out of the window and a new, fresh wind brought us Keith the Saviour, who was going to steer SWTOR in the direction of... an MMO. After the game having focused primarily on story content (2015) and then on an RNG gear treadmilll (2016), that's actually refreshing.

Strictly speaking, what Keith's doing is not all that revolutionary, but it's clear that a 'back to basics' approach is currently very much appreciated by the SWTOR community. One of the first things he did - in addition to promising more dev communication (and immediately delivering) - is announcing a roadmap. This was a great move, because a roadmap not only shows that you're sincere in communicating more, it's also a nod in the direction of veteran players, who still remember the time when SWTOR used to make such roadmaps.

As for the content of the map, I enjoyed that it covered both broad long term views and detailed plans with a time indication. The latter is dangerous terrain for MMO developers because of unexpected delays, so this is where Keith's communicative skills might be put to the test.

News that make me fangirl

More concretely, here are some things from the roadmap that make my fangirl heart beat faster.

New flashpoint: It felt like the devs were kind of done with flashpoints, after transitioning to tactical flashpoints (a sort of 'flashpoint lite' , faster paced and with fewer cutscenes) and, ultimately, uprisings. I'm happy they are not. While I do like uprisings, I find myself enjoying the old fashioned flashpoints most. And since I do a lot of them each week, something fresh is very welcome.
Story update Crisis on Umbara: I must admit that I was a tad disappointed with the War for Iokath story, as it went for the easy option by adding new danger and power struggles rather than explore what's happening in the galaxy on a social and cultural level in these stressful times. That's probably just the archaeologist in me getting a bit bored by the focus on power in Star Wars storytelling, though. Nevertheless, I'm hoping for more answers to my questions and of course visiting a new planet is always cool, too. I expect the new flashpoint to be involved with the story.
More operation bosses: Of course we already knew this was coming, but it's something that makes me very happy nonetheless! I really like Tyth's design, so I'm looking forward to the second encounter - a twin boss fight.
New stronghold with 'view over the ocean': Everyone is predicting this will be the often-wished-for Manaan. Then again, that's what people said in 2015, too - and then it turned out to be Yavin IV. I hope the developers surprise everyone and it's Rishi! I'd love my own tropical island with, indeed, a view over the ocean.

Finally, there are also things that sound less exciting, but are definitely worth some dev time. One of them is increased companion influence through doing stuff. This is sorely needed after the absence of influence gain from non main story quests (ever since the Makeb expansion) and - more recently - the change from companion affection (max 10) to influence (max 50). Part of this is already live with the addition of influence gained from sending companions on crafting missions. This is not something that you feel the effect of right away, but I'm sure it makes a positive impact long term.

Y'u-no misses her favourite spot in Civil War

What's missing

I'd love to see time to kill go down in PvP. Right now every class has so many defensive abilities that level cap PvP feels like the boring part of 8v8 ranked used to: long stalemates in the middle with the party that manages to cap a node first practically winning the fight. After trying to muddle through for a few weeks in 5.0, I realized I wasn't having fun and gave up on PvP altogether. I have a huge army of PvP characters sitting at the ready with all the roles for all different brackets, but they're not getting used at all.

Unfortunately, this problem isn't mentioned in the roadmap at all, so either it's just me that doesn't like the situation or the developers aren't aware of it. However, after the announced nerfs to sage heals, this partly may get solved when the other healer classes get adjusted accordingly.

Overall, I'm happy with the roadmap and the change in direction towards an MMO that's more focused on... well, being an MMO, is a welcome one for me. What do you think?

A modest proposal. Solutions to the grophet overpopulation problem

2017-04-27T20:47:00.000+02:00

On Rishi, players are able to observe what happens when things get out of hand

Star Wars: the Old Republic's latest update, 5.2, had one nasty surprise in stock: the tier 4 command crates have a chance to drop... fiery grophet pets. It is no secret that I despise these repugnant little creatures. They remind me of handbag dogs that constantly get spoiled with food by their owners "because they're so cute", or - in the best case - of the final destination of guinea pigs during a Peruvian guinea pig festival (do check out that link if you aren't familiar with this event): on a plate. Indeed, there is a peculiar similarity between the roasted guinea pigs and fiery grophets. Surely this is more than a coincidence; this is fate!

If only cooking was a crafting profession in SWTOR...

(Picture to the bottom right by Shintar)

But I don't need to explain the revolting nature of these critters: their hideous appearance speaks for itself. So naturally, when I find a fiery grophet in a command crate, my eyes light up, and with an explosive expression of joy I exclaim: "Oooh yeah! DISINTEGRATE!!" *insert cackling Dalek noise here*

However, Shintar of Going Commando has a different approach:

"I hit disintegrate on a grophet and immediately felt a terrible jolt of guilt. It doesn't really make sense. I don't worry about what an uncomfortable life these creatures must lead, being stashed away between armour pieces and companion gifts inside of crates that mysteriously appear out of thin air. But when you ask me to take action myself, to actively destroy them... I suddenly feel bad."

Since she cannot get herself to disintegrate them, Shintar is considering opening a Home for Fiery Grophets. And because I'm not totally unreasonable, and such a course would fit my light side V sage better (role-play wise), I can support this thought.

A possible solution: send your grophets to Shintar!

Meanwhile, the problem stands: players in tier 4 will get showered with the undoubtedly highly nutricious fiery grophets for eternity. What is your solution to this dilemma? Let me know in a comment or vote in the Twitter poll.

What do you do with the grophet (command crate tier 4 reward)? #swtorfamily
— Ravanel Griffon (@Rav_Griffon) April 27, 2017

Love for the SWTOR Stream Dream Team

2017-04-08T23:30:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, a SWTOR developer stream reminded me of the need for a Developer Appreciation Week once again. For those who don't know: Star Wars: the Old Republic is about to release a major update (5.2) coming Tuesday, adding an operation boss after two years without a new raid. I was expecting news about that and indeed we did, but the team also revealed another cool new feature coming with 5.2: a renewed galaxy map. Right now, you can only access the galaxy map when you're on your ship. But with 5.2 you can use it from everywhere to travel, as long as you've unlocked a legacy perk. The map also looks very slick now and it is easier to locate planets. I was really happy with this quality of life addition.

However, Twitch chat wouldn't be Twitch chat if people would use it to complain. When Eric and Charles said they were working on tweaking class balance but it was delayed, people felt the need to complain about one dev working on class balance being on maternity leave. At this point, the developers felt obliged to state that no, there was not just one dev working on class balance, it was a team effort; they had just mentioned the maternity leave on other media to congratulate their collegue.

I feel sorry for the SWTOR devs - that are actively trying to communicate with the playerbase by organising live streams - to constantly have to deal with these kind of comments. I know that it happens all the time on Twitch and that it isn't restricted to the SWTOR streams, but that doesn't make it right or fun. Devs: know that there are also tons of people out there that enjoy watching your streams and do appreciate your hard work! I certainly do.

I first started watching SWTOR livestreams in the fall of 2016, after the implementation of the Galactic Command system with 5.0. As SWTOR players reading this will know, that system was received very negatively by the community, resulting in many unsubs and even a Massively OP award for the Worst MMORPG Business Model of 2016. (Read Three months of Galactic Command from the perspective of an endgame raider for my opinion on the matter.)

Regardless of what I personally think of the system, I honestly think that the devs truly believed it was a good idea. After all, science was on their side. Releasing an expansion is usually worthy of a good party celebrating the hard work, but in this case that didn't work out as planned.

It cannot have been an easy period, but nevertheless a team of producers (Eric Musco, Ben Irving and Charles Boyd), from then on known as "the Stream Dream Team" (a name jokingly used by themselves) started streaming almost weekly to keep us updated with changes to Galactic Command. The intend was to show that the developers took players seriously and were really listening to community feedback. I followed the streams loyally, at first because I had to be up to date with the latest news for my appearance on the Corellian Run Radio podcast, but soon also because it was just really cool to get such frequent updates from the people working on my favourite MMO! The streams gave a face to (some of) the developers and definitely made me feel more connected to and involved with SWTOR. Sadly the regular streams disappeared in 2017, but I remain hopeful for more of this type of communication to come in the future. Even if Eric, Ben and Charles have to do without the technical help of Tait, who left for California earlier this year.

Go SWTOR Stream Dream Team!

This post is part of the eight annual Developer Appreciation Week (DAW), running from April 3rd to 10th 2017. Everyone is welcome to join the prompt and spread some game dev positivity (#DAW8).

Favourite SWTOR droids

2017-03-24T23:56:00.000+01:00

It's Friday, so sit back and enjoy another blog post for 5 Fandom Friday! This week's topic was actually submitted by me, because there are just so many awesome neglected droids out there asking for our attention. In this blog post, we're going into space to look at my five favourite droids from the MMO Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR). But if that's not your cup of tea: fear not, because I'll be sharing my five favourite non-SWTOR droids at the end in a bonus paragraph. Just make sure to only watch the videos if you've already played SWTOR or don't care about being spoiled.

(Source: xLetalis)

1) HK-55

This paragraph contains spoilers for chapter 1 to 8 of the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion.

A list of favourite droids would of course not be complete with a specimen from the HK series! HK-55 is my absolute favourite from SWTOR. A guardian droid rather than an assassin droid, HK-55 fits Republic characters more than other models. Everyone remembers HK from the hilarious scene in the Zakuulan Swamp above. I was heartbroken when he was killed by Arcann. As I did qualify for the subscriber reward, I was able to recruit the reconstructed model, but it's just not the same. Note that earlier in SWTOR you can acquire HK-51, an earlier model of the series. Although he has quite the personality, he just doesn't hold up to HK-47 from the KOTOR games, in my opinion.

(Source: Retale - RE-M0 starts at 3:04)

2) RE-M0

This paragraph contains spoilers for the jedi knight storyline on Taris.

RE-M0 is the well trusted droid of doctor Godera that you encounter during the jedi knight story on Taris. I love how Godera programmed him to refer to "Imp scum" and "Republic cowards" (Godera is strongly against the peace treaty, because he believes it just gives the Empire more time to build weapons). Like HK-55, RE-M0 sacrifices himself so the player will succeed and save his master, but luckily he does have an intact memory core that can be used to rebuild him. I was delighted to learn that there is a new warbot droid companion available that uses the skin of RE-M0. It was going for an affordable price on the galactic trade network (three million credits), so now I can walk around with my own RE-M0 on all my characters. Take that, Imp scum!

(Source: SupaHsuB - not my raid group)

3) Master & Blaster

The third boss encounter of the Ravagers raid on Rishi (Shadow of Revan expansion) features a twin droid fight: Master and Blaster. Blaster is a huge droid, and if you progress far enough into the fight he'll call out: "Ohhhh, you've done it now! Here comes the Master!" - after which a tiny astromech that hits like hell called Master drops down. If you wipe early on, Blaster taunts you with "Didn't even need the bo-oss!" Their voices are so well done that it's a pleasure to listen to (unfortunately, they are very soft in the video). I've died over and over for weeks at this spot when doing hardmode (now called veteran mode) progression raiding, and they still crack me up.

(Source: TheAwesomeLegacy)

4) T7

T7 is SWTOR's version of R2-D2: a cute little astromech droid that follows the jedi knight player around whilst making the typical bleeping noises. A fun characteristic is that T7 talks in mathematical equations to you. It's always enthusiastic sentences such as "T7 + jedi knight = unbeatable!" that makes you smile.

(Source: RatedFluffy)

5) 2V-R8, Imperial ship droid

Every Imperial player gets a ship with it's own protocol droid that looks after your ship, 2V-R8. This little bugger is programmed to be in constant fear of its master and will drop gems like "Seeing you aboard this ships always warms my circuits, master - it reminds me I'm still functioning." During the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion (slight spoiler incoming), during which the player will lose all their companions, players will overhear 2V-R8 complain about his horrible previous master (you, if you're an Imperial) to C2-N2 (the Republic ship droid) before being reunited. This always cracks me up.

*) Bonus: non-SWTOR droids

But that's not all! Of course there are also many awesome droids outside of the Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO. My number one favourite droid would be Data from Star Trek. Okay, it's an android, but let's not talk semantics. Data is at the center of some of the best Star Trek episodes of all time, and uplifts The Next Generation series as a whole. A typical Data episode holds a mirror to humanity and raises philosophical questions. (For instance The measure of a man. If you haven't seen that episode, seriously, go watch it.) It also makes you smile, because nobody can resist this lovable being. Another awesome droid is Wall-E from the ditto named movie. If you haven't seen it yet, this is another I would definitely recommend - but for other reasons. Wall-E is designed for sorting trash, but he is capable of so much more! If I need cheering up, I'll rewatch Wall-E. All my other favourite droids are from the Star Wars universe: there are just so many good ones! K3S-O from Rogue One was an unexpected hit for me. Being an ex-Imperial droid, K3S-O looks scary, but he is the best. Without going into details in case someone here hasn't seen the movie yet, K3S-O provided for one of the most heartbreaking scenes. Then there's the golden couple C3PO and R2-D2 - I'm counting them as one, because what would they do without each other?! Finally, BB-8 from The Force Awakens gets the cuteness award. And the handiness award for carrying around a portable built in lighter.

Do you have any favourites? N.B.: the comment section is open to spoilers!

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly event organized by the Female Geek Bloggers group on Google+. You can look up past and upcoming topics on The Nerdy Girlie.

The solution to command crate schematic OCD

2017-03-13T22:09:00.000+01:00

Disintegrate all the things!*

I have a confession to make: I suffer from command crate OCD. You know those schematics that drop from command crates? Well, I want to collect them all. And because they typically drop on a character with a different crafting profession that they're meant for, I kept logging over and over to check my alts before I decided to claim or disintegrate them. It was starting to drive me crazy.

I was probably in the process of complaining about it when Conrad showed me a spreadsheet he made of all the armor schematics that drop from command crates. It was brilliant! I quickly got to work and added tabs for cybernetics, relics and weapons, so the document truly covered all schematics that can drop from the crates. Then I filled it with X's of the schematics I already had and pinned the document to my taskbar. No more relogging to alts when opening command crates!

I'm sharing the empty file here with you, just in the off chance that you suffer from command crate OCD as well and want to make your life easier.

You can find the file here. Use "File > Download as" to download, so you can customize it to your liking and fill in the boxes of schematics you have collected.

Extra info

In case you are reading this and there are a lot of question marks appearing above your head, I will try to give some examples of how to use the spreadsheet.

I would also stress that I designed it in a way that's logical to me, but you're free to totally customize it to your own needs. For instance, I thought about creating a tab for each crafting profession, but that's not really how I think of them (plus it would mean a lot more tabs and a lot more tables). But if that's what you'd rather use, by all means, rearrange the tables and make it!

Also note that I've only included schematics from command crates in this spreadsheet, so not the schematics that drop from operation bosses or are granted for completing warzone quests. The reason is simple: this is just meant to stop you from having to log over to alts when opening command crates. But if you want to transform it into your own super spreadsheet with all the 230+ rating schematics there are in the game, be my guest.

Click to enlarge

Above you see the first tab, filled in with the armor schematics of my armormech. I've sorted the crafting panel on Rating to make it easier and then simply put an X in for every schematic I had. The Asylum and Onslaught schematics are for armormech and the Aegis and Expert ones for synthweaving. As you can see the in-game names are currently messed up for rating 240, hence the clarification of the craft of that tier (there are still four different looking 240 armor sets).

The next tab is for cybernetics (biochem and cybertech), or what you'd refer to as 'jewellery' in most MMOs. Green is cybertech, yellow is biochem. Not much else to say here.

Then there's the relics tab. Not all relics are actually useful in the game, but I decided to include them all for the sake of inclusiveness. Of course you can just delete the tabs you decide not to collect.

A question that comes up in my guild chat a lot is "should I claim or disintegrate relic X?" The answer is that the relics of Devastating Vengeance and Primeval Fatesealer are suboptimal in all thinkable situations, so they are always safe to disintegrate (of course whether you do so will depend on how far your collect-them-all OCD reaches). The "clicky relics" are also not used a lot, but they are optimal in certain specific situations, so min maxers might still be looking for them.

Edit: Devastating Vengeance is no longer suboptimal for healers once they're equipped in full 246 rating gear or higher. Healers that do this swap out Serendipitous Assault and need to rebalance their stats: a bit more alacrity so they don't go to deep into crit diminishing returns.

The last tab is for weapons (both main hands and off hands). I've listed them per tier and per tier artifice first and then armstech. The names are listed in the order they show up in the crafting panel if you filter on Rating (alphabetically under each category).

I'm not really sure I want to collect all the weapons, because they are not that useful, and there are just so many! A lot of people just disintegrate the weapons, which is totally legit. It's up to you; the tab is there just in case.

That was it! I hope this post was of use to you. Do you suffer from command crate OCD? Let's talk about it in the command section.

Edit: Updated with 246 rating gear on July the 3rd, 2017.

* If you are wondering what that pile of brown ehh (I'll leave it up to your imagination) is, well, that's what command crates actually look like when you remove their halo. Go on, check those icons in-game. And people wonder why they drop trash...

Three months of Galactic Command from the perspective of an endgame raider

2017-03-08T23:56:00.000+01:00

It's been over three months since the highly controversial Galactic Command system was introduced to Star Wars: the Old Republic. When it was first announced, I thought I could live with a bit more grind in the game (SWTOR was very light on grind compared to any MMO I've played) and I could see how it would benefit a larger part of the populace (namely it would give people who don't raid the chance to get gear). It was also hard to imagine how much grind there would actually be. So even though it was clear to me that Galactic Command would be a step back for me personally (as an endgame raider), I gave the system the benefit of the doubt. I was wrong.

An emotional rollercoaster

I never wrote much in detail about Galactic Command after it was implemented. The reasons are twofold. First off, I don't like writing overly emotional and negative blog posts. They tend to attract haters and there's a chance I'll regret having written them later. I prefer to write constructive posts that fuel a healthy discussion, but at the time of the expansion I didn't have the mental energy for that. Just thinking about Galactic Command would suck all the fun out of playing SWTOR and feeling that way about a game is simply not worth the energy. Secondly, the developers promised to listen to the playerbase and adapt the system as was felt needed. The dev team spent a lot of energy in live streams to connect with the community, which I loved. I decided to wait and see if things would be improved.

In December I wrote about my Spoiler-free Eternal Throne impressions. As the Galactic Command system was part of the Eternal Throne expansion, I felt obliged to touch upon it. This is how I felt:

"I'm astonished at the amount of grind involved. (...) I honestly had no idea that a loot system could impact the way I feel about an MMO so much, but to me, as a progression raider, the system is so un fun."

On paper it had looked acceptable to me. But we don't play games because we rationally decide we like them; we play games because we feel like playing them and because they make us have fun. In other words, it's pure emotion. It's hard to identify for me what factors exactly made Galactic Command feel unfun. One thing that I did find out about myself is that I strongly feel that skill should be rewarded more than time in MMOs. It wasn't at that moment: in 5.0, raids were a very time inefficient way to gain command ranks, and people were non stop killing gold mobs in heroic areas because that was the fastest way to get gear. After a few weeks that was fixed, but the grind train just moved on to the next best thing to farm. This soon turned out to be a pattern.

My current highest command rank (main character)

All I know is that I started logging in with lead boots. The first weeks I ignored everything that had to do with gaining command ranks. I simply lived in a solo bubble, playing through the Eternal Throne story on veteran mode, enjoying the story and gameplay challenge. I absolutely loved that part of the expansion. But when I had completed the story I looked around me, and nobody in my progression raid guild was logging in. The expansion story was amazing and even (optionally) challenging, but the Galactic Command system overshadowed it all. None of my guildies ragequit or wrote angry posts on the forum; they simply stopped logging in.

Indeed from an endgame raid team's perspective it's not that hard to understand why. The bosses that we had downed on veteran and master mode the weeks before were now too hard to beat without new gear, so would have to start over on those on storymode (there was no new raid). But since the bosses didn't drop gear anymore, it would take us ages simply to get to the same spot as we used to be in. I'm not trying to complain here; I'm just trying to give some insight into why the system felt demotivating to progression raiders back when it was just implemented.

A new expansion is supposed to be a party. Everyone logs in, people that have been gone for a while return to check out the new content together and have fun. In my circles the Eternal Throne expansion felt more like a funeral.

The SWTOR developer team worked hard to improve Galactic Command, tweaking the system on almost a weekly base and keeping people updated with livestreams and forum posts. It didn't prevent SWTOR from winning the title of Worst MMORPG Business Model of 2016 on Massively OP. The damage was already done. (Note that I don't personally feel SWTOR has the worst business model out there - there's way worse in the wondrous world of MMOs. But the voting for the award - by readers - was right at the time the Galactic Command system was freshly implemented and passionately criticized, so SWTOR's win wasn't that much of a surprise.)

One positive thing about Galactic Command is that flashpoints feel rewarding again

The turning point for my guild was somewhere near the end of January. By then, the system was changed so that bosses dropped gear again - sort of. The last boss of an operation bestowed a guaranteed drop; earlier bosses had a chance to drop gear, getting higher the further you got into the raid. We had enough people online again to carefully dip our toes into storymode and veteran mode operations. Conrad and I worked our arses off to equip everyone with crafted gear so we had at least a chance at veteran mode bosses. If we couldn't get into challenging content without excessively grinding storymode operations, our guildies would burn out on SWTOR - that much we knew.

The current situation

We've arrived at a point in time where I feel "CXP fatigue". The Galactic Command system is definitely in a much better place than it was when initially implemented, but I'm just sort of depressed hearing about it all the time. All these months most SWTOR news was about a loot system, rather than new, exciting content. It's always easy to say these things in hindsight, but it feels like such a waste of developer energy.

My inventory management skillz are also starting to feel "CXP fatigue"

Let me be clear: I'm happy with the recently announced changes that all operation bosses will drop gear again, just like they did before the Galactic Command system was introduced. We've ended up with the best of both worlds: gear from raids for endgame raiders and the option to get gear through Galactic Command for those that do not raid. Of course this means raiders will get gear quicker, as they will also gain command ranks while raiding, but that's not a bad thing in my book. Ultimately it means skill will reward better than time again, as it should in any MMO that encourages players to play skillfully. Players that don't raid will still be able to get the best gear; it will just take them longer.

Just forgive me if I'm not overly cheerful at the moment. My mixed feelings are probably best voiced by Shintar in 300: "I guess I can say I'm happy that Bioware managed to turn Command rank into a system that is now safe to ignore if you raid or PvP, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement of their work...". Of note is also Ian Argent's comment on the same post: "My impression is that BW:A thought there were a lot less "active" raiders/PvPers than there turned out to be. GC is unambiguously a better system for the unwashed (unguilded) PuG masses; but doesn't do a thing for anyone who raids weekly in an organized guild except slow their gearing down and add a previously not-present RNG element. They're backing out a lot of that in 5.2 (...)."

So yes, I'm happy SWTOR didn't end up being a mindless grindfest MMO, as I feared in those first few weeks. I'm thankful the developers decided that they wanted to keep the endgame raider populace interested in the game badly enough to, in a sense, "roll back" some of the changes. It's downright scary how close I came to quitting the MMO I have called my main since 2012, despite still liking its quality group content. Relieved and fatigued are probably more accurate words than happy to describe my emotions.

I'm cautiously optimistic about 5.2. With a new raid boss (finally!) and guaranteed loot dropping once more, doing what I do best (raiding) should feel fun again. I'm slightly worried about more and more command ranks being added in the future, creating more grind and raising the bar for new SWTOR players to get into future new raids. But that's material for another post.

For the coming months: let's enjoy the upcoming raid boss(es). I sincerely hope the dev team will keep listening to their endgame playerbase (pro tip: cheerful tweets about new command ranks are discouraged), so some measure of trust can be regained. They say there's nothing time can't heal - and some fat loot drops, of course!

Note that I've tried to describe my personal reception of the galactic command system in all its evolutionary forms in this article. I'm not claiming to speak for anyone but myself. Some people will have enjoyed this loot system more than I; others will have enjoyed it even less. This is logical, because everyone plays for different reasons. If I managed to provide a look into the head of an endgame raider being confronted with galactic command, my goal is achieved.

Geeky expressions only my friends understand (and now you will, too)

2017-02-27T23:00:00.001+01:00

For most these will just be some random words,

but members of Asylum will recognize them immediately

The latest 5 Fandom Friday was about "geeky expressions that only my friends understand". I suggested the topic myself, so I definitely wanted to participate, even if the flu kept me from writing anything on the appropriate day (last Friday).

I don't really talk "geeky" in everyday life, but when I'm at my gaming laptop, I definitely do. Not only am I fluent in "MMO language" (read: Lost in translation: Why my friends don't understand me when I talk about MMOs), I also use specific phrases that don't make a lot of sense to anyone (not even other MMO players) but my friends.

Those friends all play together in the gaming group Asylum. Originally a kinship in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) and now mostly active as a guild in Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR), I've been part of this group of lovely people for six years now. If you spend so much time together, you inevitably come up with your own approach of gaming and inside jokes. In this post I will share five.

LOTRO 2012. Someone (presumably a hobbit, considering the height)
still wears the noob leaf on a kinship picture right after doing the Saruman T2 Challenge

Noob leaf & Green dildo

When someone does something exceptionally stupid doing raid nights, typically resulting in the deaths of all members in a comical way, we mark them up with a specific target marker (normally reserved for adversaries). This was the "noob leaf" in LOTRO (see picture above). When we started raiding in SWTOR we needed an equivalent, which became the "green dildo" (although one polite Englishman in our guild stubbornly refers to it as "the sabre").

"Wipe on trash, one shot the boss"

This is what we call 'the Asylum way' when something doesn't go as planned. We have this tradition of being able to down horribly hard bosses, but now and then dying horribly ("wipe") on easy adversaries (called "trash" in MMOs) when nobody is paying attention. The saying goes back to a night in LOTRO during the Siege of Mirkwood expansion, when the raid group had defeated the Lieutenant (a big achievement) and afterwards wiped on the Turtle (a pug worthy easy lair boss five levels below level cap). This still is a great source of self ridicule.

As I was typing this article, someone was typing 'the dot' in guild chat

.

Originally intended to get people from different LOTRO kinships together quickly in a shared chat channel (for instance if people had relogged to a different character that the other might not recognize), the dot in chat still lives on in our guild chat. The dot may mean "I'm in!", or "This is my alt I was going to relog" or simply "I'm ready for an invite": either way, the expected action is an invite to the group. Newcomers are always mystified when they see those dots appear.

"Kill stuff, don't die"

Some guilds require their members to read up on online guides before coming to a raid night. We don't. We throw ourselves upon the raid bosses until we figure out what is going on. And when we don't know it anymore, we always have this incredibly useful tactic to fall back upon! Usually, the conversation goes something like this. First timer: "Any tactics I should know about?" Reply: "Kill stuff, don't die." The saying has developed into more than our guild's mantra: it stands for the no nonsense way we play our MMOs.

Left: 121 search results for :derp: in Discord chat; top right: the :derp: Discord icon

:Derp:

Old expressions go and new ones take their place. :Derp: or "Colon derp colon" (when spoken out loud) is fresh from 2017! Since the start of this year, Asylum is using Discord to communicate, which works amazing as a sort of out of game guild chat for a multi-gaming group. Discord allows for uploading your own emotes, a feature we have eagerly put to use. I made an icon of one of our favourite pets, the kelldrake (see picture above). This little bugger has a gift for looking really derpy, so he was assigned the code ":derp:", which we now enthusiastically apply whenever someone (be it a dev or ourselves) derps. Conrad and I have even started saying "colon derp colon" to each other if one of us does something stupid - which is probably only funny to us.

I almost feel a bit guilty about writing these expressions down, as they're not so much my expressions, but rather our expressions. These funny little ways of talking to each other is part of what makes Asylum Asylum. Some things are best kept secret, though: if you want to find out who Norman is (another Asylum word), you'll just have to join us!

Do you use geeky gaming expressions that nobody but your mates get?

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly event organized by the Female Geek Bloggers group on Google+. You can look up past and upcoming topics on The Nerdy Girlie.

The power of memories: a quest for the essence of MMOs

2017-02-20T21:58:00.000+01:00

Last week, I was chatting to my friend Rakuno. He was reminiscing why he was going through this "long, weird streak of burning out on MMOs": "after playing MMOs for a while it kind of feels like the road is the same no matter the game", he said. And he has a point. Other than artistic, visual differences and varying lore settings, all MMOs boil down to the same formula: gather experience (level up), gather gear, gather currency... maybe fight some challenging bosses, craft stuff, dress up or decorate your house. There is no definite end goal, no satisfying "You WIN!" button at the end; in fact, there is no end, there are seemingly always more things to do. Indeed, MMOs would be shitty, grindy RPGs, if not for that single defining element: the other people with whom you share this virtual world.

I had the feeling that my friend might feel the way he does about MMOs because he is mostly playing on his own these days, while it is other players that make your experience in MMOs unpredictable, and thus interesting. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows: I'm sure we can all recall encounters with trolls, guild drama and misunderstandings (read: The day on which virtual people made me cry). But there are also good times, and I would argue that these have the potential to transform into powerful positive memories, which in their turn make us want to login and expect us to have fun.

To investigate this hypothesis I've delved deep into the blogosphere to look for such powerful memories. I've had a lot of help from people tweeting me their stories - thank you! Here are five memories that in my opinion touch upon the essence of what it means to play MMOs.

Family bonding

In Finding value out of gaming, Redbeard tells how he grew up with gaming and how his children in their turn are now growing up gaming as well. For him, gaming is a way to form cross-generational bonds. "The mini-Reds have been indoctrinated into gamer culture from a young age, and they've grown to become gamers themselves. Whereas other families might discuss sports, we discuss games." He continues: "I've no doubt that when my oldest goes off to college I'll use MMOs to keep in touch with her. I can imagine her occasionally logging into SWTOR or LOTRO to just putz around and occasionally group up, just before heading out to dinner or hanging out with friends." For Redbeard, some of his favourite memories as a father have come from gaming. I was moved by his story and fully recommend clicking through to read about all his adventures playing MMOs and other games with the 'mini-Reds'.

One of Ethu's drawings (left) and Zenakh's Rock (right) (source: Etholution)

The loss of a fellow player

The tearjerker of this article is provided for by Ethuiliel with High Chieftain Zenakh. She takes us back to Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) in 2011, when monster player and PvP raid leader Zenakh passed away. Game masters placed a copy of his character on a rock in the Ettenmoors with 600 players holding a wake in his honour. From then onwards, the rock was known as "Zenakh's rock" and it was neutral ground. Ethuiliel drew two breathtaking character portraits in his honour. I couldn't keep my eyes dry when reading her writings.

Pizzamaid and her friend during the Eternal Bonding ceremony (source: Pizzamaid.moe)

In-game marriage

A more uplifting memory comes from Pizzamaid in A screenshot is worth 1000 words: the day on which she participated in the Eternal Bonding ceremony in Final Fantasy XIV. "Romantically? There’s nothing there, but in our time online? We’ve developed an amazing friendship that we know will go on for years to come. Is it safe to say we were in it for the 2 seater Chocobo mounts? OH YEAH. Plus… what woman doesn’t love a wedding? Plus one that only cost us $20.00? /raises hand" Like a true couple, the pair fussed over all the details extensively beforehand to make sure their perfect day, celebrated with many friends in-game, would transform into the cherished memory it is today.

Rakuno's character in Lineage 2 (source: Shards of Imagination)

Standing up for each other

Rakuno memorizes an event in Lineage 2 that left a lasting impression in It is personal to me. Someone had killed a guildie, which was a big deal in that game. The offender said it was 'just for fun, nothing personal'. "To which my clan leader replied "It is personal to me." then proceeded to challenge the PKer for a one-on-one duel. (...) What stuck to my mind (...) were those words spoken by my clan leader "It is personal to me". There were just a lot implicit things behind those words. That she would stand by us, no matter what. That our problems were her problems. That if we ever attacked that she would always come to our defense. (...) that may not be a big deal, just something natural for a guild leader to do. (...) But at that time, at that particular moment with all the tension going on (...), it really stuck to me. I'd like to say that since then I've tried to live up to those words."

Fingolwë and Ravanel at the banks of the river Gilrain in the final minutes of their server's life

Server pride

Finally, I wouldn't want to end this article without sharing my own memories, of which the fondest have their origin in LOTRO. Lord of the Rings Online was always a game of strong communities. When my home server, Gilrain, was closed last year after having existed for nine years, it felt like the end of an age to me. In a sense, Gilrain felt like a small town: I didn't know everyone, but there were many familiar faces and names that you felt accustomed to seeing around all these years. Everyone knew the server lunatic and the notorious exploiter, the names of legendary PvMP raid leaders, the local history of big raiding guilds. So many friendships were formed, alliances made and lost... it wasn't all perfect, but it was definitely home. You can read my ten fondest memories in Goodbye, Gilrain.

Wait, I want more!

You're in luck, because there's more. Lina Willowwood (LOTRO) writes about her first time playing a musical instrument in front of a crowd in LOTRO. She was so nervous! Luckily, everybody loved it and it turned out to be one of the best nights she had in the game. Joe (CWA) looks back at his childhood memories in Clone Wars Adventures. "One of the best things about the game was the community feel, everyone worked together to help each other which was a really nice feeling. (...) I can't give this game a score as it's too dear to my heart and brings so many memories to me." Every year, Shintar (SWTOR) sits down to write about her memorable moments in Star Wars: the Old Republic. Doing things with guildies is a constant factor. Meanwhile, Jaedia (FFXIV) felt burnt out on MMOs, but returned to Final Fantasy anyway because of its wonderful community and her friends that want to play with her. And Wolfyeyes (Blade & Soul, Wildstar and others) listens to game soundtracks to relive past memories.

Conclusions

What strikes me in all these memories is the constant presence of other people. These are stories about family, about friends, about the comradery of relative strangers and a feeling of belonging. I could imagine myself revisiting an MMO world completely emptied of players, but it would just be to relive some of those past feelings, to have the sense that it isn't all gone forever. Then again, isn't the constantly developing gameplay and content, and the coming and going of players: in short, the very notion of temporality of MMOs and that makes our memories of playing them so precious? And is the fact that there's only one first time for everything why our fondest memories are usually forged in the first MMO we played?

Think back to a strong positive memory you had in an MMO. Did it involve other players?

PS If you wrote a blog post about an MMO memory, feel free to link to it in the comments below and I'll definitely check it out.

Artificial versus designed difficulty: a critique on SWTOR's master mode story design

2017-02-08T23:52:00.000+01:00

I'm usually not your typical "armchair game designer", as some bloggers jokingly call themselves: I like (or don't like) games as they are and don't have any pretensions of coming up with an original design of my own. However, a discussion I had the other day with Conrad about the newly released master mode (in addition to the available story and veteran mode) for the Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne story in Star Wars: the Old Republic made me think about difficulty design in MMOs.

If you've been listening to Corellian Run Radio last Saturday (and if you're a SWTOR player who is interested in the latest content, I totally recommend the show), you have already heard some critique on the way the difficulty of story chapters is increased between veteran and master mode.* Let me be clear: I'm not saying that master mode is too difficult; what I'm saying is that it's a shame the difficulty is not increased by adding new mechanics, but by simply increasing stats. In other words: by increasing the artificial difficulty.

I didn't have much time to explore this game design term much in CRR's podcast episode, so I am taking the opportunity to do so here, as well as sharing some ideas to improve the experience of master mode chapters. I will try to do so in a way that makes this article relevant for MMO gamers that don't play SWTOR as well, but feel free to ask me anything in the comment section if things aren't clear. Disclaimer: the amount of nerd is strong with this one, so I won't blame you if you happen to fall asleep halfway (though I appreciate it if you wouldn't snore in the comment section).

Issues with master mode story

There are three issues that surface when playing through the story on master mode.

1) The companion AI is inadequate

Companions** in SWTOR are incapable of avoiding telegraphed damage by themselves, so it is down to the player to keep them from standing in stupid, for instance by putting them on passive. However, the available tools in the game are not sufficient to reliably keep them from harm.

An example is the last boss of chapter 2 of the Eternal Throne story. He goes up in the air and summons fire mines. Because your companion (Acina) is melee, she will try to reach the boss by standing beneath him in the middle; however, when the boss comes down, he one-shots anything that's in the middle. The player has to put Acina on passive so she follows you; however, because she always trails a bit behind, she still gets hit by the mines from time to time, even if you do it perfectly as a player. Also noteworthy is that Acina cannot heal you (or do anything else) while she is on passive. Effectively, this results in fights in which you get unlucky and your companion dies from damage that you could not prevent, shortly followed by your own death because you do need that companion in order to complete the fight. This isn't fun: just like people dislike RNG in gaining gear, they dislike RNG in gameplay. It feels good when you down a boss because you figured out and executed a strategy correctly; it does not when you do because, say, your companion for once happened to take the right path towards you rather than running through the fire mines behind you.

Unfortunately, chapter 2 is no exception: you will run into this problem all the time when running master mode stories, particularly during boss fights. Naturally, the issue existed also in veteran mode, but in master mode the damage is such that some encounters start to feel completely random rather than a result of skillful gameplay.

A solution would be to improve companion commands, for instance by allowing companions to be active while following (so they can hopefully outheal any stupid they stand in), or - even better - to assign companions to a specific spot in the room, much like companions in other Bioware games.

2) Trash is often harder than boss fights
On master mode, everything deals insane amounts of damage, even critters that die with a few hits. Effectively, this often makes some trash harder than boss fights, especially for classes that have no good burst AoE skills or defensive skills that can deal with the insane initial hits (see 3).

In my opinion, large mobs of glasscanony trash should be slightly nerfed. It just doesn't make sense that they are harder to deal with than boss fights and some classes simply don't have the tools to deal with them, no matter how skillfully they play. This leads us to the following point.

3) Class inequality
Classes aren't equally equipped to deal with the challenges faced with in master (and veteran) mode stories. The reviews I've read in the blogosphere thus far of veteran & master mode don't provide a good overview, because the writer usually only played through it on one class and draws conclusions based on that, while the difficulty experience is in fact entirely different on other classes.

For instance, interrupts, crowd control and defensive skills are vital in order to deal with the many one-shot mechanics present. Classes that have (or can spec for) a shorter cooldown on their interrupt skill or have multiple defensive skills are at a clear advantage. If a mob with a one-shot mechanic is immune to crowd control, a sage will have a hard time dealing with it: they can interrupt the first induction, force barrier the second, if lucky interrupt the third again, and for the fourth time either the mob or the sage will be dead. In these cases, it's "get better gear or go home" for the sage, while some other classes (say commando) can easily deal with these kind of mechanics assuming they know how to rotate through their defensive skills.

Another example is encounters in which players need to deal a ton of AoE damage in order to get rid of an overwhelming amount of adds. Some classes (like scoundrel) don't have this capability.

It's hard to come up with a solution to this problem. On the one hand, it's fun that playing through the harder difficulty modes rewards with a different experience depending on your class: it strengthens the replayability of story chapters. On the other hand, some classes are completely shafted compared to others and have to compensate with better gear for mechanics they cannot deal with. While Conrad played through KOTFE and KOTET up until chapter 4 on master mode with his undergeared commando in tier 1 gear and below (crafted 228 gear with 198 set bonus armorings)***, I will probably have to wait until I'm in tier 3 gear on my sage to get a go at it.

What makes master mode "unfun"?

In my Spoiler-free Eternal Throne Impressions, I was very enthusiastic about the veteran mode that came with SWTOR's latest expansion. All of a sudden, the storyline wasn't the only reason to play: now there also was a genuine gameplay challenge attached to it. Veteran mode introduced additional mechanics that needed to be explored and bested. Why then, am I not similarly excited about master mode?

I have touched upon three aspects (inadequate companions, trash harder than boss fights, class inequality) that feel 'unfun' when attempting to play through master mode. These issues were also apparent in veteran mode, but you got less punished for them. I would argue that the root of the problem lies in the way the difficulty between veteran mode and master mode is increased: entirely through adding artificial difficulty.

In the research I did on game design, I stumbled upon the incredibly helpful article Hard mode: good difficulty versus bad difficulty by Paul Suddaby. I wholeheartedly agree with his definition of difficulty: "Difficulty refers to the amount of skill required by the player to progress through a game experience, with higher difficulty obviously meaning more skill is required."

According to Suddaby, adding artificial difficulty to a game means changing the statistics of certain elements, for instance by increasing enemy health and damage, shortening an enrage timer and reducing resources. The core of the experience (level design, enemy behaviour etc.) does not change. This is exactly the case with master mode story chapters in SWTOR. No new mechanics (designed difficulty) have been added; everything just hits a lot harder.

Suddaby: "At its core, artificial difficulty is shallow, providing a level of difficulty that is neither satisfying nor enjoyable for the player, often feeling cheap and unfair. In contrast, designed difficulty typically offers the player great satisfaction once conquered because the challenge presented felt organic and fair."

I would add to this that beating something of designed difficulty gives a higher satisfaction because you made it because of something you have done, while beating something of artificial difficulty often feels like you made it either because you had the stats or because of lucky circumstances after having smashed your head against the wall for a while.

The difference between SWTOR's story and veteran mode is added artificial and designed difficulty; the difference between veteran mode and master mode is only artificial in nature. In simpler words: in order to beat master mode you don't need to play more intelligently, you just need more gear.

I will probably give master mode completion a serious try at the end of the year, when I have tier 3 gear. Not so much because it will be fun (after all, from a gameplay perspective the experience will be the same as veteran mode), but because it will be good to get those achievements out of the way.

This article is based on research by Conrad and Rav, who have combined played through veteran mode of both expansions on sage, shadow, guardian, sentinel, gunslinger and commando. We would have loved to play through master mode on anything other than commando, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Extra info for non SWTOR players:
* In the fall of 2016, veteran mode was released for SWTOR's last two expansions: Knights of the Fallen Empire (KOTFE) and Knights of the Eternal Throne (KOTET). Two weeks ago, master mode was released. SWTOR has a difficulty system of three tiers (from easy to hard): storymode, veteran mode and master mode.
** In SWTOR, players are accompanied (if they so wish) by an NPC, the so called companion. This companion can be set to three stances (if out of combat): damage, tanking or healing. Each stance has a specific set of skills that can be activated, set to auto fire, or turned off. In addition to this, companions can be set to active or passive: in the latter case they will follow the player around, but they will not use any skills.
*** SWTOR's master mode story is designed to be played with galactic command tier 3 gear (rating 240) and companions with influence level 50. Conrad was playing it with (sub) tier 1 gear and most companions around influence level 5 (Acina automatically gets buffed to rank 45 on master mode, though). Influence increases the damage & healing output and maximum health of companions.

Who is Tyth? The War for Iokath and the Old Gods: SWTOR raid boss speculation

2017-01-27T23:27:00.000+01:00

After having focused on storytelling since Knights of the Fallen Empire, the call of SWTOR players for multiplayer content (the "MMO part of SWTOR") in Star Wars: the Old Republic has become stronger and stronger. While the Knights expansions have attracted new players that were looking for a KOTOR experience, many old time players - endgame oriented ones in particular - have left the game in search for new multiplayer challenges. It is this MMO focused playerbase that the SWTOR dev team addresses with their latest announcement: SWTOR will release a new raid this year.

As an endgame fuelled gamer, I am thrilled by this news. It means that the year has barely started and my number one wish of SWTOR changes I'd love to see this year has already come true! Even better news is that we won't have to wait until the end of the year. You can listen to everything the developers had to say about the upcoming content at their January 26th devstream.

Of course I don't want any stone left unturned, so in this post I will get you up to date with the news, and then I will share some of the suspicions I have about the bosses we may come to fight in this upcoming raid.

Tyth, the first boss of the Iokath raid as presented on the devstream

Raid news

So what do we know? In the livestream, the developers told us we are going to get a new operation with five boss encounters, as part of a War for Iokath update. We don't know anything about these bosses apart from that the first one is called Tyth. One dev refers to him as "the super weapon" (15:08), presumably one that the factions on Iokath (the Republic and Empire) are fighting each other over for control. The livestream showed the concept art of Tyth above (16:25).

Fun fact: the developers made a Reddit joke about lacking a banana for size on their picture of the operation's first boss, Tyth. Apparently Tyth is really tall. Jessie of the Stardust Legacy responded aptly on Twitter with a community manager Musco for size:

New Operation boss coming around April. Actual Size. @SWTOR pic.twitter.com/CTe4lIOu29
— Stardust Legacy (@UnholyAlliances) January 26, 2017

The Tyth encounter will be available to us with update 5.2 in March or April; the other four boss encounters will be released during the rest of 2017 - before the end of the year, the devs promise us. When this was revealed, some people started complaining in chat, but personally I think this is much nicer than the alternative: to wait another half year before we get new group content. Just last week five new uprisings were released; it's unrealistic to expect the developers to magically let a whole new operation emerge within a week.

There is another positive aspect to having a new boss be added to the game every once in a while: with every new boss, master mode (previously called nightmare mode) will be unlocked for the previous boss. So in every new period you don't just have a new boss to fight, you can also challenge yourself by trying the previous one on a higher difficulty.

The dyson sphere Iokath, where the new raid will take place

Iokath boss fights

This is as much as we know for sure, so now the wild speculation starts! You've been warned: everything that follows is entirely made up. If that's not your thing you can stop reading now; however, you can take the opportunity to learn something about Zakuulan lore. As we will be diving deep into Zakuulan culture, the following may contain slight spoilers for people that have not played through the Knights expansions yet; nothing that concerns main events, though.

When I was listening to the devstream with Conrad, he recognized the name Tyth as one of the Old Gods on Zakuul. A coincidence? Seems unlikely. The armour Tyth wears in the concept art resembles that of a Zakuulan knight, so he definitely seems culturally related to Zakuul.

Much like the Romans, Zakuul had its own pantheon, referred to as 'the Old Gods', before Valkorion took over and reformed the planet. It consisted of six primary gods: Izax, the chief deity, his wife, Scyva, and their four children: Tyth, Aivela, Esne, and Nahut. The demon serpent Zildrog was another entity worshipped by the Old Ways, although some argue that he was merely a metaphor for a certain aspect of Izax.

So what if the Old Gods of Zakuul can be found on the ancient world of Iokath in some form or another? Legends often have a seed of truth, and Iokath seems to precede Zakuul, although its history is wrapped in a veil of mystery since its inhabitants have disappeared. It is also possible that the artificial intelligence on Iokath have created androids based on elements of Zakuulan culture - we know they love to challenge people. What if we get to fight the Old Gods (real or not) in the new Iokath raid?

A potential scenario would look like this:

1. Tyth

2. Aivela

3. Esne

4. Nahut

5. Izax & Scyva

Bonus boss: Zildrog

It's possible these names sound familiar to you. Knights of Zakuul often invoke their Old Gods when fighting, exclaiming sentences like "Izax take you!" Furthermore, the gods are incorporated in Zakuulan sayings. Senya references the Old Gods on multiple occasions and sometimes you hear them mentioned in conversations between Zakuulan citizens when you pass by.

Zildrog should also ring a bell. You run into the Heralds of Zildrog when exploring the Old World of Zakuul in chapter 7 of Knights of the Fallen Empire with Senya. These zealots still follow the Old Ways but are nowadays considered a cult. We learn that Arcann granted them power over the Old World during his reign.

The Exalted leads the Heralds of Zildrog cult on Zakuul

The Old Gods

The only way we can currently find out more about these Old Gods is via devotional texts that can be found at randomized places in Star Fortresses (small group/solo content in Knights of the Fallen Empire). These texts count for the Zakuulan Devotee achievement that grants players the legacy title Follower of the Old Ways. However, they cannot be looked up in the game afterwards, as they do not grant codex entries. I've gathered them here for you to save you the hassle of playing through all those Star Fortresses to collect clues.

Tyth
<The Firstborn>
The Awe of Tyth: "Storm the battlefield with Tyth, god of rage. The Firstborn of Izax and Scyva leads us to victory against the profane outlanders. Raise your bloodied fist and cry triumph..."

Tyth was the warrior god of the pantheon and the eldest of all siblings. It is said that his sister Aivela was present together with him on every battlefield. However, there is no mention of a sister in the same encounter so far. It is also possible she will be present but not actively fighting, as the lore just tells us she accompanies him.

Senya sings: "-a love the hand of Tyth could not deny..."

Aivela
<The Favored Daughter>

The Proclemation of Aivela: "Burn all doubt in the fires of Aivela, our goddess of passion. The Favored Daughter stands beside her brother Tyth on every battlefield, radiating grace to the fearless..."

Aivela was the goddess of passion. She accompanied Tyth on the battlefield and was the twin sister of Esne. If Aivela is going to be an operation boss, she could also be paired with Esne.

Esne
<Goddess of Envy>

The Admonition of Esne: "Beware the shadows of Esne, goddess of envy and twin of Aivela. Forever eclipsed by her sister's incandescence, she will use her venomous tongue to test the faithful and cull the weak..."

Esne was was envious of her sister Aivela, because she was the favored daughter. The Eyes of Esne was a common metaphor for jealousy among the people of Zakuul.

Information about the Old Gods can be found on datapads in Star Fortresses

Nahut
<The Hated Son>

The Lamentation of Nahut: "Bear a single torch for Nahut, the Hated Son. Gray, formless and cold, he is denied by all but the Mother of Sorrows. Do not follow him into the dark. Light the way to lead him home..."

Apparently nobody liked Nahut apart from his mother, Scyva.

Scyva
<Mother of Sorrows>
The Grieving of Scyva: "Walk the path with Scyva, the Constant Companion. Wife of divine Izax and avatar of sorrow, she weeps beside those who gladly march to embrace the Ultimate Devourer..."

Scyva carries two titles: the Constant Companion and the Mother of Sorrows. She was the wife of Izax. She was the goddess of sorrow, because she wept besides those that went to Izax - which sounds like a metaphor for death. The Heart of Scyva was a frequent invocation among Zakuulans.

Izax
<The Ultimate Devourer>

The Veneration of Izax: "Honor the omnipotence of Izax, the Ultimate Devourer: father, ruler and bringer of death to us all. His forms are infinite, but his great glory flies on serpent wings..."

Izax was the chief of the Zakuulian pantheon, the husband of Scyva and the father of Tyth, Aivela, Esne, and Nahut. His name is used as a metaphor for death ("Izax take you!"). As the first boss is going to be the eldest son, it would make sense the last boss would be the chief deity.

What do you think? Will the Old Gods of Zakuul have something to do with the upcoming SWTOR raid? Or is it all going in an entirely different direction?

Lost in translation: why my friends don't understand me when I talk about MMOs

2017-01-16T23:58:00.000+01:00

Ravanel (LOTRO) is trying to figure out what Y-u'no (SWTOR) means with "carbonite" and "credits"

In Geek anthropology: geek language, Pepi Valderrama of DePepi: Geek Anthropology investigates how we use specialized language (think of memes and inside jokes) to communicate with fellow geeks. At the end of her post, she asks: "What words do you use with your geek friends that non-geeks wouldn't understand?" Well, I know quite a few! I thought, and this article with examples from MMO gamer culture was born.

In her article, Pepi introduces us to the anthropological term code-switching: "changing vocabulary, grammar and symbols from one fandom to another". I'm often not even aware of what codes I'm using, because it comes to me so naturally. This becomes clear when using geek language in the vicinity of non-geeks.

Code-switching between geek and non-geek languages

A recent example. My friend and I are at a party. We haven't seen each other for a while and are catching up. We share many hobbies, one of which is playing Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. It is not unusual for us to code-switch in the middle of a sentence. So a conversation that goes as follows is quite common:

"How was your weekend?"

"Yeah, good. I did a mushroom excursion. Didn't see that many interesting species, but the heather club fungus was a score."

Our friends that are listening in are keeping up; they're all nature nerds, although some of them are more familiar with the sub field of fungi than others.

"Oh yeah, and I finally managed to beat the last encounter of chapter 6! It was really hard, but in the end I insta force lifted one add and killed the other asap, so it wouldn't one-shot my companion."

This is where my friends zone out. They know she is talking about gaming, but they can't translate what they hear to something meaningful: they don't understand the code.

Interesting to note is that my friends don't appreciate us talking about online games, I imagine because they feel excluded. Because we have nice friends they don't tell us to shut up, but you can tell from their body language. (The yawns are kind of a giveaway.) So I try to not talk about our online adventures (that are as real to us as anything we do together) in front of our friends.

The Spirit (BDO) has no clue what Ravanel (SWTOR) is talking about

Speech communities

We learn from Pepi that "geeks tend to communicate using different vocabulary and symbols depending on the fandom they belong into. Said in other words, depending on the speech community they tend to use certain ways of speaking and certain symbols."

The previous example with my yawning friends can also be used to illustrate something else, namely that there are sub groups within geek speech communities. Let's look at the 'MMO sentence' again:

Oh yeah, and I finally managed to beat the last encounter of chapter 6! It was really hard, but in the end I insta force lifted one add and killed the other asap, so it wouldn't one-shot my companion.

Words marked with blue are recognized by all members of MMO culture: they represent mechanics or systems that are commonly used in all massive multiplayer online games.

beating an encounter = defeat a boss fight

add = an opponent that appears in combination with a stronger opponent, e.g. a boss

asap = "as soon as possible", often used in association with a target needing prioritizing

one-shot = depleting the health bar of a target with one single blow

Words marked with red are recognized by players of the MMO Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR), the online game that my friend was talking about. MMO players can make an educated guess about what is talked about, but these words have an extra layer of meaning to SWTOR players.

chapter 6 = a SWTOR player will assume this is the chapter from the latest released expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne (spoiler alert!), which ends with a fight with emperor Arcann and his knights.
insta force lifted = SWTOR players familiar with the sage class know force lift is an ability that lifts an enemy target in the air, rendering them harmless for a duration of 60 seconds. A utility can be used to make this ability activate instantly.
companion = non player characters that can be summoned to talk to, fight for you or be sent out to crafting missions. You can have one companion with you at a time.

Ravereth (GW2) doesn't understand that Fingolwë (LOTRO) is talking about a boss fight

While I'm talking about the speech community of MMO players and a sub speech community within that of SWTOR players, words are not necessarily strictly confined to those communities. For instance, SWTOR is a game by the company Bioware. Almost all Bioware games have companions, so a gamer that isn't familiar with SWTOR, but has played other Bioware games, will still have a gist of what "companion" means.

Another, more complex example is "asap": this abbreviation comes from the world outside of gaming. Noteworthy is that it - as anything typed in chat - is usually written in-game without capitals rather than the official capitalized spelling. Edit: I picked this word up in the Lord of the Rings Online raiding scene, where it was regularly used in typed instructions regarding group tactics. LOTRO has relatively many British players due to its Middle-earth setting, which probably explains why it turned up in this speech community specifically o(bservant readers have pointed out that it is in general use in British business contexts). In this instance, gamers took a word from a non-gaming speech community and applied it in a gaming speech community, introducing it to a new, international audience.

Epilogue

The world of geek language in online games is huge. Even within SWTOR there are different speech communities of which the members will not understand each other completely, even though everybody is playing the same game! I will explore this in my next article (part 2).

For now: do your friends hate it as well when you talk about MMOs? When do you find yourself code-switching between geek languages?

Thoughts on the Fractured exploit

2017-01-13T00:35:00.000+01:00

Now killing gold star mobs for fast command experience is nerfed, doing solo ranked PvP and the uprising Fractured is the newest trend among CXP farmers. If you're on the fleet you'll constantly see people advertising for the latter. However, tread carefully if you're planning on taking advantage of the Fractured uprising's length: some pugs are using an exploit to speed it up even more.

My co-host Mox of Corellian Run Radio ran into pugs that scolded him for not wanting to participate in exploiting. It's been a long time since I last encountered this in my MMO career and I'm sad that this behaviour has made it to SWTOR now as well. I really hope this gets fixed soon, so people are spared this experience.

I will not go into specifics of the exploit (and will remove any comments that do, for as long as it's live) because I don't want to promote its use, but I will say this: this particular one is easy to miss because it happens fast and it is easy to trigger accidentally. In fact, I ran Fractured with my guildies to take pictures for this blog post and, despite our good intentions, due to not knowing the specifics of this exploit we accidentally did it. The irony! Now I've actually seen it I have a good guess how to prevent it in the future; I'd tell you how, but then I'd be giving away clues. Sigh. I hate the hush hush aspect of these things. One thing I can say is that it has nothing to do with skipping trash: that's totally fine and somewhat of a SWTOR tradition by now.

Meanwhile, we're getting into a situation where people accidentally exploit that may not even be aware of it, and others that are aware of it taking advantage of it. And I have no clue how the developers are planning to distinguish between the two. I do hope they will do something soon before this gets out of hand! I also hope they realize that people have run into this by accident (which is very easy) and that they will only punish people that have exploited repeatedly. The best thing would be to take it out of the group finder for now until there is a fix.

What, they won't punish people at all, you say? Well, although that is possible, it seems unlikely. My co-hosts of Corellian Run Radio talked to Eric Musco and acquired the following official statement regarding this specific exploit:

“First, thank you (and everyone else) who reported the bug taking place in the Fractured Uprising. We are aware of it and are investigating the issue and its impact. As for action that could be taken we will reiterate our stance on exploits: Any bug which a player can use to gain an advantage can be viewed as an exploit and could lead to action being taken against their account.”

They also asked for tips on how to prevent accidentally participating in it, and to that the reply was to let your group mates know at the start of the uprising that you are not participating in exploits and want to go through with it as intended. Bioware asks to report any offenders.

If you want to know more, listen to Musco's full statement and our discussion of it in episode 176 of Corellian Run Radio (or read it in the show notes). The fragment starts at 27:35.

Edit: the CRR episode seems to have stirred up things on Reddit. The thread is full of the by now traditional statements claiming it should not be considered an exploit and that offenders shouldn't be punished. Pretty much what happens every time around.

Myself? I will refrain from doing Fractured with pugs; I don't feel like getting into arguments. I will just keep doing uprisings with guildies from now on and make sure not to exploit. And if you think you're immune to the ban hammer? Well, that's your prerogative, but don't bully others into exploiting. That's not cool. Rav out.

Edit (13 January, 11 pm CET): A post by Eric Musco was just published on the official SWTOR forum. It reads that the bug will be fixed on the 24th and no actions will be taken against offenders, even though it is possible to see the difference between accidental events and constant abuse. I'm quite baffled by this, because this is basically a free ticket for people to exploit until its fixed. I don't understand how Bioware thinks people are going to take exploits seriously in the future.

SWTOR changes I'd love to see in 2017

2017-01-09T23:37:00.001+01:00

In my last post I looked back at 2016. In this one, I want to look forward. What better to fantasize about than my favourite MMO, Star Wars: the Old Republic? I saw Rachel's post SWTOR - A look back at my 2016 wishlist and my 2017 wishlist and I loved it - so I decided to go with my own version of the 10 things I'd love to see in SWTOR in 2017 (more or less in order of importance). Mind you, this is not intended as a list of demands addressed at the devs, but rather as an interesting thought experiment. Here they are.

1) New operation

This is the elephant in the room. Not getting a new raid last year was understandable, as the developers were occupied with scaling all the existing ones to level cap. For the record, I'm happy we now have them all available as viable endgame options rather than just having one or two raids to keep wiping on. This year, however, there is no excuse for not adding something new. We are promised a revelation about "new larger group content" later this month, but as the developers consistently avoid the word 'raid', I'm wary. Let's hope we'll get something that will bring back the raiders to SWTOR.

2) Catch up mechanics for new players and alts

The galactic command system is new now, but imagine doing master mode operations with your guild and you convince a friend to start playing. It will take ages before they are able to join you on those runs, making it less likely for them to stick around. The answer of this according to the devs is crafting, but I'm not sure if it's enough.

3) Return of key companions

Once you've started Knights of the Fallen Empire, you lose all your class companions. The developers keep telling us every dev livestream that they want to bring the companions back as much as we do, and I believe them. With the Eternal Throne expansion, the main story has come to a conclusion and finding out what happened to our companions is the logical next step: there is no way they don't know where you are at that point. I hope it happens this year!

4) Sage DPS desirable in PvE

It is going to be really hard to make sage DPS desirable in raids again without making them overpowered in PvP, but that one's on the devs for wanting to go with the same builds for both. An option would be to decrease the power cost of Disturbance in Balance, which would boost sustained DPS (right now you run into power problems when using it) without affecting PvP. Sage is my favourite class, but right now there is no place for them in a DPS role in progression raiding: they lag 10-15% behind the median (source: Conrad). I'd love to bring sage DPS to raids again!

5) Cosmetic weapons

I stole this one from Rachel, but I know a lot of people are dying to see this added to the game. Now PvP gear has been removed there is no reason to have multiple weapons on a single character - and now my lightsaber crystal clashes with some of my outfits. Oh my!

6) Conversations with new followers

Once you've reached chapter 9 of Knights of the Fallen Empire you'll get the option to recruit many 'followers' (how companions are called from KOTFE onwards). And when I say many, I mean many. My sage currently has 35, and she even turned some down. However, once you have recruited them, you never speak to them again. Sure, you can summon them to fight for you, but it doesn't feel the same as the classic class companions, who I really felt attached to. It would be cool if there were conversations with them later on, so you can get to know them a little better. Right now, it doesn't feel meaningful to even have so many.

7) Skills remembering where to go after respeccing

People who occasionally switch their spec on their characters (hopefully, but probably not, the majority of the player base) will know my pain: each time the new skills of that spec spread seemingly randomly over your skill bar, so you'll have to rearrange them to fit your keybinds. Too hard to program it so they automatically go to where you left them last time? I doubt that, as even the old fashioned Lord of the Rings Online has figured this out. This small quality of life change would make me so happy!

8) Dye system revamp

Who is waiting for a yellow and fluorescent green dye? Right, nobody. I was very disappointed with the dye system when it was just implemented, because I still couldn't dye my clothes the way I wanted. The available range of colour combinations is simply too limited. In a perfectly fashionable world, each armour piece would have two dye slots and you could mix primary and secondary colours to your liking.

9) Hood down option, or unhooded versions for each hooded chest piece

This is less pressing than it used to be, simply because of the sheer amount of available outfits, but this would still be a welcome change for fashionistas, especially those that play miralukas.

10) Incentives for group ranked

It's cool that solo ranked has a better population right now because it rewards with a lot of command XP, but group ranked is still underplayed - they never pop. I'd love to group up with my friends, queue up for group ranked and actually get into matches without having to organize things beforehand on the forum. I fear the only way for this to happen is to increase the command XP gained (but if you have another idea, I'd love to hear it).

Then there are things like fix bugs (AoE looting; courting companion gifts, I'm looking at you) and I could've gone deeper into the gearing with galactic command, but I tried to keep it to fun suggestions.

What would you like to see added to SWTOR this year?

Rav's Review of the Year 2016

2017-01-04T23:50:00.000+01:00

A lot of bloggers have been writing about their past year and their new gaming goals and I love reading those posts! I wanted to join in the fun and do something similar, but I'm not one for gaming goals: planning how to have fun makes my hobby feel like a job. But then I read Kay's post Bye-bye, 2016 and discovered the Review of the year tag by Princess Deia (how could I have missed a blog with such a title?!). I liked it so much that I decided to do my own version! So here is my year reviewed in her nine categories. Warning: there is little gaming involved; this is mostly an off-topic personal reflection of 2016. There are plenty of geeky and nerdy elements, but you're safe from the mushrooms. Promise.

Alright, here we go.

Highlight: drawing routine

One great thing that happened to me

The first category is hard, because 2016 was a tough year for me. But I'm really happy that I made my goal of starting to draw regularly. The drawing diaries helped a ton: you guys' feedback makes me look at things differently and I definitely feel more confident about the stuff I make. Perhaps I even improved a bit! (A girl can dream.)

Surprised: En man som heter Ove

Something that impressed me

I rarely go out, but somehow I ended up watching the rather unknown Swedish movie En man som heter Ove (A man called Ove in English) in the theatre with Conrad and I was blown away. I cannot recommend this movie enough: it will make you laugh and cry at the same time and touches upon many different themes. I loved the uncommon type of protagonist (an old man, brilliantly acted by Rolf Lassgård), the absence of Hollywood seasoning and the amazing Swedish humour. I have not read the book the movie is based upon; perhaps I will when my Swedish gets a bit better.

The character Chiana from Farscape, by Craig Barton

New fandom: Farscape

A new obsession

Obsession is taking it a bit far, but I had an absolute blast watching the science fiction series Farscape. I read about it ages ago on Ashlee's blog (although I can't seem to find back the actual post) and had since planned to watch it someday. Thank you so much, Ashlee, for bringing this into my life! The series has unconventional and loveable characters and doesn't bother with political correctness, painting a more believable (although less idealistic) future than Star Trek - and this is coming from a devoted trekkie. The episodes are also unusually consistent in quality and are absolutely thrilling. Highly recommended for sci fi fans.

The comeback kid: Fantastic Beasts

A fandom that was rebooted, re-released or reimagined
This is without doubt J.K. Rowling's wizard world with Fantastic Beasts, in which Eddie Redmayne steals the show as adorable animal nerd. The fantastic beasts are beautifully done and super cute; I drew a lot of nifflers when I got home. The movie was great, although I found myself thinking when leaving the theatre: if only Rowling would have written this as an actual book! I enjoyed the Harry Potter movies, but I loved the books so much more. I miss reading those whimsical details that give the wizarding world its depth, and Rowling's style is such a joy to read. I shouldn't complain, though: at least we'll have something new to look out for the coming years, and as long as Rowling is actively involved, it's bound to be good.

A niffler in Fantastic Beasts - my heart melts

Still going strong: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

A series with a strong release this year
I guess this one's meant for people that loyally watch series for years as they come out? I don't watch a lot of series that are still ongoing, but one that does that I did is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's nice to get a 'non-superhero' perspective of things in the Marvel universe (although the last seasons turned away from that with the inhumans) and I liked that it's lighter of tone than some of the other things I watch. The episodes are of consistent quality (I'm a fan of this) and I'm sad that I'll have to wait a year before we'll be able to see the next one.

Biggest disappointment of the year: medical stuff

Probably not what the tag is aiming at, but this would be the two medical treatments I tried. Although they (apparently) help the vast majority of people, for me it only made things worse. The past half year I've had so much pain and fatigue that I couldn't sport, I gained five kilos and I'm continuously both mentally and physically exhausted. It was awful, but I had to give it a try in the off chance that it would be an improvement (which every doctor optimistically seemed to think). I guess at least I can strike through "using morphine" on my bucket list. Yay?

Event of the year: Sweden

This was without doubt my time in Uppsala, Sweden, which I somehow managed to do in the time described above. I loved seeing my friend so happy with her PhD, it was amazing to see so many international friends together, and it felt great to be in Sweden again.

What I am looking forward to: podcasting

First off, sending my new year's cards! Yes, I finally finished them and will be posting them this week. Then, I'm also looking forward to recording more episodes with Corellian Run Radio, the SWTOR podcast that I was asked to join earlier this year. It's super scary to do the live broadcasting (especially being accompanied by two native speakers), but I've had positive reactions and I'm learning a lot. Regularly talking about SWTOR with two well-informed individuals has certainly revitalized my interest in the game, even though it's not in the best state for raiders at the moment. However, I'm looking forward most to the moment that I've done it so often that I'm no longer terrified at the prospect!

Quick fire round

Movie of the year: Rogue One
One of the best Star Wars movies ever; I'd even recommend it to non fans.

Game of the year: Pokémon Go
It has its flaws, but I haven't been this enthralled with a game since years.

Book of the year: The Japanese lover by Isabel Allende (2015)
Not from 2016 but it's one of the few books I read this year, and I quite liked it.

Performance of the year: The Nibelungenlied by Ensemble Leones
I was super impressed with the (as far as possible) authentic musical performance of this old German medieval epic poem.

Finally, thank you for putting up with my stuff! Although 2016 was a tough year for me personally, this blog has been a great outlet for all the things that make life fun. Talking about my fandoms with you in the comments section and social media has been an honour and gave me positive energy. Those were all nine categories. Over to you!

Celebrating SWTOR's five year anniversary: looking back through rose tinted glasses

2016-12-23T11:03:00.000+01:00

Wednesday was Star Wars: the Old Republic's fifth birthday. I don't know what it is, but this year's anniversary felt more tangible to me than ever before. Perhaps it's because five is nearing that invisible barrier that makes an MMO age from mature to old - I don't consider the game 'old' yet, but it's definitely getting closer. Perhaps it's because the introduction of the galactic command system with 5.0 reminded me how we take things we love for granted, yet they are not. Or perhaps it is that the transition of LOTRO to an indie game studio reminded me that MMOs don't live forever. Whatever it is, I enjoyed looking back at the first year I played SWTOR. And now I'm going to expose you to that, too.

It all started with this tweet by Unholy Alliances:

Today it's FIVE YEARS since #SWTOR launched! What's the earliest screenshot in your archives? I found this one from April 2012. #swtorfamily pic.twitter.com/t4xw88NJzR
— Stardust Legacy (@UnholyAlliances) December 20, 2016

What followed was a long thread of people sharing their first screenshots, some complete with UIs and all. Make sure to check it out; it's like a time machine - so much fun! I replied, too, but because tweets are fleeting (I've heard the average 'life span' of a tweet is 20 minutes), I thought it would be fun to post it here as well and expand on it.

My oldest SWTOR screenshot

To the left the oldest screenshot I could find. It dates 31 March 2012. I'm sure I had those crappy UI ridden character screenshots as well back in 2012, but I must've deleted them because I didn't like them. I don't even have the original fullscreen screenshot of the picture to the left, because I was just starting my screenshot collection back then and hadn't found out yet that it's good to always keep the original for later editing purposes (yup, learned that the frustrating way).

The robe Ravanel is wearing brings back all kinds of memories. Contrary to what you might think at first glance, she isn't level 1. I just was so impressed by the starter gear that I kept it around - I think I even rolled with body type 1 because I looked fat from behind in body type 2 with that starter robe. Because there was no ♥ outfit designer ♥ yet (can you guys believe it was only added one and a half year ago, in April 2015?! I don't know what I would do without it anymore. The outfit designer and I were simply meant to be together! But I digress...), I carried that thing around with me all the time and put it back on when I was about to enter a cutscene.

One time, I sent Qyzen away to sell trash items from my inventory, and he sold it! Fail, Qyzen. Luckily, the people from customer service were super nice and restored my robe. I think the quality has been changed by now so it isn't vendored by companions.

Ravanel in April 2012

Early memories

More old pictures. At this time, I exclusively played my sage, Ravanel. Only when she hit level 50 (later on), I started making alts. As you can see, I had found another robe that I liked. (Sage companion spoilers incoming:) I was super happy when Theron joined my crew, because Qyzen never liked what I did. I also was rooting for Nadia to become my padawan when I found out that she was force sensitive, and I was so happy when she finally did!

All this made me look up my first SWTOR blog post (March 2012), which turned out to be a cute account of the first time I did Maelstrom Prison, a few months after I started playing:

"It's been ages since I last played Star Wars. I've been just under level 39 for about a month. Yesterday I called my friend on Skype though, and we dragged our boyfriends with us to Maelstrom Prison. It was great fun!"

The 'dragging our boyfriends with us' tactic seems to have paid of. My friend doesn't play anymore, but my boyfriend is now guild and raid leader and a theory crafting enthusiast.

I wouldn't want you to miss out on this picture, taken on the first time I did a raid in SWTOR (July 2012). I was so happy with the Columni armour with the funny flappy things I won and so proud of having kept the group alive (most times)! It's a bit embarrassing, really, to read those old blog posts. I really have changed (nah, who am I kidding, I still fangirl over group play).

Anniversary collage

In honour of their five year anniversary, the SWTOR team accepted screenshots from players and made a huge collage with them. I thought this was a really cool idea! People have been proudly sharing their character's location on social media. I sent my screenshot of Ravanel on Odessen in right after it was announced. Alas, I still haven't found it after two hours of searching, so I'm wondering whether something may have gone wrong. In case you are bored: if you find it, I'll give you a cartel pack!

Mugshot of Ravanel on Odessen

If you haven't yet, check out SWTOR's anniversary blog page. You can find nice infographics with player/class info there as well, and the full version of the picture below, so you can zoom in and look for your character (if you submitted a screenshot).

Detail of the five year anniversary collage

Also, don't forget to drop by the anniversary vendor. He is in the Strongholds & Crew Skills section of the fleet, in a corner near one of those terminals where you can buy a stronghold. I love the free Senya holo trainer, the jawa with balloon (that counts for the jawa achievements) and the expansion stronghold decorations.

Ravalution

Shintar of Going Commando recently wrapped up SWTOR's history in Five Years of SWTOR, saving me a lot of time (thanks, Shin). I fully recommend that article if you want to look back at how the game evolved over the years. Also, I totally snagged this idea from her, because it's awesome:

The appearance of Ravanel through time

I didn't change the face of my character at all, but I did change her hairstyle once new ones got added to the cartel market. I'm happy with her current 'dreads', but I'm still hoping for the perfect long hairstyle to be added to the game (barbie hair doesn't count). Fun fact: I still have all of the above robes in different outfit slots: I just dig that classic sage look.

Finally, a prompt: what are your rose tinted SWTOR memories? Share them below in the comments, or link to your own blog post and I'll check it out!

Spoiler-free Eternal Throne impressions

2016-12-09T23:56:00.000+01:00

SWTOR's latest expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne, is out for one week, so it's about time for a first impression post. I'm staying clear of any story spoilers to make it safe to read for anyone who hasn't played through the Eternal Throne yet, and I'll talk about all aspects of the expansion (including unconventional ones). So here's what I think about, in this order: leveling, the mount bug, crafting, Master Ranos, the galactic command system, Bowdaar's growth, uprisings, facial expressions, veteran mode and, last but not least, the story.

It's surprisingly fast to level from level 65 to 70; the fastest of any expansion in any MMO I've played so far. I've leveled four characters to 70 without much effort; it took 2-3 hours at most per character. I didn't take them all through the story, because most don't want to lose their companions, and I don't want to get burned out. I know a lot of people like to farm Bestia for XP, but I've enjoyed the change of scenery of heroic missions instead. It's fast, convenient, and you earn a decent amount of money this way (about one million credits per toon). I've earned a ton of command crates for my guardian who is still working on her alliance base (they should give me some companion gifts when I open them, too) and I finally got that Galactic Hero title for completing all heroics in the game.

One of those things people will probably be talking about for a while is 5.0's mount bug. This is definitely the weirdest bug I've seen so far in SWTOR. When standing still on an tauntaun, orobird or raptor (or any bipedal life mount), your character is beheaded. Your head grows out of your left arm pit, while your arm sticks out of your back with hugely stretched our fingers. As I said, weirdest bug ever.

There are some significant changes regarding crafting. Tier 10 has been added, and you get schematics for high tier crafted gear through the galactic command system rather than through reverse engineering raid drops. My guild used to distribute gear to those who needed rather than for crafting and I never liked grinding operations just for reverse engineering loot - as a result, I rarely got any useful schematic at all, even though I have all crafts maxed out and have defeated almost every boss on nightmare mode. In the new system, I will probably end up with more useful crafting schematics, which is nice, although there obviously is some RNG involved.

The best crafted gear that you get through reverse engineering crafting trainer gear (so without the higher quality galactic command schematics) is 228. That's pretty decent to start out with, so I'm definitely crafting 228 ear pieces, implants and relics for all my toons.

Gathering is a bit annoying, though. The new tiers are only found on Zakuul and Darvannis, and competition is high. You can't complete the last 20 ranks of your craft there; you'll have to do those with missions or by scanning mobs in uprisings (for the crafts that can). I'm missing an exploreable planet with this expansion. Sure, you can scout Iokath and Nathema during the story, but it's instanced and you can't return later (unless you're replaying the story). I'd have loved a new daily area with the Eternal Throne.

If you want to farm materials, Xam Xam has some useful tips in PSA mat farming in 5.0.

Not strictly speaking Eternal Throne content, but with KOTET Dark versus Light eternal achievers finally got the boon for all their hard work: the promised DvL companion. As the light side won (yay!), it was jedi master Ranos.

I ended up really liking Master Ranos' personality, which fits my sage very well. Ranos didn't fit in with the jedi order, but followed her own moral path to help people all around the galaxy. I never expected much content for a companion only a part of the population has access to, but I was a bit disappointed by her "recruitment mission" nevertheless: you basically talk to her at the Alliance base, and that's it. In most cases I won't mind just using the holo instead. There is an exception, though: for jedi it's worthwhile to meet in person when recruiting, because you can ask her if she knows something about your missing padawan.

I gave the galactic command system the benefit of the doubt in my RNG in Knights of the Eternal Throne article, but I was wrong. I'm astonished at the amount of grind involved. Shintar writes in her weekly galactic command diary (yes, this is a thing), that "every little (red. GXP) counts when early estimates suggest that it might take a whole year to reach Command rank 300, even for a pretty active player." I honestly had no idea that a loot system could impact the way I feel about an MMO so much, but to me, as a progression raider, the system is so un fun. I won't go into much detail here, because what I have to say would take a whole blog post and I don't want to be too negative here. I will write about it in the future, but for now, I will redirect you to Going Commando's and Galactic Antics' opinions.

Something I noticed that made me giggle: Bowdaar is almost twice his usual size in The Eternal Throne! I'm pretty sure it's a mistake, but it does make one wonder what the Alliance feeds him.

I've only done a couple of uprisings so far (3 out of 5). The ones I did were fun, but super easy, even on veteran mode. I was healing, but for most encounters I was just DPSing with an occasional heal as long as people weren't standing in stupid. And that was veteran mode with a pug! I'm pretty disappointed by this; hopefully master mode, which will be added later, will provide more challenge. I liked the mechanics, though: the continuing huge waves of adds and the special skills you can pickup are a lot of fun. You certainly notice that the developers tried to go for something different.

Another thing that reportedly has improved with Knights of the Eternal Throne are facial expressions. I found that this mostly was the case for "new style" NPCs, such as Lana, Theron and Valkorion. These characters have much more skin detail and their expressions are done very well in general, much more subtle than before. However, player characters are still "old style" and make the familiar stereotypical exaggerated faces as seen above. I don't mind this, though: it's pretty funny.

For an overview of new facial expressions, see: The many salty faces of the Eternal Throne: SWTOR's new facial expressions explored.

The thing I enjoyed most about this expansion is without question its veteran mode for the Knights of the Eternal Throne story. I can't exaggerate when I say it's tough. And when I say tough, I mean tough. I've seen people talk on Twitter talk about how bored they are with the difficulty of the game: "I'm going to do veteran mode!", then report back within the hour with "this is impossible, I'm out - lol". When I played through it on sage, I didn't even know whether it was possible on that class, which made the experience quite thrilling. (Spoiler: it is. I managed to finish all chapters on veteran mode.) Sage has few defensive abilities and is very vulnerable due to its paper armour, because stuff hits hard. On the plus side you have crowd control - but that won't help you in every fight. Conrad played through veteran mode on his guardian and it was stunning to see that we were struggling on different fights. In chapter two (the hardest of them all) I was stuck on a mini boss halfway for three hours and almost gave up, while Conrad's guardian did that part without any problems. Then my sage beat the last boss of the chapter in three attempts, while Conrad was stuck on that one for ages.

Veteran mode is great for players that like to put their skills to the test. You need to know the ins and outs of your class, you need to be familiar with multiple specs and utilities and you need to be creative with strategies. You will fail over and over again until you find the right one to go with. If you make it, though, you have something to be truly proud of!

Finally, the story. This is the hardest topic to talk about without giving things away, but I will try my best! First off, I enjoyed the story a lot. It is much shorter than Knights of the Fallen Empire, but it was more focused and the chapters flowed really well. Iokath was more beautiful and lush than I imagined, and playing through that part of the story gave a real KOTOR vibe. Nathema was brighter than I imagined. The gameplay was definitely more varied than in KOTFE, with fun 'session play' like bits and dynamic surroundings. I just wished you could move temporary skills around - mine had really awkward keybinds, so I basically had to click them (not fun on veteran mode). Overall, the story gave closure with regards to main characters in a satisfying way. Without giving away too much, I'd say I liked how Senya and Vaylin were handled. Chapter 2 was the hardest gameplay wise and chapter 9 - the last one - the most epic. I'm not sure if I could name a favourite.

What are the highlights of Knights of the Eternal Throne for you?

Warning: this article was spoiler free, but we can talk spoilers in the comments. Thread with care if you haven't played through the expansion yet.

The many salty faces of the Eternal Throne: SWTOR's new facial expressions explored

2016-12-07T23:58:00.000+01:00

The patch notes of the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion contained something that piqued my interest:

"Added new engine technology to improve fidelity of facial expressions in conversations and cinematics for all characters across the entire game. This graphical improvement is visible on High Shader setting."

When I played through the expansion, I made sure to look out for improved facial expressions and documented them whenever I could. I apologize in advance for the screenshot heaviness of this article.

I guess leading the Alliance is cause for wrinkles

In a conversation with the press one day after early access, Charles Boyd explained a bit more about what exactly has changed. The looks of characters have been updated with cool effects like wrinkles and the facial expressions in the cinematics are better than ever before. The skin texture of main characters have been significantly improved; it’s a huge difference from where SWTOR started five years ago. In general, we are promised more expressiveness in characters' faces.

Let's see those facial expressions, then. I've collected the most noteworthy ones of Knights of the Eternal Throne for you in this overview. There are no story spoilers, so you can safely scroll ahead even if you haven't finished the story yet. However, you will of course see the faces of some characters that play a role in the expansion.

One detail that I never noticed before and does make characters look more lively are hair animations. If your character suddenly turns around in a cutscene, their hair will reflect that movement in a natural way. It's a change I really like. Unfortunately it doesn't always work for all hairstyles. On my sage, the hair above the shoulders moves, but the "dreads" remain glued to my chest (see picture above). In this case it looks odd, but I think it looks great on most.

Really, Ravanel? Hair animations?! Booooring. Alright, on to those facial expressions, then!

First off, we still have the traditional grumpy face I came to love in Knights of the Fallen Empire.

However, in Knights of the Eternal Throne, we also see some more realistic grumpy faces.

Okay, maybe this one not so much.

Vaylin deserves her own sub section:

There are some hilarious surprised faces.

Some expressions are difficult to describe in one word, but you recognize the emotion right away.

Others are easier. Sad.

Smug - I bet everyone took a screenie of this moment.

Is that fear, Lana?

And finally, we even saw some unexpected people looking happy.

That last one gives me the chills!

What do you think: are SWTOR's new facial expressions more realistic? And do you like your character's wrinkles and hair animations?

Preparing for Knights of the Eternal Throne: a checklist

2016-11-28T17:17:00.001+01:00

SWTOR's newest expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne, is almost there! I'll be joining the early access mass tomorrow; those that are not eligible will Friday. Along with KOTET a lot of changes will be implemented. Here are the things I'm doing to prepare. Let's exchange tips! If I missed anything, let me know in the comments.

Commendations

The most noteworthy change is that all commendations will be changed into credits. If you missed this, here's the official conversion info:

"1 Warzone Commendation = 50 Credits
1 Common Crystal = 500 credits
1 Glowing Crystal = 1,000 credits
1 Radiant Crystal = 1,500 credits

Upon logging in on 11/29 each of these currencies will be completely removed from the game and the appropriate credits will have been granted to each character on your account. Note that there is a 2 million credit per character limit on this conversion."

You probably won't hit the 2 million credit cap on most of your toons, unless you have a ton of both data crystals and warzone/fleet commendations. However, most people are spending their commendations anyway, because they don't feel like spending credits in the future. What can you spend them on?

Silas Fleetfire on Odessen exchanges basic commendations for companion gifts

Companion gifts

A lot of people, me among them, are exchanging all their basic commendations for companion gifts. This is because high tier companion gifts will be expensive in KOTET. The devs have confirmed you are still able to buy them for credits instead of commendations, but they will be costly. This is because the main source of companion gifts is intended to be random drops from galactic command crates. If you want to increase your influence with a specific companion, the time is now.

Basic commendations can be exchanged for companion gifts at Silas Fleetfire on Odessen (in the corner near C2-N2) by any character of level 55 or higher. If you haven't reached Odessen in the Knights of the Fallen Empire, or haven't started the KOTFE story alltogether, you can travel there in the ship of a friend who has or buy the skill to travel there in the legacy system for 200,000 credits or 125 cartel coins.

Estah Kloy on the Fleet exchanges basic commendations for decorations

If you have characters below level 55 that you want to spend basic commendations on, gear or stronghold decorations are a good alternative. A vendor in the Strongholds & Crew Skills section of the fleet sells Rakata themed decorations.

Warzone commendations

The warzone commendation to credit ratio is quite low, so I would recommend spending these as well. You can get some cool decorations at the Starfighter & PvP Decorations vendor in the Strongholds & Crew Skills section of the fleet. Note that some are dependent on your faction. For instance, on a Republic character you can buy a Republic Guardsman; on an Imperial one a Imperial Guardsman.

Another thing to consider is that warzone stims and medpacs will cost credits in the future as well. Saving up on those certainly doesn't hurt.

Captain Nitch on the Fleet exchanges warzone commendations for decorations

Buying expertise crystals

This one is totally optional, but it's something to consider. Expertise crystals are usually very cheap on the GTN, often half the price of their eviscerating, hawkeye or versatile versions. In KOTET, expertise crystals will be transformed into mastery crystals. So buying a crystal to your liking now is basically getting it for half the price. I would also recommend unlocking it in your collections while you're at it, as that's currently 50% off.

Voss Star Fortress

This is something a lot of people may have missed if they haven't been carefully following SWTOR's livestreams. In one, a dev gave the tip of doing Voss' star fortress before starting Knights of the Eternal Throne. Why? (This is a mild spoiler, so if you want to remain completely spoiler free, skip the rest of this paragraph.) He mentioned Voss is one of the first places you visit in KOTET, and implied that whether you've taken out its star fortress or not will affect the story in some way or another. I will be completing it on the KOTFE characters I care about, and will intentionally skip it on at least one to see what happens.

I think that's everything that needed explaining; however, there are some other things to quicky check. I recommend logging each of your characters to check the following:

Checklist per character

Check if you're going over the 2 million credit cap (per character) with commendations.
Get all the companion gifts, decorations and gear you want with commendations. Once KOTET is live, they will cost credits instead.
Exchange any unclaimed armour or jewellery tokens (the ones that you win in operations). They will be sold for credits if you don't.
Sell obsolete items. Every expansion comes with a ton of new stuff, so it's nice to clean up your inventory and vaults in advance. PvP armour shells can be vendored (expertise armour will be removed in KOTET); try to sell raid drop crafting items (exotic isotope stabilizer & dark matter catalyst) on the GTN if you still can.
Optional: buy good looking expertise crystals on the GTN and unlock them in your collection. They will be changed to mastery crystals in KOTET.
Finish the Voss star fortress on KOTFE characters that you care about.
Turn in any uncompleted missions. They will reset if you don't.

See you in Knights of the Eternal Throne!

Exploring Zakuul from dazzling heights

2016-11-18T21:18:00.001+01:00

A week ago, I wrote in my Zakuul sightseeing post: "The Zakuulan skyline is (...) a beauty to behold. It is unfortunate that you can't get high up yourself to admire it outside story chapters and cutscenes." But then I remembered: my character may not be able to ascend, but my camera can.

Yes, you're reading it right, I found an excuse to fiddle around with SWTOR's max zoom distance again! I was very curious myself to get a grasp of how the city of Zakuul fits together, because you really can't tell when you're just running around using normal character view. I felt this child like sensation of excitement because I was about to enter an unexplored realm of potential beauty. Here are the results.

This is where the Outlander arrives on Zakuul.

Same place, different angle. This shot really makes me wish you could rent a taxi and fly around yourself to explore the place. Wouldn't that be cool?

Some parts do make me worry about the structural integrity of this city.

The greatest enemy of the Zakuul aerial explorer: green mist (here above Downtown Central). I noticed during my exploration of the original planets in 2015 that your vision gets blurred when you ascend extremely high: you are literally with your head in the clouds, which limits the view.

On Zakuul you hit the limits of world building before you find the sky (more on that later on), but there is something funky going on with the lighting. Columns of yellow lights are placed adjacent some skyscrapers and their light is being dispersed by green fog. I had to reduce the amount of green in most of these screenshots to make the features come out naturally.

I'm particularly proud of this one, as I had to shoot it in the one second timeframe I could look through a building while slowly zooming out. This is the first time I get to really look at it myself. Aerial photography in SWTOR involves a lot of fiddling around with camera angles and trigger happy fingers.

The following series shows how the aerial view transforms while the camera ascends. The starting point is near the droid diner I described in the aforementioned Zakuul sightseeing post.

Look at the height of those taxis! Zakuulan citizens must really trust their vehicles to fly that high. Not to mention they cannot be afraid of heights.

Zooming out even further results in a picture that's more abstract than anything else. This is where I gave up, but I tremendously enjoyed my little tourist trip to Zakuul.

If you liked this, you can find out how to zoom out like this in-game yourself in Aerial photography in the Old Republic.

IntPiPoMo count: 35/50

Zakuul sightseeing for International Picture Posting Month

2016-11-09T21:44:00.000+01:00

Around this time one year ago, I posted screenshots of my favourite new SWTOR area: the Endless Swamp of Zakuul. It was International Picture Posting Month (IntPiPoMo) and I took on the challenge of posting fifty pictures in one month. Now, one year later, IntPiPoMo is upon us again and once more I find myself on Zakuul.

It occurred to me that I really like the planet, but never had taken the time to stand still and look around - after all, during most of my visits I was being hunted down by skytroopers. Therefore, especially for IntPiPoMo 2016, I revisited to shoot pictures, of which my favourite are in this article. You can find all my challenge entries under the label InPiPoMo. If you want to participate yourself, scroll down to the end of this post to see how.

This is my newest character, master Ravaline. You may recognize her from SWTOR's Dark vs Light event: three months later. After spending the past summer mostly in Lord of the Rings Online running the new Gondor instances, I've now returned to SWTOR to finish the achievements needed for the Dark vs Light event companion. One of the requirements is playing through Knights of the Fallen Empire (KOTFE) on a DvL character, and thus it came to be that Ravaline found herself frozen in carbonite in the Spire of Zakuul.

I don't mind replaying chapters that take place on Zakuul, even if some involve an abundance of skytroopers (*glares at Kaliyo*). The place just looks so beautiful and atmospheric. The developers went out of their way to give the planet a unique and alien feel, which is particularly expressed in its architecture. Zakuulan architecture typically involves glass and metal, lots of space and a light brown to gold colour palette.

A deserted office in Zakuul. Notes fly through the air. If you look closer, you see that a lot of detail has been paid to the design of the windows and wall panels. Even the lamps are designed for the room and fit the colour palette. Many new decorations must've been created to give Zakuul its distinctive feel.

My first thought when I saw this shot is that it was raining outside. It was not, though, I remember that much. Instead, we're might be looking at water vertically floating down a glass surface. Or mat glass with a special effect. Whatever it is, it looks cool.

The cantina - I love the pole dancing bloke! The choice of colours and attention to detail gives this part of Zakuul a lush and chique atmosphere.

Caught master Ravanel red handed in the cantina. Don't tell Satele!

It just occurred to me what Zakuul reminds me of: steampunk meets 19th century Paris.

There is an awesome bus diner run by droids.

The Zakuulan skyline is also a beauty to behold. It is unfortunate that you can't get high up yourself to admire it outside story chapters and cutscenes.

In my head canon, Ravaline is intrigued by the beauty of Zakuul, a world she didn't even know existed up until recently. She is convinced its citizens are mostly unaware of what is happening in the faraway Republic and Imperial territories. They are not to blame for the actions of Arcann.

The Firebrand chapter was frustrating for my jedi knight. Kaliyo redirects her anger to the people of Zakuul, behaviour that Ravaline finds narrow minded, ruthless and childish. If it were up to Ravaline, this narcissistic terrorist would never enter her alliance, but there is no choice involved in the matter.

Another beautiful place on Zakuul that has this incredibly lush feel. I cleaned up some skytroopers for you before I took the shot; they kind of ruined it.

Zakuulan citizens looking at that mysterious slick looking building.

Being intrigued with Zakuul, it may not come as a surprise that Ravaline fell in love with one of its citizens: Koth Vortena. While the pair shares a vision of an Arcann-free Zakuul, they have different opinions on what the Emperor is like and what plans he has with Ravaline and the galaxy. Ravaline is a bit worried that Koth only answers in kind because of her prestige as Outlander and presence of his beloved Emperor. This could lead to some interesting conversations if Bioware approached companions like they do in their single-player RPGs. Unfortunately, their relationship so far seems to limit itself to short flings in between chapters.

It's not all beauty: even Zakuul has its bad neighbourhoods... that still look beautiful. This is Downtown Central.

Koth, can we spend our honeymoon flying through these lovely creepy alleys?

IntPiPoMo 2016 is hosted by Chestnut of Gamer Girl Confessions. If you want to participate yourself, sign up here and simply start posting. There are prizes and everything; it will be fun, I promise!

IntPiPoMo count: 16/50

RNG in Knights of the Eternal Throne

2016-10-26T10:55:00.001+02:00

I try to cover all interesting SWTOR news on Ravalation. Indeed, several people have been asking what my thoughts on the highly controversial galactic command system are. The reason why I haven't written anything earlier is twofold. Firstly, Shintar voiced my initial reaction so well in Galactic Command - Bioware Trying to Reinvent the Wheel again? that I started to wonder if she can read minds. I just was reading each paragraph and nodding. Secondly, I wanted to wait for Thursday's livestream, because I expected a response to the community's outrage - and indeed, there was. And guess what? After having watched the livestream, I think I can live with these changes.

Concerns and solutions

Initially, two things about the galactic command loot system deeply worried me. The first was the disadvantage tanking and healing capable advanced classes would suffer over pure DPS classes, as it was confirmed that the loot drops would be entirely random. In such a system, it would be much faster to level up sentinels/marauders and gunslingers/snipers (who exclusively play a DPS role) than other advanced classes. The developers dropped the ball here. Luckily they realized this themselves and it was changed so you will get gear based on your character's active discipline.

The second concern was regarding the nature of random (RNG) rewards. Veteran gamers know that RNG usually goes hand in hand with grind. We've all been in a position where you're only after one specific item and it just won't drop. SWTOR has been relatively grind free for an MMO so far, because best in slot gear is guaranteed to drop from certain bosses; however, people who have played other MMOs (such as Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft) will be able to tell you horror stories about how many times they ran instance X before they finally got item Y to drop. (Pro tip: mention "Miniature Brass Anvil" in the vicinity of a LOTRO champion player and watch their facial expression twist into a grimace as memories best left forgotten are stirred back to life and the PTSD kicks in.)

"Miniature Brass Anvil"

The response of the developer team was to make the loot boxes drop frequently. And with frequently I mean very frequently. Apparently we can expect one for the first playtime every half an hour, the rate slowing down as you progress further into the galactic command system. Doing harder content will reward with getting boxes faster. If you complete an operation, you may walk away with two or three boxes, the devs illustrated in their stream. That is more than you gain now, but you can get things you don't have a use for.

How will the new loot system affect our playtime?

It is hard to imagine what the new gameplay experience will exactly be like, but we can say the following things for sure:

We will see less social interaction about gear. With gear now exclusively dropping individually rather than for a whole group to share, SWTOR follows in the footsteps of other MMOs that have done this, such as LOTRO. This means that people will experience fewer social stress regarding loot distribution. As I don't pug and am part of a drama free guild, for me it mostly means we will have to delete the loot list thread on my guild's forum. I slightly lament this, as I like loot as a kind of treasure you accumulate together with your guildies in a raid. The removal of this mechanic makes loot lose a bit of flavour, but I know from LOTRO that it isn't a real deal breaker.
We will get more junk. I loathe and procrastinate inventory management, so even if some of the things that come out of command crates are going to be really cool (decorations? pets?), I am sort of dreading the side effect of having to sort out more stuff. The developers seem to think everyone loves opening crates with random content, so now we're getting more of that. I'm not sure where they get their data, but it's certainly not from me.
You will actually have to play a character in order to gear it up. (The fact that I even need to write this down, shows how extremely friendly SWTOR's gearing system has been thusfar.) Don't worry, you can still send over gear to alts with legacy pieces. But you cannot exchange set bonus pieces for an alt anymore, because all gear automatically comes with a set bonus for the class and role of the character you receive it with. You also no longer can gear up a new guildie by running through an operation and giving them all the loot. This change thus makes it somewhat harder to get into progression raids as a fresh new player.

Overall, I think the new gearing system will be a positive change for casual players (hmm, where did I hear this before?). Sure, it will take longer to gain gear doing non-raid activities, but non raiders at least will have access to best in slot gear, including set bonus gear. From what I've seen in other MMOs, casuals love grinding. I'm sure I'll be seeing all these clueless people (*cough* DPS commandos in the healing stance *cough*) running around in gear with twice the stats of mine. Whether you think it's correct that you can get the best gear without raiding is another thing. Personally, I don't really care about what gear other people wear, as long as I'm able to do the content I want to do with my own.

The latter might be a problem for me personally. I don't have much time to play. Right now, I just login to raid twice a week and that's pretty much it. Gearing my characters up will probably be slower than average. But if the drop numbers are really as high as they say, it might still be faster than it is now.

Would I pick this new system over the current? No, I'm just not a fan of RNG and inventory management. But I guess I can live with it.

How about you? Did your opinion change after watching Thursday's livestream?

Why do we like to pew pew from range?

2016-10-21T21:14:00.001+02:00

Last week, a really interesting article caught my eye. It was called When starting a fight in video games, cautious long range is most popular, but men like to rush in and was based on scientific research by Quantic Foundry on 1266 gamers. The news was picked up by Massively OP, but remained unnoticed in the blogosphere. Which is odd, because it addressed a question that is on my mind a lot: what makes us play MMOs the way we do? Perhaps I'm alone in this; either way, it prompted me to investigate why (almost) everyone loves to play ranged in MMOs.

Everybody likes to pew pew

The survey provided two major insights. The first is that the majority of gamers prefers the 'cautious long range' playstyle. Interestingly, there was no statistically significant difference in gender or age: this type of playing appeals to all of us. Moreover, this was also the case for most other playstyles (stealthy evading and assasinating).

Noteworthy is that all examined playstyles were offensive, or - in MMO terminology - DPS approaches. I imagine this is because the research focuses on gaming on the most basic level, in a way that would cover most genres. If we would do something similar for MMO players and incorporate playstyles that are based on team play, however, I suspect we would see a gender discrepancy for tank, support and healer roles. But until then, these are just suspicions.

The hunter class in different MMOs:

Guild Wars 2 (left), World of Warcraft (middle) and Lord of the Rings Online (right)

The hunter or ranger stereotype

The 'cautiously from range' playstyle is most notably represented by the hunter/ranger class. Most fantasy based MMOs feature one: game developers seem to know such a class is an instant hit. The hunter or ranger typically utilizes a bow as main weapon and may be accompanied by a pet that fights for them. Drawing on the literary stereotype of the lone ranger, the class usually designed to be particularly suitable for exploration, travel and leveling (solo play).

I have the strong impression hunters are much played and loved in every MMO I have played. For instance, whenever I check in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) which of the ten classes is most played at the moment, the answer invariably is hunter. Hunters are currently not in a great spot DPS wise, yet yesterday evening on Laurelin there were 111 hunters online, versus 21 beornings (the least played class in LOTRO). If the class would be doing better in endgame, I would expect that number to be even higher (but that is speculation for another blog post).

Playing my elf hunter in LOTRO is one of the best leveling experiences I've had in that game

According to marketing company Statista, out of World of Warcraft's eleven classes, hunter and death knight are the most popular; hunter being slightly favoured on American servers (11.7% vs 11.6%), whilst death knight wins on European servers (11.3% vs 10.9%). The supporting data is from June 2016.

Other ranged stereotypes

MMOs that don't have a fantasy setting will usually feature a class with a similar playstyle, but with ammunition instead of arrows. The stereotype that is most similar to that of the hunter is the "cowboy type", think SWTOR's gunslinger and mercenary class. Another popular trope is that of the soldier, think SWTOR's commando or vanguard class.

Examples of 'cautiously from ranged' classes in Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR):

Commando (top left), mercenary (top right), gunslinger (bottom left), sniper (bottom right)

I mentioned some examples of ranged classes in Star Wars: the Old Republic above. The interesting thing is that we actually have information about which classes are played most in this MMO. The following chart shows the relative popularity of DPS classes in raids for the past 16 weeks (one bar per week, most recent week at the right). The data was collected by the popular parsing program Star Parse. When highlighting the ranged classes, it becomes clear they are indeed somewhat favoured; however, much depends on if you regard the vanguard/powertech as a ranged or a DPS class. Notable is the overwhelming popularity of the (ranged) commando, SWTOR's currently most played class. Keep in mind that data is taken from raids only. Other classes, such as the gunslinger, might be more popular among people who are leveling or soloing.

The graph to the left is taken straight from the Star Parse website at 19 October 2016, 2 pm CEST.

In the right graph I have highlighted ranged classes with pink; vanguard - a ranged-melee hybrid class - with light pink, and melee classes with grey. Although the classes have Republic names, the collected data represents both mirror classes.

Casters

The last ranged stereotype I haven't covered yet is that of the casters. These magic users typically deal a high amount of damage using flashy animations based on the elements, but are vulnerable to attacks due to wearing 'light armour'. Range is imperative for the survival of the caster, making kiting and crowd control recurring tools of the trade. Once again, game developers seem to know the popularity of such a class, because almost every MMO has at least one.

This is perhaps my personal favourite, because it embodies what sets the virtual gaming world apart from the offline one: the presence of magic or the supernatural in some form or another.

Caster classes in various MMOs:

GW 2's elementalist (left), SWTOR's sorcerer (top right) and LOTRO's lore-master (bottom right)

But... why?

In this article, I've shown how the preference to play 'cautiously from ranged' also holds trye for MMO players. For the games investigated, one of the most, if not the most popular class was invariably ranged. Hunters, casters, slingers and soldiers form powerful stereotypes that understandably attract people. However, other playstyles have attractive stereotypes attached to them as well - yet still ranged dominates. Is there something about the ranged playstyle that makes us love it so much? Here I will return to Quantic Foundry's research.

The researchers broke down each playstyle by relating them to game motivations of players. Interestingly, these did not explain the ranged preference, as its motivations (discovery, design, strategy) were shared with the 'stealthy assassination' and 'stealthily evasion' playstyles. However, the 'rushing in' playstyle showed a connection to the motives excitement, destruction and power and turned out to be strongly impacted by gender and age: mostly young men favoured it (the survey's second major insight). It seems to me that there is a biological factor explaining "rushing in". Perhaps we should approach 'cautiously ranged' with the same line of reasoning.

Assessing her own preferred playstyle, Bree Royce wrote in the Massively OP article:

"For me, which playstyle I follow depends a ton on the game. I prefer stealthy ranged pew-pew in The Elder Scrolls Online, (...) but I dislike casters so much in Guild Wars 2 that I’m a rusher-inner there for sure (...). I also think I’ve become slightly more impatient and more rushy as I’ve grown up — I was so much more timid when I first got into MMORPGs as a kid."

This wasn't so different for me. My first MMO character was a lore-master, a ranged support class in Lord of the Rings Online. Because I had never played an online multiplayer game before, it was important to me that I picked a class that felt right for me. Lore-master played from range, could make enemies less threatening by applying debuffs and could heal - all factors that made the jump into the game less scary. Then, when I got used to MMO gameplay, the virtual world did not seem so dangerous anymore and I started experimenting with other gamestyles. Take a look at Rav's Army: I now enjoy playing all classes and roles, and I value them for their differences. In SWTOR, I play a melee force user (tank shadow) in raids.

Could it be that there is a biological factor in this initial choice? It is generally not evolutionary viable to "rush in" when in a new situation; rather, one would want to observe from a distance before dealing with things. Playing an MMO for the first time is diving into an unknown situation as well. Our 'gut feeling' or instinct could be telling players to be cautious. Even when people get confident in their new virtual environment after a while and try other classes, their first character is often still perceived as their 'main'. This could explain the popularity of ranged classes. I'm no exception: I still identify with my lore-master in LOTRO and my sage in SWTOR most and will play them in raids and solo whenever I can. And when I had to pick that first character in LOTRO? I almost picked hunter.

Think back at the first MMO character that 'stuck' with you. Did you play it cautiously from ranged?

What can we expect of Knights of the Eternal Throne?

2016-10-10T23:54:00.000+02:00

Last week, Bioware released a ton of information about their upcoming expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne (aka "KOTET"), which we now know will be released on December 2nd (early access 29 November). Everyone was expecting a trailer, but we got so much more! You can find the official information here. In this article, I will try to read between the lines and present you with some prospects of, hopes for and opinions on KOTET. If you listened to episode 170 of the Corellian Run Radio (which aired yesterday with me as guest) there will be some overlap, but I'll go into even more detail here.

'Betrayed' trailer

Let's talk about the most epic thing first: the trailer. It was made by Blur, the same studio as the previous one and, oh my, it was awesome! No, that's not just me fangirling, I haven't heard anyone not like it so far. I'm not going to describe what happens in it, you can watch it for yourself here (if by some miracle you haven't yet):

(Source)

I love seeing Senya as a young mother, but it also makes you really sad, because you know something will go wrong. I'm won't discuss everything about the trailer here - that would take up a whole blog post of its own - but there are two things I do want to talk about.

First off: the ambiguous title of the trailer, "Betrayed". Who betrays who? The most obvious explanation would be that Senya betrays Vaylin by not saving her from whatever ill fate her father has planned for her. But now look at Vaylin's face at 4:14. She doesn't want to be saved by her mother: it is too late. In a manner of speaking, Vaylin betrays Senya.

No doubt the trailer's title is intended to make us think and discuss about what is going on - a strategy to engage with the audience. It has definitely reached it goal: everyone is talking about it.

My favourite scene of the trailer: so cute!

There's another goal behind this trailer, and that is to give Vaylin a face. Out of the three siblings she has thusfar been the most one dimensional; she is portrayed as a mean, spiteful witch. But in the trailer we see her as a young and innocent child, looking up to her older brothers and testing her limits. I find the scene at 0:26 (picture above) the most revealing. Cute young Vaylin is exploring the force by making her wooden toy spin through the air. She is happy and is having fun, but then her mother stops her: she is not allowed to use the force. It suggest Senya is too stern for her daughter. You can understand how Vaylin grows up frustrated if she is not allowed to learn about her powers. But what really went wrong is whatever happened at that dark place her father brought her afterwards. Senya, Vaylin, Arcann, Thexan: they are all victims and no matter their deeds you cannot help but feel some measure of sympathy for them.

We think of Vaylin as "the crazy witch". Due to the trailer, we now know it was not always so.

New level cap is 70

I'm starting off with the boring. I might just be getting old, because an increase in level cap doesn't excite me that much anymore! Levels are such an obvious way of keeping players busy - but then again, an MMO without levels is hard to imagine, and to balance the amount of content with that of character levels we can use a bit more in SWTOR, especially with all those new chapters coming up. Still, the most positive thing I'm thinking about having to progress five more levels is that my midbie PvP characters that were getting awfully close to level 65 have some respite.

One thing, though: I do hope all operations and flashpoints get scaled to the new level cap. The lack of a new raid with Knights of the Fallen Empire (aka "KOTFE", the previous expansion) was explained by working on a scaling system for group content, and indeed it has worked out quite well so far: all raids at the current level cap are just as challenging as they were on previous level caps. Let's hope they keep it this way, so we can continue to enjoy on-level group content at level 70.

Was Vaylin held on one of the new planets?

Two new planets

We are getting two new planets, and that's all we officially know about it. However, a name that is buzzing around is Nathema, the planet that the Emperor 'consumed' (like Ziost, but before that) to make himself immortal. Now I had honestly no idea about this planet, so I looked up some background information, which proved to be quite interesting:

"Born in 5113 BBY as Tenebrae, (...) the child who eventually became the Emperor killed his own father at the age of ten and was granted the title of Lord Vitiate (...) three years later. Vitiate renamed his world Nathema and ruled it for the next century, content to exclude himself from Sith power struggles and even the Great Hyperspace War when the Galactic Republic destroyed the Empire in 5000 BBY. Summoning the remaining Sith Lords to Nathema with the promise of salvation from the Jedi, Vitiate turned on his fellows and used their strength to perform a ritual that made him immortal, at the expense of every living thing on Nathema."

- Valkorion page on Wookieepedia, consulted at 10 October 2016

This shows once more how ruthless Valkorion is, and how he acts in his own self interest time and time again. People have also suggested that the dark place where Vaylin is taken to by her father is Nathema, because it is void of the force. Again, though, for now these are just rumours. I know some more things about the planets has been datamined, but I've kept myself away from it because I sometimes feel it just spoils things.

Whatever their identity, I really hope we get to walk around and explore on these planets, though. Somehow instanced planets like Darvannis don't feel as 'real'. It's only when I spend time somewhere walking around on my own to check things out that it feels like my character has actually been to a place. I wouldn't mind having an area with dailies on one of the new planets either. It's been a while since we had any new ones.

It is confirmed that future flashpoints will be like Star Fortresses - will uprisings, too?

Galactic command system and uprisings

Unfortunately, we are not getting a new raid with KOTET. However, we do get a new form of group content for "up to four players", called "uprisings". Looking at the group size, this will be something in the spirit of a flashpoint, or even a flashpoint-Heroic +4 crossover. There is also mention of a "galactic command system" (yet another button for the top bar). Considering the term "uprising" I'm half expecting a sort of alliance alert system, but then for uprisings as they pop up all over the galaxy. Jason and Mox (on the Corellian Run podcast) were talking about a sort of extended Dark vs Light event that would be tied to these uprisings: the choices of players would determine the attunement of our world. That would be really cool. But we're now getting into the territory of speculation - we don't know a lot about uprisings at this point. Nevertheless, the developers have made me curious; I'm happy to get some form of new group content and I'm certainly hoping uprisings will be challenging and fun.

Difficulty modes: story - veteran - master

Talking about challenges, it is clear that the developers have listened at player feedback from Knights of the Fallen Empire. An often heard complaint is that combat consisted of skytroopers, skytroopers, and more skytroopers - and as a result was very monotonous. Playing through KOTFE was easy peasy from a gameplay perspective: I played all the way to, and defeated, Arcann naked on my marauder (I only found out I wasn't wearing any armour when I wondered why I suddenly had to use kolto tanks while I was snoring through it on my light armour sage previously). This of course is fine for casual players, but SWTOR also has a veteran playerbase that is well acquainted with its gameplay.

If it's done right, higher difficulty modes will not just feature skytroopers with more health and firepower, but encounters with new mechanics as well.

Adding different difficulty modes to story chapters is the proposed solution, and I'm really positive about this. If it works for single player games, why not for MMOs? If you're playing through the story on your geared main, you can turn the difficulty up; if you quickly want to blast through it on an alt, you can turn it down. The best part is - and I was not expecting this - that this will also be available for all previous chapters of KOTFE. So doing that on alts might be more fun when KOTET is out.

The tricky part for this will be for the developers to make higher difficulty modes more challenging in a fun way, not just increasing the skytroopers' armour and health so it takes longer to chop 'em down. The positive thing is that Bioware has experience with this. If the different modes are anything like Mass Effect or KOTOR, I'm all in!

More about KOTET

Of course I'm not the only blogger to write about KOTET (just the slowest one). So if you want to read more thoughts about it, I can recommend the following:

Fibro Jedi presents a thorough overview of everything KOTET offers in KOTET: what we know (don't read below "Other snippets about this expansion" if you want to avoid datamined info).
Shintar of Going Commando was the first to jump upon the news with a great analysis in Knights of the Eternal Throne Officially Announced! As always she manages to make some surprising observations I managed to overlook (do I sound jelly? Maybe I'm a bit jelly).
Galactic Antics has a ton of thoughts about the upcoming expansion in Throne of Everlasting Chivalry. If the new expansion ends with another cliffhanger, he has the perfect title ready for the next one!
Finally, Knights of Tomorrow dives deep into the trailer in Thoughts "Betrayed" - My thoughts on the KOTET trailer! with an eloquently written analysis of Senya and Vaylin's relationship with one another.

But wait, let's wrap this up before you head off...

Senya has become a close friend to my sage... but is she still?

Things to look forward to

It looks like there are quite some things to look forward to in December... and then I'm not just talking about Rogue One. Knights of the Eternal Throne promises a story as compelling as KOTFE, and then some. Although I know it's unlikely to be the focus of things, I'm personally mostly looking forward to finding out what happens to Senya and Arcann. Without spoiling anything, I understand that it's kind of complicated depending on what you decide to do at the end of KOTFE's last chapter, and based on that they could very well not be present in the main story anymore at all. I feel that would be a great shame, though: Senya is a key figure that I've come to care a great deal about. I also really want to find out what Valkorion has been up to. What is his plan behind all this? The other thing I'm really curious at are the uprisings. I'm hoping they will be a lot of fun, but MMO companies do have this tendency to try and reinvent the wheel when it comes to new combat types (*cough* LOTRO *cough*). Bioware has a good track record so far, though, so they have definitely piqued my interest!

What are you looking forward to the most in Knights of the Eternal Throne?