There are some things that I never understood about Coruscant/DK

[BelorfinSiana]

Beta aside, I've been playing this game since it first went F2P.

1. Was there ever a Coruscant bonus series? I don't remember seeing one.  Shame because Coruscant was always the most fun planet for me.  I never understood why a boring planet like Taris got a bonus series but not an interesting planet like Coruscant.

2. What was the point of all that "take a break" stuff between chapters, where you're told to go to the capital world and take some time off?  Finish a planet, like Alderaan or some space station. Ship's holoterminal. Capital planet for debriefing. Back to your ship's holoterminal for new orders.  And on that note...

3. Birthright/inheritance etc. kits.  Aside from chapter completion, I never understood where you were supposed to get these.  Irrelevant now, since the armor appearances can be bought elsewhere like the adaptive vendor.  I remember such kits being exceedingly rare.  Never found one in the wild.

4. Why no legacy storage on capital worlds?  You've got a cargo hold, a gtn kiosk, but you're forcing me to go to the fleet if I want to use legacy storage.  I don't get it.

[Ominovin]

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1. Was there ever a Coruscant bonus series? I don't remember seeing one.  Shame because Coruscant was always the most fun planet for me.  I never understood why a boring planet like Taris got a bonus series but not an interesting planet like Coruscant.

Coruscant and Drommond Kaas are both already pretty full worlds (being '6 level' planents rather than the typical '4 levels') so there really isn't a lot of room for a bonus series.

I think you could consider the Gree missions to be the Coruscant bonus series...

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3. Birthright/inheritance etc. kits.  Aside from chapter completion, I never understood where you were supposed to get these.  Irrelevant now, since the armor appearances can be bought elsewhere like the adaptive vendor.  I remember such kits being exceedingly rare.  Never found one in the wild.

They used to be rewarded by missions, but they were taken out a long time ago.  I think you could purchase some of them from the Space Mission vendor as well.

I know I have the better part of a bank tab filled up with them on one character...

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4. Why no legacy storage on capital worlds?  You've got a cargo hold, a gtn kiosk, but you're forcing me to go to the fleet if I want to use legacy storage.  I don't get it.

Legacy vaults were originally exclusive to strongholds, but were eventually added to the fleet for convenience since it is where players are supposed to hang out.  They really don't want players 'hanging out' on the capital world since it could create lag issues for characters actually trying to play the storyline there (the fleet stations were actually a last-minute addition to the game when they realized the capital worlds couldn't really handle the additional strain).

Edited May 7 by Ominovin

[ThanderSnB]

5 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

1. Was there ever a Coruscant bonus series? I don't remember seeing one.  Shame because Coruscant was always the most fun planet for me.  I never understood why a boring planet like Taris got a bonus series but not an interesting planet like Coruscant.

It may have been something to with not using too many server resources on one planet. The starter planets and capital planets already would have high populations because all the new alts players were creating. On top of that, the capital planets were originally the main hubs for both sides, so they had a ton of players just hanging out and using the various services there. The fleets were only added as a result of player feedback during beta. Adding a bonus series would mean even more players on one planet. Also, the stories and missions to be added had already been decided before beta. Voicework was already recorded. It wasn't something they could change later after the fleets were added.

5 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

2. What was the point of all that "take a break" stuff between chapters, where you're told to go to the capital world and take some time off?  Finish a planet, like Alderaan or some space station. Ship's holoterminal. Capital planet for debriefing. Back to your ship's holoterminal for new orders.  And on that note...

There were more things to do while leveling than just story missions including warzones, flashpoints, space missions, and crafting. They wanted to encourage players to explore more of the game and not just follow the story path. These breaks allowed players to return to lower level planets for bonus series, work on their crafting, catch up on flashpoints they missed, wander around and explore previously visited planets, kill world bosses, do heroics, etc. The time spent doing this was incorporated into the class story. There are weeks or months between the end of one chapter and the start of another. In that time the hero is supporting their faction, but it's the player's story because they are the one deciding what missions to do.

5 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

3. Birthright/inheritance etc. kits.  Aside from chapter completion, I never understood where you were supposed to get these.  Irrelevant now, since the armor appearances can be bought elsewhere like the adaptive vendor.  I remember such kits being exceedingly rare.  Never found one in the wild.

After finishing class story, they gave players a little carrot to encourage starting a new alt. This got players to make alts. Bioware was hoping they would get into the class story and spend more time playing the game. They were meant to be rare so players wouldn't kit out an alt with a full set of gear. They only wanted alts to have one or two items to help in the early levels when characters have few abilities.

5 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

4. Why no legacy storage on capital worlds?  You've got a cargo hold, a gtn kiosk, but you're forcing me to go to the fleet if I want to use legacy storage.  I don't get it.

I think the main reason is they think it's better for players to be concentrated on one hub and not split between two hubs. If capital planets have more services, you end up with some players there and some players on fleet. They can't communicate very well with players in the other hub. It makes it harder for players to form groups, find guilds, etc.

Edited May 7 by ThanderSnB

[Shayddow]

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I think the main reason is they think it's better for players to be concentrated on one hub and not split between two hubs.

 Now, when this is no longer a factor (there are legacy banks on Odessan), it would be good to Add legacy bank to Coruscant and DK. If guild banks can be there, legacy banks should too.

Although with strongholds, I can just pop into one of those to visit mine, or I have legacy bank on my ships as well (that's a legacy perk).

 

Waiting between chapters to "rest". They used to make you go in order, you'd have to finish off a planet before you could go to the next, and as previous poster says, it gave you time to catch up with other aspects of the game if you wanted. Group activities, pvp, etc.

 

[SteveTheCynic]

6 hours ago, Ominovin said:

I think you could consider the Gree missions to be the Coruscant bonus series...

The Gree missions on Coru and the Revanite stuff on DK (see Sandor next to the "The Wall" taxi point) are the <Planetary Arc> missions, similar to the Thana Vesh stuff on Imp Taris (etc.).

[Pirana]

8 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

Beta aside, I've been playing this game since it first went F2P.

1. Was there ever a Coruscant bonus series? I don't remember seeing one.  Shame because Coruscant was always the most fun planet for me.  I never understood why a boring planet like Taris got a bonus series but not an interesting planet like Coruscant.

2. What was the point of all that "take a break" stuff between chapters, where you're told to go to the capital world and take some time off?  Finish a planet, like Alderaan or some space station. Ship's holoterminal. Capital planet for debriefing. Back to your ship's holoterminal for new orders.  And on that note...

3. Birthright/inheritance etc. kits.  Aside from chapter completion, I never understood where you were supposed to get these.  Irrelevant now, since the armor appearances can be bought elsewhere like the adaptive vendor.  I remember such kits being exceedingly rare.  Never found one in the wild.

4. Why no legacy storage on capital worlds?  You've got a cargo hold, a gtn kiosk, but you're forcing me to go to the fleet if I want to use legacy storage.  I don't get it.

1) No, there never was. Going off memory, but Taris was the first planet to have the bonus series on the Republic side, Imp side, don't recall.
2) To slow the player down. There was almost no end game content when the game releaed. GSF didn't exist, Warzones, I don't recall, One Operation in EV and roughly seven FP's on each factional side
3) From what I can recall, at least on the Republic side, on Coruscant where you continue your storyline. There was a birthright vendor, not sure if it's still there anymore.
4) Legacy, only going off memory here and without looking it up. Legacy was originally only designating characters in your tree. I don't recall there being a Legacy storage when the game first launched and by the time it was implemented, leveling was far too easy, and the fleet option was early on. 
 

[Traceguy]

22 minutes ago, Pirana said:

There was a birthright vendor, not sure if it's still there anymore

Yep, they're still there right outside the capital building. I actually have a few legacy birthright kits too in my bank for the sake of collecting.

 

[Pirana]

2 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

Yep, they're still there right outside the capital building. I actually have a few legacy birthright kits too in my bank for the sake of collecting.

 

Alright cool, thought there was, but it's been too many years and they're not on the radar any longer. lol

[SteveTheCynic]

3 hours ago, Pirana said:

1) No, there never was. Going off memory, but Taris was the first planet to have the bonus series on the Republic side, Imp side, don't recall.

Pubside Balmorra.

3 hours ago, Pirana said:

3) From what I can recall, at least on the Republic side, on Coruscant where you continue your storyline. There was a birthright vendor, not sure if it's still there anymore.

As noted, yes.

3 hours ago, Pirana said:

4) Legacy, only going off memory here and without looking it up. Legacy was originally only designating characters in your tree. I don't recall there being a Legacy storage when the game first launched and by the time it was implemented, leveling was far too easy, and the fleet option was early on. 

The legacy system didn't exist at all until patch 1.2.

[SteveTheCynic]

2 hours ago, Traceguy said:

Yep, they're still there right outside the capital building. I actually have a few legacy birthright kits too in my bank for the sake of collecting.

And for the armour sets, they sell non-birthright moddable versions for credits.

[Pirana]

51 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Pubside Balmorra.

As noted, yes.

 

Republic side, Taris. It was in chronological order due to how the leveling was set up. Yes, Balmorra was in there as well, but only a fool would have gone there at such a low level. Level sync hadn't existed yet. 

[Screaming_Ziva]

13 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

Beta aside, I've been playing this game since it first went F2P.

3. Birthright/inheritance etc. kits.  Aside from chapter completion, I never understood where you were supposed to get these.  Irrelevant now, since the armor appearances can be bought elsewhere like the adaptive vendor.  I remember such kits being exceedingly rare.  Never found one in the wild.

I don't remember exactly where you were able to get them but they weren't that rare.

[SteveTheCynic]

4 hours ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

I don't remember exactly where you were able to get them but they weren't that rare.

Various points in the original "class stories" (now "origin stories") but that disappeared long and longer than that ago.

[SteveTheCynic]

5 hours ago, Pirana said:

Republic side, Taris. It was in chronological order due to how the leveling was set up. Yes, Balmorra was in there as well, but only a fool would have gone there at such a low level. Level sync hadn't existed yet. 

Ugh.  I suck.  Yes, Pub Taris == Imp Balmorra.  Sorry.  I suck.  (Did I say that already?)

[Pirana]

16 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Ugh.  I suck.  Yes, Pub Taris == Imp Balmorra.  Sorry.  I suck.  (Did I say that already?)

Stating the obvious can sometimes build character. 

[xordevoreaux]

On 5/7/2024 at 1:30 AM, Ominovin said:

  They really don't want players 'hanging out' on the capital world since it could create lag issues for characters

I reject this notion outright. We certainly do not know the developer's collective thoughts on a far-fetched notion of lag-producing hanging-out people, and lag is relative. Latency between a given user and the server is different for everyone, and then there is zone sharding with different instances of a given planetary experience opening up and closing as its population swells and drops down over the course of the day.

Edited May 9 by xordevoreaux

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, xordevoreaux said:

I reject this notion outright. We certainly do not know the developer's collective thoughts on a far-fetched notion of lag-producing hanging-out people, and lag is relative. Latency between a given user and the server is different for everyone, and then there is zone sharding with different instances of a given planetary experience opening up and closing as its population swells and drops down over the course of the day.

And there's also the bad behaviour, long witnessed and commented-upon, of the game client when there are lots of players in view.  (Coupled with some people's tendency to conflate server lag because of Internet stuff on the one hand with the game client's reduction in achievable FPS in conditions with lots of players around...)

[Ominovin]

7 hours ago, xordevoreaux said:

I reject this notion outright. We certainly do not know the developer's collective thoughts on a far-fetched notion of lag-producing hanging-out people, and lag is relative. Latency between a given user and the server is different for everyone, and then there is zone sharding with different instances of a given planetary experience opening up and closing as its population swells and drops down over the course of the day.

And your rejection is largely irrelevant:  It is fairly well known that the capital worlds were the 'hang out' point at one point pre-launch, but that was found to create issues and the fleet stations were implemented in a hurry (hence both having the exactly same layout with only minor cosmetic differences) to serve this purpose.  This is also why the Black Talon story makes so little sense (this transport is the only ship available at the fleet station???) as it was presumably written with Korriban/Hutta as your point of embarkation...

In a game like this, you want to have a single central hangout location:  Splitting this up among multiple locations just makes life more difficult for the players and can make the game seem less populated than it actually is.  Developers encouraging players to hang out in other locations is basically them shooting themselves in the foot...

[BelorfinSiana]

Speaking of making the game seem less populated than it is... I think the concept of instances is outdated.  New instances get created too soon, at some pretty low population numbers.  It's understandable for the fleet or capital planets, but who wants to be on a planet like Tatooine with only 10 players?

[Pirana]

3 hours ago, Ominovin said:

And your rejection is largely irrelevant:  It is fairly well known that the capital worlds were the 'hang out' point at one point pre-launch, but that was found to create issues and the fleet stations were implemented in a hurry (hence both having the exactly same layout with only minor cosmetic differences) to serve this purpose.  This is also why the Black Talon story makes so little sense (this transport is the only ship available at the fleet station???) as it was presumably written with Korriban/Hutta as your point of embarkation...

In a game like this, you want to have a single central hangout location:  Splitting this up among multiple locations just makes life more difficult for the players and can make the game seem less populated than it actually is.  Developers encouraging players to hang out in other locations is basically them shooting themselves in the foot...

From what I can remember, this was the case. Considering the older forums are no longer around, as in the first forums we had prior to launch that were abruptly removed before launch day, it's a tough find. 

For anyone curious, we had a completely different forum during beta, including a huge section for forming guilds, and with little to no warning, it was removed, people were in an uproar because it was wiped, not transitioned, so people that were forming guilds and online relationships prior to launch, had better of jotted the information down elsewhere. One of many red flags about this game's terrible launch.

People can still go back and find all the issues we had with this game from perusing the patch notes back in December of 2011, it was a sht show, stability was terrible. Huge game such as this using the alpha Hero engine was nothing short of a joke, and quite a few of us questioned the decision. So to think that lag wouldn't have tried to be alleviated on starter planets is simply being naive. 

[xordevoreaux]

14 hours ago, BelorfinSiana said:

Speaking of making the game seem less populated than it is... I think the concept of instances is outdated.  New instances get created too soon, at some pretty low population numbers.  It's understandable for the fleet or capital planets, but who wants to be on a planet like Tatooine with only 10 players?

Doesn't seem too soon when you're stumbling over each other on Yavin and yet there's only 10 of you on the planet, no extra instance has been created yet except for PvP, and you're standing in line 6 deep waiting to click the nest and no one's interested in grouping.

Doesn't seem too soon when everyone's killed all the techs, the only ones who drop quest updates to advance the Face Merchants heroic, there is no other map to go to, and there's no such thing as a PvP map on Coruscant.

Doesn't seem too soon when you want to do the bonus quests on Hutta for destroying the turrets on a heroic but someone's gotten there first and they spawn far slower than other mobs and there's no other map available.

 

[Ominovin]

On 5/10/2024 at 1:12 AM, BelorfinSiana said:

Speaking of making the game seem less populated than it is... I think the concept of instances is outdated.  New instances get created too soon, at some pretty low population numbers.  It's understandable for the fleet or capital planets, but who wants to be on a planet like Tatooine with only 10 players?

Remember that you are only seeing the population for your faction:  The other faction might have a lot more players running around...

Or it could be a case where there is a 40 player cap in an instance but there are 50 players on the planet, so you are probably going to end up with 40 players in instance 1 and only 10 in instance 2.

[Stradlin]

On 5/10/2024 at 12:06 PM, Pirana said:

One of many red flags about this game's terrible launch.

 

...Launch of SWTOR got quite a bit of praise way back when. It went much smoother than most other popular MMos of that time. Were there some server crashes, lots of bugs, bits and pieces of unfinished content? Sure. As was  to be expected in a brand new MMO back then. 

I'm not sure if any MMO has gotten as good reviews as 1.0 of SWTOR did back them. TOR had its issues  and its unpolished bits. Messy launch wasn't among them.

 

People playing didn't compare launch of TOR to some perfect fairytale ideal. Rather, they'd compare it  to their somewhat fresh memories of wow launch, or first wow expansion launches and such. Like there was some 2-3 month period in 2005 where wow in some EU servers quite simply became unplayable during peak hours. 

 

Edited May 11 by Stradlin

[Pirana]

26 minutes ago, Stradlin said:

...Launch of SWTOR got quite a bit of praise way back when. It went much smoother than most other popular MMos of that time. Were there some server crashes, lots of bugs, bits and pieces of unfinished content? Sure. As was  to be expected in a brand new MMO back then. 

I'm not sure if any MMO has gotten as good reviews as 1.0 of SWTOR did back them. TOR had its issues  and its unpolished bits. Messy launch wasn't among them.

 

People playing didn't compare launch of TOR to some perfect fairytale ideal. Rather, they'd compare it  to their somewhat fresh memories of wow launch, or first wow expansion launches and such. Like there was some 2-3 month period in 2005 where wow in some EU servers quite simply became unplayable during peak hours. 

 

Long queues, sometimes well over thirty minutes depending on server, tons of bugs, notably the Commando bug on Coruscant which completely halted the story, where you had to send a ticket in. Or the Sith Sorc bug, same thing, completely halted story progress. Male body type four, which prohibited players from accessing certain areas, notably datacrons. 

Regarding the praise, no, I remember differently, or maybe because I spent time on the forums trying to get my tickets taken care of and perusing all the other hundreds of complaints. You're right about one thing, no game has a smooth launch, so it's to be expected, but this game did not have a good launch. Compared to New World and a handful of others, yeah, it was a great launch. lol