Gonna have to respectfully disagree with you there. There is a reason why quite a few F2P games are implementing gambling boxes into their games. They sell extremely well and for many people, they become a hobby within a hobby, especially if you continue to add more and more items you can get from them. This also seems like a much more reasonable and fair implementation of these boxes than in other games. In games like GW2 and STO, you loot the gambling boxes themselves, and then have to buy a key to open them. I'd say that's quite a bit scummier than simply buying the packs directly from the store. There is a term that I have heard frequently as of late in conjunction with F2P games, and that term is "Whales". Most people who play F2P games don't spend a single cent in the cash shop, and I suspect that this will remain the case with SWTOR. However, there are people, who have been termed "Whales" by developers that spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month on F2P games, buying stuff such as this, and that is what makes up for the majority of the people being able to play for free. As I have said in other threads, I don't really think comparing these packs to a casino makes much sense. They are, however, very similar to baseball cards or really any other type of trading card. You buy a pack, knowing up front that the individual cards you get are totally random, and if you want to buy an individual card, you can buy it from the secondary market, or in SWTOR's case, the GTN. In fact, that's one of my favorite things about this update. Having these items become tradeable after the fact actually encourages people to interact and trade with eachother to get the items you want, and judging by the drop rates from the PTS, the majority of items aren't going to be that expensive to buy with credits. Maybe they will be at first, when there is a high demand, but eventually prices will stabilize, and both people that enjoy the game of chance, and people that just want a specific item will be happy with the system.

I'm very curious to know how you ended up with almost 1000 more points than anyone else. I have a 6 month recurring subscription, a digital deluxe edition, AND a collectors edition, have been subscribed since early access with no breaks in between. You are getting credited with 14 months of game time while the game has only been out for about 10. I have well over 100 days remaining and unlike you I'm not getting credit for those days so unless I'm missing something blatantly obvious this is a pretty huge error on Bioware's part.

First of all, the games are going to be as competitive as the people taking part in them want to be. If there are a bunch of people from ID, Physics, and other teams that frequently participate in rated pvp anyway, they are going to be well fought games, which we have many of. If the people that want to do rateds are undergeared and don't have mics, well, that is obviously going to affect the level of competition in rated warzones. It really bothers me that you'd go out of your way to say that the teams we formed are fixed. As of the last few days, the way we have been determining teams is pretty simple. We divide people of the same classes and roles, and then random roll to determine the placement of everyone else. If the teams are blatantly unbalanced, we fix them. Generally, the teams we create are FAR more fair than actual ranked warzones which mostly consist of one team getting utterly farmed by a team with better gear. And as for your claim that it felt like a reportable offense, Bioware has sponsored similar events on other servers in their community spotlight, so you dont have a leg to stand on.

I play on an east coast server and there are players from Europe and Australia that don't seem to have many problems. Chances are you'll be fine.

I'm not entirely sure if things are any different for pve, but for pvp, as long as you have at least 35% crit chance and 75% crit multiplier, stacking power is the way to go.

It would be a ridiculous argument if all level 50 characters weren't given an option to get free pvp gear, but this is not the case. In the case of PVE, the baseline recommended gear for HM EV and KP is Columi, in PVP, the baseline gear you should be expected to have in 50 WZ's is recruit. You wouldn't expect a group geared primarily with greens and blues to have success in a hard mode operation, and this is the same case in PVP. If you choose to take the credit token, then don't queue up for pvp until you get some recruit gear, its really that simple. By joining a game in full PVE gear you are severly hurting your team's chances at success and all in all, doing a great job at pissing people off. I don't really think its too much to ask people to equip a set of gear which you get for free, and even if you choose not to, is fairly affordable down the line.

Pretty much this. When I first logged onto The Shadowlands from the first time from CR, my premade won 10+ games in a row with ease, with most of our pugs being people I recognized from CR. So it certainly goes both ways.

Can you explain how being able to inspect people's gear hurts the game?

The only thing I would change about the group finder would be to add Hard Mode EV and KP to be selectable with the group finder. If Story Mode Denova is going to be selectable, then I see no reason as to why HM EV and KP aren't since they are roughly the same in terms of difficulty and the loot is from the same gear tier.

I have been using the SWTOR Naga for a while now, overall, I'm very happy with it. This is the first time I had a mouse with so many side buttons, and I have to admit that I was skeptical as to whether or not I would find a use for all of them, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The only thing you need to be aware of is that it can take a lot of getting used to compared to other mice.

Yep, looks like they instanced out the fleet in the new patch, ridiculous.

You were told incorrectly.

its totally fake, the sith inquisitor ive been playing for the past 12 hours is a complete fabrication.

considering you can just shower your companion with gifts to increase their affection, i wouldnt let something as trivial as this be the basis of what class you want to play