Raithe

And apparently to get a purple/amethyst lightsaber crystal is an end-content type of thing. With some rather serious effort to plug away at... Among the things you have to do, is defeat one of those "World boss" monsters, which will drop certain schematics needed to create the crystal.. That's not counting the efforts involved in getting the materials needed.

Not that specifically, I mean things like improvements to the Armor and level of the actual article itself. Not the direct "enhancement to stats" parts of it. Hm, and from Emmanuel Lusinchi, the Technical Design Director

Yeah.. I know my Sith Inquisitor is walking the grey path.. but I managed to get him matching robes and all (orange ones so I've been able to mod them) but dang it..they're all grey and a sort of "mint blue". Not exactly sharp Sith Assassin wear... Now if I want to take all the mods out, it'll cost a small fortune, and I won't be guaranteed that whatever I put them in will actually match/improve what I'm currently wearing. It would be really nice if you had some sort of function that would let you know what the overall stats would be in something if you do transfer all armor/mods/enhancements across. The "match to chest piece" option was in beta, but apparently there were some issues that cropped up when they had to change other things. So rather then have something broken, they took it out, and have mentioned that they do plan to reintroduce something in the same vein, but "improved". But so far, there have been no details on that...

My fresh copy of Skirmish - House Wars book 4 by Michelle West arrived. Heh, so look at it this way, many years ago (we're talking a couple of decades) an author writes a duology. What was intended as a minor character (a 15/16 year old girl with some untrained seer-talents) in the first book expands, and becomes much more significant but you don't really find much more about them. Approximately a decade or so later, the author then writes up a 6 book series (The Sun Sword series) which is set in the same world (and roughly 16 years after the events in the duology), and braids several storylines together, with the aforementioned minor character turning up (now a young 30 something, with some influence in a noble house) and having a quite extensive section throughout the story - again, seeming to support other events, but growing even more into a primary character with her own story arc. There seems to be a whole subplot to the Sun Sword series about how she might have to fight an "in-house political war" and assume control of it when her mentor dies - however that's always kept to the background of the primary story but its still pumped along.. then towards the end of the final book - boom. The character finds out her mentor dies, that its all coming to a head.. and she gets summoned back to the house in the middle of a war. The book continues with the war (which was the primary story) but never wraps up any of story of that character. Jump forward another decade of real world time, and the author writes the first book in the House War - which is set about 5 years _before_ the original duology that started it all off, and is the story of a 10 year old orphan girl on the streets and who happens to have an erratic and untrained seer-talent... (yes, this time that minor character gets the lead role from the beginning rather then huge sections from books that she was just "supporting"...). The first three books cover how she goes from street orphan to being "adopted" as it were into the leading noble house of the empire - book 3 actually redoes a lot of the original duology, but from the girls point of view. And ends with her being around the 15/16 year age... Book four starts ..and its the day after her mentor died. Picking up exactly where the girl teleported out of the war zone in the 6 book series... I have to admit, if you enjoy braided storylines and fantasy stories it's worth the effort of actually following the books. But I do find it quirky just how it all grew out and developed over time.

Well here's some of the info given out on the upcoming patches and updates..

Well, although there haven't been any in-game rewards, and I've not had access to the Light Side or Dark Side items.. my main character has pretty much walked the path of neutrality regardless. So at the moment it balances out around positive 450 points on the scale.. with a few thousand light side and dark side points.. But then I started the game with the idea of seeing how well a Sith Inquisitor could walk that route rather then go Light or Dark. Characterwise, you can pull it off without being schizophrenic. So I'll be looking forward to see what possibilities might open up in the future for people who poke at the grey path.

So in some of the latest news, they're planning on bringing in the neutral side to have benefits as well.. James Ohlen revealed:

And doing research on Anti-Gang related issues and methods. There is a ridiculous amount of early 90's documents and articles to wade through to find current (or at least, post 2000) ones. And its quirky to note how much anti-gang slides into Human Trafficking apparently. Heh..and the Japanese had a rather unique group of "stalker gangs" , where lone stalkers have actually organised themselves to groups who stalk someone..thus getting around some of the anti-stalking laws they have.

Hm, I have to admit, so far I've got Ashara up to around 8k affection, Khem to about 5.2k, with both Andronikos and Talos at just over 1k. Most of Ashara's stuff seems to be dialogue , and then she goes off and reports back on whatever she did..and Khem had one short mission on Tattooine. Apart from that I haven't really encountered any companion missions yet.. On a seperate note, I have to say while the mood of the space missions is fun, I'd really like to see more of a variety in them. So far they're pretty much the same 4 missions, with different fluff, and more difficulty - ie; fighters can take more damage, there are more of them , asteroids are closer together, shields are tougher on opponents, more ships with turrets...

Woke from a rather strange dream where I was involved in a knife throwing duel during a party at one of my friends places... One of those dreams where you wake up with short feelings of cold and tense muscles in all the spots I'd been "hit" in the dream.

Just solo'd my way through the Foundry.. was interesting that I actually picked up a bunch of affection points from my companion during it which did surprise me. Also, the fight with

Rahr! 11 hours and 2.6 million files later.. a full system virus scan completed.

Hoth is around 37-41. Most of the heroics I think are Heroic (4) Level 40.

Yeah, the rather creepy "do you want a foot massage master" is really strange coming from that droid. I haven't seen anything that actually improves his affection. I have heard that if you do equip him up, he can make a decent "healer" type companion, but I haven't seen any direct proof of that. Hm, I've also noticed that sometimes when you choose companion equipment as a reward, for some companions it seems to boost their affection score, but not for all companions. Reverse Engineering is set so that you can get a bunch of the materials, and there's a percentage chance that you'd develop a schematic of a better version. It doesn't automatically happen with x attempts. Anything you craft can always be Reverse Engineered, and some items that you find turn out to be up for it as well.

Could you elaborate on the "understated performances" the movie has been getting lots of praise, specially regarding Gary Oldman's acting. It just seems to me that what carries a film like that it's performances and considering the all star cast that's what I was expecting from it. And now you have to worry me. Oh, don't worry. I meant that in the good way of understated performances. Gary Oldman can be a very good actor, but he's also had a lot of roles that are.. bigger then the screen? Characters that can loom and be very loud (performance wise, not verbally). Within this film, all the characters they play have no real scenery chewing, there are no "loud" moments. They're all very quiet, restrained, very.. English. The whole film has a certain sense of claustrophobic feeling to it when it's all taken together, and that suits the story.

I kind of want to curse. Attempting to produce a document, keep banging my head against the proverbial wall, then managing to figure something out and write. Then the flash of semi-inspiration.. and as I start to chase it.. boom. Family interupts. "Can you just quickly run the hoover over." "Oh, can you go get food for the dogs". "Can you sort my drugs out." o O (note, that's prescription pharmacuticals, not recreational) All the little things that do need to be done, but really, why do they not ask when I'm having a blank moment..but always in the 30 seconds after a flash of brilliance that needs to be written down?

I have to admit, when I stopped using Khem Val to tank, and tried using some of the DPS companions, it was a big adjustment in playstyle. However it can work well if you get the balance right, rapidly taking down some enemies before they can really dig in and harm you. It's actually quite interesting how widly it can vary depending on just which skills you've developed for your character. I know a horde of SI's who all use different companions because of it. Some of the big boss battles just can't be won solo if you've picked certains skills and try it with certain companions, but pick the right companion to back up your skill selection and it can go totally smoothly. I've got to admit, I'm running on the low credit side. Every time I manage to build up a pile of credits, I suddenly find myself going up a level and spending a fortune on skills. Heh, I've hit 47 and I still haven't picked up Speeder 2 because of money issues. Of course, I only managed to get in around 5 hours of play time over the week I need to catch up again.

Not sure if its related to the lurgy, or whatever had my throat acting up the other day, but I seem to have spent a ridiculous amount of time this weekend sleeping or dozing rather then actually accomplishing anything really useful.. I still feel as if I only half my brain is awake this morning.. I'm hoping tea will kickstart the rest.

Have to admit, some of the Voss quests are kind of irritating. Interesting, but irritating. They seem to have a knack for having you go into "meditative trances", send you on "dream-walks" and then set you up with a series of elite opponents in quick succession - and of course every time you die, you have to wake up at the medcenter, which requires a chunk of travel to get back to the point you can go into the meditative trance and then back into the quest... On the flip side, hit a point in companion romance where it had a fade out to black.. then it fades back in with the companion in question getting dressed and merrily humming the "imperial march" to herself. That hit my humour side.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Some quite nicely understated performances, and it really catches the mood and atmosphere of the times, and the story. Although warning for those folks who need it, there's no real "action" and it is quite slow paced.

No, its on its.. 9th season is it now? and it started up around 2005. QI - Quite Interesting, it doesn't matter if you get the correct answer or not, you get points for the interesting answer. And lose if you say the obvious one (which is usually incorrect as well..)

Well I try to use it only when I think "ah, that means I'll say something snarky and cutting" and then it turns out that bioware dialogue comes out as ignorant lout, which is really not what I wanted. Heh, I'd actually remembered how he wanted to kill the guy and did that, you got a major boost of affection for letting him off the guy. Of course, I haven't used Andronikos for anything beyond crew missions since then.. Yeah, I actually solo'd the Boarding Party flashpoint yesterday. Since you have to do that before The Foundry, and whenever I've been on the Fleet station I never see people wanting to do Boarding Party. So I ended up forgetting about it, and then remembering I had it..since I was about 10 levels above it I just ran through it without too much hassle. Of course, then I get back to the Fleet..and suddenly there were a whole bunch of people wanting to form groups to do that flashpoint.. Hm, I don't think I've actually done the Alderaan or Hoth bonus series either.

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