The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

It’s the little things which are making me smile with respect to Star Wars: The Old Republic at the moment. For example: right click your companion’s portrait and you can instruct them to sell all the trash loot from your inventory, similar to the peddling pets feature in Torchlight which impressed me back in the day. In SWTOR the companion dashes off for sixty seconds (a timer appears on their portrait) and then returns to you, wherever you may be, and hands you your profit. It’s one of those simple ‘quality of life’ mechanics which avoids the player having to spend time and effort doing maintenance on their inventory, something which I very much appreciate having come to SWTOR from Skyrim: Thanes of Inventory Juggling; certainly if there isn’t already a mod in Skyrim to do something similar, I can’t imagine it will be too long in coming.

Of course I also like the feature in SWTOR because it’s terribly amusing to picture Khem Val, also known as Shadow Killer, also known as The Devourer, turning up to a small remote outpost and eating the merchants there, then shouting “I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SALE WITH THESE MODEST GOODS!” before looking around, then repeatedly slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand and muttering “No, no, no! How many times Khem Val?! Make sale first, *then* devour puny alien population!”

10 thoughts on “The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

  1. Syl

    “The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.”

    Now if only the world we live in wouldn’t define success by the second definition. :)

  2. Helistar

    Honestly, I never understood WHY vendor-only crap items even exist…. if it’s money just give me money, otherwise it would be nice if they had a use. Even if it’s only for jedi gnomes with maxxed deep-earth-mining profession.

    And don’t point at LotRO tasks, that’s a solution worse than the problem….

  3. Melmoth Post author

    I can only agree with you heartily, and offer the weak suggestion that, as far as operant schedules of reinforcement in MMOs go, we test subjects respond much better to vendor-trash than cash as our virtual reward pellets.

  4. ArcherAvatar

    The plight of Khem Val tugged at my heart strings. I find it easy to empathize since I get those two things mixed up all the time too…

  5. ArcherAvatar

    Ya gotta luv the english language… to, two, and too all in the same short sentence, all pronounced identically, but each with it’s own spelling and meaning. I have SO much respect for anyone learning english as a second language, and I often wonder if this contributes to that odd expression frequently seen on the faces of foreign nationals… you know the one… looks like they’re thinking, “you are all completely bat-shit nuts and have absolutely no clue that’s the case aren’t you…?”

  6. Melmoth Post author

    I hear he’s getting his own sitcom on Comedy Central soon: ‘On the busy planet of Dromund Kaas, fun loving Khem Val is an every day Dashade struggling to understand life and not just eat it. Suddenly thrown into sharing an apartment with a Sith Inquisitor, hilarity and moderate-to-extreme gore ensues.’

    And yes, the English language is a beast. A big beautiful burdened beast, but a bit of a beast nevertheless. I mean Wikipedia says:

    “English is a West Germanic language”

    So it’s not even English!

    And I fear that anyone coming here will learn far too many words that are of no blarmed use in standard conversation whatsoever.

  7. swtorSPEC

    I’m a fan of the companion system in SWTOR. It’s a great way to get things done while your running around turning in missions. It’s even better when you get your 2nd companion with your ship.

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