Hoth GSI Missions Guide

The below guide was originally written by FJ Brodie for his website FibroJedi. After he decided to shut the site down, I decided to reproduce this and his other GSI guides on my blog - with his permission of course. I also made a few small amendments to update them for the current level cap and to add some new information. You can still find an archived version of his original guide here.

Welcome to the back of beyond – also known as Hoth! Even on this snowball, Galactic Solutions Industries has research to do. And, of course, you’ve been coopted to do that research. So here’s my SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions Guide! I’ve included notes, screenshots and a couple of videos to help guide you through the icy wastelands.

Picking up the GSI Missions

Once you arrive on the surface of Hoth from the Space Station, you’ll need to locate the GSI Missions Terminal. In the past you also had to return to this terminal to hand in some mission items, but with patch 7.0, all the GSI dailies on Hoth were changed to auto-complete as soon as you fulfil the last objective.

Imperial: Inside Dorn Base

For the Empire, the GSI Terminal is right near where you properly start the Hoth story arc.

Republic: Exit of Aurek Base

For the Republic faction, the Terminal and dropbox are found right by the TaunTaun vendors.

Quick-slotting the Seeker Droid and Macrobinoculars

If you haven’t completely finished The Shroud and the Dread Seeds questlines, you can find your Seeker Droid and Macrobinoculars in the Quest Items tab of Inventory. You’ll find GSI missions easier if you just quick-slot these, rather than keeping the Inventory UI open.

Missions

Some of the Hoth GSI Missions inter-link. This means you can often progress two of them at the same time. I’ve tried to remember to note down where this is the case to cut down travel time.

Crash Courses (DAILY)

Hoth has, apparently, a particularly strong gravitational pull. This has led to a number of starship wreckages scattered across the planet. For reasons we probably don’t want to know Galactic Solutions Industries want to figure out how to replicate the effect. The mission involves scanning wreckages and downed escape pods so GSI can reverse engineer the effect.

Crash Courses: Notes

Mission: Scan Crashed Ships or Escape Pods × 4
Region: Clabburn Tundra, one in Crescent Canyon

• If you’re playing an Imperial-faction character, the wreck at -3984,540 (Wreck 2 in the video below) is surrounded by Republic soldiers and the occasional Talz. You may need to clear a few out to scan it without being attacked.
• If you’re playing a Republic-faction character, the wreck at -2522,-465 (Wreck 4 in the video below) has Imperial mobs on the approach to it. Because of a dip in the snow you can’t really scan it from afar, so defeating some Imperials will be necessary. But I’m sure you won’t mind: there is a war going on, after all!

Note: this wreck is en route to one of the sites for Picking up the Pieces so it make sense to complete this mission at the same time as Crash Courses.

Mission Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Picking Up the Pieces (DAILY)

Despite extensive funds and influence, the White Maw Pirates have made off with research data from GSI’s Superweapons Division. Data breaches are not just our galaxy’s concern! GSI want that data returned.

Thankfully (for GSI at least), the pirates’ ship crashed into Hoth, presumably thanks to the gravitational pull mentioned in Crash Courses.

Mission Summary: Scan and Recover Crashed Ship Parts
Regions: Clabburn Tundra, High Mount Ridge and Glacial Fissure

This is one of the Hoth GSI Missions with a random element in it. There are five possible locations where the research data may have crashed. The mission will not complete until you’ve found the specific crashed ship containing it. But the “correct” ship may differ each time you do Picking Up the Pieces.

Site 1: Crescent Canyon (Clabburn Tundra)

This wreck is near the most Northern point of Crescent Canyon. It is filled with Imperials and the occasional Wampa.

Site 2: Highmount Road (Highmount Ridge) -1635,471

Road! Ha! Please note this coordinate is not in the tunnel-like section lower-down but up on top. If you can see this view, you’re in the wrong area.

Apart from the occasional Ice Cat, nothing should bother you here.

Site 3: Highmount Bluffs (Highmount Ridge) -740,1607

This crash site is South of Leth Outpost (Imperial). The path South is patrolled by White Maw Pirates and their droids. Further South are Ortolans and Talz (Republic allies). Once you’ve passed the Ortolan camp, the path is easy to the next wreck.

Site 4: Eruption Impasse (Glacial Fissure) – 620,386

This crash site is in the same area (and on the same level) as the volcanoes for Forged in Fire. So if you haven’t found the GSI data yet by wreck 4, do Forged in Fire at the same time. 

Site 5: Northern Whitelands (Glacial Fissure) – 900,-862

If you have yet to complete Warped to the Core, then the Ambria’s Fury is just a short distance from Wreck 5. Aside from the occasional Talz (Republic allies) and Ice Cat, you should be fairly safe from interruptions while scanning this wreck.

Picking Up the Pieces Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Beneath the Spires (DAILY)

Crashed ships of recent origin are one thing. Ancient starships buried under many centuries of ice and snow is a totally different matter. Galactic Solutions Industries believes unearthing (or un-icing?) these starships would be valuable to their research.

FJ’s Note: despite the Seeker Droid seeming to just scratch the surface when it “digs”, apparently that cable can excavate starship parts from under many layers of snow and ice!

Mission Summary: Dig Up Ship Components Near Ship Debris × 3
Region: Jagged Plains, Clabburn Tundra

Health Warning: World Boss Gargath may be wandering around here. He was there when I was! Aside from that there are plenty of Whitefangs lurking around here too.

All you need to do is locate 3 × Ship Debris (see screenshot below). Then excavate them with your Seeker Droid. You can hover your cursor over scrap metals. The hover text will then confirm if it’s ship debris.

Once you've dug up three pieces of ship debris, the mission completes automatically.

Beneath the Spires Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Forged in Fire (DAILY)

If you’ve wandered SWTOR’s rendition of Hoth (on a day you don’t have a headache, or didn’t before you landed on Hoth) you will have noticed some small volcanos. These volcanoes (which are pretty small) yield metallic ores that are instantly cooled by Hoth’s rather cold climate.

GSI have called this “Embersteel” that it believes only occurs near these volcanoes. Your research could assist the Empire (or Republic) with state-of-the-art plasma cannons.

FJ’s Note: Of course, your research will only give you a small discount on such amazing tech. Available exclusively from GSI, naturally!

Mission Summary: Dig Up Embersteel Ores inside Volcanoes x 3
Region: Eruption Impasse (Glacial Fissure)

• If you have not completed Picking up the Pieces, then Wreck 4 is in the same area as the volcanoes.
• The area contains groups of Hailstorm Brotherhood mobs, aggressive to both Republic and Empire factions.
• Use your Seeker Droid on volcanoes to see if any Embersteel is contained inside. I think you need to scan near the top. But you don’t have to be near the top yourself – molten rock will hurt you a bit!
• If your droid returns and you have a red ring about you, pick a volcano a fair way from where you were stood.
• There are a lot of volcanoes in Eruption Impasse/Southern Crevasse, so this mission requires patience!
• The precise point you need to dig on a volcano may take a few attempts. If you get a green circle around you after a failed dig attempt just adjust the area you’re digging slightly. Move in the direction of the solid green segment of the circle.

Eruption Impass from above

Seeker Droid digging into a volcano

Red and green circles after a dig attempt

Forged in Fire Rewards

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Warped to the Core (HEROIC 2+)

Health Warning: This Hoth GSI Heroic is by far the hardest of all those available for Galactic Solutions Industries. There are multiple factors at play and it is timed. Timed missions are really bad for my Fibromyalgia, which is one reason I’ve taken so long to psych myself up to write this SWTOR Hoth GSI Guide!

Back Story

GSI are really interested in one particular downed Imperial ship – the Ambria’s Fury. They believe its reactor core has been affecting the ship’s durasteel hull. They intend to use this effect to help build new thermonuclear weaponry.

Yes, you’re going into an enclosed nuclear radiation box! So GSI recommend (!) finding and using any protective gear you find.

Mission Summary: Investigate the Ambria’s Fury

Instead of doing screenshots of the mission, I’ve recorded it below. But these are a few key notes:

• The Ambria’s Fury is surrounded by groups of White Maw Pirates (aggressive to both factions). No doubt they’re hoping to find some components to sell, or to improve their own arsenal.
• Pick up the Protective Headgear! Your first thing is to find and loot the piece of headgear from the highlighted crate. This can be done immediately from entering the phase. Don't forget to also open your inventory and actually equip it. Just taking it out of the crate is not enough.
• The protection lasts 15 minutes maximum. There is no timer in the quest but you can hover your cursor over the buff to see time remaining.
• A couple of doors need clearing by destroying the barrels stacked in front of them.
• Look out for (and avoid!) pools of flowing radioactive liquid.
• You need to make it to the very far end of the Ambria’s Fury, as this is where your Irradiated Durasteel Samples can be found. This area is guarded by a Champion-class Wampa.
• Once you’re done, you can use Quick Travel to exit the phase. If your Quick Travel is still cooling down or you want to save some credits, run out as fast as you can. You will have cleared all mobs so the route out should be straightforward.
• Don't forget to put your normal headgear back on once you've completed the quest! 

Warped to the Core Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 29,064
• Reputation: Energy Field Monitor (Medium Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

TL;DR The SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions Summary

From data retrieval and digging samples from volcanoes to taking on a radioactive Wampa, the SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions have a wide variety of tasks to undertake. Some can be done without defeating any enemies at all. So dust off that cold-weather gear and go do something more interesting than stringing out a pointless Empire vs Republic battle! 

Looking forward to 7.8

I learned long ago not to get too hyped about new content for my favourite MMOs as it's too easy to end up disappointed, but then, what's life without a little bit of happy anticipation? Patch 7.8 can't be more than a few weeks away now, and I'm very much looking forward to us getting our first story update in one and a half years.

That alone would already be something to celebrate, but this week we found out that there's more to come in this patch. Keith had already hinted in his producer's letter at the start of the month that Dantooine would be in for some dynamic changes, and then last week the official YouTube channel dropped this nice little teaser video:

I had a bit of a chuckle at Musco describing Dantooine with the words "it's usually pretty quiet there" when that planet is either being raided by pirates or overrun with swoopers on the regular, but either way the news of the Dantooine stronghold and the devs trying something new with the dynamic encounter system there were great to hear. With both story and new gameplay in the pipeline, this may well shape up to be the meatiest content patch we've received in a while and I'm here for it.

Side note: If you're someone who doesn't always keep up to date with what's been happening in SWTOR recently, I've got a new permanent page for you called "The State of SWTOR", which is linked from the sidebar on desktop and the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page on mobile. I'm planning to keep it updated on the regular and we'll see whether it gains enough traction to reduce the number of people asking on the subreddit how the game is doing every day.

SWTOR Teases the Return of a Popular Character

This weekend the annual Star Wars Celebration event took place, this time in Japan, and several SWTOR devs were in attendance. They were also able to arrange for a short segment about SWTOR to play on the big screen, which is not an unimpressive feat and makes good business sense. Most of it consists of Narrative Director Ashley Ruhl basically talking about how great the game is while old footage runs in the background, which should work well enough to intrigue Star Wars fans who may have never heard of the game and/or to remind lapsed old-timers that the game is still around and getting updates.

The last minute of the video clip features a teaser for the next story update that is a mix of old and new footage, so it's not quite clear whether the new bits are from 7.6, 7.7 or what. (The fact that locations in the new shots are recognisable as Tatooine and Ilum makes me think it might be footage from the unreleased 7.6 story, based on what we were told about that update last year.) Since this whole thing went down in the middle of the night in my time zone, I woke up the next morning to find a lot of chatter on social media involving the word SPOILERS (in all caps).

This actually made me a little hesitant to click on the video since I don't like to be spoiled, but then I figured what the heck - one area in which the SWTOR devs have never disappointed me is in terms of treating the story with respect, and I don't recall a single instance where they gave away crucial plot points in advance. And indeed, after watching the video it seems to me that all the people warning of spoilers were perhaps a bit overzealous. I appreciate that the community is overprotective in that regard instead of lackadaisical - and there are people who don't want to know anything about new content in advance - but to me things like a brief action shot or a mere mention of a certain character making an appearance do not qualify as spoilers. So I will go ahead and talk about the content of the teaser trailer in this post, which means that this is also your heads-up in case you really don't want to know anything at all about upcoming content, to not watch the last minute of the below video or read the rest of this post.

Now, as I mentioned, the teaser doesn't really tell us what exactly is going to happen next in the story, as the voice-over is just Darth Malgus monologuing once again - which is well done, don't get me wrong, but it's also becoming a bit of a trope at this point with how long this particular storyline has been going on.

However, the bit that got everyone excited (and what probably triggered everyone's spoiler alarms) is a shot in which we see a hologram of Darth Jadus. If you're not that big a SWTOR nerd, you may be wondering who Darth Jadus even is. The answer is that he's one of the main antagonists in chapter one of the Imperial agent story, and he's popular with people for a number of reasons.

One is that he's simply a cool-looking character, with a shiny mask that hides his face and a smooth voice. The second is that he's a sort of evil mastermind (those always tend to be popular), and the third is that the big confrontation with him at the end of chapter one of the agent origin story probably has one of the most interesting multiple-choice options of all class stories, in that you can outright side with the bad guy and the game lets you get away with it. It doesn't really change the following chapters as much as you might expect, but it's a cool touch nonetheless.

No matter your character's choices, Darth Jadus is never killed on screen, and worst case for him he's taken prisoner at the end of the chapter and expects to be killed by the Dark Council, but this was never followed up on, so people have long suspected that he might still be alive and were hopeful that he'd make a comeback some day.

Now, we don't know whether that will actually happen - the teaser only shows us a static holo of Jadus, which for all we know could just be a display used as an illustration while somebody mentions him in conversation. That would be a pretty epic troll on the devs' side... but if he does indeed come back, it would certainly be an opportunity to take the story into an interesting new direction.

Around the SWTOR-sphere: February 2025

I'm a little late posting this due to real life reasons, but I certainly wasn't lacking in interesting material to share in February!

• First we have "I Soloed SWTOR's TOUGHEST Raid Bosses!" by Snoopster, which was posted on the 31st of January and therefore just missed getting into the January round-up, but which I loved so much that I just had to feature it here instead. For those who're not familiar with his work, Snoopster used to be known as SWTOR Snoopy and is an old-school content creator who's seemingly less concerned with maximising his view count and more with having fun, with many of his videos being goofy and silly. He just seemed to kind of lose interest in SWTOR at some point, so it was an unexpected (but welcome) surprise to suddenly see him coming out of the woodwork with a two-hour magnum opus unlike anything he'd done before. I know the length may be intimidating to some, but it's filled with his usual fast-paced editing throughout and at least to me, there wasn't a boring moment. As a bonus (for me) I unexpectedly got to see one of my guildies included, as Aregelle (who's featured in the section about Bonethrasher) is in my guild and ops team.
• It being a new year, it's time for a new round of "Is SWTOR worth playing this year" videos! Unfortunately the first one I saw in January was an utter disappointment (which is why it didn't get featured). I'd seen the creator's 2024 version and it looked like they hadn't even logged in during the past year. I (politely) queried this in the comment section, just for my comment to quietly disappear into the aether, which told me all I needed to know, really. "Is Star Wars the Old Republic Worth Playing in 2025?" by Emperor Bebop on the other hand was more to my liking, as even if it doesn't get everything 100% correct (I did leave a comment on the video about the point about inflation being outdated for example), he does show some knowledge about the game (including endgame, which is somewhat unusual for this type of video) and is pretty funny. The self-awareness at the start of the video sure made me chuckle.
  
  That said, if you're looking for something that's more factual and not aiming for five jokes a minute, Swtorista just released her own "Is SWTOR worth trying in 2025?" video a few days ago, which is still the gold standard for providing accurate and concise information for new players. Though I was a bit surprised that she apparently already forgot about the existence of the Shae Vizla server, as she talks about "all three English servers" at one point. Then again, she gave a warning that the population of Satele Shan isn't as high as it used to be, so maybe her not even mentioning Shae Vizla is meant to tell us something in its own way.
• Following the Bioware lay-offs in January (I shared some links on the subject last month), the Ask a Game Dev blog was asked "Why did SWTOR get shuffled to a different developer if it was apparently Bioware's most steady source of income for the better part of the last decade?" The answer isn't exactly going to shock and surprise anyone who's been following this blog and everything surrounding the move to Broadsword from the beginning, but it's nice to see someone else lay it out in even greater detail.
• Fellow SWTOR blogger Intisar continued his Pets of the Old Republic series (which I failed to give its proper due to when he first started it) with two new installments posted in February, about Dwedtoof and the Heartglow Mewvorr. I really like this series because I think there's generally not a lot of conversation about pets in SWTOR other than urgency to log in and grab them whenever they're being given away as subscriber rewards. Intisar's series goes into a lot of detail about the surrounding context for each creature, including lore from the wider Star Wars universe, and I always learn something new from each post.
• Speaking of learning new things, SWTOR content creator Illeva put out an updated companion customisation guide last month, which I took a look at because I was curious and wow, I didn't even know Treek and other Cartel Market companions had customisations! I used to not care about companion customisations that much because I generally quite like the default looks (plus some of them are quite iconic, let's be honest), but by the time you're levelling your tenth trooper it can be fun to make Aric look a bit different, you know?
• Getting in just under the wire, Chash Larol of the Old Republic Era blog posted about "The State of SWTOR's Economy Part 2" on the last day of the month, a subject that hasn't been getting enough exposure I think. What I mean is that people were crying endlessly when inflation was running rampant, yet ever since the devs actually fixed it, things have been conspicuously silent on the subject, so that I still see people talk about the economy being crazy (like in the video I linked above!) even when that hasn't been true in several years now. We need to be louder about the fact that this is no longer true. Many commodities and Cartel Market items on the GTN are probably the cheapest now that they've been in about eight years.

Got any SWTOR content of your own to recommend that was released in February? Feel free to leave a comment!

Around the SWTOR-sphere: January 2025

How are we already one month into 2025? Time gets weird as you get older. Anyway, here are some links to interesting, useful and/or fun SWTOR-related content that I came across over the past thirty days.

• Intisar decided to pass on making silly predictions this year (even though that has kind of become a tradition for him) and instead gave some more serious thought to what the new year might bring for SWTOR. I'm not going to say much more than that, just go and read for yourself!
• Roger from Contains Moderate Peril, whom I also gave a shout-out last month, continued documenting his journeys in SWTOR with Revisiting Star Wars: The Old Republic Part 4, in which he hits legendary status among other things. While he expressed some interest in endgame, I'm really curious whether there's going to be a part five or not, as I suspect that the transition into endgame is a point where many players fall off.
• Kal from Today in TOR decided to ring in the new year with a guide called "How to Make Credits in SWTOR 2025". I tend to find credit-making guides interesting in the sense that the very idea of playing the game specifically to make credits has always been quite foreign to me, as I find that just looting everything and playing in ways that I enjoy tends to provide for all my needs and then some, but I guess I also don't spend a lot of credits (besides the repair bills during operations) and there'll always be players looking for shortcuts to have more money available while playing less. I do like that Kal tried to label and sort everything very clearly, so everyone can find something whether they are subscribed or not, and whether they play with friends or by themselves. He's also intending to keep the guide updated on a regular basis (since a lot of it is based on selling items on the GTN, where prices might vary).
• Swtorista maintained her recent focus on fashion by fully mapping all the rewards you get for playing through the KotFE/KotET chapters, including the different weapons and outfits for every combat style. I was kind of in awe of that simply because chapters are among my least favourite content in the game and I can't imagine replaying them so many times just for a project, but she told me it made for good content to do on stream, where she can't necessarily focus much on the gameplay anyway while chatting with viewers. Anyway, some of those Outlander armours don't look half bad!
• My favourite post from the SWTOR subreddit this month was a short one called "Smuggler bad ending" by user Lomakys. It's not long so I don't want to spoil it, but in short they experienced something unexpected during the end of chapter one of their class story and the whole description of the event and their response to it made me smile.
• As I was putting this together, a comment I saw on reddit reminded me of a YouTuber I've been meaning to give a shout-out for a while: TakesCooosh. He's made some guides I think, but the primary content on his channel are videos of him doing group content in pugs, usually master mode flashpoints. You might have seen him in your recommendations before if you've ever come across a thumbnail with a short title and a cute pink cartoon twi'lek making a face. The thing is, I'm a little bit conflicted about him to be totally honest - he seems like a nice guy in all the vids I've seen and can be pretty funny, but his mannerisms are also very... "stereotypical streamer" with the YELLING and the EXAGGERATED REACTIONS to everything; it honestly makes me feel very, very old just to watch (and even hurts my ears sometimes). That said, I realise the latter is more of a me problem than anything else, so I still wanted to give that shout-out, because I do think he definitely deserves more viewers than he's got. Here's an example video from last month, hand-picked by me, called "WE GOT SOME NEW GAMERS", in which he tanks a Czerka Core Meltdown and things go kind of wrong, because we all know that's more interesting to watch than a super smooth run, right?
  
• Finally, in news not directly related to SWTOR (anymore), Bioware announced another round of massive lay-offs the other day. There's been a fair amount of talk about it online, but here's the IGN article for reference. While this is sad news for all the affected devs, it does kind of strike me as ironic that after literally over a decade of people predicting SWTOR's imminent doom, it currently looks likely to outlive the studio that originally created it. In 2023, most voices seemed to view the game's move to Broadsword as a bad sign for The Old Republic, but it really does look like it was bad news for Bioware more than anyone else. Ask a Game Developer has a bit of commentary on the lay-offs and also mentions that 2024 was Bioware's first year without SWTOR and that this likely hurt their financial situation significantly.

Around the SWTOR-sphere: December 2024

It's the end of December, which means that I successfully made it through another year, and I was actually able to keep up with this series pretty well! Summer was a bit of a quiet season where I skipped a couple of months when I didn't really have much to share, but other than that I've managed to find some things to recommend pretty much every month.

• December seemed to be a month for more casual players to come back to SWTOR, whether it was because of the anniversary celebrations or because of the threat of the impending name purge for inactive characters. Roger from Contains Moderate Peril was inspired to return by the latter and wrote down some thoughts about his most recent experiences in "Revisiting Star Wars: The Old Republic Part 3". He also made a separate post about dynamic encounters. If the "part 3" in the title of the first post makes you wonder where parts one and two are, the answer is that those were made in 2022 and can be found here and here respectively.
• Another MMO blogger that gave the game another spin was Syp from Bio Break, who decided to make a new smuggler for what's probably the sixth time or so. I'm always kind of surprised he isn't more curious about all the class stories he's never seen before. Think I'm exaggerating his love for smugglers? Check out his blog's archive for the SWTOR tag.
• Speaking of personalities from the wider MMO space, if you haven't seen it yet, you'll definitely want to check out Josh Strife Hayes' magnum opus of a video called "The Ultimate MMO Tier List (Backed by SCIENCE) (sort of)". It's (obviously) not about SWTOR in specific, but SWTOR is included in the ranking. If you do want to know more about his thoughts about that game in specific, I did write about it when he gave it its own dedicated review back in 2022.
• Looking at SWTOR content creators in specific, Kal from Today in TOR posted a great dev interview with Ashley and Caitlin this month in which they talked about things like lore and their writing process, which was extremely insightful if you're interested in that kind of stuff at all. Full disclosure: part of why I was so pleased with this interview was that Kal collected questions from the public to submit for the interview, and literally half the questions they chose to answer were ones submitted by me. (Others may have proposed similar ones, I don't know, but the point stands that I apparently ask good questions.)
• Meanwhile Swtorista decided to go down the rabbit hole of Rare Blue and Purple World Drop Gear in SWTOR, which is such a convoluted and historically complicated system it makes my head spin, and I'm impressed that she was interested enough in the subject to actually do the research and put it all together. I know it's a meme that "fashion is the real endgame" but I'm not sure even World of Warcraft has as many content creators posting about how to collect outfits as SWTOR does.
• On the PvP front, Ivano 1337 caught my eye with his video "SWTOR 7.6 PVP TIER LIST | Best Classes for 8v8 Warzones". Now, tier lists can be entertaining content by themselves, but one thing I appreciate about Ivano's content (and I think I mentioned this before) is that as a more casual PvPer myself, I will often notice that something feels "off" somehow, but not being an expert in the field I can't quite put my finger on what exactly is wrong. In this specific case, I've been doing a lot of my PvP as Vigilance Guardian/Vengeance Juggernaut, which more recently just hasn't felt as good for some reason. Seeing Ivano put their current strengths and weaknesses into such clear terms while also ranking them as the weakest of the Guardian/Jug specs in the current environment was a real a-ha moment for me. Since then I've respecced to skank tank and while it hasn't suddenly improved my win rate (probably because I'm still figuring out what I'm doing) it's been really refreshing and a lot more fun. Not to say I necessarily encourage everyone to play whatever's the latest flavour of the month, but if you're struggling to make a particular spec work for you, understanding why that is and how you might have a better experience is really helpful I think.
• Finally, YouTuber /JawaFace got very excited about the introduction of the new companion mount with patch 7.6 - just for said excitement to turn into bitter disappointment when it turned out that his favourite Jawa Blizz doesn't fit into the sidecar for some reason. He expressed his feelings in a creative way with a short video simply called "Companion Mount", which gave me a good chuckle. Are you seeing this, devs?
  

7.6 Sneak Peek!

I was planning to write about something else today, but then as I was browsing YouTube last night, a new video from SWTOR's official account suddenly popped up in my recommendations. Whaaa...?!

Here we've all been sitting around, waiting for them to announce the next livestream, and they surprise us with an actual teaser like that. I like it! While I've enjoyed the livestreams over the last few years, they do kind of seem targeted at fans who are already highly invested, while a four-minute video talking about upcoming patch features should be much more accessible to a more mainstream audience.

The three major points of interest from the video are: the new type of gameplay that's coming in 7.6, the new lair boss, and the upcoming PTS.

The new type of gameplay that will take us back to existing planets is called "dynamic encounters" and is basically... world quests? Dynamic events? Something like that. We don't know enough details (such as how often they'll occur, and how much credit will be shared vs. personal) to say which of the comparable features in other MMOs they will resemble the most, but we get the basic idea: They'll be a bit like quests, but instead of picking them up in town, you'll just find them popping up on your map.

This seems like a smart direction for the dev team to take, as it'll allow them to add more things for players to do at all levels without needing more voice acting or fancy cinematics, plus it's likely to make the open world feel a bit more alive as you should encounter more players running around on old planets.

I'm tentatively excited, though it remains to be seen how engaging this stuff turns out to be in the long term, and of course there's always the question of rewards. I thought it was kind of funny that the example in the video showed the player getting literally nothing for completion (obviously since it's still a work in progress) but it does make you wonder. XP and credits seem like a given, but the game already throws plenty of those at you everywhere else too. Is another source of Conquest commendations at max level going to excite anyone? But then, SWTOR has never been as highly reward-driven as other MMOs, so I really wouldn't expect these to suddenly start handing out higher-level currency or anything like that. We'll see.

In fact, we should find out more soon enough as this stuff will be going on the Public Test Server! And there'll even be a new reward for going on there and helping with the testing: a special mini pet. I just thought this was funny since I have a guildie who asks every time the PTS goes up whether there's a new reward, and usually there isn't... so I outright told him at one point that there doesn't seem to be much point in asking that question every time. I of course had to ping him immediately once I saw the video, hah!

The other thing we'll get to try on the PTS will be the new lair boss, a droid called Propagator Core XR-53, found on Ilum among the remnants of the Emperor's old space station. Unsurprisingly, like R-4 Anomaly, the fight won't have a 16-person mode, which I know most people don't care about but I'll keep moaning about it anyway because as a guild who has done and continues to do 16-mans, I miss that option. (When R-4 was a seasons objective the other week and we had 13 people on, that was quite challenging to sort out.)

Aside from that though, XR-53 will have both a story and a veteran mode, and I'm curious to find out what it'll be like. I crave more group content, but R-4 was such an awful experience for me at launch that I'm also still a bit wary of their current design philosophy in that area, so I'm hesitant to get too excited just yet.

What are you most interested in learning more about in regards to patch 7.6?

Talking PvP & More with Ivano 1337

It's been a hot minute since I last had a chance to do a collaboration with another content creator, so I was rather delighted when YouTuber Ivano 1337 messaged me the other day to ask whether I wanted to come be a guest on the next episode of his new podcast. I hadn't actually talked to him before, I only knew of him as I had watched a couple of his videos; but I'm not exactly a frequent enjoyer of PvP content, and that's his focus.

I listened to the first three episodes of the podcast to get an idea of what I might potentially be signing up for, something that actually took a while since each episode is between two and three hours long! I thought they were quite interesting though and actually gave me some insights into the mind of more hardcore PvPers. And while I certainly didn't agree with everything Ivano's previous guests had to say, he seemed like a friendly and amicable host, leading to me agreeing to record an episode with him as well.

So we did, it was good fun, and we did indeed also end up talking for three hours. Madness! I am obviously only a casual PvPer so didn't really have much to comment on in terms of things like the nitty-gritty of class balance, but we still found plenty of things to talk about both in regards to PvP and the past and future of SWTOR in general. So if you're looking for some second monitor content to listen to while doing something else on your main screen (I hear that's all the rage nowadays) and you think you can stand the sound of my voice for that long, go check out Episode 4 of the Ivano1337 Podcast here.

Or have a look around his channel in general! He seems like a really nice guy with a passion for getting more people into SWTOR's PvP and showing them how it can be fun, which I think is the kind of energy we need more of.

(Also, fun fact: even though he's German and I'm Austrian, we didn't have a single exchange in German. I was wondering whether he was going to mention it but I sure didn't want to be the one to bring it up as I have no idea to talk about SWTOR in German. As I've never used the German client I have no idea about things like the names of different combat styles, abilities, locations etc.)

Around the SWTOR-sphere: June & July 2024

Did you miss this column back in June? I didn't forget about it, but when I opened my draft at the end of the month I found that it only had two links in it, which didn't really seem like enough material to make a post out of, so I decided to combine my recommendations for June and July. That's not to say that people weren't doing enough interesting SWTOR-related things in those two months; as usual I'm just compiling things that I personally came across. I was also quite busy simply playing and writing myself, with less time spent on looking at other people's stuff.

The overarching theme for this installment of "Around the SWTOR-sphere" is going to be patch 7.5 and the content it brought us, which included the Spring Abundance Festival, Bessi the Basilisk droid, the Deseperate Defiance story update and graphical updates to Hutta.

• On the subject of the new story update, before I even wrote my own review of it, Chash Larol from The Old Republic Era wrote theirs, so go and read!
  
  While I was poking around on YouTube for more story reviews, I came across the channel CK Outpost and their video "SWTOR Chains in the Dark Review - What I liked. What I didn't" (that was the name of patch 7.4 if you don't remember). They were quite critical of some things, but I was super stoked to find someone providing in-depth reviews of story content based on multiple playthroughs, something I don't see very often, so I instantly subscribed. Naturally I was also excited when they shared their thoughts about 7.5 this month, in a video simply called "SWTOR Update 7.5 Desperate Defiance Story Review". Unfortunately - unlike me - they liked the latest patch's story even less than 7.4 and sounded quite disenchanted with the game in general to be honest, which is sad to see. Still, I wanted to give the channel a shout-out anyway since I thought their criticisms were well-articulated and they also have a bunch of other, older videos on their channel that people might enjoy, such as various SWTOR-related "top 5" lists and such.
• On the subject of Spring Abundance, I have to give a shoutout to Siow on Vulkk.com, who posted about Baking a Bestine Threeberry Pie with Recipe. Now, I'll have to confess up front that I didn't actually read the whole thing since it's extremely long and I'm not actually that into baking. However, I just think it's really neat that someone went ahead and attempted to recreate one of the new in-game pies in real life. World of Warcraft went so far as to release an official cookbook with recipes to recreate all kinds of in-game dishes, so there is precedent for this kind of thing! We're not quite ready for that in SWTOR I think, but it's a start.
  
  Another Spring Abundance-inspired piece of content I wanted to highlight was this little machinima made by /Jawaface about his character's adventures during the festival on Dantooine. He's only a very small YouTuber, but I've known him for a little while and he's always super friendly and fun to interact with. I also really admire his passion for video editing and creating SWTOR machinima... my only "problem" being that almost all his videos are about jawas and/or his OC Kara, who's supposed to be half-human, half-Jawa I believe? And I'm just... not that interested in Jawas, sorry! Still, I've been wanting to give his channel a shout-out for a while, and this seemed like a good opportunity.
• On the subject of the graphical changes to Hutta, my opinion when checking them out on the PTS was that they would take some getting used to but I also thought that they looked better in game than on screenshots. That said, I shared the sentiment of the post called "Same spot on Hutta one server maintenance apart... I'm kind of shocked" on the SWTOR subreddit, which showed that a lot of environmental assets in the distance had gone missing with the revamp, making the horizon look very bleak. Fortunately this appeared to be accidental however, as it was later followed up by: "They put the low-res distant mountain PNGs back on Hutta. This vista looks absolutely GORGEOUS once again!". Phew!
• I haven't come across any non-guide or news content about Bessi the Basilisk droid yet, but I do have one more "SWTOR in 2024" review this month, this time by MMOByte and called "Star Wars The Old Republic in 2024... is Absolutely NOT What You Expect". What surprised me about this one is that they didn't even actually play the game - they have done so in the past and figured that going through the same motions yet again would just be a waste of time - but instead just looked at the activity on SWTOR's various social channels to see how much posting was going on there. I just thought that was... an interesting approach to say the least, and I guess once again highlights the importance of those channels, not just to keep current players up to date, but also because of what kind of image of the game it projects to people who aren't (currently) playing but might be considering it.

Around the SWTOR-sphere: May 2024

Has it really already been another month? I've been so busy playing and writing, I feel I've hardly had time to look at other people's stuff for weeks. Fortunately May the 4th was Star Wars Day, so I managed to pick up at least a couple of interesting things around that date.

• The one I saw shared around the most but still wanted to post here as well was this Old Republic Lo-Fi tunes compilation by Morden Wex. Just a nice little twist on some well-known themes, plus the animation with Lana as the Lo-Fi girl seemed very appropriate. I actually found myself wondering where the concept of the Lo-Fi girl came from anyway, and it turns out Wikipedia has a whole bit about that. I thought that was fascinating!
• Sticking with the subject of music, via Bluesky I came across this 12-year old promotional video called Music of the Old Republic. As someone who wasn't really part of the game's pre-launch hype, I had never seen it and thought it was really interesting! Unfortunately it cuts off suddenly at the end, which made me try to find the full version - something at which I didn't succeed, but instead I found a slightly longer one called Composing the Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which appears to have been made using the same basic source material but featured different quotes. I had no idea they had five full-time composers on staff when this game was built! No wonder the soundtrack is so good... anyway, I know that this is old material, but I'd never seen it and thought it was really cool, so there.
• Staying on YouTube for a moment, commenter Thander replied to last month's round-up that there was another "Should you play SWTOR in 2024?" video that I should check out, this time by NoblePlays. And yeah, I enjoyed "Should You play SWTOR? (In 8 Minutes)". I like how these videos come out in very different ways depending on what kind of player makes them. Previous ones I featured were mostly created by new or very casual players and quite focused on just how the game works and what state it is in. Noble as a long-time vet focuses more on an audience that already knows what SWTOR is all about and talks about why he still enjoys it after all these years.
  
  I then saw that around the same time, he also released a video called "Should You PvP in SWTOR? A Realistic Explanation" which I also liked. If you've ever been in doubt about whether to try out PvP, please watch this! And I don't just say that because I'd like to see more people in the PvP queue (though I do.)
• In the written blogosphere, not a lot of things caught my eye this month. The only thing I noted down was Intisar posting his thoughts about various patch 7.4.1 features. I know that's a bit late now that we just got 7.5, but I still enjoyed reading his thoughts and opinions.

Around the SWTOR-sphere: April 2024

April has been a busy month for me! I spent a lot of time both playing and writing about Galactic Seasons, to the point that I thought I wouldn't have a lot of other people's content to point to at the end of the month, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd managed to accumulate a decent number of links anyway.

• April started with April Fools' Day of course. I remember simpler times, at the height of the MMO hype, when every MMO dev would post their own fake patch notes or whatever to join the fun every year. (This included SWTOR.) Sadly, in times when people are spreading blatant lies on the internet all year round, the whole thing just isn't as funny anymore... so I was surprised to see Kal from Today in TOR go ahead and post a fake announcement for an expansion called "The Rise of Malgus", but I did still appreciate the effort. I'd only deduct some points for the bottom half of the page being an obvious copy and paste of last year's "The Ring Forge of Morrod".
• ... that said, Kal immediately earns those points back for releasing a full list of all the fitted armours with images at the end of the month. Last month I said that I was optimistic that it was only a matter of time until someone released a more detailed guide about all the new ancient armaments and it turns out it only took a bit over a month. Nice to see!
• A different kind of guide that caught my eye earlier this month was "How to Hide Your Lightsaber as a Sith Sorcerer or Jedi Sage in SWTOR" on Vulkk.com, authored by Endonae. Mostly I saw the headline and thought "What? Why? And how?" - so I clicked. Endonae gives a lot of explanation for the why, and the how is basically a combination of a specific weapon and a specific tuning to make your saber look so opaque as to almost be invisible (though it's not truly hidden). I thought that was interesting, though I wouldn't go for that effect myself as I don't mind my Sages or Sorcerers holding a weapon, and as someone who enjoys lowbie PvP, Saber Strike is definitely not worthless in an environment where you can find yourself running out of Force quickly with no means to regenerate it yet. Better to keep fighting with a low damage ability than to die picking your nose! Though I guess whacking people with a near-invisible saber could still be entertaining for its sheer confusion value...
  
• I feel a bit silly giving Swtorista a shout-out every month - it's not like she needs me to give her publicity! - but I admire how she's got something major coming out pretty much once a month. The big thing in April was the unveiling of the new and improved decorations section on her website, now that TOR Decorating is supposed to be gone soon. I like that it doesn't just list all the decorations, but that there are also collections of similarly themed items, for example if you're looking for items to create an office space or need some decos that emit light. It was only the latter that made me realise that a lot of things that are officially classified as "lights" don't actually produce any, which is very weird and I can't believe I hadn't noticed that before.
  
• On the YouTube front, this month's entry in the "how's SWTOR doing this year" genre was "SWTOR In 2024 - Is It Worth Playing?" by Gaming For Immersion, whose channel is still small but whose voice I found very pleasant to listen to. What I liked about this impressions piece was that it didn't focus too much on the nitty-gritty of gameplay details, but talked about how the ease of combat kind of clashed with his overall enjoyment of the story, which I thought was an interesting point to highlight. I do agree that combat in the open world is still quite easy, but the rebalancing of level scaling a couple years ago has improved things a lot compared to where we were shortly after KotFE, and I actually see the occasional reddit post going "I keep dying and I don't know why" again nowadays, proving it's not impossible to struggle.
• Another type of "evergreen" SWTOR content I enjoy is class story rankings, and this month, "SWTOR All Classes Ranked From WORST to BEST" from tiny YouTuber (only 71 subscribers at the time of writing this!) basiccTV ended up on my feed. Not gonna lie, I found this one a bit hard to listen to since he's got a strong accent and doesn't seem to believe in doing another take whenever he ends up stumbling over his own script, but his thoughts were still interesting and I can respect his ranking. Not like when I saw Nixxiom ranking SWTOR's class stories last year and went "WTF" at some of the choices.
• On the SWTOR subreddit, there wasn't a single post that really grabbed me in April, but there were a couple that were kinda neat. Both "What character or group introduced in SWTOR would you have liked to see expanded on in other SW media (books, comics, etc) " and "What are some wasted story potential swtor just gave up on or never advanced?" touch on interesting side characters and plot points that were never fully explored but had the potential to be more.
  
  This meme made me smile even though I'd seen it on /r/SWTOR_memes before - I didn't even realise it was a movie reference at first, but it was still funny to me because it's wild how tiny the objectively normal-sized rooms in the Copero stronghold feel when compared to the absolutely bombastic layouts everywhere else in the game.
  
  Finally, someone linked to an old Games Radar article from two years ago that is pretty thin and whose contents are basically "a dev said some stuff on Twitter", but I liked it for the headline if nothing else: "Star Wars: The Old Republic's exploding barrels are filled with shrunken invisible people"

Around the SWTOR-sphere: March 2024

It's hard to believe we're already a quarter through 2024! That means it's time for another round-up of SWTOR content I enjoyed throughout the month.

(On a side note, I've been kind of surprised by how well-received these posts have been, because from a creative perspective, they're quite... well, lazy. I just paste links into a draft post throughout the month and then add some context and formatting at the end, but there's little research or creative energy required. Still, it's nice to know that people still appreciate some manual curation in this age of algorithmic recommendations everywhere.)

• Chash Larol of the Old Republic Era blog has been levelling alts, and one of their newest projects is to level a character while ignoring the main quests. Certainly a different take on a game that is so focused on its main storyline above all else! I enjoyed the first installment, and as a fan of unconventional levelling methods, I'm looking forward to reading more.
• Intisar from This Week in Aurebesh always has interesting insights into the world of graphic design when he translates Aurebesh signs and posters, and I really liked this month's post about how the design of the HK poster from KotFE was inspired by real life World War II-era propaganda.
• One of patch 7.4.1's biggest surprises was the introduction of "ancient armaments" or "fitted" gear, which has no stats and is only meant to be used for outfit creation, while making a bunch of old looks from the game's early days widely accessible again. I think this has been great and I've enjoyed throwing them on the GTN for cheap in hopes of expanding the cosmetic options for newer players in particular. However, there are hundreds of them, so there's little documentation of what's what at the moment. Swtorista has compiled (what we hope is) a complete list of all fitted armour pieces and weapons with the help of Jedipedia, which does show you the in-game icon for each item and should give you at least a vague idea of what it looks like, though this is of course far from ideal for casual browsing or finding specific looks.
  
  Meanwhile Kal from Today in TOR has created a page with screenshots of all the fitted weapons (of which there are fewer than armour pieces), which certainly helps with getting a better look at them, even if the alphabetical sorting is still not great if you just want to see what e.g. all the fitted blaster rifles look like. It's early days and I'm hopeful that the documentation on this subject will improve over time.
• I wasn't sure whether to include this next video in here. You see, every once in a while I'll come across a video with a stupid, clickbaity title like, say, "The Shocking State of SWTOR in 2024", which obviously makes me want to avoid it, but I've also learned from experience that such videos don't always live up to their dumb titles and can actually be quite interesting sometimes... I decided to take a chance since I'd never heard of the creator sawmanUK before (so he wasn't known to me as someone with an axe to grind), and the video did indeed turn out to be more of a general review of the new/returning player experience, with nothing purporting to be "shocking" at all.
  
  There were still some things in there that made me roll my eyes a bit, especially at the beginning, such as repeated use of some of the worst, most worn-out jokes under the sun (I made a fat character, isn't that hilarious! Let's mention diabetes!) and the fact that he complains about having a voice-acted character... why would you pick an MMO that's famous for having that as its main feature then as opposed to literally any other MMO on the market?! All that said, he did clearly enjoy his time in the game overall and does make some more fair points further in. For example, I thought it was interesting that he wanted to buy access to more species unlocks at character creation but couldn't figure out a way to do it. And his first PvP experience being abysmal due to half-empty teams and lack of/bad backfilling is something I've experienced in the lowbie bracket as well, so while I know how much fun it can be when it works properly, I thought his account highlighted how easy it is to ruin someone's interest in this mode by providing them with a bad experience early on.
• You may be starting to get an idea of what kind of topics I find the most interesting on the SWTOR subreddit by now... my favourites are the ones that spark conversation and encourage people to talk about their different experiences with the game. With that in mind, two threads I quite enjoyed in March were "What are some light side choices and some dark side choices you would never make on any playthrough regardless of character alignment?" and "Which of the eight characters is 'literally me' for you?" The first one was an interesting look into just how differently people respond to various in-game choices, as a lot of the responses were things that didn't feel like a big deal to me personally, yet when I commented that I personally hate the dark side choice at the end of Directive 7, someone else replied with "it's just a droid". Different strokes! I'm not sure what exactly I expected the responses to the second thread to be, I just know that what I got was absolutely not it. It was good for a chuckle though.
  
• I know I said these posts are mostly here to highlight content that was actually released throughout the last month, but ultimately it's my blog so I can break my own rules! Someone linked this video to me the other day, and while it's four years old, I had somehow never seen it before (and it's currently sitting on 3.3k views, while I think it deserves more): "Let Madness Release You: The Dread Master Raptus Rap" by Aravail. As one of my guildies commented when I shared it with them, it's not really a rap but more of an electro remix, but still... all the Dread Masters have such iconic lines and great voice acting, I'm surprised there isn't more of this kind of stuff around.
  

Around the SWTOR-sphere: February 2024

February is the shortest month of the year (even with the extra day we get this year) and it was a fairly quiet month in SWTOR as well, though we did get some news about what's coming next in the 7.4.1. dev stream. This post however isn't meant to be about official news, but rather about random community content I came across throughout the month and that I wanted to share.

• First off, Swtorista did a thing again (shocking how she keeps doing that, isn't it) and released her updated "Ultimate Guide of Guides" for 2024. This is a massive list of resources covering pretty much every possible aspect of the game that she and her right-hand Admiral Zahk (is that his proper title?) have been maintaining for several years now. I'm flattered by the number of useful posts they found on this blog, considering that being useful is not my primary goal. I can only recommend checking this guide out, even if you don't have a particular question right now... the links are sorted by topic, so maybe just have a quick look at an area you're interested in, and who knows, maybe you'll find a link to a page or even another content creator that you didn't even know existed. I had no idea that Swtorista had name generators for every single species you can play as for example. (Also, fun fact, before this year I never realised that she actually kept a copy of this guide on her website, as I only ever came across the version maintained in a sticky thread on the official forums.)
• Ted from the SOTOR Podcast lived up to his promise of not going quiet for quite so long again and released not one but two new episodes this month. I'd like to particularly recommend the one about server transfers to Shae Vizla, especially if you're planning to make use of the free transfers coming in March. I've never actually done a server transfer in SWTOR myself (not counting character copies to the PTS), and there are actually quite a lot of things to keep in mind in terms of what will come with you and what won't. Outfits not getting copied over and needing to be recreated on the new server is a big one for example!
• On the subject of the Shae Vizla server and transfers, I came across a video by small YouTuber Thomas Midena called "How not to launch Australian servers (a Star Wars: The Old Republic story)". As the title suggests, he hasn't been too happy with how things have gone so far, but I thought it was interesting to hear from another player in the APAC region and I really liked his measured approach and the way he articulated his thoughts.
• In happier video news, another small YouTuber I came across this month was HomeMade SWTOR. Specifically I watched his video "The Mandalorian: StarWars story Episode 15 || The Shameful Hunt ||", which is basically... the bounty hunter story on Corellia? I'm not usually one for SWTOR story playthrough videos because let's be honest, I can and prefer to do the playing myself, but I thought it was interesting how HomeMade tried to edit things together in a unique way, with bits of different music added and by interspersing snippets of footage of movement and combat between the in-game cut scenes to make things flow better.
• Aaand, one more video about something completely different - an operations boss kill! A video called "SWTOR Master Mode Styrak With No Knocks 7.4" by Draxzim caught my attention due to its title. I wrote a whole long-ass post about my own "history" with Dread Master Styrak a few years ago, but to summarise in a nutshell what intrigued me about this video title: on master mode, this fight has a mechanic that usually requires several people in the group to have a knockback, so I immediately wondered how this group achieved a kill without ticking that box. My first reaction was to theorise that 344 gear had allowed dps numbers to get so high that it simply wasn't needed anymore (since the main purpose of the knockback is to buy you time to kill an add). Spoiler: not exactly. Instead, what this group did was bring a party that consisted of nothing but Powertechs (except for the healers obviously), and they all specced into the Sonic Rebounder utility, which causes their AoE taunt/aggro drop to put a ring around everyone in range that reflects the next attack done to them back at the attacker. Then, when it came to the phase where you'd usually use the knockbacks, they didn't interrupt the big add's AoE damage channel but instead rotated through all their rebounders to reflect its own damage back at it for a massive damage boost. This is, frankly, incredibly cheesy and bizarre, but it clearly took no less effort than organising knockbacks would've done, so I totally respect it. I'm always fascinated by people coming up with alternate solutions to gameplay challenges.
• Finally, my favourite post from the SWTOR subreddit in February was one that only got a moderate number of upvotes but which I personally thought was amazing, called "What is your favorite / least favorite noise made by your toon when being attacked?" Why did I love it? Because it's an extremely random question that I never would've thought of asking myself, and the way people described their characters' groans and shouts in writing in the responses was very funny to me. "HEEUUURRRGGHHH!" (That's someone describing a male Sith warrior, and I bet if you've ever played or spent time around one, you'll know exactly what it refers to.)

Around the SWTOR-sphere: January 2024

I've had several reasons to think about what it means to be part of a community of content creators over the past two months. (Long story short: Interacting with other creators should always be a positive and inspiring thing; be wary of anyone who acts like they're the only one creating anything of worth and is cagey about giving credit to others.) Bhagpuss was also musing on how there used to be more exchanging of links and ideas between blogs, and one thing that stood out to me in that post was his mention of how there used to be more sites that did regular round-ups of what other blogs were writing about. Anyone else remember MMO Melting Pot? Or SWTOR Network?

I'm always happy to link to other creators where it's relevant, and I do have the blog's sidebar to promote a whole number of other SWTOR sites, but it's only visible on desktop and I don't know how often anyone even looks at it, so I could definitely do more on that front. So I thought... why not try being the round-up person myself for a bit? I look at a lot of SWTOR content over the course of the month that I rarely bother to share, even when I enjoyed it, so maybe I should do that more often?

So consider this new series an experiment. I don't know if I'll bother to make a post every single month, but we'll see how it goes. Without further ado, some SWTOR-related things I saw in January and that I thought were worth sharing.

• The year was off to a good start with the State of the Old Republic podcast releasing its first episode in over six months, looking back at the last two patches. Ted is a great guy who even had me on as a guest once! I left an encouraging comment on the new episode but it seems to have been eaten by a spam filter or something.
• I don't need to tell anyone who Swtorista is and she always has something or other going on, but it's worth noting that she started 2024 by unveiling a big project that had been in the works for a while: interactive maps for all the base planets. These are great for newcomers and veteran players alike who are interested in ticking some specific item off their personal to-do list, whether it's that last pesky lore object that's eluding you or a mission NPC that you could swear used to be in a different place last time and now you can't find it (that would be me). I used to have a site called SWTOR Ultras on my bar that used to provide something similar, but since it went down it's nice to see someone else provide this feature now.
• NoblePlays is a YouTuber that's been around for a long time but who never quite took off (at least as far as I can tell) due to his (public) interest in the game being very on and off (being down on the game and stepping away from it, then coming back, then stopping again a few months later etc.) I suppose he could be on another one of those roller-coasters right now, but that didn't stop me from enjoying his recent video "SWTOR Is Actually Amazing For 2024". It was technically released in December but I didn't come across it until a couple of weeks ago.
• "Is [MMO] worth playing in [year]?" is almost a YouTube video genre of its own at this point, but they are popular for a reason! The first one I came across for SWTOR this year was "Should You Play Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2024" by Renfail. He's not someone I usually watch, but when this popped up it seemed familiar enough that I might have seen one or more of his videos before. I was kind of surprised that he's been playing since launch and is clearly very knowledgeable about the game, but apparently he's only completed three of the original class stories (at least according to the character selection screen that he identified as his main server) and pronounces Revan as "reh-VAHN"? Just goes to show again that there are very different ways to love this game.
• Fellow blogger Intisar always likes to ring in the new year with some predictions for what's to come, some of which turn out to be wrong and some of which are just plain silly, but they are always 100% enjoyable to read. Go check out his Five Predictions for 2024 right now.
• XamXam is also an old hand when it comes to SWTOR content creation, but I particularly enjoyed her sharing her experience on the Shae Vizla server as an actual APAC player this month. I've done a fair bit of writing about my own experiences there, but as a European I'm obviously not the main target audience for the server, so it's interesting to hear the thoughts of someone who actually lives in the right part of the world for it to make a difference to their experience.
  
• I have a complicated relationship with reddit and the SWTOR subreddit in particular, but I do like to check in on it every now and then, and every now and then it definitely contains some interesting, funny or insightful posts. My favourite in January was one called "Thanks for everything, SWTOR", which may sound like a goodbye but isn't. Rather, the OP muses on just how much time they've spent in the game, how many memories they've made and how much they've learned and changed over time. I thought it was particularly interesting that they still felt bad years later about some occasions where they'd been unnecessarily mean to people, I guess because most of the time you only expect the one being insulted to carry that memory with them.
• Another thread I really enjoyed was called "What's the most genuinely emotional moment in the story?" in which people shared some of their favourite funny, sad or generally epic story experiences. While the original post is just a question, there are some great memories to be stirred in the comments. (Beware of spoilers though if you haven't played many of the stories yet!)
• Just in time for the deadline! As I was getting ready to post this, I saw some people on Twitter share this article on Games Radar called "If you like Baldur's Gate 3, you should play one of Bioware's best-ever choice-driven sci-fi RPGs" (quite a mouthful, that title). Anyone who's been a fan of SWTOR for any length of time won't really find anything in there that they didn't already know, but it's always nice to hear about people (re-)discovering everything that makes SWTOR great even in its 13th year.