The Old Republic for Dummies

[RogueJedi86]

It's an area on the fleet. Rep side it's the southwest area. They're labeled on the map.

[CrisG]

OK thanks... much appreciated that I found the Top floor lounge, very nice. Heard more news announcemnts about the plague, sounds scary. hope i can level up fast enough to see some of this new event stream. I am at Level 23 and working hard. I found it is possible to do some of the heroic missions with just myself and my companion Kira, managed to do the Mandelorian missle heist mission on Taris today, twice. Time for some sleep now.

[CrisG]

Nar Shaddaa is ....fantastic....

 

 

 

[Prime]

Just about to go there! Finished up Taris. And Mim, you are off your effing rocker if you didn't like Taris!

[Miltiades]

It's definitely more fun on the Republic side. The Empire's Gloom and Doom Edition of Taris is really depressing.

[mimartin]

are there things INSIDE the lockboxes? i did not know that, i bought one but thought it was just for keeping stuff in so i sold it...i saw them as prized but did not know what they were for.

Open just like you would use anything in your inventory. Open inventory, put your arrow on it and then right click on the mouse.

 

It is random loot. Some of it can be pretty useful and watch there are different levels and quality of lock-boxes. I buy them often when I have extra planet commendations after buying mod upgrades. My luck, I've always gotten Jedi gear, now playing as a shadow I've been getting smuggler and trooper gear.

 

And Mim, you are off your effing rocker if you didn't like Taris!

I think it goes back to my first time playing KotOR (first time playing a RPG), got stuck in the Upper City for like 6 hours. Haven't liked Taris ever since (that was how I found Lucas Forums though).

 

Taris was decent the first time in TOR, just took me forever and then when I finally thought it was over about to get on the ship...no now got more bonus missions. 2nd time through was with Lynk, it was quick painless, but nothing to really change my mind. 3rd time through was the best, because I did pretty much everything, but the Heroic4+ and the WB. Also feel the Taris story is better with a Jedi class.

 

It's definitely more fun on the Republic side. The Empire's Gloom and Doom Edition of Taris is really depressing.

Maybe I am off my effing rocker, I liked Taris with my lightside Agent.

[CrisG]

I did Love Tairis .both for what it is and because I loved Taris in KoTOR...and still do great to hear what everyone else things, makes it all a lot more fun. Naar Shadaa is so cool, i loved in in Jedi Knight, loved it more in Jedi Academy and now it is even better from what i see so far, but i better get some sleep was up all night working hard.... a sleepy Jedi is a dead Jedi so back in a bit.

[mimartin]

Nar Shaddaa, may be my favorite planet in TOR, at least I found it the easiest to get around on and the quest are pretty well laid out provided you alternate between class and planet quest. Not much back and forth running around.

 

Also Nar Shaddaa is a good place to make enough credits to save up for a speeder and speeder license at level 25. Trust me, I'm not a big speeder fan, but you will want access to a speeder on the planet after Nar Shaddaa.

[RogueJedi86]

I think Nar Shaddaa is the first planet I encountered with a "world story" that was one long chain that went through most of the planet hubs(in this case, Evocii in Red Light District and Shadow Town among other places). It continued with Tatooine having one(but not Alderaan), and I enjoyed it.

 

Nar Shaddaa did kinda fall short for me slightly. I had these dreams pre-release of it being nothing but fights in casinos and bars. But nope, most of the hub areas are dingy underworld type places. Those 2 floating casinos in the sky from the spaceport are useless. I went to one(the Rep one, one for each faction) for a Trooper quest, and while there I saw no other phases or even chattable NPCs to suggest anyone else does anything there. Felt like the floating casino was wasted. I'd have loved non-stop casino and bar brawl hubs instead of random alleyways and dingy warehouses like what we saw on Coruscant.

 

But then, that could just be the Trooper story. I followed a Smuggler friend on a few of his quests and saw he kept coming back to a cool looking Hutt Pleasure Barge, which was a little closer to what I had in mind for NS. Plus I imagine it's sparkling new for Imps who never saw anything similar on Coruscant. Trooper story does have the awesome Jonas Balkar on Nar Shaddaa though.

[Pho3nix]

I've enjoyed Tatooine the most so far...

[CrisG]

the story behind the nature of the Hutt world is an interesting one re the development of the Star Wars games and the evolution of the actual Star wars story, for Lucas and George have worked closely with the developers who have made games for the SW universe, and the nature of the Hutt seedy underworld and Las Vegas style crime lords began a bit with a planet that was being developed for the first Knights of the Old Republic game, KoTOR I, a world called Sleheyron which was also a planet in Hutt Space and home to many clans of Hutts. It was intended to have a story revolving around the many clan crime bosses and the world was almost fully finished, well, the story was, and the actual 3D planet was maybe 60 - 70 percent finished, one of the lead writers for it Daivid Gaider gave us this background several years ago when we were researching lost content for KoTOR I, but then the big suits in charge of the game release pushed up the release date and a bunch of things were dropped from the game including that world. I think the thinking behind that and the planning may have helped create this version of Nar Shaddaa, which has had its own development stream thru the various Star Wars games, for it appears in Jedi Knight and then again in Jedi Knight Outcast and again in Academy with some spectacular sequences...and again in KoTOR II, so there have been lots of hands at work on it over the years.

 

This version is remarkable and really well done. So far the missions and action seem quite balanced and good, i am glad i worked hard in Taris and leveled up as much as possible, being just now at Level 23, i did almost all of the quests, dropping only a few that did not interest me...by the time i got to the last group of bonus missions from the Governor down in the south east of the map, i was just not interested in helping the local scientists 'preserve' ugly and useless forms of life that were must better OFF the planet for good. I was ready to move on. You are put to work right away, in the Jedi path, doing things and I look forward to more today. I look forward to seeing more of the Gran, Rodian, Weequay and of course the massive Hutt themselves.

 

I am saving carefully for the transition to speeder, i assume we get the speeder license from a vendor somewhere?

[Lynk Former]

I am saving carefully for the transition to speeder, i assume we get the speeder license from a vendor somewhere?

You get the speeder license from your skill trainer at lv25.

[RogueJedi86]

Nar Shaddaa was a seedy commercial hub even before KotOR.

 

Fun thing about Sleheyron, The Essential Atlas basically brings it back into canon as a prominent economic world in Hutt Space, second only behind Nar Shaddaa, and at the hub of several hyperlanes.

 

Which quests did you drop?

 

And NS Bonus doesn't start until close to 30.

 

And lastly, speeder cost got lowered in 1.2. It's only 35k to train now. I figure speeder is still a little extra.

[Miltiades]

@CrisG: Actually, if there's one planet that has been influenced by Sleheyron, it's really Quesh. It's both an industrial world and ruled by the Hutts.

[CrisG]

wow cool M that does sound a lot like what we saw from the development files and early textures and pictures we found buried in the KoTOR files.... a seedy industrial planet with battling Hutt clans, they had arenas they did gladiator type combat in....

 

ah, i dropped just a few of the quests at the very end of my first time in Taris, not a lot.

 

I found bonus missoins right away in Nar Shaddaa, just finished two. wow, that is expensive for the speeder lisence ...wow. I get my speeder itself for free well sort of free, i bought the Collectors Edition so i get a speeder with that as part of the bonus content.

 

I just made Level 24 and they closed down for maintnenace, i will grab some sleep and then start up again at 4AM when they restart.... and am enjoying Nar Shadda a lot, love the colours and atmosphere.

 

and you guys can call me Cris if you want... the CrisG was just my early avatar name did not know whatelse to use as when i picked it i was new to the Net

[CrisG]

I am studying old threads on how to be a good Tank and found this in a post...

 

ability to maintain aggro,

 

can anyone tell me what that means? it sounds like it is hard for a Jedi Knight Tank to maintain Aggro but i was not sure what that meant..thanks for help if possible.

[Lynk Former]

"Aggro" or "threat" describes when you get the attention of enemies around you and they start attacking you.

 

A tank's role in any team is to maintain aggro so that the enemies only attack the tank and not any of his team members. If the tank can do this then the other players who are the damage dealers can focus on taking down those enemies that are ignoring them as they attack the tank. At the same time the healers role will be to make sure the tank doesn't die so that the damage dealers can do their thing.

 

Tanks maintain aggro by using a Tanking stance, for example, the tanking stance for a Trooper Vanguard would be the Ion Cell. Then I'd use moves that the Vanguard has to maintain that aggro so that the enemies attention is always on me. If one of the damage dealers happens to pull aggro away from me, I have a couple of abilities called "taunts" which I can use to reacquire aggro so that that player is no longer being attacked.

 

I haven't played a Jedi Guardian tank so I don't really know how hard it is for them to maintain aggro, but I'm finding that the Vanguard does a pretty awesome job.

[CrisG]

ah ha, that is what the Taunts are for. I have a taunt skill that I havent "learned yet" but it is there..and i was not sure what it was for. So far, my companion gets most of the attention which has been fine for me but i see that i Need to start training to get the focus on myself soon. thanks a lot..

 

uh, stance..not sure what that means.. sorry, to be so dumb...but i guess i should read the manual about this stuff and not keep askng here... but it helps to know what to look up.

[Lynk Former]

Stance is a general MMO term used to describe... man this is going to be tough to explain.

 

I'll give example to help try illustrate. With my Sith Marauder I have the ability to use different lightsaber combat forms. There's the Shii-Cho Form and the Juyo Form and my personal favourite, the Ataru Form. These are all "Stances" which you can only equip one at a time... they'll have different names for different classes. For example I mentioned the Ion Cell with my Vanguard which is a stance used for Tanking.

 

But going back to the Marauder, the Shii-Cho, Juyo and Ataru Form all have different abilities they bring to your character.

 

The Shii-Cho Form slightly increases both damage dealt and reduces damage recieved by 3% and is considered a balanced stance.

 

The Juyo Form is a more offensive stance that stacks 2%damage every 15 seconds up to 5 times. So basically it causes damage to occur over time.

 

The Ataru Form is another offensive stance but is different from the Juuo Form because instead of causing damage over time, the Ataru Form deals direct damage to the target. Using this form also increases your accuracy by 3%.

 

So difference stances do different things and the abilities you choose on your skill tree are sometimes based on these stances and will say so when you hover over them.

[Pho3nix]

And lastly, speeder cost got lowered in 1.2. It's only 35k to train now. I figure speeder is still a little extra.

Haha really? I want my spare change back that's cheap as hell

[Miltiades]

A question on alignment. If you are light side but have in the past chosen a few dark side options, is it possible to max out your alignment? My mercenary is LS, but has done a few DS things, so the result is something like 9600 LS and 400 DS, a total of 10000. To get to Light Side V, you need 10000 LS points. But since I'm guessing 10000 points in total is the ceiling, LS/DS options don't yield points anymore for my alignment, meaning my merc's stuck in LS IV and won't ever be able to use the special LS V gear and items. I know I've asked mav about it on the TOR chat and he said it's possible, but I don't see how.

[Lynk Former]

It is possible to max out your alignment even if you have chosen a few dark side options... but naturally it's harder to do so with fewer ls/ds options in the endgame content.

[Miltiades]

That's the thing. I have gotten LS options, I know I have since the rakghoul event has a quest with a LS/DS option, but the LS alignment seems stuck at 10000, while it'd need another 400 because of the 400 DS points.

[CrisG]

Good question, i got on DS set of points by mistake i think, i hope that wont keep me out of the running for V....so if we just keep at the LS points it will overcome the shadow? i hope so. and thanks for that info on the Stance Lynk, very much what i needed to know, as i have been unsure about a lot of that, I remember stance from my training in Fencing, and broadsword training under an arms master many years ago but frankly had forgotten about it. It is partcularly important in some sword styles used in the Japanese schools ...so this makes a lot of sense.

[mimartin]

Good question, i got on DS set of points by mistake i think, i hope that wont keep me out of the running for V....so if we just keep at the LS points it will overcome the shadow?

I'm not sure about Miltiades problem.

 

However, I messed up on some crewskills with my Smuggler. Got 2 or 3 darkside points when I hit a darkside quest in Diplomacy. After hitting Level 50 and finishing the planet (not sure where in there) I noticed I had got "The Pure" title and lost my darkside points.