I don't understand why they can't have them. Mounts exist in the game. Organic animals exist in the game. How hard can it be to join those two things together? I want a Nexu and a Varactyl mount, damn it.

Of course there has to be wins and losses but it shouldn't come at the expense of the accomplishments of the other side, otherwise those accomplishments lose there meaning. For example, as I mentioned, taking a Republic character through Taris right now feels completely pointless. Why should I care about anything I do on the planet when the Empire just comes in and destroys it later? It's exactly like it was in KoTOR. You accomplish all this stuff on Taris and then the Empire blows the city up. It wasn't a fun experience the first time and I'd hoped BioWare would have learned that. Have the Republic rebuild things and destroy Imperial things. Have the Empire destory Republic things. Just don't have the Republic destroy the things Imperial players had a hand in building and vice versa.

I'm not a fan of the trinity system but I think it's a little too late for BioWare to doing anything about that in TOR. The way I see it a game that uses TOR's combat system, the same sort of system used by games like WoW or EQ, has to have the trinity system to function properly. For TOR to either start de-emphasizing the trinity system or even get rid of it completely BioWare would have to do a complete combat overhaul and make it more like an action game, like DCUO (which does have a trinity system but it's heavily de-emphasized outside of raids), or like GW2, which as I understand it basically uses the same combat system as EQ, WoW, TOR etc but only lets you have four or so abilities hotkeyed at once, has a lot more cone and aoe spells you have to aim and gives everyone a heal. We can only hope that when BioWare puts out their Mass Effect mmo in 2020 (fingers crossed) it will be a third person shooter like the single player rpgs and the trinity system wont exist.

I find it fun enough, though I wouldn't say no to fully 3D off the rails space combat like some people want. What I'd really like though is to see it expanded upon to include quests where you're controlling your character. By that I mean something like having to space combat your way through a battle, land on an enemy ship and then have your character run through the ship completing objectives or maybe fighting off a boarding party and then jumping in your ship and counter attacking the enemies ships. Stuff like that.

Technically you can have three windows open at once if you count the gear preview. I agree though, being able to have more windows open would be nice. Things might get a bit messy though unless they also give us the ability to resize the windows.

I have to say leveling an Empire character first and then leveling a Republic character it felt rather odd when I was on Taris on Republic and figured out that it was happening before the events I saw Empire side. It also made the quests feel a bit pointless since the Empire comes in and basically screws with all the stuff you accomplished. I think that's something BioWare needs to avoid doing in the future for both sides, screwing with their achievements and taking away a sense of victory.

BioWare has provided many tools and incentives for people to socialise: Chat Friends list Guilds The ability to flag yourself as looking for a group Shared quest dialogue Group/heroic quests and areas Flashpoints Operations Pre-made warzones Social levels Social gear That's a lot more then most MMOs have. In the end BioWare can't force people to socialise and group with each other, that's up to the players to do. BioWare has provided the tools and the rewards and it's up to us to use them.

Remember when the colour an item's name was written in didn't matter but its stats did? I don't, but those must have been some great times to be playing mmos in.

Are there any plans in the near future to change existing armour sets or add new armour sets for some classes? I'm specifically thinking about some of the Republic armour sets that haven't been very well recieved, such as the Consular pvp set, but I'm also thinking about the Sith Marauder who feels like they have less gear available to them then the other classes and who visually lacks gear that has a Marauder feel about it, such as the hood up gear shown in the Sith Warrior progression video.

I hope they allow transfers over within a week of release. Making us wait so others can catch up is stupid. There's always going to be people who are higher level on the server then you. If someone buys the game in a years time should we lock down all servers and only let them play until they hit 50 so they can avoid ganking? Of course not. It's the same situation here.

To clear things up for some people, Mass Effect has FTL travel and it's different to the Mass Relays. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Relay FTL in Mass Effect is pretty much the same sort of FTL you see in any sci-fi game or film. Mass Relays on the other hand basically shoots the ship through space at such a speed that travel is instantaneous, at least that's how I understand it.

Choked out? Last I checked Rift was holding its own. A game doesn't need 10 million subscribers to be a success. Also you know nothing about DCUO. The appearance tab was probably its most praised feature even by people who didn't like the game. It didn't have a LFG tool at launch, that's a complete lie. Yes it had duos, hardmodes and raids but those duos and hardmodes where just running the same content you already ran while leveling up and those raids where damn hard to get into unless you were in a super hardcore guild. DCUO was a great game with an interesting story, fun pvp and probably the best combat any mmo has ever had. Its problem was that it rushed you to end game and then gave you nothing to do once you got there but the same things you'd already done. Please don't come in and start telling lies about other MMOs to try and bolster your arguments for TOR. You probably haven't even played either of those games.

I like that silver droid Imperials get but I absolutely hate that gold droid Repbulic get, C2 or whatever he's called. I wish there was a way to have the Imperial droid on my Republic characters.

So among all the negative and positive threads talking about TOR there's one thing I never see mentioned and I'd just like to take some time and thank BioWare for adding it because it's one of my favourite features of the game. So what is this feature? It's the follow up mail you receive from NPCs after completing certain quests that let you know how things have unfolded and the outcome of the choices you made during the quest. In other MMOs you'll get a quest to collect ten boar pelts so the quest giver can make some clothes. Once you hand in the quest that's it. The NPC will thank you and you'll move on, never knowing if the NPC ever got around to making those clothes and what he did with them. In TOR though you'll get mail letting you know. It's a small touch but it really helps make the world feel more alive and makes it feel like my choices actually mattered. So thank you BioWare for this wonderful feature and keep up the good work.

So you're happy to run through the same things over and over again every night, walking down the exact same corridors and fighting the exact same enemies, but you have a problem traveling to different settings, fighting varied enemies and engaging in an interesting story? Me thinks this game isn't for you. I'd suggest you try and get into dungeon crawler games. Something like Dark Souls or the upcoming Diablo 3 might be more to your liking. All the thrill of combat and loot but none of those pesky stories getting in the way.

I think we need a knock back ability so we can make use of the enviroment in the same way the other classes can. On my Shadow I can knock enemies off ledges, into fire or into acid pits. I can't do any of that on my Marauder.

That pve set looks ok, though not very Star Warsy, but that pvp set looks horrible. Also both sets look more like Sage sets then Shadow sets. They should add a set that's based on what Darth Maul wears for Shadows. That would be cool.

I like the SW channeled hatred, makes me feel like I'm going Super Saiyan.

I hope BW never adds holiday events to TOR. The day Christmas trees appear around the Imperial Fleet is the day I leave the game.

Great article. Basically sums up why I've always felt the prequels where much better then the originals, minus all the references to America.

Because sandbox mmos are only appealing to an increadibly niche market and despite how many people talk about SWG with fondness it wasn't actually that good a game and didn't have many subscribers.

Just because something is a classic doesn't mean it can't be improved. KoTOR's combat system is one of the worst combat systems ever. The game had a major lack of armour and adding more would be a good thing. Also the game already had a SGRA arc. I don't see how opening up Carth and Bastila to also be romancable by same-gender would be a bad thing. It wouldn't impact you at all, unless you wanted it to. You could go through the whole game without ever having to experience it.

I was thinking about this the other day. I think it would be awesome, especially if it wasn't a line for line remake and they did things like using TOR's combat for it instead of KoTOR's (because KoTOR's combat was incredibly boring), added a bunch more armour, added SGRA etc.

I'm more curious what the average is for humans in TOR time but if anyone knows what it is in the prequel/OT setting I'd be interested to hear that as well. Playing through TOR I've noticed something odd when it comes to how old people are. You've got characters who have managed to keep themselves alive for hundreds of years through either technology or the force and no one thinks that's strange but then you have heaps of characters who seem to age and die at the same rate as people do in real life. For example you have some characters from KoTOR or who were alive during KoTOR still around but other characters from the game have since passed on. I'm just trying to get the timeline all set right in my mind and it would help if I knew what the average lifespan was and whether or not those that live into their hundreds or even thousands are an oddity or not, ignoring some form of stasis that has extended their lives.

I do have it disables so yes I am sure. Finding a medium armor model with a hood up is next to impossible. I think there might be a few but they're hard to get. It's because Marauders used to be heavy armor weares but they changed that close to launch but didn't bother changing a lot of the Marauder armor already in the game to medium, they instead kept it heavy and gave it to Jugs. That black hooded outfit in the SW progression video for example isn't available to Marauders despite been shown as part of Marauders progression.