Raithe

She was one of the original "girl gamer geeks" who hit it off as a game journalist type, especially the whole "pretty gamer girl geek" area. I think it was internet-celebrity from a picture of her licking her sony psp control that went viral, and from there she's ended up as an IGN staff writer, journalist, on-camera host type of thing. About oh, 7 years or so ago. Helped kick off the awareness that cute girls do game and are willing to admit it..

That is the wrap up class-quest on Tattooine.. So I still have to wander onto Alderaan yet... And yeah, I'd been using stims, medpacks, and the heroic "need active companion" ability as well..

Well I managed to wrap up the "Lightspring" quest for the smuggler. I have to admit , I loved the whole setup for it - I mean, you're tracking down a crime lord to talk to , and finally trail him to this hidden base, where you find a jedi and sith turn up for something the guy has in his "treasure hoard". But then it got a bit eh, off-the wall. The Sith is played up as a rather femme fatale type, while the Jedi has that "uber-naivette" approach of someone raised by robots with no contact with actual humanity... When the battle starts, you get the option to pretty much ally with either the Jedi or the Sith, and then of course the Crimelord is infuriated and wants everyone dead. And he spams healing on himself. Really ridiculous amount of spam-healing. The trick I finally realised was that if you ally with the Jedi, she does one of those force lifts on the Fat-man, and then engages the Sith. But she has minimal threat. So you have to turn off all companion threat generation and area effect activities, then focus them on the Fat-man while he's locked up. Focus on him until he's dead, then finally you can turn on the Sith. If you don't, the merest, slightest hint of threat-generation causes them to turn on you and take you out in a very short space of time. Seriously, the mission level is set at 27, and they were kicking my ass when I was 31, my companion was dead in under a minute, and I joined him in just a little over.. Until I figured that trick out, I was beginning to get very irritated.

And for those who might have missed it.. The Mass Effect 3 Voice Cast Reveal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfvo5ueKJY8 And I have to admit, I didn't realise Jessica Chobot was having her first in-game experience here..

Seem to have spent a large amount of time today trying to get through to people on the phone.. Only to have them never in their office when i ring. Joy. That and refining my google-fu skills, and trying to delve into certain aspects of maritime law and requirements/regulations of entrance into port for a research project doohickie.. We're having a major drop in temperature, so post christmas and suddenly it's white mornings with frosted grass.. and the potential for snow. The good thing is, that sort of cold means the dogs aren't tracking mud in from the garden...

I think there are some schematic drops happen as well. Heh, after all, you need Artifice schematic drops from a world boss to be able to make the Magenta Crystal ... But yes, pretty much most of it seems to be via reverse engineering. A few worlds have vendors which have a handful of extra recipes/schematics at a few different levels as well... but I can't remember which they were when i found them.. I really never got around to using Artifice with my SI>

My smuggler has no crafting skills, but picks things up with slicing, scavenging and underworld trading.. Waiting until I have a small horde of resources to dump on the trade network nets me a nice return of cash. As long as I don't mind waiting those hours rather then get immidiately... Also, don't forget the small cash bonuses you get for doing the Starship missions if you want a break from the other side of things..

Meh. Been wandering Tattooine with my smuggler.. and stalled on a class mission. Even though I'm a couple of levels above what is needed, the bad guys are still kicking my ass. And it's an annoying instance where you get kicked out of it when you die..so you have to start alll the way back at the beginning each time. Take out the droids..then end up in what's basically a three way battle between a jedi, a sith, and a crime lord.. Then on my 5th attempt, things are starting to go my way.... and the game crashes out. I'm trying to decide whether I should hop back on the horse to make one last try tonight..or give it up and get some sleep...

Hm, from what I've seen it looks like the same amount it would anyways, so the XP it would have given to you just goes to waste. No, normally you get legacy xp thats a percentage value of the actual xp earned. Once you hit 50, it is exactly the actual xp, just converted directly into legacy xp, not just a fraction.

I think one of the minor disapointments I've found, is that once you get past that first flashpoint (the Esseles / Black Talon split) the flashpoints are exactly the same whether you're Republic or Empire.. I mean, okay, some of the dialogue within change, but even that's pretty much just switching a few references around more then anything else. I know they've put a lot of resources in other things, and I'm glad the PvE side is so well done in general, but it does feel as if they've taken a bit of a shortcut with them by doing that. I mean, Esseles and Black Talon show just how well done they can be. They actually branch out slightly differently depending on choices you make, there's a lot of story to them, and you can get invested in whats going on. And those are the ones you get shown first. So to go from that, to pretty straight "dungeon slogs" - even if some do have great atmosphere - does seem a bit of a downer. On another point, the smuggler does get an awful lot of amusing flirt options. And I have to say, I have a lot of appreciation for 'Sweeping Gunfire'....

For all the important things in life..

Hm, having a little bit of a lock up on my creative juices today.. So trying to keep poking at my mind to shake something loose in a more cogitant manner.... Although cat's been taken off to the vet's to be doped up and have some issues with his fur dealt with. Long haired persians can be a bit murderous to deal with.

Okay, I have to wonder whether this is serious or not.. If it is, that could be...interesting.

I did give the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo a short try last night. Felt a little off to begin with, but smoothed out as I pushed along with it.

Don't worry, I'm going to be playing it on and off for at least 6 months... Edit: I went with Artifice, Archaeology and Treasure Hunting for my SI... and for some reason I just never developed Artifice any.. and now I'm 50th level, with about 23 ranks in Artifice, and about 8 basic schematics... and only about 2 of them are red crystal ones...

I'm having fun exploring the storylines. I certainly plan to poke around on the other classes as time allows. I think there's a certain pacing to it. Your first class is the one you push because you're exploring whats' what. Which can end up with you playing more then you might normally. I'm not going to have so many.. intensive play sessions as I did during that first month, so I fully expect things to slow down as I work my way through the classes. I haven't been rushing to "get to 50" with my Sith Inquistior, but I did want to explore the storyline, so I kept playing when I had the chance just to see how it developed and where it would go.

Now Correllia was rather irritating I found. Just something about it just never settled right with me. I've left my 50 Sith Inquisitor idling for the moment on the Space Station, but Captain Dhar Khorval my smuggler is just wrapping up Taris and about to head on his way to not-so-sunny Nar Shadda.. Although I have to admit, the hour I grabbed after dinner seemed suprisingly glitchy. Latency kept jumping up way beyond anything normal, I got a few random disconnects, and for some reason I was only getting ambient sound. No special effects, no blaster shots, and no musical score in the b ackground.. And I have to say, that can have a surprisingly disquieting effect on the gameplay...

Urg. It's a harsh monday. Depressed, weary, taken some paracetamol and trying to ignore a rather irritating stabbing headache behind my eyes. Seeing if I can gather the shreds of my mojo and build some momentum towards figuring out what I need to do today, and then actually getting something done...

Hm, let me trace through the Sith Inquisitor from memory, so it might be a little rough in areas.. - Spoiler Heavy - Prologue End of Prologue. Act I End of Act I Act II End of Act II around there Act III End of Act III, and from here on it just shows "Interlude"

I do have to say, as a Smuggler, it is damn satisfying to finally get your ship back.... They certainly manage to give you a story that provides a solid sense of accomplishment at that point.

Apparently, I've spent 7 days, 22 hours playing my Sith Inquisitor since early access...

I ran my Smuggler (named Dhar) through Ord Mantell and arrived at Coruscant now. The story had a definite different feel to the Sith Inquisitor one, and although it might be because I last played Ord Mantell back on that Beta Weekend, but I didn't have any of that "eh, I've already been here before" boredom. There were a few variations I felt I picked up on a couple of the quests that I did as a Trooper those couple of months back. I have to admit, I'm thinking of letting my Sith Inquisitor lay fallow for a bit and not worry on end-game content and pvp for awhile - let them sort out any of the issues before I actually get involved. Of course, there's still some world quests and wotnot to do with it, haven't finished Corellia, and I haven't done the Voss bonus series yet either... While it's not getting xp (although it does give Legacy xp), I'm still interested in what the stories will be and generally exploring the worlds and characters. Whats interesting now is that when I log in, rather then "Chapter" blurb as such, I get "Interlude" , which definitely suggests they do plan on expanding the class stories and level cap at some point in the future.