Holliday Weekend equals lots of TOR

I finally got to log onto my Bounty Hunter and play!

I still have to restart the game every now and then, but the load screen issue is now almost non existent. What was the solution to this problem you ask?

I just had to turn off Steam. Apparently, that was what was causing my issues. I wish I had known that sooner. Damn it.

Anyways, on to my Bounty Hunter tales and exploits. I finished Tatooine and moved on to Alderaan. When I first arrived I was like "Oh cool, something that looks different." I must say that Alderaan is a beautiful zone. I must also say that there are some very frustrating quests and areas here. I do not like running around for over and hour on one quest trying to figure out where the hell I need to go.

Once I completed my class quest, I decided to get the hell off of that rock. I ended up at Tanis for my next area. So far so good.

The class story absolutely rock, and is perhaps my favorite part of the game. It really makes you feel badass.

On a side note, the Galactic Market sucks. I can not see anything unless it is horribly underpriced. At least I am keeping up on my professions I guess.

How was your weekend?

Loading Screens, Horrible Customer Service, and Sith Warriors

So, I am still having horrendous loading screen issues. When I initially logged onto my Bounty Hunter, everything was good. Awesome. I went did several quests and finished my Bounty Hunter story line on the planet.

As I went back to the spaceport to turn in the final part of my class quest, I saw another quest giver. Cool, I will go check it out. I go up to her, click.....and disconnected from the server. Shit. Try to log on....no go. I tried for about 30 minutes before I just gave up. One thing I have noticed is that when I log off and try to log back on, it will show that my Bounty Hunter is still logged on if I try to go onto another character.

After that fun little issue, I decided to create my Sith Warrior. I went with a Sith, since that seems like the purest of Force Wielders. I actually got an awesome Sith name, and cant wait to get the Darth title. Darth Destructus......I like the sound of that.

Anyways, I plan on playing this guy full on darkside, which opens up my bounty hunter to make some more moral decisions. I would like to play him more as a mercenary than as an evil badass. My Sith Warrior can pick up that role, and already has. I think I got him to level 7 last night before I decided to log off.

Now onto customer service. The customer service from Bioware/EA has been horrendous. Seriously. There are tons and tons of threads with game breaking bugs....and very few responses. Tickets get you a generic response. People are reporting staying on the phone for 2 plus hours to talk with a CSR only to be hung up on. This is not good for them. This is an important time for a new game, and not doing everything you can to fix issues is a big no-no.

So far, the loading issue has one thread that is over 30 pages long and several others that have been posted. The only response from someone on the Dev team was to put your computer diagnostics in the thread. A little bit more information would be very helpful. Have they found the issue? Is it a priority? Seriously. They should invest a little more in helpful people.

Well, that is my rant for the day.

Everyone have happy Hollidays, and may the credits flow your way.

Got my speeder....Loading issues still not resolved.

I breifly thought I may have found a bit of a fix for my loading issues last night. I set the game up to run as an administrator and sucessfully loaded the game on about 2 of every three tries....by the end of the night that was no longer the case.

There is a thread on the Customer Service forums that is over thirty pages long at this point with people experiencing the same issues. Nobody from EA/Bioware has really responded. Hopefully it got fixed in the maintenance last night.

In other news, I got my speeder. It makes getting around quite a lot better, especially on Tatooine which is pretty big.

I also hit level 26 last night and am well on my way into questing through the area....and killing Jawas.

I teamed up with a random Imperial Agent last night to do some quests, and it went very well. We even helped each other out on part of our class quest chains. Overall, I like Tatooine.....but why do most of the planets have to be so damn ugly. Pretty much every planet I have been to with the exception of Dromund Kaas has seemed like and ugly ass wasteland.

Looking forward to hopefully being able to log in tonight. Once that loading screen issue is fixed, I will be very happy as I will be able to do Flashpoints.

Kinda fixed...but not really.

First, I wanted to thank my sister who makes the banners for both of my blogs. Looks good.

Second, I found a semi solution to my gaming woes.....I hope.

Last night was another frustrating night of trying to log in and getting stuck at the loading screen. I finally decided that I was going to uninstall the game and then install it again. I was using the same launcher from Beta, which I figured may be an issue. This came after having to log out and wait in queue a couple of times.

It took forever to install, but I got it back up and running. First loading screen loaded first try....SWEET.

Got to finish off the BH quest on Hutta and move on. Of course, the next loading screen I got froze. Then it worked when I logged off and back on. I headed to Tatooine....and it froze again. Then I did the same thing and it loaded. I dont know if I am just getting "lucky" with the loading screens. Hopefully this issue gets completely fixed.

The second big thing I noticed after I re-installed the game was the graphics. It appeared to have adjusted them much better to my computer and my FPS went up a lot. The graphics look less pretty, but I can sacrafice some graphics for better performances. I ran around completely lag free for the first time since starting the game.

Overall, things are looking up. I am about 10 percent of a level from 25 and will be picking up my speeder. Woohoo.

I will also be glad to get another companion. I know my Jawa is coming up soon. I hope that he doesnt mind me killing everything the way that mako does. Sometimes I get minus thirty and other times I get minus 1. Sometimes she will be indifferent. If you are a bounty hunter, get a thicker skin Mako. Everyday Im blasting em.

I want to kick this game in the balls

I have a love hate relationship with TOR right now. I really enjoy playing it....when I can play it. Right now, I am having an issue with my loading screen. Whenever I get a loading screen, there is an 80 percent chance that it will stop at half way and go no further. I can sit there for 10 minutes and it will not work. Unfortunately, I am in a part of my class quest chain where I am having to hop around planets.....which is not going so well.

I got to play a few minutes last night, but attempted to play for a couple of hours. This is really a game breaking problem that needs to be fixed immediately.

If it were not for these problems, I would be having a grand time. It has made it so I cannot even reliably do a Flashpoint. If we wipe, there is no telling how long it will take me to log back in. It is complete and utter bullshit.

On a good note, I love playing my Bounty Hunter. He is half way through level 24 and very close to getting a speeder....which is causing even more annoyance since I am unable to log on and get to 25.

I have finished Dromund Kaas and Nar Shada so far and should be headed to Tatooine next.

I would really like to try out all of the Flashpoints, but that is not a possibility thats to my loading screen issues.

A note on the Galactic Market (auction house). Shit does not sell. I am guessing because it is a new game and people are just questing (and getting their upgrades along the way).

Credit making will have to sit on the back burner for a bit I guess.

Flashpoints and Such

Yesterday I ended up getting my bounty hunter to level 12 or 13. I have gone completely asshole mode and have done every darkside choice available.

Once I got to the first tier of Darkside, my eyes turned orange. I thought that was pretty cool.

I also ran Black Talon a few times last night. I really like the group questing. You can see something different every time if the choices your teammates chose get chosen (and are not the same as your own).

We did the entire flashpoint the first time without even having a healer. We would often lose 1 or 2 people on a boss, but really did not have any wipe scares. Pretty easy and fun overall.

I am looking forward to the next flashpoint, which is apparently called Hammer Down or something like that.

I really like doing the class quest, and the questing system makes you feel extra attachment to your character that is not quite there in other MMOs.

In other news, I placed a few items on the Auction House. Not sure if any of it will sell, but I expect that the economy is too young to sell many items outside of crafting materials. We shall see.

Welcome to Blood of Mandalore

This is my new blog about SW:TOR. It will be here to talk about anything I want that is TOR related. This will include leveling, social issues, credit making etc.

Since yesterday was my first day of early entry, I will talk about that. I have mixed feelings thus far.

First, they apparently made the graphics HD or some such. This is causing me some major problems. My framerate in the game is horrendous. It occasionally peaks at around 8 FPS. Yes. EIGHT!!!! Most of the time it is much lower and makes for a very choppy gaming experience. It was even running at 0.8 FPS at one point. It was fairly bad in beta, but nowhere near how bad this is. It is damn near unplayable for me at the moment.

That said, I created my first character, which is a bounty hunter named Kraytanus. Unfortunately, after the making the character, I realized that some may see my name as Krayt-ANUS as opposed to Kray-Tanus. Ah well. Life goes on.

I made him look pretty bad ass. Blond haired with a goatee and a mohawk, a badly scarred head, and a nice facial tatoo. He looks like a Bounty Hunter should look. Badass.

I really like the Bounty Hunter starting story. I also like being a brutal SOB. I have been going with 100 percent dark side choices. Next character, I will probably do more of a mix of dark and light side, but I want this one to be an evil badass.

As of right now, I am level 9 and on the homestretch of the starting area. One thing I noticed was different between this and Beta was that a single conversation choice can change the way that a conversation goes entirely.

I picked a Bounty Hunter for a couple of reasons. Bounty Hunters are awesome. Bounty Hunters also have the coolest weapons. I love launching wrist rockets and setting people on fire with my flamethrower.

I love the story....I will probably enjoy the game play significantly more once I get a new graphics card.

I have yet to pick up a profession, but once I do, I will write a bit about making credits as well.