Raithe

I have to admit after my intensive first 10 days I'm giving myself bigger pauses in playing, it's definitely taking a time to go up levels once you hit that 38-40 mark. I've only managed a few hours this week. Belsavis as a planet has a very nice combination of visuals and atmosphere. It actually feels a bit varied compared to some of the other worlds. Alderaan has a very nice aesthetic appeal, just the mountains/forests and trails leading up to snow covered valleys has a curiously soothing effect. And it's quite impressive how they've managed to keep Hoth visually interesting and varied within "ice, snow, and more ice". Although as you get into those planets, exploration really takes a turn for the harshness. If you're not careful you'll find yourself wandering into zones for vastly higher level characters (such as areas where level 45-50 characters will be returning to those worlds). That and if you're not paying attention you can wander into a Republic settlement without realising it and find yourself facing the level 50 guards who have several hundred thousand hitpoints... The short emails you get from various people days after completing some quests can be a nice touch. Provides a bit more feel for the universe, and the fallout from choices you made.

Thoroughly miserable weather. Heavy winds, slating rain. Kept waking everyone in the family up repeatedly through the night. Got a nice pounding headache to accompany it. Shoved some laundry through, sorted out mom's pharmacy supply for the day. Having a cup of tea and about to hit the asprin. Wondering whether I need to keep an eye on the dogs or if I'll just try crashing back to bed for a few hours.

But it did lead us to Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight...

It's the way the padawans get quite aggressive /bribey within a few words. Something doesn't feel quite right about it. Hm, managed to hit about Level 3 with my Legacy now, be curious to see exactly what they bring out for all of that. Still, having title and legacy have "Lord Drayke Khorval" proclaiming over my character is kind of funky. Having to deal with the abundance of light side points gained from looking after the Imperial Troops I encounter with my Sith Inquisitor is being a wee bit hard, but there are still plenty of ruthless moments that aren't casual cruelty/sadistic behaviour that provides the dark side..

And in movie trivia news... The swordsman who played Darth Vader during THAT fight sequence with Obi-Wan Kenobi died on New Years..

The second season of Sherlock started tonight. Although calling three 90-minute episodes a season is kind of interesting. Sherlock updated to 21st century London. Stonkingly good episode. Introduction of Irene Adler, the only woman to outsmart Holmes, although their version was a 21st century Dominatrix. Very well played, and they managed to play out some serious chemistry and interplay between her and Holmes. Tensions, machinations, violence, and even quite a few funny sequences. Well worth a watch.

Got back from my evening out. Round at a friends, general small gathering. Fire out the back, throw in the new years with some fireworks and sky lanterns. Some port and cigars. Oh yes. And Whiskey Clouds. Trust a phd chemist to follow in james may's footsteps after seeing that show. I will say, tis an interesting experience. Was a fairly pleasant time, although had a section of conversation with a friend and his bride to be about the upcoming wedding next year. The whole trip to mexico for it, her family, his family, that it probably won't be the full formal church wedding since she's catholic and he's not. Although he's got a brother, he probably won't be the best man for various reasons, and I got told I was on the short list for that role. Heh, had my friend do the whole " the important thing is that the best man is there to take the groom's place if he disapears or can't make it for any reason, up to and including marrying my fiancee". So she was all "What, is that some weird English tradition??" Home, and having a mug of hot chocolate and feeling strangely depressed for some reason that I can't quite figure out.

Salutations and best wishes for the New Year..

I went with Artifice, Archaeology, and Treasure Hunting for my Sith Inquisitor. Which is pretty much the traditional three for Force users I think. I've also got my Jedi Knight with no craft skill, but Archaeology, Diplomacy and Investigation. Thought that would make an interesting mix. I haven't made any decisions for the other characters I've started dabbling with, but then they're all still on their starter worlds.

It might be part of the whole early access thing, but I'm finding that when the evenings roll around and I jump on to play it, there's like 20 or so people on the higher level worlds.. and they're pretty much concentrating on world/class quests rather then heroics. So that does put a small crimp on casual heroics.

And with the slide into the new year..

Hah! I rode that one. 30 minutes in, just as that sandcrawler came into view.. it all glitched. the balloon disapeared and both myself and the other person riding it found ourselves stood in the middle of the dune sea. .. I do plan to go back and get them..at some point..when I have a whole stack of credits to while away the time on crew missions. Hit level 41, had an immense amount of "travel to planet x, talk to dude, go to ship, talk on intercom, travel to fleet, talk to dude, go to planet y talk to dude, go to ship, talk on intercom"... Spent an hour doing more back and forth from planet to starport, to inquisitor hangar, to ship then anything else... And for the fun point, finally go to Belsavis and find that while my previous Class mission was a 41, all missions from that point on are 42. So I'm thinking of returning to Hoth to work in some heroics to get up there...

Been puttering back and forth on a few things. Managed to slip in about an hour of Tor-play. And some running the dogs around. Tis being quite miserably wet and rainy outside as well.

Indeed. You only get three crew skills. You can however change them if you want to shift around, but then you'll lose all ranks in the skill you swap out. You can have three missions skills, or three gather skills, 1 craft skill and a combination of 2 others, or any similar mixup. But three is the max. And every companion you get will have bonuses to different skills. Of course, if you have skills other then the one a particular companion has bonuses with, it has no effect.

Had such an enjoyable bout of insomnia. Didn't manage to fall asleep until it had gone past 05:14 - Well, the last time I checked the time before I managed to achieve some modicum of sleep... The day has arrived with constant rain for the last few hours.. I am contemplating what mental gears need pushing to actually achieve stuff ..

I seem to be having that slight rest from Tor, only played an hour of it this morning.. and that was actually creating a couple of new characters. Put a smuggler and a sith warrior on the board as well to dabble with. Letting my Sith Inquisitor hover on Hoth at the moment, that is a serious amount of white expanse. But I have to admit, they've certainly managed to give it a certain aesthetic appeal and broken it up with a variety of icey wasteland type environments. I will say it's kind of amusing to catch up on flashpoints that you forgot to do. Going back when you're way over level you can run through them solo and pick up the lore, get to make the choices you want to see how things will play out.. Although you do lose some of that social aspect..but heh, both can be fun in their own way.

We have been getting various knuckle-bones and the like.. the trouble being if they're inside the house they stink up the carpets... If they're outside the house.. he's coming back in covered in mud...

Some of the American servers can get queues of up to 200 if you try logging in at the wrong time (usually around midnight gmt), but they're usually just 10-15 minute queues at the peak times. I use an east coast server and for most of the day I have no queue issues logging in.

Urg. And I think family peace might soon be out of the window. Mom had tears of frustration and anger because the 10 month old puppy chewed on the corner of a wall, got the paint off, damaged the wood. One more thing piled on, and the cat's being incredibly twitchy around him. I get the feeling it's going to reach an ultimatum point towards my sister soon. I kind of have this idea that my sister really didn't realise how much work an alsatian is. She used to get up at 7am to give the dogs a run around before she got to work, but as it crept into winter that slipped to 7.30, then 8... now she practically pushes them outside on their own for five minutes before she's running out the door. I can't really take the poor bugger out for proper walks, because I can't take him off the lead. The only person he will consistently respond to (at least , if you're calling for him) is my sister. So I can take him for short, on-the-lead walks up and down the hill and around the block, but I can't really give him serious runs and ball-throwing over the common. And he's suddenly decided he's not interested in those hide-bones you get for them to chew on..

Heh, thought I'd do a day without playing any Tor... and while catching up on various other things, reading some books I'd gotten over christmas.. I notice that TOR has spent huuge chunks of the day on downtime due to maintenance, updates and the first big patch. So I guess it was good I was juggling other things..

There are levelled tiers of missions, and they depend on the level of skill you have. The different tiers also reflect different "levels" of what gear is best for. So it's something like tier 1 takes you up to around skill ratings of around 60 or so, and then teir 2 missions/crafting tends to be "level 17-24" type stuff. Teir 3 is something like "level 25-28" things, and so on, At least, that's what it seems to me to reflect. Edit: And keep an eye out for that hot air balloon. It takes about 40 minutes to circle the dune sea, but you have to use it to find a couple of datacrons.. I keep meaning to go back to it, the one time I tried I spent about 30 minutes on the ride, and then it glitched out and dumped me in the middle of the desert.

Same problem, and I'm just lvl 22 with my sith warrior. I saw someone asking tips for getting credits in the official forums, and it had two pages of "lol noob" for answers. Apparently slicing would be a definite answer for being poor, but I rather not go that way. I just hope I don't have to roam around grinding credits too much, I hate grinding. Does anyone know why I don't always get more points in archeology when I use it? I get the crystals and what not, but the skill doesn't get better sometimes. It's around 145 now. I have to admit, I'm not sure if its something they've shifted since the beta, or whether it does depend on class, but the Trooper I played during the beta weekend was rolling in cash. So I half wonder if there's a reason that the force users don't find as much.... Oh, one small trick that can be useful, remember to take time to fly the spaceship missions, they can add a bit of extra cash to the pile, especially if you do them regularly.

I have to say, as a Sith Inquisitor I pretty much always feel as if I'm short of credits. I seem to manage to get a nice pile of money..and then I'll have a level up and find there are about 4 skills to pick up that wipe out my cash reserves... At the moment it appears to run around a rough 30-40k total, and having to spend around 14k for an ability advance. Of course, I just hit 40, and found I need 120k to get the "Pilot Speeder (Rank 2)" ability....

Well, am inviting the waifs and strays around tomorrow. Friends on their own or away from home for Christmas. I miss the buggers after about a week not seeing anyone, to be honest. Family are all well and good. But (and maybe this is boarding school talking) your friends are your real family, I think. Family now taken over almost whole house. So am kipping in my office. I have a sleeping bag nestled up beside a filing cabinet. I love it. It's like camping, only awesome. I am incredibly tempted to move in permanently. For some reason I thought you'd said that you were inviting over waifs and strays to be buggered. I'm hoping that says more about you than about me. And I was tempted to make a suitable comment regarding "the nature of public and/or boarding schools"...

Possibly been over-playing TOR the last 9 days. Even ended up playing some yesterday afternoon... Hit level 39 with my Sith Inquisitor, landed on Hoth. Picked up my first "Legacy" level, which is kind of funny. When you wrap up Chapter 1 you get the "Legacy Name" that all characters you have on the server have access to said "Legacy". For all xp you learn, you get a percentage of "legacy xp". So far it doesn't actually do anything to have legacy levels, but you get a nice flashy message in the vein of "this is something we'll be developing and adding in soon, but what you earn now will count to the rewards later" sort of thing.