Actually, the mere fact that the set items available in HM FPs / Ops include set bonuses (which is a stupid idea in itself...) is enough to favor appearance standardisation. I strongly support the idea of a fully separate appearance tab, with the *possible* limitation that the gear you show must be of the same category as the gear you wear [i personally don't mind, but I can see that some people would...]. If you show light armor, then you must actually wear light armor, otherwise the armor you wear is the one that is displayed. The appearance tab basically becomes a selective overlay.

If I remember correctly, mods are a reward from the H2 daily that is available on Belsavis. Enhancements, however, are not available unless I'm mistaken (I might be, I'm far from a dailies-wh***).

I wouldn't say I'm burnt out yet, but I have that odd feeling that the game is somewhat subpar for several reasons that pile up. - while some class stories are good, others are not [Jedi Consular is perhaps the most contrite and boring set of obvious plots ever put together, with uninspired dialogues to top if off]. - world arcs are almost invariably bland. On Republic side, I think Tatooine is slightly above the rest, but some others, most notably Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa and Corellia, are absolutely atrocious. - the overall world design reeks of wrong tradeoffs between inspiration and convenience. Hopping from zone to zone, finding hostile mobs in groups of 3-5 with the occasional strong or elite evenly spread around. Urban environments are badly done. Once again, on republic side, only Tatooine is OK. - the game is horribly linear *because* of class stories - they prevent you from bypassing planets altogether, or switching to alternate paths (because there are none). This goes worse as the character reaches the later levels. - technically speaking, the UI is so much behind the SOTA curve even joking about it feels old. - the endgame is a complete letdown. This is where they could have worked something to go off the beaten path, and they didn't even try. - most planets are oddly lacking in atmosphere. Previous posters have mentioned LotRO, I would add a couple others (AoC early zones, especially Tortage, Khemi and Conall Valley; Almost all zones in Chronicles of Spellborn). - Crafting is as uninspired as ever. The only redeeming feature is that it does not prevent you from doing something else, but it cannot hide the fact that the same tired old bandaids (BoP epics, consumables) are re-hashed to patch up a failed design. - Social places have no soul, probably because there are none of them. During levelling, there is no reason to go back to a central social hub except for the Fleet which is more a fast-transit stop for FPs and Ops than anything else. At endgame, people are spread between Ilum (duking it out), Belsavis (duking it out), and PvE or PvP instances (duking it out). Since the game provides no reason to hang around, guess that people do not. I think I could find additional points. All in all, it all boils down to one single encompassing reason : Bioware did not build a world - they merely built a story. The problem is, as many have said already, that stories end, while worlds do not. All planets are designed with progression convenience in mind - basically, almost without exception, they are designed as battlefields. Once the battle is won, you move on (even though there's actually nothing to show for it, but that's another point) because there's nothing left for you to do there. This kind of world design is OK for single player RPGs because they are about a journey with an end. In my opinion, what is missing from SWtOR right now is the world between the battlefields, both during levelling and at the endgame.

My opinion on this : - remove the orbital stations entirely. Build spaceports on every planet. - remove the cutscene between *enter the spaceship* and *I'm in the spaceship* (the one where the ship leaves the planet). You have *not* left the planet yet, for goodness's sake ! - remove the cutscene between *leave the spaceship* and *'I'm in the hangar*. - merge the above two cutscenes into one that is displayed only when you actually travel from one planet to another (more accurately, from one space location to another). - remove the pseudo-elevator that leads from the hangar to the spaceport proper and vice versa and that exists on almost all planets. It does not exist on a few of them (in cities, I believe), which means that they are technically unnecessary.

My opinion : regardless of class, someone who specs purely for one role in his class should not generally have an edge over anyone that specs purely for the same role in any other class. If I choose a purely DPS class, it is not because I want an edge, it is because I do not want to do anything else.

Keep in mind that the amount of rested XP can have a significant impact on your levelling speed. If you're playing the game fairly intensively and levelling only one character at a time, then you should do almost everything you can : solo quests, bonus quests, space missions. If you can find groups to do heroics and flashpoints, then you have some leeway - during my "intensive levelling" period [two-person levelling all the time, I was never alone], I was almost constantly in non-rested state, but I did almost every heroic quest between Ord Mantell and Voss (included) where I reached level cap, and I also did every flashpoint once. No space mission at all. I was constantly 3-5 levels above quest level. I'm levelling another character now : much more leisurely, and levelling solo only. At level 29, I did almost no heroic quests, and completed only two FPs so far. I did not do the Taris bonus series. Tatooine is not over (I still have the Dune Sea quests to do). I do not plan to do any bonus there either. However, I do space missions fairly regularly. Overall, I plan to keep the character about 2 levels above the quest level, mostly because I am not looking for a challenge, rather doing it for the class story mostly. And there's no shortage of things I'm leaving behind. My only worry is my social score Overall, I think the main difference is the rested XP : if you are constantly in the green, and if you do space missions, you can be very picky about what you do on the ground. If you're not rested and do not do space missions, then you have to either do the group content or be fairly exhaustive in the bonus content.

Do not forget that you can get schematics out of those gift missions. So, unless you already have everything the profession can give, it's not over yet, strictly speaking. Second, while you might have maxed out all your companions, not everyone has, so giving (to guildmates) / selling (to others) those gifts might net you something. Third, if you're an altoholic, funneling the gifts you do not need to your rerolls might allow you to focus on different crew skills. I have not checked the refresh conditions. I know that it is not periodic, rather triggered, but - I did not check the trigger, - I am not sure that, if your list is full, triggering a refresh does anything. AFAIK, you need to have a "free slot" to see some change, but I might be wrong.

No, it does not.

But I like it when Miranda talks... (among other things:o)

I've never understood why people like PvP. Does that sound constructive ? If you don't mind that kind of things, PvP servers are your venue of choice. If you do, PvE servers should be your server type. Except they are not, because of a subsystem design blunder and a few idiots who like to have their fun at someone else's expense. Since you cannot get rid of said idiots, I support fixing the mechanism.

If you can't say anything constructive, you have the constitutional right to remain silent. I would advise you to use it.

Use your AoE on mobs, see someone flagged from the other faction step into your AoE zone (or see him de-stealth while in it) and ruin your day. It's especially efficient for high-level characters trying to frag low-level ones : since they out-level the zone, they can station in the middle of mob packs unnoticed, and their stealth is well-nigh unspottable by low-level characters. But technicalities aside, why is aotu-flagging present on PvE servers ? After all, you already have an available flag toggle. Flagged => you're game. Unflagged => you're safe. There's absolutely no need for autoflagging, as long as the system prevents unflagged people to affect flagged ones in any way [WoW/Rift solution]. (honestly, I'd rather have PvE servers be completely PvP-free outside of warzones. After all, PvP servers are available for those who like Open World PvP).

I cannot answer with any certainty yet (I levelled my first character playing exclusively in 2-man or 4-man groups), but I am under the impression that, after level ~30, tank and DPS characters tend to favor healer companions for the extra endurance, while healing-capable characters tend to favor tank companions to get mobs off their backs. Which means that DPS-only companions tend to fall off the fine line. I might be wrong (as I said, I lack solo late-game experience), but it looks like the difficulty ramp-up after midgame tends to phase out pure DPS companions, especially melee, except for parts of the solo quests where you pick on 3-man groups of normals, in which case you arguably go faster with a DPS companion, especially if both of you have AOE capabilities. Still, I've read that a number of JKs were using Kira (which is a melee DPS) almost exclusively, so this might also be class-dependent. Right now, on my JK, I'm alternating between T7 and Kira, not because of any sense of extra usefulness, but because I try to give myself the chance to earn brownie points with both of them (L26 only, so content difficulty is not a real point yet)

Please, please, let's not get carried away with misinformation. Rift shipped with 10 Hard Mode group instances (split into two 5-dungeon tiers) and one 20-man raid. A second raid was added at the end of the first month. All HM instances were ports from normal modes, but with extra bosses thrown in - usually 2-3 additional bosses per instance. If I'm not mistaken, SWtOR has shipped with 12 (TBC) HM group instances (but with no obvious tiering and few extra bosses), and one operation and the first boss of a second. Arguably, this is marginally more than Rift, but not so much that it can be said that Rift had "little to no endgame". As for WoW, I grant you that, endgame was significantly lighter in quantity at release. Many other games had the same feature. The point is, Rift was a game built around the idea that getting to level cap was fast and that endgame was the whole point of the game. It was the designers motto. This was not the case for vanilla WoW, nor for LotRO, if I must take another example - in both cases, the levelling game was considered significant (this is not the case anymore for WoW, but I think LotRO still retains part of that idea, even though they have shifted their design philosophy around somewhat). Now tOR was not advertised with endgame as the be-all, end-all of the game. The story told during levelling was a major component. Emphasis was put on alt creation. If anything, endgame was downplayed. The problem is, in my opinion, that while it was perhaps downplayed a bit too much, the "rest of the game" was not there to pick up the slack. Story is only interesting if it is truly exceptional, and most of the story arcs are subpar (not to mention "filler quests" which clog the content and are flimsly veiled killing fests), bordering on very bad in some occasions (Jedi Consular storyline, for instance). As a result, people are actually looking towards the endgame - which, in this game, is IMHO a mistake, because whatever endgame it can provide is certainly no better, more original, or more well-crafted and tuned than what has already been done times and again.

There is one, but it is not in the spaceport. Rather, it is located in the crafting hub.

Rift. You have a setting that prevents any auto-flagging. The converse is that your actions have *no* effects on flagged players, even from your own faction. You cannot heal them, cannot buff them. But you cannot accidentally get flagged. Rift *also* provides the autoflag feature if you set the option correctly. Which, IMHO, is a far superior setup than what tOR provides.

Not that it makes any difference to you, OP, but I happen to have a rig based on i7 (950) and GTX570, and I'm running the game fine. I guess it is a bit more complicated than that.

The problem is that Biotech provides consumables and you cannot find better alternatives by merely "beating the content". While the other crafts provide non-consumables and you can find better alternatives by beating the content. Now, instead of nerfing Biochem, think of what would happen if every crafting profession could provide its own consumables (special types of ammo, ablative armor patches, whatever). 1. You generate instant and sustained demand for all crafts 2. The demand for Biochem does *not* diminish 3. You also create demand for crafting materials, since the demand for crafting output increases. In a sling, you provide a solid a sustainable boost to the economy. Downside ? It creates more temporary buffs, and, as far as I know, the current content is not adapted to an extra serving of power. So you have to tune content, which, in turn, creates malcontents when those people who do not want to go fully decked out in consumables complain that the game has become consumable city. Pick your poison... The main problem with crafts right now is that most of them do not benefit from sustained demand. Biochem is the only major exception. And, short of introducing permanent gear decay, I can only suggest introducing consumable in all crafts. But nerfing Biochem, or making high-end crafts BoP, would not provide any significant gain.

Depends on whether you plan to buy some mats from the GTN or not. If you do not, you need to have access to a mission skill somehow - be it by yourself or through a buddy or alt - because the advanced mats required for blue+ crafts are obtained by mission skills. But getting slicing will net you the money you need to buy the stuff, unless the market price is off. Slicing is not the currency pinata it was pre-nerf, however - I would guess it is no more so than the other gathering skills if you sell the mats instead of using them. It's merely more reliable income since you do not depend on market price for your output. I went for Armoremech / Underworld trading / Investigation, but this was only viable because my wife and co-player went with Scavenging and Slicing in addition to Cybertech. With her first alt in Armstech (again with scavenging and Slicing) and mine in Biochem (with Bioanalysis and Diplomacy), we cover everything not Force-related.

In my version, I lost Aric instead, but I sent Aric and M1 to secure the bridge. I also play a female trooper, and I always go on missions with Elara. Which makes me wonder how the result (who is wounded) is done (M1 is probably out of the loop on that one). There are at least two possible criteria, possibly combined : - potential romantic interest - whoever is not M1 Obviously, "whoever is not M1" is not discriminating if you send both Aric and Elara to guard the gates. On the other hand "whoever is the potential romantic interest" does not work either if you do not include it in the assault team - unless the one who is left behind is a potential target as well. Has anyone collected various combinations to check if the outcome is predefined and, if it is, what is/are the deciding factors ?

The boss apparently uses two damaging abilities on non-tanking characters - a force crush that is seemingly targeted at random - a AoE force pull + slow + lightning storm What is usually fatal is either - stay in the lightning storm because of latency, disorientation, or any other cause. - combination of LS damage and consecutive force crush if not healed through. We had no end of trouble with him because our healer had a bit more latency than the rest of us and she was usually the first to die - the boss is fairly punishing if you can't react quickly, and latency can ruin your day as much as lack of reflexes. She finally found a way to position herself so that she could actually start running *before* landing ater the pull, which saved her skin. Basically, this fight is won or lost on the damage the group takes from the lightning storm. About the length of the flashpoint - yes, it is both lengthy and pretty tedious, which is made even worse by the fact that it's a "gating" FP that unlocks the prison.

This has been happening to me since the first days of pre-release, it's not a new issue - i've issued a ticket about it more than two weeks ago. A minor mix-up, irking but hardly vital. In the long list of things to fix in this game, this would be close to the bottom.

An easy way to fix this would be to have the speeder skills sold by a separate trainer instead of being listed and sold as part of your regular class skill package. TBH, I did the mistake at level 40 as well. I did not repeat it at 50 To whoever says that money comes easily at level 50 - do you really thing this solves the issue ? If anything, it compounds it : these are the grounds for massive in-game inflation (which is invariably caused by excessive creation of currency). I would rather have a game where class skills are free and where money is scarcer.

It means that some of the content is redundant XP-wise. Which is actually a good thing. If anything, there is *not enough* redundancy questwise because of the class story which follows a preset path throughout all the available planets - a necessary evil at release because of budget constraints and triage, of course, but mildly annoying nonetheless, especially since the non-class quests are not exactly eye-openers themselves.

This is the quest where you have to free Aric's Deadeyes buddies. I have the same question, actually. I have not been able to find a path that does not autoflag you for PvP. Is there anyone ? If there's not, I will have to forget about the questline entirely, which would be a shame. Edit : actually, there is another thread about this quest, and information about how to go around the PvP areas. I have not checked it personally yet, but still, it's there.