There's also the black crystals that have the black center for the colour instead of the white. While they look nifty in their own way, I kinda think they don't look like lightsabers. Still, they're there.

I've started to have some trouble leveling my third alt up last night. I have 2 level 50s (Sith Inquisitor and Sith Warrior) and am leveling a Bounty Hunter. For my third Empire character I found that I kinda lost interest in her about half way through Taris. I also think this is partially for the class story, Act 1 for the Bounty Hunter seemed great and connected, Act 2 seems to have very little drive behind it thus far. I finished off Taris but I had to force myself to do it. I might go level a Republic alt for awhile just to get a whole lot more unseen content! I think though that there's plenty of replay value in the game in general, and time will just make it better if they ever do manage to get other leveling zones into the game. Not sure how that will tie into the class story though.

You know, I like this game. I have 2 lvl 50s, am leveling a third and making my way through end game content with my guild. I haven't actually played an MMO for as long as I've played SWTOR. And I agree with most of what you've written. The companion thing was the biggest peeve of mine. My Sith Inquisitor was hanging out with Talos a lot, and he seemed to be developing this big quest line about his Imperial Reclamation Service mentor and how he's missing, and I'm helping him unravel this puzzle because the guy gave Talos this artifact for seemingly no reason. Together, we successfully realise it's a hidden message and decode it! And then Talos runs off to where the message says to go all on his own. Bah! Leveling him up to 10000 he does this like 3 times. I help him find a new lead, and then he's off. And I'm left behind

Hmm, where did you get the quest? Some of the 'Travel to X' quests behave oddly sometimes. I'd get back in your ship, fly to some other planet and then fly back. You may or may not have to leave your ship when you go somewhere else.

My Bounty Hunter is Level 24 and last time I checked had 1700 DS and 1700 LS points. I'm not really that concerned about the lack of Neutral gear, it'll come. I've just made all my choices by deciding that she gets the job done. If they want someone dead, then they're dead. If they want them alive, so much the better. A mark is no longer a person, they are an acquisition. Other than that though, she's more or less easy going and nice and doesn't kill people she doesn't need to. The only people that die are the ones that she's been paid to kill, or that seriously try to hinder her goals. Mako seems to love me -- lots of asking for money and reminding people I'm not Imperial. And she's not against all the DS choices either. There's a quest on Balmorra where an Imperial Officer's wife has been messing around on him and you have to go confront the bartender. The job wants the bartender killed, so I killed him. DS points and +15 Mako affection. The most annoying part is the default dialogue for non BH specific quests, as keeping to this 'do what you're paid to do' often ends up with the BH spouting out 'For the Empire' nonsense. EG: The quest on Drummon Kaas to poison the water supply with the painful toxin is the job as written. The other guy wants it switched to a less painful, more lethal toxin to put the revolt down quickly. I declined this even though it's the better option for putting down a revolt -- it's not what I am being paid to do. But by declining my BH said 'I want to show these people what happens when they disobey the Empire!' ... lol, no, that's not why I'm saying this. So by being nice but sticking to my contracts as written I seem to have Mako liking me and am quite firmly neutral, which is fine by me. I'm leveling as a healer though so I probably won't be sticking with Mako unfortunately.

Players able to use the conversation system to actually talk to each other -- perhaps some quests in a future content patch/expo that require players to group up and rather than just rolling off to see who 'wins' the convo roll, they get to all have their chance to say something and actually respond to each others input, rather than randomly be the person to talk to the NPC and never really acknowledge each other while in cutscene. Though the possible number of branches for multiple sources of input to a conversation could get crazy, so who knows

Just got 16 this morning. 50 Assassin 46 Juggernaut 11 Mercenary 16 Sniper

I'm 50 Deception and I haven't used Force Lightning in ages. It just didn't feel like it was doing all that much. Pretty sure I don't even have a quickslot for it anymore.

Human!

That's kind of pretty much it. The SI storyline is about power more than anything. The fact that Act 2 puts you 'on the run' limits your options for political manipulation, alas. But at the end of the story you've amassed quite a powerbase and are in a strong position of leadership within the Empire, so perhaps they'll go back to that, but all the story really does is set the stage for political machinations and architect-ing the Empire's future. Still, I quite enjoyed it. Pashgan is right in that there was only one real moment where I felt like an actual Inquisitor.

I don't think Rylee is dead on Voss. The force-ghosts you've eaten are messing with your mind. One of them appears as Thanaton, and he's certainly not dead at the time. Maybe Palthion does kill her though, I dunno about that. Also if you're a female SI then Rylee doesn't appear in there at all, the sith guy that is Lady Thul's bodyguard on Alderaan is the one that appears there. Forget his name. He's also a possible romance/fling for a female SI. I'm most curious about the Light Side ending personally, the ghosts at the end telling me I was too dark and doomed to end up a ghost like them made me all go all 'aww, no fair', hehe.

There's a droid on Tattooine in the cantina (Imperial City side) that's just firing a water hose at some drunk lying in a bed. Cracked me up.

I leveled a deception assassin to 50 and I found it a little frustrating from time to time, but mostly it wasn't a huge deal. I wouldn't say it was easy, I found mid levels to be at their trickiest. I had my first real problems at Alderaan, where I found I was underleveled for most content and stealthed past a lot of mobs with blackout to just complete things. I was about one level under what I should be IIRC but that was also a gear issue, and once corrected that I was able to start handling it again. Multiple silvers or gold + silvers would give me trouble, but vanish is there to reset and regroup, so to speak. I defeated the Chapter 1 boss at level 29, died a few times while I got a feel for the fight and use lots of running away & hiding for CDs to come up. Used the 20m cooldown and got there on the third try. Lots of LoS tricks. I was using Khem Val all the time until I got to Belsavis, where I geared up and switched to Ashara for double dps to get through mobs quicker. Against elites I switched back to Khem + Dark Charge. Voss was where I had some more trouble -- I had trouble getting Heroic groups much of the time and started just ignoring Heroic quests all together, and the XP missing started to show. I switched to actually using Talos and sticking in Dark Charge most of the time and found a much easier time of it. I despaired a little at the end of Voss because it felt like I couldn't complete the bosses at the end of either the planet quest or the class quest and it's the one time I actually had to just stop from frustration after several deaths. Class quest on Voss was particularly annoying because you couldn't res in the area, haha. After about an hour and a half to cool down and not worry, I logged back on and took out both bosses on the first attempt -- sometimes it just goes to show, frustration and stress and too much concentration make us underperform? I guess Completing the Voss bonus series and then back for the Hoth bonus series, I was halfway through 47 and headed to Corellia where I had no real troubles. Died a few times, mostly due to making mistakes (failed interrupts, etc). Hit level 50 at the end of the Corellia storyline and just had to finish up the final parts of the class quest. For the last bit of the class quest on Corellia, the end boss' first Sith minion actually killed me, but the guy himself didn't. I dunno if it's funny or sad that his minion was more dangerous than I was, but I found that several enemies in the game (Force Twister?) that we fight as Sith Inq's several times are quite dangerous but also kinda easy to just run around and avoid aoes, using los to buy precious time. Whereas the minion was a melee attacker which always seemed to give that little bit more trouble. Took em out though, then chased em back to Korriban for that final showdown and done, horray. I found when I used Khem/Xalek to tank they didn't so much as tank as hold aggro long enough. They'd die, but the enemy would be low enough that I could finish em off. In brief: - Use Talos when you have him, use Dark Charge when fighting golds. Your DPS suffers but your ability to stay in the fight and win it is way up. DPS companions are viable against normal enemies. As others have stated, swap companions as needed. - Mind Trap is good for slicing up difficult groups. - Interupts! We seem to get so many. Jolt, Overload, Low Slash, Electrocute. - Don't try to go toe to toe with some of the bigger/harder bosses. - If you find yourself frustrated with constantly dying on something, take a break maybe. - I personally found Alderaan and Voss to be the trickiest of all the planets. Not sure I've said anything other than rehash what others have said, but I thought I'd share my experiences. Can't really compare the Deception DPS output to other builds/classes because I haven't really played them as extensively yet but I found it just fine. Challenging at times, but fine.

Yeah it's a higher level bonus series than the rest of the planet -- there's quite a few of these as the game goes on. In Nar Shaddar's case, you can find the quest on the Imperial Fleet when you're around level 28, telling you to go back.

I've been wondering about similar things myself, actually. It seems one of the popular SW storylines is about the Jedi that turns to the dark side. Or the Sith/Dark Jedi (call them whatever. I recognize the difference, it's just not relevant right now) finding their redemption. It could be neat to allow a Jedi with all these darkside points to defect. While I understand the idea of a Jedi who's fallen to the darkside remaining with the republic, I wonder why the Jedi Order would actually keep them around and not dismiss them at the very least. There's an easy answer though: The character is clearly good at what they do, being a player character, and when you're fighting a war perhaps it's not the wisest to dismiss one of your best combatants. It's war. Horrible things happen. The Dark/Light points in this game aren't as great as they've been in other Star Wars games where the choices actually affect the outcome and lead to different endings. I admit I haven't finished any class story completely yet, so maybe there's still differences, but in things like KOTOR the ending was rather different. It feels to me that light or dark still leads to the same things. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the illusion of choice in the game, it's just not as strong as in other games. There's been a reference or two in the Sith Inq storyline that 'many a Sith have been created from corrupted Jedi', mostly during the Taris class quests. Anyway this has gone on for a bit and I guess I'm just saying the option to to play a character who starts as a Jedi with the Republic and actually falls to the dark side to join the Sith Empire would be neat. As would the ability to be a Sith that redeems themselves and joins the republic. I don't think it should be forced if you're too dark or light because punishing people for these choices isn't the greatest idea, but allowing it as an option sometime down the road would be nifty. In regards to the non-force wielding characters, I have no idea! Dark/Light points seem kind of artifical on them and the idea of the republic trooper or smuggler full of dark points doesn't seem too far fetched. See above -- It's war, horrible things happen.