This isn't necessary at all. The decoration is old and not a commodity for anyone other than a decorator. Furthermore, decorations aren't moving off the GTN at that price on the daily - not on my server at least. Which is kind of my whole point. People that are into this portion of the game shouldn't be taking loans out to be able to afford the decorations they need to complete a room. Especially considering the decoration is old. So lets take your example and put it through the ranks Id like to see. Revanite Zealot comes out as a new decoration. It is part of a pack upon release. That deco is only available through pack purchases or on the GTN where ppl have listed it since they didn't want it. The price it lists at is going to be less than it ever was before - because now, people only need 1 of it to add to their collection. So because decos would be collection items ppl could just copy them from their collection. Therefore you would have a lot less interest in the decoration and the market is going to reflect that. Prices will go down and decorations will be more available upon release in this regard. A year later (or less) the pack is rotated around again in the market. By this time the decoration needs to be either available for purchase as an individual item in the store under decorations or it needs to be somehow earnable in game outside of the GTN or Cartel Market. The point is that decorations are a niche thing for a smaller portion of the community. Stifling the amount of decos that are available or making them impossibly expensive really hurts that community more than it helps. If it isn't helping the community then why is it being allowed? To me - that's just griefing the player. To prove my point, you have people who are willing to pay for a "guild" stronghold just to have access to cheaper decorations. So its obvious there's a problem here. The mentality that decorations need to hold a tremendous value is wrong. Decorations have a rarity associated - and that's fine that IS going to effect value on the market. But that should only be exclusive for so long. Other items such as light sabers etc - that have the same rarity and are equally expensive are collection bound. There's no reason for decos to be different.

With the release of the new stronghold changes to the way decorations are obtained are necessary. Paying 8 million for one decoration on the GTN is just stifling the whole process of decorating. Considering if you want to decorate your stronghold well you probably need the max hook count available (totally separate issue). Many people have suggested various ways to accommodate decorators in this regard. A person shouldn't have to buy a "guild stronghold" just to be able to get decorations on the cheap nor should they have to sell their soul on the GTN to complete a room theme from a pack. Decorations need to be more available and affordable at the same time. The most sensible suggestion I've seen is to make all decorations collectible items similar to weapons and armor sets. I think this would be great and allow people to spend cc if needed for additional copies of decorations they have collected from packs. However I feel that the majority of decorations that have been in the game for over a year now need to be rotated out and available via in game vendor for credits. Personally, I think decorations that accommodate "themes" should be farmable via rep/faction grinding in the area that the "theme" exists. Similar to the Oricon decos being available on Oricon and Czerka etc. Secondly, decorations need to be more available as drops in flashpoints and open world. The drop rates need to be improved to where everyone in the group has access to the decoration during the time of the run. Maybe just provide it as a quest completion prize or like I mentioned a vendor item based on faction or rep. The bottom line is - the new stronghold has been wanted by the community for a very long time and were all thankful to see it coming down the pipe. Just don't expect the average joe (me) to be able to enjoy it due to the current issues regarding how decorations are obtained. It costs so much for the stronghold alone - most of us will be house broke. Players are going to be forced to move items from a current stronghold to the new one just to be able to decorate... Which really deprives that player of the hobby entirely. Stop Stifling creativity and make the changes to make this portion of the game more enjoyable please.

how the hell? can you explain this to me?

Here are a few that have been updated recently but you'll get the idea at least of each theme. DK - my assassins stronghold. it is a chamber of deception. the entry room is a facade to fool the Eternal Empire. it's really a kill room. past that you will find the bottom floor is alliance neutral. czerka corp runs the production facility and produces warbots to compliment your resistance efforts against the Eternal Empire. The upper level is more sith oriented and only the darkest are permitted - all others will perish if they pursue entry. Nar Shadda - my warriors place. the entry is for bounty requisition and turn in. why scour the galaxy when u can pay ppl to hunt for you? the upper levels include medical, R&R and vault room. Lower levels include the Traders Market where the jawas trade for resources. don't get hustled. Last room is imperial command with live space battle. Coruscant - Jedi theme. was going for elegance. this stronghold has recently gone under major renovations and is now very different - for the better. it is under a full jedi theme with rebel fighter pilots in the bay. regardless - you can see the theme idea in this video. the last 3 rooms in this video were conference rooms dedicated so each of the 3 factions could convene with a representative of the jedi order. Anyway - maybe you guys can get some ideas and if youd like to see them in game for a tour just hollar. they have been updated and are actually nicer now :/

Yes Malph I'm aware of the websites and i have gone through them. Xina_La - id love to tour your strongholds if we could. I love themed strongholds! maybe we could set up a time in the next few days and you could throw me an invite and show me around? let me know. Mireleni - id be interested in seeing your Cor place if you feel its worth showing. Yavin just doesnt interest me at all honestly. its hard to make the place look good. ive seen a few well decorated yavins but unfortunately the stronghold is so big that most ppl run out of ideas or decorations and they never really pan out.

i understand you cant offer the reward on another server from your own. I hope you do a showcasing for the top 3 strongholds in your competition bc id like to wager mine against them just to see. please showcase them when the comp is over.

Does anyone have a really well designed Jedi Stronghold that they would care to show off to me? I'm trying to get ideas for my Jedi themed place and haven't quite put it together. Ideally I'm not looking for a Yavin stronghold. Either a DK, Tat or Cor designed sh with a strong Jedi Theme. Im posting because even if your SH is listed publicly it isn't always available if you aren't in game. Furthermore, I'm not sure the listings are any different if I log onto the light or dark side. I've spent a lot of time decorating my SH's and touring others. If you haven't then please don't mention them haha. Again, I'm just trying to filter out some strongholds and find a few that are worth visiting. If you have posted videos or pictures online then feel free to link them in the comments I'll check them out. Ideally, I could create a lvl 1 character and meet up on your server for an invite and tour etc. Additionally if you have a stronghold with a great night club vibe I'd like to see it as well! The new decos have sparked my creativity.

Id make an expansion that focuses on the original companions and relationships. More importantly Lineage. We have a way in game to assign people as friends rivals or offspring but it makes zero difference. I would have an expansion expand upon that ;p Also it would enrich the current vanilla areas of the game by adding content there. I'll give you a few examples of what I envisioned. My first toon was an Imperial Warrior - LOVED the story...When I played through some of the other stories I came across the Emperor's Wrath. How epic would it have been if the Emperor's Wrath was MY warrior character? And I then had to make choices against him etc... I don't see how this couldn't be done by using your character load and appearance ingame. Another example for Lineage etc would involve mentoring or passing on skills to another character. So in time you would gain the ability to learn a skill from another class or specialty of the same class. This is sort of in game through heroic skills but was poorly done in my opinion. If I made a Jedi warrior and then came across my father in the story who was maybe the Emperor's Wrath and maybe I defeated him. Maybe I could learn a trait or preferably a permanent skill from them. As if I were "learning" from that character. The same could be said from mentoring a "friend" through association etc. But when you make the decisions and link a person they would need to be permanent etc. I personally would have loved for characters to age and grow to a point where they would even die. If you allowed your character to die maybe they could pass on more knowledge to an Alt through association and allow the next of kin to be even stronger. This could allow a lot of customization and replayability. Another idea would be to add a "Galactic: Expansion." It would focus on Galactic Starfighter and Galactic Strongholds. It would add more for guilds and community play. On the Starfighter front it would incorporate GSF into the conquest theme. Conquest would be revamped. Housing would no longer give conquest bonuses. Conquest should be a fight for a specific planet at any 1 time and it should be fought on 2 fronts: space and planetary. Planetary combat would be more "like" open world pvp that would be instanced and accessible for all. So my example here would be imagine the Conquest planet of the week is Hoth. You que up for GSF:Conquest solo or grouped. You fight over/on that planet. Same GSF rules and modes you just collect points for your guild in this mode. As for planetary fighting imagine a star wars Hoth themed Alterac Valley from WoW. If you haven't played it you have a map themed like the planet you fight for in this case Hoth. Its instanced and contains landmarks and bosses you would fight against and defend for eventually making it to the final base/boss and winning the map. All the while facing opposite faction harassment or defenses similar to the current Warzone Voidstar. Except this concept would be much more open and involved offering more strategy and small group skirmish. More akin to possibly even Dark Age of Camelot styled rvr. Galactic Strongholds would be updated as well and include more social aspected gameplay. A good example is by introducing a system to "flag or tag" your stronghold for various "activities." I would introduce a housing event that took place monthly similar to the other events. It would have all the npc flair that something like bounty week currently has. It would include various social activities that would focus on a fun factor. A few ideas for improving the social activities would be different types of parties such as : game night, big game hunt and main event brawl. Game night includes a new ingame trading card game that could only be played in strongholds. Upon entering a stronghold flagged as "Game Night" you would be given a pack of digital trading cards to help you play in the event. You would sit at a table (interactive decoration) and play with others to win cool prizes during the event or unlock prizes through achievement. Id make the poker / sabacc tables interactive and work in similar fashion. Slot Machines would award cards for this game etc. Big Game Hunt would be a party formed to hunt ingame mobs for decorations related to the event. These mobs would range from raid bosses to rare pve spawns and upon finishing the hunt everyone in party would receive the decorations among other rewards. Main Event Brawl would be pvp oriented and more or less be duels sanctioned within a stronghold. More than likely rewards would just be related to completing various tasks related to pvp while in a housing zone such as dueling x number of times, winning x number of duels etc. We could even take it as far as not being able to use styles or weapons and equiping oversized boxing gloves etc for the brawl. Maybe even automatically have a character who zones into the house have them on and a new bar pops up with preset skills and goofy taunts only useable from that bar. I dunno but it would be funny to watch and that's kind of the point. People could observe and be entertained. You could have last man standing challenge etc. i dunno~ The main purpose of the event would be to socialize with others who are into decorating/housing and allowing more fun ways to use the strongholds. And most importantly showcase your stronghold ;p I'd also find a way to vote if you "liked" a stronghold and at the end of the event you would get bonus rewards based on how many "likes" you got. These rewards would be strictly cosmetic and housing / decoration related. Anyway - just a few ideas before i head out to the super bowl party ;p fun thread. the bottom line here is that if we can envision it then it could be a reality in game. Whether or not BW would use any resources to give the player base what it wants is something totally different.

yes absolutely who wouldn't want that.? they tend to sprinkle the personnel in with other decorations (packs) when they release them and not really put emphasis on them which is a shame. matter of fact - whoever feeds them ideas on strongholds and housing isn't much of an enthusiast at all judging by the looks of what they have done with it. i have a feeling the number of people who actually decorate for fun in the game is low and that because of this the priority is also very low. so for example when they release a pack they put a little bit of everything in it so it will appeal and sell to the majority. not necessarily just us decorators. i will say that the recent Distant Worlds decoration bundle was refreshing and i think they should do A LOT more of them! All themed and even include personnel for those themes

thought id add to this - it had been a while and figured out the issue shortly after. for me - it was related to a graphic issue. i noticed if i changed the resolution then i could go through every category and sub cat as normal. then i went back to my original res that i had before the patch and the problem persisted so i realized it may have been related some how. when i downgraded my res - i eventually moved the windows around to compensate for the changed resolution - everything worked fine. i then went back to my native 1080x1920 to test again and noticed i could scroll through everything and change to all cats and sub cats without issues. so it had something to do with the patch - but was easily correctable by moving the windows around etc. its almost like it was just stuck and needed to be reset. also for the record my tickets were answered within 24-48 hours and even though they couldn't reproduce the problem they def helped me narrow down the options. when i realized i was like - the only one having this issue i knew it was something client side or on my end. anyway - i hope u guys were able to get things straightened out.

Are u kidding? They arent going to do anything requested in this forum dude. They dont care about decorating at all... its pretty evident in the way they handle it. The forum only represents like 15% of the in game user base and then considering the total amount of posts of the game, those even interested in decorating out of that 15% is even smaller. Dont expect anything to come from your posts... and dont get your hopes up in regards.

Not bad - keep working at it. Decos are always overpriced and of course the longer they are out of rotation the more ppl will ask for them. However if I were you - and you really needed some decos - you could start sending tells to the sellers and offering something you can afford via COD transaction. A lot of times ppl will list their decos very high bc that's what others have them at - but that doesn't mean they sell. It doesn't hurt to make an offer using the ingame email - and have them send it COD. I've gotten a few decos that way. Unless the decoration is a gold or plat item you shouldn't pay over 1 mil. Also - don't always click and collect every deco you come across. If it doesn't fit your theme then just put it up on the GTN or keep it available to trade. Literally if it's not going to help u at all with completing your SH theme then u dont need it. Try to find some ppl who like to decorate on your server and friend them and try to help each other. Good luck!

all u need is the utilities for convenience. however if you really want your stronghold to be THE place to hangout you will want to make it inviting for the players. do some research and have a theme for each room. make ur place stand out and ppl will want to use it more often.

no. go visit a website or visit my strongholds on shadowlands. ill give u tours just send me a message and we can get together.

what is this supposed to be? u want ideas for your stronghold? every room in all 3 of my strongholds has a theme - and each is deliberately different. i don't use the same idea more than once. my strongholds are well thought out, themed and unique. most people don't have a theme for their stronghold let alone one for their rooms. are u just wanting a cheat sheet for some decor design?

Since the patch I can't correctly choose my category or subcat.. anyone else have this issue?

Ya they really ruined everything with the introduction of lvl sync. you USED to be able to farm the decos from instances but thats not the case anymore. so they made the instances hard and did nothing to improve the drop rates. they really dont care about housing at all unfortunately.

They need to remove the conquest bonus from housing entirely. This is the reason you walk into a place that is 100% complete and see a bunch of crap like 100 of the same chair etc. Let me ask you - why did you get a stronghold in the first place? To decorate or just to get your bonus. There really aren't any tips needed to get to 100%. You just use the lame decos and place them where ever you want. Like everyone else does.

Hi! I'll give you some advice - but only since you asked ;p First - you have a nice place! You have some great decorations and some really good ideas. As always I love imperial themes. Your stronghold is pretty much how we all start out then you eventually get a little more creative if u get bored with things or gather more decos. A few general rules though that I've followed on my SH that will set u apart from others are as follows: Utility rooms - basically your utility room is where you store your vendors, vaults and mail etc. A lot of people like to put them in the first room for convenience. That works - that's what I did too - sorta. My advice for this is - try to hide your utility room. Dress it up so the focus is more on the decor and not so obviously on the utility factor. If you actively make a decision whether or not you want your SH to be more about function/utility or more about decoration then your layouts will actually be easier to vision. For example in my strongholds my utility rooms have been a library, traders den / armory and a war machine production facility room... so obviously i made a decision to decorate and incorporated the utility into the design. If you go by design you'll be able to make some cool utility rooms deeper in your SH - if u go for convenience then most often your ENTRY room will be the utility room. Themes - this is just a general idea you try to convey with your Stronghold. A good example of this is your stronghold title.. Lets say you titled your stronghold something like Slowpokeking's Assasin Den... So I see that on the public listing and im like, damn that sounds cool I wonder what an assasins den looks like - i click it and walk into a stronghold filled with basic chairs, pictures and couches in every room.... then clearly - it wasnt an assasins den. Same goes for one titled Galactic Casino or something like that - im going in thinking im getting some sort of slots and games etc. If you want to set yourself apart and take your SH to the next level you will visualize an overall theme for your stronghold.. and each room will have a purpose. Then u just decorate accordingly. Garages - wanna set yourself apart? don't have a room with every mount u have on display. There are some mounts that really are cool - and some people have spent a lot of time collecting mounts and want to display them. I get that. thats cool. But do you have a motorcycle in your living room at home? Probably not. I literally have friends that HAVE done that though IRL so. It happens. My point is - a lot of ppl will fill a room or more with mounts. In some cases it really works if it flows with the decoration. But generally speaking mount rooms are tacky. Turn your garage into a real Cargo Bay with ships or something cool. Step it up. Following themes - you have some decos that work well together and some that don't. Simplest example is if you have jedi themed stuff in your empire themed stronghold - you wouldn't see that in the game. That's like being a GA Bulldog fan and having a Tennessee Vols helmet in the center for show. It sticks out like hell. In the beginning you might not have enough deco to fill your end game ideas so you may use placeholders etc. But if you want to set yourself apart you will follow a theme. This leads me to another thing. Multi-use strongholds. You may want to make a stronghold that is universally open to both factions. That's doable as well just either make the division clear or don't use so much faction swag in the main rooms. try to seperate things out. it will make your idea more recognizable. Stairwells - the best way to decorate a stairwell is just to keep it simple and clean. you will NEVER see an AMAZING stairwell so dont spend a lot of time racking your head against the wall placing crap. Simple is clean and clean looks good. Your stairwell looks pretty good! Lastly I'll mention color usage. Certain items obviously emit certain colors or just are colorful. If they fit your theme then put them together. Your sith room looks good. Your main hall on the bottom floor could use the red/black rugs instead of the red/gold if you can get them. Overhead lighting IS NOT NEEDED almost all of the time. you will find that you can get better effects from the decos without the overpowering overhead ceiling lighting. sometimes you need that ceiling light to set the mood like the red lighting you have. other times you dont need it at all and could save hook space by not using it. just always consider that. Anyway - thats a few tips that I try to go by. If you ever wanna see my SH in person im on the Shadowlands server. Mainly on Imp side but I have repubs there as well. I made a few videos of my SH Ill link here you can check out maybe youll get some ideas. Sorry this was so long : / GOOD LUCK and nice work SO FAR! - my DK - my NS - my Cor

add server monitors and minefield markers to the list of things that are still broken.

No more ideas on this?

bumping this thread

just bumping the thread

Bummer I thought there would be a lvl 60 coin :/ oh well

So if I have already created a free lvl 60, done KotfE and am a subscriber... then buy this will I get ANOTHER free 60?