Now, if you have read this blog whatsoever or know me at all, besides my incredible love for pets, you will also know I love collecting. Collecting is a big part of any MMO for me, whether it be lore, pets, mounts, or whatever I decide to collect. Of course, as a collector, I know it can be hard. Especially if you play multiple characters–or worse, finally get that special item, but not on the character you wanted it. That is one of the worst feelings ever.

Which is why I’m incredibly happy to talk about one of the new upcoming features in Patch 2.1–Collections. What is Collections, you may ask? The answer to a lot of people’s needs.

To start, Collections is a special new interface that will show you well, things you collected! Stuff you got from the Cartel Market (Packs and not in packs) and Special Promotions, things you still need, how much percent you’ve completed, and even let you preview these items. You will even be able to track certain items.

So yes, you essentially have a portable checklist–but that’s not all. Let’s say you wanted to have an army of characters with the Revan Mask, but were only able to get one. Well, with Collections, one is all you need. For a fee in Cartel Coins (depending on the item), you can unlock this item account-wide. Yes, ACCOUNT-wide. Not faction-wide, not server-wide, ACCOUNT.

From then on, you can duplicate as many of that item as you want for your characters. Of course, these are bound to you so get any ideas of crazy money grinding out of your head–that’s not what collecting is about.

Not only that though, once you have earned something, it’s there forever. Tired of having your Ball Toss or Republic Banner on you at all times? Simply discard the item and when you feel like using it again, just grab it from Collections later.

I was lucky enough to be able to ask a few more detailed questions about Collections (some especially for those who love pets and mounts like me) and am happy to be able to share them 🙂 So here you guys go!:

1. A small fee was mentioned to essentially unlock an item. Does the fee depend on the item or is it the same amount for everything?

Once you have bound an item on a character, it becomes unlocked in your Collection and you can create unlimited copies for that character. It is only the account-wide access unlock that costs Cartel Coins. For pack items, the Cartel Coin cost is based on item rarity, and ranges from 60 to 600 CC. For direct-sale items, the unlock fee is a fraction of the item’s base price.

2. Once you do unlock it, is that it? Or do you have to keep giving a fee for each version? Essentially more clarification on this would be awesome.

You’ll never pay more than a single fee per item. Once you pay for account-wide access, any character on your whole account can create additional copies of the item at no extra cost.

3. One of the things mentioned to come in the future were special promotion items and Pets (yeeeees). Is there any chance event/social items/speeders in general could be a part of that in the future as well?

We will have some special promotion items in the Collections system when it launches. We’d like to reiterate that Collections is a new system and so we will be actively trying to fit things like you mentioned above into it as best we can. This will be something we continue to improve on as the Collections system grows, and your feedback as to which items you’d like to see in Collections is invaluable to us.

4. Similarly, for items like Pets and Speeders which become abilities. Would they still be accessed through collections (once added anyway) even if you used them?

Yes. Once added to your Collection, you will have the ability to purchase account-wide access and create unlimited copies on all your characters at no additional fee. For example, if you purchase the Czerka CR-17 Incendia speeder on one character and add it to your list of Vehicles, this will unlock it in your Collections. Once you pay the Cartel Coin fee to gain account-wide access to the item, all of your other characters can get the Czerka CR-17 Incendia mount at no additional cost.

Annnnd #5. One of the examples was essentially discarding an item and being able to just pick it back up from the Collections UI. Do you have to pay to get it back/a one-time charge or is it always free to get it back on the character it was originally on/free once unlocked for characters that didn’t have it?

Great question. It will always be free to claim any number of copies of an item from Collections on the same character that originally unlocked that item. For example, if you get Revan’s Mask for one of your characters and later destroy it, you’ll be able to re-claim the item from Collections at no extra cost. Heck, you can even claim free additional copies for all of your companions! The fee will only come into effect if you wish to gain account-wide access to the item, and this will be a one-time, account-wide fee. Continuing the above example, once you’ve paid the unlock fee for Revan’s Mask, all of the characters on your account—even those on different servers—will be able to claim unlimited copies of Revan’s Mask for free.

So, I hope you guys are as excited about Collections as I am! It is definitely one of the features (if not the #1 feature) I am most excited for with 2.1 🙂 And I’m so happy I got to share it with all of you! <3 Edit: So many people and comments @-@ I shall try and add a bit more information (as I've seen questions roaming around) from what I know: 1. This is pretty much said in the Q&A, but just to say again: for pets and speeders, they are unlocked once you use them. They get added to abilities and then they unlock. 2. As for gear, whether it unlocks as soon as you get it or you need to bind it to a character first--I honestly do not know. I wouldn't be surprised if they made you bind first, but they might not considering I'd expect the percentages/interface to update when you get it. Again though, I don't know. 3. It'll start mostly with Cartel Stuff and some special promotions stuff but as mentioned to the FAQ, they DO hope to add in other things (like all the pets and mounts) so hopefully we will even see event stuff and stuff from Flashpoints too. So for those who collect orange gear as well (like my boyfriend), I hope this will be helpful to you guys too!