October 31, 2022 · 10:01 am

Tricks and Treats

Happy Halloween, gentle reader!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I should probably start thinking about a post to mark the sixth anniversary of this blog, only to realize that the anniversary had already passed two weeks before. That time is playing tricks on me should tell you the kind of year I’m having. Still, it’s looking like the dark clouds are starting to lift. I have a lot of ground to make up, including an actual anniversary post which is a little different from what I usually do, and that should be out very soon!

An Ace That You Can Keep

In the meantime, I want to briefly touch on the most current topic in SWTOR: the recent start of the third Galactic Season! My first impression is that Bioware’s approach this time around has been “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If so, it was definitely the right call. I had lots of fun during the second season, but since it ended, Conquest has gotten stale, so it’s nice to hop on and look at the week’s objectives and see what I feel like doing for some neat rewards.

Indeed, I think the rewards this time around, are overall the best of the three seasons’ worth we’ve had so far. I’ve got characters waiting for each of the weapons, and the outfits should fit nicely into the wardrobes of my smugglers and agents. As for this season’s companion, PH4-LNX, she’s quite distinct, with ties to our Fallen Empire adventures. It’s cool to know there are still some GEMINI droids out there still making their way in the galaxy after being freed by SCORPIO.

The most noticeable change in the Season’s rewards track is that this time Bioware has been less generous with Cartel Coin rewards which have been substituted out for Bind-on-Legacy Cartel Packs. I heard of many folks completing the previous season on all five servers and coming away with twenty thousand Cartel Coins. That is a good chunk of cash shop currency, so I can understand why Bioware dialed those rewards back. But I can also see that dedicated players who put in the effort to complete the season on multiple servers made a considerable investment in time and subscriptions themselves. Personally, the cartel coins aren’t the main thing I want out of the season’s rewards, so I’m fine with the change, but I will admit it was nice being flush with cc (by my wasteful standards anyway) after completing the season on two servers last time around.

Bioware also nudged up the cost of the account unlocks for this season rewards, which I am less happy about. I admit the costs are still cheap, but it’s not great to feel like you’re being nickel-and-dimed when unlocking player earned rewards, especially after seeing that the Cartel Coin rewards have be already been reduced.

Despite this, I do think the season is off to a good start. Completing objectives with guildmates is always fun, and running Fay’s basic story quests and many of the odd-ball objectives remains a pleasure.

No Tricks, Only Treats: Opal Vulptilla Mount Raffle!

To somewhat belatedly celebrate this blog’s sixth big, big anniversary, I am pleased to be able to share with members of my community an opportunity to win an Opal Vulptilla mount. To enter this raffle, all you need to do is leave a comment below this post. Do you dress your characters up for Halloween? Do your characters cosplay in SWTOR in general? How have you been enjoying the new Galactic Season? Do you do it multiple servers or is one enough for you? Let me know what SWTOR thoughts are on your mind!

To enter, leave a comment below with the following information:

  • Your character name (be mindful of spaces and special symbols!)
  • Your faction
  • Your server

That’s it! For every ten entries, I will draw one winner up to a maximum of 3 mount winners. Just between you and me, I’ve got some extra codes for cartel coins and subscription time, so there should be plenty of prizes for the runners up as well. No candy corn, apples or fun-size chocolate bars here, only full size treats if I can help it!

I will accept entries for two weeks from this posting and will randomly select winners on November 15, 2022 at 12 PM ET.

If you prefer not to comment publicly, I also accept entries via email at twia@generic-hero.com or through twitter.

There are no country or server restrictions on any of the prizes that will be awarded.

This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with LucasFilm Ltd, BioWare or Electronic Arts Inc.

We’re on the honor system here, so one entry per person, please.

Please only enter for yourself!

Good luck, and may the Force be with you!

If you’re new here, I hope you’ll take a look around. I’ve been translating SWTOR’s alien languages for six years now and sharing commentary about the state of the game as I see it.

 

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Filed under Galactic Seasons, General SWTOR

October 3, 2022 · 12:01 pm

Neon and Mudflaps

This week let’s take a quick look at the holographic display that appears behind players who possess the Party Instigator, a device that can be purchased on Balmorra by players who have achieved Social Rank 5. In addition to causing players around you to dance, this item also deploys a colorful and flashing neon sign at the center of the festivities.

There isn’t much to the translation, but like my previous recreation, this image also evokes a slice of Americana, one likely familiar to anyone who has driven the interstate highways of the United States.

The text and figure depicted indicates that this display was probably intended for one of the seedier cantinas or dive bars that can be found in any of the galaxy’s countless wretched hives of scum and villainy. The two large letters flanking the figure don’t strike me as having any obvious meaning. It’s fun to wonder if there is any inside joke at play here, but if there is I cannot say. But in the spirit of baseless speculation, I might venture a guess that since the shape formed by the legs of the figure resembles the Aurebesh letter “Xesh”, it could simply be X Y and Z, the final three letters of the alphabet. Beyond that, who knows?

There is, however, no doubt in my mind about the source of inspiration for the figure seen in neon. She is clearly based on the “Mudflap Girl” whose chrome silhouette has become an iconic presence on many, many of the trucks, big rigs and 16 wheelers that range across America’s highways and byways. In the five decades since its creation, the image of the Mudflap Girl has certainly achieved iconic status far beyond its initial use behind the wheels of trucks, and has been reinterpreted in countless ways and styles. SWTOR‘s version replaces the figure’s flowing 1970’s hair with a Twi’lek’s lekku head-tail, an amusing substitution to be sure. What remains from the original design, is of course the figure’s voluptuous physique.

Special thanks to the good folks in the Ootini guilds with whom I’ve been able to raid on the Satele Shan server. During a break in the action last week, someone asked about this graphic, and it was fun to have an excuse to buy my first Party Instigator and check it out over the weekend. Never let it be said that I don’t take requests!

 

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Filed under Aurebesh to English

September 21, 2022 · 4:01 pm

Andor and SWTOR

This week’s post is a quick one, and only indirectly related to SWTOR. The Disney+ series Andor launched today, and it has its own logo. Although the logo has been constantly changing over the course of the build up to its debut to the point that the version used in the title sequence is different from the one appearing in the show’s latest marketing materials, each logo has shared traits that I thought were interesting. In tribute, I decided I’d reinterpret it in Aurebesh with a bit of a SWTOR twist.

If I’m being honest, I’m not sure I quite pulled it off, but I did have fun in the attempt at least. The most distinctive trait of the Andor logo is the letter O formed in negative space between the D and R. Trying to pull of the same trick with an Aurebesh Wesk or W is pushing the readability of that illusion to its limit. To make it work, I had to trim off half of the lower arm of the letter Trill or T, but since the Andor logo removed the bar in the center of its A, I feel like this cheat is consistent with the original design.

The small Star Wars logo was inspired by/shamelessly ripped off from AurekFonts who has worked to archive and catalogue Star Wars’ long and varied history of alien typefaces across all its lore.

The red letters at the bottom are my own bespoke Aurebesh with serifs, which I’ve used here and there over the years. At best, I’d call it a “work in progress,” but at this point I’ve nearly completed the alphabet, so if I’ve got it, I’m gonna use it!

As for Andor itself, don’t worry, there are no spoilers here! If I choose to write about it, it won’t be until well after the season ends. For now, I’m hoping to enjoy it as it comes out this fall.

 

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Filed under Aurebesh to English, General Star Wars, General SWTOR, My Artwork

September 13, 2022 · 7:38 pm

Opal Puppy Winners and Nerf Herding

Just a quick post this week, to announce the winners of my Opal Vulptilla Pup raffle!

Congratulations to Mie-go from Darth Malgus; Mystriel Nocturi and Ravmali from Satele Shan; and Meaz and Ryomen-sukuna from Star Forge! Feed those puppers well and take ’em out for a walk around the galaxy every once in a while!

Thanks to everyone who entered. I am hopeful I’ll have more pups to award in the not too distant future!

…Who’s Scruffy Lookin’?

I also want to share something else I’ve done recently: a guide to the secret Nerf Herding achievement!

I originally created this guide for my guild mates, and had long wanted to fully update it. However, it didn’t quite seem like a good fit for this page, but thankfully, Swtorista offered to host it. it’s super cool to me that many more players will get to experience my most favorite exploration achievement in the game. It’s a relaxing way to revisit the some of SWTOR‘s classic planets and come away with three pets, a decoration and the quite possibly the best Legacy title in the game.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR

August 29, 2022 · 9:01 am

Viva Nar Shaddaa

This year continues to kick my shebs, but this blog does have an informal tradition of taking a close look at some of Nar Shaddaa’s colorful holographic signs while the Nightlife event is active, and I didn’t want the event to pass without taking a moment to recreate one of the most distinctive examples of neon Aurebesh in all of Star Wars: The Old Republic.


There is a fair amount going on with this graphic, but first and foremost it clearly draws inspiration from the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign that has greeted visitors to the city for more than six decades and has become as a distinctive landmark of the city as any hotel on the Strip.

The parallels between Sin City and the Smuggler’s Moon are obvious and intentional across Star Wars lore, so SWTOR’s homage to the sign is a natural fit. Strict traditionalists might be confused and vexed by this sign for both its use of two distinct forms of Aurebesh as well as its disregard for the canonical spelling of Nar Shaddaa. In both cases, I can’t possibly imagine the Hutt crimelords who commissioned this sign caring at all.

“Welcome to” is written using a freehand Aurebesh font which pops up occasionally in other SWTOR signage, but “Nar Shadda” is written using Erik Schroeder’s “Galactic Basic” font, whose usage is a not uncommon sight in SWTOR. This font is more accurate to the alien text seen in Return of the Jedi, but different enough to not actually be Aurebesh, which was itself based on that same text.

The challenge and fun of my recreation was both in duplicating the neon glow and colors of the original, but also replicating its somewhat jagged low resolution. It is my suspicion that this graphic was created early in SWTOR’s development, since other signs and displays tend to have sharper details. Finally, as always, I preserved the spelling “mistake” in my recreation as reminder of the dangers of writing in alien languages.

One Click Bandits Crashin’

Speaking of the Nightlife Event, I thought I’d also touch on this year’s updates. In addition to a somewhat new way to win prizes, three adorable pets, a mount and a complete panoply of weapons were added as jackpot prizes from the Emperor’s Slot Machines.

I admit that my dice were once again hot, and before the event has finished I’ve come away with every prize I wanted, which was honestly mainly the three new pets. I did also collect several of the High Roller weapons, all of which are pretty darn neat. Interestingly this group of weapons are Bind-on-Equip meaning players can trade them with each other in person or through the Galactic Trade Network.

If you’re reading this while the event is active, and you’d like one of the High Roller weapons, I actually recommend buying them directly from the GTN instead of buying Emperor’s chips. The prices will never be lower than they are now while the supply is still strong.

Once again, this year I haven’t needed to purchase chips for the various machines. My leftover stash from previous years is considerable, and simply being active in the game has resulted in a steady supply of Emperor’s tokens allowing me enough chances to get the jackpots I want.

Other new addition to the event have been the “Max Bet” machines available only in the VIP section of both the Republic and Imperial Fleet hubs. As someone who has had access since launch, it’s been neat to see the VIP lounge the most active it’s ever been. Before the addition of Strongholds, it was the location with the most convenient access to our Cargo Hold, a mailbox and the Galactic Trade Network, and I’m glad to again have an excuse to flash my wrist band again and slip behind the velvet rope upstairs.

Max Bet chips can be purchased with either credits or their corresponding chips from your Currency wallet, and have a higher chance to yield a prize result from their respective machines. However even though you might win a prize, you’re still not guaranteed to win the prize you actually want, or even a jackpot. I have not tried a Max Bet Emperor’s machine, but I’m confident I’d get better results from 20 spins of a regular Emperor’s machine than one of the Max Bet machines. Likewise, I see almost no point to bothering with the green Max Bet Smuggler’s machines.

That said, I have taken advantage of the Max Bet Kingpin machines. As a veteran of the event over the years, my stash of blue chips numbers in the thousands and turning a few hundred of them into Max Bet Kingpin chips has allowed me (when used with the Lucky buff from the Smuggler’s machines) to convert them into some extra Emperor’s tokens at a far faster pace that I would otherwise. I don’t doubt that the rate of return would be higher with the regular chips and Kingpin machines, but I simply don’t have the time or interest in the effort it would take to do so.

And I continue to accrue piles of Golden Certificates and Cartel Market Certificates. I’d definitely like something new to buy with them, but it’s nice that if there is a mount, a weapon, a dye, a decoration, or anything at all I want from the Cartel reputation vendors or Golden Certificate vendors, I don’t need to hesitate at all to indulge myself.

Clearly part of the goal of the changes to the Nightlife event was to act as something of a money sink, but I wonder if its having a big effect on the economy. Certainly, you can drop 7.5 million credits on a spin of the Emperor’s machine, but you could also run a flashpoint or play some PVP to earn the chips too. Bioware has done of good job of making the Nightlife event much more player friendly since its debut eight years ago, and I’m glad we can continue to participate by playing SWTOR and not just burning credits.

I’m in favor of credit sinks, but I’d hope for ones that make me want to spend credits rather than making me feel forced to. That cannot be an easy balance to strike.

Opal Vulptilla Pup Raffle!

Finally, I am lucky enough to be able to share with members of my community an opportunity to win an Opal Vulptilla Pup pet. To enter this raffle, all you need to do is leave a comment below this post. How has your luck been at the slot machines this year? What’s your favorite jackpot? Have you run out of alts to give Vectron Wraiths to? Do you prefer the Gamorrean or the Rodian companion? Let me know what SWTOR thoughts are on your mind!

To enter, leave a comment below with the following information:

  • Your character name (be mindful of spaces and special symbols!)
  • Your faction
  • Your server

That’s it! For every ten entries, I will draw one winner up to a maximum of 5 winners. I will accept entries for two weeks from this posting and will randomly select winners on September 12 at 12 PM ET.

If you prefer not to comment publicly, I will also accept entries via email at twia@generic-hero.com or through twitter.

There are no country or server restrictions on any of the prizes that will be awarded.

This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with LucasFilm Ltd, BioWare or Electronic Arts Inc.

We’re on the honor system here, so one entry per person, please.

Please only enter for yourself!

Good luck, and may the Force (or the luck of the Hutts) be with you!

If you’re new here, I hope you’ll take a look around. I’ve been translating SWTOR’s alien languages for more than five years now and sharing commentary about the state of the game as I see it.

 

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Filed under Aurebesh to English, General SWTOR

July 23, 2022 · 9:01 am

Farewell Charles Boyd

This past week, Keith Kanneg shared news of SWTOR’s next game update. Let’s get the easy part out of the way first: update 7.1 is scheduled for release August 2nd. This is most welcome news. The end of the second galactic season aligned with me more or less completing any gear upgrades I wanted before the new operation’s release, so I definitely feel like the summer doldrums have set in.

I haven’t spent much time on the test server this time around, since I very much want my first experience of R4: The Anomaly to be with my guildmates. I have, however, peeked into a few PTS streams now and then, and what I’ve seen suggests that this will be an exciting operation to learn. I am very much looking forward to it! Furthermore, I hope the new Manaan daily area will be a fun place to visit as well. At the very least, there seem to be enough reputation rewards including many, many decorations, to make visits there worth my while.

However, the most notable part of Keith’s post is the news that Charles Boyd is stepping down from his position as SWTOR’s creative director. Boyd has played a significant role both behind the scenes and as the public face of the game’s development team across’ almost all of SWTOR’s history and certainly since he took over as Creative Director during Fallen Empire.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most expansive Star Wars projects ever created, and that it successfully puts each player at the center of a story that feels like their own meant it had to overcome challenges that tales told in other media never even came close to facing. It’s easy for me to say that some of my favorite Star Wars adventures have taken place in SWTOR, but I can also see the influence of SWTOR in other Star Wars media from movies and TV to comics and books. I think it’s fair to say that Charles Boyd played a significant role in making that happen.

Personally speaking, it was a pleasure to meet and chat with Charles in person a few years ago and I remain grateful that he took time to answer some of my questions about Aurebesh for this blog. I wish him the best in whatever endeavors await him!

All that said, he didn’t do it all alone, and the announcement also includes an introduction to SWTOR’s Design Leadership Team. Everyone on the team has experience with the game and has at least played an active role in SWTOR’s course correction since Knights of the Eternal Throne. We have already seen their work in action, and I am certain we are in good hands.

What Does it Mean?

What does it mean? I don’t know. Why would I? I’m not looped into the office gossip, and, for some reason, no one at Bioware consults me before making major life decisions. It’s fun to speculate about fictional characters, but making hay of real people’s lives is at best rude and at worst irresponsible. People change jobs all the time, and turnover at game studios seems common after big releases. I am reluctant to look for any meaning beyond that.

I am among many long time players who aren’t happy with the support EA seems to be giving SWTOR, but SWTOR will go on. New faces can bring in fresh perspectives on familiar settings and characters, and the one thing I know for certain is that the team at Bioware are good people doing their best to make this a game worth caring about, and I am looking forward to the adventures they take us on next.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith

July 12, 2022 · 8:01 am

What About Kenobi, Though?

Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series recently concluded, and I’ve come away from it with a few thoughts I’d like to share. Given the focus of this blog, I do want to touch on its connections and shared themes with SWTOR, but let’s start with a review of the series as a whole. I can’t promise to avoid spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the show and want to go in fresh, feel free to skip this post.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the show, and rate it the best of Disney+’s live action Star Wars endeavors. Ewan McGregor is one of Star Wars’ most charismatic actors and seeing him slip back into the role of Ben Kenobi again (or maybe for the first time) was an absolute pleasure.  And while it takes a while before we see it, I think it’s fair to call Hayden Christiansen a familiar face as well, and it is cool at long last to see him get his due as Darth Vader. The showdowns between their two characters do a good job splitting the difference between the “Super Saiyan” Darth Vader of Rogue One and the “Old Men Waving Sticks at Each Other” from A New Hope. To me, the show’s version of Vader elides very well indeed with his depictions in the movies.

I also want to compliment Moses Ingram’s performance as Reva, the Third Sister. Star Wars villains tend to fall into two catagories: moody adolescents and somewhat campy old men. Reva is rather different. She is consumed by pure, barely-controlled rage that she inflicts on everyone in her path, innocent victim and supposed ally alike. Reva clearly got dealt a raw deal. She hates the universe and wants to pay it back in kind. Ingram put all of that right there on the surface, but doesn’t go over the top with it, so that when the time comes, and Reva sees where all this hate has left her, it is an affecting moment. I don’t think that’s an easy thing to pull off.

I’ve often thought that there was potential for Obi-Wan stories that could be told of his exile on Tatooine. I mainly thought these would be tales about Old Ben and Young Luke having a Lone Wolf and Cub style adventure. Instead Obi-Wan Kenobi gave me something I didn’t know I wanted: an Old Ben and Young Leia adventure, and the interactions between the two characters are, by far, the best part of the show. Leia being exactly the sassy, troublemaker I’d have expected her to be at that age was a delight, and she serves as the perfect antidote to Ben’s regret-laden cynicism that I’m not sure even Luke could match.

On the negative side, I wonder if this story started out as a movie and not a series. I think there is a thrilling and tight two hour movie in here, but as a six episode series, if feels padded out. You can see the show straining against its limitations compared to a movie. The hanger rescue at the end of episode four is a good example, since it compares poorly to similar sequences from The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker. With more time, resources, stuntwork and planning, it might’ve been a spectacular set piece, but instead it was staged about as blandly as you might expect of a “TV show” cutting corners and filling out its season before the big finale.

I’d also argue that parts of the plot are driven along by happenstance a bit more than necessary. The show’s very last story beat was made possible because Reva happened upon the holo-transmitter that happened to have been dropped by Haja and that happened to reveal the location of Luke Skywalker that Bail Organa happened to recklessly reveal to Obi-Wan who already knew that information. Rather than have Reva organically discover Luke herself, his location is just handed to her out of the blue. It strikes me as sloppy storytelling.

There are also issues of continuity, but if I’m being honest, I don’t care. Continuity is a tool, not a straightjacket, and retcons are part and parcel of telling stories in shared spaces. I think it is fair to strategically ignore minor plot points from one story so that they can be explored fully in another. Much hay has been made from calling Star Wars “modern mythology”, but all folklore, from the heroes of ancient Greece to the Knights of the Round Table to the cowboys and Indians of the American West, are stories told by different people in different places and different times. Telling old stories in new ways from new perspectives is the very definition of folklore, so I’m not going to be bothered by inconsistencies in movies and TV shows separated by decades.

Yet if the show drags in places, it does, unlike the Book of Boba Fett, make up for it in ways that a tighter, streamlined version of this story would likely have had to gloss over. For example, I’m very glad that the show got to spend time showing Bail and Breha and Owen and Beru being loving parents to Leia and Luke. Those relationships are footnotes in the original movies, but they are just as, if not more important, as the twins’ blood ties to Vader.

Most importantly, I think Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s finale stuck the landing. The climatic confrontation was strong both as a duel of Force users, but also an emotional conflict between brothers turned enemies. At first I thought maybe they’d cribbed a bit too much from Ahsoka’s battle with Vader in Star Wars: Rebels, but the way Anakin’s voice intermingled with Vader’s as he told Ben “You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did.” was a punch to the gut, and this scene alone makes this story a worthy addition to Star Wars lore.

The show ends with a couple of moments that I might consider to be fan-service if they weren’t so well earned. Liam Nesson is the best part of The Phantom Menace, and his brief appearance is a welcome resolution to Ben’s arc from the very first episode. And meme or not, I must tip my hat to the show for its perfect deployment of the line “Hello there.”

From Kenobi to Beniko

Finally, I think it might be fun to look at the show from the perspective of a SWTOR player. Certainly this adventure leaves little doubt that Obi-Wan is a Sage, and as someone who has mained a Sage since launch, I sure would like to pull off some of his moves in the game. No more pebbles, Bioware, only boulders!

There are striking visual and conceptual parellels between Vader’s battle with Obi-Wan in episode three and Vaylin’s confrontation with Senya in SWTOR’s Betrayed cinematic. Both Anakin and Vaylin were robbed of their childhoods and came into their own broken and betrayed by those who should have nurtured them. Like Obi-Wan, Senya is consumed by her regrets and failure to protect her children. It takes more than being one with the Force to raise a kid in this screwed up galaxy, it seems.

Unlike, Vader, Vaylin’s story may not be over just yet, so I’m curious to see how much like the Dark Lord of the Sith she truly becomes.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, like so much Star Wars lore, explores stories of characters struggling to become who they are in a world where it’s not always clear if the Force is with you or it serves you. Are Reva and Lana Sith? Are Ahsoka and Sa’har Jedi? And should those labels matter?

These questions can be the foundations of interesting stories. And that is kind of why I love Star Wars.

 

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Filed under General Star Wars

June 29, 2022 · 8:01 am

No Justice

One month after I launched This Week in Aurebesh, Trump won the presidential election and I considered scrapping this project in despair. I decided to keep going because I knew I would need a distraction in the days ahead, and I thought others out there could use one too. Over the next few years, this endeavor, SWTOR itself and the community of wonderful people I get to play with became an important respite from the turbulence of real life. But it can be hard to talk about fake space letters, giant robots and laser swords when so much is on the line. As an old straight white dude in a blue state, I have it lucky, but I fear for my friends and loved ones who just want to live their lives. People should be able to be who they are without fear. People should be able to love who they love without fear. Women should be able to decide what to do with their bodies without fear. People should be able to go to school, to church, to the store without fear.

Star Wars is a story about rebellion against institutions that seek to rule with fear, and its metaphors are not about a bygone age, but of every age, including our own. But it’s just a story, a simple children’s story even. The story of our age is much more complicated and difficult, but now more than ever, in my real life, I will continue to do what I can to stand up for the rights of people who are being forced into the margins, the shadows and the closet. This is the core value of my faith and the aspiration of my adopted country, and I think it is something worth fighting for.

As for this dumb little blog, I’ve got a half-written Obi-Wan Kenobi review and a folder filled with untranslated Aurebesh, and as the spirit moves me, I’ll endeavor to keep this corner of the internet a place for folks to find a small distraction from their day. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I will try.

Justicar Propaganda: Special Edition

I’d originally hoped to feature a new translation in this post, but as you’ll read in the next section, I had to give up on that effort. To get back on track I thought I’d take another crack at one of the first Aurebesh graphics I examined in 2016.

When I started this project, the goal was for my versions to simply be “quick and dirty” copies rather than the more faithful recreations I aim for now. I suppose my first attempt does have a certain rough charm, but I don’t think it’s aged well in comparison to my other efforts so a second pass felt in order.

The challenge of this new recreation was to match the painted texture of the background, the rough edges of the paper, and to more closely duplicate the original layout, things I only gestured at the first time around.

For example, I used lower case text in my first pass, and I’ve since come to the conclusion that Aurebesh (or at least my recreations of it!) work best in upper case. Technically Aurebesh does not include lower case letters at all, but various versions of the font over the years have attempted to fill the gaps in the original with features like case, punctuation and numbers. Some of these additions have stuck to various degrees, but when it comes to rules for upper and lower case, I don’t think any have been successful. I now prefer to always translate Aurebesh into upper case English letters.

While most of the elements of my recreation were made from scratch, I must confess the figure was digitally traced. The generic term for this process is “cheating”, so I guess a little bit of a “quick and dirty” ethos remains. As for the figure of the Justicar himself, I wonder if the symbol on the his sleeve is meant to have a specific meaning. It almost looks likes an Aurebesh “D” or maybe an inverted “S”, but it also somewhat recalls the “service bar” stripe with dashes and pips seen on the lower sleeve of Starfleet uniforms of the original Star Trek movies. All that said, the thing it most closely evokes is the armband worn on fascist uniforms in our own world, and that is, of course, right up the Justicar’s alley.

Atrisian or Not, Here I Come

Since this post has been mainly focused on my process, I thought it might be interesting to look at something in the game that I failed to translate. I’d originally hoped to recreate the monitor used in the terminal in the tunnels during the Rakghoul Resurgence event, but my efforts came to naught.

The font used on the left side of the display is most likely “Dark Katarn” or Atrisian, a typeface inspired by alien writing used in early Lucasarts games, particularly the classic Dark Forces. Like Aurebesh, these letters seems to have been based on those seen in Return of the Jedi. Unlike Aurebesh, however, the Lucasarts version was never codified into a full alphabet, and it remains a mostly obscure typeface. In SWTOR, it is most often seen as the alphabet used on Rakata ruins across Belsavis and the Foundry Space Station. I think it is a clever way to suggest an ancient language similar to, but still different from the more familiar Aurebesh.

As for this display, while I do think it is probably Atrisian, I do see letters here that could be from other fonts like Aurebesh, Huttese and Sith Prophecy. The text is so low resolution that I don’t feel confident making any kind of definitive statement about what we’re seeing here. Does it actually mean anything? Maybe? Probably not? I just can’t say for sure.

And that’s okay. I’ve often said that it’s not necessary for every alien language in Star Wars to be translatable. Fake space letters are meant evoke a fantastic setting without constraining creators to a rigid set of rules that they might break when aiming to simply make something look neat. And this does look neat and not at all out of place in the Star Wars setting whether it has an English meaning or not.

The image linked above shows a closer look at the display as it appears in game with the Bloom setting both on and off. Feel free to take a closer look yourself, and if you can suss out a meaning I’ve missed, please let me know!

 

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May 13, 2022 · 1:01 pm

Fade and Glow: Top Five Non-Cartel Market Color Crystals

The recent addition of weapons to the Outfit Designer has been a bigger deal for me than I ever expected. Up until now, I really only actively used one or two weapons at a time per character. But in the last weeks, I’ve been pairing up countless lightsabers, blasters and rifles with dozens of outfits across my legacy. A big part of accessorizing a weapon with an armor set is the choice of color crystal in that weapon, so I thought now would be a great time for another Dumb Top Five list spotlighting the best color crystals that can be found in Star Wars: The Old Republic without spending a single Cartel Coin.

A quick glance at this post will immediately reveal that there are fifteen crystals on this top “five” list. Leaving aside that math has never been my strong suit, it’s simply down to the fact there are so many neat color crystals available to players through crafting and gameplay that I wanted to highlight as many as possible. Besides, my list, my rules.

The Classics: Red, Blue and Green

A red lightsaber looks good on any Sith, and blue and green are so iconic for the Jedi that any list of the best color crystals should absolutely begin (and could arguably end) with the three classic colors of the lightsabers in Star Wars’ original trilogy. Artificers can craft a dozen different color crystals, including these, but I find I return to the primary colored stalwarts again and again. I’ve seen some strong opinions about these crystals having the wrong shade of green or tint of blue, but the movies are hardly consistent when it comes to coloring, so I’d say that you cannot go wrong with these colors, especially given how quick and easy they are to craft.

Eternal Championship: Cyan, Magenta and Purple

Knights of the Fallen Empire’s Eternal Champion boss rush/fight club encounter reintroduced the neon glowing Cyan, Magenta and Purple color crystals that had previously been included in weapons found in the level 50 Operations. Each crystal costs only two tokens awarded from completing the Eternal Championship, but Artificers who had been around prior to KotFE were able to reverse engineer the Cyan and Purple crystals and to craft themselves. In addition, the recipe for the Magenta crystals still drops from level 50 areas and world bosses. If you don’t feel up for a run at the Eternal Championship, you can still find these crystals on the Galactic Trade Network auction house, often affordably priced, but sadly they can no longer be reverse engineered.

Black Core Crystals: Red, Green, Blue and Purple

There are several brands of distinctive “black core” color crystals available in the game. The Red, Blue, Purple and Orange (not pictured) drop in Operations and the Green-Black crystal can be purchased from Jeelvic the Jawa for four Rakghoul DNA Canisters, event currency that can be earned during the recurring Rakghoul Resurgence. Of the four pictured here, I think Black-Blue is my favorite, but all of these crystals stand out in a crowd and look especially dramatic when paired with the right weapon tunings.

Just like the original purple and cyan crystals, these black core blue, orange, purple and red crystals also could be reverse engineered by Artificers prior to Fallen Empire. Therefore they are likely to be found on the GTN as player made items or simply the BOE versions that still drop in Operations to this day.

Tricolor Crystals: White-Purple-Blue, White-Orange-Yellow, and Red-Blue

Of the many different variants of crystals in the game, the triple color crystals are among the most unusual, and Artificers can craft two of them: White-Orange-Yellow and White-Purple-Blue. I also included the Red-Blue crystal here since its color interactions suggest a white inner glow. Attacks that involve throwing a lightsaber or attacks with wide, spinning strokes really show off all the different hues these crystals apply to lightsaber blades, and I find them fun to see in action. Of these three, I consider White-Orange-Yellow to be the stand out. There are other orange and yellow color combinations out there, but this particular crystal looks and feels the most like gold. If you’re playing a High Republic inspired Jedi, I definitely recommend checking it out.

Best Crystal for a Blaster: Fire Red

Color crystals, of course, most dramatically affect the appearance of lightsabers, but I would be remiss if I did not also include my favorite color crystal for all those pistol packing, rifle slinging and bazooka blasting troublemakers out there. Blue, green and red blaster bolts are the standard from the movies, but the Artifice crafted Fire Red will spice up your blaster bolts with an extra dash of heat. This is my go-to for most of my ranged tech classes, and it looks especially awesome spraying from a Commando’s auto-cannon.

Honorable Mention for the Truly Dedicated: Silver-Black

I like to include a “For the Truly Dedicated” entry on these lists, but I’ve decided to give the Black-Silver crystal mere Honorable Mention status on account of the fact that it can only be acquired through playing Ranked PVP. While it does cost a modest amount of Ranked tokens, I know that for many players, there is no amount of Ranked PVP that they would consider even “modest.” However, if you want to come as close as you currently can in SWTOR to wielding the Darksaber, then the Black-Silver color crystal is for you.

At the time of writing, SWTOR is currently in a ranked “pre-season” so wins and losses do not count towards overall ranking, so now is the best time to dip your toes in the game’s most competitive PVP mode. If you are curious if it is something you’d like to attempt, I suggest checking out this video from the great and powerful Kogass_ who has some advice for those thinking about ranked. Kogass recorded the video during Onslaught, but his advice equally applies to Legacy of the Sith. And if you want to check out some exciting level 80 Ranked PVP action, tune into Kogass‘ Twitch channel!

All of the color crystals on this list are Bind on Equip or Bind to Legacy which means that you will not be able to unlock additional versions of the crystals like you can using Account Unlocked Cartel Market color crystals. So be careful when swapping in new crystals over ones that you might want to save. Artifice crafted crystals can be replaced with relative ease, but some of the rarer ones might be tougher or expensive to reacquire.

Keep in mind that stats on the weapons and armor you stamp into the Outfit Designer do not matter at all, just their appearance! Go ahead and put a Power Crystal in a weapon you stamp on an outfit you intend to tank in. This goes for low level crystals too. If you’ve been getting a pre-order bonus +4 Endurance Black-Yellow crystal in the mail of every character you’ve made in the last ten years, you at last have a reason to slap that yellowjacket in a saber and let it sting!

Finally, if you have a few hundred thousand credits to spare and are at least Valor Rank 10, you can skip the middlemen of crafting and the GTN for most of the crystals on this list and simply purchase Mastery versions of them from the PVP Items vendor in the Combat Training section of both Fleets.

The updated Outfit Designer has made it easier than ever to embrace every color on the rainbow of color crystals and I encourage everyone to check them out. If you’ve got a favorite color crystal, let me know in the comments what weapon and tuning it goes with best. I’m always keen to discover new combinations!

 

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Filed under Dumb Top Five, General SWTOR

April 27, 2022 · 10:01 am

Outfits, Guns and Money

This week’s game update 7.0.2 to SWTOR has delivered a long requested feature to the outfit designer: the ability to add weapons to outfit slots. The Outfit Designer has been one of the best, if not the very best, features for player customization for its ease of use and versatility, but expanding it to include weapons was a notion that seemed like it would never come down from Bioware’s infamous “Wall of Crazy.”

I know that adding weapons to outfit designer was far more complex a task than it might seem since weapons come with a host of unique characteristics: color crystals, tunings, sound effects, visual effects on individual weapons and more, things that the outfit designer wasn’t originally built to track. I imagine it took a lot of rejiggering to make weapons to work, but I’m glad it’s finally made it into the game. For me the most frustrating part of Legacy of Sith‘s launch was having to retire weapons I’ve been using for years in favor of the non-moldable gear we’re earning now. To be completely honest, I did not care for some of the weapon models I’d been sporting the last couple of months.

But now that it is here, I gotta say this upgrade to the outfit designer is darn good. Obviously its nice to be able to draw my first choice of blasters and sabers again, but it’s even neater to dust off some old favorites from the bottom of my cargo hold to use with different outfits. Since the stats on the weapon being plugged into the outfit slot don’t matter, it’s also been fun to have an excuse to craft some low level, non-moddable weapons with designs I’ve always liked.

The system does have limitations mostly related to what your active Combat Style is and the weapon skills that come with it. If you have two styles that use the same main hand weapons, say Power Tech and Mercenary, you’ll be able to share the same outfits with both styles. Off-hand weapons won’t apply to your PT style, but main hands will work for both Loadouts. However, if your Combat Style uses different weapons and you want to apply the same armor set to both, you will have to set up a second outfit with that second weapon type. This is an inconvenience and a bit of a credit sink, but spending credits is what they’re for. There is an exception is for Snipers who can apply Rifles to their main-hand slot and still access all their sniper abilities. This little loophole dramatically expands the number of options for Snipers, and at last allows rifles to be used by a ranged DPS class! I suspect this exception is because Snipers are the only class that can use two different weapon types that share the same animations.

Should the Outfit Designer allow this exception for other classes? I can see an argument for Vanguards and Operatives to use Sniper Rifles, since it wouldn’t affect their combat animations. But for the other classes the weapon types they use are so strongly tied to their “class identity” that even if there weren’t conflicts between the weapon abilities and animations, it would still seem weird to me to see a Shadow using single bladed lightsabers. Likewise a Gunslinger crouching down with a massive auto-cannon doesn’t quite makes sense to me either. In that last case, however, I would gladly make an exception for Vette so she could use her beloved Spewie again.

Finally it should be noted that color crystals and tunings cannot be stamped into weapon slots in the outfit designer in the same way dye modules can. So if you want to change your lightsaber color or blaster tuning, you’ll need to plug them onto the original weapon and re-stamp them on your outfit.

I make no apologies for caring about how my characters look. Whether it’s with the Kell Dragon lightsaber I fondly recall earning with my operations team, the blaster I got after kicking Skavak in the nuts, or a swanky rifle inspired by The Mandalorian that I just bought from the Cartel Market, I’m glad my characters will be charging into battle with their preferred ray guns and laser swords again, and I complement the designers at Bioware who have made it easier than ever to take advantage of every iron in my golf bag of destruction.

 

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Filed under General SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith