SWTOR 2.0 is live on PTS

I'm sure everyone knows the news by now, but in any case I'm posting something about it.

As expected the 2.0 update is related to the first expansion to The Old Republic, entitled Rise of the Hutt Cartel. It brings several new features, like:

- Level increase to 55, with all the new gear, class abilities, skill trees, crew skill cap to 450 and such for the new level.

- A new operation: Scum and Villainy. This operation brings 5 new bosses, from what I've read.

- Old flashpoints that previously didn't had a hard mode, will get one now. So the new hard mode flashpoints are: Hammer Station, Athiss, Mandalorian Raiders, and Cademimu.

- The most recent operation now available in game, Terror from Beyond, will get a new nightmare difficulty.

- New legacy achievements.

Also note, that for the time being, Makeb (the new planet) is not available.

Seems pretty standard expansion. The really interesting thing about this expansion, at first sight (besides obviously the new content), is the new legacy achievements. It will be a typical achievement system, not like the codex we have at the moment, and some achievements will actually reward Cartel Coins! As an example, a class will receive 20 Cartel Coins, for each act they finish, so doing math, that's 60 coins per character, and if we multiply it by 8, we will have 480. Not bad. Of course this is legacy wide, so if you want to get yet another 480, I assume you can by doing a different legacy on a different server. In somewhat it resembles with the DDO or LOTRO system where you get Turbine Points by doing in game activities. Will see how this can affect positively the Free-to-Play.

Further reading here.

SWTOR Crew Skills and Companions skill bonus

I'm always looking for information on what my class companions skill bonus, what's their main stats or what gifts they like to get affections up. So I collected a bit of information on each companion and took note on a file on their most important information. At least saves me the work to go all over the internet or the codex to see what they can wear. Or also helps me to plan out what crew skills I should pick, considering the companions of my class. 

Besides the information about the companions, I think it's also important to know what each crew skill does and what they require, i.e. what gathering skills should one pick. So I also compiled a small information about it:

After considering the dependencies over each crew skill and knowing which bonus each of my companion gives to a certain crew skill, I can decide which I should pick. Like for example, the Trooper for the Republic, have companions that give bonus to Biochem, and also the gathering counterpart of it Diplomacy and Bioanalysis. So picking Biochem for it, would be interesting. The same thing happens for Agent on the empire side

This is not mandatory, but can help players pick what they really want, and take advantage of it.

So for the Republic side:

And the Empire:

There's also information about what weapons they use, what's their main stat (endurance is always second stat for any companion) and what gift types they prefer. Hope this helps somewhat.

Tera Free to Play starts today

Tera Free to Play doors opens today to everyone who is willing to give it a try. A cinematic trailer has been released to mark this event. Watch it below:

Also is expected to be released on this update new content, like a new dungeon and a new pvp battleground. There also be new servers being created for this occasion like Lake of Tears or Ascension Valley (note this is for the US version).

But for a new player what matters is what a f2p player gets and the you can see the features for the f2p model here(eu) or here(us). The features for a f2p player seems decent at first sight.

F2p players, give it a try.