I watched a twitch stream that demonstrated level synching , and seeing all the outrage on the forums, I thought I'd mention a few things. 1...the guy's level 60 was level synched down to a level 18 on Drommond Kass (max level 15 planet) 2...He kept all his level 60 abilities, the damage was just scaled down. 3...He pretty much kicked butt, soloing an Area 2 (there are no area-4's any more) "friends of old" with just his companion. 4...He got level 60 xp , not sure about credits, and level 60 lock boxes with level 60 equipment . 5...He could play with other low level char's and not just run through and slaughter everything, religating them to mere spectators. They woud get to fight too . So , you guys are complaining about nothing. YOu can still solo ,you can play with friends , you get level 60 loot, it's all good no bad.

The prelude on the newbie world counts as a chapter

It is NOT the last chance to finish any class story. The button to press to start KotFE is actually part of a quest, and you can go to the quest window and remove the dot in the radio control so it doesn't show. Plus if you do accidently click on it you can still cancel out , it doesn't start immediately. Quit panicking people.

1... you're not losing 100 purple recipies. You're losing 100 green recipies. Because they'll all be upgraded to blue. Even then the greens will be archived, but since you'll have a better blue you wont bother with them. 2.. every piece of crafted equipment is adaptive .... is just plain weird. My consular is going to be running around in storm trooper equipment ? Ew.... 3... What is it with the phrase "closed minded / open minded " and the inevitable "Open wide I'm about to dump a truck load of garbage down there. " ?

PVE space combat is dead. You should basically move the art work of the player ships into the star fighter game and dump the pve game. Then you only have one space game to deal with. Adding some pve scenarios to the star fighter game would obviously be the next step, and eventually moving guild capital ships inot the star fighter game as well , perhaps one guild shiop vs many star fighters ?

the Cartel Coins model seems to be a copy of the Turbine Points system in DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) whereby you could play the game for free , but you could buy stuff in the Turbine shop for points. And subscribers got a monthly stipend of points to spend. Champions Online uses a similar system , letting you buy access to more content , player housing , etc with coins. The only major glitch might be if you downgrade from a subscription to a free account, you might lose player slots (free accounts typically only have 2 playable slots - City of Hero's and DDO being the big examples , so all others are disabled) and you might be locked out of content you didn't buy with coins (in fact , you might not even be allowed to buy that content with coins while having a subscription , since technically you already have access to it) The exact details and loop holes , we will have to wait and see. Oh ... Lots of players dis f2p (dis = disrespect) as something dying games do. But since DDO went F2P it earns 7 x as much as before , and other games earn 3x as much ... so that is a debate unto itself.

I am certain most people will try it , if the price is reasonable. How long they stay is entirely in the hands of the game. D3 , for example, was an unmitigated disaster for me. I barely put in 3 hours play time before tossing it aside as boring and uninteresting.

Sub guys get ripped . Basically , you have access to the new content *UNTIL* you shift to free to play , then you lose it all. Penalty for stopping coughing up bucks. They might even refuse to let you buy access to the optional content because you already have access to it, thus you blow the cartel coins on other stuff, run into a rough patch , desubscribe ...and are suddenly locked out of a lot of things, things you weren't allowed to unlock while you were a paying customer. The only way around this is to go Free to Play immediately , and with self dicipline limit yourself to 15$ / month to unlock stuff, and then it never goes away.

I suppose the biggest problem is .... When I'm 50, and my charactar is pimped out and I can do the highest tier pve stuff (and I hate pvp) ... Why would I continue to buy stuff from this game ? Lets face it. Finish up the story , and you got a stripped down game of "gather equipment" , and there's nothing special about the equipment except better and better stats. Nothing to really catch the imagination. This F2P better be selling us new content, new story and lots of it , because right now thats the only thing they shine at. And if they blow it ... nothing else they have does much more than imitate what other games have. And sometimes poorly imitate.

They have said... paying customers get a monthly stipend of cartel coins (or whatever the point system is) f2p customers have to buy cartel coins. And everything is for sale in the store that takes cartel coins. so no , you don't have to "buy" HK extra , you can use your monthly alotment of cartel coins to get him.

I have D3. I never play it. Just ... bleh ... I don't know what they did...but bleh .

Since f2p models make between 3 and 7 times the money a subscription game does, you're just throwing mud. With numbers like that , f2p is inevitable for everyone , even wow. And I don't mind paying 30$ one month and then nothing the next yah know ? Sometimes I'm broke and I gotta seriously wonder about cutting back for a little bit.

Don't actually know. But my bet would be you would suddenly magically get 4 more charactar slots (assuming you got 4 incoming chars) , but they would be inactive until you brought down your number of total charactars to the current limit. Which would really suck if you have 12 level 50's on a server with a max of 8 chars. We got robbed on charactar slots. Instead of having 50 slots spread over a number of servers we have 8 or 16 over one or two servers.

Hurray for transfer gifts ! PS: I went and erased all my unwanted charactars on those locked low population servers. Do I still get my free vanity pet ?

I would probably go with f2p model during financial hardships , and then back to pay to play when not. In a system where we all get points (cartel coins ? ) and I can buy stuff permanently either way , shifting back and forth during economic hard times just makes sense for me , and probably for BW as well since they are retaining a customer who may be having a streak of hard luck.

Or mr big shot can make himself a biochem alt and a cybertech alt and get that stuff without having to spend any more than his 15$ / month. Seriously folks, between the commedations system as non transferable money and the crafting system that can make you purples through hard work , this game is pretty much gold seller proof. About all you're going to buy with cash is an impressive collection of vanity pets and vanity bikes.

A (hopefully useful) critique of Starwars The Devs have alwasy said they value "useful feedback" , ie : It Sucks ! is of no use to them , It sucks because ... is useful. So ... this is my "useful Feedback" The Equipment system is ... too plain vanilla. Everything just adds stats, and somehow through some formula that is hidden from us that translates into higher armor values, higher damage on weapons , higher level restrictions. But all we see is +10 to this stat or that. What happened to KOTOR I or II ? What happened to 10% damage vs fire , or a choice between +1 damage and +1 to hit ? What happened to improving your stealth with a special stealth belt ? What happened to anyone can take stealth ? come on , if the pvp guys were ranting on you so bad you could have made all that stuff inactive in battle grounds and duels , and people would quickly learn to keep a second set of stuff for pvp. Or maybe that would be their only equipment if they were deep into pvp. But you opennly announced there would be no pvp or pve only stuff as well. I think that was a mistake. The Spell system is "blah" . Perhaps I am spoiled by the City of Hero's game where each spell can be given sockets, and you can socket out a spell for extra damage, or extra range, or more accuracy (greater chance to hit. ) Even change the color or some special effecits (champions online, wow). Even EQ II did something with their spells, gave them ranks so they didn't just upgrade the level , but they became various levels of "elite" spells. But you ... did nothing. Perhaps I'm spoiled by wow , and the infamous "Penguin glyph" where by instead of turning an opponent to a sheep for 60 seconds, you can put a glyph in the spell to turn him into a penguin instead. the Space combat system ... all you can say about it is that it is there. it exists. There once was talk that you would be out questing and have to travel between planets for some reason and you would be intercepted and have to fight. Obviously that has been dropped. Even as a shooter game on rails, there were so many opportunities to make it more , to tie it into the game in so many ways. You could have used your ship for mining missions (for mats to make further star ship upgrades). You could have altered the galactic map to a hexagonal thing that could be explored one hexagon at a time and had little tiny one map stations littering up the place, or even built a randomly generated world system , or heck just put lots of low detailed worlds with few quests kicking around as an endless well of experience. Instead ... it's a bare bones rail shooter and nothing else. Even the upgrade system is a burden , not a help , since xp is tied to your level , if you walk away from the shooter you can't go back, the upgrades have fallen out of date and are now only sufficient for missions that grant zero xp. You could have at least given space combat it's own experience bar to prevent that. Instead, you have literally orphaned it. I hope this means you plan on tearing it to pieces and starting over , but I suspect it means you plan on doing pretty much nothing with it. The Crew Skills system ... I give mixed reviews. The whole thing about how you can gain blue and purple recipies by your own efforts instead of waiting for drops , I like that. The thing about special missions dropping for those mission skills, to unlock blue and purple missions with extra reward, I like that. But you're still crippled by equipment limitations. The equipment is nothing but a bag of statistics. You don't even let us change the color of the equipment except by making it match the colors on the chest piece. The Bags ... Actually , I kind of liked the whole system of bags, and my high level tailor handing down huge bags to my low level alts. I think you made a mistake by eliminating bags, albeit , probably only a small one. Nothing too critical. The Legacy System : A new thing , not seen anywhere else. What ever critisim's may come in the future , this was a good idea. Still , a legacy house would be nice (fully decoratable,ala EQ2) , legacy bank, etc. And more charactar slots. 8 is not enough with such a system. Blank "positions" would be nice, so you can put in a non combat child or brother, so that not every person on the chart has to be one of your alts. Story and Voice Over ... Here you are the undisputed master over any other game. I'm not even going to touch this , except to say "Please sir, can I have some more ?" End Game Raids / PvE flash points You started out so great with Black Talon and Esseles. And then you just totally forgot all about the social point system and conversations and stuff. And all add on content seems to also have forgotten about it. People run those two flash points endlessly for social points , that should tell you you need to upgrade the dialogues on the other flash points. Or provide a new source of social points. Because this is just starting something , and then dropping it like a hot potato. If you don't like the social system, you should rip it all out, the rewards are just duplicates of the crafted oranges anyways. A few recipies to let people make those dancer out fits (or whatever) would pretty much let you shut down the whole social system with few complaints. Vanity Costumes, apearance costumes, etc You got it covered with the social rewards. I really don't understand why people insist you do things just like the other game did it. If they want to play that other game they should go play it. Socketted oranges and the "social costumes" pretty much cover the need for vanity clothing. Or they would if it wasn't so hard to aquire social points.

I run an i5 Alienware , and it runs on max settings...let me check ... Win7 premimum service pack 1 i5-2320 @ 3 GHz 8gig ram (7.90 usable) 64 bit OS video card : GForce GT 545 , 1 gig dedicated ram and this rig runs the game on max settings. I actually have to turn things down because it hurts my eyes. If you can't run it on min, either the graphics card is damaged, or you got a virus or something running in the back ground sucking up all your resources. (edit) Whopsie ! It is your graphics. Intel HD Graphics ? Thats the built in mother board , and weigth 5.6 lbs ? You're on a lap top. Do you have a good graphics card ? did it get switched off ? Did you plug the monitor into the wrong graphics port ?

Rework our current flash points to have as much conversation as Black Talon / Esseles. thse things were meant to be a social point bonanza , thats why you got stuff on planets demanding social III , and social IV for a socketted outfit. Time to either make good on that promise, or lower the social costs of those items

I was expecting a different kind of rant. Like how gear is nothing but stat bonus's , and maybe some armor. But even the armor value is dependant on the stat bonuses ? What ever happened to swords of +1 astral damage, or +1-4 ion damage vs droids , or the like ? Boring ... boring ... boring.... I miss Kotor , I really do.

I forgot what planet it was, but as a Sith Inquisitor , I helped one group of Mandalorians with their quests, and then the next group attacked me on sight and I had to help an imperial base fend them off and defeat them. It was commented by a charactar in game that there were so many mandalorian clans it was hard to keep track of them all , and they all had different allegiences. I think they've been set up to be everyon'es friend, and everyone's enemy.

There aren't any options. I bought the first nwn and had it sit on a shelf for a year because my computer at the time wouldn't run it and I had to wait until I could afford an upgrade. It's a typical stunt of business managers to thse games that they only run on high end machines, and then as time goes on and system specs go up and hardware gets cheaper, the game opens up to everyone and the dog later on. It's cruel , it's evil, it's standard operating proceedure.

The truth is , the forums were made for bioware to communicate with it's fans. The truth is, other companies hired call centers full of people to throw garbage and make generally ridiculous suggestions in an attempt to sabotage the competition. And to some degree it worked. the Truth is , SWTOR comes off as very plain vanilla. My biggest griefs are the equipment is nothing but statistics. No special abilites, no powers, no boostes to existing powers. It just adds to stats , it does nothing else. It's like the player vs player combat guys won the battle and the story guys got shoved in a corner and told to shut up and quit complaining. Come on , what the heck is wrong with equipment having certain powers that don't work in duels and war zones ? Open world combat ? So what ? So you have two stealth ratings, one against npc's , and one against players, because you got a special belt of +2 stealth... whats so hard about that ? The Truth is , I miss being able to build a special vibrosword that does massive damage against droids but pretty mediocre against anyone else. I miss having to swtich weapons . Instead, I'm stuck with my one weapon that works generally ok against everything. Even wow had it's elementals that were all but immune to fire attacks forcing you to switch gears. The Truth is I miss having my Jedi Consular pull out a blast rifle and shoot at stuff far away. I admit , for play balance reasons, it should just do basic weapon damage, half your damage boosting abilities should not affect it ,but still , it's pretty cool. The Truth is , I miss being able to pick locks. Or having a half strength stealth to sneak past npc's , even if it might never work on any pc's even close to my level. I mean , come on, picking locks doesn't even involve any animation other than the one they already have of you bending over and working on something. How difficult would it have been to make a door that you either pick (+100xp) or kick open (zero xp) to get to the rest of an instance ? But we're not going to get any of that now. Because you'd have to totally re-work the game mechanics, and then rework half the worlds completely to give you opportunities to use those new game mechanics. We are locked on this path now , and I don't see anything but a few bandaids comeing out.

Pants for consulars. Heck , pants for almost anyone.

You taunt one enemy and duck behind something, and the whole mob comes running. Right up to you since you're out of line of sight. Then you drop an area effect on them, and since you're in tank mode, it does massive aggro even if the damage is mediocre (150% of damage is aggro on a tank) , then the rest of the party piles when they see your area go off. Where did you learn to play ? The School of Run Around At Top Speed And If You Have To Slow Down And Actually Plan You're A Loser ! ? I don't need your advice if so. With a 150% edge to make their damage out weigh the dps's damage ... someone would have to be SERIOUSLY under or over levelled for that to matter. I generally don't dispense advise for groups like a level 50 leading a bunch of level 20's around ... they usually don't need it. No , you have a regular taunt to pull mobs at you , and then an area effect when they're nice and far away from their friends. And you're right. In wow most of the land scape is "transparent" , it won't break line of site. In SWTOR , opportunities to break line of sight and force the ranged to come to you (or get picked off with dot's) are plentiful. [/color] End Game flash points don't have general rules. Every fight is different. Every boss is programmed to do something weird , and you have to learn each fight one by one , the hard way. There isn't any general advice to dispense for level 50 flash's, except maybe keep good notes and discuss where it all went south so you can learn for the next time.