First of all, welcome! It's always great to see new players jumping in! If you're new to MMOs in general, you'll find there's a lot to learn, but I think you'll get good responses if you're up-front that you're new. Don't be afraid to ask questions - and if someone is rude to you for being new, just ignore them; some people can forget that we were all new once. There are a lot of great guides and resources on the forums and our fansites, and the New Player Help forum is a really good place to ask questions about anything from being new in PvP to what kind of gear you'll want to how to get in a guild that suits your tastes (and if you like paying with others, I highly recommend seeking out a guild - it may take some time to find one that you fit perfectly with, but it's definitely worth it). Above all: have fun! Try out all the different kinds of content in the game, ask questions, and enjoy your adventures across the galaxy!

As many other community members have mentioned, the new Heroic Space Missions are not the SSSP. Though we haven't released much other than hints about it (you may want to check out yesterday's livestream - Dulfy did a great recap), you'll know it when you see it!

Hey everyone! Thanks for posting your feedback on the new Section X dailies! For those frustrated with the drop rate of the Airstrike Codes, you'll be pleased to know that we plan to make them a guaranteed drop in an upcoming patch. We're definitely watching your feedback on these missions, so please let us know what you think (and, of course, if you encounter any bugs or issues).

That's correct! This is a known issue and we'll be addressing it as soon as possible.

Hey everyone - the Bastion is available again. Thanks for your patience while we resolved the issue!

Thanks for the reports - we are aware and are working on bringing the Bastion back up as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!

Yes, Ebon Hawk should now be available! Thanks for your patience.

Thanks for the reports - we are looking into this issue right now!

Ebon Hawk is currently unavailable, and we're investigating! We'll let you know more as we can!

We certainly haven't forgotten! As soon as we have any more information about music looping, we'll definitely post it!

This is a great post! I love seeing positive efforts to help new players like this one. Sign me up!

Hi everyone! The most recent word on hood toggle is from Matt Boudreaux in this post in early October: "Hood up and hood down is still in the works. Unfortunately, it requires a few changes to our art pipeline and reprocessing those assets by the artists. The team has been hard at work on our upcoming content, and priorities put hood up/down on the back burner just a bit, but it's still on the To Do list and we are still very much aware of the demand - by developers and players alike!" The feature is still something we want to add, but we don't have a date at this time.

Hi everyone! We have answers from Hall for some of the questions asked in this thread. We're not always able to address all questions, but we appreciate your questions and posts! Thanks for participating, and stay tuned for more Meet the Developers blogs. Q: Did the writers have any say in who would voice the characters? Hall: We always offer casting suggestions for every character we create, but the final determination rests with our teammates at LucasArts. For especially high-profile roles - our character classes and companions - we receive audition recordings from multiple actors and choose our favorite from among them. The process has worked out great, as we got some tremendously talented voice actors for our biggest and best roles. Q: How closely do writers get to work with the voice actors? Is there some degree of coaching, or sharing why you wrote something in the way that you did? Hall: Before we send our scripts off for recording, BioWare's writers add detailed performance notes for the actors to see when they come to the recording booth. Each individual line has information to help the actor understand the context of the line and what's happening in the overall conversation where it's occurring. Our project was simply too big for writers to get any "studio time" with our voice actors, which is a shame. I would love to meet the actors who brought my heroes and villains to life, one of these days. Q: In a recent interview, you mentioned you mentioned that the writing direction of the future would be akin to the Avengers, bringing the individual stories together into one epic story. Could you elaborate on what this means for the future? Hall: I can't reveal anything about our future plans, but we're always experimenting with new styles of storytelling for SWTOR. Some stories work especially well as a great big group team-up where players compete for the spotlight during conversations (hence the Avengers analogy), but that doesn't mean players have to be grouped in order to enjoy them. All of our content that isn't specifically written to be a class story is designed to work equally well whether you're in a group or flying solo. Q: I'm interested in knowing a little more detail on how you went about working for Bioware as a writer, Mr Hood. What kind of qualifications did you need, and what type of things should an interested person put in their portfolio? Hall: I had been a professional screenwriter for over a dozen years before applying to BioWare. I had also been an avid gamer my entire life and was especially fond of BioWare's RPGs. On top of that, I was also a massive Star Wars nerd. Of course, being a gamer and Star Wars nerd wouldn't have mattered at all without the time I put into learning the craft of writing. A good portfolio for a prospective game author will demonstrate confidence and talent as a writer, and also show a thorough understanding of the principles of good gameplay and quest design. Writing for games is the most challenging and rewarding creative work I've ever done, but it's definitely not a career path to embark on lightly. Q: What is in the glass Hall? (referring to the blog photo) Hall: That, my friend, is a cup full of Sith tears. Sooooo delicious…

I talked to Lead Designer Damion Schubert about Legacy Level 50 and potential rewards, and here's what he said: We are currently looking at things we can add to the Legacy page - in particular, Legacy will need some juicing up after the Cartel Market goes live - but I wouldn't expect any changes until after the Free-to-Play update at least.

Thanks for posting your thoughts about the stun bubble and its Resolve value. We do plan on making some changes to the bubble in the future, but we're still looking at some different options for addressing concerns about it. We'll continue taking your feedback into account and will let you know more when we can.

Hi everyone! I talked to Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer) about Commandos and Mercenaries and their situation in PvP right now, and he had this to say: I think it's fair to say that Mercenaries and Commandos have escape issues. Admittedly, they can be very hard to catch when used correctly to hug corners, but a lot of that "escapability" falls aside when attacked by multiple melee enemies, at which point they just aren't quite tough enough to sustain without further escapes. We have plans for the future that should give Mercenaries and Commandos better escapes in PvP.

Hi everyone! I asked Damion Schubert for any news or information we can share. There are many questions about the topic, but he did have a bit to say about new Warzone content: Fear not! New Warzone content is in heavy testing and should be in the next major patch after 1.5. We hesitate to give exact timing, but definitely before the year's end.

Just to make sure this is clear, players who are subscribed will not have to pay to unlock Section X and HK-51. There has been some confusion about this due to an issue on PTS that does not make it appear unlocked to players there.

The items do not disappear after 5 days; after the timer expires, they are no longer bound to the player and can be traded. Please also remember that we are currently testing the new features, so report any issues you encounter and please provide your feedback in the PTS forum. Thanks! edit: looks like I was beaten by many of you who saw my PTS post in the dev tracker. Fast!

Game Update 1.5 will not be deployed to the live servers tomorrow during maintenance - sorry to rain on the parade! Once the PTS is back up, though, please do take the time to help test if you're able!

I asked Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert this question. He said that the Fleet Passes will still be available on the Security Key Vendor when the Cartel Market launches. As with anything, the contents of the vendor may be changed in the future, but we do want to have strong incentives to encourage subscribers to apply security measures to their accounts. Free-to-Play players won't be able to apply security keys to their accounts at the launch of the Cartel Market.

I talked to Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer) and asked about this topic to get some official clarification. He said that players will not be able to earn Cartel Coins from in-game activities when the Cartel Market launches, but that it's something we're investigating for the future. We like the idea but needed to focus on ensuring we had a solid framework for Cartel Coins and the Market first.

We've seen players ask about this before, and have some clarification for you from Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): This behavior was unintended, but we do not consider it an exploit. We do intend to make reverse engineering more consistent in the future, and that may be by not allowing this or by allowing players to reverse engineer this type of mod by design. We do not consider this a violation of the rules.

I asked Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer) about Rage and Focus builds and how they're fitting into PvP overall right now, and here was his comment: Rage and Focus have always been high burst specs, but they haven't been very popular due to some usability and quality of life issues in the past. Our goal for Focus and Rage was to address those issues without significantly affecting their burst. In large part, I think we've done that, but the result is that many people are playing them now, which means there's a lot of AOE burst happening in warzones that wasn't happening before. We're willing to wait and see if their popularity is a result of being viewed as "flavor of the month" (i.e. Rage/Focus populations will naturally subside as people realize the spec doesn't suit their playstyle) or if they are truly too good and were just too unusable before. In short, we're going to keep a close eye on it.

Hey everyone - the site is back up now (as you can see). Please let us know if you continue to experience these problems.