This is another one of those questions I feel like I shouldn't be asking after playing the game for a year But regardless, I've never actually had cause to try or experiment with this. Anyway, I'm just curious if other players can shuttle you to other planets via their starships, ie: Board their ship They take it somewhere else Leave their ship, you are now in a different location than where you boarded I ask because I'm trying to stubbornly figure out a way to get my first Companions Customized before recording any cutscenes involving them in my next series of playthroughs. If I could, say, just grind mobs to 7 (8? whatever) so the Fleet shuttle unlocks on the starter planet, then hitch a ride to Ilum Orbital / Balmorra / Taris, I could hypothetically manage to get each Comp into a new appearance without any incongruous cutscenes.

The thing is, most cutscenes in SWTOR are simply two people staring at each other with some stiff and awkward-looking marionette gestures involved and some lighting/angles/depth-of-field work. They're hardly 'amateur', but they're also not exactly deep or extensive. In fact, when characters start trying to do too much or get too animated, it gets very awkward — camera angles & cuts that are disorienting and don't make sense, the same awkward "rolling" animation played for every dodge/escape, etc. SWTOR is a very talking-heads / soap-opera storytelling style, and it excels at that, because it sucks you in and entices you with Choose Your Own Adventure gameplay which is at the heart of what makes it so appealing. Most of the "action" work is reserved for simply putting a boss in front of you and letting you use your own abilities in realtime — which is 100% appropriate for storytelling game anyway. All of which is to say that while crafting the cutscenes, dialogue branches, VA, etc. is a non-trivial endeavor, I think you're overexaggerating the time involved, especially with BioWare's fondness for recycling models, envrionments, and animations. They're not exactly Hollywood productions or even "machinima" level — vast majority are just kind of "A walks to B, dialogue tree, dialogue tree, dialogue tree, Play Blaster Shot Animation, end cutscene, begin Boss Fight". ie, like theater, it's not really about the visuals themselves so much as the emotion and story behind it, and the strength of the well-chosen voice actors. Similar to why eg, 3DS 2D JRPGs can still suck you in even though you're mostly reading text boxes with static portraits.

The reasoning behind siding with the "Kolto is weaker" sources is that all of our "generic" healing skills in SWTOR use Kolto, while only a single one uses Bacta, and it's a special top-tree "nuke" heal. You could turn that around, and say Kolto is used universally because it's better, and Bacta Infusion is used as an emergency heal for quickness, but I don't think that really makes sense on consideration — if Bacta was the weaker/cheaper option, wouldn't it show up in more abilities? And why would you "save" it for the huge emergency heal? @septembersphinx is correct that sources clash about this, but again, because of the way the devs chose to assign ability names and the gratuitous abundance of Kolto vs. very rare appearance of Bacta, I favor the "Kolto cheap, plentiful, weaker + Bacta rare, expensive, stronger" perspective.

To clarify, we use Kolto in the SWTOR era because Bacta is way way way too expensive right now, hence why one of the only player abilities to use it is the top-tier tree for Troopers — ie, handsomely-funded Republic specforce commandos, and it's a 20-second CD used for emergencies. So yes, you can use Bacta, but you shouldn't be doling it out like candy and lollipops. Kolto is the Neosporin / Bandaid of the SWTOR era; Bacta is like $3000 / month cancer drugs by comparison. Over time technological developments and supply increases will make Kolto obsolete and Bacta the standard-issue med tool it becomes by the time of the Star Wars films, because Bacta is better than Kolto in basically every single way. In SWTOR era though, supply of Bacta is very limited and very expensive.

http://www.torhead.com/ability/aMpnFaR/bacta-infusion

The problem with "How do I make money?" is if there was a simple answer, everyone would do it, and then the average price of everything would rise in accordance with increased spending power since the currency itself would devalue since everyone has more of it, so in the end you would gain nothing from learning what everyone does to make money. In other words — some people have "lots of money" precisely because most people don't, and thus you can branch from there to realizing that the reason some people have lots of money is because they do abnormal things that most people don't. What I mean is if we just tell you "Do this, this, and this" it probably won't work because if it was that simple, more people would do it. And if more people do it, those methods will start to fail to make relevant money and then you'll need to find a new way. ie, you kind of have to learn to sniff out money-making methods on your own, since it's a curve you have to stay awake on because it constantly shifts. The stuff I do right now for credits is way different from what worked 1 year ago. Same basic ideas, but you have to stay on your toes and adapt to shifting markets and trends. That's all I can really offer — observe the market, look at all the different categories and types of stuff, see patterns and trends for what seems flooded and what seems scarce, what sells high, what actually moves vs. what stagnates on the market. Over time, you'll develop instincts for what's a "BUY" kind of trigger (for resale or valuation) vs. what's a "PASS" (not worth the investment, or not likely to sell well, or likely to have too much competition, etc). Same with using CC to get stuff up on market, same with wisely choosing what to Craft and what price to sell it at, etc. People can give you a list of options that generally work, but to make serious money (here, other games, IRL) you have to push the envelope a little further and think outside the box a little. You live in a world with limited resources and high demand for those resources, your mission is to outsmart all the other primates and horde as many seashells for yourself as possible. That means you can't just Pick Up Rock → Hit Termite Mound like every single other chimp is doing. The other side of that coin is just brute force — if creativity fails you, then you can also make "more" by simply doing things other people find unpleasant and are averse to (spending more time managing listings, undercutting/relisting, farming materials, etc). That's boring and depressing, but, it's also the vast majority of human beings' solution to financial security, which should indicate how effective it is when you have willpower. Then, yes, there's the final giant "HIT IT WITH A ROCK" solution of just spending a bajillion $$$ on CM stuff and selling it at undercut prices. This is a good way to make billions of credits if you are independently wealthy and can afford a CC:Credit conversion rate of like 1:250 because RL $$$ means nothing to you and you just want in-game money NOW. Very few people are in a position to go this route, though.

I have no issue with you making a split thread, but just FYI people generally use the other thread as a dumping ground / therapy session for basically any "OMG VVTF" group stories. There's plenty of Op Finder, PUG, Planetary Heroic, etc. stories there and they're always welcome. Honestly I wish I could change the title to be a little more inclusive but alas, that window ended a loooooong time ago.

Right? We might even get a new Tactical Flashpoint reusing assets from Hutta or something!

6 Hypercrates would be about $275, so... no. Further, Legend is not intended for everyone, it's purely a status symbol. The items at Legend status are always silly fluff, unless you have serious OCD for something like... what, Revan's Mask? But even then you could have it faster and cheaper just by selling much less than $275 worth of CCs on GTN and buying the Mask directly. So, yeah, you hit Legend because: You buy that many packs anyway because you're an avid gambler You have OCD and must max every single Reputation to Legend just to do it You really want that Legend-rank item... REALLY badly In all cases the cost becomes mostly-irrelevant. Legend with a Cash Shop reputation is for people with enough disposable income to not care about $200-300 spent on fluff once in a while. That may seem significant to you, but trust me, there are a lot of people in this world for who that's nothing... literally one night out to dinner.

Thanks.

I average 12-20k Rep per Hypercrate. Usually it's right around 15k, but it can jump around a lot if you get "lucky" (heh) with Certificate drops in place of Rep items. You must have the 10% Guild bonus when you're eating the Rep items, otherwise you're just literally wasting money. On average, budget this many Hypercrates total to reach each rep level — ie, to reach Hero (starting from zero rep) you would consume about 2 hypercrates, or 48 packs. (And don't be surprised if you fall slightly short, or way short if you don't have the full 10% Guild bonus): Outsider: 1 crate Newcomer: 1 crate Friend: 1 crate (might fall a little short of this if you get unlucky with crate #1) Hero: 2 crates Champion: 2-3 crates (depends on luck with Rep drops) Legend: 5-6 crates (luck) It's not exact, mind you. I hit Champion with Contraband Resale using only 2 Crates + full Guild Rep bonus (and of course the Subscriber bonus), but I just squeezed by at like 40,080 / 40,000 for Champion. The best thing to do is buy 1 crate at a time, collect the Rep items, and then see where you're currently standing (you can eat them as they drop if you're in 10% Rep Bonus guild and subbed, otherwise, save them until you have both bonuses active). Also remember Rep caps at 36,000 / week for Cartel reps so if you're pushing Champion or Legend you'll stall out before you get there in the first run.

It is utterly inane to apply this discount to the Starfighter packs, which are already near-worthless and flooded beyond belief (because the contents are 90% ugly garbage). The Shipment 1 packs are a great idea, though, because those supplies are at trickle-point now. I suspect the sudden Shipment 2 re-sale recently was a mistake, considering how glitchy its purchase was and that the CM went haywire when it first appeared. Since the last Shipment 2 crate was extremely recent. That was bad form, since it took the flooded Shipment 2 stuff still lingering from the last Crate and just drove it straight into the floor. I saw it appear in CM and just went "nope.gif" and have pulled my Ship 2 stuff off GTN to sit in cargos for a month or two until this newest flood thins out. So, yeah, I agree with you on a lot of points. Encouraging flooding of already-flooded packs is gutting their value — I mean even under normal circumstances I have to practically give people Dogfighter packs to get rid of them, for example. Now maybe I'll pay them to take them.

Yeah, I've done the delete thing too, I agree it works instantly for that. I'm wondering if the 30 days is a reservation period, though. In WoW for example, your name is locked out from use by anyone else for 3 months after your rename, whereas it's instantly available if you Delete the character — even if they're max level and 8 years old or whatever. The 30 day waiting period between changes made me wonder if SWTOR has a similar grace period to prevent your old name being "misappropriated" by someone else right away.

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere — I did try Googling, but just found endless pages of people whining about not getting free name changes as subscribers. So, okay, I have another one of my Insane RP Schemes™ for my next leveling character but I want to avoid any nasty surprises. So here's my question: How long after your Rename is your old name 'protected'? Is it available again immediately? If it's not available again immediately, is it locked out from everyone (including you), or is your account exempted? In other words, I know you can't Name Change more than once per 30 days (I think that's the limit). But after that 30 days is up, could you switch back to your old name again immediately?

I choose disposable income and both!

Welp, time to clean house on all those little bits of my Collections I was missing. Bless you, flooded markets. ♥

I would much prefer to be a Wookiee with an Ewok mount. Possibly juggling active vibroknives while Baby Elephant Walk plays for everyone nearby as I pass.

Considering who Vitiate actually gets owned by, I don't give him much credit to hold up to Donald from DLC, much less a hero from another game franchise.

I think we would see a lot of threads from bitter PvP players complaining their mount no longer stands out now that Rancor players can run around in Voltaic Vandal and Energized Champion sets.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. 6% is the same penalty whether you sell 20 items for 50,000 each or 1 item for 1mil. You basically don't like seeing bigger numbers in the "Withholdings" section of your paycheck. Yet you're ignoring the bigger number in the "Paid" section.

That is what the Featured section is for. Only a few items are "permanently discounted" (and thus not Featured) but then you have all the time in the world to notice those, too (ie, if you need to buy them at some point... they will still be "on sale").

Can those things even occur separately?

I don't understand your hostility, or the need for such extremely juvenile and unconstructive sarcasm. I'm a huge fan of the game (as should be obvious from most of my posts here), I invest plenty into the CM (for my own enjoyment), and I didn't say it's doing badly in the pure-doom sense. It is, however, not releasing content anywhere close to the pace or scale of other sub games like WoW or even other F2P/Cash Shop games like GW2 and Rift. What SWTOR produces in a year is honestly very, very modest, which makes me question the "doing well" part. There are many ways for a game to be sickly, and profitability or not is only one aspect — there are so many knobs and levers in the game development and product-control process from parent company on down. This does not feel like a healthy game. It doesn't feel like a dying game, but it also doesn't feel like one that has full enthusiastic support from all necessary corners and is vibrantly thriving internally. Regardless of all this, you've gone ape over a tangent which is separate from my response to the OP, which was to state that blaming CM and its supporters for lack of PvE content is severely mis-aligning your crosshairs.

Yeah but that was when CM was new and sort of re-invigorating the game. From what I understood lately the zeal there has sort of tapered off and left the game in a bit of a lull state, with less emphasis in reports, and a general underlying suspicion that development is actually slowing down and padding out, not accelerating. And even with the Cash Shop flogging I don't think the game ended as what it was expected to be, which was probably delusional to begin with but still crashed its long-term content potential and put it into "Benefit us or die" mode. The content rate and content quality just doesn't reflect to me a game that has a lot of breathing room or support in its development. That sounds mean, but it's not — I like the game and I like the new stuff they're releasing, I see a lot of effort and improvement going on, but it feels like even the devs themselves are pulling teeth to get there. So yeah, that's my primary thrust — CM is justifying & subsidizing SWTOR's existence, more or less. It's not an "either / or" choice for BioWare, it's "do this to survive" plus "then do as much of this as possible".

That's because creating "saving the galaxy" doesn't pay the bills, because they tried that, and it didn't pay the bills. I would say the correct place to put blame is on all the people who unsubbed or weren't playing when BioWare was still trying to play it straight like a classic MMO and release primarily PvE-focused content patches. If you would like to donate $50 million per year to the BioWare SWTOR Flashpoint Creation Fund they will probably drop what they're doing and get scrambling on a few new HMs, though. Until then, eschewing CM for reasons of principle doesn't change anything other than drive the game farther from creating unprofitable content by denying them their primary profit maker. Like it or not, BioWare's overseers were not pleased with the results when they forced SWTOR out the door despite it clearly not being ready (go figure, right?). The whip came down, the crew was stripped to bare-bones maintenance levels, and the game went into survival mode. At this point it's not clear how EA exactly views SWTOR — a crude success that caught up in its own way, or a disappointment that's simply cheaper to leave running in controlled capacity than euthanize outright — but regardless, the overlords' perspective does not seem very generous. ie — the content trickle isn't because of CM, it's not because of BW targeting CM players, it's because this is the corner BioWare is boxed into and probably under pressure from angles we don't even comprehend completely. If you deleted all the CM Barbies and replaced them with FP/Op-loving Pod People who boycotted the CM, EA would probably just say "F* this" and shut the servers down — not suddenly go "Oh, you didn't like CM? Sorry, we'll invest even more money into new content that won't make it back instead". Sad? Yeah, I guess. Worth dwelling on? Not really. The game is still plenty of fun if you just enjoy it for what it ended up as.