Alright, folks! Thanks for your patience while I got everything together. I decided to change up how I did the prizes. It became quickly apparent that there were bits that I liked about each Stronghold that needed to be recognized, and I also realized that the way I had set up the prizing categories had been very, very restrictive. If I do the Parade of Homes again, and I would like to, I will structure it a tad differently. But without further ado, here are the results (prize winners, catch me online so I can get you your $$). The pictures, for some reason, did not load on this first one. Comeat'mebro This Tatooine Hangar is really touched off by the crystal in the center. The fountains around the benches really bring the homely feel 'home' to this space. It would be easy for a room this big to feel empty without a bunch of MASSIVE decorations, but he did a good job making it feel full with a minimum of decorations. Best Tatooine Hangar: 50,000 Credits Per'ses http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/nrqayb/Perses.jpg Per'ses had a very welcoming atrium for the Nar Shaddaa home. It wasn't too crowded, and it had a couple of adorable pets taking a bath and looking just generally cute. Best use of Pets: 50,000 Credits Kissmet http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/4zy2wv/Kissmet.jpg One room of Kissmet's Nar Shaddaa palace featured star-crossed lovers caught up in near tragedy. The two Dewbacks, on the sides of the pictures, were from rival gangs. But their kids, in the middle, had fallen in love with each other. Just as the two parents were about to rip each other to shreds, the two lovers stood between them to bring peace to the Dewback community. Best setup to inspire Moormur's Imagination: 50,000 Credits Raistlin http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/tv7n56/Raistlin.jpg Raistlin's Nar Shaddaa home featured perhaps the best bedroom in the Parade of Homes. It was well-appointed and used the planet's somewhat drab color scheme to its advantage, as evidenced by the carpet color and some of the wall decorations. Very well done. Best Bedroom: 50,000 Credits Shevyk http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/xcnw3f/Shevyk.jpg Shevyk embraced minimalism in this room. It wasn't empty, but it didn't use too much furniture. The addition of the companion looking out the window made this a room I just wanted to BE in. Best Use of Wistful Companions: 50,000 Credits Ailynn http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/5ua4vf/Ailynn.jpg Let's be real. Datacrons drop like candy in this game. Because of this, a lot of strongholds use them...liberally in the décor. Ailynn, in a nice Nar Shaddaa home, gave a real feeling of respect and reverence and mystery towards the Datacron by theming a whole room around a single 'cron. Rather than stuff the room full of Datacrons, there was just one, surrounded by some seating, as though this was a special item, a rare item, and one that people would WANT to see. Best use of Datacrons: 50,000 Credits Louvre http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/kwups8/Louvre.jpg As you would hope from someone named "Louvre," the hallways of this character's Dromund Kaas Stronghold really felt regal. The space wasn't too crowded (noticing a theme?), and the use of the plants near the benches give off a private and sophisticated air, and you cannot help but see the symmetry. The throne at the end of the hall balances the whole area. Best Hallway: 50,000 Credits Guanxii http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/hg8r2f/Guanxii2.jpg The many signs that Bioware has flung at us can be tricky to use. Too many, and it's just gaudy. Guanxii did a nice job with the signage in this Dromund Kaas home, announcing the presence of a cantina, but leaving enough mystery to draw patrons inside. Best Use of Signage: 50,000 Credits Ralzhun http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/znc6gu/Ralzhun.jpg The color palate of this Republic Starfighter area is really pleasing. It is balanced on the other side of the hallway by an Imperial-themed Starfighter area, but honestly the color scheme of the blues and yellows and oranges on this side was much better than the reds and blacks of the Imp side (not Ralzhun's fault...it's just the way the game is set up). I happen to know this is an expensive collection to put together in terms of Starfleet Comms, considering that I am currently grinding towards that big Republic information stand on one of my own characters. Best Republic Area: 50,000 Credits Celadonna http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/v6at4w/Celadonna.jpg The Cantina in this Nar Shaddaa palace was well set up as a meeting place for the most wretched and villainous. Clever use of the Stacking (bug? glitch? working as intended?) feature of the Strongholds to get a table dancer. Best Cantina: 100,000 Credits No-la http://sevey13.podbean.com/mf/web/49nsvu/No-la.jpg The second I saw this setup, I KNEW I had a winner here. If you are a Star Wars fan, then I won't need to explain why this clearly wins the Best Use of Companions prize. Best Use of Companions: 100,000 Credits Thank you again to everyone who participated, and thank you for your patience as I put it all together! I have learned a few things that I will integrate into the second Parade...like take a half-day off of work when you want to do this to make sure you don't get sucked in to something else! My goal with this project was to stimulate some creativity amongst members of our server, and showcase what you have to offer. My sincere appreciation to those who opened their homes to me and the public via these pictures. As more decorations come our way, I cannot wait to see what the future of housing holds!

Thanks to everyone who entered! I stopped by everyone I got online or had keys for. All in all, 10 entries. A big success! And thanks to getting bogged down at work, it is late and I am exhausted. I took pics in each house of some of my favorite stuff, so I will post them along with the prize winners here tomorrow. Again, thank you!

Guys, I am so sorry...I am at work right now and we are getting swamped. I will be in meetings likely until 8:00 PM... I will be racing home to get online and take a look at the Strongholds. I have a number of keys already, but if you are not going to be on that late feel free to send a key to one of my alts (or all of them if you want to make sure I can get them). Otherwise, I will do my best to be on by 9:00-10:00 PM. Again, please accept my sincerest apologies. I have been looking forward to seeing all of your creativity, and I still will! It will just be quite a bit later than I hoped.

Thank you everyone who has entered so far. Just over one week until the contest!

If you will not be on at the time, send a key to Moormur on the Empire side, or to Dosi on the Pub side. You can catch me in-game Imp-side as: Moormur Tuk'tuk Cocomo Dabob And on the Pubside as Dosi. If I'm online, I'm willing to chat!

Hmm, I like that. I will need to find some help sponsoring some of the other prizes. I'll look around!

Doctor, I would be willing to do a guild stronghold category, I just don't know where to begin coming up with a category for that which is specific enough to be realistically evaluated. Thoughts?

Announcing the first ever Harbinger Parade of Homes! EDIT: Prizes and Pictures are posted on Page 2! Brought to you on the Republic side by <Rebellion> On Wednesday, September 24th, at 6:00 PM (1800) PST, I will be hosting a Parade of Homes on The Harbinger server. This will not only be a chance to show off your stronghold and knock out some of those Social achievements for people in your house, but you will have a chance to win fabulous cash prizes! To start, I will be offering three prizes for 250,000 credits each in three different categories. If you want to enter, please post below which category you are interested in. All work on your stronghold must be complete by 6:00 PM PST on September 24th, at which points judges will be dispatched to check out your work. Obviously, unless you make prior arrangements and swap keys, you will need to be online at 6:00 PM EST, too. PRIZE CATEGORIES: BEST use of Companions, prize sponsored by <Rebellion> BEST Capitol Stronghold (Dromund Kass or Coruscant) BEST Cantina/Lounge area MORE PRIZES will be announced as they are negotiated (See below) As you decorate, keep in mind that BEST does not mean MOST. If you just dump a bunch of cantina items or companions in a room, you are probably not going to win. It's about aesthetics and how you use your space. Do not be afraid to manipulate objects a bit...rotation or movement on the X or Y axis. GUILD want to get your name out there? Perform public service? Are you sitting on a pile of credits or a really cool item that you have no use for? Then consider SPONSORING a PRIZE. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in offering a prize you simply provide the credits/item, set the criteria, and a few judges. In order to keep the contest interesting, I ask that you provide 250,00 credits or greater or an item/item package with an approximate GTN of 250,000 credits or greater. Your guild or character name will be included in the contest (IE. BEST Agent Room sponsored by YOUR GUILD HERE). Contact me in-game or on this thread if you are interested. This is going to a very fun event! Let's get some community going on and have a fun Parade of Homes!

I'm not sure where you got this notion, but nowhere in any of my posts did I say I do 100% quests on every character. If you had actually read the posts, you would see quite the opposite. In your words, then, should I 'adapt myself" to your playstyle, then? How is it fair for you to tell me how I should enjoy the game? This whole game was pitched to us on the notion that it would make story count. Whether it succeeded in that regard is up to the individual. The point is, as the game was being hyped before launch, EVERYTHING coming out of Bioware was saying this would be the first game where your story was an integral part to your character. How does that reconcile with your notion, then, that if we outlevel a planet we should just chuck off and go to the next one? That would be like starting to read a book, getting 1/2 way through, then deciding that you wanted to read the sequel more, then doing it again, and again. I'll repeat that I'm not talking about doing every side quest on every planet on every character. My point is that, even on one planet, with all the XP we're getting, it's tough to not easily outlevel the content. Throw in a few rounds of PVP and an FP or two, and that's all she wrote. Maybe I'm trying to have my cake and eat it, too, but that's how I see it.

Thank you all for some very constructive ideas in this thread! I appreciate this being an actually civil conversation, lol, as forums tend to degenerate. So well on ya! This is a good idea. I hadn't thought of gear, to be honest. I will try that and see how it goes. In terms of companions, however it wouldn't necessarily work (and this is my personal playstyle, I can totally see why it would work for others and not me) as I tend to gravitate to healers and tanks, and it helps to have companions out. Plus, it sort of goes against the idea of experiencing the content as designed. But I love the gear idea! Gonna try greens only on my next toon! Allow me to explain how I've been playing the game. In general, since launch until about the launch of the CM, I could do all the quests on a planet plus the story and have enough XP to essentially skip the next planet, just doing the story quests, and then be able to enjoy the story and quests on the third planet. This would let me sort of leap from around so that I wasn't doing _every_single_quest on every character. Throw in the bonus quests from time to time, and to be honest there are whole planets that I still haven't done, even now on my fifth character. Yeah, that would be annoying. How it is now, I seem to be completely outleveling content so that I'm hardly able to do any planets because, coming off the starter worlds and a round or two of Black Talon/Esseles, I've already practically outleveled Coruscant or DK, and that just snowballs with all the XP we get. And, as someone else said, doing the same FP over and over could be looked on the same way. Again, this my personal playstyle. I know not everyone plays the way I do. Yeah, that was something I mentioned in my original post. I totally sympathize with this playstyle, too. Perhaps some happy medium, as someone suggested: Or, as I mentioned in my OP, some sort of auto-level button for those who really don't care and just want to be 55. Doesn't WOW do this? I haven't played it, but I had a roommate who did and I seem to remember something like that. My comment there is that you wouldn't necessarily know how to play your class when you get all those skills at once and haven't used them before, but that's a separate discussion. I don't know your history, but I would assume you made that first character before we started getting all the XP bonuses. I would challenge you to try that same character again and not motor to level quickly. On my latest toon, I went from level 1 to nearly 30 in barely two weeks of casual play. And since then, Bioware added yet another XP guild bonus. I really, really liked the idea of getting rid of bonuses, but giving consumables a MUCH higher bonus. That would make everyone happy (assuming Bioware made consumables a bit more freely available to subscribers...otherwise it wouldn't be fair to those who want to level quickly). Heck, even getting a toggle for the +10% guild XP would make me happy. I can avoid rest XP and consumables, but I shouldn't be punished for being social. Thanks for the discussion. Great stuff!

Whoaah there, Bioware. Between the Rest XP, the 5% guild XP bonus, the NEW extra 5% XP bonus for guilds, and whatever else you get through consumables, I feel like the game has been literally cramming XP down my throat these days. I am outleveling content at ridiculous paces. To be fair, using an XP consumable is a choice (and I stopped using them very quickly when I found out how fast I was growing), as is a cantina for Rest XP (though I may point out that the Fleets are almost entirely Rest XP zones...you get it from just walking around in there), as is the now 10% bonus you get from guilds, but I feel like it's getting out of control. Am I supposed to quit my guild just to enjoy the content at-level? I enjoy playing my character, learning the skills, and being challenged. It's tough to do that when I am consistently 3 or 4 levels above the NPCs I fight against. I'll give you an example. On my Trooper, I gained a whole level and a half doing just Hammer Station and Athiss. Then, I did the PVP daily and got almost all the way to the next level. Mind you, I was already a level above my story quest at that point, so now I was nearly 3. So when I went back to questing, I was pretty mindlessly hopping on a speeder and just motoring through from one place to the next, able to just fly right past most mobs because they were doing inconsequential damage. It really wasn't a challenge, and wasn't much fun. Maybe I'm a bit crazy, but I like it when a game is tough. Too many crybabies will go out of their way to avoid a situation where their character might actually DIE once or twice while they figure out the best strategy. I also enjoy exploring the maps and the story, letting things unfold at a natural pace in line with my character's skill level. So when I am able to just bypass whole planets, I get a little sad. Yes, you could say that I could still do those quests, but if you are telling me that then you are missing the point. It's not just about seeing a planet or following a storyline; the game is meant to be a whole package, an 'experience.' They may as well just give people who already have a max-level a button to auto-level to 55 and be done with it, and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy the game.

I don't know if this is helpful to you, but the reality of the content is that, at least for Shroud, it would be impossible to turn it into Single Player content without destroying it. The Heroic at the end of the Macro quest is chock-full of puzzles that simply require four people to do (a single player would not be able to be in four places at once to push buttons, etc.). So unless they stripped away the content entirely and made the penultimate quest to the galaxy-wide search for the covert and super-secret Shroud a simple "walk into this room and kill him," like almost every other quest in the game, then it just can't be done. I would encourage you to really try and get a group, because the finale for the Macro, and the heroic leading up to it, were fantastic.

Across the Expanded Universe, a Star Wars Book Review Blog, is pleased to announce a new feature: The Advantures of Gunslinging Granny. What happens when a 76-year-old decides to leave everything behind to pursue her dream of becoming a world-famous smuggler? Read the first entry at www.eureview.wordpress.com. Here's an excerpt: Well, hello there young fellar! My name is Dosi and I’m 76 years young. My husband, Papa Banting, and I spent many happy years on Parsons VI over in the Hood Sector, living in our cabin on the water. Well, he up and died a few years ago and I figured, what the heck? With Papa gone, what’s keepin’ me here? So rather than go to the Home my ungrateful son picked out for me, I decided to become a starship captain. I looked around and got myself a little ship and took to the stars to start off my next stage of life! http://eureview.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/swtor-2013-01-21-16-50-03-73.jpg This is me! Dosi, the Gunslinging Granny. Now I don’t consider myself political, but you can’t read the mornin’ holo without knowing a thing or two about his cold war we’ve got goin’ with the Sith. I got myself a paying gig running guns for the Republic to Ord Mantell, where there has been some trouble with some o’ the locals. ----- Read the rest at eureview.wordpress.com, and while you're there check out our growing selection of Star Wars book reviews.

Essentially, what has been written for the EU is considered cannon...until it becomes not-cannon in a movie. Take the backstory of the Death Star if you will. Before Episode II came out, the Death Star design had a pretty elaborate backstory that got pretty much thrown out the window (or retconned beyong belief) when Episode II came out. Just to establish what is or is not cannon, here's what Lucasfilm has to say on it (via wookiepedia). ■G-canon is George Lucas Canon; the six Episodes and any statements by George Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never seen by the public). Elements originating with Lucas in the movie novelizations, reference books, and other sources are also G-canon, though anything created by the authors of those sources is C-canon. When the matter of changes between movie versions arises, the most recently released editions are deemed superior to older ones, as they correct mistakes, improve consistency between the two trilogies, and express Lucas's current vision of the Star Wars universe most closely. The deleted scenes included on the DVDs are also considered G-canon (when they're not in conflict with the movie).[1] ■T-canon,[2] or Television Canon[3], refers to the canon level comprising the feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the two television shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Star Wars live-action TV series.[4][5] It was devised recently in order to define a status above the C-Level canon, as confirmed by Chee[6]. ■C-canon is Continuity Canon, consisting of all recent works (and many older works) released under the name of Star Wars: books, comics, games, cartoons, non-theatrical films, and more. Games are a special case, as generally only the stories are C-canon, while things like stats and gameplay may not be;[7] they also offer non-canonical options to the player, such as choosing female gender for a canonically male character. C-canon elements have been known to appear in the movies, thus making them G-canon; examples include the name "Coruscant," swoop bikes, Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura, YT-2400 freighters and Action VI transports. ■S-canon is Secondary Canon; the materials are available to be used or ignored as needed by current authors. This includes mostly older works, such as much of the Marvel Star Wars comics, that predate a consistent effort to maintain continuity; it also contains certain elements of a few otherwise N-canon stories, and other things that "may not fit just right." Many formerly S-canon elements have been elevated to C-canon through their inclusion in more recent works by continuity-minded authors, while many other older works (such as The Han Solo Adventures) were accounted for in continuity from the start despite their age, and thus were always C-canon. ■N is Non-Canon. What-if stories (such as stories published under the Infinities label) and anything else directly and irreconcilably contradicted by higher canon ends up here. N is the only level that is not considered canon by Lucasfilm. Information cut from canon, deleted scenes, or from canceled Star Wars works falls into this category as well, unless another canonical work references it and it is declared canon.