Last weeks' season objective to visit a Rishi stronghold had me a little worried in the sense that like Alderaan, the Rishi stronghold is huge, and I was wondering whether it would get a bit boring again to look at how the chairs had been arranged in every single room. There was definitely a bit of that, but I somehow felt it less on Rishi because it has less of a focus on those small rooms (though there are a few) and it was easier to quickly get the general lay of the land when comparing the different outdoor environments.
Like in previous weeks, I visited a stronghold on all servers except Darth Malgus. The first one was once again Shae Vizla, where there isn't that much going on (yet) in the stronghold scene and the most "filled up" stronghold I could find was Zenna Dusk's stronghold at 16%. This percentage sounds very low, but the owner did the best they could by placing at least a few decorations in every major location. Since this was also my first Rishi stronghold of the week and I couldn't even remember all the different sub-zones anymore, this felt a bit like a game of hide and seek, trying to find the most interesting spots. I didn't take any screenshots of it since I only noticed it towards the very end, but the Overlook seemed to be their main base of operations as thats where they had actually put their utilities and more "regular" furniture like a bed.
On Satele Shan, I visited Senséi's Pirate Roost at 100%, which was immediately a dramatic contrast because of how full it was. The most striking thing about this stronghold was that the owner was clearly a big Republic supporter as Republic guardsmen were everywhere. I was so impressed by how many there were, I ended up looking up the source of that deco and was reminded that it's accessible for cheap from a vendor, something I'd completely forgotten about myself even though I'd unlocked some myself in the past.
Oh, and dancing twi'leks, there were quite a few of those too.
On Leviathan, I ended up visiting Alita Darkangel's Marketplace Cantina at 96% completion, and was immediately delighted when I zoned in right next to the giant cat droid from Nathema Conspiracy (a decoration I use in one of my own strongholds too). I generally noticed that whatever I found at the default zone-in spot usually made quite a strong first impression, and it was annoying that it was hard to get good screenshots of everything on that slightly elevated platform.
Exploring the stronghold further, I saw more of the holo
On Tulak Hord, I visited Ghost Leathercoat's Jedi Academy at 99% completion, because I hadn't seen a Rishi stronghold with a Jedi theme yet and was wondering whether this one would deliver. The answer was: partially - they definitely made use of a lot of Jedi shrines, but there wasn't much of an academy vibe, more of a general stronghold since there were also a lot of Republic guardsmen around again.
I haven't mentioned the PvP areas yet, which are unique to Rishi - in the free-for-all zone at the arrival point, it was interesting to see most players place different kinds of obstacles while seemingly still preserving its general purpose, while this person seemed to be like "screw it, I don't care about PvP" and just filled it up with mounts, trophies and plants as if it was any other space. I never looked too closely at the Huttball area on the patrol carrier in any stronghold since I figured it has limited customisation options, though this person had plopped a tree in there too.
Inside the patrol carrier there was also this giant root, which had me a bit baffled - is "giant root that sticks from floor to ceiling" an actual decoration (in which case this seems quite out of place) or is something clipping in a weird way there?
I also had a funny experience in the Overlook in this stronghold as one of the rooms in it contained a bar and a few NPCs. I turned around to run into the next room and... was wondering whether I'd accidentally turned myself around completely since I saw the exact same room again. It took me a few moments of of running back and forth to confirm that no, they had actually decorated two adjacent rooms in exactly the same way for some reason.
My final destination for the week was Akiara's Black Market on Star Forge, which also sat at 100%. I liked that this one had some very strongly themed areas, such as a "junk shop" with droids in various stages of (dis)repair and housing the jawa vendors.
I also liked these barracks on the patrol carrier.
This med bay impressed me as well, except that something clearly went wrong in that tank on the right, ew!
I did find this one corner though that felt like they had just placed down random small items to get to full completion, never mind the visual result.
There is both a ceiling and wall version of that root deco from the Ossus tech fragment vendor.
ReplyDeleteRishi is my all-time favorite stronghold. It's massive, with all of the centerpiece hooks you could want, but easily divides into smaller areas to decorate one-by-one. My only complaint is that the PVP areas unmount you even if you have stronghold PVP turned off (which really killed my plan for a swoop track on the roof of the skyship).
Thank you! I love that someone in the comments always knows everything about any decorations that seem strange to me. I mean... I know I could make an effort to research these things, but it's more fun this way. 😉
DeleteMy husband and I just visit each other's strongholds each week. He's not into decorating so all of his are empty accept Nar Shadaa where he has his utility decorations.
ReplyDeleteI love that big guardian droid from Nathema flashpoint. I put that in my Copero stronghold down in the docks area. Hehe. Yes, since your suggestion to look at the Copero stronghold I have since spent a fair amount of time decorating. I finally have it up to 36% and my Tatooine one up to 26%.
I like that barracks and med bay in that last stronghold you visited.
This season has really been great for increasing my interest in and knowledge about strongholds. I'm happy to see that it's been working for others as well!
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