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I haven't done PVP in a long time, but I know the feeling. PVP in this game can be pretty fun, but it can also suck major ass if you are the only mara/sent in a team with no healers, for instance. No matchmaking in regs is a terrible decision, but it's the price we pay for quick pops. I guess it must be even worse now with people who would never otherwise PVP being "forced" into warzones for the alliance thing. And not just any PVP, but the 65 bracket, where they will be pitted against the fully geared premades and various regstars. Meh.

Act III is more or less that, they just couldn't use Malgus and I'd much have preferred that Malgus play a more central role in the BH story, at the expense of an otherwise hard to justify plot branch. Can't please everyone though. Beyond that, I really enjoyed the BH story. Much like the JC, it felt like the kind of story you'd expect in a PnP campaign. None of this destiny, chosen one, save the galaxy stuff.

Well, the man wasn't necessarily killed. At least in the original version of the instance, anyway. The other high-profile character that is defeated in a FP and whose body was never found, ended up returning as a major player in a certain expansion... Further, they haven't released Malgus' armor in the CM, and we got even Satele's. And then there's this, in case you missed it. So yeah, I think the odds are good that he'll make a (predictably lame) comeback. I wish they just had got it right the first time, dammit. Darth Marr is basically Malgus 2.0.

So this happened when I tried logging in. I mean, what the actual ****...? edit: hilariously, the estimated wait time went up, to 1h 10'. edit 2: ah, it seems the queue was mostly F2P and pref players, the wait for subs turned out to be ~10'. Still, I didn't see this with either RotHC or SoR, so I guess it's working for them...

Regarding the first question, this is the closest I've come to achieving a complete droid look: However, since Bioware insists on randomly hiding headgear during cutscenes for that "cinematic" feel, the whole get up is sometimes fail. I wonder why don't they also hide, say, Darth Malgus' breathing mask during cutscenes? As for the second question, that seems to be the direction they are going in, because everyone seems to have a NPC they want to kill badly.

Come on, just an itty-bitty spreadsheet doesn't make me a big fat MMO nerd, right? Right? Yeah, that too. Corso can't use Torchy, Kaliyo cannot use pistols either. Nadia and Kira can no longer use single-bladed lightsabers. Andronikos cannot dual-wield anymore. Tanks can no longer equip shields, which means that despite having a shield rating, their shield chance is 0%. Not that they need shield procs as they just facetank to great effect, but eh. I really hope they give it a few passes and bring back some of the flavor, but as you say, they really have their work cut out for them without even thinking about cosmetic/lore stuff. As for HM FPs, I'd say, enjoy it while it lasts. Next week you're going to have all the scrubs queuing. Like myself.

So I ran into another rather hilarious crafting bug. Turns out that reverse-engineering the old Anodyne implants (168 greens) has a chance to return a Hemostatic Gel (Grade 8 Medical Supplies), despite the fact that no such thing goes into its construction. Moving on. Much to my surprise, I got my ticket answered, less than 48 hours after opening it. I got a canned response explaining the requisites for Early Access, so I'm guessing the extra character slots are considered a part of the KotFE content, despite being in a different item of the patch notes and being totally unrelated to new content. Kudos to CS for the quick (relatively) response, boo to biower for misleading patch notes. Companions. I'm ambivalent on the changes. On the plus side, Xalek is no longer broken and is now an effective tank (and healer, and...). On the minus side, they are OP as ****, and have lost their identity. I started handing out gifts to Khem as per this. With the affection and legacy unlock crit bonuses, he's netting me purple sliced parts and extra aug kits like nobody's business. He's now officially both the brawn and the brains of the outfit and I'm thinking of retiring. Not to mention the fact that since all companions of the same type now share the same abilities, some plot-related ones are lost: /rant edit: aaand fail. I just realized that Khem's "love" gift type (Cultural Artifact) are worth 10 CDCs each for rank 5 blues, as opposed to 5 a piece for every other type. 1.3k CDCs later, I'm too invested to stop, I think. Will have to crunch some numbers.

Official 4.0a Patch Notes Some seemingly undocumented changes (datamined) Heh, noticed this, but didn't actually go check the new planets out. I assumed I would be locked out or something. Apparently not...

Regarding gifts: Me, I'll probably shuffle basic comms around to get at least one character to 50 so I can benefit from the staggering (+30%) crafting crit chance. Other than that, I'm not really going to bother with the grind because I can see a nerf coming and I refuse to literally waste hours away clicking like a moron. Maybe when gifts are no longer channeled and they don't trigger a GCD (much like decorations). Other than that, I'll just keep leveling my old 55s, take the chance to re-learn the post 3.0 specs. It's pretty sweet that the old Devoted Allies gear is no longer companion-only. Full legacy 192 sets @ 55 is not too shabby. I wish I had done a few more of the Yavin weeklies now. Re: Flashpoints. You cannot queue for "normal" Flashpoints anymore. Apparently it's too much to ask that people learn other roles than deeps during leveling, so tank/healer/dd is now a HM/Ops thing only? I've done the Ilum arc and, while my experience wasn't as bad as Gorth's (no wipes), I was still pretty disappointed at how badly it went. We had a level 15 join in for the HK boss fight, auto-attacked his way to a glorious victory. I wonder if the poor guy had even seen the FP before? As for aug kits, yep, I screwed up. Before the patch I sold them for ~50k a piece. Now they are going for ~80-90k...

Thanks Shady, much appreciated. Do you qualify for Early Access? I've opened a ticket now, but I'm not expecting it to be fixed in any reasonable amount of time, considering the amount of issues people are reporting. Oh well, it's the first problem I've come across, I shouldn't complain. In other news, I just spent a small fortune re-learning schematics. Cybertech was especially painful. The whole "archive" thing is a real mess now. Funny, though — I can craft the old green relics, whose schematics are no longer available, and they still provide MK-8 aug kit components at disassembly. Unlike the new schematics, they don't require gems to craft. Perks of having played for a while I guess, but I'm not a fan of unfair advantages.

Alright, quick question. One of the patch notes bulletpoints said: All Subscribers have been granted an additional two Character Slots per server. However I'm still sitting at 12 slots. Can someone confirm that the new baseline should be 14? This isn't part of the KotFE content, so it should be effective immediately, not on the 27th.

Haha, turns out I didn't pay attention and didn't maintain a constant subscription through the required period to qualify for early access. The SWTOR forum front page is full of people reporting issues, much in line with my own experience during SoR early access. One of my favorites: spoiler tagged for size

Corellia is the climax of the Inquisitor's story. You mean that or the planetary arc? I completed the class story a while back but I stopped doing the planetary story arc somewhere around the second quest hub/zone but I've completed it on a couple other characters (one Sith and one Jedi). While trying to go back through it now I realized why I quit before, it's just so boring and such a hassle to get to and finish all the quests. Now I'm contemplating if I should either take my main through the new content first or taking the gimme 60 or one of my alts and seeing how things shake out Yeah, I know what you mean. Typically I've done the planetary arcs and bonus series (where applicable) of all planets only with the first character I rolled in each faction. The rest I leveled through class missions only, PVP and Flashpoints. Since I don't raid, I don't really have a "main", but I'll probably still take the insta-60 character through the new content first.

"Space Magic"

I made a few million credits selling augment kits (MK-9 an 10s), which in a few hours will be transformed into MK-8s. I still have to decide if it was a good move or not. Oh well, more money is never too much of a problem. Unless you are a FIFA official, I guess. Corellia is the climax of the Inquisitor's story. You mean that or the planetary arc?

Thanks. Now I know exactly what to point at when somebody asks me about my asocial tendencies. And if they still aren't convinced, I'll just suggest they read the comments. Also, Mark Hamill's absence from the poster is pretty conspicuous. Or is it?

4.0 Patch Notes Massive overhaul. Some good (mats cleanup) some bad (mandatory level sync), some WTF (heroics repeatable on a weekly basis only).

I'm somewhat underwhelmed that there are only 2 stretch goals and also by the second goal Anyway, only 16 days left Huh. I checked this yesterday, it was at ~1.7M. Nice bump! Still doubt they'll make it to 2.5M... and it's probably for the best too.

It didn't help that it was buggy as hell, with ship cutscenes not firing when they should, etc. The final act of the game is a mess of barely coherent scenes and the conclusions to various semi-mutilated plot threads awkwardly thrown together in an obvious rush to get the game out the door in time for the holidays. For a game that relied so much on "show, don't tell", to have that much stuff cut out was pretty crippling. I hear the various restoration mods basically fixed the game in that regard, but I haven't played them myself.

I don't know about the whole "'Murica **** yeah" myth as I've never been there. But you can find fictional representations of gov't agents and US soldiers as brave, selfless heroes just as easily as works depicting them as overweight dummies, remorseless killers or just ineffectual morons, depending on the scriptwriter's bent. Except IRS people. Those are universally reviled. It's like a modern day Gestapo or something. Personally, I have had nothing but good experiences with Americans. Haven't had to deal with the US government yet, though.

Unused TSL track which I remember for being part of a deleted sequence where Nihilus' ship crashed on Citadel Station. Because why the **** not.

Bah, that's the kind of flaccid mindset I was talking about. Nowadays whether its left or right whenever it's religion that's used as the ideological justification for any kind of action suddenly everyone will give these impotent excuses about how "it's just human mature maaaan". Rarely see other ideologies get this kind of free pass. Well, now that I'm officially one of them flaccid contemporary progressives, I wonder what's the next step. Register a Twitter account? Go vegan? Crossfit? Go vegan and post it to Twitter? What exactly are you referring to when you say "religion"? Is it the power structure oriented towards societal control? The myriad cosmogonic myths? The concept of the flying spaghetti monster? Have you identified any particular concept that is common to all religions that you deem to be especially pernicious, or perhaps a set of psychological mechanisms unique to religion that make it the go-to method to turn perfectly well-adjusted citizens into bloodthirsty barbarians? People killing each other has been a constant ever since we learned to use sticks as tools, and possibly earlier. Only the justifications have evolved, and perhaps our ability to use these justifications to manipulate one another, but we haven't. I don't see anything inherently virulent or vicious in religion, or at least not any more than in, as you say, other ideologies. On the other hand, religion, or the biological traits that cause it to emerge may serve an evolutionary purpose, what with it being a constant throughout virtually all human cultures and all. Me, I think trying to blame religion for whatever is a cop-out. If you want something to put your finger on, I'd suggest looking at economics. And even that still wouldn't be the whole picture.

Ah, you were being serious then? Not even a little droll? As for incorrect, I wouldn't say you are "factually" wrong, but the argument you're making is that religion killed people, whereas it really didn't. The Spanish Flu killed people. On the other hand, religion was simply an excuse for the Spanish Inquisition to kill people, whenever it was convenient for whoever happened to sit on the throne at the time. To be *strictly* right, you'd have to prove that without religion, people wouldn't have found some other rationale by which to oppress, brutalize and kill each other. In addition to what Leferd said, during the "Golden Age" of Islam, there was a focus on cultivating the sciences and the Caliphs sponsored the preservation and spread of knowledge gained from the then-decadent classical civilizations. Francis I of France, while favoring rather expeditious methods to deal with Protestants, was a well known patron of the arts and hosted and sponsored Leonardo da Vinci until his death. Etc. Can't separate the good from the bad. We have outgrown the whole Divine Right thing, right? We replaced it with popular sovereignty and natural rights which are still easily perverted or outright abrogated to pretty much keep doing the same thing when needed. Where religion was banned, some of the worst recorded abuses have been committed. It's not religion, it's just people, man.

On Steam it's essentially a completely separate game, rather than an update to the original W2. I'm not sure if that's how it works in Galaxy (Galaxy doesn't exist for my OS yet). It's the same thing in GOG (non-Galaxy). Funny thing, the DC edition is actually a smaller download (6.5 vs 9 GB).