Colossal Miscreancy; Vague Descriptions and Certain Activities #2

So another "affair" has emerged with the launch of Ziost, and keeping in line with the last post I did on this sort of thing, I will be really quite vague.

The story of Ziost - which I plan to cover on Monday when we can hopefully finally access the entirety of it - is currently in a sort-of limbo state. Nobody can complete it until, as I say, Monday, and as a result everything afterwards, such as the Daily Area and hopefully a not-yet-integrated Reputation Faction, is currently locked away and nobody should be able to access it.

The key word there is should.

On the PTS, a path to locked-off areas was uncovered and BioWare very wisely shut this path off before full release. However, another path has subsequently been discovered and this has led to another Ravagers-esque event. If you know what happened there, then you pretty much know what this entails. My reaction to this endeavour is pretty much the same exasperated reaction, but this one is, in my opinion, worse - for temporarily undisclosed reasons. Again, more when we get full access.

There has been one good thing from this: BioWare's response. They acknowledged that they considered this traversing to be an Exploit and that they will be taking action. Indeed, it is because of their quick response that I could be a little less vague than last time.

Bear in mind that with the Ravagers exploit, they took four weeks just to even fully acknowledge it and then another two to finally reveal what was planned for some of those who had exploited. This time around, and inspired by their course of action last time, they actually responded within 24 hours. Credit where it's due, they do seem to have learned their lessons when it comes to response.

We don't know yet the severity of the actions they shall take, but considering that people are accessing a closed-off area and enemies that shouldn't even be available to anyone in-full yet, I have hopes that they shall be stricter - even ever so slightly - in dealing out punishments. The punishments for the Ravagers were still more lenient than I think they should have been, and this is the first true test of BioWare's apparently improved-upon system of dealing with exploiters.

Not a pleasant topic, but hopefully it shows that BioWare are learning to deal with these things more and more efficiently.

EDIT: Action has already been taken against those who used this Exploit, and the response has been more aggressive than that levied against those who used the Ravagers exploit. All in all, BioWare have certainly proved themselves with this very fast response.

Thoughts on the big reveals of SWCA

So the Star Wars Celebration is in full swing over in Anaheim in the US, and two trailers were revealed to us; first, the second teaser for The Force Awakens and the long-awaited trailer for Star Wars: Battlefront.

I have a vested interest in both of these, so I decided to just write a little something giving my thoughts on the both of them.

The Wardrobe of a Sniper

Exactly two weeks from today, Patch 3.2 launches with the coveted Outfit Designer, and many many people have been acquiring several outfits to assign to their various characters.  I myself am no different, and all of my characters have one distinct costume to wear. All, that is, except for Pippera the Sniper, who has four. The maximum, of course, is sixteen, so I'm still a long way away from hitting that limit on her.

Whilst I admit that it is boring to only feature on the one character, I will more than likely touch on the others when the Designer is fully launched. For now, though, I will showcase only what Pip's costumes shall be and the thought processes which went behind them.

Celebrating the "Return" of the Solo-Mode Flashpoints

So yesterday Solo-Mode Flashpoints were made re-accessible to those who had already completed the previously one-time-iterations of the missions.

I am a huge fan of the Solo Mode Flashpoints; they're huge fun to blast through, and with the gear that drops and you get given at the end - particularly with Tython and Korriban - they're quite financially-rewarding. Not as rewarding as their Tactical equivalents, of course. Whilst you can solo Tactical Mode of Tython and Rakata - and with some greater difficulty Korriban and Manaan - the Solo-Mode provides I think currently the only manner of soloing Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi, the Tactical modes of which I currently believe to be just a bit out-of-reach for soloing.

This means that people can now easily complete the "Complete 25 Times" Achievements without waiting on a group, and - for those of you who still need them - because across the six Solo Mode Flashpoints there are nearly 1,000 Enemies, getting 1,000 Kills with a certain companion will also be much easier and more fun to accomplish.

With this change, the solo mode of each Flashpoint now acts as a separate Daily, which is an unprecedented but actually very understandable change. This way, at least people new to the Forged Alliances and Shadow of Revan Prelude arcs won't be able to constantly go back in and just level to 60 effortlessly in the Flashpoints alone without once stepping foot on Rishi. They still could, of course, but they'd need to wait a day for it.

All in all, it's great to see Solo Mode become a repeatable affair, especially as it is something which some people have been asking for since 3.0 launched from the off.

Revan: Analysing SWTOR's take on the Expanded Universe Legend

Revan's time in SWTOR has been brief compared to virtually every other event going on: for the most part, he's mentioned more than he physically appears, and when he actually does appear in person it's only in Flashpoints, Operations, and the Weekly Enemy Within mission. That said, he has been the subject of many a debate, comparing him to the Revan of KOTOR, often to a negative result: indeed, I've seen numerous people claiming that SWTOR "ruined" everything that made Revan a great character in KOTOR.

As someone who is a self-confessed "KOTOR Nut", I have to say that I do see where some of these claims are coming from. Acting as a climactic finale to the "Analytical Weeks" of late, I have decided to look over Revan's story as it developed since KOTOR all the way through to Shadow of Revan, with particular focus on SWTOR and associated material. For all the good number of developments that happened to Revan's legacy, how many of these are, well, good?

Featuring Spoilers from: KOTOR, KOTOR II, Galactic Timeline, Revan, SWTOR, and Shadow of Revan.

Rampaging Rakghouls, Rakghouls, Rakghouls

Nothing special planned for April Fool's Day today. Dipping into critical analysis tends to impact on creative potential where I'm concerned.

So the Rakghouls have returned once more, but I can't see as much of it as I would have liked, myself being in a different part of the country on a family holiday. I must admit that I am partially relieved about this, due to previous frustrations surrounding a persistent inability to win a certain Rakling reducing enthusiasm for the event as a whole. "Next time", is the wistful cry, of course.

The Resurgence Event has gone full-circle and has landed back on Alderaan, just over 14 months since it first began there. Alderaan is, as I think I've stated on here somewhere before, my personal favourite planet to traverse, and I always take every excuse I can to visit, even if it's just to 'exercise' one of the many creature mounts I own and do nothing productive. Shame that the majority of the Event takes place away from all the beauty, but then the upside to this is that the beauty of the planet remains intact.

Giant space lasers notwithstanding.

One thing of note is that, similar to the Bounty Brokers' Association missions, anyone at level 60 - I want to say this applies to anyone over level 56 as well - can earn Elite Commendations instead of Basic Commendations, and the Credit Rewards have been upped a couple of thousand credits. Some incentive to keep more people doing it, of course, and an easy way to get 10 or so Commendations per day on each character you send down there, provided they also do the Heroic.

Commendation changes in general have been generally decent over the last few weeks; Yavin's Weeklies now granting an increased number of Elites and Basics - even Ultimates in the cases of Hallowed Grounds and Spirit of Cooperation - have proved successful and welcoming, and the change for the Rakghouls has also been well-received from what I've seen.

Whether or not you have any personal grudges against the Rakghouls, they are clamouring for their much-deserved extermination.