YAY! another 4-digit account holder. Kinda rare to see them still around! Stay Strong!

Ebon Hawk server here. Main reason for a drop in crating resources on the GTN is probably the BBA even. People are out running henchmen and kingpin missions and not spending as much time gathering or posting materials on the GTN. Don't know about other servers but on the Ebon Hawk the resources generally run light around mid-week and then pick up over the weekend. That's just due to more people playing on the weekends. Last time the BBA even was live, I went wild and got 100% achievement completion, enough rep items to get to Legend, and out of an RP desire I got all of the kingpins unlocked on my 2 BH characters (my mains). I wasn't on the GTN much that week, too much time working on the event. This time around, I don't need to worry about the event and I've been making some good money selling my resources stockpiles when the market goes a bit dry.

It is my opinion that mos of the people that play TOR do not visit the official forums or fan sites like dulfy BEFORE anything new and spectacular comes out. They first find out about changes when they are implemented, not before. I also believe that some who used to keep an eye on upcoming changes have stopped, because they became tired of the dissapointment when reality does not live up to the hype. Some updates are excellent, some aren't. If you aren't paying attention to what is coming, there won't be any dissapointment when things go live. I would like to stop paying attention as well, but I like finding out everything I can early a little bit more.

Yep, but that's only a restriction for the Henchment quest. The Hutta/Ord Mantel Kingpins can still be run by 55s.

I'm also in the position of having 100% acehivement completion and stocked up on enough rep tokens last time to reach legend. No real benefit for me to run the event since we're past the point where purple token maxing matters. I was under the impression that each character could only run each kingpin once a week. And only 1 kingpin a day. This may not matter for most people, but what if you have multiple kingpins unlocked on one character? I did the whole thing with different alts running different kingpins to get the achivements, but towards the end of the week I also had lots of completed contracts and decided to get all 6 kingping contracts on my 2 BH characters. So if I understand how the event works currently, on day 1 my merc healer could run the DK kingping, then the next day I could run the Voss kingpin, and the next I could run Nar Shadaa. It's not that each character is limited to 1 kingpin, the limit is by character and kingpin planet. You should be able to run multiple kingping quests as long as you have unlocked multiple kingpins. From what I read, the "new" system actually sounds a lot more like what was on the test server.

It is not a picture of Mandalore the Vindicated, it is a picture of a bounty hunter player in the old Rakata Combat Medic gear. Mandalore's set has much more gold/yellow in it. The pictured set in questions is in game. I have it. You just can't get it anymore. Possible exception: WAY BACK, long before 2.0, there used to be armor schematic drops in the raids. The names were something like Exotech or Xenotech, instead of Rakata/Columi. They do have the same skins as the Rakata/Columi gear. I have some of the schematics, but not nearly all. So it MAY be possible to get pieces very similar, you just have to find a long-time player who happened to get those schematics way back when.

The Tionese, Columi, and Rakata sets all shared very similar skins with some different colorations. That set in your picture is the Rakata Combat Medic set of gear for Bounty Hunters. I have it in my BH healer's bank. It was obtainable in-game back before 2.0, you just can't get it currently. Maybe they'll bring it back, maybe they won't. I really stopped wearing that set once set bonus was tied to the armorings and not the skins. The chest piece and helmet grow old kinda quick. (The helm has a rather large fin you don't see real well when looking straight on). I do still use the boots because of the neat mandalorian insignia on the shins, but you have to be careful with the coloration since it's real easy to make them look bad.

Incorrect. Each character can only run 1 kingpin quest per day. That means one character can run at most 1 henchman and 1 kingping mission per day. Only 2 missions. Each character can "unlock" up to 6 kingpin missions, and unlocking them does get you a separate blue rep token, but if you have the Nar Shadaa and Voss kingpin quests unlocked, you can only run one of them per day.

Heh, Achivement/rep/anything grinder checking in. I think the issue some people are having with the lack of a purple rep token is the actual max rep per week for the first few weeks. I freely admit I may have something like a mild form of OCD, I just like charting and plotting numbers. Anyway, I have a spreadsheet for calculating and tracking rep/achivements for the new event and daily zone, so here's how the numbers breakdown: * If you have access to purple rep tokens you can reach a weekly max of 13.5k rep. This would allow you to reach the rank of Hero on week 2 and Champion on week 3. * With no purple rep tokens, the max possible rep per week is 12.6k. That is still enough to reach Hero on week 2, but you won't be able to reach Champion until week 4. * No Matter how you max rep, you cannot reach legend until week 6. So, for the real rep grinders like myself, the only real implication of not having a purple rep token is that we won't be able to get the Master Hunter helmet or the mount until the 4th rep turn-in rotation. If there were purple rep tokens we could get that one helmet and mount on the 3rd week. Really not a big issue in the grand scheme of things. Mostly likely any complaints are just because it's different than what had been established as normal in the past. The Czerka daily area was also a deviation as well in that there are almost no blue rep tokens (the only blue tokens drop in the HM flashpoints), but that rep had purple comms, so people were still able to really max rep. This BBA event is just the first time we can't get a max weekly rep over 13k. (note: I still hold out hope that there may be hidden purple rep tokens that you only get by unlocking all 6 kingpin contracts on 1 character, or something like that. Hoping to be able to test that by the weekend, not redeeming any rep tokens until I know for sure.) (another note: the whole maxing rep with purple comms is why some people will be able to craft the new end-game droid parts and black/blue dye packs next Tuesday, 1 week before people that didn't max)

What you have shown may raise doubt, but it is not proof. TLDR: We as players cannot know what is going on here. We can only suspect and theorize. The company that runs this game might be able to looks at the payment records and potentially establish wrongdoing, but even that is uncertain. The facts are that you see a new character that has lots of money, and is listing valuable things on the GTN. -----A 2nd account can easily explain items being on a seemingly new toon. In times past I've made a game of seening how much money I could raise on a new character with no assistance from the rest of my legacy. Started gathering mats on Coruscant, sold them on the GTN, used that money to buy resources that people listed dirt cheap, sold those resources for big profit. Keep the buy-low-sell-high cycle going, branch out from resources into cartel market gear (the real money maker), and you can make tens of millions a week. I don't buy CCs, and turning a small amount of credits into a huge amount of credits is not a difficult thing with the GTN. You just have to know the prices things will sell for, buy low, and sell high. So the issue of having 10+ million credits on a low level character is entirely understandable. Like I said it may raise some questions, but is not proof of wrongdoing. The items for sale on the GTN... those may be a bit more suspicious. It would seem that someone is buying lots of cartel coins, and then spending those cartel coins to get unlocks and items from the market and then list those items/unlocks on the GTN for less than the average price. I say it seems that way because unless we have access to the transaction records and credit card account information we really can't tell. It doesn't seem like an effort to "farm gold" since more money would be spent on cartel coins than would be made selling the credits gotten from selling the cartel items. A stolen credit card would be one possible explanation for what is seen, but stupidity would be another, as would phillanthropy, or perhaps a bio-ware sponsored effort to get these unlocks into the game cheaper to appease the F2P crowd. So there are several possibilities, and we can't proove any of them because we don't have access to any of the transaction details behind this issue. If the cartel coins were puchased directly, then Bioware should be able to look at them, if these are cartel coin cards from a store, then they may not be able to track back to the credit card used to purchase the cartel coin card.

Heh, I think Terko was referring to my math (Hey Terko). Anyway, here's the breakdown of rep: 1 henchmen contract = 1 green rep item, 1 blue rep item, and a completed contract. UNLOCKING a kingpin contract (costs 5 completed contracts) gives a purple rep item and means that contract is also available each day on the character that unlocked it. Completing a kingping contract gets you a blue rep token and a completed contract. You can only do one kingping contract per day. So Day 1 through 4 - only henchmen contracts. 4 green and 4 blue rep items. Day 5 - henchmen contract, unlock a kingpin contract, do that kingping contract. 1 green, 2 blue, 1 purple Day 6 - henchmen and kingpin contract. 1 green and 2 blue Day 7 - henchman and kingpin contract, then unlock a SECOND kingping contract (can't run it, but the unlock gives a purple rep item). 1 green, 2 blue, 1 purple. Total rep items for 1 character, in 1 week, if they do everything possible = 7 green, 10 blue, and 2 purple. Total rep = 12177 (for a subscriber in a +10% guild). You'd actually be able to reach legend in 1 week with 6 characters, as long as they all did every quest possible every day. The key is being able to get that second kingping unlock on the last day, which requires you to do the henchmen all 7 days and the kingping on days 5, 6, and 7. Edit: awwwww, just found out that in live the henchmen only give a blue, and the kingping unlocks only give a blue. That means that this event is only giving blue rept tokens (how in the world????). Also means the max guaranteed rep items per week is 12, and you would need to do everything with 8 characters to get enough to reach legend in 1 week. How is there something in game which only gives blue rep items?

(Soon™)

Heh, and if you don't have a high affection with your animal pet, they may turn on you... I remember being a Creature Handler in SWG, that was neat. Would be interesting if you could have some non-sentient animal-type companions. Think about it from in-story. HK: we had to find out about him in Section X, go to a derelict ship to find a schematic, then go all over the galaxty to get the parts. Treek: a mercenary we hire. Have to come up with some way our characters would "acquire" an animal. Jedi and Sith would be an easy story point of just using the force to domesticate/dominate the animal. Smuggler... maybe a pet for security. Bounty hunter... maybe for tracking, though the tech should suffice. Troopers and agents... hard for me to see them working with an animal. That said, a Nexu would be nice, as would "underworld" and Yarra creatures from Makeb. I don't think we'll see creature companions though. (and how would you "gear" them?)

They are indeed for fun, when you just want to do a little fun hand-to-hand combat. Here's the thing though, the unarmed moves are tech-based damage. That means that skills, naked stats, and timing being equal Aim-based classes will be the strongest with cunning being a close second. Force users just get pounded as they have no +tech modifiers. (take THAT Jedi/Sith!)

Actually, you can. Multiple toons? Actually, you can't. The completed contracts are BoP and cannot be traded between legacy. That means that if you do the 1 henchmen contract each day on a character, you can get your first kingpin contract on day 5 (Sunday). Kingpin contracts also give you a completed contract, so as of day 5 you can earn 2 completed contracts per day. That means that on day 7 (Tuesday) you'll have another 5 contracts (5th day kingpin, and the kingpin and henchmen from days 6 and 7). Again, the contract are (as of the test sever info I've read) bind-on-pickup and cannot be sent between your characters.

There is no way to get the purple crystals from PvE anymore, but crafters learned the schematics back when the expansion went live. I'd expect that every server has crafters that can make all but the PvP purple crystal. Shouldn't be that expensive on the GTN, just look for "Advanced purple" on the GTN with a filter of lvl 50+. There may also be black-purple crystals up, just look for the ones without black in the name. (IF you really want to be able to crafter your own, you'd have to buy and RE crystals until you learn the schematic yourself)

This thread. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=655654 Here's the quote So there was a subscriber appreciation 500 cartel coins on the 4th, then the Reven's Heir title mid-month. That's it.

Heh, I think this applies and really correlates well to the CE vendor. First, the occurrence. A Cleveland Browns fan died within the last month. Within his obituary it said he asked for some Cleveland Browns paulbearers so that they "can let him down one last time". This is a real story, it really happened. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000216855/article/cleveland-browns-fan-requests-pallbearers-from-team What's more, the team actually DID send 6 players (not sure if active or retired) to act as his paulbearers. Class act from the Browns. Such is the nature of sports fandom in Cleveland Ohio. Now I'm from a Cleveland suburb. Not a die-hard sports fan, but I follow them, catch the ocasionall game on the radio, even go to a Tribe game once in a while. You live around Cleveland, you follow the sports, you get accustomed to being let down. You still enjoy the ride, you still support the team, you still get dissapointed. It's what happens. That's just kinda how I view some aspects of TOR. Not all, by no means is the whole game like that, just some of the areas are a bit dissapointing to me. Let me emphasize the to me part. Just my personal opinion about how they run their game. They do not have to run the game I want, they run the game the way they want and I can choose to either leave or continue playing (been playing since early access, my sub has never lapsed). That said, I can and do wish the collector's edition vendor had lived up to the hype. But it hasn't, not yet. If you remove the hype and promises, then the vendor is Ok. It's all about your perspective. I would suggest everyone forget about the "regular updates" from the official site, and the "unique armors and weapons" from the interview. I've tried it, and it makes it much easier to accept. If you can look at the CE vendor without expecting anything, then it's really a nice little vendor with a few items that some people will like.

Bioware does not want the Lore sets to be dyable. Lore sets are the armor sets that specifically reference armor from (so far) the KOTOR and KOTOR2 games. Bastila's armor Jolee's armor Last Handmaiden's armor Calo Nord's armor Darth Malak Mira's armor Revan's armor Carth Onasi's armor Restored Triumverate armor Those are all armors based on the armor sets from those earlier games. Maybe Bioware just wants to keep them true to the originals. I've also heard that there may be some kind of licensing or trademarking or some such that means they don't have _permission_ to let the colors be changed. (I don't really understand that scenario, but I have heard it mentioned as a possibility so I now mentioned it) So they do at least have a reason for not dying those armors tied to a historical set of armor belonging to a character or group from another game. The other non-dyeable armor sets (low level oranges) I don't really agree with. The security key and collector's edition armors can't be dyed, nor can any low level crafted or looted armors. I wish that wasn't the case and I hold out hope that the devs will make those other sets dyable in the future. (oddly enough, low level non-moddable armor can be dyed, so the orange sets were likely intentionally set to non-dyeable)

Currently I agree with the OP, but only when it comes to my own crystals. Crystals with the white cores are standard. That's how lightsabers have been (mostly). That's what you usually see Jedi or Sith using, white-core lightsabers, from the starting planet onwards. When 50 was the cap, and Rakata was the best tier of gear, those weapons had black-red/black-blue. They _were_ rare for a time, something most in the galaxy couldn't access, so still rare. Campaign and Dread Guard gear? those didn't have black cores, but the harder operations that dropped them had a chance to drop black-orange/black-purple crystals. Still rare. 2.0, level cap increased to 55, the black-core crystals could be REd. Artificers (including me) started learning all the end-game crystals. Now all you need to do to get a black core is get to level 50 and spend anywhere from 60k to 400k depending on which crystal and which server you are on (Ebon Hawk doesn't have an end-game crafted crystal that goes for more than 200k now). Really it's now an issue of personal preference. White core is more standard, black cores look different, some people just like to look different. I leveled a lot of non-force users initially. Only one of my first five characters to reach 50 used a lightsaber. I was fine with using the black core crystals for blasters, figured you didn't see the color prominently displayed all that much. My first lightsaber-user (a sorcerer) got a black-red crystal and has pretty much kept it ever since (he's a powerful dark lord with secret knowledge and what not, I'll let the black core pass). All my subsequent lightsaber users though... I couldn't do it. I'm on an RP server, just couldn't justify them having black cores. The Knight (Guardian) uses a blue crystal in the DPS saber and an Orange crystal in the tanking saber. The warrior uses a red in the DPS saber, and an orange/red in the tanking vibrosword (you don't see the color in the sword, so color doesn't matter). It all comes back to personal preference. I play on an RP server and I have backstories for my characters. I try to make them appear appropriate and believable for their roles. I like the immersion, so I try to give them the more believeable colors. I don't mind others having black-core sabers, that's their personal preference, but I've stopped using them myself because I prefer the look of most of my characters without them.

For my statement to be entirely true or false we would need to know what they planned to add to the Collector's Edition vendor before the work on F2P began. Since we won't get that information all we can do is speculate, so let's explore that line of thought. I do not think they planned to add dye packs to the CE vendor back before they started working on the cartel market because the dyes were implemented several months after the cartel market went live. It could be that they had the dye system planned back before they started working on the cartel market. So maybe they did have a few packs planned. To date, all they have added to the CE vendor is one re-skinned pet, one re-skinned headpiece, and 3(or 4?) dyes. Personally, I think they planned to add much more to the vendor than that. Not really sure why they didn't. They obviously had a lot of new gear designs in the works, but they chose not to update the vendor they said they would update. Then again, they did retract their official stance on updating the CE vendor about 14 months after the game launched when they only thing that had been added was the re-skinned pet. Who knows, perhaps the massive layoffs 6 months after launch are what did in the CE vendor. Maybe CE vendor updates were dead long before development started on the CM.

What happened to updates to the collectores edition, VIP, and security key vendors? The Cartel Market. All planned updates to these vendors were scrapped (or repurposed) for the cartel market once the game went free-to-play. F2P singnaled a different era in development, all prior developmental promises are null and void. The majority of new development in this game is for the Cartel Market. Content updates have not been getting anywhere near as much effort. Thankfully we will get some new flashpoints, dailies, and an event in the coming month. But updates to vendors... don't hold your breath. Why add stuff to an in-game vendor costing in-game credits when new item development goes towards the cartel market, where they can charge real money.

Haven't seen any on Ebon Hawk yet. I do like that they added in a rare mount. Not to happy that it's a rare drop from a limited-time boss that you can only kill once per week per character. It's not a mount of achivement, it's a mount of luck. I do collect mounts. Go the Blue sphere as my active mount for my blue armored BH healer, wanted to get the Red Sphere for my red-armored BH DPS/Tank, but the whole "chance to drop" means I'm writing it off.

Here's another fact: Many things may be going on during the fight. I actually believe more things go on in-game during fights than before them. 1. None personally myself. 2. A trooper rolling need on cunning gear and winning it is not ninja-looting. It's it innapropriate, sure, but not ninja-looting. Ninja looting is taking something that others earned. In TOR that's not usually an issue since opponents are locked to the individual/group that gets in the first attack. The group/ops leader is really the only person that can ninja-loot in TOR by use of the master looter rule. If a group starts out with the Master Looter option, then they know that the leader will be entirely responsible for distributing loot. If a group starts with Round Robin, they kinda have a different expectation.

There is difficulty, and there is scope. The problem (switching loot rules mid fight) could be fixed by not allowing loot rules to be changed in combat. The way many of us think, that would be a simple change as the "in combat flag" is already used to gate several other skills, like health/energy regen for example. When you see the red text on your screen saying something like "This ability cannot be used while in combat". That's what we're talking about applying to loot rule changes. So, we think that is a simple change, but the impact of loot rules being able to be changed mid fight is potential huge. A huge impact, with what we believe to be a simple fix. Analogy: a light switch at night. Simple to flip and turn the lights on, but it makes a huge impact on your ability to navigate a room. I don't think our issue is with the ops leaders having the flexibility to change the loot rules. We do want the leader to be able to change the loot rules, just not when it enables the leader to make off with all the loot from the boss after making people thing that they'd have an equal shot to roll on the items. In other words, not while in combat. Still, I would like to hear what the valid reasons are for allowing the ops leader to change the loot rules during combat as opposed to while out of combat. Ok, a valid reason for NOT letting ops leaders change loot rules mid-combat: So the ops leader cannot ninja the loot. There's a valid reason. Now, as for flexibility... letting ops leaders change loot rules only while out of combat would still give them flexibility. They could still change the loot rules when not fighting. Making loot rule changes out-of-combat only would safeguard the players against a ninja leader. Are the upsides of letting the leader change loot rules mid-fight really greater than the downside of enabling an ops lead ninja? Do people really prefer a system that would let a leader actually ninja loot? Start a fight with loot rules set to Round Robin. Excellent, that's standard practive. 10 seconds left in the fight: Loot rule changed to master looter. Leader takes all the loot. "WHAT!!! we went into that fight with an equal chance to get loot if we need rolled, and the leader just took everything?!!"