Gorth

I miss my old companions. I miss the companion stories. Even when you recruit Lt. Pierce, SCORPIO etc. they feel "empty". Like the 5 years since you last met are non existing and no catching up other than the recruiting dialogue. No evolving stories there. Since my bounty hunter didn't get any old companion back (which my sith warrior, agent and trooper did), I used the terminal to summon Mako. I doubt very much I'm going to use the new companions much. Highest ranking Lana Beniko/Theron Shan is 6 and highest ranking Nico Ocarr is 3. They just don't have the backstory that the companions you gathered from level 1-50 has. Did Black Hole for the first time since 4.0... wow, Torvix has fallen on hard times. All the golds in the "heroics" (what a ridiculous misnomer now) have been reduced to silvers and all the silvers have been reduced to common trash (one shot fodder for dps players). I guess I should look at the positives and appreciate it's fast rewards.

It's a sad time when a psychic octopus is the only creature you can trust to tell the truth in the world of football. RIP Paul.

Ever considered the possibility that heads of state's personal interests and their responsibilities may have a conflict of interest? Point in case, Ghadaffi, Saddam Hussein, every long ruling despot clinging on to power at all cost? The Kurdish party hurt the ruling party in Turkey in the previous election and if continuing, they may or may not have ousted Erdogan from power through a normal democratic process. Hence, the Kurds needed a good stomping and who better to do that than a group with similar interests (and blowing the nationalist trumpets at the same time, rallying voters behind the ballots). He *is* the leader of an islamist party after all.

German is/was my second language, although I'm probably more fluent in English now (which used to be my third language). If anything, I learnt that no country is perfect. Mostly getting along with people, but raising eyebrows at the various administrative quirks and idiosyncrasies you run into. Germany was a mix of two things, not feeling comfortable living in the big city and the deeply ingrained "formality" in the way people interact. At least I can get people to address me by my first name here (after a bit of encouragement) But yes, I have fond and less fond memories from each country. Nobody is perfect. Denmark the semi-socialist "paradise", New Zealand with it's "remoteness" from the rest of the world, Australia which I guess would be closer to USA than England now culturally, Germany where you need to fill out a form for crossing the street and England where everything looks and feels a bit old and worn down

Gorth I would like to point something interesting out to you but before I make my point where have you lived in your life? Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and England? (that's 'living', not just spending an amount of time there)

In Malaysia?

I don't consider myself "anti" western as much as I'm not wearing the same rose coloured glasses as you Honestly? Look at a map of Syria and Iraq. ISIS is controlling the center and north of those two countries. Unless they have a secret fleet of fuel carrying planes, it needs to go by pipeline or trucks. Lets assume that the Iranian and Iraqi governments refuse to do business with ISIS (and we can rule out Syria and Israel too most likely). Plausible corridors are Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Lebanon we can sort of rule out, Hizbollah would love nothing more than to fight Isis. Jordan is a plausible way, although not as a destination (i.e. only complicity is not being able to stop the traffic through those large, unguarded borders), but as a transit to Saudi Arabia. The only other viable alternative to sell oil is Turkey. Makes you wonder why the Ankara tried so hard to let Isis wipe out all resistance at the Turkish border without outside interference... (/tinfoil hat)

Not really. Just guessing, but I think that was what most players who have been around for a bit expected. Nothing more, nothing less. No new end game content, next chapter released as late as possible within the promised time frame (late January/early February). Subscriber rewards that I for one couldn't care less about (Never got around to use the previous ones, Nico Ocarr gathers dust and the stim vendor got all the coats and guns). So yeah, par for the course or however the saying goes Only real news (for me) bits were that Bowdaar is up next for a reunion (as most would have guessed Kaliyo already from the in-game image). The dark side choices are the saving grace of the consular story. It actually gets better at the end, but the "plague" chapter is not captivating to put it bluntly. Ran into the loot bug several time when soloing the H2 star Fortresses. Exarch corpse just goes poof, does a magic vanishing trick and loot is stuck in the floor. First few times, I just gave up, then in desperation tried a trick that worked elsewhere for another problem, Alt F4, restart game and log in again (while still being in the instance of course). It somehow refreshes the room and the corpse appears correctly (and can now be looted).

Erdogan has been playing the nationalist card a lot when the last election came around here, drumming up support from all the non jihadists to secure election victory. Nothing like starting a new war with the Kurds to get more votes at the ballots. He probably took notes from Bush's election campaigns, the current incumbent rarely get toppled in the middle of a conflict.

I'm too old to change. Never had any other avatar than this one

I suspect the Dromund Kaas thing is a bug. The crates are intentionally locked, as you need them to "bribe" alliance contacts for affection. Currently the expansion is only available to subs, so it does make sense, even if badly communicated by Bioware. Depending on your level and reputation, there is plenty of moddable gear in the game. Bounty Brokers association for example. Has moddable, legacy bound guns too for shuffling barrels around Check out tor-fashion.com for legacy gear (if legacy bound is important) and where to acquire. I believe there are more reputation vendors around selling legacy bound gear (cz-198, makeb, gsi etc.). If legacy bound is not a requirement and it just has to be moddable, grab the cheapest stuff off the gtn. You would be surprised how dirt cheap some of the cartel market armour on the second hand market there. Then, as mentioned above, slap some good looking armour pieces on top of it in your character designer to maintain your good looks. Heck, you could just pick up the level 8 gear on fleet (check the map for the guy, placed together with the low level mod sellers, except this one sells gear instead of mods).

I think Numbers covered most. The moddable gear vendors can still be found on the various planets though. Usually at the same place where you find (green/premium) weapons, armour and mods. Look out for Special Item vendors. Some of them may still have the old moddable armour pieces. What worked better for my latest alts were the level 7 (now level eight) equipment vendor on fleet. Unlike the rest, this one has no mods, just the moddable gear and with enough crystals you can buy a complete moddable set. Including weapon, offhand, head gear, bracers, belt etc. Most of it is even pretty decent looking. Got an agent still using this gear, just replacing the mods. If you don't like the looks, the appearance designer is your friend, use the level 8 moddable gear, replace the mods and slap some of the old grey, white, green and blue grade armour on top of it to change the looks of it. RNG is your best friend and your worst nightmare indeed Yeah, nice bug. Wait until it get fixed and listen to the outrage on the forums that people now actually have to pay for gear repairs!!!

Having had my first payday in my new job, started getting serious about looking for a place to live (armed with plenty of cash and a fully loaded credit card!). Most convenient spot is somewhere in Surrey, which I guess is not the cheapest part of the UK to live in. It could've been worse of course, but one of the main motivators for leaving Berlin was, I didn't want to live in the big city. Looks like there are some nice green areas and natural preserves in the general area between London and the south coast. Having lived in hotels for a staggering 4 months in total out of the last 15 months, I do miss having my own place again. Probably going to get a small car too, now that I am at it. Weather this time of year doesn't encourage motor cycling

I know they are completely unrelated, but every time I hear the word midichlorians, I keep thinking of photosynthesis. Best thing they could do would be to ret-con them out of existence.

I've never really played the dot spec for assassins/shadows, doesn't that one provide some degree of self healing too? Was curious about the state of companions after they changed it again again. Did a pair of solo runs on H2 Star Fortresses, both to test the current challenge level and hopefully to get a few rating 208 hilts and barrels without sharing them One run with my old PT tank and one with my Assassin tank. Not going for the solo achievement, so used all 4 buffs and gadgets. Healer companions being rank 16 and 12 respectively. Let's just say, all my PT used was wasd, flamethrower, flame sweep, rocket punch and rail shot (and the odd pew pew basic attack). Not bothering with heat screen, flame burst, exploding darts etc. Much less using any stuns, carbonise, oilslick debuff or interrupts. It was that easy. To be fair, the sentry turret probably provided most of the dps, giving me the only challenge in that run, trying to keep aggro from the turret. Assassin was a similar story, although I did die twice, once falling off the ledge in the reactor room and once killed by lag from my crappy hotel wifi (latency of 120.000ms will do that to you, because eventually your healer companion will wear out and die when getting all the aggro). Edit: My assassin got the playing with fire achievement by accident. I tried to get it deliberately at first on my PT, but the Exarch there never broke the windows. Edit2: Between the 2 runs, I got 2 dps barrels and 2 tank hilts (and a pile of decorations plus some of that crafting material that normally drops from hm fps)

As the saying goes, if in doubt, nerf operatives Since I don't do much PVP (a once in a blue moon distraction), stealth is for me mostly a QoL thing, making the skipping of a lot of unwanted trash possible. Stealth and Ranged of the same class seems to have slightly similar rotations. Difference being one has 30+ meter range and no stealth, the other 10+ meter range and stealth so they can close the gap. Still don't play PVP on my mercs/commandos (all dps) and neither on my maras/sents. Although the latter does seem to have gotten a nice survivability boost. At least for annihilation/watchman. Tried a level 44 watchman sentinel in a tactical flashpoint and the undying rage (whatever the pub translation for that skill is) on a relatively short cd helps a lot (as does stun immunity when spending the utility point) when popping the saber ward. Edit: Completely unrelated, but I got a good laugh out of reading the mails from the 4 alliance guys/girls when reaching rank 10. In particular the Admiral telling me he had hired the band Black Sabbacc to come and perform for the troops. I wonder if their frontman is named anything with 'Ozzy' in it

Good thing old Kemal Ataturk can't see what Erdogan is turning his legacy into. Staying Secular was one of his goals.

Which is effectively a declaration of war by Turkey on Russia, attacking outside Turkey. They would have a hard to time calling on Nato for help should Russia decide to retaliate in kind (Turkey being the aggressor really can hardly claim "self defence").

I think I still got some factor 50 from my days in South Australia. Probably way past its best by date

Turkey (ok, maybe not Turkey, but the Erdogan government), being a supporter of Isis, I wonder if France is going to ask Turkey to raise arms against them?... Probably just as unlikely as Saudi Arabia clamping down on the money flow.

Tried a few of the heroics. The instanced ones were ok, but the one on Alderaan where you have to plant evidence on the republic corpses (shock doctrine?) was a chore. Only the silvers move away from their spawn points, the rest dies where they are, being buried in corpse piles. I wonder if a contributing factor is, a lot of people grinding the heroics don't bother looting the corpses, which means a much, much longer despawn time, as the corpse wont despawn until the loot has either been looted or despawned itself (loot will eventually disappear, but on a much longer timer). Playing all 16 advanced classes, I think it's fair to say, balance is non existing. Combat hasn't been "fun" either since Shadow of Revan was released. I wish they would stop trying to put those gloves on their feet and just realise that you can't balance skills for pve and pvp simultaneously. Yes, I still miss my full auto/unload for powertech/vanguard (screw their metrics, it took the *FUN* out of those 2 classes) and I resent the force mend/rend garbage they are trying to ram down the throat of marauder/sentinel players. The skill doesn't belong and has no place there. Just remove it already.

Let me guess... their metrics showed a large number of people unsubscribing after path? The butthurt was great amongst the casuals who just wanted everything handed on a silver platter. It's like the slot machine fiasco all over again. First ridiculously generous with it's payback chance, then as a knee jerk reaction nuking it into uselessness. And it was such a good idea. Doing things with moderation just doesn't seem to occur to them.

Yeah, I noticed that. It's a heck of a lot of foot to fit in one mouth

Tell her that this stuff with hand cuffs is actually quite fun and then measure her wrist size from those?