Pretty hyped about this. Nice Name of the Expansion, the Story Hooks are compelling to me and I'm already wondering what is going on. To start, I'd like to point out to the Devs (if they read this) that I'm surprised in a very positive way about combat styles. Trying to innovate some gameplay after 10 years in wasn't something I expected and I sincerely hope it works well for the team and the players alike. I've been around since launch in 2011 and haven't played actively for a while, I just do Role-play with my guild because at some point I felt like I've pretty much seen it all. This expansion announcement makes me want to play actively again. Now, a few thoughts and "pretty please" requests: 1. Please use this opportunity to include more visual character customization options in the character editor. If you are already planning a new look and feel of the tool, round it up with new hairstyles, accessories, leather bends for lekku or longer lekku for togruta (especially the males) and so on. If you want to get fancy, make Cyborg-Options available to every race (would tie in nicely with the theme of having more choices, *hint hint*), or include a new body type 5 or something. Anything, really. 2. As many other players have pointed out in this thread already: An additional part to the Manaan-SH would be awesome. The option to walk around outside or just something more underwater. Realignment of some hooks would be cool as well, but yeah. It's such a great stronghold in terms of look and feel and atmosphere and so many players love it but at the same time, so many feel like it's pretty unusable at the moment. It's a wasted opportunity. Make the additional part locked so it can only be bought after one has completed the story part on Manaan which establishes the Foothold of the Faction and unlocks the daily area. Just a thought here. 3. A year ago, Charles had a discussion regarding the official timeline of events (https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9852711#edit9852711) He wanted to check some things internally and confirm what he said in that post via an official blog post or something. Still to this date I and many other role-players are waiting on that. Would be awesome if you could confirm/adjust that stuff so we know where we are at. On that note: Would be awesome if you could include some specifics regarding the time in LotS, maybe in codex-entries or something. Just makes RP lives easier and has no negative side effects for anybody else. 4. About that Sith Cult. Please include plenty of information about them. Some minor factions of the past felt like a very interesting idea and were not explored in great detail and left to rott afterwards. My best example are the Sixth Line Jedi from Ziost. Such a waste 5. Sound-Tuning: Old topic, basically the option to customize the sound effects of a weapon since many of them sound different and more often than not you find something that looks cool but does not sound like you'd hoped and vice versa. Just like normal tunings these could be CC-Market only and provide additional revenue which surely you wouldn't mind, would you? In any case, can't wait for the add-on and more info about it in the following weeks. Cheers

Hi there, Weapon-Tunings have been around for a while now. The weapons have many different Sounds, even the Lightsabers. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to adjust the sounds? Personally, I liked the Sound of Dookus Lightsaber the most (which some LS use in the game). I'm sure most of you have their favorite Sound-Set respectively. A Sound-Tuning Option would be an additional way to customize our apperance and generate easy Revenue for Bioware. Classic win-win if you ask me.

Hey there, so I was pushing the Thread about the Armor of Nihilus and then I thought ... huh. How about the Armor of the Sith in the Dxun Tomb or the Sith Assassins of the Triumvirate? So basically that's my proposal

Just gonna /push here. A complete Robe-Set for Nihilus that fits the mask would be great.

Hands folded in the back (without time-limit) Arms crossed in front of chest (without time-limit) Lean against wall/door (without time-limit) Fix the /flourish (LS still active once the emote ends) New "show-off" emotes similar to /flourish Taunt - check Jedi Knight 2 Walk up and down with hands folded in the back (like the Kel'Dor Jedi Decoration; without time-limit) Walk up and down like Health regeneration skill from the Inquisitor but without the red glow and without time-limit Meditate on knees Different Lightsaber-Stances e.g. Obi-Wans LS over Head Pose or Dookus Makashi Greeting

Hey there, just wanted to suggest a stronghold with a night skybox. A new SH would always be great (preferably Ice world so we can view it as Ilum or Hoth) which could have a night skybox. Even more awesome would be an option, like a button of some sort, in the existing SHs. If you press it, the setting turns to "night mode" and if you press it again, it switches back to default. In my opinion a lot of Decorations, especially Sith-themed would look even cooler and more scary in a darker environment. Cheers

Kel'Dor and Nautolan would be awesome as ****. If the headslots are a problem - just make them invisible like with the Togruta. Still better than nothing.

Hey guys, so with the recent Customization Options that came for different races (which I totally love and appreciate btw) I remembered something. Time and again Threads have been opened by several People requesting a purple Skin tone for Twi'leks, known as the sub-race Tyrian. Especially since the introduction of Togruta as PCs, one would think there are more then enough options available. I think all the Twi'lek Players and fans would love a purple Skin colour or even different shades of blue, green, yellow etc. The effort to develope/implement a new skin tone for Twi'leks can't be that high, right? Would love to see that in the near-future.

I just had a new twist to the tunings pop into my mind, so forgive me if this got already suggested elsewhere. How about Sound-Tunings? Make another Tuning-Slot which lets us change the Sound of the Weapon. As an example: Say a person likes the crossguard Lightsaber ingame, but he/she just likes the classic, typical lightsaber sound better. Add the tuning and everything is fine. We got lots of different sounds with the Weapons through the years. The sound-files should be there. I'm no IT-guy but I can imagine the effort of creating those Tunings wouldnt be _that_high (and certainly lower than creating completely new tunings with visual effects and stuff). More Items aka more Customization aka more CC/Credits/Money to spend aka gg for both sides

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm aware of the fact, that the GC is not the primary gearing system, but doesn't that underline my point even more? Why would players even bother to farm CXP? And that is just the thing I'm trying to get at: If Bioware doesn't have the resources to double-down on the Development of new Content accross the board (the announced stuff that is coming up is a good start but not enough. Half an operation is hardly enough to get Raid-Players excited. So if that option is not on the table - maybe try to polish the systems that are in place right now. Sorry if I didnt flesh this out enough initially. Also, after seeing the announcement of the next WoW Expansion: The option to play stuff against enemy NPCs or Players of the enemy faction seems like an awesome Idea. If we could get something similar, maybe that would spark some interest again. More Rep vs Imp War has been asked for for years. And yes, I know it's coming and starting again, but getting all in on this could actually work out. (I personally don't care as much, as long as I get new Story from time to time and it's good, I don't mind the overall theme).

Thanks for all the feedback, guys. @ekwalizer: The lack of content for Raids and stuff is something I'd put under component 1 "achievement". I totally agree with you, that story was always in place, but whilst SoR targetet many different areas (like Operations) and not only Story, I feel they doubled down on developing story Content with Kotfe and Kotet. We are on the same page, because like I said: Why would I grind to Command Level 300 to do raids from various years ago that I've seen often enough now? @DanNV: I don't see that happening either. But I still think they can turn things around and at least stabelize. As long as there is no other Star Wars MMO to turn to, a huge portion of hardcore-SW-Fans will keep coming back every now and again. If they manage to satiesfy everybody enough so they stick around, that would be okay. I mean .. noone is comparing it to WoW anymore. Swtor can't stand a chance against WoW. But it has Lightsabers, so ... @Cuiwe: Saw the announcements as well. Looking good. Personally, I'd be happy to buy a 40$-Expansion for Swtor if it gives me new races/classes, new planets, raids, Story - like WoW Expansions or Path of Fire for Guild Wars 2 right now. Much better (in my personal opinion) than a "free to subscribers" model which barely keeps me busy for a week. @Costello: Totally agree with you. Everyone else: Glad you enjoyed the read

Hell yes, please!

Nice one! Been waiting for this thread for ages <3 Thanks in advance for listening to the players. 1. I'm not sure if the Statue of the ancient Slave is still in the game or not. It has been a drop from the Korriban Incursion Flashpoint. When that FP first released you could get this Statue every now and then. Then, it just vanished and I havent seen the Statue on the GTN for ages either. So pls bring it back or increase the drop rate or whatever. Am looking for more of these for months now. Thank you

Fellow Pubs and Imps, Bioware-Employees and whoever the hell is reading this: The state of the game and the wants and needs of the players as well as possible solutions is a broad topic that had been frequently discussed here and elsewhere for as long as I can remember. Today I want to approach the situation with an examination of the situation, the game, the market which I'm going to do as objectively as possible. At the end, I'll pass on some suggestions/solutions as well. Note, that I'm not here to just complain. This is no hate-thread. I just want to add some value to the discussion. So brace yourselfs, this is going to be a long post ... Still reading? Good. Now, the first topic I want to talk about is the evolving market and the lessons we can draw from that in regards to the future of SWTOR. You might ask how I am entitled to say anything about that at all. I'm working at a german Online-Bank and have been with the Business Development Team before becoming a financial analyst / Trader. Scouting all the different markets, new developments and technologies and translating that into consumer behaviour and creating a strategy for my company out of it, is my day to day job. Therefore I think I can pretty objectively comment on whats going on in the industrys. Chapter One: The Phantom Menace aka Games-as-a-Service So: I'm pretty sure you all heard by now that "Games-as-a-Service" is the new thing. For those who don't: It basicaly means you'll get a base game and content is added every now and then. You also have the option to buy stuff you like via so called "Microtransactions". The Cartel Market is swtors place for Microtransactions. This concept is pretty much the opposite of the AAA-Blockbuster-Single-Player-Game of past decades. On October 31st 2017 EA released their financial report for the 2nd Quarter of their fiscal year 2018. You should read at least the first page. CEO Andrew Wilson summed up the results and the direction EA and the market is going in general. Sports Titles grew, Mobile games grow, esports competition is helping as well. Digital net bookings increased by 26% year-to-year. "The digital transformation is accelerating across our industry..." and "We saw a noteable shift in digital in our sports titles and remarkable growth in Ultimate Team" (Both Andrew Wilson, page 1 of the linked financial report). Conclusion: The trend for "Games as a Service" and Microtransaction is accelerating and ongoing. We won't see a change here anytime soon. EA isn't the only company to notice this. Look at Blizzards Overwatch or NCSofts Guild Wars 2 and Square Enix just announced they want to focus on Games as a Service as well. In a previous financial report, EA stated that no game apart from FIFA made them as much money as SWTOR did (regarding Microtransactions). Knowing this, we can learn two things: 1. In EAs current state of mind a game has to function with a "Games as a Service" model. This is the expectation. 2. SWTOR already is in this state. But it has to keep competing against similar games and brands to be maintained. EA holds an exclusice licence for developing and publishing Star Wars Games for ten years. It was aquired in 2013 and will last until 2023. They committed to SWTOR multiple times so it's very unluckly we will see a successor before 2023. It's in EAs and Biowares interest to keep SWTOR alive, up and running for as long as possible to not fall short on this "flank" before the end of the licence agreement. In my opinion the upcoming server merges and the money invested for this process underline this commitement to SWTOR. They want to revive the game instead of making a new one because that would be way to expensive. Not that EA could not pay for it, but it just doesn't seem cost-efficient. We also know, that SWTOR was created on a HERO-Engine. As far as I know (refering to statements from former german community Manager "Lisertan") the Engine was licenced before its actual launch and was modified as good as possible to suit the developers needs. In both cases: The options of the Hero-Engine are limited. There are things Bioware just can't give to us, even if they wanted to. Chapter 2: The three things that keep players invested in a game Countless studys have been made in an effort to understand the psychology of a Gamer. This articel sums up the lessons learned from various of these studys (all linked at the end of the articel). Three motivation components keep Players invested in a game: 1. The achievement component (Progress in the story, farming achievements, defeating those nasty raid-bosses and so on). This includes competition with others (maxing DPS, testing Builds, participating in PvP, Raid-/Progress-Guilds) 2. The social component. Chatting with other players, being part of a guild, being part of a group effort. It's obvious that this is a big part of an MMO-Experience. 3. The immersion component. Customizing your character and getting told a unique story. The more you can relate to your character, the better. Chapter 3: How Bioware could abuse this knowledge If Bioware/EA want to increase the playerbase again and keep everybody around, paying for cartel coins and subscription, they obviously have multiply approaches to go for. All of them involve at least one of the three listed components of a Players psychology. Now, what could they do? With all they announced in the Fall Roap Map update it seems like they are focussing on the first aspect, the achievement component. This is highly needed because everybody complained "there is nothing to do". A few suggestions to this topic: 1. The Galactic Command System is not rewarding, it's just grinding. I never farmed CXP because there wasnt even one armor-set I wanted to obtain. And why would I need up to date gear? To do all the old operations again? Don't think so. I understand that you don't have the man-power to develope everything at once and I can imagine that you guys would gladely have it differently as well. Maybe you could make the drops of the crates class-related? So you would implement a few Sith-Inquisior-Armor-Sets which only drop from crates a Sith-Inquisitor farmed and opened. Same for every other class. The sets should still be legacy-bound but it would add some value to grinding all eight classes to 300. 2. The approach you made with Darth Hexid made me thinking: Why not bring in some faction- or even class-related companions via such tasks and achievements? In my opinion it would be important to implement Conversations with the Companions as well as romance options. One issue I had with all the KotfE-Companions was the lack of conversation. E.g. this nautolan Sith-Girl (can't even remember her name). Interesting background and I love Nautolans as a species. But I could do anything with her, so I'm still left here waiting for Dark Side Jaesa to return. You could change the influence system to some extend and make it so the influence progresses the longer you play with that companion active. This would leave to players going out to farm influence and crates for companion gifts, adding value on component ond and three (achievement and immersion). 3. Influence-Achievements: I remember, back in the day, in Kotor 1 and 2 you could fail influence checks. How often did I ask HK-47 or Kreia about Revan and they just wouldn't tell me? You could add some new conversations with existing companions that only unlock on certain requirements. E.g. A Jedi-Knight talks to Vette and with enough Influence Vette tells him how it was like to live and work with the Emperors Wrath, adding depth to both the Wraths and Vettes Story. Basicly every companion could tell the player what they did in those fife years the Outlander has been frozen in carbonite. Also, there are SO many things that havent been explained yet. Is there a new dark council under Empress Acina? What happened to Darth Jadus? What's the Status of the Jedi-Order? All this would add immersion (point 3) and a feeling of achievement to playing the game. Social component: More Strongholds, Decorations (especially Sith/Jedi , Imp/Rep since this is the origin of the character) and apart from that I just want to wait for the server merges and see how it goes, before I comment any further on that. Immersion component: This is, in my Opinion, BY FAR the most easiest yet rewarding compenent both for Bioware and for the Players. Like mentioned above, connecting with the own character, customizing it, make it feel "your own" ... all that makes Players care for their character, what they created and achieved and makes them want to play the game again and again. There are so many things people here are desperately waiting for and it would be very wise of you to deliver on as many as possible, since some of them could be rated as "free money". A good example is the upcoming Jedi-Robe in the next pack from patch 5.6. It's just a simple Robe, yet I know dozens of Players (and Roleplayers) who are willing to invest Millions and Millions of Credits or Cartel Coins, just to get this Robe. 1. A new race was mentioned. Just announce it properly and people have something to look forward to. 2. Add more customization options for existing races. Leather-bands on the Lekku of the Twi'lek (just take a look at Jedi-Academy) , new skin-colours for Alien-Races (e.g. purple Twi'lek), new Accessoires like Piercings for Purebloods and Rattataki, e.g. You could even go fancy and add some real old looking faces like some NPCS (Korriban NPC Inquisitor Ragate) have or reworking the Lekku of the Togruta. They are way to short, especially the male Togruta look nothing like the male NPC Togruta encountered in the game. 3. Bring back old PvP-Sets like the Centurion Force-Master Set through new achievements or cartel market. There are so many players who didnt participate in the first few seasons but would love to get those armor-sets. 4. More curved lightsabers, unstable or crossguard-Sabers that add that little extra touch to an outfit. 5. Rework Nihilus-Mask and add his Robes to the Outfit. Honestly it looks nothing like the Kotor 2 Version, which is sad. 6. Like mentioned before: Add some information about the state of the galaxy in whatever form suits you. Is the Jedi-Order still scattered or are they trying to regroup? How stable is the Empire under Acina? First signs of a fragmentation into all the small sith-areas that will last until Darth Ruin unites them again? What about Jadus and all the council members? How did they die? Which is side is in the lead of the war right now? All this adds depth and immersion to the story without the need to make a complete kotfe-like chapter. Not to mention that some of this information is extremely usefull for the Roleplaying-Community. Last but not least: The story. I understand the effort you took in creating Kotfe and Kotet. You heared the players wanted story again and did your best to create one. I liked the storys. But in all honesty, I still feel more like the Sith-Warrior or the Jedi-Councilor, than as the Outlander. I believe many of us Players would be happy to experience seperate class storys again. You could either take your time and do a massive expansion which we would have to buy like Guild Wars and WoW do it or do "kotfe-like" Chapter-based expansions again, focussing on one or two classes at a time. So everyone would still play as "the outlander" but with every expansion, one or two classes would get "extra content" regarding their original Identity. If anyone made it here: Thanks for reading and happy discussing.

Push.

Push. Still in need for that emote.

Signed. We have the same discussion in the german RP Community. We even had a survey on if people would accept timejumps and for which periods. 5 years? 10? 20? It occures that many people are thrilled and exited but about the same amount of people is deeply concerned. E.g. they are roleplaying a Padawan in the age of 14-18. If the timejump would be 10 years, they would be Jedi-Knight, most likely but the players don't want there characters to be Knights, but Padawans. So, like stated above, it would be extremly helpful if you could tell us, if the timejump will be one year, five, ten or whatever. Thank you

Please make it happen Bioware

Hi there, with the Deep Core Cartel Pack kame the Kel Dor Jedi Master - NPC. He is walking around with his Hands on the back. Please give us this as an emote! Not a ten second one, but a lasting one, like /meditate. This loop of walking around looks so great and would be an awesome emote for RP or even just to look cool when waiting on a Warzone, Flashpoint or whatever. I'd also pay cartel coins for it, seriously!

Also wondering: What happened to Darth Jadus? His destiny was never revealed.

Wookiepedia is not as valuable as a short post here and there directly from the Devs. Ingame Updates as suggestes by Gonalius would be awesome, too!

Hi guys, some regular Lore Updates would be nice. At least with every new Story Update. I'm on a role playing server and trying to figure out which story-line on which planet takes how many month/years is always a topic of discussion. More important for me: Which year is it? Now, on Ziost. The Treaty of Coruscant was year 0, so which is it now? An update on the War-Situation would be awesome as well. Where are the frontlines? Who is taking the offensive, who is defending? Who holds key worlds such as Kuat, Fondor, etc? How is isotope-5 paying off? Official Statements would be most helpful.

Push.

Freddon Nadd would be great. I would also enjoy the Rest of Nihilus Robes. There is only the Mask atm. A dark, wide Robe with cape would be awesome. In general I feel that we don't have enough capes in this game.

In fact every new Species would be great. Since the Char-Editor comes with very limited options, new Species would increase the differences.