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We cover the rest of what’s in Game Update 2.1: Customization, and complete our series of quick guides with the other two level 55 hard modes, Hammer Station and Mandalorian Raiders.

1. Introduction

Hyp provides a few choice screenshots from Baldy’s adventures. First we have Baldy showing a little tough love:

This is Baldy’s frowny face:

A nice bit of scenery from the prison world of Belsavis:

Redna’s in-progress UI update, with his action bars arranged to mimic the layout on his new Razer Naga:

2. Trivia Question

(We are continuing the question from last week.)

Our question is all about New Hollywood. New Hollywood is a period of moviemaking from the mid-60s to the very early 80s. It is usually marked as beginning with “Bonnie and Clyde”, a surprising hit of a movie where the main characters die, and ends with the overpriced flops “Heaven’s Gate” and “One from the Heart”.

New Hollywood was marked by a period of time where filmmakers were still part of the studio process, but allowed greater freedom. So they were a mix of the two things we have today—generally big-budget movies with tight studio control and smaller indie films with low budgets but tons of creative freedom. The occasional big-budget movie with filmmaker control, like Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, can be seen as a product of this time.

New Hollywood proved that movies could be big successes without being cookie-cutter films, like the musicals, war movies, and horse operas of the 50s and early 60s. They also legitimized the sequel with the critical and successful “Godfather Part II,” brought us the summer blockbuster with “Jaws,” and showed that fantasy and sci-fi could have wide audience appeal with “Star Wars.”

Of course, their successes sowed the seeds of the movement’s failure; more money was thrown their way, which both increased the risk if a movie was a flop, and caused the studios to demand more control over their big bets.

But what made New Hollywood really successful was that this was the first generation of moviemakers who had grown up watching movies. They loved movies and they knew movies. They put references to great earlier movies in their movies, both as a nod to films they loved and also quite frankly to uplift their own films.

Now, we’ve used the Trivia Question to explore Lucas’s influences before. So let’s set aside the movies of Kurosawa. But let’s find as many other examples as we can of famous movie scenes being referenced, either in dialogue, shot selection etc. in the six “Star Wars” movies.

I’ll get you started. (This example won’t count.) The famous Greedo cantina scene is a reference to the wonderful western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, where Tuco is caught by an armed man who has been hunting him. He is in the bath, apparently unarmed, and his hunter waves his pistol in his face and gloats over how happy he is to have caught him. But then Tuco, or Han, fires a hidden pistol and kills his opponent. While Han’s scene has become known as “Han Shot First”, Tuco’s line at the end of his scene is appropriate to both: “When you have to shoot, shoot! Don’t talk”.

Please send your answer to ootinicast@gmail.com. Whoever gets the most references to earlier movies by next Wednesday will be put in a drawing to win a Taun Fawn code courtesy of BioWare and one of the latest full-size Cartel Packs (or if you’re on The Harbinger, a very special mount!).

3. Holofeed

• Disney and EA announced a multi-year agreement for EA to produce Star Wars games. This includes BioWare’s ongoing production and support of SWTOR!
• EA had its Q4 FY13 conference call for investors, during which the EA leadership said some positive, encouraging and supporting things about SWTOR. Polygon summarises what was said.
• The rest of Game Update 2.1: Customization was unveiled, and our overview has been updated with the new features: character/legacy/guild renames, escrow deductions for Free and Preferred players, and Collections.
• Eric Musco, Community Manager, allays concerns that there is no actual content in Game Update 2.1 by firstly announcing it’s going to arrive this coming Tuesday (14 May), and secondly revealing that Game Update 2.2 (which presumably will contain content!) is coming on Tuesday 11 June, 8 weeks after the launch of the expansion.
• Not only that, but he tells us the Gree will be back sometime before Game Update 2.2!
• The known exploits in the bolster mechanic will be fixed in Game Update 2.1.
• Amber Green lets us know that most known crew skill issues will be addressed in Game Update 2.1, though some will have to wait until the following patch 2.1.1.
• Rob Hinkle, Senior Designer responsible for PvP, explains the rationale behind 2.0’s upgraded bolster, and why it’s worth sticking it out as they iron out the issues.
• There is a known bug with healing companions, which causes them to stop healing players if a cosmetic pet you have out takes damage!

4. Community

We recommend hawtpantsrepublic.com, which includes a most excellent guide for Sentinels updated for Game Update 2.0. You can follow the site’s author via @HawtRepublic on Twitter.

Our guide on 2- and 4-piece set bonuses for all PvE and PvP gear has been updated with the new set bonuses made available in Game Update 2.0.

A very useful summary of endgame (or “elder game”) content from BioWare can be found at www.swtor.com/info/eldergame.

If you live in the US and don’t mind paying for shipping, you can enter a competition to win a 1/6 scale replica of Darth Malgus!

In Kuze’s Korner this week, Kuze provides some extremely useful tips on platforming. These and more will feature in his platforming video, which is coming soon.

For those interested in joining Ootini Fight Club for some endgame PvP, please contact Chong by email (empiredivider@gmail.com). Chong and HamSammich are also planning a PvP tournament on The Harbinger; Moff Chong will be on episode 80 to tell us all about it! You can preview the rules here.

5. Force Feedback

We discuss tweets from @madmar_sith (be sure to follow him back to join the #swtorfamily!), @ForceChuckle, @Weihanthekidsun (Weihan Sun), @hadrian9 (Mikhael Lombard), @TheTurg (Terg), @bytorsnowdog (Snowy), @copythat22 (Lance of the Coffee Talk with Lance and Niq podcast), @terencemyers (Terence Myers), @KairiahMedens (David), @JediKrackr and @IzaakTheMad (Izaak), and emails from Oxi-jin, Middle’guard, Rendrin, Graham Sellars, Dri, Hansgruber, Madmar, Socordia, Matt Roberts and Jacob Hausman (Deltia).

Middle’guard provided a YouTube video that he did that shows his UI with the action bars configured to mimic the location of the buttons on a Logitech G600 or Razer Naga mouse.

Matt Roberts (@Roguish98) referred to a couple of forum threads regarding how installing DirectX 9 drivers may improve your performance (fix, CS confirmation). He also recommends this forum thread that discusses general performance improvements.

Oxi-jin’s post-+10-endurance-datacron party on Makeb!

6. Sarlacc Digest

We cover the other two of the level 55 hard mode Flashpoints, Mandalorian Raiders and Hammer Station. Athiss and Cademimu were discussed last week.

Hammer Station (Dulfy’s guide)

• trash—some nasty packs, mostly easy
• DN-314 Tunneler (droid with the laser):
  • cleanse stacks during tunneling laser (when it reaches 4 or so)
  • avoid exploding droids, no need to DPS them
• Vorgan the Volcano (three guys)
  • tank Vorgan and 2R-CH (torch)
  • kill Sawbones (on the right) first
  • we kill Vorgan then finally the Torch (torch, frontal conal damage, can be interrupted)
• Asteroid Beast (bonus boss)
  • tank with back to orange force screen
  • healer and DPS stack immediately behind boss for AoE healing
  • periodic rampage which stuns everyone
• Battlelord Kreshan (guy with the adds):
  • sweeping gunfire (tank steps out of way)
  • knockback is nasty (tank has back to console)
  • blue circles which stick around
  • adds need to be killed, can be knocked off

Mandalorian Raiders (Dulfy’s guide)

• trash—those dogs hurt!
• Braxx the Bloodhound (guy with the two dogs)
  • tank Braxx away from the two dogs, who’ll switch between the DPS and healer
  • imperative dogs don’t get into Braxx’s periodic red circle (it buffs them)
  • kill dogs first, then Braxx
• Boarding party
  • kill order: scoundrel/operative, sentinel/marauder, sage/sorcerer, commando/mercenary
  • Sentinel/Marauder can’t be tanked, will constantly switch between party members
• Gil (bonus boss)
  • periodic circle around him, make sure to stay out of it
  • knockback, so stay away from the opening into space!
• Mavrik Varad (guy with the turrets)
  • follow him into three corners of the room
  • in each corner, destroy the turrets that come up (tank will need to hold aggro on them)
  • stay out of the red circles

7. Outro

Thanks to Redna (@RystoJ) and Hyp (@Hypknotoad) for joining us this week.

Information about our guilds on The Harbinger, Ootini Knights (Republic) and Ootini Rage (Empire), can be found here.

You can email questions and comments about the show to ootinicast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter via @OotiniCast. Check out our website, ootinicast.com, which has links to our presence on Google+ and Facebook. We are a proud member of the TOR Syndicate! You can subscribe to us on iTunes and Zune, and listen to us on Stitcher and Radio Paragon.