Hustlin' through the Old Republic - Revan's back and Interior Decorating Star Wars style

Hello again damn it’s been a while since the last post, a good 7 months since the last Hustlin’ through the Old Republic post and about 3 months since the last post of any kind, So welcome back and here we go. Of course as I had to mention in the title the Shadow of Revan expansion has arrived along with a new storyline and missions, new flashpoints, new planets a new level cap and a the new Discipline system which I’m still not sure I fully understand. Revan who if you didn’t know is quite an influential figure if his SWTOR wiki page is anything to go by but I spose all you need to know is the Dread Masters are gone so and he’s the new big bad boss guy of SWTOR. I must say I really enjoyed the Forged Alliances storyline lead-up quests to this point as I never really saw it coming but it all made sense in the end.

The main players in the Shadow of Revan Expansion: Satele Shan, Jakarro and C2-D4, Theron Shan, Lara Beniko, SHae Vizla and of coure Revan!

(NEW EXPANSION SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I must make a brief recap of the events that started the Forged Alliances questline which basically led to the Shadow of Revan Expansion. Your character started off by talking to a droid on the fleet as per usually who sends you to a new mission floor of the fleet, there you find either Colonel Dark and Theron Shan or Darth Arkous and Lana Beniko (plus another random third person) who tell you that they are setting up an attack on the Jedi Temple/Sith Academy on Tython/Korriban. So you go to the enemies homeworld and attack and kill a few bosses, however after debriefing you then find out that your own planet is being attacked then race to defend that one however once you repel the invaders they mention something about a grand plan and that your efforts are in vain blah blah blah etc so there’s definitely something up. This part is represented by the Assault on Tython and Korriban Incursion flashpoints which is part 1 of the series whereTheron and Beniko (Now working together) have worked out that Dark and Arkous must be working together.

Korriban Incursion, Empire Side - Save the Sith Temple!

The next part has you travelling to Manaan which is quite a beautiful looking planet all covered with ocean, it’s here that you undertake the Depths of Manaan flashpoint where you meet Jakarro and C2-D4, and raid the lab of a a Selkath geneticist who was constructing cyborgs and shipping them to Darok and Arkous. It was at this point that Shan and Beniko understood that the two were now part of the Order of Revan, and the cyborgs were in creation to serve Revan himself, who wanted to recreate the Infinite Empire in his image.

Manaan - Quite a beautiful planet

In the third and final part of the You then go to Rakata Prime which if you didn’t know is the home planet of the Rakata species and the central world of the Infinite Empire though they are now reduced to Tribal culture. You fight through them and the Revanites and eventually the initial soldiers of the new Infinite Empire and shut down the newly created Star Forge. You eventually confront and kill Arkous and Darok and then Revan and his fleet appear and he tries to bomb you to smithereens after a short speech about how he’s back in full force with the Revanites in tow. You manage to escape of course and Theran and Lana announce they have been accused of murder by their respective organisation and will go into hiding thus ending the Forged Alliances questline leadup to the new expansion.

Rakata Prime - Home Planet of the Rakata

 (End of spoilers)

And that was that for the time being well now return to your regular programming of my new character! That’s right after getting my Assassin to 50 I decided it was time once again to create a new character. Now I was at a bit of an impasse with this one as ever since I created my Jedi Guardian I’ve wanted to create a Jedi Sage but told myself I already had a Jedi and Sith character so needed to create a non-force user to which I thought I should make another Empire character such as an Imperial Agent. But I eventually decided on a Trooper Vanguard which although it was a non-force user it was Republic again so I was forced to create an Imperial character for this time. The thing that was stopping me from creating an Imperial Agent (or a Smuggler for that matter) is that I wanted a character with healing abilities but the Operative and Scoundrel DPS trees were largely focused on stealth and close range attacks, something that was pretty much exactly what I did as a Sith Assassin so I wanted something different. The only other choice left was a Bounty Hunter really so I decided to go a Bounty Hunter Powertech as they have a healing specialisation and abilities and also a DPS specialisation (Arsenal) that focuses on long-range combat which was what I wanted to do.

Heehee, look at me and my little pea shooter.

 I must take this point to mention that the new Discipline system was not in effect then but is no so I will now refer to the talent trees as disciplines er paths I think it is. There is an online discipline calculator at Dulfy.net here, Dulfy.net is a great resource for SWTOR news guides and info and is possibly the ONLY place you can find certain things like the Discipline calculator but anyway

The discipline system makes picking your talent points and skills ever so easy in fact it’s practically the same as WoW’s new simplified talent calculator which adopts a style akin to Diablo 3 where you choose one of three talents every 15 levels and also get rewarded one or two abilities every 15 or so levels. The SWTOR version works in relatively the same way, you follow a line of main abilities and talents as you level up, then you pick your “Utility Points” on the right which are sort of like extra talents which let you specialise your role. And that’s basically all you have to do, tbh I was glad SWTOR still had the old talent trees as I was kind of sorry to see them go, but then again I really wasn’t the type of person to chop and change around my talents so I guess this streamlined way is better for me I guess.

Video describing the new Discipline system

So anyway I created a bounty hunter named “Txan” and because I had unlocked the Miraluka race for all classes I decided to go with them. The blind Miraluka races special feature is the various eye-coverings and headdresses that they wear which look pretty cool though the majority of them are very big and outlandish with bright colours that obviously do not tie in with the unify colours option. I found that although they are initially only available to the Jedi Consular Class they still have a variety of technological eye coverings one of which was particularly subtle not like a damn sheet over your head

It's Txan!, he has probably the smallest eye covering option the Miraluka had, goes well with the scar

Playing the Bounty Hunter was pretty fun, wasn’t too much of a scrounge-from-nothing story but it was good enough, you join a ragtag  bunch of mercenaries/slicers/hunters etc and they want to nominate you for the “Great Hunt” which is apparently some big bounty hunter thing, you meet your first companion Mako right then and there as well, and man is she cute, even before I selected the customisation that made her white, damn I’m racist. I’ll to take time again to state that the rocket boots are awesome and I loved zooming around on them.

Mako! with Customization 2

For my advanced class I decided to go a Mercenary for their long range DPS and healing capability, I went with the Arsenal discipline as it’s the main DPS one. I must admit it’s fun being long range most of the time unlike my Trooper who is either tanking or spends most of his time shooting and smacking enemies up close my Mercenary is able to finish things off from afar which was much more relaxing doing flashpoints as I wasn’t in the thick of it for once. I even tried my hand and healing and didn’t find it too bad, just had to change the Cylinders to the combat support one, one interesting thing at that point was that when you had the healing cylinder on you could shoot a ally with your rapid shots default attack and it would heal them, but this has now been replaced with a separate ability which kind of sucks but meh.

Not healing here but meh it's group work

I spent quite a bit of credits, well not me I guess my richer characters have for my Bounty Hunter, ever since the Cartel Market packs had come into play there was always hundreds of speeders on the Galaxy Trade Network most of which were with ‘adaptable’ sppeds so you could use them no matter which skill you were at. I originally started out with the Amzab ZB-8 but didn’t like it cause of the leaning-over position then went with the Ubrikki Crimson Claw which I got for free from a guildie as they were going for a dime a dozen. Then while looking on the Cartel market on my guardian I found the Razalon family which looked pretty ridiculous so I went with the FC-6 as it was the flashiest cheap one there was, the end result being that I know have 3 speeders on the one character, oh well lol.

The Amzab ZB-8

The Bounty hunter story is ok I guess, Mako is mostly Light-side orientated though there’s been at least one time where she’s preferred dark which kind of surprised me, but damn the amount of times I watched a dark side option with my finger on the escape key was a lot and damn you’re a badass, smacking women to the ground then shooting them, it was pretty damn graphic for Star Wars at least. The ship you get is kinda cool though it looks a bit too much like the Jedi one inside but ok I guess, space missions were fun. The starting world Hutta wasn’t exactly pretty, just a Toxic waste dump where your constantly working for Hutts of course (and some Evocii)  Having finished Dromund Kass I have earned a pretty silly looking suit of armor (especially the helm, I’m now up to Balmorra getting used to the changes.

You lookin at me?

So then it was time to get back on my Ass or Assass, or Sith Assassin that is. As far as I remember I had finished my Story quest and given the title Darth Imperious and was basically up to questing on Ilum. Though I actually started out by doing some of the new Forged Alliances Flashpoints including the Battle of Rishi, Assualt on Tython and Korriban incursion, all out of order unfortunately (doh!) Ilum is quite a pretty planet (especially the sky), so I finished off the quests there and did the Battle of Ilum and the False Emperor and it was good to see the Empire Side of things though it did make me wonder who would be the new leader of the Sith (maybe me?) lol. So then I decided it was on to Oricon! as I now knew it gives you a new set of gear, though technically I hadn’t been in my Eradicator armor that long.

Ilum, some very nice sky

Oricon Empire side wasn’t too much different, just dealing with different people. The Pristine Seeker’s armor is pretty damn cool, very demonic looking, it was pretty funny as you do the quests you get a different piece of armor and mashing it up[ with the Eradicator armor looked kind of weird, there was one point where I wasn’t even wearing a robe lol. I was experimenting with more dyes and tried the primary purple dye which looked ok.

Oricon, not a very nice place

After that it was finishing off the level 50 extra tidbits inc Section X on Belsavis and the Black Hole on Coreilia, not that they meant much just wanted to see the Empire Side of things. I completed the Depths of Manaan flashpoint and a few others and pretty soon pimped out my Pristine Seeker Gear with 172 mods from the Rishi mod vendor and moved my black/red dye module from my eradicator gear to my new gear and was looking pretty sharp.

You dig my horns baby?

After that I decided to finally claim my Dromund Kass stronghold (or apartment), yes as part of the Galactic Strongholds expansion each subscriber gets to purchase the Coruscant or Dromund Kass apartment for 3 credits! Yes 3 credits. I wasn’t really too enthusiastic about the player housing as you had your own ship that was enough in my view and was scared to try it out as you know what I’m like with interior decorating especially in Minecraft, though it wasn’t too bad as when you purchased a stronghold you automatically got a set of basic additions such as chairs, tables, couches, beds, banners and carpets. Your mesley 3 credits only give you access to three rooms, one being the entry foyer, so I said to myself that’s fine with me! As you can to spend quite a lot of credits and/or cartel coins for the full thing, so I just decided I’d make these three rooms look as good as possible. So I began decorating which was pretty easy, you just have squares to put things in and you can move them around a small area once placed, in addition to the decorations you can buy from vendors, the GTN and the Cartel market you can also gets decorations as loot from questing and doing flashpoints which was nice.

Your Dromund Kass Stronghold/Apartment tower

Look it's me! though you actually have to pay to get the balcony.

I made the entry room sort of like a utility room with Decoration vendors and the three banks: normal cargo hold, guild cargo hold and legacy storage. As you may have guessed legacy storage allow you to store items that can be accessed across all characters which is a great feature, I also installed a Galactic trade network kiosk which is kinda weird because it can only be placed on a wall but when you place it it’s way too high and you can’t get it down low enough but anyway. I made the large room a hangout for my companions with beds and entertainment and made the other room my bedroom with Ashara there of course. Last things were some lights and banners around the wall and roof and you also get various commemorative paintings and pictures of bosses you have downed in raids. With everything added the place looked a lot more homely though I don’t like the way it’s ALWAYS raining on Dromund Kass.

Some shots of the different rooms, really do need to give it a bit of work.

So that was that for Uxan, next up was Makeb and the Hutt Cartel Expansion (finally!, I feel like i’m way behind with him). It was then on to my Trooper Gxan who was just starting Tatooine, nothing really groundbreaking just got through the story missions, with one particular interaction being  interesting as a girl asked what she could do to show her gratitude and you could “insinuate” that she could have sex with you but boy Elara didn’t take that well when I tried it out at first. The other funny thing was that there was an option to tell Elara that “I won’t let her get between us” I also  got those damn datacrons on the Sandcrawler by riding the incredibly slow balloon again , this time with no trouble though. I finished the story mission on Tatooine meeting Fuse who been imprisoned after he refused to harm innocent civilians and I chose to stop the self-destruct of the bomb but let the Imperial Commander escape,

Ah the beauty of Tatooine.

I also let Fuse live cause of his change of heart. I then went on to Alderaan where I got all political again though I did like the story where you have a prisoner from house Ulgo and rescue their wife and daughter, I had a lot of fun choosing dark side options just to see what happened (basically smack the crap out of him) then going back especially where right at the end you could betray them and leave them to be executed. Nothing much else happened apart from a Empire guild raiding house Organa’s cantina, so I confronted and killed Gearbox in his battle mech, wasn’t fond of that guy anyway. Always loved going back to Alderaan though, really is (or was) a beautiful planet.

Alderaan Politics, even worse then ours, and that's saying a lot

Sadly though it was very beautiful, much more so then Tatooine

Oh c'mon guys this is just silly

The last part I had to do was confront the final two members of the original havoc squad, Wraith and Harron Tavus aboard their ship The Justice (hah ironic name right?) So you sneak aboard pretending to be a fellow Republic deserter and then kill Wraith then confront Tavis and choose to either kill or capture him. I chose capture as he was an ok guy. So that was that for the time being, we destroyed (almost) the entire traitorous Havoc Squad and now we’re the new Havoc Squad, not fully manned yet of course. So then that our Commanding officer orders us to get some R&R and report back to my ship’s holo when I’m ready for duty. This was quite a departure from the other two Jedi and Sith story missions where they didn’t seem to stop just kept going with the next thing that had happened. Maybe the life of a humble Trooper is less glamorous and more orderly lol.

"So, we meet again Lieutenant"

 So that was that for that month or two months maybe, I’ve actually started another session since then, dang it has been awhile since the last post. Well hopefully I’ll be able to do more in the near future now that things have slowed down, can confirm in my last session I bought and pimped out my Stronghold on Coruscant, got my Guardian to 60 and finished off the Shadow of Revan expansion, and also did Balmorra on my Bounty Hunter before stopping to play GTA5 yes GTA5 I’m finally gonna do it wooo anyway cya for now.

We shooty-shoot-shoot it up in the Taral V flashpoint

JD

A Jedi's house is neither a Castle nor a Fortress