Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

((Hello Bioware devs/forum moderators.  Glad to see you read TOROZ =P))
JoventhGonzalez – General Discussion
Weekly Forum Thread Round-Up Discussion: May 17th, 2012
Discuss this week’s Forum Thread Round-Up blog and nominate discussions for next week in this thread!

Swtor confusing. Bonus missions, heroics, flashpoints. I’m stressed. Suggestions ; )
I originally posted this on MMORPG.Com, about Bonus Missions and though it might be useful here.
I want to say ahead of time I think this game is amazing, and will keep getting better and better. This is probably
my biggest problem with the game, and with RPG’S in general and that’s why I posted it.

Cutting confusion/ organization is one major things that could help the game survive longer……..Please forgive me if I’m a little bit cynical/angry/bitter/mean. I’m really not this is just rooted out of the stress from playing the game deeply

Please, Please Read

(THE NEW MISSIONS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. PEOPLE (us) ARE NOT THE PROBLEM….)

THE
PROBLEM
IS
ORGANIZATION
AND
SIMPLIFICATION
OF
GAME
CONTENT.

Lets say you had to kill The Blob. Well that sould take forever, his Blobness is all over everything. He covers half your city. You don’t even know where to start.

That is how it feels to play SWTOR.

But what if The Blob and his trail of mess you had to kill was divided into sections? Maybe he had five kids, and wasn’t as big. Also you have an I-Phone app that locates each Blob Child ; ). Problem is with SWTOR….the “I-Phone” App is confusing and a little messy….

Here is how you eliminate The SWTOR Blob… (again no offense to creators, game is great)

Yoomazir – General Discussion

Will Bioware bring playable races that doesn’t look like colored humans?
I’ll be honest, I played Star Wars Galaxies for like 1 month (the game was like 10 bucks with 1 month free) and there was something I really enjoyed: Playing as an Ithorian bounty hunter.

So I started playing this game like 1 week ago and I was kinda disappointed to see that the only playables races basically look like your average human with flashy colors and “alien” appendices.
There is also something else that kinda felt awkward to me, there aren’t enough alien npcs wandering around, the whole game feels kinda “humans in space only” .

I haven’t followed much what Bioware has in stock for the future, but I would really like to think they will bring a little more fantasy content instead of the 90% human population/10% “alien” races in this game lorewise, along with having the possibility of having an ithorian bounty hunter

Anyway, that was just my 2 cents, overall I’m having fun with this game, not the ultimate mmorpg, but fun nontheless.

Quotes

Back & Forth – PvP

tehrealdealz
Just wondering for those that are FOTM Rerollers if you ever feel kind of guilty or ashamed that instead of staying loyal to the class your originally leveled you choose to instead level a FOTM class instead. I’m just trying to understand the mentality of a FOTM reroller.

…

Odahviin
Oh hey i found the answer to your question. It was in another thread created by you titled “Will be rerolling Marauder in 1.2 need help.”

You can find the link here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=398482

so you can refresh you memory or just see the copy and paste job below( it’s in red for easier reading). I see you already answered your own question. Hope i helped out

tehrealdealz
…
Sup everyone, so as we all know sorcs and BHs are getting nerfed hard, and Marauder is looking like the new OP class next patch. Is there anything I should know about the class before I start leveling? How does it play in pvp and pve? And are you overall happy with the class?

Other

DecanAnderson – Fan Art

The ”Glitch/Cool/Funny Screen Shots” Official Thread

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Threads

Hendrickson – General Discussion

Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?
I have seen many posts regarding this subject and the pros and cons of each but I would like to get a feel for what the players really want.

MMO developers seem to think that sandbox is now a niche area and theme park is the way to go. Many sandbox MMOs are still going strong even though they have changed their subscription model in an effort to retain their existing players and entice new players to give their game a go.

Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, World of Warcraft, and, in my opinion, the daddy of them all, Eve Online is still going strong. I have returned to Eve twice over the years and recall the newbie chat channel and the opening channel after that is full of constant chatter which is what gives it its name Massive that it deserves.

And of course, take a look at the fourth coming Guild Wars 2. The devs have decided to change course from the famously heavily instanced original Guild Wars, although extremely popular, to a more open sandbox world, going completely against the grain of what the gaming masses are supposed to enjoy the most.

It is a matter of opinion but for me, when GW2 is released, that is where I will be going because I believe that heavy instancing takes the massively out of the game thus demeaning its goal. Having said that, I still dont know what the majority of the MMO fraternity think and want.

So maybe we can find out from this post whether or not the devs took the right direction and so will keep their players for many years to come or will they leave en masse to return to the sandbox idea that the MMO genre originally embraced?

Bethmora – Crew Skills

Cybertech DEAD, no sales, Thanks BW
…

Before 1.2 : LvL 49 Purple earpieces sold at 40k to 60k
After 1.2 i dropped them down to 5k with No sales

Grade 4 ship parts: before 1.2: 20 to 30k
After 1.2: 5:k No Sales

Purple Ship parts before 1.2: 50 to 80k
After 1.2: No sales at 25k

…

Xanikk – Story & Lore

Is it possible to master both the light side and dark side at the same time?
Is it possible to master both sides of the force without the darkside totally consuming you?

Like would it be possible to use both techniques to use the force: Focusing and clearing your mind of emotions AND using your emotions to harness the force just at different times: AKA dark side usage and light side usage.

…

If I recall correctly, didn’t the early jedaii who evolved into the jedi practice both the light and dark side without becoming corrupted by the dark side?

Quotes

Back & Forth – Suggestion Box

Lightmotion

Sometimes I wander on a planet and get lost. I just wish I could return to my ship fast.

My suggestion : Fast travel should offer an option to return you to your ship.

GString

A new companion that is space ship only called Scotty”

“Beam me up Scotty”

Other

Voldemorton – Fan Art

RL Armortech and Armstech
Ok in addition to my 3d Lightsabers and character portraits I like to do, and when the wife and I aren’t doing the Ren Fair thing….my other hobby is working on my Mandalorian Costume

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere, but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

Niamton – General Discussion

MMO Vets, What do you think?

I have played quite a few MMO’s over the years and I just wanted to throw my opinion out there and discuss any agreements or disagreements about swtor.

…
I have noticed a trend in MMO’s lately that didn’t start with this game, but is certainly prevalent. Solo-ability to cap and as quick as possible. At the rate i’m going I will probably hit my cap before I get charged for my first month. This is a double edged sword for me. Sure I like that I don’t HAVE to group to level up, and with this type of system the grind is almost eleminated. But for a subscription based service, I don’t know if I will spend the wow like amount of time at the endgame, grinding out the same raids, pvp, or dailies for new gear and such. One of my favorite mmo’s is EQ2 (and please this is an opinion, so lets not make this a discussion on how much SOE sucks), and, to me, the journey is as fun as the endgame. Subscribing to that game wasn’t a bother to me, because I felt like I was getting the most time out of my money. It would take months for even some hardcore players to get to cap (I am talking the early days, takes a lot less time now).

…

Lemon_King – General Discussion

[HOWTO – RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance
Lets talk about increasing SWTOR Performance by working around Engine Bottlenecks!

Right now this focuses on placing DiskCacheArena and 2 buffer files DiskCacheStatic / DiskCacheStream on a RamDrive.
The increase in performance I’ve seen during my test for the past few days was quite nice, resolved 2 issues with the engine.

The First being a performance drop once DiskCacheArena starts becoming full where data needs to be flushed during gameplay, causing severe hitching* even on an SSD.
Second is for Static and Stream, simple buffers that work wonders in a RamDrive but will slow performance anytime they are on disk; the performance drop remains even if Arena is in a RamDrive.

…

Sehte – Flashpoints, Operations and Heroic Missions

Damage Meters
All bosses on Heroic and Nightmare have enrage timers, yet you provide no combat log, or damage meters? How does a raid leader evaluate the raid? Has there been a response to this that I couldn’t find or are they staying in the dark about this obvious miss?

Thanks.

Heliotrus – Story & Lore

The Sexism Hammer–Female NPC are Shallow, Vain and Subservient

Plucked this off Metacritic, I’m a dude and I didn’t really see it until she mentioned it but the female characters are pretty much straight out of what you would see from old movies or old TV shows.

Totally agree with Jenny though. Bioware is going to have a hard sell with long-term female customers.

Quotes

Duhakalock – General Discussion

Why would anyone want to turn off c2-n2?

He is always enthusiastic to make my living conditions the best they can be.

Other

Submitted by Kaisa.

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

GrimaIdi – PTS Forum

Juggernaut 1.2 Changes

…

With Full battlemaster gear, I only have 15600 HP. Furthermore, I have Saber Ward as my only real damage mitigation ability endemic to my class. A DPS geared and specd Juggernaut does not have high survivability, to be honest a DPS Mercenary has more HP. The AC merely offsets the HP differential. So for this conversation we should take the premise that a DPS Rage Juggernaut is indeed a DPS class and more importantly the most viable DPS Juggernaut spec in the game, and as it stands the Vengeance Tree past tier 2 is not viable for anyone truly seeking to be competitive in endgame PVP as a DPS class. The patch notes themselves confirm that.

…
I would wholeheartedly give up any buffs to my shockwave and crit timer to keep the reduced timers on Force Scream & Smash to maintain my viability in PVP.

Dmasterr – PvP

operatives and 1.2 (lolpatch)

The only thing they are good for is to jump on someone that is about half health with no stun breaker and is already engaged in fighting someone else and they get nerfed lmao.

Thing is, when those ppl die, all they can think of is “damn those pesky operatives” /spit.

Not only that i am the only operative(scoundrel) that i ever see in wz (not healer), i do get about a dozen /spit on me each game, just because of what i said above.

That being said, i will probably continue to be the only operative in the game(lol), ( im surprised they didnt just remove the class entirely) , but please …

DO NOT TAKE AWAY MY GIGGLE 10101.

p.s. the game revolves around warrior/guardian (both AC), and other classes better learn their place as support classes mmmk?

VertisReaper – PvP

1.2 Balance changes – Right direction

The 1.2 balance changes are definitely a step in the right direction, hitting all major items that were out of line. As much as people cry about it, 1.2 is much more balanced than it currently is on live.

Pyro burst was out of line – Addressed
Tracer rotation – Addressed
Rage Jugg burst too high – Addressed
Hybrid Sorcs – Addressed
Operative 2x opener cheese – Addressed
Merc Healing – Addressed

All in all these are positive changes, I really don’t understand why everyone is complaining about the fixing of things that were clearly broken and toxic to gameplay.

Busterbone – PvP

Why the proposed 1.2 Pyrotech changes are poorly thought out

This post aims to clear up a lot of the misinformation surrounding the proposed 1.2 changes to the Bounty Hunter Pyrotech specialization (and Trooper Assault Specialist). I believe the proposed changes are poorly designed, and in the following paragraphs I will do my best to explain why I have come to this conclusion. I’ve posted this in the PvP forums because the Pyrotech changes are largely due to PvP concerns.

…

(Very long, very informative, well thought out, and the discussion is good as well, Trooper/BH Players should read)

JTGS – PTS Forum

1.2 Sorc Nerfs

…
Well there goes hybrid chain lightning spec and awesome force regen for healers. Do you guys feel that either of those were needed? The 31 in lightning is kind of garbage because of how slow it is. And as for healing, should we now waste talents in reducing how much consumption takes from our health?

After testing it on the PTS, the changes arent that bad for healing. Consumption did need a fix and i feel what they did is fine. You have to be more aware when you go to use it, but no other class can regen at anymore moment like that without using a CD.

The force bending change will bring balance and will take getting use to. But it isnt class breaking and we will still do fine in raids. IMHO

Quotes

xGBox – General Discussion

Hi, I have difficulty adapting and resent any kind of change that may or may not affect me. As a result of the release of the 1.2 patch notes, I am unsubscribing as we speak. However, I will continue to post on the official SWTOR forums despite not playing it and will inform other users that I’ve unsubscribed in every post.

Other

(This is a preview of the legacy system in 1.2, especially useful for those without a Chp. 1 Complete Character)

Iwipe  – PTS Forum

http://mmo-mechanics.com/news.php?article=1-2-legacy-system-preview

Hey everyone, this is Dulfy from dulfy.net, I am very excited to give you the first preview of the legacy system in 1.2! I want to give a huge thank you to Petrus & Dread from <The Sundered Guard> on Warrior’s of the Shadow  server. They tirelessly powerleveled a bunch of characters on the PTS to gather the screenshots and information on the legacy system. Here you can see the “handsome” Petrus with his Taunta pet! (p.s. they are looking for a powertech tank for 1.2 content!)

Ravendax – Fan Art

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

Mirialol – PvP

★★★[ARENA] – benefits of adding ARENA to SWTOR★★★

…

Arena is far more competitive and skill-oriented than rated warzones.

Arenas will help keep PvPers subscribed to this game

Arena will help balance this game’s PvP

Arenas are breeding ground for skilled players

SWTOR arena will be EASIER to balance than WoW

Adding arenas will be FINANCIALLY productive for bioware

Arena SHOULD NOT reward players with better gear or advantages of any kind

Arena dailies / weeklies

Arena SHOULD reward players with titles and cosmetic changes.

Publicly available data

1v1 arenas

…

PhoenixDream – Story & Lore

Females never given flirt options?

My female guildies and I have discovered that playing a female Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, and Trooper toons have basically ZERO flirt options throught the entire game play.

(The only exception is when we meet our courting companion and we flirt about three times and then it is over for the durration of the game.)

Originally we suspected it was simply because of the class we were playing until we learned that our male guildies–who play characters of the same class–have several flirt options all throughout the game. It is not specific to class, it is specific to female characters alone.

We feel this is quite sexist and are very dissapointed that the males of the same class toon have more flirt options.

We ask that you re-think future writings on how the genders are played, and please do not make the females so entirely boring and frigid. Let us have a little more personality.

Thank you.

…

MuNieK – PvP

To many abilities – piano playing must be reduced…

We want to play some pvp, not be musicians to piano play the keyboard… Consolidate the skills and let us focus on awaraness whats happenign around, teamwork and timing insetad of constant full time piano playing we are forced to do if we want to use all the abilities in pvp… Its just bad design Bioware… PvP should be about reflex and quick thinking, not player vs keybinds tetris or situation where you force people to be clickers due to not enough comfortable hotkeys…

For example jaggernaut immortal:

– taunt enemy attacking our ally
– shield ally being attacked
– intercede ally for more protection
– aoe taunt for reduced dmg to ally
– aoe slow to make pvp with enemy acceptable (slow on ability that is not in main-rotation is also huge mistake – in pvp slow is crucial and should be on all classes’ main abilities)

and thats just to start using actuall combat abilities… wihch also are scattered around to many skills not neccesarily…

Whats the point?

…

Quotes

Back & Forth – 1^st & 7^th posts, thread in General Discussion

No more color restrictions on crystals ?! Really ?

Gauvi

I am playing a Star Wars game and one thing that was iconic to the franchise is definitely the color of crystals tied to the alignment of its user.

AJediKnight

Color has-never-been-nor-will-it-ever-be restricted to morality. Lucas himself has confirmed that there is no direct link. The only lore basis for the restrictions was that, in the time of TPM, AotC etc., Sith couldn’t get their hands on natural crystal supplies, and had to use synthetic crystals. Synth crystals (Luke used a synth crystal in RotJ, too, btw) are created by channeling the force through a forge. In the case of darksiders, this creates a crimson-red crystal… but not all synth crystals are red — nor are all the sabers of Sith red. Certainly, the fact that the Sith in the TOR timeline favor purple just as much as red is proof of this.

Frankly, the limits in TOR make absolutely no sense as implemented in the game. They neither preserve the ‘look’ of the films, nor do they have any basis in the lore. You would argue that color is tied to morality as if picking up a green or a blue saber as a darksider would cause it to explode in my hand. Even in the films, time and again we are shown that darksiders can use ‘light’ colors (Anakin/Vader with blue throughout Ep. III, Vader ignited Luke’s green saber in Ep. VI). Similarly, lightsiders can use red… as in the case of Anakin picking up Dooku’s saber to finish him off with.

…
Getting back on topic, the simple fact of the matter is, there is no canonical basis or otherwise for the current crystal restrictions. They were, quite literally, something Bioware conjured out of thin air. And, what’s worse, they don’t even preserve the look of the films, instead forcing many Jedi to abandon green/blue, and many Sith to forsake red. If you wanted to see more Sith using red, and more Jedi using green/blue as in the films, you should actually support dropping the restrictions.

As it stands now, I believe you simply don’t understand either the lore or the system we’ve got in game.

…

Other

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

Kexin – SWTOR General Discussion Sub-Forum

US transfers to Oceanic servers?

I’m a late night American player who specifically targeted Harbinger and Swiftsure for its Oceanic population at my playing hours. Now that those guys are moving I want the option of transferring with the people I play with or else get left behind or even worst, having to reroll, AGAIN.

What is Bioware’s stance on this issue?

Melsione – SWTOR General Discussion

Australian server transfer in LATE April!

Seriously,

We get a new server! We have lvl 50’s who raid and play endgame, but we have to wait almost 2 months before we can bring them across and actually play on the better latency?

Which person came up with this concept? You knew when the aussie servers were coming up and you did not allow for server transfers to happen immediately?

So now if we want to play on our mains (Which we DO) we have to go back to the 250 latency pings for another 2 months! Bravo!

And what happens when people take existing legacy surnames which we cannot reserve?

This is so pathetic!

Well only solution for me: End subscription till April and then try again! The only reason I renewed my subscription was because of wanting to play on low latency servers!

Evuke – SWTOR General Discussion

Will the new Australian servers kill the current unofficial Australian servers?

BW have announced they will be releasing Australian servers in Australia in early March, and giving the Australian’s transfers off the current unofficial Australian servers “The Swiftsure” and “The Harbringer” to those new servers.

My concern is that as an American playing on The Swiftsure that it will effectively kill my server by removing 70% of its population.

I rolled on this server as i work nightshifts it seemed like a logical choice, the unofficial Aussie servers usually are very well populated 24/7 unlike other servers. So it suited me perfectly.

After the Aussies all transfer off we will be left with a ghost-town server with no option to do anything other than re-roll on a populated server or unsub, and tbh the unsub option is more appealing than having to re-roll again and lose everything i have worked on for the past 2 months (3 level 50’s).

I suggest that EVERYONE on the current 2 Australian servers “the swiftsure” and “the harbringer” be given free transfers so we can all move to servers that suit us rather than punishing us by leaving us on deserted servers.

Quotes

StephenReid – SWTOR General Discussion Sub-Forum

Hello everyone. I can absolutely understand the frustrations expressed here, and I appreciate that for the most part, you’re being constructive in your comments. Here’s a little more insight into the situation.

The character transfer system is being actively worked on by the development team. It’s a large, complex project, made more complicated by the Legacy System – and it has to work perfectly. As always, it is not the only task the team as a whole is undertaking, but it’s a priority. It has not been deliberately delayed, nor is it being ‘held back’ for any reason. As you know, the first stage of the system will be a one-off, optional transfer for those who are based in the regions defined in our FAQ. At some point after that, we’ll bring a more fully-featured character transfer system online for all to use.

I can understand the frustration of those of you who have been playing on the US servers and waiting for transfers. We know your enthusiasm and excitement for the game – you wouldn’t have taken the steps you did to get the game earlier than the official launch if you weren’t enthusiastic. We’re working as hard as we can to get the system in place. If we could have brought it online earlier, we would have. However, priorities post-launch had to be directed towards the game itself. The team’s been working flat-out to improve the game, including bug fixes and additional content.

Other

Massively.joystiq article