Actually, for those that pre-ordered, there was no mention of Asia/Pac servers on the horizon. The news was released on the 21st of December, if I recall correctly. By that time, I'd already been playing for five or six days, then the downtime. We bought the game because we wanted to play. Having Aussie-side servers is a huge plus, but it wasn't knowing they would be there that encouraged us to do so. And to be honest, most of us aren't complaining about the idea of transfers. Some have said they'd be willing to pay for it, so it's not that it's free. It's that it was implied that the transfers would be close to Asia/Pac launch, not two months afterwards. We are paying as much (or more) as those in Europe and the US for our subs. We expected, wrongly or rightly, that this would mean that there would be a bit better communication from the company we trust to make this game. For me, I'd be happy to hear someone from Bioware tell us why it's not happening. Given that there are quite a number of threads like this one, despite collation to this thread, it seems that a number of people are annoyed, and that information about this is not forthcoming.

What does that even mean? ‘Grow naturally’? Is everyone starting at the same time somehow more natural than new players who sign up on US/Euro servers now? This is straw man. We are all new customers. The game has only been around for two months. By the time we can transfer characters, the game will be twice as old as it is now. This is a little more persuasive. However, the original servers were ruined by ‘Slicing-Gate’, and they survived. The addition of mains coming across will naturalise or balance or whatever with time. ...and leaving their mains to stagnate. It’s not a good option, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve started a Trooper character (I’ve been meaning to for a while), but I’m not putting effort into both servers in order to focus on the story of both. This makes sense too, but the numbers are going to be less indicative of the overall desirability of the Aussie servers. The main reason for low ping is for raids and PvP, and as far as I’m concerned, mostly for PvP. So having some characters who are capable of PvP at a high level straight off encourages data collection on the servers. It also has the adverse effect of ticking people off and convincing them to leave BOTH the US or Euro servers AND the Oceanic ones... that’s not good for business. It could have been done prior to the opening of the new servers, with a simple set of instructions and a request for a yes/no response on whether the player was wanting a move. The population of old and new could have been monitored as the emails about transferring went out, seeing which players wanted to transfer, and then servers assigned accordingly, with new players having a quota of the overall population. That solves both the imbalances of the server population and the level imbalances... So respectfully, I disagree. It might have been the right move in theory, but it was poorly managed and executed.

Consider it the Asia/Pacific version of slicing...

I just got a charaacter to lvl8 in two hours. It was fine. And there's nothing stopping you playing your mains for the next two months as you have been for the past two months. Yeah, it sucks. But it's not impossible. Just annoying.

I'm probably going to keep playing with bad ping on my original server, then, TBH. In the two and a bit months since launch, I've got one char to lvl34 and another to 18. From now til April I can do the same with two new characters... But really, I don't want to. I like my current characters. I'm disappointed, SWTOR Team. Really disappointed.

Given that launch date is in two days, is there any chance of getting more information?

I've likened the Sith Empire to the German "Empire" of WWII. Sure, it's led by people who are an emitter short of a lightsabre but there are good people caught up in all of it. They do "bad" things, but it's the context of war and a tyrannical government. So, a Light Side Sith Warrior or Inquisitor is a pretty odd concept, given the nature of the Dark Side. I don't think it works too well within the story. Even as Lord Scourge in the Revan book learned about the light side, it was still to use it for his own benefit, rather than that of the greater good, which is something that defines the light side.

Why is it not possible to craft lightsabres as part of the Artifice skill in lower levels (pre the late 40's)? Given that this is an integral skill to becoming a Jedi, will it be added in the future?

IN the vast expanses of Tatooine yesterday, I saw my first PvP-able enemy. He was wandering around killing sandpeople, completely oblivious to my presence (yay stealth). I was thinking I might try and take him, but he was two levels above me (29 vs 27). Given roughly appropriately-levelled gear, could I have taken him? I ask this from a purely levelling perspective. He was at full health, but his companion, a tank, was down to about half health. Or is the gap between the levels enough to warn me off?

Torture chamber, refresher room: it's all the same really!

It may well be a problem on the Android side of things, rather than the Bioware side of things. For instance, Apple's approval could have been faster?

Hi there, Just wondering if: 1) there's in-game voice chat, like LOTRO; and 2) there's an in-game way to change the music (or add to it), like EVE. Cheers!

What about "choosing a server that's right for you" or a similar question. What's the difference between PvP and PvE servers? Etc.