So I was thinking about what comes after fallen empire and one particular thought stuck with me. I would like to see one chapter that blends the narrative we have now with individual class stories. I realize it's been said before that Bioware is moving away from this but read the whole post before you start to judge it. The general idea would be something along the lines of an attack against The Shroud that is woven into character backstory. Since the insane former intelligence officer has some interest in the player character and would be looking into the players past things would make sense. So as the character goes through the mission they relive a part of their lives that could be seen as a defining moment for them. Nothing that is already in the game but rather how they ended up there. Suggestions follow: Smuggler- How they earned the ship. My best guess would be something where the smuggler has a mentor of sorts that has taken the eventual hero under their wing. A deal goes bad and they end up trying to escape. The mentor dies by the end of it and the smuggler takes over. Trooper- The trooper before working for the Republic stumbles into a spec ops mission for a non-havoc team. The trooper uses the knowledge of planet (assuming it's his home-world) and his ingenuity to help the team accomplish their mission. They suggest he enlist and they give recommendation to Garza that he be in special forces. Agent- The agent is part of the regular imperial forces, a routine mission goes sideways and the agent is forced to think outside the box in order to survive. After everything is done, the agent is noticed by imperial intelligence and recruited as an operative due to their quick thinking and obvious infiltration skills. Bounty hunter- The first hunt ever done. I'm thinking something along the lines of chasing after a killer that crossed off one of the hunters friends or family. The scenario would end with the hunter beating this killer in a duel with Braden watching from somewhere. Braden offers the hunter the job that starts the story. Sith Inquisitor- the story would cover what the character did that brought the fact they were force sensitive to the attention of the sith. Perhaps something along the lines of torture to the player character or one of their allies caused the future inquisitor to lash out with lightning against the slave master. Killing the master in front of Sith lords (including a young looking Zash) they would see the potential and ship the player off to Korriban. Sith Warrior- similar story to the inquisitor but perhaps a bit more toward the martial side of things. Perhaps killing a Sith lord for some perceived offense to you (he stole your sweet-roll) The overall idea would be the same with the master of the dead Sith seeing potential and sending the warrior off for training. The Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular- These would be similar to the Sith but depend on which lore is being followed. If it's cinematic lore and the Jedi were trained from toddlers then the story would lean more towards what made the players advance faster than other early padawans. If we are following the alternate lore and the Jedi don't mind bringing in older recruits (maybe and exception because of the war) then the characters would be more likely to run a story about what brought them to the attention of the order. All this is just a thought about how we can develop characters like these a bit more without adding major twists into the plot further down the line.

to be fair Kira never was fully integrated into that program. She escaped early into it so she was never actually a child of the emperor even though they refer to her as one. Beyond that, it may just be that members of the council that are confirmed good guys vouch for her and she helped save Tython. She seems to be largely a mirror of Bastilla from the old games. Where Bastilla put all her trust in the order only to lose it in the end, Kira thinks nothing of breaking the rules and forging her own path. My guess is that Kira will be leading a number of Jedi in an upcoming chapter and that she may have stronger belief in the teachings that the order gave her before the war. Either that or Kira and Ashara have teamed up and formed a new order of knights that follow a slightly different set of rules.

Hair dye. Just putting that out there. I have noticed that all the characters have a somewhat changed look from their original models. If they are running black ops then it wouldn't be far fetched to assume that the characters have made some changes.

I'm thinking chapter 12 might be a good time to do a quick split of the story. Republic players travel to an new place on Coruscant and deal with helping Rusk or Irresso deal with the puppet government that the now former chancellor has in place. They bring Theran along for that while sending Lana to deal with things on Dromand Kaas. Empire players would do the same but deal with the issues on Kaas with Lana instead. Probably meet Quinn there since it's the only one that makes any real sense to be still on the imperial home planet. They handle Darth Acina while Theran is on Coruscant.

The chapters are going to have to move to a different planet or two shortly after chapter 11. I know that Arcann may not be the sharpest tool in the shed and is quite possibly losing his grip on sanity but I have to think even with that he would eventually notice all the recruitment the outlander does on his home turf. Eventually he's going to put a lock on ships entering the planetspace without authorization and shoot them down before they get close. I mean really it's been like this. escape planet, fly back, recruit scorpio, escape planet, fly back, recruit yuun (he may not know about that one), escape planet, fly back, recruit kaliyo, escape planet, fly back, recruit havoc squad. have to be blind not to see the pattern.

While Jorgan is front and center in the picture I think that is Elara Dorn behind him. They may both be back with chapter 11. There are two reasons for this. 1- it would be an interesting dynamic in the story if those two were having different opinions on how to fight the war. The player would be the deciding vote in this case and the story would be a considerable boost. 2- If you played through the trooper story then the command structure could have Elara as the one in charge of the unit after your absence. Both of them coming in as a black ops team and if you played a trooper they would have reason to want to rescue you (friend or lover depending on circumstances) In the end I think we'll see both return for the chapter and then Bowdarr return through the championship.

Since Reclaimed Treasures isn't supposed to be active yet I'm just going to assume that 'Shining in the Darkness" is in a similar position and just shows as available when it isn't supposed to be active till later.

Alexander Freed and the agent story. also designed theran shan as a character

Think it was an operative

You could also consider that the characters are all force sensitive though the troopers, agents, smugglers, and hunters are only moderately so. There was always the theory that Han was force sensitive and wasn't aware of it. Good luck could be attributed to an unknowing use of the force. The force users may not recognize the players as force sensitive since the ability only happens in extreme situations.

I know the whole debate over how companions and heroics is still going on and that some changes will be made to a number of things to affect the balance there. This thread is not to bring any more attention to that issue but rather a heroic quest on Makeb that is difficult to do with just a companion for mechanical reasons. Both Republic and Imperial players have a heroic 2 on Makeb that Involves going into a building in the Tarlam Settlement and making adjustments to the computers there. These quests are incredibly difficult to handle without a second human player, not due to strong opponents but rather an unconventionally punishing mechanic. The first room requires 4 gas valves to be shut off before the player dies of whatever fills the room. Even with burning all my defensive cooldowns, a number of my characters can not complete the channel on all 4 valves before dying, I would like to see a pass on this quest for both sides with either a decrease in damage per stack of gas or to remove a few of the panels.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there are no dialog options at all when talking with her. The only conversation you actually have with her is on scripted line saying that her brother was just a start when it came to beat downs. There was no choice in the matter just an it is what it is moment. Personally I wouldn't date her anyway considering her absolute lack of restraint when killing people. Even DS Jeassa had a bit of resistance when it came to slaughtering the masses.

I don't think they are foreshadowing any battle to come but rather showing the players the greatest singular force they have met. Sure the smuggler could have dealt with the voidwolf instead but that guy wasn't really all that powerful. Nok was a powerful man in all respects and held much of the underworld in his pocket at one time or another. The voidwolf was just a pompous imperial with a large fleet that was all to happy to betray him. So I wouldn't call it role models or challenges. This is backed up by the agent challenge since no one the agent faced had a stronger power base than Jadus. The Cabal had a larger power base as a whole but It's a large group (That may not be completely extinguished). Look at it this way. It could have been worse. They could have had everyone face off against the ghost of Malgus.

Sorry, but the endless swamp is just another part of the planet Zakuul. Also Dagobah is located near Hoth. There are not many parts of Wild Space that have been used in non SWTOR lore. Also it was mentioned that The endless swamp was just a name the locals gave it ages back.and was never changed.

That could potentially work as well but the number would have to be equivalent to what it was with the original 4 strongholds to prevent any backlash from players that worked hard to originally fill the hook requirements when they came out. It would help keep things manageable as other strongholds were released. As it stands I'll probably drop the Dromand Kaas place when the next one is released. Which means even more hooks that have to be filled.

I was given no briefing about said memo.

This may be a bit of work in regards to coding but is there anyway that we can have 2 caps for decorations in large strongholds like Tatooine and Yavin 4. The first cap would be the same as it is for the small stronghold and is what conquest and prestige would base their percentage off of. The second would be the current cap for decor and would prevent any extra decorations from being placed. I ask for two reasons. The first is in regards to conquest. With decoration caps being set so high in the large strongholds it seems like the players who have done well enough to purchase them through in-game currency or cartel coins are almost being punished for buying them. We have to fill the strongholds with a massive amount of decorations to reach the 100% for the same boost to conquest that smaller strongholds have. This seems counter to the idea of buying the larger strongholds and proving our standing (as said by the Imperial quest giver). A soft cap for the percentage boost would give us a better reason to spend time and money on the larger strongholds since we would have more freedom to decorate. The second reason is from an visual perspective. Having to deal with putting in such a tremendous amount of decorations (especially on Tatooine with it's 900 piece cap) means the areas tend to become rather crowded and cluttered. It's nice to have the ability to place that much but there are very few ways to do that without the whole thing becoming a giant pile of junk. Having the two caps in place would mean we could recieve our 100% conquest fill without having to make a mess of the entire stronghold and we can tell the stories that make sense for us. To give an example, I have the Tatooine stronghold and have been shaping it as the smuggler's gun running home base. After the limit increase it has become less like a thriving smuggling operation and closer to the junk yard Watto was running in Episode 1.

You are speculating. SCORPIO never indicated what was taken from her. Furthermore, the Eternal fleet has always been under operation by droids. Lana and Koth talk about this during The Gravestone mission. It would stand to reason that during those hundreds of years the controlling force would be considerable. SCORPIO sanctions handled ancient ground tech for thousands of years. GEMINI could have done the same with the fleet. It's possible that SCORPIO could have been referring to taking control from GEMINI as the constellation droids may share a close bond especially ones that have compatible signs. (Oddly enough I am a Gemini and a number of my exes are Scorpios. Including the borderline psychotic that set me on fire one time {she really reminds me of SCORPIO}) Both of us are guessing as to what might have happened and we won't have confirmation till it's explained in a chapter down the line.

I did a bit of reading on the various ancient civilizations and I have to believe both the Eternal Fleet and the origins of the Zakuul civilization are from the Celestials. The following is my reasoning. First and minor in note- SCORPIO and her counterpart that is in control of the Eternal Fleet to some degree (GEMINI) are both named after constellations. Its a bit of a reach since they are earth related but it's just a basic thought for this idea. Second- The Celestials were the ones that seeded the galaxy with human civilizations. Additionally many of the civilizations that have contact with Celestials have a serpent or similar motif in much of their art and culture. This falls in line with the art and religion of Zakuul. Third- Assuming The Gravestone is Rakata in origin a few pieces of history fall into place. The Rakata were known for using the Dark side of the force, hence why The Gravestone has a Dark Sanctuary and an almost Sith like quality. There was a point in time where a small war broke out between the Rakata and the Celestials. The Celestials left the galactic stage sometime shortly after that fight but much of their tech still lies throughout the galaxy. It's possible The Gravestone pushed back the Celestial fleet but when the plague that severed the Rakata from the force hit them, the Rakata decided to scuttle the ship rather than let another power have control of it. This is just a theory but it seems at least some decent evidence to support it. Probably a bit more if we find Vector with the outer rim Killiks and they know details about the Eternal Fleet.

It was mentioned that a few categories were not split due to the low number of items that were available in that category. On that note we may want to look at increasing the separation in some areas. It was mentioned that armor, weapons and color crystals have an over abundance of items which makes packs that contain all the gold level armor in 6 rounds of cartel packs still a bit overwhelming. Maybe splitting that in half or thirds might ease some of the tension of the randomness. I know the lottery system isn't ever going away. Talking to the various Devs I've met at the cantina events about the system has made that clear. And they are right the system is a bit better in terms of revenue for the game when I look at the long view. The problem is that while some randomness is good if to much variance is crammed in players will lose hope that a big payout is waiting at the end of the mini-lottery.

One of the things that concerns me with the changes made to how the packs are deployed and then moved out is that the chance that we will never see older packs again and the chance to raise reputation with those factions has been reduced to minuscule percentages.. With the original design there was a chance that embargoed packs would pop back up and we would have a chance to build rep for those exclusive vendor items and titles. With this change we have to hope that the packs already bought will be enough to sustain any players that want to build those reputations both now and in the future as the player base expands.

I was thinking along the lines of an actual stronghold similar to the yavin4 and Tatooine ones. Gravestone has a big part to play in the story and may not survive the trip.

I once heard that the ship Arccan flies around in would be a good guild ship. After going through the story and seeing a lot of the new decorations I think it would work better as a personal stronghold. The players could decorate it as a neutral mobile operations center for their alliance. General thought would be Nine areas similar to the Tatooine stronghold with 3 starship or massive structure hooks, 1 being inside the engine room which can contain one of the sun generators or be modified for smaller large structure hooks. The other two starship hooks would be in the hanger area where you could look out either side of the ship.

With the changes being made that move items from obsolete or embargoed packs to the other system I was wondering how we would earn rep with the factions tied to those packs. Items that were sold from those vendors will still be important to some people so I assume there will be a plan for obtaining reputation from them in the future? Same question goes for planetary rep like Voss as well.

They seem to revert at least temporarily to their original form. During a scene before the end of Chapter 9 HK-51 is talking to someone and is in his normal form even though I had the Mannan customization equipped to him prior to starting Kotfe.