He, he, good to know I'm not the only one! I think I was at 44 or 45 when the first level cap increase came out, so I drifted off to one alt or another; then I was low 50s & the 2nd cap increase happened & then I was away from the game for 2 or 3 years after my initial enthusiasm with F2P waned very quickly, once I realised I had sucked dry all of the story/side quests & was still grossly under-leveled for the planet I was on at the time - you may recall the abysmal XP rewards in the early days of F2P - 'free' if your time is worth nothing lo! And I wasn't going to grind trash mobs to gain ~3-5 levels! So more alts followed... Just dinged 58 last night & finished the Battle of Ilum FP, so not far off new vistas & experiences on Makeb hopefully!

Thanks heaps for this Steve. Yeah, I kinda knew I had to get to 70/71 to even begin Ossus/Onslaught, just wanted to know the ramifications of skipping KotFE/ET, so cheers! Funny thing, I just finished playing by Shadow through them & picked all light-side options, but even my Sniper is mostly light-side. Which means she will have to make do with the default choices. Looks like Vette bites the big one again... I'm actually more concerned about not getting past 70 after I complete Ilum shortly again & then onto RotHC & SoR, then skip Oricon etc by doing solo heroic dailies mostly & straight to Ossus as soon as I ding 70. Do you think as a Preferred player on lower XP I should be ok from 57, which I just hit last night, through the 2 expansions, to NOT outlevel the Onslaught content...? I really hate doing storyline level capped in any game as it seems a bit pointless with almost no visible progression if that happens, eh. Hey maybe I just take a 3rd favourite toon through to 55 & start Makeb/SoR where it's meant to be in that case...I am finding the Marksman sniper burst build a bit...lackluster after playing a Serenity Shadow for so long - I really miss the stealth + self-heal DoTs. Maybe I pick up my 30 Scoundrel at some point & level her. I can see where this is likely headed he he.

Yeah I'm a super-shlomo who likes to smell ALL the roses and is also an alt-o-holic! (have a dozen+ other toons all in their 20s-30s eh).

YAY! After 9 years (since beta) I finally hit my 1st 75 (2nd main Shadow) today! )) Even got an emperor's token drop in one of the caches lol. Ok, so because I bumped this character to 60 & only started playing her on Oricon, and she's just now at the start of Ossus, I think I'll go back to my true main Sniper parked at 56, and finish Ilum, then do the first two expansions (RotHC & SoR) after that, which I've never done as yet. Hopefully that gets me close to 70 as Preferred, so I can then skip KotFE & KotET & continue with Onslaught to 75. Can anyone confirm if that plan is even possible...? i.e. can one even play Onslaught without doing the 2 Knights expansions, or will I have to delete the Sniper & reroll her to a new 70 (using one of the 2 free tokens I think I have - a 60 & a 70 I believe), and then re-outfit her using legecy bound gear as best I can + re-buy all the mods/slot pieces...? Any other suggestions on how I best play her from 56 - 75, ideally without redoing KotFE/KotET again so soon, very welcome, cheers all!

Guild Wars did this right 7 years ago FFS. Use dynamic districts. Have very high-level zones (US, EU, Asia, Oceania), but let players play & trade on International servers. The economies will sort themselves out. *I* was saying this before TOR came out last year (long b4 that in fact) & will keep saying it until these nitwits start to listen. If nothing else at least Blizzard have paid attention & done something about a locked-in server set up. EVE has been mentioned. Even a pissy mmo like ATITD can do 1000s of players on 1 server ffs! In this day of VM environments & incredibly sophisticated virualisation tools, there is simply no excuse for having these kinds of 'logical' servers segregated from one another, even if some do run on multiple pieces of metal each. It just borders on sad & pathetic & has caused 90% of Bio's issues with their community, starting with rolling betas, rolling early access, global community management issues, guild break-up issues, Oceanic launch delays in char transfers, maintenance downtime, I could go on & on... Locked in servers on 10+ yr old architecture/topology have been at the root of most of these evils & SNAFUs, period. Live & learn & roll on D3 & GW2 I say! <BFG>

As an avid SW fanboy since 1977 & an Aussie & a mmo veteran...all I have to say is: Roll on the 15th & D3!!! <BFG>

Is there a way to share items/cash between Imp/Rep legacy chars, without mailing them around, guys? I've only just got mine with my 33rd sniper & have all 8 classes on the server (4 rep, 4 imp), ranging from high 20s, back down to lvl 10. I read somewhere that lower chars actually contribute more to leg xp than higher ones - is that true? How long will is take for me to get the 240K leg xp for the 1st tier lol?

Wow! And only 2hr 40mins into maintenance...<looks out windows to see if ice has started forming yet>

Nail, head, 10000PSI impact hammer! They just want to make sure all the centre of the universe folks, nay, the ONLY universe, are taken care of for their very important weekend time off. Never mind us poor ASPAC/EU grunts who get jibbed in our prime time & who form the majority of subs in actual fact...we're irrelevant to the greater mystical good that is the $US. <BFG> Seriously guys, only 1 mmo company stuck it in & broke it off harder to us...yes, you guessed it boyz n girlz - I'm talkin bout SOE! Now, does Bioware *really* want to be compared less & less favourably as time goes on with THAT game company...? I leave you with that thought.

You cannot possibly understand the answer to that question, young grasshopper, unless you reside in the centre of the known universe. Only then will you be graced with enlightenment...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This and only this, the end.

None to my knowledge/memory. In reviewing my rant from earlier in this thread, I feel like I was a bit harsh without having much constructive advice/feedback to give (been sick as a dog with this bloody cold/flu for a week!). I fully well understand & realise the challenges of retro-fitting diverse functionality to complex, online & real-time systems, so we need to give credit where credit is due. In spite of the various annoyances, & keeping in mind this is their 1st mmo, Bioware have done a remarkable job to bring the SW universe to life in a game with this much depth & content. I am particularly grateful to be able to finally play an A-grade mmorpg with very low latency with a player base mostly in our own timezones, something I never thought we'd experience down-under. I now have a regular game going on Dalborra with a mate, which has been an absolute blast! Here's to SWTOR going from strength to strength - I just noticed my 4 chars got transferred overnight without any issues - WOOT!

Stephen, What I'm about to write has 30 years of commercial IT experience behind it, including software design/engineering, large project work & a wide array of infrastructure/networking management for multinationals in complex environments across numerous platforms. Therefore, please don't take it personally, but rather consider it a very well informed, professional opinion & make of it/do with it what you will. This, what should have been a relatively simple data transfer process, has devolved into a sad, pathetic mess. Firstly, your basic web page to collect up to a whole 8 bytes of form data about the characters we wanted transferred was broken. So you asked us to enter our beloved character names on a public forum, for all to see & salivate over. You inform us bacjk then that the transfers won't take place unless certain conditions are met, nowhere near as detailed as the 1st post in this thread, mind you. The net effect being, we have now exposed our favourite char names for anyone to pinch during this 1 week limbo period while you execute this incredibly complex data transfer. Some of us were up at 5am on Dec 20th & March 1st, in order to secure & retain those names... I am utterly bemused, completely flabbergasted & totally aghast at how this has been handled. I won't even go into the dozen other milestone-level SNAFUs since my 3 stints in your beta program, nor mention the ridiculous, unjustifiable 2 month wait just to get these chars transferred, which has fragmented guilds & ruined the play experience for so many. As a veteran gamer since before PC gaming even existed, I should be speechless, but alas, I've seen so much of this kind of thing before. Your 1:1 physical<->logical server model was deeply flawed & broken before it ever launched. You learned nothing from the failures & successes of so many other developers, but just went down the path of copying THAT other mmo (which shall remain nameless), to the nth degree, with the fully predictable & expected results. There are so many other centralised/consolidated/virtualised database & server models you could have looked at more closely (GW, EVE, ATITD to name a few examples). Your server model is last century & the problems that come with it have been solved. I really cannot fathom why you went down this path, with all the globs of money & R&D spent on this game...but I can surely speculate as to how that decision-making process came to pass. I don't know what else to say, so I'll stop rambling. I've been a rabid SW fan since the 1st day it appeared on the big screen. To say this experience has been at once a joy, a mixed blessing & yet a consummate disappointment would be a gross oversimplification of my experience with SWTOR to date. I will remain your loyal customer for now, but consider this an opportunity to re-examine how you are handling things, because if fans like myself start leaving, it won't be long after that...

Asked & answered!

This. Give us casual players more low end content, more starting classes & low-end zones/planets - that will keep us coming back. And where end game grinders ARE a minority, we are legion...<will the penny ever drop>

(reposting query about possible issues from main thread, in case it gets lost in the sea of xfer requests over there...) Re this: "If your character name is already taken on the Asia Pacific server, your character will be transferred, but you will be prompted to choose a new name for the character when you log into the new server." I have the character names that I want to keep reserved on my current Aus server Dalborra (old higher-level chars are on USWest server). So does this mean I now need to delete them before the 3hr/7day window starts in order to overwrite them (they are just level 1 placeholders on Dalborra) & thus risk losing those names I value very much,...or were you just assuming we would be home for 7 days, 24hrs each of those days, waiting for your signal & we would then delete the chars on the destination server just before the magical 3hr period...? I can only hope that you will allow us to overwrite, or delete just before the transfer, not to even mention what happens if I want to transfer 4 chars say, but have all 8 slots full on Dalborra, with 4 of them the aforementioned placeholder name chars. Will we at least be able to delete our existing placeholder chars before being forced to rename the transferred ones, even though that would require just as many free slots as chars being transferred...? Seriously Bioware, who does your QA...? *sigh* In any case, on the 1 in a million chance that this will actually work with some sort of sane, logical method applied, here are my details: FROM: US Master Zhar Lestin TO: Asia Pacific Dalborra CHARNAMES to be transferred: Reva, Unimatrix, Bo'rrob, Sentine I need 100% confirmation that you can overwrite those placeholder name chars. If not, how do we keep our names & transfer the old chars successfully - what is your contingency plan here? Btw, using current Chrome browser - the "Request transfers" button is greyed out & can't be clicked. The 3 dropdowns (presumably) for server & char names also do nothing when you click them.

Re this: "If your character name is already taken on the Asia Pacific server, your character will be transferred, but you will be prompted to choose a new name for the character when you log into the new server." I have the character names that I want to keep reserved on my current Aus server Dalborra (old higher-level chars are on USWest server). So does this mean I now need to delete them before the 3hr/7day window starts in order to overwrite them (they are just level 1 placeholders on Dalborra) & thus risk losing those names I value very much,...or were you just assuming we would be home for 7 days, 24hrs each of those days, waiting for your signal & we would then delete the chars on the destination server just before the magical 3hr period...? I can only hope that you will allow us to overwrite, or delete just before the transfer, not to even mention what happens if I want to transfer 4 chars say, but have all 8 slots full on Dalborra, with 4 of them the aforementioned placeholder name chars. Will we at least be able to delete our existing placeholder chars before being forced to rename the transferred ones, even though that would require just as many free slots as chars being transferred...? Seriously Bioware, who does your QA...? *sigh* In any case, on the 1 in a million chance that this will actually work with some sort of sane, logical method applied, here are my details: FROM: US Master Zhar Lestin TO: Asia Pacific Dalborra CHARNAMES to be transferred: Reva, Unimatrix, Bo'rrob, Sentine I need 100% confirmation that you can overwrite those placeholder name chars. If not, how do we keep our names & transfer the old chars successfully - what is your contingency plan here? Btw, using current Chrome browser - the "Request transfers" button is greyed out & can't be clicked. The 3 dropdowns (presumably) for server & char names also do nothing when you click them.

Tx Bioware/EA. As a FOUNDER & free tester in 3 betas (let's not even mention other BW games or the SW franchise!!!!), who hasn't got a 50th char as yet & doesn't even know what 'legacy level 6' means lol....what is it I get exactly for my loyalty & the continual support of this mmorpg since the very start...?

LOTRO runs flawlessly on my rigs (2 PCs, higher end laptop), as did DDO (same/similar engine from Turbine I think - front end is almost identical anyway). Can't imagine what you have on your system that's causing the ctd/exception/bsod, but usually it's a device driver conflict (vid card most commonly) or less often mobo onboard devices, or even peripherals in the rarer cases. Bad news for you is, it's a royal PITA to track them down, usually through a thorough process of elimination/substitution, which can take many hours to uncover. All the best!!! On the upside, LOTRO is f2p now & probably THE best f2p mmo out there right now, imho. Give it a bash if you haven't already & don't completely hate the genre. At least you'll find out of its Turbine's engine that's doing it. Incidentally, drop the in-game graphics to DX9 (if DDO has that option - LOTRO does & it sorted a graphics glitch on my laptop). Onto SWTOR...still lovin it, even more since I get mod 30s ping on Dalborra now - WOOT! Will stick it out for a couple more months, with only D3 as a distraction perhaps, or GW2 when that's out.

Still here, still pissed. At least it was only 3hrs in our prime time Friday night, not the full 4 or more This server model is horribly flawed, broken really, as I've been saying since before the bloody game launched! But unimaginative, incompetent techs sold them this lemon I suppose ('look, that's how WoW does it"), so now we're stuck with it. Bioware: look at how GW did it 7+ years ago if you want to see how it should have been done, with dynamic districts, allowing anyone to play on any 'server' + an international server to allow mates from diff zones to play together. This is a 15+ yr old model that is shameful. Instead of a sane design us AU players are now going to be waiting until end April for your charity char server transfers. Well done. Keep copying redundant, outdated mechanics & technology & see how long this amateur hour lasts.

Guess I should get all passive aggressive about it next, too, huh? LOL, we don't need a calculator to tell us he's exactly the kind of player that's most of what's wrong with mmos today

In a word: unacceptable. Personally, I couldn't give a rat's about legacy, pvp or guild issues, being mostly a solo casual player. What I DO care about are simple things like, you know, being actually able to play on what might be the only day of the week I can...

Last time I checked my $15 was worth just as much as yours, though more than likely much harder earned.

In a word: unacceptable. Personally, I couldn't give a rat's about legacy, pvp or guild issues, being mostly a solo casual player. What I DO care about are simple things like, you know, being actually able to play on what might be the only day of the week I can...

^ This...and not that > This game & its small African nation budget, should have had: - serverless environment (ala Guild Wars or EVE) - global names/surnames/chat handles (like BNet did it before 2000 & CoH many years ago). Just those 2 simple things make server congestion, char name conflicts, legacy crap & a host of other issues just go away.Really. My #1 priority which still hasn't been answered 100%: will maintenance be done during Australian EST off peak times or not? If not, then I'm packin up my toys & rest assured Biowared/EA/ LA - you will be dumped into the 'never again' bucket, along with Blizzard, Bethesda & some other self-imporant clueless-about-cistomer-service wannabe gaming companies. End of msg. Game over.