Manaan stronghold review

Last week, a lot of my gaming time was spent in LOTRO, trying to finish the Scavenger hunt and the Summer festival in time. But when SWTOR's update 5.3 went live Tuesday last week, I just had to login to check out the Manaan stronghold. As I had been rooting for a Rishi stronghold instead and was occupied in LOTRO, I had totally forgotten how online decorating excites me. Apparently my guildies know me better, though, because two of them were already there, waiting for me to purchase the stronghold so they could look around. Their reactions were mixed, just like those of my fellow bloggers and people on Twitter.

Life Day greetings from Nar Shaddaa

A belated merry Christmas! Err... I mean, happy Life Day of course! In SWTOR, Christmas is celebrated in true Star Wars style and that means a Life Day celebration. This is what Wookieepedia says about Life Day, or "Wookiee Christmas":

"Life Day was a Wookiee holiday celebrated by the inhabitants of Kashyyyk every three years. It was a celebration of the planet's diverse ecosystem and the many forms of life it encompassed. It also was a time to remember family members who had died, and the young ones who continued to bring new life to a family. Life Day was a sacred holiday, and many Wookiees considered it their duty to return to Kashyyyk in order to celebrate it. Life Day was held once every three local years for many generations, but during the Galactic Civil War, its importance to the Wookiees became more pronounced. Wookiees were spread across the galaxy, either because they had been enslaved by the Galactic Empire or for personal reasons, and they began celebrating Life Day each year as a way to remain in touch with their history. Over time, the holiday found its way into various other cultures." (source: Wookieepedia)

The Female Geek Blogger community is die-hard: what do you mean, Christmas? It's a Friday, so there's 5 Fandom Fridays to be written! This one was themed "favourite holiday decorations".

I hung something on the wall and now you'll have to read this whole post about it

What is sorcerer Fárah doing on Oricon? Shouldn't she be busy defeating Revan or something? Well, Fárah is here to bring you news of her latest personal victory. Last weekend, she finally managed to defeat dread master Brontes on nightmare mode.

Daydreaming about our new stronghold's planet

I'm a bit of a closet stronghold fangirl. At first, I hated the word 'stronghold' because I thought they should have been called apartments. (Okay, I still think they should. But now everyone is used to 'strongholds'.) Then, I was afraid they might turn out to be a huge money sink. By now I know they indeed are just that, but it's something I don't mind because it's nice to have an on-going project to work on.

In the spring we'll be getting a new stronghold. But what planet will it be on?

Happy new year: looking back and forth

Happy new year and welcome to the new Ravalation.

SWTOR: What's this stronghold stuff?

You'll probably have heard the news by now: as per June we're getting SWTOR apartments! I mean, strongholds, totally strongholds (sigh).

Seriously, what's this 'stronghold' stuff? If I hear stronghold, I imagine some sort of castle. Not particularly useful in spacey future times. Besides, I'm always out there in danger, so when I'm having time off I want to relax in my leisure apartment. Not hide behind some barricades with all my stuff.

The name aside, this seems to be a decent update. There's even another teaser vid, that doesn't particularly tell much, but looks cool:

What's hot?

All directly from the official homepage:

"Legacy Stronghold Storage – Unlock access to a new type of storage that is shared across your entire Legacy!"

Legacy storage! What can I say, this is going to be huge. Awesome for raiding consumables, crafting materials and smuggle wares without ending up loosing sight on what character has what. People have been asking for this since the start of the game, so it's good this is finally added.

"Rally your guild aboard your own Guild Flagship and join the renowned ranks of your faction’s starship fleet."

This is a nice surprise, there's been no mention of a guild ship before. Always good to have a place where you can accumulate trophies with your buddies. This should be a fun addition.

"Choose a prestigious apartment in the heart of your faction’s capital world, or live in style among the high-rollers of Nar Shaddaa or both – your Legacy can own multiple Strongholds!"

It's nice that there is some choice of planet where to live. I had hoped for more planets (would have loved to live on Tatooine, for instance), but this is better than just Coruscant or something of the likes. It's also nice to be able to have multiple houses, especially for roleplay purposes. I think I'm going to settle for one Imp and one Rep one though. I'm certainly not going to grind out an apartment for each alt!

"Display trophies earned in battle, craft state-of-the-art furniture, and unlock all-new rewards across the game. Then customize your Strongholds with hundreds of unique decorations to express your personal style."

Crafting, trophies... exactly what I had hoped for. Surely they'll come up with some creative stuff.

Buzzing blogs

Meanwhile, it seems people are getting quite excited about this, and SWTOR blogs are buzzing. Most bloggers agree 'stronghold' sounds silly, but are generally quite happy with the revealed features. Here's a short wrap up:

Going Commando loves how Bioware manages to surprise players with an update that appears to be more impressive than expected.

Meanwhile, Swords & Lightsabers has 101 ideas about the possible housing details.

Finally, Werit wonders how the decoration system will work, while Njessi of Hawtpants of the Republic finds her luxury condo has a walk-in-closet.

Don't forget to sub in May in order to get early access in June!

SWTOR: Some hopes regarding housing

We're getting houses - but I live on my ship!

Tiger sent me this video of upcoming plans for housing in Star Wars. I think he was expecting me to jump around the house happily, but I don't know:

The video obviously doesn't show much. We see what is assumed to be a player-owned apartment on what seems to be Coruscant. There is some furniture and a mailbox. The thing standing at the left side of the room may or may not be a cargo hold. And there's a droid, of which it is unclear whether it is the jedi knight companion or a 'house droid'. The video is more a teaser than anything. 

Still, I think it's pretty cool that they're working on this, and I know that many people been hoping for housing for a long time. Myself, I've always felt that my ship was in a way my own 'house', although it's a shame there isn't much to customize there apart from adding the useful stuff like training dummies and cargo holds. What will SWTOR housing add here?

Wild ideas

This is what I hope housing in Star Wars will include:

Utility
A house can be so much fun, but if it's situated on some far backwater area you can't easily reach, I'll forget about it and rarely visit it. It should at least have a quick travel. It would be great if a house would give you extra cargo space, preferably shared between characters. It could be, like, a legacy house. That way it would make sense lore-wise as well.
 
Trophies
It would be awesome to collect items won in battles (raids, flashpoints) or found in the open world that remind you of adventures experienced and place them in your house. I'm sure the developers can come up with some crazy cool ideas of things to put there. Especially things you can use ('click') and that do something are my favourite.

I once saw a really cute video made by a LotRO player, showing his housing trophies and 'flashbacks' to the moment he'd acquired them. I'm so annoyed that I can't find it back to show it to you!

Crafting recipes for furniture 
I love crafting recipes for outfits, even though they took a big hit with the introduction of the cartel market. It still would be cool to be able to craft nice stuff for your house. Like actual good-looking stuff, not a hobo version for people who can't afford stuff from the cartel market.

Realism
If SWTOR houses will have a kitchen and a privy, I'll salute the developers. I'm not counting on it, though. Oh and Star Wars houses should totally be called apartments. I'm getting the TOR feeling already!

Home is where your friends are

This is what I hope housing in Star Wars will not include:

A time and money sink
I have to spend more time than I'd like into trying to get money in Star Wars. If it's going to be very expensive to pay upkeep, it will have to be very good for me to bother with it.

A cartel market walhalla
The developers no doubt have ideas about cartel market housing items. I just hope it's not going to be a cartel market exclusive housing party. That would greatly take away my interest.

Too much space
This is a tricky/personal one. I've always felt that the personal houses in LotRO had too much space: loads of space and just sometimes an item here or there. I'd like my house to be full of stuff, looking cozy like my real house would look like, not like a random page taken from a design magazine.

Will I buy a house?

I generally like owning a house and putting my stuff there, but we don't know anything about housing in Star Wars yet. In LotRO, I do own one, which I mostly use for nostalgia reasons and to get dyes from the shared vault. I gave Tiger access to the vault, since he's a digital hobo. I don't know if he'll want an apartment in Star Wars or not. Whether I'll get one myself will mostly depend on the factors described above.