Decoration Documentation: Rishi Hideout

Yes, yes, I know it's been almost two years since this Stronghold was released, but I realised while writing Saturday's Decoration Documentation post for the Alderaan Noble Estate that I had never published a similar post for Rishi despite its being complete all this time.

I actually had written a post for it but it ended up being deleted when I was clearing up some old drafts I wasn't happy with, but I figured it was worth giving it another go now I'm back in the mood for writing about decorating.

When speculation about future Strongholds was in its prime, I was always fairly baffled by the number of requests I was seeing for Rishi as a location. I mean, sure, it's an okay planet but it's almost certainly the most unruly planet BioWare has yet released. Setting up permanent residence on Rishi, to me, seemed like presenting the worst pirates a great big target to raid. 

This feeling is hardly lessened by the fact that this Stronghold is literally a truncated form of Coratanni Town (formerly Ruugaria) from The Ravagers, AKA formerly one of the most notorious pirate lairs on Rishi. Regardless of whether or not it's actually the same location, having a Stronghold be visually identical to an Operation area that gets infiltrated relatively easily really doesn't do much to make one feel "secure" within its confines. 

With that introduction, I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that I don't use this Stronghold for one of my characters. As a matter of fact, this Stronghold is where my Gunslinger Cal calls home. Ever since Manaan released and was 'given' to my Guardian, I've been trying to give some of my characters their own distinct homes. In the lore I've written up for my Gunslinger, she was born and raised on Coruscant, but since that Stronghold is currently dedicated to... other matters... I couldn't really use it. I'm not a fan of the Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace so I wasn't keen to use that although it would also work for Cal's smuggler background.

Rishi thus seemed like the most logical option remaining to investigate for this purpose. 

Decoration Documentation: Alderaan Noble Estate

Oh, joyous occasions!

Ever since Strongholds have been a thing I've been voicing a wish to get an Alderaan Stronghold at any given opportunity. Alderaan is still my favourite planet in-game all these years later because I find it to be absolutely gorgeous, so I was keen to have any excuse to park at least one of my characters there on a nigh-permanent basis.

So when BioWare placed a teaser for the newest Stronghold on Fleet in 6.0.2 I was absolutely thrilled to discover that it was to be an Alderaanian one. I loaded up the PTS as soon as it became available to check it out and I loved what I was seeing.

Since it was announced, I planned to 'give' it to my Sage, Vihala. My Gunslinger has Rishi, my Guardian has Manaan, my Imperials have a half-finished Dromund Kaas, and my Trooper (and until now, Vihala) just has Tatooine by default.

Funny to think that the Stronghold I had put the most effort into first is now something of an afterthought...

As a result, this estate has been turned into a Jedi Academy of sorts, so expect to see more than a few Jedi themed decorations, including the occasional Jedi NPC, in the following images.

Tasks and Signals

I haven't forgotten about my Thoughts on 6.0 series. I wasn't very happy with the post I had drafted up for the Onderon story so I kept it back for a bit until I could improve it to match my expectations. However, I haven't had a lot of time to go back to it with college work and such, so it's still in limbo.

Until then, I'm going to use recent goings-on in SWtOR to re-jigger my blogging capabilities and hope that that finally gets the Thoughts post up to standard.

6.1 brought with it three things which I intend to touch on in posts at some point. The first, something which I had been hoping for ever since Strongholds were introduced, is the Alderaan Noble Estate. The second, the subject of today's post because it's the easiest to write about at short notice, is a small story update, The Task at Hand, which focuses on either Task Force Nova or the Empire's Hand before setting up the 6.2 story in Signal From Noise. The third and final notable change, from my perspective, is the removal of Veteran's Edge in Master Mode Operations.

For now, though, it's time to analyse the little story update and see what happened!