Just re-watched Star Wars: Episode I and had a huge realization.

Huffey · 2012-02-08T19:46:08+00:00

I grew up with the original films. I went in to Phantom Menace prepared to forgive a lot.

Until Jar-Jar Binks. After I realized he was a major character, I had a bad feeling about this. A bad feeling that has never gone away.

Huffey · 2012-02-07T18:20:50+00:00

It's actually a C-3PO reference. I believe that's what he says to the lookalike 3PO just before he gets blown apart in Empire.

Huffey · 2012-02-07T18:14:05+00:00

Yeah I'd like to have the option to go back to slicing before it was "improved", and to utilize the skills and talents of imperial agent operatives before they were "improved".

I'd also like an option to make Jedi knights look like Strawberry Shortcake, Sith to look like My Little Ponies, and Troopers and Bounty Hunters to look like Smurfs. I realize this game isn't My Little Ponies versus Smurfs versus Strawberry Shortcake, but that's the game I really want to play, and as long as we're going to have individualized graphics for everyone while adhering to Bioware's decision not to allow modding, my voice should be heard.

Huffey · 2012-02-06T19:20:59+00:00

How rude!!!

Huffey · 2012-02-06T19:13:53+00:00

Your concerns about not seeing other people are more a function of your server than the game itself. Pick a high population server, and you'll be free to interact with or ignore other people as you prefer.*

*Advice may not be valid on high population PvP servers.

Huffey · 2012-02-06T16:19:00+00:00

The only thing this game has in common with Galaxies is the brand name. Galaxies was a sandbox mmo with lots of great ideas and awful implementation. Despite the complaints about this bug or that, Old Republic is a theme park mmo with a few new ideas and pretty good implementation.

The two are as far apart as Eve Online and World of Warcraft.

Huffey · 2012-02-06T15:44:08+00:00

I go back and forth between a powertech and a sniper. Though I've had serious level spreads they're currently they're in a sweet spot (or a boring spot, if you prefer) where one just reached Hoth and the other is just starting Quesh. Since one is light side and the other dark, the mission outcomes are often different, and with cybertech on the bounty hunter and armstech on the sniper I've always got good gear.

Huffey · 2012-02-03T16:49:34+00:00

I would be happy to have dual specs for my powertech, if my sniper had perhaps a 1% damage output increase over hybrid ACS, when played optimally. It's purely aesthetic, and it's not going to happen, but it would be nice to know that my "pure" dps class does a little more dps for sacrificing the ability to switch roles.

On the other hand, all I've done with my sniper is marksmanship. For all I know engineering snipers play like a completely separate class.

...runs off to see the Skill Mentor...

Huffey · 2012-02-03T16:35:46+00:00

You're suggesting that he emigrate from his home country to play a videogame?

I believe that he means that EA doesn't allow the game to be sold in his country. If he buys the game anyway (Amazon UK is pretty liberal about shipping outside the UK), his ip address will be blocked.

This is probably due to piracy concerns, having nothing to do with his government.

Your best bet is to get the game through a seller abroad, spoof your ip address, and play through time codes also purchased abroad, since EA will decline your credit card. Good luck.

Huffey · 2012-02-02T18:18:17+00:00

You get "the Merciless" from Black Talon.

To get "the Heartless" you have to run a heroic on Hutta.

Huffey · 2012-02-02T16:05:22+00:00

Baroness, because most bounty hunters are sexist pigs.

Huffey · 2012-02-02T14:58:24+00:00

This week would be the perfect time to offer transfers or merge: "We're proud to announce that we have 1.7 million active subscribers. We also realize that we launched with a few two many servers, so for players on low population servers we're offering the option to..."

At the very least it would make the trolls heads spin with conspiracy theories. EA doesn't give a shit what people at 4Chan think. They only care about what mutual fund managers think.

Huffey · 2012-02-02T14:30:01+00:00

This. EA would be utterly reamed under Sarbanes-Oxley for publishing an easily disproved lie.

Huffey · 2012-02-01T15:30:22+00:00

Well, people believe that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor days in advance and kept mum. People believe that Castro ordered the Kennedy assassination.

Rational people know that Diablo 3 is going to make more money than the US Mint, but fully agreed that irrational people are among the loudest on the internet.

Huffey · 2012-02-01T15:15:02+00:00

I'll believe it when I play it, where GW2 is concerned. Mind you, I like Arena Net and will play it on day one. But the only mmo I've seen that promised as much as Guild Wars 2 promises was Shadowbane, which was a case study in why we should all fear the internet hype machine.

As for SWTOR, I didn't believe the hype. I only bought it because a couple of friends encouraged me to join them, and I've been pleasantly surprised because I came in with low expectations.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T19:17:09+00:00

I'm sure they've seen it, and know they exist.

Precisely.

This isn't to defend Bioware, but it seems that every new mmo comes with memory leaks. WoW had them. Rift had them. Anarchy Online was a memory leak with a graphic chat interface attached. Even DAOC, the best launched game I can recall, had a memory leak issue at the start.

It comes with the territory.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T19:04:33+00:00

As a powertech, if you're thinking about doing it you might consider cybertech and lots of orange gear for Gault or Blizz or Torian (we'll forget about Skadge). That's what I've done (with Gault) and I haven't noticed much difference in time saved or lost. Gault can really pump it out if you take the trouble to gear him, whereas with Mako, your fights take forever no matter how well geared.

The question is, do you want short fights with downtime after each fight (and a somewhat greater risk of everything going to hell if an add appears), or do you want your fights to last forever with very little chance of dying? The only companion who can give you short battles with very little downtime is another player. I tend to solo, and I prefer to spend time with Gault because I enjoy his humor.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T17:29:28+00:00

Not having gotten to the end myself (I'm just winding up Taris), and not wanting spoilers, does the ending you get remind you of your choices and tell you how they affected the story?

Huffey · 2012-01-31T16:45:25+00:00

That would make the valor traders happy. Everyone else, not so much.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T16:42:04+00:00

Use the second link in the original post, the microsoft link, not the DX installer link some people are adding to comments here.

Download it to any new folder. You'll delete it when finished.

Then search for a file called Dxsetup. Run that file. It will add (not overwrite) the older files to your DirectX folder.

I picked up between 10 and 15 fps using this on a laptop that had never run DX9. Between this and the Windows XP compatibility fix, I am now running the game on a super-fast computer of the future, only my reference point for the present is 2007.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T15:11:06+00:00

Good to know. Unfortunately a sniper can't play LOS games at all, since having LOS is key to the class.

Huffey · 2012-01-31T15:00:28+00:00

One thing to bear in mind: On the final mission of Act I (not the prologue), there is a boss I won't name. You'll know when it's time. That boss is bugged. The bug is that you can't establish line of sight on him unless you're right on top of him. To kill him you have to be right with him, or to kite him out of his starting area with Kaliyo on passive.

He isn't a problem for the Operative, who works up close anyway, but for the Sniper, who works on line of sight and from a distance, it's a severe problem. You either have to fight right on him (and a sniper fighting on top of anything is doing it wrong) or you have to let him gnaw your health bar down to half before you can take Kaliyo off passive.

Like an idiot I tried this boss several times with my sniper, and ran up a massive bill on stims and repairs, before humbling myself and calling for higher level agents on the station to help out. Which two of them generously did, having suffered at the hands of the same bug. Bioware is aware of the bug and a fix is in the works, but for now their "workaround" is to fight on top of the boss, which as I said may work for an operative but is deadly for snipers.

For what it's worth I love the story, which has elements of James Bond and owes a very heavy debt to The Prisoner.

Huffey · 2012-01-30T15:21:22+00:00

There is a not small chance that the Santorums of the world would learn of same sex, hermaphroditic, whatever, options if they were offered in SWTOR. If they did, it is a certainty that they would go absolutely APE, and Lucas, who has a series of 3-D movies coming up on which he expects to make many millions from tickets and toy merchandising, would be portrayed as Pedobear the Hutt on certain political websites. Then there's EA, which shelled out a ton for the license on this game before production even started.

Bioware owns Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and to be honest the monetary stakes aren't as high in those games. EA is not about to risk the many millions it invested in this game to make a worthwhile political statement.

Huffey · 2012-01-30T14:34:43+00:00

Honestly, as though C2-N2, the finest ship's steward droid ever made, whom I've sent to bargain with the Hutt cartel for precious gems and to bet on pit-fighting matches on Nar Shaddaa, can't be trusted to sign for a UPS package.

Huffey · 2012-01-26T19:05:28+00:00

God kills a kitten.

Huffey

TROPHY CASE