SWTOR Blog

LuraGames SWTOR BlogHi, I’m Lura and these are my Star Wars The Old Republic blog posts. I can’t wait to play SWTOR when it’s released and I plan to blog about my in-game experiences here. I haven’t decided which class I’ll play yet, but I have every intention of playing Empire. My take on SWTOR is slanted toward casual play — about 10 to 15 hours a week at most. My in-game interests are mainly gathering and crafting, questing and leveling, and collecting and exploration.

The Korrealis Sovereign is MINE.

by lura on April 9, 2012

Ever since I heard that the Korrealis speeders were being discontinued in patch 1.2, I have been working to purchase them all before the patch comes out. Since credits have come easily to me, the only one I really had to work for was the Korreals Sovereign, obtained for 850 Warzone commendations and 850 Mercenary commendations only by those who hold valor rank 65. In other words, you can only get it if you’ve done a metric crapton of pvp.

Today, I am pleased to announce: I’ve officially done a metric crapton of pvp.

Worthy and her new ride, the Korrealis Baron

I also picked up the retiring Korrealis Baron and the Korrealis Commander at the same time. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Worthy Tip

I’ve done enough pvp now I can probably give a few pointers, especially to other healers — and I should probably devote an entire post to them. However, for now, my favorite piece of advice for healers is find a great place to hide. Pillars, corners of walls, and a big clump of other players all make great hiding spots. Every warzone has a few really choice locations near where the action usually takes place. Find one and heal like crazy until you draw the attention of an enemy — then run like the wind until your gear is good enough to heal yourself through the attacks.

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Three Month Review

by lura on March 24, 2012

A couple of SWTOR bloggers have been writing on the “it’s been three months” theme, so I thought I’d join on the bandwagon too. Kristalys writes, “I would love to read about what the past 3 months have meant to you and what has changed or remained the same regarding your main toon, the amount of time you play, etc. So let’s make this a thing. Everyone do a 3 month update post. It’ll be awesome.”

The last three months for me have been fantastic game-wise. With the new year starting, my work schedule eased up a tiny bit and while my hours are all over the place, I’m playing a solid 2-3 hours a day. This is very close to what I’d expected, with a few extra hours sprinkled throughout each week that admittedly I probably should be using for personal and/or business development. Then again, if playing a game I love doesn’t count toward personal development I don’t know what would.

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Qyzen Fess Affection Guide

by lura on March 15, 2012

Qyzen Fess: Affection GuideAh Qyzen, the bane of perhaps every Consular’s quest for companion affection… This not-so-lovable, cranky lizard’s affection gain can be a slow and painful process considering he pretty much hates everything and doesn’t love any companion gifts. He kind of likes weapon companion gifts, but they’re hard to find, so I’ve worked out a way to grind out his affection with minimal effort and without buying overpriced companion gifts. This will also come in super-handy after 1.2 when you’ll be rewarded for maxing out affection with all of your companions.

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The Light at the End of the Tunnel

by lura on February 22, 2012

Worthy is 49 and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! It’s been slow-going, partly due to OMGLIFE! and OMGHEADCOLD! and OMGWORK!, but also partly because in the time I have had to play, I’ve been unfocused: dabbling in crafting across four characters, aggressively playing the GTN, and leveling an alt.

I’ve been halving my time between two characters: Worthy my Sage and my Commando. Oddly enough, I’m healing specced with both of them. My Commando is solely doing missions grouped with my husband’s character, a Vanguard. We are in our low 30s now and we’re a troopertastic team!

For the past few days I’ve been trying to focus on Worthy. I’d heard you could start the Belsavis dailies as early as level 47, so when I was nearing 47 I started to research exactly what I needed to do to get started, and it looks like I could have planned a little better.

The Belsavis dailies are “unlocked” from the Belsavis Bonus Series. The quest starts from a mission box at the north side center of Carrick Station (for Republic) and you must be both level 47 and have completed your class quest through Corellia. (I heard a rumor, a little too late for my own personal use, that if you run out to the dailies on Belsavis at 47 you can get started on them without the Bonus Series.)

When I realized this, I was level 47 and had just completed Belsavis and was on my way to Voss. Since I’ve usually been on rested xp and I’ve picked up a LOT of extra xp doing pvp and space missions, I decided to fast-track through my class quests so I could get the bulk of my remaining xp to 50 through more space missions and pvp plus via the Belsavis dailies, which will hopefully give me a little gear head start when I reach 50.

In addition, skipping the general planetary quests on Voss and Corellia now means they’ll be new when my husband and I get there together. There’s something nice about experiencing content for the first time together, without feeling like one of us is dragging the other around.

So doing class quests only, with rested xp, I traveled through Voss and eventually through Corellia. By the time I was done with Corellia’s class quests (and even skipping some class quest bonus and side missions), I was level 49. So maybe not as much of a head start as I had planned for, but it’s smooth sailing to 50 — all rested and ready to go.

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Corso Awaits…

by lura on February 1, 2012

My husband played a Smuggler/Gunslinger up to about level 35, but decided to roll a tank instead. Apparently, he’s been so happy with his new character he hasn’t even logged into his Gunslinger.

And that made Corso so sad, he sent my husband an email:

Corso Riggs Eagerly Awaits your Return

My thoughts? Go away Corso. “Nobody gets between me and my man!”

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Get crafting materials out of your cargo hold without visiting a terminal

by lura on January 25, 2012

Here’s a fun little trick I discovered today: you can transfer crafting materials from your cargo hold to your inventory without actually visiting the cargo hold access terminals!

First of all, if you don’t know it already: you can store all of your crafting materials in your cargo hold and when you have your companions craft, they’ll pull materials from there as if they were in your inventory. My trick plays off of this.

Find out what schematic you have that requires the materials you would like in your inventory. Have your companion start crafting it and then cancel it immediately (using the X next to Time Remaining in the Crew Skills window). With the cancellation, the materials will be moved from your cargo hold to your inventory. Repeat this process until you have however many mats you need in your inventory.

Cancel Current Task

It’s not perfect — you’re limited to retrieving the items in recipes/schematics you already know and you’re limited to mats quantities in multiples of those required in those recipes/schematics. Still, it could come in handy some day. Maybe.

When or why would someone possibly need to use this trick? I think it might be able to save time and save you from the scorn of your party members if you weren’t prepared for a flashpoint or operation. Imagine that you’re in an operation with someone who has a recipe/schematic to make something you don’t have and they’ll make it for you if you have the mats. Of course you’d have to both have the same crafting skill, so my scenario is probably pretty unlikely.

The downside here — and how I found out about the trick in the first place — is that if you need to cancel crafting of an item or items, you may stuff your bags full of materials you wanted (or needed) to stay in your cargo hold.

Can you think of any other uses for this simple cargo hold to inventory trick? Let me know in a comment.

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I can quit slicing any time!

by lura on January 13, 2012

Oh, slicing… How I love thee, let me count the ways…

I love slicing.

It’s no secret that I love gathering in games, but how I feel about slicing… it’s beyond “love” — it’s just perfect. Take everything I love about gathering crafting materials and selling them to other players and take out the horrible parts of having to actually sell them to other players and you’ve got slicing. No mules, no taking bags full of items to a mailbox to send to said mules, no painstakingly keeping track of market pricing and splitting up stacks (which in SWTOR is currently SO SO PAINFUL). I almost never have to leave my farming spot, unless I want to. Farming straight-up cash money? Heck yes!

My leveling has been reduced to a slow amble: I’ve gained about 3 levels in 5 days. I am a mere level 35 when I should probably be at least 40 now because I found the most perfectly perfect farming spot and can’t pull myself away. It’s so, so good and there are so, so many credits. I am rolling in sugary-sweet credits, people. And I can’t stop.

I am totally addicted: I log in when I have a spare ten minutes, run my circuit and sometimes talk myself into waiting for the respawns. I leave my farming spot to go to Balmorra to get some missions done but return only a fraction of a level later because I want some more of that sweet credit action.

The only thing keeping me going back to missions, at least once in a while, is that if I can just level to 40 I’ll get to train faster speeder skills and buy a faster speeder (which I can TOTALLY afford many times over, yet I still want more credits), which would — ahem — “speed” up the entire process.

Sights set on 40… GO!

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The one with all the screenshots…

by lura on January 8, 2012

Worthy is level 32 now and things are slowing down because, well, it seems I can no longer knock out a level in a short play session and the holidays are over so work once again takes priority. Silly work, getting in the way of my fun! This is going to be the post with all of the screenshots.

I love how occasionally NPCs will send you an in-game mail to follow-up after a mission, especially if that mail contains goodies. This one didn’t contain any, but I think the mail itself was a treat enough:

Fun mail from an NPC... or is it!

Consummate Consular:

Consummate Consular.

I may never tire of seeing this:

Purple loot notification

I need more missions in Tatooine like I need another hole in my head:

Hole in my head. Ouch?

We don’t need no stinkin’ speeders:

We don't need no stinkin' speeders

And last, but not at all least… I created a baby trooper for the sole purpose of getting her companion and then plopping her down in Carrick station for crew skills. I really, really enjoyed her story from the very beginning. I felt like I knew her personality and making decisions with her was a blast (I felt the same way with the baby smuggler I made to play grouped with my husband).

So, of course after she defeated Separatist Commander Bol, she danced for a little while on his desk:

Dancing on Bol's desk

Also noteworthy since (gasp) 9 days ago when I last updated: I got my speeder! I fast-tracked my class quest and had an all-out battle to complete Chapter 1 and unlock my legacy, and I backtracked and completed some grey quests for flashpoints. More on that soon, it deserves its own separate post.

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Tharan Cedrax is a Creeper

by lura on December 30, 2011

I now have Tharan Cedrax as my companion. And by companion I mean TOTAL CREEPER.

I don’t even have any affection with him yet but he’s already following me around and he’s always kind of just watching me. Intently:

Theran Cedrax is a Creeper.

No really, he’s always watching:

Theran Cedrax is always watching.

Perhaps you could call it “leering”:

Theran leers.

Okay, now this is just unacceptable:

Theran Cedrax. Lover of women.

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Viable Sample

by lura on December 28, 2011

Since I last gave a state-of-the-Worthy report, I got my ship! It’s like player housing, but it flies. I was impressed with how big it was. I was not impressed with my abilities in space combat missions. I’m going to need some practice and maybe some ship upgrades, a la Pimp My Ride.

So, from Coruscant on to Taris I went…. There, I gained 6 levels. And more missions than I knew what to do with. Every time I thought I was done with Taris and ready to leave for Nar Shaddaa, more missions appeared. Missions and bonus missions everywhere! And so, so much running. Repeat after me: 2 more levels until speeder.

I finally finished Taris and all I got was this silly hat:

Silly Hat: a souvenir from Taris

There was extended maintenance and a patch yesterday. The patch brought two changes to my gathering. Nodes now have cool Aurebesh sparkly/glowy signage making them easily seen even if you aren’t looking at your maps. Curious that the nodes say? “Viable Sample”

It says "viable sample".

The other change is that “Rewards from Slicing have been reduced to bring them into balance with other skills.” Either I was really unlucky before, or really lucky when I ran my numbers, or the slicing change just isn’t that big of a deal.

After my speeder, my next big goal is to unlock my legacy. I’ve got a name picked out already and after that I’ve got a short laundry list of things I want to accomplish:

* Run several (more) mules to Carrick Station and maybe level a few of them to the point of a companion for crafting purposes
* Get the last few datacrons from Coruscant and Taris (I got a few along the way but not all)
* Space missions

I think I’ve finally decided on a leveling build: no matter what I keep hearing I’m going to plug along with the Seer tree until I end up with a 32/7/2 build, even if I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be healing at 50. It’s working out well so far, but then again it’s not like I’m doing a ton of flashpoints as a healer either. I’ve got enough points into the Seer tree to get Rejuvenate right now and I stuck two points in Mental Longevity for the extra Force. So far so good.

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