Protips

• Green (Premium) quality gifts (rank 1 and 2) may be purchased from the “Companion Gift Vendor” on both the Republic and Imperial space stations.
• Blue (Prototype) quality gifts (rank 5) may be purchased from the “Curator” next to the “Companion Gift Vendor” on both the Republic and Imperial space stations with the exchange of six Prototype Gift Fragments.
• Purple (Artifact) quality gifts (rank 5) may be purchased from the “Curator” next to the “Companion Gift Vendor” on both the Republic and Imperial space stations with the exchange of eight Artifact Gift Fragments.

Each category has three grades of gifts: Green, Blue and Purple. Ranging from rank 1 to rank 5. This list is first ordered by the class of the gift, then by the color of the gift and lastly the rank of the gift.

Please note: The list of all the companion gifts is not complete, so please feel free to help me complete it by leaving any additions, corrections or suggestions in the comments below!

This page may contain spoilers

Please read this first - I’ve included information about what gift gives you the most affection gain for each companion in the game. A blue companion belongs to the Republic and a red companion belongs to the Sith Empire. I’ve only listed them by their names and faction, not what class they belong to. Chances are that you (like me) do not want to know what class gets which companion until you’ve actually played that class.

Courting

Most Gain
Ashara Zavros, Mako and Vette
Elara Dorne, Doc, Nadia Grell and Lieutenant Iresso

Gold Necklace
Rank 1

Hutt Affection Token
Rank 2

Authentic Tionese Cuisine
Rank 3

Formal Clothing
Rank 4

Hand-Carved Voss Courting Jewelry
Rank 1

Zeltron Personal Aroma Set
Rank 5

Gree Temporary Mind-Link Device
Rank 5

Cultural Artifact

Most Gain
Khem Val, Talos Drellik and Vector Hyllis
Bowdaar, Nadia Grell and Yunn

Polished Meteorite
Rank 1

Dubrillion Lizard Egg
Rank 2

Primitive Staff
Rank 3

Hutt Banner
Rank 4

Carved Runestone
Rank 5

Signet Ring of Ancient Tion
Rank 5

Memoir of the Unification Wars
Rank 5

Imperial Memorabilia

Most Gain
Ensign Raina Temple
Elara Dorne, Lord Scourge, Zenith

Imperial History Holo
Rank 1

Imperial Battalion Flag
Rank 2

Imperial Military Records
Rank 3

Philosophy of the Sith Code
Rank 4

Sith Opera Collection
Rank 5

Imperial General’s Dog Tags
Rank 4

Banned Imperial History Document
Rank 5

Account of the Discovery of Korriban
Rank 5

Luxury

Most Gain
Gault, Jaesa Willsaam and Kaliyo Djannis
Bowdaar, Doc, Kira Carsen, Risha and Tharan Cedrax

Small Gemstone
Rank 1

Polished Carapace
Rank 2

Comet-Stone Drinking Glass
Rank 2

First Edition Galactic Encyclopedia
Rank 5

Intricate Corellian Speeder Model
Rank 5

Military Gear

Most Gain
Lieutenant Pierce and Xalek
Corso Riggs and Sergeant Rusk

Survival Gear
Rank 1

Complete Camping Set
Rank 2

Homing Device
Rank 3

Armor Maintenance Kit
Rank 4

Premium Field Rations
Rank 5

Gourmet Ration Pack
Rank 5

Omni-Vision Battlefield Relay
Rank 5

Republic Memorabilia

Most Gain
Ashara Zavros
Lieutenant Iresso, M1-4X and Sergeant Rusk 

Republic History Holo
Rank 1

Republic Planetary Flag
Rank 2

Replica of the Galactic Constitution
Rank 4

Canister of Coruscanti Soil
Rank 5

Republic Senatorial Oath
Rank 5

Holorecord of the Republic Founding
Rank 5

Trophy

Most Gain
Boonmark and Torian Cadera
Bowdaar, Sergeant Rusk

Vrblther Skull
Rank 1

Sleen Tail
Rank 2

Nexu Claw
Rank 3

Humanoid Skull
Rank 4

Greater Cthon Brain
Rank 4

Galactic Crime Lord’s ID Card
Rank 5

Splinter of a Rakata Stronghold
Rank 5

Technology

Most Gain
Blizz, Doctor Loking, Mako and Scorpio
T7-01 and Yunn

Holoviewer
Rank 1

Hutt Data Library
Rank 2

Kal-Reyon Experimental Implant
Rank 3

Aratech Reconstruction Toolkit
Rank 5

Vial of Gree Nanite Paste
Rank 5

Underworld Good

Most Gain
Skadge and Vette
Guss Tuno, Risha and Tanno Vik

Underworld Rumor Sheet
Rank 1

Hutt Hit List
Rank 2

Fake Identity Documents
Rank 5

Drayen Hyperspace Smuggling Routes
Rank 5

Weapon

Most Gain
Andronikos Reval, Boonmark, Jaesa Willsaam, Kaliyo Djannis, Lieutenant Pierce, Skadge and Xalek
Akaavi Sparr, Aric Jorgan, Corso Riggs and Qyzen Fess

Ammunition Belt
Rank 1

Padded Weapon Case
Rank 2

Energy Blade Bayonet
Rank 5

Unique Rakata Grenade
Rank 5

Zoryal Reaches level 50

My Jedi Sage’s turn to hit 50, now to get me some delicious healing gear.

I read yesterday that a GM posted on the German Star Wars: The Old Republic community forums in reply to a person who had low frame rate issues. It was posted by “J3-H1″ in German, now my German isn’t too great but thanks to my “Google Translate Fu” I was able to loosely translate it:

Basically J3-H1 is suggesting that the user having low FPS issues in Star Wars: The Old Republic should try and install DirectX 9.0c and report back if they had any luck with that.

So the proposed theory is that Star Wars: The Old Republic wants to use DirectX 9 drivers, and people with later versions such as DirectX 10, DirectX 11 don’t have those particular drivers, which cause their installations to emulate/mimic these older drivers if they are missing them, thus resulting in poor performance.

Some people on reddit went from 5-10 fps to 25 fps in the hustle and bustle of the PVP battles on Ilum.

So, how do I test this?

1. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/confirmation.aspx?id=8109
2. Download the file
3. Once it’s downloaded, run the file and it will ask you to extract it to a folder. Extract it where you can later find and install it, as it comes with a setup executable. Pro-tip: Don’t extract it straight out to your desktop you’ll end up with a lot of files everywhere, it does not make it’s own directory, you have to make one for the installation.
4. Run DXSETUP.exe and let it install
5. Once installed, start up Star Wars: The Old Republic and see if it helped improve your frame rate

The installation will handle itself, it won’t “downgrade” your current DirectX version, so if you have DirectX 11 installed and install the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010), it’ll only install the files that you are missing.

Also, please note: You do not need to uninstall anything before installing the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010).

According to the thread on reddit, some people are reporting huge increases on the Republic and Imperial fleets plus on Ilum, while some people aren’t seeing any improvements in their frame rate performance.

People trying this out but noticing no improvement in their frame rate might already have these files installed from other games and thus are running it already in a better shape they would have been without the drivers.

I will try this on my other machine later on to see if it helps the wife’s Star Wars: The Old Republic performance and report back later.

Reporting back: Turns out before I tried this I was averaging ~19-20 fps on my lesser machine, but after installing the drivers I went up to ~25 fps. Not a significant difference, but higher is definitely better than lower!

I noticed that when I record videos with Fraps I’m getting almost no lag, while before I used to have a huge lag spike every 50 seconds while recording.

My Jedi Sage Zoryal ran into an insane Nautolan, hilarity and awkward moments ensued. :)

Please see my other post if you’re looking for a solution without using a third-party application

If you’re having performance issues with SWTOR, have you tried running Game Booster by IObit?

I’ve had great experiences with this application in the past increasing my Frames Per Second (FPS). Just trying to help people out – I am not getting paid for this endorsement. Please note that this application wants to install additional software + stealthily installs a browser toolbar.

It’s basically a freeware application that runs in the background, once you click the “Start Boost” or “Gaming Mode” button it automatically disables any unnecessary services and any other applications that you don’t need to have running while you’re playing. Exactly what it disables is all customizable by you in the application interface.

Once you’re done playing, just click the restore button or “switch to normal mode” and you’re back to where you were before you boosted your system.

As a side note: Some people are reporting FPS issues within Warzones, I don’t know if this app will help with that or not, it might be a software issue with SWTOR itself.

This application is freeware, try it and if you don’t like it uninstall it.

Just trying to lend a helping hand! :)

Please be aware (if you decide to install this app) that the second window in the setup/installer pops up with a question if you wish to install additional software from IObit (My wife is a notorious next-next-next speed clicker) as you might not be interested in a new defragger or malware fighter at this particular time.

Also, I noticed that IObit installs a browser toolbar – Once you’ve installed Game Booster, you can remove it via Add/remove programs in the Control Panel, the toolbar is called something along the lines of “IObit Browser Toolbar”. This used to not be the case with this application, IObit - I am disapoint! ಠ_ಠ

Now all I’m wishing for is hoods for Twi’leks!

!! The comments of this post may contain visible spoilers !!

So there I was, minding my own business, solving this puzzle when all of a sudden a wild graphics glitch appeared. For the record, the machine I was on had an ATI card in it. It was like the lasers / glyphs were completely random (please see the video below). In order to solve the puzzle, I had to log out and log back in on another of my machines with an Nvidia card. The “lasers” were still bugging and jumping around a bit, but I could at least make out the shapes of the puzzle.

After I went to each and every post in that room and solved the puzzle, there was a lot of shaking and rumbling going on, and music played, but I didn’t understand why. Expecting some epic boss to spawn or something, I was looking around the room for something to have appeared and found a strange looking chest I didn’t notice before.

Solving the Doomsday Puzzle

In order to solve the puzzle you have to make the shape of an imperial insignia on the floor, change all the shapes to the squarish looking shapes and the floor will turn into an imperial insignia. The symbol you need to set on every pillar looks like this: Link to awesome mspaint modded gamescreenshot since my lazors are bugging out.

Chest within a chest

I tried opening what looked like a chest inside a bigger chest, now I had to click the chest that was clipping out of the larger chest in order to attempt to open it.

After trying to open it, I got the usual “Opening…” action bar in the bottom-middle of the screen.

Once the bar filled all the way up 100% nothing happened, and of course like any other sensible human, I clicked that chest with all the might my mouse had to give it, but it wouldn’t open no matter what angle or clicking combo I used.

I have no clue what was in that chest but I’m curious.

Did anyone out there successfully get this chest open? If so, how did you do it?

Opening the Ancient Chest

In order to get the chest open, you need to solve the laser glyph symbol puzzle (the solution is above) but here’s the caveat: Once you’ve solved it, you will have to run all the way out of the instance (where you initially landed your ship, not the Emperors dropship — I mean your own Jedi Defender ship) and Reset the phase. This will make all the mobs/NPCs respawn but rumor has it that once you’ve cleared your way back to the ancient chest you’ll be able to open it. I am sure that this was of course not intended to be this way, but somehow made it past the beta testing. If you try this, please send me a comment and let me know if this worked!

What did the mysterious chest contain?
The “Ancient Chest” contains gear for T7, according to the comment Lehnert made on my YouTube video. More specifically, it contains 5 pieces of gear for T7, Item Level 102 – Thanks Katari!

Please leave me a comment, the internetz must know!

Source: this nifty Star Wars: The Old Republic Countdown Timer I found.

I’ve recently got some messages from my old Star Wars Galaxies friends: Shylar, Slefe and Fepe and it looks like we are all going to get together again and play.
It’s going to be awesome!

Does anyone have a number to a cryogenics lab that will freeze a person for 53 days?

\o/ Woot!

A sith warrior and a jedi knight fighting

A week ago I pre-ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic and I can’t wait to try it. I joined my friend’s (Cavalien’s) guild he created called Sith’ari Pathfinders and I took the role of a Sith Inquisitor, I can’t wait for the Early Access and I’m checking my e-mail inbox like a crack addict waiting for the beta invite to come in so I can try the game.

SWTOR, Y U NO INVITE ME YET!? *begs*

No doubt about it, I’m rolling Twi’lek again — It’s the best race ever!