The weekend in pictures.

Because pictures say more than words, so just a few cool (random) screenshots :)

SWTOR: A quiet universe.

I have been slowly progressing on my smuggler Morenn, who has just reached level 36.
Right now she is questing on Balmorra, progress has been somewhat slow as i am staying away from all heroic quests, no sense in trying them when there are only a few people on the planet most of the time.

It's definitely something i have noticed, everywhere i go there seem to be only a few people on the planet, obviously most people who do play have leveled up and moved on and there are very few new players.
It has been kind of the same with my guild, usually it's just me online and maybe every now and then i see another person logging in, although in this screenshot there are actually 3 people logged in (including me).

So right now i am skipping (dropping) any heroic quests i get and just concentrate on doing the normal quests, obviously i am missing out on quite a bit of content here, but yeah, there's not much i can do about it.

Don't get me wrong though, i am still having fun, the smuggler main story has been quite good and i really enjoy the interaction with my companions, actually in the above screenshot you see me leveling up after a nice chat with Risha in a cantina, who is by far my favorite companion.

I guess i'll be saving that heroic content for later, along with codex entries and holocrons that i missed.

It's never easy.

Most of you have probably by now heard of the layoffs at BioWare/SWTOR.
Eventhough it was expected that after a succesfull launch (some) people would  lose their jobs, lots of people get hired on contract base, it is never an easy thing. Especially when it happens to a game or company you like.

However some of the layoffs for SWTOR are somewhat unexpected, especially when you hear that, basicly the guy that put SWTOR out there, the lead community guy, Stephen Reid is one of them.
Stephen Reid was/is for me the face behind SWTOR and to see him go feels really wierd.
It really makes me wonder what is going on here.

I have never been a big EA fan so when EA got their money grabbing hands on BioWare it definitely got me worried. Maybe i am seeing things that aren't there or maybe there where other reasons, but i can't shake the feeling that now EA basicly owns BioWare and most importantly their (very) succesfull IP's (Mass Effect, Dragon Age and a Star Wars license), they don't care that much for BioWare as a company and i wouldn't be surprised to see BioWare dissapear under the EA banner.

I really hope i am wrong, i am a huge BioWare fan and i really hope BioWare manages to stay independent under the EA banner, but i guess only time will tell..

I do wish all those affected by the layoffs the best in their future jobs and thanks for putting out such a great game.

And to however is going to replace Stephen Reid: goodluck, you've got some big boots to fill.

Another thing i noticed was quite a few people posting on twitter that they were going to quit playing SWTOR now because of the layoffs, well i don't know, you want to quit playing SWTOR because you don't like the layoffs... Well guess what, if everyone stops playing there will be even more layoffs.

A nice welcome.

It's always fun to log into a game and be rewarded with:

An awesome guild message of the day :)

And a really cool pet in the mail.
Say hi to my cute Tauntaun Ram.

So i did manage to do a little gaming today, finishing up my bonus series quests on Nar Shaddaa.
I am actually having some fun again in SWTOR although i am staying away from the heroic quests and just do the quests i know i can solo.

And now it's back to Alderaan to continue the questing there.

SWTOR: A new legacy created.

I have finally been working on my smuggler again, reaching lvl 32 and finishing chapter 1 in the smuggler storyline and recieving my Legacy Surname and a new companion: Risha.

From the start i planned on using Hauntshade as my legacy surname, also why i never named a character Hauntshade.

I was allready questing on Alderaan but decided to go back to Nar Shadaa to finish up the bonus series, which i somehow missed and just picked up while finishing up my quests in the chapter 1 storyline.

So far the smuggler class story has been a lot of fun and i can't wait to see what's next.

SWTOR: Get that datacron or fail

While out questing on Tatooine with my Sith warrior, in and around Mos Ila i spotted a datacron after turning in a quest, now i had past this spot several times before i noticed it. It was up on a roof and i though how hard could it be?
So i decided to have a go for it and boy was i in for a surprise..

What followed was a 3 hour trial of patience, yes it took me 3 hours of jumping and falling off ledges.

It was easily one of my most frustrating experiences, some of the ledges and pipes that looked like they were easy to get to were in fact very difficult, it almost felt like the spot were you could land was way smaller than it looked.
I was streaming my gameplay while i  was trying this, but eventually turned it of to reduce some framedrop/lag in the hopes of making it a bit easier.



Now i have to admit, when i finally did reach the datacron it felt pretty good, but i still can't forget it took me 3 hours of frustrations.
I had the plan of saving this "datacron hunting" until i reached max level and after this experience i am probably not going to be trying this kind of stuff again anytime soon.

I do hope they are not all this difficult to reach.

SWTOR: It's good to be Sith

Ever since i started playing my new Sith Warrior i have not touched my main, i really enjoy the smuggler story but the Sith warrior is just so much fun to play.
The story for the Sith warrior is pretty good so far and it is definitely fun to be the evil guy for a change :)

Just over the weekend i played him all the way up to level 20 and i have been enjoying the heck out of it, i am afraid my main might be neglected for a while.

SWTOR: Having a look at the other side.

FInally been getting back into SWTOR and also found out i've not been paying much attention to my skills :)
I found that in particular one of my smuggler skills was very good when dealing with bosses.
I had this one fight with my smuggler (i can't remember the boss, but it was a solo mission) that i just kept dying at and couldn't get that boss down.

That is until i finally figured out that if i used my "distraction" skill (which is basicly an interrupt) at the right moment i could prevent a boss from executing his special attack and as a result i would not get as much damage and could survive longer, and of course deal more damage to get that boss down. Until now i never really used that skill.
Guess that's what you get for not paying attention to your skills, yes i know i am a noob :)

Things definitely got a bit easier now, however getting the timing wrong on hitting that skill a few times and i still loose the fights :)



I also started a new alt (i have a few more alts but those were mostly for "reserving" a few names, as i do intent to try out all classes), this time i thought i would have a look at "the other side" and made a Sith Warrior, first ten levels have been a blast, storyline is really cool and combat with a lightsaber is definitely more fun than i thought it would be :)
I didn't think i would enjoy a lightsaber class, i think Star Wars Galaxies (NGE) kinda spoiled Jedi for me.
I decided to take him down the Sith Marauder tree, which is a pure dps class.
Of course i went with a Sith Pureblood and not only does he look very arrogant and mean, he is, although he does seem to have a soft spot for women :)

I do try and go with the dark side choices a lot, although sometimes there are choices that i just can't take the dark option and end up with light side (remember the soft spot for women), so there goes my evil sith :)

SWTOR: Burning Sensation

Finally got some time in to play SWTOR again and hit 27 on my smuggler.
I do have to say that how much fun the first 10 levels were it feels more and more frustrating since hitting level 25.
Maybe i am doing something wrong and messed up with my character skills, but often even the solo missions turn out quite difficult towards the end, and result in many trial and errors, meaning lots of dying. Very frustrating.

More often than not i have really big problems beating some of the "end bosses" of the solo missions and i can't imagine it was designed this way, i really hate to group up for solo missions, i don't mind for the heroics, as they are intended to be group missions.

I also tried soloing the Hammer station flashpoint, i could manage the dungeon until the first boss and there was just no way for me to beat him, the trash mobs were very easy (i am 10 levels about requirement) and i could have solo'd them but the first boss is a whole different story.
I really hate it, when there's no way to beat a boss especially if you are way above the level, it's almost like i am hardly doing any damage whatsoever yet they hit like a truck.

Maybe i have played too many single player games lately and have been spoiled :)

Anyways i am gonna try and stick with it, i really wanna finish the smuggler class storyline and definitely wanna play through the other class stories as i really think there's some awesome stories in there.
So hopefully i am able to get through these frustrations before i get burned out on SWTOR.

That's no ship, that's my home!

After questing on Coruscant for some time i finally reached the stage were i had no more quests left other than that final class quest, the one were i get my ship back (which is stolen from me at the start of the game).

I had tried that quest before but the end boss had been too tough for me to beat, but after finishing the last couple of heroic quests that were left and reaching level 16 i was finally able to beat him.

And it was an awesome sight to see those big doors slide open and get the first sight of my ship.


See my character walk up to it


And take one good look at the ship


And she is a beauty


Feels good to be back home


And we are off "to worlds unknown" :)


I really enjoyed this moment, it was a really nice scene and am glad i managed to get a couple of screenies.

Definatly feels good to be leaving Coruscant, and i have to say they didn't overdo it, it was just long enough, or i should say short enough to not get boring.
Personally i tend to get bored if i am questing in the same area for too long.

Anyways now it is off to Taris and see what that will bring me.
I have allready set foot on Taris and it looks awesome.

SWTOR: Collectors Edition (pics)

Today i picked up my SWTOR Collectors Edition and i have to say it looks awesome, very well done.

The Galaxy Can Wait

So far everything has gone really smooth, must say it's one of the smoothest launches i have experienced so far. Of course the "real" launch still has to come, but looking at how things went i am pretty confident there won't be many problems when the game fully launches.

So far i have been taking it easy, as i wanna enjoy the story en enviroment as i go along.
I allready played through the first 10 levels of the smuggler in the weekend beta so there is nothing new for me, but i am still enjoying it.
Levelling seems to be pretty fast, last night i only played about an hour and still got one more level on my character, so she is now level 5.

There will probably be plenty of rushing through content later when i will start levelling alts :)

Still i can't wait to finally get into the content i have not reached during beta, as it is kinda boring to go through content i played through just a little while ago, although that is of course completely my own fault for playing the class that i wanted to play at launch in the beta, i should have listened to my initial thoughts and not touch the smuggler during the beta than it would have all been new to me :)
But it's not that much of a problem, since i'll be at level 10 in no time, heading off to Coruscant and into new content.



On a side note i really enjoy reading these "story notes" you get while loading into the game, as they kinda tell you what your character has been up to and give a little recap of what you're about to do :)

SWTOR: The Saga Begins

I had almost given up on getting in on the early game access and was about ready to head off to bed, when i got the email in my inbox that told me "Your Saga Begins".
So needless to say i lost a little bit of sleep :)

My (first) character is a smuggler called Morenn, i am playing on the server "Sanctum of the Exalted" where i joined a guild with the folks of MultiPlaying called Delusions of Grandeur.

I didn't get much time ingame but still managed to get to level 4 on Morenn.

Great, kid. Don't get cocky.

Like many others i was also part of the beta test last weekend, along with probably everyone else, as i saw pretty much all of my Raptr friends playing SWTOR.

Eventhough i signed up for beta the day they opened signups i never got into the beta until last weekends test. I always had mixed feelings about it, on the one hand i really wanted to get into the beta (and help testing) but on the other hand i was kind of worried, that if i would get into the beta i might burn out on it, as i am pretty sure i would have been testing all the time.

So when the game launches, pretty much everything is new and fresh for me and all a new experience, although i could not resist rolling a smuggler in last weekends test, the smuggler has been the class that looked most interresting to me and i will definatly be rolling a smuggler on launch.

My first impressions of the game were mixed, initially it took me some time to get used to the (stylised, almost cartoon like) graphics, but once i got used to the graphics i really started enjoying myself.
The storyline for smuggler is definatly a cool story and i can't wait to check out the other classes.

Most of the quests i did were fun to do, although there are a couple of quests that will be very annoying on launch day, think of a few hundred people going for the same chests to loot an item while it takes some time before a chest respawns.
I was allready frustrated by this one quest in beta so i can only imagine what it will be like on launch: chest spawns, surrounded by 3-4 enemies, you go in fight the enemies so you can loot the chest (you can't loot while in combat), but while you are fighting someone else pops up and loots the chest, chest gone...

I only made it to level 12 on my character, so i don't know what the game will be like later on, but the story and questing up to that level was a lot of fun.

Apart from one graphical bug with an armor piece and the first server i created a character on going down within 10-15 mins i encountered no bugs or problems and gameplay was pretty smooth for me.
All in all i am pretty sure i will be having a lot of fun in SWTOR.

SWTOR: Well it's not a lightsaber but....

Most SWTOR fans probably allready heard/read about this, but i still wanted to make a post about this awesome Razer SWTOR gear.

Razer is releasing a keyboard, mouse, mousemat and headset all awesome looking IMHO.
I regret i recently got myself a new (Razer) keyboard and headphones, cause i definitely want this gear, the keyboard looks absolutely stunning, just check out this video of the keyboard:



I really like the idea of changing the "theme" of the gear depending on which side you are playing at the moment, this is really gonna help the immersion into the game.

I have yet to see it available, but i will be buying some of that gear.

Thanks EA, for not making it complicated...

After recently activating my SWTOR CE code on my SWTOR account i actually found out i have several EA accounts, my SWTOR didn't show up on my games list on Origin along with my other games, SWTOR actually creates an EA account for the same login/password you use for SWTOR.
So i ended up with 2 accounts a SWTOR/EA account and my EA/BioWare/Origin "master" account, i linked all my BioWare stuff (Mass Effect,Dragon Age) up to my main EA account sometime ago, good thing i did or i would have had another EA account to keep track of.

However by going through some of my other EA games that didn't show up in Origin either i found that i actually have a third account used for a few other games (Sims, Spore). Great three different accounts/logins, to make it more complicated.

Initially i figured to just change emails on all those accounts to match, but unfortianetly that didn't work, everytime when i try to put in my main EA account email it just says email adress allready in use and won't allow me to change it. Not to mention that by going through the options to change email or find out more about my account i ended up on several different account (login) pages for the same account and that's without going to Origin.

Then i contacted SWTOR support to see if they could help me out in merging at least my SWTOR account together with my main EA account, but they send me on to EA customer service and said they couldn't really help me as my SWTOR account was linked to an EA account.

So next i contacted EA and all i got was a message that they undestood it was inconvenient to keep up with several different accounts but that due to technical reasons it was not possible to merge accounts together.
That's just great..

All i would need is for them to allow me to link the accounts to one and the same email adress on all the different logins, doesn't sound to difficult to me, but apperantly "technical reasons" prevent me from doing so.
I mean why even prevent people from using an "existing" email to an account, i really don't understand the reason behind it, i mean it should be my choice only wether or not i want to change my email adress to an existing one, all they need to send me is a confirmation link email asking if i am sure i want to change that email adress.

I had some hope that with the upcoming changes to accounts because of their new Origin accounts it was possible to merge them, so i could keep all my games together in the same Origin client/login, but it looks like EA likes to keep it simple and i am going to have to use different logins to keep track of my stuff. Thanks for the "effort" EA... thanks for keeping things easy.

EDIT: If you have the same issue of different accounts, let's flood EA CS with requests to merge accounts, let's get them to work on this as i am sure i am not the only one with this problem.

SWTOR CE pre-order kit (pics).

When i pre-ordered the collectors edition of Star Wars The Old Republic i got an email stating that i was going to get two shipments, well the first one has arrived.


As you can see it's just a dvd box and inside you find a card with a pre-order code.


And below are a few more pics/scans of the box art and pre-order code card.



Of course i removed the code, i am not stupid :)

And now begins the long wait for SWTOR to arrive..

SWTOR: Join the fight trailer

I guess you could call this the first (pre-order) launch video and i have to say i like it.
Really looking forward to playing this game.

Personally i still haven't decided what i will be playing although a few people have recommended me playing a smuggler, based on what i love to play in WoW.
So that would mean i will pick the Republic side, which is not a total surprise to me :)
Playing through Knights of the old republic i never went dark side, and i did try once, just to try playing it through on dark side, but in the end i was all light side and the most i got through the course of the game was being grey for a while.

So you will probaly find me on the republic side playing as a smuggler, although i might also play the other classes as well, i loved Tabula Rasa and i had a character in each class and liked playing them all, so who knows SWTOR might do the same for me, it is what i am hoping for, to have a game again that i just love to play no matter what class, and looking at this trailer makes me think all classes look cool, so who knows..

I am still trying not to get too excited or hyped about this game, but it's hard :)
My only fear is that i will become to hyped and expect too much from this game and that will only lead to dissapointment, as i am sure many people will be.
I don't think i have to name any games, most of you know, but those games got hyped soo much that people started to expect too much and they could simply not deliver.

So i am keeping expectations down, or at least try to, and just enjoy the journey of playing a new game.
Looking at these videos all i think is, i hope they're not like movie trailers where they show you the best few minutes from a movie while the rest of the movie sucks and dissapoints.

Anyway can't wait to get my hands on the SWTOR collectors edition and start playing the game...

Begun the pre-order has

Yesterday's rumors floating around appeared to have been true and pre-orders for Star Wars The Old Republic have started.

Personally i am definatly getting the Collectors edition, the box looks really awesome.
I also wanted to get the Origin exclusive Digital Deluxe edition, just to be sure to get into the game ASAP in case the box is for some reason late, but Origns won't have it.
So far i have bought games on Origin without a credit card, but this pre-order requires a credit card, so i won't be getting it.

Funny cause i bought the Mass Effect Digital Deluxe pre-order through Origin with Paypal (or direct debit i am not sure), yet for SWTOR they don't..
Oh well i'll just wait for the box set than, and maybe buy the regular version on Steam (if it releases there).

Anyway the wait is over SWTOR is here, well kinda

There is no game, but there is story!

Have to say i am amazed at the amount of entertaining content in the numerous podcasts about SWTOR, especially since there is really no game yet, well not officially.

With no game out to play all there is really to talk about is the info that BioWare gives us or just plain rumors floating out on the internets.

I am currently listening to quite a few SWTOR podcast to fill my SWTOR needs and here's a small list with links (in no particular order):
TOROcast
Darth Hater
Corellian Run Radio
Mos Eisley Radio
TORWars
TOR-Talk

So until the game actually comes out, or you are one of the lucky ones getting into the Beta, this will help ease the wait for SWTOR (or in my case make you even more excited).