Raithe

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.

For another slice of news..

It does and it doesn't. There are some things that you choose, that will change the way things happen, even if part of the result is the same. And there will be references to which path things went along to get to that conclusion. Part of it also based that originally, they were setting it up so that it was possible to not pick up companions, or even for them to get so disgusted they'd leave you, or you could kill them. Apparently early beta testing had that going down like a holed submarine, so they changed it to be more.. acceptable to the majority of players. If I recall, it's also possible to get early affection bonuses or losses with Ashara depending on which approach you used.

I'm about to go to taris and I am level 35. To a planet that is 32-36 I think. So still a bit ahead. Only done two flashpoints, but all heroics. We even skipped Nar Shaddaa bonus series so we wouldn't run further ahead. Nar Shaddaa bonus series doesn't open up till your about level 35. From around 30+ most of the bonus series don't open up until you're returning to the worlds at a later point in the class story.

Just been informed that today is "twelth night" so I have to get the christmas decorations down before midnight... So I'm going to try to juggle some work, and then see what needs to get started on that.

Yeah, we're getting this too. Since we're doing all quests (including heroics), we got overleveled fast. Overleveled but undergeared. It does balance out a bit, since you get less xp (and need more to level up). But yeah, do everything and everything will be fairly easy. Apart from the heroic "Insufficient Staff" on Alderaan. That one was tough as hell for our two man team (plus companions). Since our characters are dps and healer, we had to rely on companion tanking, and in that quest that just wasn't enough. Full group or more experienced players might have done the trick, but for us there was no way. So we did what any true imperial would, returned with superior forces (in this case, a level 50 sith assassin). Didn't pose much of a challenge then, but sometimes it can be fun to take a short cut or two. Actually I've found that post Alderaan you start to be the exact level. For most of chapter 1 and 2 I was about 3 levels higher , and then suddenly I was just on the level and maybe getting a level higher halfway through.. If I was regularly doing flashpoints that might change...

Since that pint of tea got spilled across my logitech wireless keyboard and killed it.. I've been using an old microsoft egonomic keyboard (that for reasons unknown is a german style keyboard) so whilst the qwerty are where they should be.. all the others aren't.. or mislabelled.. So I'm giving thought to having to get a new one. Looking around at the possibilities of mechanical keyboards.. but they're certainly on the expensive end of it. Although I suppose picking up the Razer blackwidow standard for around

I seem to be losing my voice at the moment.. and every time I cough it feels like sandpaper dragging across the back of my throat.. Otherwise I would come up with a suitable response to that...