As far as Ashara agreeing that 'peace is a lie', I interpreted her answer very differently than a lot of people. The basis of a Sith's power is passion, the key to unlocking your passion is the understanding that your emotions should never be restrained - they can never be at 'peace'. What Ashara was talking about wasn't using passion as power, or a tool to increase her power. What she was complaining about was the inaction of the Jedi in the face of Sith aggression. I believe the exchange goes like: her: 'Peace is a noble goal, but it can't be an excuse for inaction' you: 'So, peace is a lie?' her: 'When it comes to making real change - yes, I suppose it does.' Ashara is talking about peace in the physical sense, peace between Sith and Jedi (absence of war). The Sith code is talking about peace in the internal sense (calmness of spirit, e.g. lack of passion). Ashara is not Sith - by that I mean she does not use the dark side of the force and she does not believe in unlocking her power through her emotions. She does admit she enjoys the freedom of the Sith and the ability to purse real change, which is a step away from her Jedi beliefs.

She 100% has a place she can go after you kill her masters - she can remain with the Republic forces fighting to save Taris, her fellow padawans and all the people she's lived with and fought with for her entire life. Why would it even occur to her to leave with you? Why wouldn't she just run while you're dealing with the assassin, or the ghost? Or call for help? Instead she abandons her fellow students to death or worse. She abandons all the people she's known and worked with over the years. She abandons all the work she's done to convert Taris from a horrific wasteland to a habitable planet . She abandons her dream to become a Jedi knight to go with and HELP the person most responsible for their destruction. Yeah, the person with a Jedi soul-eating assassin as a best friend. Keep in mind this quest chain is not occurring in a vacuum - the Empire is invading her planet, Thana is slaughtering civilians left and right and as an alien and a Jedi, Ashara is first in line for execution, or worse. How does she know you aren't just taking her straight to Korriban? Or to an Imperial prison to be tortured? Because Sith are so trust-worthy? She trusted you once getting you into the enclave - how did that work out for her? And why don't you? Why do you think she'll never try to escape, steal your secrets or try to kill you? Or meet another Sith who convinces her to betray you? How long would it take Thanaton to convince her to help him destroy the person who killed her foster parents and ravaged her home? You're a Sith - you deal in betrayal and Ashara has proven easy to corrupt. Why do you trust her? Didn't Kallig just warn you about trusting apprentices not 20 quests ago? And let's not forget all the terrible thing's (from her perespective) you've done on the planet, if you've done any quests at all. You've killed the Jedi master training rack ghouls. You've killed a leader of the Republic on PLANET WIDE TV. My goodness, you've probably killed a personal friend of hers - why else would he have her comm frequency? And your world quest culminates in the death of the head Jedi on Taris, whom Ashara most certainly knows. And we're supposed to believe Ashara ignores all of this and just runs off to help you do more horrible things across the galaxy? Ok, you can make the argument she's a weak, easily manipulated person, maybe not very smart or afraid to die. But, if that's the case, then it should be trivial to turn her to the dark side, but it never happens. And worse, to DS SI, you never even get the chance to try. You can't make the argument that you 'save her life'. You tell her exactly why you saved her life, and it wasn't because you like her or because you're a friend of the Republic or you hate the Sith - it's because she's the only one who can summon the ghost. After that, she's completely expendable. Again - I don't dislike Ashara, what I dislike is the writers who did such a terrible job on her story. I think she's a great character with a really poorly written story. Again, the only thing I can think of is that her character was written for a neutral faction, or at one point in game development it was possible to be a Sith fighting for the Republic - it's the only way her story makes -any- sense.

The problem is not her consistency, it's her motivation for killing Jedi and working for the destruction of the Republic. It's the fact that she becomes a traitor to all she knows and believes in without so much as even acknowledging that fact. What really bugs me is that there was a really simple way to solve this problem - simply allow you the option of sparing Masters Ryan and Ocera in return for her oath of service. Then at least there is a plausible reason for her to join you and the opportunity for you to gain her trust in a convincing manner. It would also explain her loyalty, as she would believe she is being loyal to her oath and not necessarily to you. Combine that with reasonable affection losses for fighting the republic and she becomes a -much- more believable companion. Dark side SI should just be able to kill her, or to corrupt her - it wouldn't add that much to her story to make her much darker, struggling with the dark side.

No one is saying Ashara is boring - what we're saying is that her motivations for joining you make no sense. i think she's an agreeable companion and has interesting observations, but I just can't get over the fact she has no reason to be with me, and lots of reasons to leave, not the least of which is the fact I keep killing Jedi right in front of her, which she blindly ignores, despite the fact it says right in her codex entry she doesn't like that. Heck, I don't even lose affection. Jaissa may be more 'boring', I personally disagree, but at least she's consistent and her motivations are clear, especially DS. I can't believe Ashara would join you because of 'curiosity', especially after you kill her foster parents, enslave or kill everyone she knows on the planet and then pretty much make the entire place uninhabitable.. That would certainly satisfy my curiosity about what Sith are like. And there is nothing in our story, not even the smallest glimpse of any attempt to make the Sith nicer - she completely makes it up on her own, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary. As far as being afraid of you, well, she certainly understands you can kill her, but I wouldn't really call her afraid. If she was afraid of dying, she certainly wouldn't throw herself into combat like she does. And she has literally tons of chances to escape - a couple of her companion missions even have her going into Republic space all alone, and a lot of the crafting missions are to at least neutral locations. She could easily escape and there's no reason the Jedi wouldn't take her back - heck they have a former dark council member as a Jedi, a fact I'd be stunned she wasn't aware of. You could make some kind of Stockholm Syndrome argument, i guess, but you'd have to make a lot of the scenes up yourself - they certainly aren't in the game. She does end up apologizing a lot. But there's really no explanation why the SI doesn't even attempt to turn her to the dark side and make her a real apprentice, or why you put up with all her Jedi nonsense.

There's one outside Kas City and one on the Ilum space station - that's the only 2 I know about though there could be more. Ashara's customization are on on the Ilum vendor. To unlock their goods, you need to have a security key associated with your account. You can get a key generator that runs on your smart phone, or there are physical devices you can buy. see http://www.swtor.com/info/security-key for more information. You can see what they look like here:

Star Wars holds a near and dear place in many peoples hearts - a lot of us grew up with the franchise and have very clear ideas of what Star Wars is, and should be. Feel free to ask Peter Jackson about what he had to deal with over the Lord of the Rings movies - people really care about this stuff. People also had a very different idea, I'm guessing based on the pre-launch interviews and promises, of what the game was going to be like. Many people feel, rightly or wrongly, that the game has not lived up to either its potential or the promises that were made. And some people are jerks. Personally I feel the game has been one huge exercise in cognitive dissonance - a symptom of which is frustration and anger. I've come to the conclusion that marrying a story, with it's associated beginning/middle/end and character development, with a static, unchanging MMO universe just doesn't work. What I was hoping for from BW was some kind of path forward for the game, where more people would play because the game was fun, and not because it was free. I never felt the subscription model was holding the game back, so the announcement just leaves me more confused and upset than happy. BW/EA may make more money, maybe they won't - SWTOR is not LOTRO or DDO, As a player I just don't see how this is going to benefit me, or make the game something more than just another MMO where you grind gear and do dailies ad nauseum.

Maybe they can get Ashara and Xalek to turn off their lightsabers when you summon them, as well. I've actually sworn not to play my SW and SI anymore until they fix that bug, it bothers me so much. Such a little thing, but it really kills the flow.

Zenith for the JC has no reason to be on board, plus he has a job on Balmora I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be there for. On top of that, light side JC's will probably hate him. Theran pretty much just barges his way on board, as well, with no really good reason for you to let him come with you. Never played BH, but I hear Skadge is awful. At least those characters are consistent in which faction they support, however. Ashara has zero reason to be willing to kill Jedi or fight the Republic, and she never even seems to be aware of the fact that, technically and practically, she's a traitor. She acts like the Jedi council ordered her to be on board in some kind of padawan/apprentice swap program and she's just earnestly trying to make it work. Her story would make sense if the SI (or she) had originally been written for a neutral third faction, which is the only way I can make any sense out of her story.

Add me to the list of people really irritated by this - I have no idea how this issue made it by testing. There's another bug in the new launcher, as well. If you start the launcher and put another window over the top of it, the frame of the launcher 'bleads through' onto the other application. I noticed that while I was web browsing during an update. Kind of used to it, at this point. every patch introduces new bugs and comes with a couple of 'emergency' server restarts. Part of the growing pains of an MMO, I guess.

I never saw a [flirt] option, except for the one on Hoth when he wasn't my companion. As far as I know he's not romance able, even for a fling.

They didn't put it in the legacy tree since you could have several characters 'married' to the same companion, which would be awkward. They missed the boat on companion interactions, that's for sure. I hate how I can't even talk to them anymore after you finish their quests. I don't see any reason you can't have some kind of system to create recurring 'companion' quests where at least you can talk to them.

A lot of companions who are of a non-playable race have the body suit look. Qyzon Fess, for instance. Also, Ashara has customization kits where you can change her skin color, so they actually have to create several sets of textures. Plus they have to create them for every additional customization kit, which delays creating new ones, which kind of stinks because she basically has no kits right now, unless you have a security key and the ones on the security key vendor are kind of hideous. Mandalorians are basically just humans, so the textures are already available. Twileks and Ratataki are playable races, which is the only reason Vette and Kaliyo can wear it. I actually wish they'd chosen Togruta as the new playable race, which would solve the problem easily. Kind of weird there are only about 4 unique Togruta in the game - kind of weird fighting some Ashara-clones who are 'Jedi masters' in heroics on Nar Shaada.

For those who feel this not a big issue - it's apparently a big enough issue that people would rather languish on empty servers rather than transfer - almost like a digital hunger strike. People care about names, just like people care about how they look. I guess I'm not seeing anything in the comments that precludes creating a new server for those people remaining on old servers who wish to retain their names. If you feel it's unfair to those who have already transferred, they've received something for transferring early - they get to play with a lot of people for 2-3 extra months - that's a pretty big reward. If you think there aren't enough people, I'm not so sure. my characters are on Grand Master Zym and there were 40 people on the empire side last night - there's no reason to believe the other 'dead' servers don't have at least that many. Keep in mind there are *100* origin servers - if only 40 play on each one that's 4,000 people, which should be plenty to fill a new server. At the very minimum players who lost their names (and really care) should be given a voucher or promise that, should a new server open, they'll have first crack at transferring and getting their name back. They could also have a program where, if a person who holds the name you desire cancels their account you'll have the option of poaching the name back. And heck, why can't BW have an option to petition the holder of names people want and offer -them- 25 tokens if they give up the name? The person holding the name might not even care. You only get 8 characters on a server, it's not like people can squat on names. Or just have an event where people can put their names up on the GTN and sell them, that might actually be kind of cool. There seem to me to be quite a few compromises available besides telling people they shouldn't care about something when they're obviously very passionate about it.

For whatever reason it's hard for some people to believe names are important, or that just because they can't think of a way around an issue, it must be unsolvable and should be just tolerated. My opinion is that the forced transfers should happen to a new server, or a couple servers, and not to any of the already full to bursting servers, which will be even fuller with free trials. This greatly minimizes the chance the name you want is taken. The new server will have all the non-transferred characters, so population should not be an issue. Since all the players were already playing on dead servers and not complaining, even if the population is low it shouldn't be an issue. If there are name clashes, BW can put some kind of conflict resolution system in place. Maybe you could allow people (only on origin servers) to log onto the new server a few days before the transfer and create a level one character with the name you want which will be overwritten with your character. A lot of transfers will be from 'dead' accounts, so the people who really want their names should be able to get them. If you combine that with some kind of conflict resolution system, then the transfer won't be a big issue, and everyone is happy.

I agree there is only one Ashara Zavros - just like there's only one Lord Zash and one Darth Thanaton. My Ashara -is- your Ashara - we're both playing the same story. You can see this very clearly by considering how the story ends - clearly there aren't My point is that our companions are a huge part of the story, and what they wear and how they present themselves is a huge part of their persona. Simply giving us the option to dress them however we want takes away from their personality and really doesn't add all that much to the gaming experience. They usually just end up in cast offs and don't even look all that great. It doesn't have to be that way - imagine that, instead of gaining affection via gifts, you gained affection by doing 'companion quests' - these would be quests that reset daily that had you doing something for (or to) your companion. They would come in a couple of flavors, one that gained 'dark' affection and one that gained 'light' affection. Get rid of armor and item slots on companions and instead make customization kits with character appropriate looks that you could buy, based on the companions affection level, light or dark. Dark outfits would be more evil looking, and light side outfits would be brown and make their butts look huge. You could also make some social sets for doing RP stuff. (This also solves the issue of clipping on non-human companions on a lot of armor items). Their could also be iconic, one off quests (like we have now on some companions) at key moments, say at rank changes. Companion damage and healing would scale off your damage and healing. So, for Ashara, the dark quest would be something that turned her more dark side, maybe forcing her to kill Jedi or something. Light side quests would be finding and helping light side Sith. Additional quests could open up as you gained affection. Things like battle cries and things they say when you click on them would also change, based on the companion light/dark level. Romances would be based on affection rank, not light/dark. Being in a relationship would also unlock other customization kits, say wedding dresses, date outfits, etc. Now, you have a system of daily quests that are actually kind of interesting to do, are based on your story, have a mechanism for tangible progress, make your companion feel like a part of your story and character and add depth and immersion to the game. You also add a bunch of stuff into the economy that people are going to want to get and also gives you some way of molding our companions ala KOTOR. I don't think BW is going to go and do something like this, but it might give you a better idea of what I'm trying to say.

What I find amazing is that Ashara (or Mako, or Kira or, for goodness sake, Kaliyo) would ever agree to wear an outfit like that in public in the first place. I would honestly expect Kaliyo to blow a hole in you larger than the death star before agreeing to wear that thing. And Ashara is supposed to be this shy, socially awkward girl - are we supposed to believe she'd run around wearing a thong and a bikini top? The fact BW lets you put that on them really kind of defeats the purpose of even creating a persona for the companions in the first place. Companions should wear outfits that match their character style. Just put an armoring/mod/enhancement socket on the chest piece and have it apply to all their pieces so we just have to upgrade them once. I could see having some kind of 'match companion outfit to mine' menu option. And I could see having quest rewards (or commendation rewards) to buy additional outfits for our companions, which would match the companions particular tastes and persona, and give us something cool and rewarding to do. In the meantime, my vote is never to fix this bug, and yes, Ashara slipped me 50 credits to post this.

The one that drives me nuts is "I really don't have a choice, do I?". I honestly think she's talking to the writers every time I hear it.

There's a commendation helmet on Nar Shadaa that looks like a head band that does not hide your hood and shows up. Orange, as well, so you can keep upgrading it.

My opinion is they missed the boat entirely with their development budget and game design. What BW envisioned for the game was a 'story based' MMO, and they spent a ton of money on the stories, voice acting and cut scenes. The problem is that players spend the majority of their time in the game at the level cap and just blow through the leveling experience. So the cut scenes give a one time, 2 minute game experience, but they take a huge development time and cost. BW compounded this initial error by making the leveling experience so linear and limited- it's not really even possible to level alt's to experience different story content - once you level one class to max level there's really no incentive to do it again. And there's not that much to do at the level cap. Now, you can level different classes, but you're still forced to endure the limited amount of shared quest content, so even though your class story is new, something like 80% of the questing experience is exactly the same, which makes everything feel like you've done it before. I think BW should have designed the stories in such a way as to have real, long lasting decisions that encouraged players to level several characters of that class just to see all the variations in the story. they should also have included more global quests and alternate leveling paths so each time you played through you could do it differently, thus making each character feel fresh. Basically, they should have designed the game to the strengths of the game - the story, and not to the weakness of the game, the end game.

Actually she was raised on a bombed out planet in the middle of hordes of rhackghouls, pirates and an imperial invasion. And she wanders around alone. hard to believe she hasn't seen a lot more at 20 than most people see their whole lives. personally, I think she was dropped on her head as a child - almost nothing she says or does makes much sense. He Lekku should be floating, their so full of air.

Ashara gives out almost nothing for affection from conversations until Belsavis. Starting there she hands out affection like it's candy - you can easily get 120 a conversation. If you're LS female, you can easily cap her by Corellia if you have her there for conversations. Males, of course, can easily max her out with courting gifts.

They just fixed her combat dialogue in 1.2 to properly use her light side comments, so maybe they fixed this as well. Now Jaessa says things like "I''ll kill you if I have to!", which is much nicer than her "Your pain is so excquisite" she was doing before.

In the dark version of the story Baras also chokes you to death the first time you meet him because you don't know the Sith code, so maybe it all kind of balances out.

If you use Quinn you'll have less downtime, but the fights take longer. If you use Vette/Jaessa the fights are shorter but you have to spend 5 seconds after a lot of fights healing. My feeling was it balanced out - Quinn cost me 5 seconds because of low DPS and Vette cost me 5 seconds healing afterwards. Quinn was better if I had a 'surprise', though, say a strong patrol wandered in. I played a tank, so I always used a DPS - Quinn and me took *forever* to kill anything. That I think is the bigger issue I have with companions - if you play a tank you can't really roll with Quinn/Pierce/Broonmark. Even putting them in 'dps' mode they did crappy DPS and pulled aggro a lot. Really wish they'd let any companion fill any role.

There's a sticky guide on daily affection with Ashara, I believe. You're right, though, as a female it's kind of silly how hard it is to gain affection. It would have been nice if they had at least given us a reason in the story why she favors men over women.