Well, I plan on seeing as much of the class storylines as I can. PvP and raiding, I might do a bit of, but I'm mostly here for solo and group PvE. I hear people raving about the GTN ship kiosk and rocket boots, but those are mainly time savers while the +100 Presence is an actual stat boost that enhances my companions. I'm not sure how much better, exactly, the bonus would make them, though. :X

I just returned to TOR after being gone since January of last year. I don't plan on leveling a human so I was wondering if the human legacy unlock would be a good use of my first month's CC stipend? Or would my coins be better spent on other things? Thanks! :3

I'm not interested in real-money transactions, I would appreciate some updates on the actual game. Thanks!

I just hope that Bioware uses a fair share of the money people throw at them for cash shop items to create actual new content for everyone to enjoy. I don't care if my character doesn't get to wear Darth Revan's boxer-briefs or whatever they have for sale in there, but I worry the profits from cash shop sales is going back into creating even more elaborate RMT.

Thanks for the input, everyone! Looks like I'm going to be getting real familiar with planet quests, lol.

Really? Even with all the XP bonuses? Maybe all I can do is hope there are more double xp weekends in 2014, lol.

I'd just like some opinions on how much success I'd have with this method. Let's say I create two characters (on the same server) to serve as my "mains" - yes, I know you're only supposed to have one main, but bear with me. One is Imperial, the other Republic. On these two characters, I do pretty much all the content in the game. All quests, and plenty of dailies, flashpoints, and PvP once I'm at the level cap. Maybe some operations too. Would those two characters be able to provide enough Legacy levels and credits to allow me to play through the class storylines of the other six classes without having to do the generic 'all classes' quests, through the use of XP boosting traits and stuff? Or would I still come up short? I doubt Double XP weekends will factor into this plan since I'll still be leveling my first character a month from now, so I'm not taking them into account. I'm hoping to hear from someone who's done something similar to this, but all input is welcome. Thanks everyone!

This just opens up the nightmare scenario of a new CEO stepping up and shutting down TOR. Or worse, funneling 100% of future development into cash shop items.

I've currently got another MMORPG going so I can't maintain a monthly commitment to TOR's subscription fee. I did subscribe for a month so I could create a character of each class so I could experience all the different class stories as a Preferred player. I have 600 cartel coins and 29 more days of Premium. Is there anything I can do or purchase (in-game or off the cash shop) while I'm Premium to make life as a Preferred status player a bit more tolerable? Thanks!

The Old Republic currently has three levels of shadow detail. Off - Nothing casts any sort of shadow. No impact on video cards. Low - All PCs and NPCs have little circular blob shadows beneath them. Infinitesimally small impact on video cards. High - Absolutely everything casts a dynamic shadow. Very taxing on video cards. The performance impact going from Low to High is incredible. Shouldn't there be some settings in between? Most other MMORPGs with dynamic shadows have three (or more) settings that gradually expand the radius around your character where the shadows can be seen, as well as increase the quality of the shadows. This in addition to the ' dynamic shadows off ' setting that only renders blob shadows. But that's another matter entirely. A very large amount of players can't use 'High' shadows. However, at 'Low', there are no world shadows. The galaxy looks flat, lifeless, and without depth. So is there a solution? How can the 'Low' setting provide shadows if dynamic shadows are too taxing? Simple. Pre-bake the shadows. Pre-baked shadows are basically shadows that are drawn on the ground instead of rendered dynamically. Say there is a patch of land that contains a grassy bit of land and a tree. Currently, on 'Low' shadow detail, the tree casts no shadow. On 'High', it casts a dynamic shadow that can fall upon PCs and NPCs that walk beneath it. With pre-baked shadows, on 'Low' shadow detail there would still be a shadow but it would not fall upon characters who pass through it, because it is essentially a static painting of a shadow on the ground. There is no time cycle in The Old Republic, and most light sources are stationary - the sun doesn't move and street lamps and other urban lighting don't move either - shadows could easily be pre-baked onto surfaces with little performance loss. Most games have the pre-baked shadows on a different 'layer' from the actual surface textures they appear on, so the stationary 'fake' shadows would disappear at the 'High' shadow detail setting so players whose computers can handle dynamic shadows wouldn't have two different types of shadows clashing with each other. Without any shadows, even pre-baked ones that are just painted onto surfaces, the world looks flat and lacks depth. Yes, it is unrealistic to cross underneath the shadow of a tree and not have the shadow darken your character model, but it is a hundred times less realistic to inhabit a galaxy where shadows do not exist at all. Please, Bioware, if you are not going to optimize the 'High' shadow setting or add more shadow settings to bridge the gap between No Shadows and Everything as far as the eye can see casts a dynamic shadow - at least consider using pre-baked shadows to give the world detail and depth. Thanks! Addendum: If you want examples of pre-baked shadows in other MMOs, I can provide them. Here's one to start with. Pre-baked shadow textures: http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/6571/wowscrnshot051212195304.jpg Dynamically rendered shadows: http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3459/wowscrnshot051212195318.jpg Note that pre-baked shadows will look even less out of place in TOR, as there is no day/night cycle so the sun is always in the same place in the sky.

I'm sick of the noise my speeder mount makes. Ambient noise - waves crashing against the shore, wind, birds singing - is really quiet in this game to begin with, so I have Ambient Noise at 100% and everything else around 33% to 50%. This made the game a lot more immersive. With everything at 100%, ambient noise is almost impossible to make out, leaving the game with only combat noises, voice acting, and the occasional bit of music. This worked well until level 25 when I got my speeder. For some incredibly stupid reason, the sound speeders make is considered ambient noise. So if I want to hear the occasional bit of leaves rustling or a distant sand-people yell, I need to deal with a speeder that sounds like a jet hovering in my ear canal. I was wondering if there's any way to disable certain game sounds? All other MMOs I've played have had this feature - City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, and Lord of the Rings Online all give you the ability to place 'dummy' sound files that contain only silence in the game's directory. This is how I muted several annoying superpower sounds in City of Heroes, and the Death Knight mount noise in World of Warcraft. Barring that, are there any silent speeders? Or do all speeders use the same engine noise? I'm seriously considering just playing without using my speeder. Even though I can't imagine running across the Dune Sea on foot. What a horrifying thought. Maybe one day they'll unlink the speeder noise from ambient sound, or introduce an organic mount like a tauntaun that doesn't constantly roar in my ear.

There is already a 25-page thread about this old news.

Okay, buddy, what's your beef with Heroic 4 quests? Even on one of the most populated servers in the game, The Harbinger, people simply skip the Heroic 4 quests. They're simply not worth it. Why aren't they worth it? Many Heroic 4s take as long to complete as an actual Flashpoint, but reward only one piece of gear that is inferior to gear from the Flashpoints in the heroic quest's level range. Plus random green drops, but you get those in Flashpoints too. They are much more boring than Flashpoints. Many enemies, especially the 'bosses' at the end of Heroic 4s, take longer to defeat than Flashpoint bosses but lack any sort of interesting mechanic to spice up the fight. Some Heroic 4 'bosses' take more than four minutes to kill, with no mechanics to deal with besides repeating your rotation over and over. I have actually read on my Kindle while tanking Heroic 4 'bosses'. Heroic 4s provide a very poor return on time and effort invested. In the time it takes to complete a Heroic 4, you can do a Flashpoint for better loot and a better XP reward. You could also just complete a half-dozen solo quests, which would provide up to a half-dozen pieces of decent gear and a bigger XP reward. I love Heroic 4s. It never takes me more than twenty seconds to get a full group together. They are easy if you don't suck. LEAVE MY CONTENT ALONE. I don't want the quests themselves removed from the game. Some of them have an interesting story behind them or take place in cool locations. I just think they should be re-tuned, now that the game's population is declining and most players skip the quests entirely. Converting them to Heroic 2s would be one way to handle it. Finding one other person is a lot easier than trying to gather three other people, especially when there are only 20 people on your planet. Players who adore extreme challenges can pick up the new Heroic 2 versions of these quests as soon as they're available, and bring three players with them to tackle it while it's still 'Orange' in their quest log. A variable difficulty option could also work. Quest-givers could offer two (or more) difficulties of a quest, including a solo difficulty level. Each difficulty level offers different loot, with solo quests offering green quest rewards, the Heroic 2 level offering blues, and the Heroic 4 level offering an orange moddable item. You just suck at making groups. Get better at making groups. Also, make friends. Also, find a guild. Unless you have a cult of personality built up around you, you're going to be hard-pressed to find three friends of the appropriate level to come to your location and spend 40 minutes with you slogging through a Heroic 4. Not only are the quests themselves long and drawn-out, but there is no summoning feature, meaning your friend on Alderaan has four or more loading screens to go through before he reaches you - plus travel time. Have a level 50 run you through it. Sadly this is the best option at this point, but I'm certain this is not what Bioware intended. I skip a lot of Heroic 4s but the ones I do complete are often thanks to my friends at the level cap. If you don't like them, don't do them. Most players already skip them, but I try to get a group together for every Heroic 4 I come across. I enjoy doing content in this game and experiencing its story and scenery. I want to know what happens to the sand people who killed the padawan. I want to rescue that farmer's wife and child. Unfortunately, the content is prohibitively difficult to get a group together for, and often prohibitively difficult to complete with many group compositions, especially those lacking in Crowd Control. Heroic 4s are already obsolete content. They are the equivalent of difficult group quests from past expansions in other MMOs - their rewards are irrelevant and most players in their level range will elect to skip them in favor of easier content. This is why most other MMOs - such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and Everquest 2 - have adjusted their group quests as a reaction to the dwindling number of players taking part in them years after their implementation. However, the combination of TOR's group quest difficulty and its low server populations means that this obsolescence has arrived in a matter of months after the game's launch. Yeah, well, just you wait. Everyone who replies will be against this awful idea. This is likely. Like in most other MMOs, those who post on the forums tend to be a very loud and vocal minority. Your average player will not be on the forums, but online and playing the game - and skipping Heroic 4 quests. I am posting this and keeping this bumped for Bioware to read. People can reply in whatever manner they wish, but I will not be carrying on an argument with anyone. Regardless of your position on the matter, thank you for your time and consideration!

Back to page one with you!

OP updated to better show disparity between flashpoints (and similar instanced dungeon content in other MMOs) and Heroic quests.

Here are a couple comparisons between actual dungeon boss fights (in TOR itself and other MMOs) and heroic enemies. World of Warcraft Dungeon Boss Boss Fight Length: 60 Seconds Interesting Mechanics: Yes Time required to reach boss: About 20 Minutes, with other bosses dropping good loot along the way Good Loot for Time Investment: Yes Lord of the Rings Online Dungeon Boss Boss Fight Length: 1 Minute, 10 Seconds Interesting Mechanics: Yes Time required to reach boss: About 7 minutes, no other bosses in instance Good Loot for Time Investment: Yes The Old Republic Dungeon Boss Boss Fight Length: 1 Minute, 4 Seconds Interesting Mechanics: Yes Time required to reach boss: About 30 minutes, with other bosses dropping good loot along the way Good Loot for Time Investment: Yes The Old Republic Generic Elite #1 Trash Elite Fight Length: 2 Minutes, 51 Seconds Interesting Mechanics: No Time required to reach final trash mob required for quest: About 30 minutes, with only garbage trash mobs along the way Good Loot for Time Investment: No The Old Republic Generic Elite Enemy #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tlNvG-u_nk Trash Elite Fight Length: 1 Minute, 50 Seconds Interesting Mechanics: No Time required to reach final trash mob required for quest: About 35 minutes, with only garbage trash mobs along the way Good Loot for Time Investment: No Other videos on youtube showing heroic quests being done all seem to show long, drawn-out fights with absolutely no engaging mechanics. Everyone just stands in place, using their rotation, for ages. If there are people who are getting through these quests at a decent pace, why don't they show up on youtube? Is there some hidden link between groups with bad DPS and people who upload videos on youtube? Interesting! I can think of no reason why throwaway elites in group quests need to take three times as long as final bosses of actual lore dungeons in other MMOs, especially when they have no mechanics to speak of besides cause damage to the tank. Does anyone have some sort of wonderful insight into what could possibly be good about fights against standard, non-dungeon elite enemies that take longer than actual loot-dropping dungeon bosses? What sort of fun or interest do we stand to gain from these fights taking longer, being much more boring, and dropping only the occasional green? I'm trying very hard but I can't think of any reason why this would make sense in any reality.

I'm not sure what I can do, then. Apparently my server, The Harbinger, is full of people with garbage DPS? I rerolled on it because it's one of the two or three servers that isn't having population problems. I also had this issue when I first played back in December, on Mind Trick. Things took forever to kill there as well. If my problem is that everyone on my server has bad DPS, as people are claiming, then I guess there's nothing to do but grit my teeth and bear it. At least until someone comes up with a census-type website that averages out every player's DPS, so I can make sure I don't reroll on a server where everyone has bad DPS. What a weird issue for an MMO to have. I've never encountered it anywhere else.

I'm sorry, but there's something wrong with you if you consider simple motor functions challenging. Taking a sponge and dragging it back and forth across a plate for ten full minutes is NOT challenging. It's just 10 minutes of wash, rinse, repeat. It's boring, not challenging. You also appear to have issues with your reading comprehension, since this entire thread I've been asking for more challenge, not less. Perhaps you posted in the wrong thread?

A full group means four people. I've played with pretty much every possible combination of classes. I've also done every flashpoint and heroic quest up to Tatooine, so all in all, that's about 20 different groups or so? I have trouble believing I have the worst luck in the world and every single group I've been in has had weak DPS.

cool reasoning bro

I can't solo heroic quests. I need a full group to do it. It still takes forever in a full group. Class quests are all soloable so they have nothing to do with this thread. I'm talking about heroic quest mobs that require a full group to beat. Watching paint dry is more exciting than bashing on the same mob for five minutes at a time. Every fight is a yawn-inducing tank-and-spank borefest.

Bump. Just did a heroic quest on Nar Shaddaa that took a half-hour because the fights dragged on far, far too long. With population dropping, both in general and also in terms of the amount of players still doing leveling content, these overly drawn-out heroic quests should be tuned to fit one of these criteria: 1. If Bioware doesn't want to make combat against elite mobs interesting, then these boring fights need to take less time 2. If Bioware wants fights to take a long time, some interesting mechanics need to be added to keep players from being bored to death 3. A third alternative is to do what other MMOs do when no one is doing group quests anymore - make them solo quests.

I'm using a Radeon HD 5670, which I know is a pretty middling card, but it gets me better shadows than TOR's 'high' shadows in just about every other game and MMO. I do have the latest drivers, as well. For now I've just disabled them and started to use my imagination when it comes to shadows. xD

I'm having a lot of fun with the game so far. I love the solo questing content, PvP, and space missions. But I'm really starting to get tired of group content - Heroic quests in particular. It's not that I don't like playing as a group - I really enjoy teamwork - but so many enemies take forever to kill! Not only that, but most of the time, these enemies don't even have any interesting mechanics to challenge you. Every MMO has its share of long fights, but they usually try to keep you from getting bored by having you deal with challenging or interesting mechanics and abilities. If the battles aren't going to be interesting or require the player to pay any attention whatsoever, at least reduce enemy health. Until then I'm keeping my Kindle next to my PC, so I have something to read while waiting for enemies to die. Many heroic quests, especially Heroic 4+ quests, take just as long to complete as a Flashpoint but are much more boring, with mobs that lack any sort of compelling gameplay mechanic. The loot rewards are also vastly inferior. They are also hard to get a group together for, as the game's population is dropping, the amount of players still leveling is also dropping, and the number of players now skipping the quests entirely is increasing. In the spoiler below, I have included various youtube videos showing how actual boss fights with fun gameplay mechanics and good loot drops take much less time than fights against Heroic quest mobs that are little more than damage sponges designed to waste your time. Summary Flashpoint: 30-40 minutes long, 3 bosses with interesting mechanics, best loot available in its level range Heroic quest: 30-40 minutes long, no bosses, no interesting mechanics, quest reward is either one piece of loot that is inferior to the flashpoint loot or a few planetary commendations. Why?

Does anyone else have an issue with the game's shadows? Outdoors, they put a pretty sizable dent in my framerate - I go from 50 FPS to around 30, but I can live with 30 FPS. Indoors, however, shadows absolutely murder my FPS. Without shadows, I can sometimes get close to 60 FPS, but with shadows enabled I sometimes find myself at 15 FPS. I can't stand visuals that laggy. It certainly doesn't help in group situations when there's me, three other people, and a swarm of mobs filling the screen with effects that drag my FPS down even further. I notice that when I go indoors, the shadows become much sharper, but at the cost of a large chunk of my framerate. When I go back outside, my FPS goes back up. So I was wondering if there's any way to force the game to use the outdoor-quality shadows indoors as well? Most other MMOs I've played have 4 or 5 different shadow settings. TOR only has three, and two of them are essentially 'Off'. So it's either all or nothing. I hate that. Without shadows, the game looks extremely flat and lifeless. I'd even settle for a one-click macro or hotkey that switches shadows from High to Low and vice-versa. Then I could just quickly click or hit one key to switch to Low shadows indoors and then back to High shadows outdoors. But there isn't any macro support yet and no way to bind a key to that option. So I'm at a loss.