Why is it that we are seeing all these changes that take away from our customization option. I understand that these might be considered "bugs" but to use a meme these do seem more like features. I suspect it is only a tiny majority that are unhappy if they misuse a Dye or loose a "expensive" (in Credits terms) world drop item in this manner. I would imagine though that the vast majority of people who do Dye White/Green items are the long time RPers that have all sorts of experience with the costume designer, are aiming for specific looks, and are otherwise accepting of maybe loosing some Credits if they make a mistake. Please stop just taking stuff from what is an option and try to find a replacement solution instead... and seeing that its unlikely from your comment anyone intends to go back an rebuild all the older items to accept new dyes then this solution was probably the lowest hanging fruit for dev time.

I find this change really disappointing. I customize all of my companions in the main game and given the number of alts I have it is very important that i am able at least to apply the Appearance Customization so that each character has distinct companion as soon as possible. i really liked that I could pre-load those Customizations for KOTFE/KOTET and now any future characters I run through those episode will just be the Generic ones. Please at the very least can you find out some way to work around this issue that isn't just the lowest hanging fruit for the appearance slot? The companions being in new gear is fine, but just like TrixxieTriss says, some of us have spent Real Money through the market to buy Cartel Appearances or put in time to acquire other specific appearances. Not being able to see them on screen anymore just... sucks... I miss my Sith-Eyed Kira.

A centralized location for all of these would be great.

Including the turn in ones? or do these now autocomplete like heroics? I'd check myself but I'm not in the position with my internet where I can download PTS.

As someone who is trying to record the story of their characters through the various cut-scenes and a fan of the Planetary Mission chains, please do not remove any of the cut-scenes from these places, the loss of many based around Heroics previously even if they had no impact on your story did have a lot of interesting little flashes of what life was like for the NPC's. I see that some people have logged onto PTS to check to see if the Bonus Mission cut-scenes are intact, has anyone checked to see if the hand-in ones are? A lot of the missions that got turned into dailies/weeklies keep the original scene but then forgo the hand-in cut-scene in favour of a stock line of Dialog and a Accept button.

Back when KOTFE first started, I assumed they would categorize the Companions so that certain companions filled specific roles in the various stories based on your class... it didn't happen but the idea is... Story/Chapter/Cutscene has force related stuff happening? Here comes the Force-User/Sensitive companion. Almost every class has one, The Jedi/Sith have their Apprentices/Padawan's, Smuggler has Guss, Agent has Temple etc. Failing to have such a companion is why you have Lana. Story/Chapter/Cutscene has Slicing/Tech related hurdle to overcome? Scene uses your Tech companion. T7, Mako, Risha etc and failing that deploy Theron. I think you can more or less categorize all the companions into Force-Sensitive, Combatant, Diplomat, Techie and Operator types which should let you design cutscenes/chapters around which companion would be used with Lana and Theron covering the gaps. But that would mean having to get every Voice Actor in to record dialogue for the same mission in which not everyone will play through with that companion, so it’s an inefficient use of time & money compared to just adding a new VA with a New Companion that everyone gets. And instead we have an increasing roster of new companions and an increasing list of companions that will never see the light of day in favour of the post-kotfe companions which they "know" we have aka the ones you can't kill-off and just have to put up with.

Ugh, thought I fixed that spelling error... oh well. But as you and the Dev's point out TharAn will be back more or less immediately. As for Zenith... Ok, I "thought" Zenith had an Alert and I'd seen it on youtube, I admit I didn't check that one, I always figured the lack of his return/the reason it was taking so long was due to the presence of Troy Baker as Theron Shan. And in regards to Tanno... well the original Voice actor died so thats why they wrote him out of the story as I understand. But talking about Nadia, I still maintain they got Screen time and where part of the story. Sure, they could have been replaced by a random NPC, but so could many other NPC's they used. At least they where part of the episode, and as for the alert, its click a button and speak to them, I don't think that has the same scope as most Alliance Alerts. But your right, Consulars get screwed over as well, just in a different way. - Raith

While I don't think the coding is going to be quite so easy to overcome, I do agree with the sentiment here. I have always thought they should unlike weapon styles and the powers they grant from the stories/class themes so that we can have wider weapon usage by certain classes. Boba Fett used a Carbine and yet a BH is pistols only? That's always irked me, and the Carbines they can use 1-Handed look derpy as they are so big, they look like they'd be hard to hold 1-handed. In a similar vein, how about allowing companions to use a wider variety of weapons once more, I have a Juggy that misses Kira only using a Single bladed Lightsaber. For companions weapon use is pretty cosmetic, it just defines 1 or 4 attack animations and otherwise doesn’t impact DPS. - Raith

TLDR: The Smuggler and Inquisitor are the only classes that do not get Companion returns as integral parts of the KOTFE and onwards storyline and that feels disappointing. So... Now that all the original companions are back (well the last one will be shortly), one thing has been bugging me, a lot. Why do Inquisitors and Smuggler companion returns get the short end of the stick? By this I mean, every other class gets at least 1 Companion returned as part of a Chapter and its usually pretty involved but at the very least they have screen time. In some cases, two or three companions have chapters based around them. (Knight: T7, Kira, Scourge, Doc. Sage: Nadia, Theron. Trooper: Jorgan, Elara and sort of Vikk. Warrior: Vette, Quinn. Agent: Kaliyo, Temple, SCORPIO. BH: Gault, Torian.) However, both the Smuggler and Inquisitor get left out in this department, all their companions return as Alliance Alerts only, or as a Class-specific cutscene attached to another Story, but they have ZERO impact on those stories. For example: Khem turning up on Ossus for Inquisitors. Further, out of Smugglers and Inquisitors, the latter really get the short end of the stick. The Inquisitor companions have almost all given up on your character. Khem runs off to be free cause he thinks you broke your deal. Ashara outright hides from you even if you were lovers, Telos thinks you’re dead, Xalek is doing the Sith thing and doesn't care. Andronikos is the only exception here as he is rather vainly raiding Eternal Fleet shipping in the off chance your kept aboard one (Not a great theory, but it counts I guess.) The Smugglers companions are only a bit more loyal... Bowdaar (Made it to Zakuul), Corso & Risha (Went looking but ended up on the run as a result), Guss (Figured you were dead), Akaavi (Went back to her job). For all that the main story treats your character as the head of a Cult of Personality that will last for all eternity these two classes really get screwed over here. As the story has played out thus far, none of these companions will ever get a mention in the dialogue of chapters or have any lines/parts to play beyond the 1 to 2 minutes of dialogue they got as part of their Alert. It’s all very disappointing and a bit depressing if you think it over too much. Please, oh devs of SWTOR, if you read this, consider throwing Inquisitors and Smugglers a bone, and give our companions some screen time in a primary story going forward, let us know you (and these companions) still care! - Raith p.s. On a related note. How about as the game goes forward you think about ret-conning some of the crappy Alliance Alert returns for full-fledged story-related returns for all the other companions. The alerts always felt like they were placeholders to me.

I like the idea of the cape/capeless swimwear chest... how about doing that for things with Hoods going forward and give us Hood Up/Down pieces.

To whichever Devs are still reading this thread... With all the server upgrades/migration etc which sounds like more than simple transfers was any consideration given to making player names non-unique and instituting a Global handle system instead?

Solo Activities... Solo Activities... Map started by mentioning there would be stuff to do solo... But all I see is Multipayer/Queue stuff... Oh well.

Recently I went to the Cartel on the Fleet intent to buy some more of the Dire Eliminator Chestguard's which I have been using as a uniform to equip across all my Jedi Knight companions, only to discover that it is no longer available. Could we please see a return of this item as it is the only way you can achieve this look for a Republic character (There are 2 ways to get in Imp-side but the only other alternatives such as the Destroyer Armour are different in style). I have been making us of this Armour while filming all the cut-scenes of the game and really want to continue using it, especially as you are now adding in more ways to modify companion appearance for KOTET Allies. Even if the item can not be return, could we have a way to unlock it in collections. The item itself appears in collection as part of the Cartel market category but unlike the Eradicator Set you cannot get it to global unlock. Thanks - Raith

Huzzah, sounds like another round of Binary choices story wise... Yay! /sarcasm Also, the idea that access to Future Companions will be <probably> determined by a choice NOW without telling us what companions will be locked out is a really terrible idea. In my case I am more likely to now sit on my hands and not play any of this until I know what options I am locking myself out of.

As you answered. Both side. Right now my Warrior would rule just because he thinks he is the center of the Universe and with an Empire to back him he couple be even more pivitol. My Sorcerer would do it if he thought it would get him a step closer to reforming a more unified Empire... otherwise most of my toons wouldn't bother and i personally hate the whole "I do it because theirs no one else" or "if I don't do it, someone worse will" both of which seems to be a default writing choice for a lot of bioware games.

Figured this should go in spoilers just for some of the answers that this might provoke. Q. WHY be the Emperor? Lets get a little clearer on that... For what reason do I have for most of my characters to want to become the ruler of some society on the edge of nowhere, that for the last "two years" has actively hated and fought against me, its people don't like me. Heck, even some of my "allies" are constantly telling me that I'm either doing it wrong OR that Zakuul is great and the rest of the universe sucks. I have few ties to that place and little respect for its people. Now aside from the choice to "(re-)Make Zakuul into a Better Place/in my own image" why would you want to be the Emperor. Playing a Sith? I'd rather be the Emperor or the actual Empire. Jedi? Um, being the Emperor doesn't seem to sit with the whole Jedi bit. Space Pirate (Smuggler)? I doubt being the Emperor will give me much of a chance to go space pirating. Bounty Hunter? Does an Emperor get paid? Ghost (Agent)? Being the obvious guy in charge sort of defeats the idea of being invisible... and the list goes on. Outside of "Its good to be the King" I still don't see the point. Even when given the dribble by Valkorian about power vacuums and such, it just doesn't seem worth it. It also seems like its a dead end for a Career. When the next Xpack after KOTET hits, do they expect us to suddenly step down to deal with the new issue? Don't get me wrong, a couple of my toons would love to be the King for various reasons, but for most it seems like such a stretch and I hope that in the end we can't be the ruler, but have to put an NPC in charge in our place and go back to the main part of the galaxy. So what do others think? Why should we care/want to be the Emperor? Or am I missing some sort of super motivation somewhere.

Forgive me if this was answered in the Livestream but I only had a chance to read the blog. Will the "toggle" have a "none" state if we don't wish to compete? I have a great many toons that are Neutral and I don't want them to be suddenly earning extra points that might sway them one way or another or have to constantly be clicking some check box to switch them back and forth just to keep their balance.

I assume all the KOTFE content (Mission/Aliance Stuff) will remain available for people to manually play through once KOTET goes live?

I saw in a promotional image early on what looked to be a character with a Weapon Tunings effect from the Tython Master lightsaber (The saber shown was the Unrelenting Saber I think)... is that a reward only available through the event? Im guessing if it is theirs still no unlock for those.

Lord Kallig's Saber please

Our reunion with Vette had better be somewhat more... romantic/excited than many others, getting sick of the awkward "Where have you been for 5 years," blame. Some of them have to be overjoyed to see you not dead regardless of the circumstances.

I haven't received an email either, I have the email for Anarchy In Paradise and my regualr CC monthly grant but nothing new otherwise.

So, Something has been bothering me more and more of late, mostly due to the increasing abundance of speeders that are much larger than the first few models the game had. When driving around the world these speeders all clip horrible into the terrain when you crest any sort of rise, no matter how small a bump it is and when you approach a ramp of any description it's usually very blatant. What occurred to me is that most speeders are basically floating far to close to the ground, especially if we look at the example of speeders from the movies and shows, they don't hover just above the surface, instead they are quite some distance above the ground. Many speeders are capable of full on flight, but that's not what I'm looking at. If any Dev deigns to look at this post, please consider adjusting the height that our speeders float at, I would think twice the height they current do would mitigate a log of that clipping and its not like you can get "stuck beneath" a speeder. Seeing as we also have very tall speeders already like the walkers and many of the creature mounts a little height shouldn't be to much to add.

Reunite, is not Re-recruit. It could mean as little as, yes they are standing about in the world somewhere as a contact/quest giver But then you get all sorts of weirdness with things like people using alternate appearance stuff.

I want to know will we still have the ability to take our old companions with us or are they all being turned into World-NPC's. And for those of us with Companion Romance's essentially hanging in the air still what will this expansion mean. So much head cannon is going to be upset by these changes, damage control is probably the best we can hope for given just how many possible ways a player can interpret their play experience. Le Sigh... the trailer was fancy but I foresee most of my hopes about swtor being dashed ahead. Also if I get woken up by Doc on my Female Knight cause he won't accept that I don't want a romance with him... grr