It's December! Here's what I've been blogging about in November: Impressions from the 7.6 PTS - My first impressions of the new dynamic encounter system as it was on the PTS Galactic Season 7 in Review - I know it's not technically over yet, but I've done enough to know how I feel about it 7.6 Dev Stream Reactions - Thoughts about various things that were announced, plus a bunch of silly gifs Happy Birthday to the Shae Vizla Server! - Commemorating the first birthday of SWTOR's APAC server Character Modernisation Panic on the PTS - A tale of how small bugs can get people to freak out big time My Experience with the New Lair Boss on the PTS - In short, I was relieved that it was more fun than R-4 Around the SWTOR-sphere: October & November 2024 - Links to pieces of content by other people that I found interesting

... but then I looked at some of my body type 2 ladies and the ageing was real! I don't think I need to explain what's different here... you may want to review some settings on these!

After hearing people comment negatively on this I went onto the PTS to have a look for myself and IMO results are a bit mixed. My body type 4 ladies looked good to me - like for me personally, this looks good...

After finishing my 25 encounters on Tat Imp side, I just have to add that the DE "Scavengers Tale 3" needs better indicators for what to do. I kept clicking the barrels whenever the droid was near them and thought they were just bugged since nothing happened... I actually tabbed out and searched this thread for comments about this encounter mid-combat until I found one that explained what you're supposed to do. Maybe if it showed an animation for you carrying the barrel, it would be clearer. Other than that, my favourite encounter on Tat Imp side was definitely the one that had you experimenting with the banthas. Seeing the different effects was entertaining.

Here are links to everything I posted in October: Around the SWTOR-sphere: September 2024 - Some SWTOR content from other creators that I enjoyed throughout the month Looking for Good Views - I comment on the return of the Best View in SWTOR contest 7.6 Sneak Peek! - I get excited about the latest short video on the official YouTube channel SWTOR Comes to the Apple Mac - Just spreading the word! Is it worth it? Adventures on Oricon - I talk about the experience of doing the Oricon storyline and dailies at the same time (now that this is possible) Once More With Feasting - I express love for the Feast of Prosperity! A Mini GTN Rant - Just who comes up with these recommended prices sometimes?!

After doing Tatooine on Rep side, I don't think I have as much to add about this planet. Overall, it seemed somewhat less buggy than Hoth, though also a little less polished in terms of things like animations, with a lot of mobs just standing around with no special poses or animations. There were also noticeably fewer DEs here than on Hoth. On Hoth I was always travelling back and forth across the planet and there were always encounters everywhere - more than I could possibly do in time. On Tatooine I was constantly hopping around the map to find one more encounter and even ran out completely at one point. Not sure whether that would be an issue on live when people will also be doing other things. I really liked the "band trilogy" here (especially the gonk droid mission) and bantha wrangling in the space port was fun too. Overall it felt like there were a lot more DEs here though that were just "kill x mobs" than on Hoth. The latter planet seemed to have more variety.

Did 25 Imperial DEs on Hoth today, so I got some more notes on those. In general I was a little disappointed by how many encounters seemed to be the same for both factions as I was hoping for more faction-specific ones, but that's just a side note. I would however like to second a previous comment that it would be helpful if DEs with stages gave some kind of indication that there are stages, so you can better judge whether you'll actually have enough time to complete the encounter or not. Some more feedback on specific events: Relic Race: This one was a bit frustrating because there were way too few mobs to achieve the required percentage. I think I did three laps of the area before achieving completion, and I was the only one there so there wasn't any competition. There either need to be more enemies or the existing mobs need to award more progress. Hidden Chain Assault: I joined this one while someone was fighting the lieutenant, didn't get completion, but the event immediately restarted on the same spot so I thought I was just progressing to another stage. I only realised what had happened when the lieutenant spawned again. Ice Fishing: Returning to this on Imp side, I finally figured out what to do by watching other players do it, hurrah! I think the "look for the shadows" instruction is confusing and should be replaced with something like "look for the cracks in the ice", because that's where I would've looked to begin with if the "shadows" instruction hadn't sent me on a wild goose chase looking for some other indicator. Lost Inventory: This mission asks you to kill White Maw Forces, but only the humanoids in the area count. I would expect White Maw droids to also count as "forces". King of the Wampas: This was by far the hardest DE I've encountered so far - which is not something I'm against, but it took me completely by surprise, since other fights against single champion mobs hadn't been nearly as rough. If the map indicator was supposed to warn me, I didn't really get it.

Some more notes after completing 25 Republic DEs on Hoth: It's been mentioned before, but some encounters in Icefall Plains feel like they shouldn't be available to Republic characters, or at least only if you're a saboteur. As a loyalist it definitely felt wrong to kill Jedi for "Shadows in the Snow" and to free Imperial spies from the Talz for "Scouts Honor". The latter seemed to get somewhat confused in the sense that the Talz were red to me, but after I'd killed enough of them for the event, they no longer attacked me and I could no longer attack them (I got a "target not enemy" message if I tried to do so). Doing "Wamp Womp" with another player was fun, but I didn't actually see where they were and I never saw where the boss wampa spawned. I still got completion credit for when and wherever the other guy killed it, but it would be good to have some kind of indicator for where to go for that stage. Also, something in this encounter got me stuck in combat, and when I couldn't get out of it even after running halfway across the map, I had to Alt+F4 out of the game. When I did the DE to save the bridge from being sabotaged, I didn't get anything after killing the Imperial leader... I think the timer on the encounter may have run out just before I killed him, but it would be good to get some kind of feedback from the game when this happens instead of just being left confused about why the encounter didn't complete. "Wire Consequences" was very cute but also too bugged for me to complete, as the "soothe" action button disappeared after I put the first kitten in a crate. Resetting my UI and leaving/re-entering the area didn't fix it. Re-logging did fix it once so I could rescue a second kitten, but then the button disappeared again, and a second relog didn't make it reappear, so I gave up. On the Ice Fishing one, I couldn't figure out what "shadows" I was supposed to look for. I managed to catch one fish but that felt more like dumb luck than anything else. After being unable to track down another for several minutes I gave up. "Pirate Problem" in Highmount Ridge showed on the main planetary map but didn't show on the the area map for some reason. (It was still there and triggered for me once I ran into the power plant.) Overall this new system looks like a lot of fun and I was impressed by how much variety there was. I figured after doing 25 encounters I'd have seen the lot of them, but since they were rotating all the time there were actually still quite a lot I hadn't seen. My favourite of this lot was the one to collect ice tromper fur... it was just a quick bit of fun and even the "fail state" amused me. I can't say I had a clear least favourite aside from where there were bugs or I didn't understand what was going on as per above, though the "encounter progress shared" events felt like they were clearly designed for multiple people and felt kind of tedious when I had to do one by myself.

I've only done the encounters for Republic players in the first area on Hoth so far, but wanted to take some notes before doing more. The DEs were easy to find but I think that's in part because we're all specifically here to test them and I went in with a character that had no other missions in her log. I worry a bit that in a live environment, the DE map icons may actually be a bit "too much" and crowd out other, more important information. For example the green glow usually indicates a mission hand-in, but all the DEs seem to have it too. I also noticed that not all of them looked the same, but I've got to admit that with no map key, I couldn't tell what the difference between different icon variants was supposed to indicate. While doing the Imperial attack on the main outpost, I got a bit confused when it got to the walker stage, as the map indicator disappeared and the walker spawned out of my sight, so I had to run around a bit to find it. While driving through an area where I had already completed a DE and it was no longer up, the intro voice-over would still play again whenever I drove past. The treasure hunting mission was a bit strange. I figured the Ortolan was selling different items to rip people off and they would all do the same thing, but then I used one and found nothing. Also, the snow piles to dig in can spawn quite a distance away from your character, with no indication that anything has actually happened, so might be easy to miss, especially if there are also other players around. (When I played there was nobody else around so I eventually found the snow pile I had spawned.)

Enjoy my usual summary of posts I made in September! Lessons Learned from Training Bessi - After completing the grind for my very own Basilisk droid, I reminisce about some of the things I learned along the way Legacy-wide DvL Tokens and More - Some notes about patch 7.5.1b I Got the Twitch Mount - Now What? - I used the occasion of earning the Orlean Voidstream mount to investigate SWTOR's overall stats on Twitch Talking PvP & More with Ivano 1337 - I went on a podcast! When Will We Get 8.0? Will We Ever? - I talk about a question I'm seeing people ask more and more often Mid-Season Doldrums - How Galactic Season 7 is going for me so far

Here's what I wrote about on the blog in August: PvP Season Six Finished - Some quick thoughts on how the most recent changes to PvP seasons played out for me Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Again - My opinions on this year's changes to the event Achievements I Would Add to Old Content - What it says in the title. Acknowledge my sneaking skills in the Black Hole! Could Flashpoints Become Endgame Again? - Suggestions for how to invigorate (master mode) flashpoints Galactic Season 7 Starts Tomorrow - My outlook on the new season before it started First Impressions of GS7 - No story, a new meta achievement, and pugging DvL bosses is rough Getting KotFE Flashbacks in the New WoW Expansion - ...is what happens when you get called "Outlander" in familiar voices

I would guess there's some technical reason, since Alliance alerts don't open up until you've done chapter 9 of KotFE, and there are no "are you sure you want to be in a romance with this character" lock-in pop-ups in the base game so romances seem to function differently there.

July has been another busy month on the blog! Mount Sale Shopping Tips - I had some advice for how to make the most of the big Cartel Market mount sale while that was going on Galactic Season 6 in Review - My thoughts on everything GS6: theme, rewards, objectives, story & that pesky Blueprint Fragments achievement My 7 Favourite Post-Launch Story Updates - The expansion storylines don't always get a lot of love, but I appreciate many of them! Adventuring With Bessi - My thoughts on our little Basilisk droid so far The Acolyte (No Spoilers) - My review of the latest Disney+ Star Wars show Brief PSA: Shintar No Longer on Twitter - What it says on the tin 7.5.1 Dev Livestream Notes - Opinions and impressions of everything new that was announced there Flying Robots, Account-Wide Surprises, Decoration Sale - Just some random thoughts on a Friday Playing as a Male Character - I get a bit philosophical about why it took me more than a decade to complete a class story as a male character Around the SWTOR-sphere: June & July 2024 - The (bi-)monthly link grab bag returns!

Can confirm that this seems to affect other missions as well. Doing "Road to Nowhere" right now and during the bit where Rass is supposed to comment on explosives lying around etc. it's just complete silence.

With Galactic Season 6 slowly winding down, I've been posting about other things again in June: Spring Abundance - First impressions of the new spring event Drop In: Yavin 4 - In the last installment of my drop-in series (for now), I visited a number of public Yavin 4 strongholds Being in Guilds on Other Servers - I look back on how my attempts to be social on other servers have gone Legacy Level 50 on Star Forge - A short bit of reflection on this achievement Desperate Defiance - NOW We're Getting Somewhere! - An in-depth review of 7.5's newest story update PvP: Queues, Rewards & Healer Power - I ramble a little about some concerns I have in regards to PvP The Abundance Festival in Review - More thoughts on the spring event after doing it religiously for four weeks A Year at Broadsword - What has changed for us as players? Where Is the Group Content? - A question I've seen a lot of people in my social circles ask in recent months