Doing my part for the community

While I was perusing the official forums the other day (they are really not that bad these days if you take care to avoid topics with certain key words in the title), I came across an interesting thread whose author bemoaned the lack of fan site support for the game as of late, specifically when it comes to item databases, talent tree calculators and the like. While the responses quickly veered off topic, the original post certainly left me thoughtful.

My personal item database of choice has always been Torhead, because I liked Wowhead when I played WoW, and Torhead is basically the same thing, only for SWTOR. My relationship with it was only soured ever so slightly a couple of months ago when I posted a comment that was fully compliant with all their rules: concise, accurate and useful, and yet it was downvoted to a rating of -4 within days. I even made a thread about it, to earnestly ask what was wrong with it, and the only response I got was basically a shrug and "don't know". What kind of community downrates useful information? Bah.

Still, I kept using Torhead because I wasn't particularly attracted to any of the alternatives. Since that thread I linked above was posted, the site has been updated for 1.4 as well. After having a bit of a look around, I still found it to be in a pretty sad state however. Empty pages everywhere, with no comments, screenshots or anything.

Well, I thought, at least that's something I can work to change! I may not be able to fix things like broken links, but I can add to the community-driven part of the site. So I began my personal little project called "inundate Torhead with useful information, particularly screenshots". Ever wondered how one type of Banded Longboots looked different from another? Well, now you can find out, because I came across both of them on my Sith warrior and uploaded screenies. I've added over two hundred of them over the last couple of days.

It's a fun little mini-game actually. The site is missing so much information that you can pretty much pull out any of your characters, take a picture of every piece of gear you're wearing, every piece of gear your companions are wearing, every piece of gear in your bags and bank, plus assorted vehicles and pets, and nine times out of ten Torhead won't have any screenshots of it uploaded yet. People give me funny looks when I twitch around my companions to get the best angle for a picture on the fleet, but it's all for a good cause. It's gotten to the point where my significant other gives me frowny faces and asks whether I'm taking screenshots again. Yes, yes, I am! For the community, and for questionable internet fame!