Gorth

I'll bookmark this post for when the Gungan companion comes out... Edit: Because I forgot the smiley making it sound snarkier than intended.

At lower levels, companion matters less IMHO. At higher levels, I started pairing them up and focus on which companion I wanted to keep upgraded with quality gear so they could pull their own weight in a fight (and not just "mop up" as they had been doing so far). My commando healer prefer Tanno Vik for his tanking capability and sometimes Yunn if survivability is less an issue and just need to clear areas faster. Similar thing for my powertech, using Mako if I need to survive prolonged fights, Gault if I need to clear areas and feel confident I'll survive the fights for a while. As for Treek, Gromnir pretty much summed up my sentiments. I think I mentioned once previously in this thread, as a young man I used to be a Star Wars "fanboy", that is, right up until the middle of the third movie (when I started wondering if this was a poorly written episode of 'The Muppet Show'). Then I realized that the Star Wars I knew was dead and when the Ewoks showed up, I seriously considered walking out of the cinema. That kind of deep seated, admittedly completely irrational hatred for a character concept just makes it a no go. It could have come free with your ship like the ship droid and it would never get a place in my party.

Got my first (and only at the moment) HK-51 companion. I wonder why he came with a "spare" equipment bag with duplicates of his equipment and also his stats are rather confusing, a mix of Aim and Cunning Anyway, mission accomplished and back to trying to finish the Bounty Hunter chapter 3. Currently on Corellia getting involved in some corporate warfare that would have made 'Syndicate Wars' proud

Yeah, generally Stockholm seems to be using Norway to do their dirty work. Something controversial or might come back and bite you PR wise?... get the Norwegians to do it. Everybody wants their oil, so those Norwegians can get away with anything anyway

I would recommend Ego Soft's games More seriously, I think it would involve a major rewrite of core aspects of the game if you wanted that kind of "freedom". Remember, this is at its heart a Bioware game. They want you to experience the story they have prepared for you, not being into the whole "emergent gameplay" thing (just guessing, but they probably assumed the multiplayer aspect would sort out that bit). That being said, it would be nice if they replaced the current space missions with more freeform equivalents, simply by not being on rails. Give you your objectives and let you actually control your craft as you fly around and try to accomplish them. A nice (and probably very expensive to implement) feature would be to actually have a bit a "space" around each planet. Arrive and depart at hyperspace points somewhere in orbit and allow you to travel between ports, orbital stations and jump points with those things you can do in between (like fighting, trading, bantering, showing off your latest paint job/flashy gun/killmarkings etc. just like when meeting in a planet location. It doesn't really "add" anything, but it could provide a feeling of space not being an afterthought. If you don't like it and is not engaged in combat, there is always the quick travel option. There are so many things they can do with space. I hope they get together and come up with an idea for a comprehensive PvE space expansion some day. At the moment, between my trooper and my bounty hunter, I'm grinding the heroics and the Ascension Barrier/Impossible Sector mission to work up enough reputation for the hot shot pilot suit. I really want to put my smuggler girl in that. My trooper is not as well equipped yet though, because some of those crafting materials are a pain to come by.

I like the space missions as a diversion (although some of the heroic ones are effin challenging). Gives a few extra credits and xp for levelling up toons. Not interested in the current PVP though, as the combat mechanics are just not suited for it, not because I'm adverse to PVP per se. I loved the old Unreal Tournament and the original Delta Force. Sometimes playing 48 hours straight at Lan parties (just napping a bit when my head hit the keyboard for a few hours, then more coke, coffee and adrenaline and get going again). The controls and mechanics are going to be the deciding factor whether or not I get to do more than just satisfy my curiosity with the new add-on.

Hmm, so the next expansion coming up is not only free, but also "free flight" 12 vs 12 PVP space combat. Consider me at least intrigued. I wonder if it will support joystick controls. My current Saitek 52 pro stick/throttle is only being used for MS Flight Sim X and Ego Softs "X" games at the moment. (completely unrelated, but why the &^%^#$ did Microsoft never map the reverse throttle to a key??? It means you can't brake the big planes without switching to the virtual ****pit during landing and start fiddling around with your mouse pointer, pulling the levers into reverse).

Yay, double post... No idea what the future brings for the smuggler story line, but somebody must have had a blast writing chapter 1. Some of the wittiest dialogue and funniest incidents in the game so far (finished chapter 1 over the weekend). Kotor reference: Just so happens to be the only "girly" character I play (in an otherwise all male roster). The voice acting was outstanding from the outset on Ord Mantell and made me stick with the character, even if gone into hiatus for a while, leveling up my two "soldier" types (BH and trooper). Put the trooper on the backburner, dusting off some of the "mid level" characters (my smuggler) that had been parked for a while.

Agree. That particular game mechanic is a bit silly. Like an emergency "win" button (Dragon Age Origins had it too). Been doing something similar though *), if nothing else, because I had a humongous stockpile of gifts. Two toons had an entire cargo bay page (or tab or whatever) each full of companion gifts. At one time, I wasn't really sure what crafting material I was going to need, so my crew would craft gifts if nothing else, just to raise their crafting skills. Still got the equivalent of a cargo bay section with gifts of all qualities (green, blue and purple). While companion affection comes slowly in the beginning, some of the last dialogues gives surprisingly many affection points. The last 2k points does indeed come relatively easy through ship dialogues. Not sure if my Bounty Hunter is going to max out HK's affection, but if not, hopefully some other toon will eventually. In many ways, my BH is my guinea pig, boldly going where no Gorth has gone before and testing the waters for those toons that follow through the game. Probably made every mistake in the book along the way. Currently in the middle of the Voss story line, so still a bit of way to go (never been to Corellia yet). *) I noticed that the affection level has brackets where you get more bang for your buck for gift levels. 1-2000 for level 1, 2000-4000 for level 2 gifts etc. Edit to add: Good to know. Some of the digging wasn't so bad, but the dark temple area was pretty big and pretty tedious. Didn't really expect him to magically jump out of my pocket, fully reassembled, once getting my hands on the last part

I suppose I can answer my own question with certainty now. Hard mode 'The Foundry' will do for the HK part. I did start to worry though, after playing all the way through it an no drops with it until final boss fight. Lo and behold, it was sitting on a shelf next to the loot treasure chest, disguising itself like a Korriban lore object. Well, one more down, single part left on the list. There's probably more to do afterwards, but at least it should be possible to do a hard mode 'False Emperor' next weekend if I time it correctly (busy hours on the server).

Moved to tech section (didn't really seem game related). I'm one of those who've been using FoxIt for years. Not to sure about the performance questions, as the amount of pdf files I work with is few and far between. Most of the stuff I access is Word documents retrieved from Sharepoint.

You guys use VOIP (Mumble, Ventrilo etc.)?

Everything XCOM should have been but will never be.

I would say yes. If you just want to have a look at it, that is the way to go. If you want to play it for more than a few days... Then this is the way to go. You get a virtual lot for those $5. Heck, even if it's just buying an expansion for your inventory or an extra crewskill when you reach level 10. Also takes your default number of creatable characters from 2 to 6, so you try out a few more classes without having to delete your previous creations. If you then decides it sucks, You've lost the equivalent of a burger meal and some hours of your life.

I have a duo of level 19-20 toons doing nothing but slicing/treasure hunting (a mix of lockboxes, companion gifts for the criticals giving schematics and generally just sticking with the "rich" missions) and then sending the stuff to the "real" crafters. Mainly it's what Hassat mentioned though, keep an eye out for high value items that people try desperately to get rid of, hang on to them for a few months and then sell them. Also bought a few hypercrates over the last 6 months. Didn't get any lizards, but got a shipload of the rare and pricey crystals (hot orange and similar). Tried the last shipment and ended up with almost 3 complete sets of Cassus Fett armour. Sold for ridiculous credits on GTN. I still don't know who Cassus Fett was, but I thank him for allowing me to get some riding lizards. Good bargains in the past includes dyes (bought pink/purple and purple/pink dyes for less than 5k at one point), bastilas armour, handmaiden (bought a few dozen cuffs and boots for 2-10k on the old Apac server before moving) etc. bought for very cheap and now selling for outrageous prices to people with credits but no access (or no real world money) to get the old crates anymore.

Ah, not *too* bad then. Since I splurged 8 million on a pair of Varactyls (one of each) I suppose I can afford to unlock a few HK's. It's not like each and every toon is going to get him from level 1 anyway (which would be not only patently silly, but rather boring I could imagine).

Well, problem is, I can't queue in group finder for story mode False Emperor It's either soloing it or hard mode. I just so happen to have a level 51 commando on the Republic side, so he should be capable of doing those bits for me on that side of the fence.

Exactly. As soon as I see the r*** t*** two word combo, I go "lalalalaa!" hear no evil, see no evil. A pox upon Westwood Studios for releasing this plague on the gaming world in 1992 If it had been completely optional without detrimental effects of never doing that part, then maybe... just maybe.

Good to know. That means my republic toon will have to repeat the process. Ah well, at least the part up to this point wasn't so bad. Sucks having to queue for specific flashpoints though (I know, it's petty, but the handful of commendations you otherwise get are good for saving up and buying purple artifact boxes, the content of which you *can* send to other toons). Edit: I know it has to be hard mode The Foundry, but will any mode False Emperor do? I can't queue for story mode on that one (I'm good at soloing level 50 heroics, but I don't think I would survive that one)

As dead as a Norwegian Blue.

Russian settlers and fishermen could be found all the way down to northern California. Just imagine Gorod Angelov (google translate) instead of Los Angeles But that is a bit off topic. Never got into the total war games since RTS isn't my kind of action game. Not even with a "historical" flavour. Now I have a sudden craving for Europa Universalis: Rome.

One fringe benefit of this time zone, it is indeed completely empty. Once met a speeder traveling the other direction. Neither of us felt inclined to get off our bikes and fight (he was probably there by necessity too). Yeah, now the item preview doesn't work there either. In fact, it only works on items in your inventory now Well, once I worked out a "routine" it wasn't so bad. I found it easier as imperial, because of less travel restrictions. 5 nests within easy travel distance and then swap instance, rinse and repeat. Unless particularly unlucky, you can get 6-8 domestication data in 45 minutes. I combine it with a GSI mission or two and go digging with my seeker droid anyway while there. Got 4 tauntauns (2 tundra, 2 mountain) so far, 2 of which is gathering dust in a cargo bay. Couldn't make up my mind what toon to give them to (since they are not "unlockable"). I just read through the newly introduced bugs. This was one of them (to be corrected) as was a missing armour (which I don't miss). Not getting into the whole "end game" thing yet. So, got the last excavatable part of HK-51. Now for the two required flashpoints. I wonder if they are legacy bound, like the Coruscant part (so I can send any toon on the FP's) or if it has to be the guy that started the quest that has to do it?

Finally got around to play a bit of Europa Universalis IV "for real". Started a game as Denmark. Takes a bit getting used to some of the changes. Many things are similar to III yet suddenly there are things that are different. Not a fan of the UI though (UI, not the AI which I haven't really tested yet). Doesn't scale well at all with high resolution monitors. I simply can't see the icons or read the texts. I think I'll have to search around and see if it isn't possible to change the fonts in the game.

You shock me... as an Englishman even asking that question??? Seriously, if I could impress somebody like Diana Rigg, I would walk around with an umbrella on a sunny day