8

Another year, another milestone.

Fun fact, until last week I had convinced myself that this year would actually be this blog's ninth anniversary, not its eighth. I'm not too sure exactly when I first thought of it like that, but it's certainly been in my head for a good few weeks, as most things that I dwell on are.

Regardless, eight years is still worth celebrating. This blog is definitely on its last legs by now, and I have kept it alive a good few years when it could have died several times beforehand. That said, I have decided that this next year will be the last year for Galactic Antics. It's been a wonderful little passion project throughout the years, and I have got to know some really lovely people through it, but it's time that this blog begins to face the long-awaited curtain call at last.

I may refer to the blog rather derisively as a "rust-bucket", but I have enjoyed working on it a fair bit over the years. While I was not inexperienced with being "out there" on the internet prior to its creation in 2014, having hosted numerous webcomics on a separate forum through 2007 to 2011, it's been a wonderful confidence booster in being able to keep an online project active for longer than a single year before moving on, either to a successor or to different things altogether.

So even if it isn't going to reach the "ideal" of a tenth anniversary, hitting eight years and ending on its ninth is not something I would have considered a likely outcome all those years ago. It's been great exposure to creating and running a website, something which I will need to look more into again in the near future once I pull my finger out a bit and focus more on my prospective career options.

It's been a fun ride, and of course it isn't over yet. With everything else going on, I don't know what sort of things I'll be touching on over the next twelve months, but since there are more than a couple of things I've been meaning to touch on over the years that I never got around to writing about, I imagine I'll try to incorporate those in the line-up somewhere.

Once again, thank you all for reading this blog, and here's to the next and final year of GA. I'll be sure to try and make it as good as possible.

Seven Years a Blogging.

I may not be blogging consistently anymore, but that doesn't mean that I can ignore when the blog's anniversary rolls around.

So... that refit from last year aged well, didn't it? After all the intention to start writing about other Star Wars games as much as The Old Republic, it's kinda just... boiled down to still being about The Old Republic. Most of this is because I had high hopes that Squadrons would provide more writing material beyond my four posts about it last year, but then that just went nowhere. Motive moved away from providing patches for the game after December, and on the 4th of May this year they delivered their final intended server-side update.

I don't mind them doing that - indeed, I actually admire them for releasing a game as "finished" (barring the annoying glitches, of course) and only providing updates as a way of thanking the players for their dedication - but in terms of writing... there isn't a lot to really talk about with the game that I haven't already touched on in some form!

While that is a bit disappointing, I do think the refit itself looks nice, and it at least gave me the excuse to cull a couple of pages which were just becoming more and more impractical to keep up-to-date. Ultimately, I'm still happy I've done it, even if I grumble about the intentions not working out as well as I had envisaged.

But anyway, enough moping about the past.

For the rest of this year, I intend to focus on the past ten years of The Old Republic, since this year is of course its big tenth anniversary! I have a series in mind to focus on several things which BioWare have included within the game across the years, as well as to provide some introspective thoughts about my own personal history within the game. Ten years is a long time to stick with anything, and I have made some really great friendships and learned some lessons about myself over the years thanks to this game.

Plus of course, there will be the continued look at the PTS updates. I haven't touched on it here for some time, primarily because the most-recent update was for a combat style I don't intend to play. However, one thing which is also apparent is that BioWare's new philosophy for things like class defensives can't really be gauged until the group content is properly scaled and all changes have been revealed. Right now on Live, we often need several of these defensives in many fights due to the general tuning issues, and this heavily-influenced my gut reactions when I saw the plans for Guardians before BioWare stepped up to the plate to say what was what.

That's not to say that I still don't have some concerns, but I don't want to make any further PTS posts until we know more about exactly how Legacy of the Sith is going to be. The current PTS state is just a bit too barebones for my liking, but I certainly do have to praise BioWare for making it clear for Sentinels what their ability / passive choices would allow them to do for all three specs, which is far more than Guardians had access to at the start. They are at least improving on communicating more than the bare minimum, but at the same time I don't think that should really be something that I would have needed to praise...

We'll see how it all pans out!

For now, though, thank you all once again for reading this shambling husk of a blog. There hasn't really been a lot to write about over the past few months, but I do have plans to pick things up a notch!

Fully Operational Again

The face-lift is finished, and so Galactic Antics lives and breathes fully once more. Huge thanks to Shintar of Going Commando for being kind enough to review the changes before they went live.

I hope you like the blog's updated look. I decided that, as I was no longer going to have an official primary focus, the blog’s theme should be similarly generic to match. Besides, as much as I loved the old Defender class corvette header, I cannot deny that it could be deemed a tad “too busy”.

I do of course appreciate that the whole “trying to emulate the series’ main titles” theme has been done to death already, but I couldn’t really think of much else which would be generic and yet undeniably Star Wars.

So, what specifically has been updated as part of the overhaul?

Six Years and Future Developments

It is strange to think that this blog has now been going on for almost a quarter of my life so far. Galactic Antics has seen me through two full university courses and now it is seeing the working world begin knocking on my proverbial door.

When I set out to start this blog six years ago, it was because I had a lot of thoughts on various goings-on in SWtOR and, while I had been sharing them with a former friend of mine, I felt it would be better-served to get them out into the wider world. I had no idea at the time that I would still be here over half a decade later, as most of my personal projects before this would last barely a year.

I feel incredibly lucky. While the prime of this blog has long since passed (2016), I am incredibly grateful for the readership which I have had over the years since then. It feels like I say this every year, but the fact that people still willingly read the words I chuck up on this big scary old internet is still something of an amazement to me.

A little over a month ago, I took a long hard look at things in my life just to gauge where I am at. Not for any particular purpose – I’ve just (unsurprisingly) had a lot of time to think to myself about such things this year. This sort of thing last happened three years ago while deciding what paths were open for me at that time, although that was after pulling out of a third university course that just was not right for me. Unlike in 2017, one of the things which reared its head among this period was the future of the blog.

I have come close to considering stopping outright a couple of times, but partway through June I was this close to pulling the plug for good. I cannot remember the exact reasons, and I do not particularly wish to try.

This is the main reason why I had not been posting that much despite having things to write about. I was not sure whether it would be "worth" posting if, ultimately, I was going to pull the plug soon after anyway. This anniversary and the direction my life is hopefully going to be taking have both helped me come to some conclusions about what I want this blog to be. I will not be stopping, but things will certainly be different. 

From this point forth, I will no longer feature Star Wars: The Old Republic as the primary focus of the blog. Instead, I will shift its focus to having a more generic Star Wars gaming theme. This is because I have been spending proportionally less time in it compared to other games for the past couple of months for various reasons and this will only continue as time goes on. This change is intended to hopefully increase its longevity by giving me more things to "officially" focus on.

SWtOR will still probably feature the most out of the games which I intend to cover because it'll be the one which has the most frequent and varied updates so, practically, things won't be changing too much besides some occasional variety.

I am not going to be changing the name. Galactic Antics is probably the best name I could ever have come up with in hindsight. I certainly do not think Smuggling with a Cool Head or Blaster-Whipped Cream could transfer across anywhere near as successfully!

I don't know what the full extent of the changes is likely to be yet, but I certainly intend to have the face-lift finished before October as I already have a post mostly-written which will go live during that month. Fair warning, though: it will be a long one. Seriously.

One thing which I do know is that the long-postponed Thoughts on 6.0 series is now officially cancelled. Back in April my computer mysteriously malfunctioned and with it I lost all the videos and screenshots which I had so diligently been recording throughout Onslaught's story. I feel it is better to just cut my losses and move on.

I have other things to work on alongside this face-lift, namely a potential career to get off the ground which will require its own website. I am curious to see what lessons I learn in the process which I may be able to transfer over to this site in terms of potentially improving its aesthetic. I'm going to be a bit busy with this sort of thing, that's for sure!

I will be pulling the blog down from public viewing on the 16th of August at 13:00 BST, exactly one week from this post's publication date, to begin work nice and early on the changes. If you have this blog linked via your blogroll or website, be sure to remove the link until it is back live. 

All that remains is to thank you all so much for your patience over the past six years. 

See you soon!

Half a Decade

I may not be blogging consistently these days, something which I attribute to real life goings-on (which I will not go into any more detail on), and I'm honestly surprised I've been able to keep this going on for as long as it has been.

Most of my personal endeavours have collapsed in on themselves after a year at most. Based on this history, I would never have imagined my blog to have lasted two years, let alone five. Yet here we are. Fifth year over, and the sixth is beginning.

I don't have many plans for the blog currently, at least as far as pre-Expansion writings go, as indicated by just how empty this celebration post is especially after the last couple of years. There's a post I've been working on for the past couple of months which will go live on the last day of 5.0, showcasing my favourite and least-favourite aspects of the current expansion.

Beyond that, I think it will purely be PTS-related stuff. I am already fairly certain that Phase Two will begin after I'm out of the country from next Thursday, but we're still to see Hunters hit the PTS, hopefully this weekend, so I'll try and crank a post out before I depart for new territory if I can.

There are certainly some inaccuracies in my original post regarding the PTS, either because things have since been updated (I had already noted one change, but it is clear from the Mercenary and Powertech posts that set-bonuses in general are receiving a significant update at some point) or because I had completely the wrong end of the stick (e.g. set bonus attribute gain) at the time. It would just be easier to include those corrections in a new post than adjust a post that people may no longer be reading.

Or at least I view it that way.

So, five years on. How many may yet follow? I do not know, nor do I particularly wish to know. As with a lot of things for me these days, this blog is very much on "take it as it comes" status. I daresay things won't be at all different for the SWtOR community with its absence, but it's still been a useful outlet for my thoughts across the years.

That's all there is to this year's post. Now, on to the future and what it brings.

Thank you for your readership, those of you who have stuck with it all this while.

~Cal.

Fourth-Year Anniversary Giveaway Results!

Well, the 23rd of August has come and with it comes the end of the giveaway. Thank you very much to the various people who entered! I'm very happy with the turnout, and I'm very pleased to say that everybody who entered got something that they wanted! Without further ado, the prizes go to:

Arrangement: Luxury Spa: Shintar!

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Koensayr Monocycle: Phil!

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Overlord's Command Throne: Unknown!

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Revan Reborn's Armour: Νικος Μαρινος!

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Revered Master's Robes: Shintar!

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Sensuous Dress: Pineapple!

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Shae Vizla's Armour: Pineapple!

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Temple Guardian's Armour: Brallig!

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A huge congratulations to the above six people. Phil and Unknown, I'll need you to notify me of your characters' names so you can get your prizes; if you don't feel comfortable putting them in a comment on this post you can e-mail them to me at galacticantics@gmail.com or via Twitter. Whatever you prefer is fine by me.

Thank you all once again for sticking with this blog for the past four years. It's been a good ride thus far, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future.

~Cal

Milestone: 4-Year Anniversary!

So this rustbucket of a blog has survived its fourth year, undoubtedly the roughest of the lot so far. It can't have escaped anyone's attention that I haven't been posting at all frequently over the past 365 days, but regardless, the fourth year is in the can.

Much like the last two years, this heralds a look back over the past twelve months' worth of posts, seeing which the most popular were and allowing me to provide a commentary of them. This will purely be looking over the posts made after the Third Year Anniversary post, and I feel the need to make this distinction because otherwise the Curing Bergola Post would top the list in two ways; firstly, for still being the most-read post on the blog, and secondly for managing to acquire 700 views over the past twelve months - more than twice that of the most popular post written between the previous August 9th and this one.

Not that that last detail is particularly impressive; this is only the thirtieth post in all that time. Still, it's nice to know when my peak-blogging was.

Third Anniversary Follow-On: Giveaway Results

Last week, as you may recall, I announced in my Third-Anniversary post that I would be holding my first giveaway. It was always going to be something of a shambles, since I only ever had four items which I could put up as potential rewards.

This is largely because I have absolutely no idea what's popular among the community, and oftentimes whenever something is popular I find myself completely baffled as to why. So as a result, even though I probably should have bought something specially for this occasion, I was absolutely petrified that I would have made the wrong decision(s) and have completely wasted that purchase due to nobody having an interest in said item(s). 

Still, I was moderately happy with the four items I had managed to discover through RNG, with the E-95 Dread Behemoth Tank being the item which I thought would be the most difficult to shift due to its annoyingly-coincidental low price on the GTN. The Unstable Peacemaker's Dualsaber - despite being one of the nicest saber models in my opinion - was also a big risk because only 1/8ths of the Classes could have used it.

Somewhat disappointingly (but not that surprising, considering how "half-assed" even I called it), the giveaway didn't receive that much attention at all. After all, a competition which only offers four items - only 50% of which are generally desirable or appealing - isn't particularly captivating. 

Indeed, only two people entered, and I find it very appropriate that both individuals have made the most comments on the blog between them across its three years. Since they also selected their own specific items, that made designating the prizes far easier than I was anticipating, and of course it means that I don't get to disappoint anyone, so bonus points all round! 

Thus, the Krayt Dragon Skeleton goes to Shintar, and Zayne Carrick's Armour Set goes to Ravanel! Congrats to you both, and be sure to check your Mailboxes today for your prizes. 

Whilst I am slightly disheartened that the giveaway didn't get much love, I will once again reinforce my pledge to be determined to do better next time. Afterthoughts never go down well, even if they're apparently well-intentioned. 

As for the Unstable Peacemaker's Dualsaber and the E-95 Behemoth? I honestly don't know. I'll probably try and keep certainly the Dualsaber on until the next giveaway since I personally have no need for it, and the Behemoth will just... I dunno... continue to exist? Whilst it's a decent item I don't think it has enough staying power to be worth keeping specifically for a second giveaway attempt.

Once again, congrats to both Shin and Rav, and thank you once again to everyone who has stuck with the Blog for the past three years. 

Milestone: 3-Year Anniversary!

So again the time comes to celebrate another year of running this blog. Three years ago on this day, the blog's initial incarnation, Spawn of the Dread Master, was released unto the world. It was just a bit of a mess, something which probably hasn't changed in three years, but it's certainly been an interesting ride.

As with last year, I still find it rather incredible to say that this thing is still going after more than one year, although obviously compared to last year the amount of blog posts has been reduced significantly for some reason or another.

Regardless, it's certainly been an interesting year. Those of you (un)fortunate enough to have been following the blog since its inception may recall that last year I made the transition from WordPress to Blogger due to my frustrations with certain elements of the former platform (e.g. the scheduling system) finally getting the better of me. Thankfully, a complete transfer of all data, posts, etc. to Blogger was possible, so nothing important was lost.

Although the formatting is still woeful on all those old posts and the comments didn't transition properly (replies aren't staggered but instead all comments in their own right), so this is something that will need to be fixed at some point. Maybe.

The point is that this isn't just a standard anniversary post but also an anniversary of my and the blog's time on Blogger. Let's get started, shall we?

Wading into #IntPiPoMo #1: Old but Gold

If you're a regular around the bloggosphere, you've probably come across the International Picture Posting Month. If you haven't come across the term before, it means that each November bloggers are 'challenged' to post 50 pictures on the blog across the entire month in a response to a Writing Month where one has to write 50,000 words, because a picture is worth 1,000 words of course.

I didn't wade into this last year, mainly because I was on a stubborn "hiatus" of sorts for some reason. Because I'm taking blogging more seriously than ever currently, I have decided that it's time that, heck, maybe I should participate in some of these events more frequently.

So, to kick off my picture-posting craze (I've always wanted to feature more screenshots given that I write far too much anyway), I decided that it's best to start retroactively. All of my SWtOR screenshots prior to November 2015 have been scrutinised, with the aim of posting the best and funniest of my old screenshots in this thread.

Let's get started!

Milestone: 100 Posts!

If you'd have told me at the start of the year that I'd be celebrating my 100th blog post under a different name and even on a different site than I started off using, I would have been incredibly sceptical. Yet, here we are; Spawn of the Dread Master died a death, Galactic Antics has risen from the ashes, and now Blogspot has replaced WordPress as the host.

How times change.

Regardless of how things have developed, it feels strange to say that I'm only just now celebrating my 100th post - in a post which is actually my 101st - considering that in a couple of weeks' time I'll also be celebrating the blog's 2-year-anniversary. It doesn't help that before 3.0 and for large swathes of time during 4.0 I went on a 'hiatus' of sorts and the blog suffered for it, but at least things are back-on-track now.

I honestly don't have anything to say to specifically celebrate this milestone because of the proximity to the anniversary, which I might just have something planned for. If I actually get around to doing more than I've done already, this is something which will last for a few weeks following its inception if all goes to plan.

Anyway. Just a short blog post today, celebrating that which honestly I began to think I'd never reach.

Here's to the next hundred!

Blogger Initiative Butchering Twofer: Creative Blogger and Liebster Awards

I have never been good at being all "personal" when it comes to this blog, and that mainly comes down to who I am; I'm not at all that sociable, as I'm fairly sure people who have followed me on Twitter have probably come to realise.

This in itself has led to one of my biggest regrets when running this blog; my inability to follow-up on my Liebster Award nomination - coming up with an unspecified amount of random facts and then answering 11 questions before then setting your own - by Zernebog of the appropriately titled Zerneblog. This fell apart mainly because I got in a minor panic about not "being proper" when it came to nominating individuals in the follow-on (for reasons explained below), let alone the fact that I just could not come up with an adequate amount of my own questions to ask or random facts at the time. However, with my recent tagging by Shintar of Going Commando in the Creative Blogger Award - similar, but only requiring 5 facts and no questions - I decided that I cannot 'hide' from this any longer.

In reality, though, I'm still 'hiding' from my biggest perceived problem in this context: nominating people. Although I will be ostensibly tackling elements of both Awards' objectives in this post - coming up with the 5 CBA (not the slang version!) facts and then answering Zerne's Liebster questions - I will also be carefully steering around the issue of tagging people. This is for two reasons; the first is that the people I would have tagged have been tagged previously, and the second is that I am only on friendly terms with only two other bloggers whilst I have made no real effort to ingratiate myself with anyone else.

This is purely due to who I am as a person, so I do hope that my 'standoffishness' hasn't been taken personally by anyone.

Galactic Antics is Live

Spawn of the Dread Master is no more; Galactic Antics has risen to take its place!

So the poll I posted last week ended up being a lot closer than I envisaged; Smuggling with a Cool Head and Galactic Antics both ended up being tied in first place. I'm a little disappointed that From the Valleys of Alderaan was left behind, but c'est a vie.

I had hoped that it wouldn't be a tie, as I'm not very good at making final decisions, but Rav raised a very good point in the previous post; Galactic Antics is the far more generic name, whereas Smuggling would get me stuck in virtually the same place as I had been stuck with Spawn: the name was based around one character while others have become more frequently used.

I can only apologise for the messiness of this transfer period; I'm not willing to pay for redirection of traffic (such a thing would be free if I had any say...), so anyone who has this blog's name in their blogroll, you'll have to update all this information manually.

Sorry..!

~~~

Some general things which have been updated:

The Character Page is back, looking much more polished than before.

The Accomplishments Page now lists direct links to my various Story Critiques (serious spoilers if you haven't come across these before).

The Blogroll has been expanded; I have never been good at keeping a 'proper' version of this, and I'll make more of an effort to maintain this in future.

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Here's to continuing on with the insanity!

Blog Revamp: Identity Choices

The name Spawn of the Dread Master was entirely based on a running joke surrounding one of my characters, and because this character was completely disconnected from the Dread Masters otherwise (they aren't even Force-Sensitive!), the identity has never really sat in a comfortable position. Additionally, as highlighted in the Comments when I posted my possible intentions for a revamp last week, the Sithy theme does not entirely suit my writing style.

The purpose of this revamp is two-fold. The first, as you can probably gather, is to come up with an identity and a theme which does suit me and my writing style. The second is purely to revitalise my own interests in blogging. I won't lie when I say that in the past year I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with this blog, and it's time to start fixing that.

Before I get to the nitty-gritty details of the four theme ideas I've come up with, I'll go over what else I intend to do as part of this revamp.

This is a feature I've been wanting to do for some time now; a YouTube channel for uploading recordings of game sessions, be this KotFE Chapters, PvP, Operations, or even just messing around with friends and/or guildies. I've got a video showcasing an Eternal Championship run (behind-the-times? Never!) lined up as the first video as a sort of "trial" before things get more heavily underway. This won't actually come into existence until a new theme and identity for the blog has been chosen, of course.

So without further ado...

Potential Blog Revamp

This blog has maintained its present format for a good 15 or so months, and a fair bit has happened in that time which means that a revamp is probably in order.

Most of the reasons for this occurring basically revolve around the transfer to The Red Eclipse, which I would say revitalised my interest in the game as a whole. Compared to how I spent my time on The Harbinger, which I heavily dedicated to one character only towards the end (Pippera the Sniper) whilst the rest were all just 'there', I now have at least three/four characters I spend time on regularly on a daily basis, which for me is actually really good going!

More than that, though, the character whose identity in turn formed the identity of this blog has now lost that identity. It doesn't seem right to keep a joke going with no true manner of justifying it. Not only could this be a revamp, but a re-branding of sorts.

I'm drumming out some ideas for what to do which I'll dish out at a later date in another blog-post once I've got something to show for it. The 'Characters' page is the first and easiest casualty at this time, because half of the characters on that list are no longer relevant, and I have always worked best with 'catalysts' setting things in motion.

As much as I'm making a big thing out of this to myself, I really don't think all that much will be changing visually in the long-term, as I'm quite fond of the layout and colour-scheme of the blog, so really it will just be "same-old, same-old" even if it is under a different header.

Regardless, I thought I'd just make my plans known. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this plan, no matter the outcome.