Raithe

Eh, I have to say that I'm not overly stressed on wading into repeat end-game content. I mean sure, every now and then I'll run through some of the dailies to stock up on credits I can use to plow crew missions and craft stuff for my other characters.. and to add some character perks to new characters.. But I'm more interested in finishing the storylines and then exploring what the other classes show storyline wise. I just try to balance it out so I don't get burnt out. It's why I did Sith Inquisitor first, then focused mostly on my Smuggler, bounced to the Bounty Hunter... once I wrap this up I'll go back to my Jedi Knight to do chapter 3... then I've got my Sith Warrior to finish off Chapter 2 and then 3.. I've got my Consular at level 10 waiting on fleet, and a Trooper and Imperial Agent shiny at level 1 that I haven't actually played any of yet... So yes, my plan is basically use my "finished" toons occasionally to stock up on cash I can funnel to low level toons, and to use all to gather materials and send them to those with crafting, and do crafting of goods that can be sent back out to my other toons and thus.. create a nice supporting web-work whilst exploring the storylines in a mostly alternating style...

The Republic side feels like the ending to A New Hope. Not the "Huzzah", but the grand music, and being awarded flashey medal for being a "Big Damn Hero". So far I've done Corellia to completion once as Republic and once as Imperial.. I'm hoping that's satisfied my minor levels of ocd enough that I can now happily skip everything bar the class-story missions in future..

Hm, I pretty much loathe Corellia for the grindy-ness and godawful maps.. but no QT? There's a QT station around each monorail station as well as the one in the starport cantina..

I think there are things that turn up that do make you want to reach across the internet and stab someone in the face... but there's also a lot of pithy comments that crop up on Imp side Corellian Run that provide some general amusement. So I guess it balances out rather then overloads on one or the other... I haven't really noticed it being worse or better then Republic side...

Having a bit of trouble focusing on getting work started in a coherent manner. Keep procrastinating or getting distracting with reading assorted things. Also, got to nibble on some baklava. Sweet, but tasty...

Hell, sometimes it just takes someone to try saying "okay, lets group up and focus this way to get ahead" and occasionally do the "if you go solo into a group of four of them, you'll be dead in seconds, wait for a few of us to work together". That can actually start the ball rolling on coordination. Even if it's just a simple thing like someone saying "okay, lets all zerg left from the start" in Voidstar, it can help channel everyone else on the team.

I have to say I don't get the hate on Imperial side random teams. So far in my experience, it's been about equal to the Republic. Half the time it'll be a team that knows how to try to coordinate, and half the time it'll be with a group of people who have no clue about coordination. I think what crops up is when you end up in one evening of one extreme or the other, rather then bouncing between the two... Sure there are a few annoying prats who are all "check everyone has pvp gear of x level or we should kick them from the team" and then bitch and whine about things without actually trying to organise what everyone is doing... But I've met a fair few Imperial toons who know what they're doing and actually communicate and try some level of organisation. If you do have a tactical team in Huttball who talk to each other, one thing a stealth guy can do is run for the end and set themselves up to be ready for passing. Of course, that doesn't work when the rest of the team runs around like a headless chicken just trying to kill folks instead of playing the game... Spider - one thing I've done to make ease of healing (well, my BH has some minimal healing, but not focused) was to remap a key to autotarget my closest ally/team mate. Which can be quite useful in the middle of a mob of folks when you want to quickly snap off a heal but can't easily target them.

Huttball can be a blast at times. Especially with jedi knights / sith warriors / bounty hunters. While there are tactical elements that can be useful for stealthy-types.. that really becomes a crapshoot on whether you've got a team that actually works together and understands passing.. But if you've got a high dps, you can totally nail the ball holder and slice up people attacking your ball holder and earn stacks of commendations...

I've actually got my Bounty Hunter to 50 now, mostly focused on the arsenal route, but with a few bits of bodyguard to quicken my healer stuff and some pyro for the added boom. Now I just have to slide into Corellia and finish off that class story... Hm, see, I found Athiss to be a weird mixture. It has some great atmosphere for a flashpoint, but the last half feels really dull. Especially that grindy series of fights against the force users you have to plow through to get to the boss. I see Hammer Station used as a quick way to farm light/dark side points. Over levelled people running it solo in 20 minutes just to farm the points. Had a short burst of PvP play the other night, and went from some really good teams that knew how to coordinate, to dealing with some really frustrating ones. I mean, they'd take nodes then wander off without anyone guarding them. Or not bother to call out incomings if someone was actually there to defend.. Things like "Okay, are you good guarding this spot solo while I go and try to draw some of the enemy team away by attacking over there?" , the guy replies "Sure". I head away, glance back..and find he's following me and the node was left totally unguarded and a stealthy uncloaking to take it.. And having to yell at the Sniper in Huttball to stop setting up on the edge of the pit. After the freaking third time a Jedi used him to force leap up and then score it gets a wee bit frustrating. I think made more so by the good teams I was in during the first few matches.

So how long before someone gets hold of the Leviathan dlc and lets us know what it adds to the game..?

Got all the achievement/challenges in Hitman Sniper Challenge done and out the way... Got my Bounty Hunter on TOR to 49th and cleared Voss (although technically still have the bonus Voss I could do). Plan to see if my ocd will let me skip the Corellian planet quest arc and just focus on the class story to wrap it up....

Looks like they've given in and decided to make the fans happy..

Had a short bout of Hitman Sniper Challenge. Although it seems to have a quirk of the mouse bouncing between being really slow to move and then suddenly becoming uber-sensitive and jerking rapidly, then bouncing back to slow crawl.. which is really off-putting when trying to make delicate headshots...

I know healing is important.. but it is kind of annoying to run through a match of Voidstar and be the only guy who planted bombs, have stacks of "objective points" for doing so, having our team win the game because I got them planted and got us through the doors.. and then have all the mvp votes go to the healer who never actually healed me...

They originally had the melee maneuvers for free with no energy use required. But during game testing they found it basically made every tester slide into stealth route and auto-melee kill/ko the enemy. So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

Spent a brief foray into Space Marines, then went and helped out some guildies in TOR for a short piece of the evening..

The upcoming Star Wars show from Seth Green... (and the return of Seth MacFarlane as the voice of the Emperor...) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yRNXFhboBI

My Little Dr Horrible - Bad Horse Chorus.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1BRdXobf4I

Happy birthday Hurlshot. And may the problems find some swift resolvement..

Having a base-defined character in a rpg isn't that far from having a GM sit down at the start of the campaign and say "right, the theme is this, and it's set here, so all characters no matter what have to be linked by x, y and z." - I mean, if you join in a Spycraft campaign, you pretty much expect that every player is going to be a member of "Intelligence Agency X", so being that doesn't take away from how you develop your character from that point on.

And the teaser on "the future of the game" Nothing too revealing, although the new planet might be interesting. I'm assuming it'll be something like Ilum and end-game content related...

Well one of the interesting quirks about Sleeping Dogs is that you're an undercover cop, so running around causing mayhem in general isn't something that's pushed at you. In fact, if you do it while performing any of the missions you actually get penalised. So causing random destruction, accidentally killing innocents.. all lose you "Police Points" that you earn during missions to improve certain skills. You don't even earn "Triad" points for doing those sorts of things, you only earn Triad points on story missions and via combat and funky environmental kills and suchlike. But if you like story, especially those classic Hong Kong Action/Thriller types.. then the game is good for that. It's supposed to take around 14-17 hours to play through just the story side of the game. So that's not counting the assorted extras you can do. Hm, does the ending actually change any if you don't do the extra police case files available? I finished it off, but I don't really feel a need to replay it and avoid them just to see...

She's also the main character in that DA anime movie that got produced. To be fair, that wasn't too bad.

And..the gag reel from the upcoming Avengers dvd.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TZcBjZSNM

I do have to say, the Expendables 2 has a few in-jokes about the actors as much as the 80's action genre. A nice throw-in mention about Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren's character) having that Master's in Chemical Engineering and such like. And the whole introduction sequence of Chuck Norris is full of win. The combination of events, tank distraction, walk in from the smoke with old cowboy music twanging away... "I heard you were bitten by a King Cobra." "I was.. but after five days of untold agony.. it finally died."