Holy Hutch! August is almost over! I had planned on being a bit more prolific this month, but the recreation I’d planned to coincide with the Swoop Rally event turned out to be rather trickier than I expected. Just after, I had an opportunity to get out of the city for a bit and the change of scenery was most welcome.
I’ll save finishing the Dynovibe sign for the return of the Swoop Rally in September where I’ll also share my thoughts on the event as a whole.
To get back in the swing of things, here’s a somewhat simpler sign that can be found on Corellia. The sign serves as advertisement for Farwan and Glott a somewhat notorious manufacturer of Podracers. At the time of the prequels, Farwan and Glott’s designers were known for putting performance above pilot safety, and the company is said to have worked with the Hutt Cartel and bounty hunters to ruthlessly acquire the secrets to any special modifications made to their racers.
If that is the case, then their corporate strategy does not seem to have changed since the time of the Old Republic. Players who have ventured into the operation Scum and Villainy might recognize this sign hanging outside Olok the Shadow’s showroom on Darvannis. It seems that Farwan and Glott have a long history of illegal sales and shady tactics.
The sign itself has two versions: one orange and yellow, the other red and white. The sign’s bold white stripes seem to me to be cropped and mirrored Aurebesh G’s or Greks. There are other examples in the game of signs using mirrored letters as design elements and I’ve typically translated those letters into their English equivalents. However, in this case I kept the original letter shape since the overall design is more pleasing with the angled lines of the Aurebesh letters than the blocky G’s that would’ve taken their place.
Those, of course, are not the only mirrored letters. The sign also includes two Aurebesh Z’s or “Zereks.” I can only speculate as to their meaning, but it would not surprise me to learn that they refer to Bioware founder Greg Zeschuk. I suspect more than a few examples of Aurebesh in SWTOR include tributes to the makers of the game.
One Armbandits Crashin’
Before another Summer of SWTOR winds down, I thought I’d offer some quick thoughts on the revised Nightlife event, which had a buggy debut, but was thankfully extended so that everyone could burn off their casino tokens and win some prizes.
The addition of simple questing is a nice improvement to an event that is otherwise rather mindless. Interestingly, the Nightlife event, which was previously regarded as a time and credit sink, now has almost no credit cost to participate given how easy it is to earn tokens through regular game play. I looted many Emperor’s Tokens from flashpoint and operations bosses and even random mobs around the galaxy. Since a common prize from the Emperor’s machine is more tokens, I ended the event with hundreds of Kingpin Tokens, many, many more than I could reasonably spend. I know people who have thousands burning holes in their pockets.
Is this a problem? I don’t think so. While I won the new mount with little fuss and came away with dozens of Golden and Cartel Certificates, I know folks who were eager to get the Rodian companion and sunk a fair amount of time into their efforts.
The gameplay of the slot machines remains boring, but I’d hate to see the flood of Kingpin Tokens result in the odds of winning getting worse next year. I don’t mind credit sinks, but I’d hate to see the Nightlife event become even more of a time commitment. Perhaps next year, Bioware might consider adding something else to spend our surplus of Kingpin Tokens on. Maybe we could buy Emperor’s Tokens with Kingpins, even at a steep exchange rate.
I did not expect new games this year, but I was disappointed with the new prizes added to the Golden Certificate vendors. The new decorations are less than impressive minor variations on ones that were only recently added to the Onderon reputation vendors. Next time around, I hope we get something worth saving up for.