I miss it, and I wish I had appreciated it more at the time. I raged quit after NGE, because the player-base and game totally changed. I have been waiting for some kind of similar yet updated game to come out ever since. BH-Shadowfire

I don't usually cross-play. However, as a female gamer, I have cross-played in the past in other games because of harassment. In this game I have rolled a male imperial agent alt because BW seems to have made a lot more effort in the storylines to have romance options etc., for male toons. I have a lvl 50 female sage (100% light side) who did not experience any romance (because of light side). And a lvl 33 female trooper who hasn't really been offered any romance options yet, although there has been two people she has had options of flirting with. I finally rolled an imperial agent (male) toon, who is only level 16 but has already had a sub-plot where he's macked a debutante, and has been hit on by this first companion. So, yah, if I want to experience the most amount of story possible (which is why I rolled an agent to begin with...people said it was the best storyline), then I am forced to roll a male toon.

I didn't find the story that interesting and you've probably all seen my 'I hate all consular companions' post....BUT I like my consular, and her choices. I played light side 5, didn't partake of the romance, and for me the light side choices made sense. I was basically all zen-like the entire way through, removed from the plotting and petty grievances of everyone else, because ofcourse, I had transcended, and therefore knew what was right for everyone else. It is a lovely, condescendingly, wonderfully, above-all-this, character.

Me = 38, female, federal government employee, wife, stepmom, proud pet owner of 2x 120lb dogs and a kitten with a bad attitude...and most appropriate to this thread, a gamer. I play with a group of real life friends all in their 30's and some pretty cool guildies that are friends in the making.

In comparison to SWG, yes SWTOR is boring. However, my real life friend group is still playing and that is making it fun for me. Also, after having trudged through the lackluster storyline and companions on the jedi sage (my main), I am now having fun going through the better storylines on my trooper and imperial agent alts. My summary of the game overall would be SWTOR= WoW + a story. I also don't mind pvp. It's simple and fun. It still doesn't compare to SWG, where you created your own bases, and were way more invested in the outcome. However, I find pvp much improved over WoW. (er...I only played WoW the first year it was out and am unfamiliar with any changes that took place to either the game or pvp after that time) Now that we're all level 50 on our mains, mostly my guild plays League of Legends once they're done their dailies and are waiting for raid nights. There was NEVER down time on SWG. It was incredibly way more immersive than SWTOR.

Ah, but the trooper ship is pretty cool. And then I got the Imperial Agent one, and it is AWESOME!!! Like a sleek lamboughini, or something.

I maxed out Iresso, and the rest are all around 7k. (except C2-N2 ofcourse) I am maxing them out slowly as well, but with the story over it only goes as quickly as my diplomacy. That, and I'm pretty much only on my 50 for raid nights and dailies now. If the descriptions seem basic to you, it's a reflection of how I see our companions, as very 2-dimensional. UPDATE: I now have a lvl 32 trooper, and 16 Imperial Agent, and I love all of the companions (that I have so far) on these two classes. So, as I suspected, it's just the consular companions and story that seem to have been done halfheartedly. I was thinking about it the other day, and even our ship is lame compared to the others. I wonder if the consular was completed last, when everyone was burnt out, or on a Monday or Friday (car manufacturing rules). The best part of this is, ofcourse, that I am done the consular, so all the stories and companions remaining are going to be better! No where to go but up!

This is a good point. Our main tank doesn't usually go on vent (his choice). But he is very experienced. I am surprised that guilds would give you a hard time because you are severely deaf. I don't understand why they wouldn't just do normal with you a few times while typing so that you would be experienced enough to not have to worry about missing something on vent. I am sorry that you had that negative experience. I think the majority of people are responding to the OP who didn't really express an appropriate reason for not being on vent during raids.

^^This^^ I am a lvl 50 sage healer. I barely have time to look away from the health bars of my ops group during a raid to see the screen, I would never have the time to type as well. So, voice chat is necessary for this practical reason. My co-healer and I also use it to shout out if we can't keep up on heals from time to time, for our respective groups. I am never clicked on the boss, so for all the raid bosses that require some kind of different technique at certain % of health loss, like Soa (and many others), I would miss without the raid leader updating us on Vent. In addition to this, we almost always have to pug a person or two for raids, and the raid leader has to explain how to proceed with each fight. He also has to give reminders for people about tactics etc. on an ongoing basis. I have also found it incredibly useful for pvp, where there isn't a static technique, and you have to respond immediately to the real time tactics of your enemies. For me, in any endgame, voice chat is essential. For regular pve I never use it, but it is a requirement for our guild at endgame. However, we don't chit chat about anything but the raid while it's going on (with the exception of a few raid related jokes), so it isn't the burden that it clearly is for the OP.

You sound as if you are defending a personal choice you have made or trying to justify the horrible actions of someone that you love. I would suggest to you that you re-evaluate your relationships with these individuals as they do not respect women, neither do they appreciate them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Firstly, to say that they respect women who don't cave into their advances, implies that it is the woman's fault if they treat her disrespectfully. It implies that if she hadn't given into him then he would treat her better. Secondly, it also says something odd about a man that can only appreciate someone who rejects him. I would suggest therapy for this person. Thirdly, you say that they treat female friends better than 'fly-by' girlfriends. This is problematic because, 1. 'Fly-by' implies a negative connotation. Why would it be negative to be the girlfriend of these individuals? 2. It implies that it is okay that they only respect some women and not others. Being respectful to women shouldn't be conditional. And if it is, then there is something seriously wrong with your 'friends'. But the problem lies with them, and definately not with the women that they know. This makes them completely insufferable.

Er...yes we do. I would suggest you take a moment to look it up. He's pretty much the definition of it: uses women, leads them on, fears them, objectifies them, sees them only as a vessel for his sexual release, etc., etc. I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that he is angry at the power that women have, and fearful of it. This is presented by hateful behaviour and disrespectful dialogue.

It's infuriating for the following reasons: 1. For the same reason pop-ups are annoying in any sphere. I am in the middle of doing X quest, or a fight, etc., when this surprise pop-up shows up in the centre of my screen. 2. I don't know you, I don't know what quest you're on, or anything you're doing, but you're inviting me to group with you? That's incredibly presumptuous. 3. It assumes that I can't read. 9 times out of 10, the person that just cold invited me, spammed general chat for the last 10 minutes LFG. If I had been interested in grouping with you, I would have sent you a tell. 4. It's lazy. How hard is it to send me a whisper first giving me pertinent details. 'Hello, I am a 50 tank, and I am doing Herioc X, our group needs a healer, are you interested in joining us?" 5. It's bl**dy telemarketing, is what it is. Cold-calling, I think they call it. However, I have only ignored one person since I began playing this game, and would never ignore because of this reason, 50's aren't THAT common yet and we may group in the future.

OMG yes, cold invites are infuriating!

LVL 50 Sage, healing specced the entire time. I had no trouble with any of the PVE at all. I had a bit of trouble with a couple of the bosses in the class storyline, but in those two cases, I grouped with guildies.

Yah, that's pretty much why I didn't romance him either. He wasn't worth giving up my light side V for. I don't know who these people are that are actually attracted to damsel in distress, but I don't find them interesting at all, in a female OR a male.

Okay, so you're a consular and you ding level 50. You still have horror of horrors, some green equipment. Here are a couple of tips for you to get equipment on your own before you start raiding. You are not dependent on groups for these. 1. Go datacron hunting. Get the three red matrix shards (on Ord Mantell, Hoth, and Ilum), and go to Coruscant to the Jedi Temple to combine them into a relic. The relic is REALLY good, and useful for dps AND healing sages. I imagine there is a similar manufacturable relic for assassins using a different colour of shard. (there are multiple datacron hunting websites, including videos, so google their locations) 2. Do your dailies. After your storyline quest is finished, you can start doing dailies. These are repeatable quests and most of these are solo-able. They are on Belsavis and Ilum, and they give you daily commendations. 120 of these will buy you some fancy gear in the supplies section of the Republic Fleet. Please add to this thread of you have other ideas of ways to improve your gear without raiding. Thanks

Yah, the romance options on the consular fail. Even Zenith wasn't exactly super hot or anything, but i would have done it to experience every aspect of the game. Iresso is so annoying I can't bring myself to lose light 5 to bother. See here for more comments on the romances for consular: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=189444

I also didn't get it when they first said I did. Unfortunately, I forgot about it and didn't check on it again until mid 40's when I noticed it was there, so I don't know when it actually shows up.

Yah, I have big robot envy too. Also, I want the jawa and the wookie, they look super cool.

Exactly. I really felt that Nadia and Holiday were not exactly examples of healthy independent women or quite frankly, your average 21st century adult female. I suppose that wouldn't be a big deal IF there WAS an opposing dynamic. Why not have Holiday and then an independent (not angry), just competent female character? And the same goes with the gender stereotypes for the male companions. Why are they either angry (Zenith), needy (Iresso), or animalistic (Qyzen)? It is completely acceptable to the SWTOR audience to have 3-D companions who are adults. I never expected so much agreement, and from the sounds of it, many of you dislike our companions more than I do. I am really hopeful that whenever the expansion comes out, our next companion will have more adult characteristics and a different romanceable option. These guys just don't cut it.

I noticed that too...he's a wannabe playboy dressed like a 17th century fop. It brought to mind the late 80's Leisure Suit Larry idea of a character for me.

You can only romance one companion choice per gender. For female toons, it's Iresso and for male toons, it's Nadia. You're right, about her student status, however I imagine subservience in a padawan is more sith-y than jedi-y which seem to be more mentors than literal masters.

Clearly the title was designed to attract attention. However, I value your opinions on our companion characters. I hope that someone can point out endearing characteristics about them that would show me the light, so to speak, so I don't continue to find them all too annoying. Me: level 50 Pure Healer spec, maxed light side (the entire way through) (female gamer and toon) Qyzen Fess: Playability-okay. I never had any real issues with him tanking for me, other than his lag time getting into combat, or going from enemy to enemy, and his overuse of area effects that ruined my cc. However, he was okay. Personality-wise, he was a bit of a jerk. He never liked my light side choices unless they were about killing things for scores,and he was basically a braggart. I couldn`t stand how he kept judging people for being weak, when he couldn't do much of anything solo without me there to save his skin. I just found this a bit too 2-dimensional for character development when what he went through on Typhon should have taught him some compassion for others. Theran Cedrax: Zenith: Lt. Felix Iresso: this brings me to... Nadia Grell: Anyway, to sum up, I found the consular companions to be 2-dimensional charicatures at best, and completely misogynistic fan-boi fantasies at worst. Thankfully, now that I'm at level 50, I won't need to use any of them very often. Please let me know your opinions, especially if you disagree. I would like to know if you are seeing something that I am not. Thank you.

Guild banks are coming out in the March patch. There`s a link somewhere in the forums saying it.

I disagree with this. I am a casual player. I have a full time job, and a husband with kids. I don't even log on until the kids are in bed, and sometimes will find the time to play on the weekends. I listened to all the voiceovers, and did most of the quests on each planet (except Taris, I friggin' hated Taris) I got early game access the morning of day 2 and dinged level 50 last night. We have a smaller guild, less than 30, but we have 8 level 50's, the first two from 3 weeks ago. So, long story short, being level 50 now does not mean you rushed through the game, and having only 1 level 50 on your server shocks me as they're all over the place on mine. I am concerned about end game. Our level 50s have all rolled alts, but they are logging on less than they did before. Partly because there isn't much to do and partly because they're waiting for the rest of us to ding 50. The only mmorpg that I could stand for longer than 6 months was SWG, and there was a ton of stuff to do on there. I am interested to see what SWTOR has to offer, and even if endgame proves lackluster (and from the sounds of it, it will), the fact that my rl friends are all my guildies will keep me in the game long enough to give SWTOR the chance to improve it. I remain hopeful at the moment.