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Push back is what happens when you're channeling an ability and an enemy hits you, it will 'push back' your channelling time and shorten the time for casting damage, or even worse, as a healer when you're trying to cast a healing spell and you're getting hit, it will 'push back' your casting bar making your spell take longer to cast.

I've never had this problem. By doing all the quests (not even killing everything I run across, as I prefer sneaking out on my escape, just so I can quickly turn in and get my reward) I always find myself at or above the required level for the class story quests.

Each server is entirely independent of each other, and currently, there are no options to transfer a character between them. So, if you make a character on one server, he won't be on any other server. You can still play on other servers, you'll just have to make a new character there.

If you're looking for something that's going to be in demand, I'd suggest taking a healer or tanking role. DPS is usually pretty easy to find. As for what class, well, hell, so many of the classes can cover multiple roles in a group. Your Sith Inquisitor, for example, can be a tank, DPS melee, DPS ranged, or healer, all depending on how you go with them. BioWare has been VERY good at making all classes viable with multiple roles, to make it easier to find people to fill a group.

Heroic quests don't REQUIRE a group, but if you are in the level range for it, then it's STRONGLY encouraged. The number next to Heroic tells you how many people should come along to successfully complete the mission. Of course, if you want, you can wait a few levels, come back to it, and try to solo it. But that's really not as much fun.

You're not imagining things. It's a glitch (I hope) that effects me sometimes too. It seems to be totally random, but once it happens, it stays that way for the rest of my play session. Log out and back in is the only fix I've found for it.

They are TOTALLY optional. The only thing you miss out are some Social Points, some good XP, and some nice quest reward items.

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Did you swap form Heavy Armor to Medium or Light Armor? If you swap from one set of Heavy to another set of Heavy, yes, the stats will be the same. But if you swap from Heavy to Medium, the armor will be lower, because it's a lower level of armor.

There's a little bug right now where even after you put in the armoring mods that the armor doesn't show a change. however, if you go ahead and equip it (Maybe have to un-equip and re-equip it) and it'll adjust to show the proper armor rating. Confused me at first too.

For the most part, yes. When you reach Dark Side level 2, you'll start noticing dark veins creeping out and eyes starting to turn red. And the further you go down the Dark Side, the worse it becomes. If you start earning Light Side points, to drop you back below Dark 2, then the Dark Side look will start to revert back to a normal look. There are no special looks for going strong Light Side, however.

Finally? It's only been a couple of weeks! I'd offer some suggestions, but I've only got one character past Act 1, and about 4 others running around at or near level 20. Maybe do that. Start up another character and experience another of the 7 stories left to experience. I haven't really found any stories that weren't good. Some are better than others, of course though. Trooper has a great story, as does the Agent. Inquisitor is a great story of pauper to prince.

I'm really not sure. My server, Adjunta Pall seems to only have a slight imbalance to the Imperial side of things. I can regularly get into Alderaan and Voidstar (Not as regularly as Huttball, of course.). I'd really like to see some server demographics on class, race, and faction though.

Orange gear, when empty of mods, is all exactly the same. Every piece of Light Armor will be the same as the next piece of Light Armor, and the same for Heavy armor and Heavy Armor, or Blaster Rifle and Blaster Rifle, no matter if you found it at level 10 or 50. The mods inside of the orange item makes up the stats and armor/damage. When compared to purple gear, I've frequently passed up purple gear because my orange gear decked in blue mods had better stats, and the stats that I wanted. Personally, I greatly prefer the orange gear over purple, I just try not to deck myself out in the stuff. It gets VERY expensive to maintain when you've got too many orange items. 3 or 4 items is about the most I can handle at once right now, though, I don't EVER throw away the orange armor. Just because it might be cheaper to replace the orange with a purple, later on, I might find better mods to put into the old orange and viola, the orange is better than the purple again. Besides, I prefer finding a set of armor that looks good. I hate looking like a rodeo clown with piecemeal stuff.

From what I've heard, yes, there is a penalty. I've yet to verify this for myself, but I'm inclined to believe it, as it could lead to some serious exploitation of shooting through the levels REALLY fast. I heard something along the lines of needing to be +/- 3 levels to maintain decent XP rewards. Anything more than that, and you start getting penalized. Again, I could be totally wrong on this, that's just what I've been hearing.

Excluding re-rolling Republic, then you're only other option is to queue up for a warzone, and just hope the next time will get you in quicker. It's one of those unforseen problems that crept up with launch and the people surprised the devs. I don't think anyone really expected so many people to go Sith over Jedi. Sorry I didn't have much better advice for you. Good luck, mate.

Sounds like you're recovering from getting hit by a flash bang! Seriously though, I've got nothing on this issue. You might want to try making a post over in the Customer Service forums though. I've heard of similar problems from other people, and someone there might be able to help you out better then here. Good luck.

Press the 'N' key by default to open your crew skill window. Then click on either your gathering or missions skill to pop up a window with a list of missions to send them on. Then click on a mission, and select which companion from the drop box at the bottom, and off they go! Donig this will have a credit cost, the higher the level of the missions, the more money it'll cost. But upon their return, if they succeed, you'll gain items, as well as increase that skill.

There is. It's not the same, but it has the same effect. Look for Orange quality gear. That gear will last you from level 10 all the way to level 50 and beyond, just by swapping out the modifications inside of it. You can stay up to date and ocmpetetive with you armor and weapons for ever, and keep the look of the gear you really like forever. The trick is just finding the pieces that you like how the look the best.

Go republic. Thanks to server imbalance, Imperials are always left waiting for a queue to pop. Republic side doesn't have enough people, so as long as they are queing, it's popping almost instantly for them.

Personally, I really enjoy how they use bolster to really even out the game fields between low and high level players. Do the 50's all decked out in PvP gear have an advantage? Hell yes they do, and for the most part, they WILL steam roll a lower leveled/geared player. That said, the first 5 games I played with my Sniper, which I started as soon as I hit the space station at level 10, I topped the charts in kills, damage, and objective points. The next few games after that were played late at night, and I started encountering all those level 50 PvP geared guys, and I got steamrolled. I still topped the damage and kills for my team, however. Sadly, only killing 3 people the entire match isn't something to brag about. But it does go to show the level 50 with their gear, if there's enough of them, will make a HUGE impact in a game. Level 1-49 bracket, and a level 50 bracket. I think that'd make a huge improvement to the system.

You're very right. This wasn't intended to be a hardcore PvP game. It was intended to be a hardcore story driven game, which is why they spent so much time, energy, and money in voicing every single line of dialogue, and creating such huge class stories that are completely separate from every other class. PvP was tossed in to offer a choice to players as to how they want to play. Also, I don't really think an MMO can really survive without SOME sort of PvP aspect. Hopefully, in time, they'll give more depth and rewards for open world PvP, and really invigorate what they've got. The PvP needs work, but as stated, it wasn't their main goal.

Here's a wonderful guide for crafting crew skills and how they work. You're allowed up to 3. On Crafting skill, and 2 Mission or Gathering skills. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=45866 Each different crew skill should usually be 'bundled' with other skills. Take treasure hunting, for example, that should go along with the crafting skill of Artifice, as Treasure Hunting finds the rarer materials for Artifice. Archaeology should go with Artifice, as that gathers the primary materials for the skill. Just taking one of them won't do much good, unless you just plan on selling the materials on the Auction House. hope this helps!

There will be multiple options to flirt. Also, if you're in a conversation, and accidentally click the wrong choice, or just wind up saying something you didn't mean to, you can press Esc to exit and start over the conversation, so you can make the choice you wanted to! Never miss another flirt option, ever again!